I have recently embarked on a fair amount of camping in the first national park, Yosemite, and at Itasca State Park, head of the Mississippi River.
Yosemite was huge and totally developed. There was a shuttle bus every 15 minutes to take you everywhere, including the deli, the pizza restaurant, the visitor center, the gift shop, the hotel, or the campgrounds. So we sort of accidentally decided to hike up 2700 feet over 3.4 miles to the Upper Yosemite Falls. It was grueling and awesome. The best part (other than reaching the top) was r
unning into a bear on the way. There was a sign in the campground saying “There have been 6 incidents involving bears in this camground this week.” THIS WEEK! The threat of bears in our campground did not stop us from having a cooking extravaganza every non-raining night.
Itasca was much more chill. Unlike national parks, state parks tend to be rather dead when you go early in the season on a weekday. We were basically the on people staying in the park, which was great because we just used another empty cabin’s fire ring when it turned out our cabin didn’t have one. It also turned out that our cabin didn’t have internet access as promised, so the only work I got done was reading and hiking, but I can’t really complain about that. We did manage to stand over the Mississippi River, a tradition at Itasca.
Recently a phenomenon has hit Minneapolis- 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide (that’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds total).
To be fair, Solutions Twin Cities has been doing this since its debut in May of 2007. The presentation format is exactly what it says. You are allowed 20 slides, each of which are shown for 20 seconds only- and you don’t control the slides, so they keep moving whether you’re on pace or not.
Last Friday night’s arrival of Pecha Kucha is the first time Minneapolis has taken part in this international trend. Largely led by the design community in Tokyo, Pecha Kucha provides a great excuse for the creative community to share ideas. Last Friday, people waited outside in a line down the block to hear and see plots for screenplays, University Avenue photographs, and the Parisian bike-share program. You can find Pecha Kuchas all over the globe, like in Denver, LA, Omaha, Oaxaca, Mauritius, Buenos Aires, and Melbourne- and that’s just this week.
And as if that weren’t enough, Ignite comes to Minneapolis April 22nd at Solera. Ignite appears to be a bit broader in definition (although shorter, allowing only 15 seconds per slide), and can include pretty much anything as far as I can tell. I think their tagline “Enlighten us, but make it quick” sums it up well. Their website shows sample Ignite videos “How to be a good news commenter” and “How to buy a car”. If that doesn’t get you curious, perhaps free beer will get you there.
In the past week, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing two great and inspirational speakers. First, I went to the Center for Spirituality & Healing sponsored event at the University of Minnesota featuring Van Jones. Van is known for his crusading to use the new green economy to raise this nation’s poor citizens. However, in the talk he gave last Thursday, he talked less about installing solar panels and more about integration- of green movements and community development efforts and of personal development and societal advancement. He’s an engaging speaker and I highly recommend you go hear him if you get a chance. On a local note, he stated that Minnesota is one of just a handful of states poised to really demonstrate that green jobs can help communities.
A day later I attended the Nobel Peace Prize Forum at St. Olaf College in 
Northfield, MN. While there were many interesting speakers and topics, the crowd favorite was clearly John Francis, also known as the Planetwalker. Inspired by seeing an oil spill in San Francisco, Mr. Francis gave up motorized transportation for 22 years and walked all over this country and many others, playing the banjo as he went. He also gave up speaking during 17 years of that time. Along the way he got a Phd and became an expert on oil spills. His message was very personal, but he stressed that if you are on the right path there are forces out there that will help you along.
Both of these gentlemen have books available if you want to learn more:
Last week my friend and Carlson School of Management colleague Dan Kaskubar and I joined forces to form a consulting partnership. Dan and I are both rather obsessed with social enterprise, mission-based for-profits, earned-income non-profits, and all sorts of other ways to use business to add social value. Dan brings non-profit experience and has lived in Africa. I bring corporate experience and have lived in India. We think it’s a great partnership.
Mere days after we decided to work together, we’ve secured our first paying clients. While I’m very excited, it does launch me into a whole new set of challenges like keeping track of time, saving for taxes, keeping each other updated, and, of course, what to call our company. We are open to suggestions (feel free to add them in comments here) and have only 2 days left until our (self-imposed) deadline for the best name ever.
Here is Dan and I with one of our favorite people, Mary Jo Kochendorfer, who is the Microfinance Alliance creator and is currently at the Grameen Foundation.
For those of you in the Minneapolis area, there is a Minnebar tonight at 7PM at Intermedia Arts. Minnebar is the Minneapolis version of Barcamp, which is an international organization that brings together technology start-ups for demos, support, and networking. It’s free and generally pretty interesting. For more information, check out their Google groups page.
I have also had several requests for a little more info on that $3,000 I received from Innocentive. The challenge I won was posted by Innocentive (normally challenges are posted by companies like Proctor & Gamble and Eli Lilly) for new ideas for their website. It was pretty straightforward, but I did spend a good amount of time organizing my thoughts and creating small mockups of web pages. Apparently they liked it!
Yosemite was huge and totally developed. There was a shuttle bus every 15 minutes to take you everywhere, including the deli, the pizza restaurant, the visitor center, the gift shop, the hotel, or the campgrounds. So we sort of accidentally decided to hike up 2700 feet over 3.4 miles to the Upper Yosemite Falls. It was grueling and awesome. The best part (other than reaching the top) was r
unning into a bear on the way. There was a sign in the campground saying “There have been 6 incidents involving bears in this camground this week.” THIS WEEK! The threat of bears in our campground did not stop us from having a cooking extravaganza every non-raining night.
