Challenge #43

A new idea for online social networking

Tags:

social media,social networking,technology,web,kwiqq,entrepreneurship

Summary:
2008 is the year of the niche online social network. Come up with a new idea for a niche social network that would be fun, popular, and profitable.

Challenge:

2008 is the year of the niche online social network. Come up with a new idea for a niche social network that would be fun, popular, and profitable.

We've heard about new car and fashion social networks, but we're looking for an idea that is genuinely new. Niche social networks can be as specialist or quirky as you like - please share your ideas!

We will pick a winner at the end of November 2008 and invite him or her to claim their prize (read below!) in early 2009.

Kwiqq are Social Network specialists. Through experience we have worked through many of the issues and challenges of building social networks before and are able to offer you more in the development process. We are based in Brighton, UK.

www.kwiqq.com

Incentive:
(Details available below) 2 day internship with Raj Anand, Kwiqq Technical Director and winner of Business Week's European Young Entrepreneur of the Year (2007)

Access type:
public
views: 649solutions: 11comments: 11watchers: 3
solutions (11)

The Solutions already Exist! :)

As You surely knows, We have: - Facebook (You can search me as Pedro Di Girólamo A. and see my Causes). - MySpace: (You can see my MySpace Web Site www.myspace.com/ECOVISION - And this Portal or Web Community (www.unleashingideas.org ). Cheers, +Piedro (From Chile, Southamerica, The World)

Social Networking Web Communities already exist

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1007714&id=666563557

Solution by Piedro posted on 10/28/2008 21:05 location: Chile

  • Currently 0.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(your vote)
0%
 

online social networking

1. Develop a program that identifies trends and gives the group what they want and are interested in. Make it easier to access the information they want but separately from any advertising. Identify the leaders and work to empower their ideas. 2. The second idea is to give tools that are related to the specific interest. For example if you site is about photography then design fun contests and real world events as well as great educational videos (and other reference materials). Make it fun, educational, and interactive. Possibly sell harder to find items that may be hard to find retail.

leadership, tribes and the long tail

Solution by isaac posted on 10/29/2008 10:42 location: United States

  • Currently 2.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(2 votes)
40%
 

www.africancaribbeansociety.com

This is a unique opportunity to engage the strengths of real communities that have real issues utilizing a social context to solving their problems. Our website is intended to be a platform for idea sharing and fun applications that solves real problems and connects people of similar interests... The success or failure of this new wave would depend on how much of a need exists in the real market place. We have already started to engage the community and only time would tell if there is a market for this form of niche community websites...

The thinking behind this website is inline with the niche segment of social networking. The era of a disruptive technology that would introduce a new phase to online communities has emerged and the our website would lead the match...

Solution by lexyhugo posted on 11/07/2008 05:27 location: United Kingdom

  • Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(1 vote)
100%
 

Mr Ammar Hasan

A website catering to the recruitment agencies, job seekers and the employers. The web site will publish short video clips of the job seekers or you can say Video CVs. This will be no more the 1 min long where the person will be giving an over view of his professional back ground. It can help the employer as they can actually see the person and judge his/her confidence level. This can actually save the cost of employers of arranging the first interview. regards Ammar Hasan

Well the idea might already exits but there is no harm in giving it a shot.

Solution by ammarhas posted on 11/12/2008 12:43 location: United Kingdom

  • Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(1 vote)
60%
 

Sports & Social

The idea is to have a sporting activities social networking site whereby people can find a sport or activity group in their area. Clubs can have their own pages that people join and interact with each other. Online leagues can be set up as well for members of the clubs. This can include any activity or sport. Members can interact with each other as well.

Sports social networking for people looking to get involved with sporting activities withiin there area.

Solution by hughesyboy posted on 11/18/2008 04:22 location: United Kingdom

  • Currently 0.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(your vote)
0%
 

teach, e-mail & sell for global peace & prosperity

TITLE $1,000,000,000s saved. A business plan summary incorporating educational outreach with a technological tool, electronic mail, to wire this planet and more rapidly progress toward global peace and prosperity. Summary This proposed solution to my own challenge takes a common-sense approach toward implementing an educational modality to promote peace on our planet that is relatively inexpensive, self-executing and confrontation-less. It’s a strategy we can't afford to disregard whether viewed from a local, national or global perspective. Moreover, it provides a springboard from which a cooperative venture, catering to both consumers and merchants alike and global in it’s potential scope might logically be formed and developed. INCENTIVE Ground-floor capital investors reap an economic benefit befitting their status as partial owners of an economic enterprise whose potential for growth is practically unlimited. Embeds Letter to Ussamah bin Ladin, Attachment: Electronic Mail Diplomacy; A Peace Plan, Executive Summary of Business Plan, Letter to former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Anan, Letter to former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, Letter to Chairman and Publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Tags prosperity, cooperative, investment, education, electronic mail, conflict resolution, global peace, globalization ----------------------- The updated and edited challenge and it’s solution being submitted concurrently herein relate to how to most effectively form and develop a global cooperative catering to commercial enterprises and consumers world-wide. The brief business plan summary outlining the conceptual underpinnings of the global cooperative I propose is expounded at the very end of this challenge and proposed solution. One might prefer to just scroll down and read that first before returning to read, if deemed warranted, what precedes the business plan summary since the lion’s share of what is to follow is prefatory to those scant few pages that summarize the gist of my entrepreneurial vision. Note however, that although the summary only tangentially references the global nature of the cooperative I am proposing herein that is because, at the time it was composed, it was being pitched to a local audience here on my island of residence in Puerto Rico. It fell on deaf ears here, but I’m betting that it may be more favorably received this time around. Which is why I’ve been delighted to have stumbled, by mere chance, upon a reference to the upcoming event. I’m no business man, and am sorely in need of the reliable acumen of mentors to guide my efforts. I hope and pray that this may be a golden opportunity to receive both funding and mentorship. At the outset I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of the sponsors of Unleash It, It’s been a welcome reminder that individuals can indeed move mountains, at least in a metaphysical sense. It’s been a pleasure participating , my only regret being that it’s an admirable and commendable but an extraordinary, certainly not an ordinary event. Kudos. Problem is … is it too little too late? Don’t misunderstand me. I like to consider myself a positive person; and at this latter stage of my life, I generally only want to be around positive people. Yet I realize too that by far most of us, if not all of us are incapable of being positive at all times. As they are wont to say in the neighborhood , it is what it is ... being human means being imperfect. Thus governments, like their constituent people are of course, imperfect too, quite often even more so. After all what could one expect of a species living in a world that is in a very real sense much smaller than it’s ever been, actively competing for dwindling resources, with ever more lethal weapons with which we can now kill remotely; and although we know and can do more faster than ever, we yet behave in accord with the ways of forefathers long gone. They, and their forefathers before them make it self-evident to me that we're the legatees of ever more aggressive and moreover horrific conduct, ingrained over ages of competing for a stranger's or our neighbor's free use of his water, his kill, his saltlick, his campfire, … cave, women, children, slaves, pelts, horses, livestock, tools and his land. It’s just that now that we’re better covered by an illusory veneer of civilization the objectives are more often currency, gold, oil, stock shares, promotions, ideas and a host of other goodies. Conditioned to behave badly, we all too often behave accordingly. Yet we're nonetheless shocked that successive generations' box-scores set ever lower standards for truth, tolerance, compassion and social justice. What’s wrong with this picture? Malthus (it’s all about the resources stupid!) and Machiavelli ( we’re only good when we must) are more than historic characters in my mind. Were they alive today they might muse that knightly and noble ideals of humanity's potential clash with a reactive, conflicted human condition that promises no brightly lit future but rather near perpetual misery precedent to an ignominiously inglorious and predictably catastrophic literal or virtual end to us all. Moreover we’re inclined to believe, if we think about it at all, that bad things won’t happen to us. It’s as if we live our lives with blinders on at all times. The resultant tunnel vision is extremely limiting to both our perception, reason and our wisdom. Folks, … I shit you not. The world is perpetually at war somewhere or the other. WW-1 stared with a single bullet; WW-2 with the crossing of a border. Should a third erupt it’ll be a doozy. Millions or billions of lives shall certainly be lost. It’ll make business cycles, ups and downs, bulls and bears, recessions and depressions and the current sub-prime mortgage mess seem like a stroll in the park … like the good old days. Peace must be achieved at all costs. No more business as usual … as soon as possible! Moreover we’re inclined to believe, if we think about it at all, that bad things won’t happen to us. It’s as if we live our lives with blinders on at all times. The resultant tunnel vision is extremely limiting to both our perception, reason and our wisdom. So while there's little doubt to some that our allotted time here on the good earth is near done, ... that we’re a cosmic train wreck just waiting to happen ... many amongst us are yet striving to do the right thing. Thus the question becomes can the do-gooders triumph over those less than inclined to find a way to peacefully co-exist. Positivism aside, I doubt it. Yet we have an innate need and a moral duty to try, try and try again. What follows therefore are three edited documents I’ve written over roughly four years. In order they are: 1. The letter to Ussahmah about how peace might be achieved via mechanism analogous to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission implemented so successfully in South Africa, although not referenced in the edited version below; 2. the educational modality mechanism, and 3. the draft Executive Summary of a business plan. -------------------------- Dt: Jumada-al-Awwal 3, 1425 A.M.; June 23, 2004; 3rd of Sivan, 5764 Re: A Spiritual, Synergistic & Cybernetic Strategy Implementing a Global Educational Modality to Potentiate Transcendence within The Divine Design in Communion with The Almighty Creator Brethren: Allah Akbar! God Is Great! That my words might at once reach so many in such a brief time-span is compelling evidence in and of itself that the above referenced transcendence may indeed yet come to pass. And that notwithstanding that sinisterly formless coalitions of many, yet still but relatively few misguided non-believers hold us all hostage to their will as they effectively humiliate the nation-states that are so pitifully ill-equipped to confront this most multi-facetedly faceless threat ever to humanity. And that moreover, pathetically notwithstanding the righteousness of a vast but silent majority of the of billions of individuals, past and present, comprising these once useful, but now archaic, punch-drunk and myopic surviving relics of the good Earth's inglorious, as if drunkenly brawling, ill-spent youth. But the very existence of the presently living and the resources they bring to bear shall be enormously useful in wiring this planet posthaste should we just choose to do so. Lies shall be propagated thereby but so shall The Truth, The Light and The Way. A knowledgeable populace shall easily discern the difference, God's Word shall be revealed to ever more peoples and the process itself shall tend to self-propagate a purposeful progression toward a transcendence borne of ever more revelations to ever more people of The Holy Word of God. Our Holy Qur'an comforts us all,"..., He is the One Who forgives (accepts repentance), the Most Merciful." [V.2:37] It admonishes us all,"... It is Allah who knows and ye who know not." [V.3:66] It warns us all, "... And do not kill yourselves (nor kill one another) ... [V.17:33] It constrains us all,"... But let him not exceed limits in the matter of taking life (i.e., he should not kill except the killer only). " It promises us all,"..., but whoever forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from Allah..." [V.42:40] It enjoins us all," Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians, - any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." [V. 2: 62] Significantly, it further teaches all of humanity that"... those ... who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you ... if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah Hath opened no way for you (to war against them)." [V. 4:90] Prodigal brother Usammah bin Ladin: science but confirms what the faithful have known all along. Adam (pbuh) is all the proof that the righteous have ever needed to believe in the fundamental Truth of the brotherhood of humanity. We are all brethren by virtue of the blood that God Omnipotently causes to course within every member of the human tribe. Yet, to the extent that your deeds and words are a reliable indicator of your intent, you, more than any preceding single historic figure may have the power to bring on a nuclear winter. You would be wise/shrewd to consider using that bargaining position righteously. At least act minimally in your own best interests and in the best interests of your fighters and/or other agents. Don't follow in the footsteps of conquerors such as Hitler, Jenghiz and Napoleon but rather blaze a new trail in the spirit of pioneering peacemakers such as Buddha, K'ung-Fu-tse, Lao-tse and Mahatma. So as you contemplate your past, current and prospective roles in the Divine Design I urge you to mark well the teachings of Abraham, Adam, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad and Noah (peace be upon them). Were you to do so you might still, in a mightily mysterious irony for the ages win for yourself an ambivalently ambiguous place in the annals of human history. How The Almighty Creator balances and judges upon your ledger is not within the purview of any man. But will your many enemies kill, capture, or worse yet, force your hand, or your’s force theirs first? Since, one way or another, the end, yours, the world's, and/or both, may be closer than even you, as a trigger-man can appreciate, reconsider how you might be instrumental in saving far more lives than you have thus far so megalomaniacally taken. Consider the following vision so that you might timely realize that you, and the other fighters in jihad, each have a uniquely historic opportunity before you, even at this late date to act righteously, if but prospectively and notwithstanding past conduct, whether horrific or less overtly manifested. Amongst your number you, due to your leadership, have the most to gain or lose but it is even more vitally important that the vision of what still can be reach those without whom your expressed intentions might be made moot. Accordingly, this vision has been disseminated to media around the globe. As you envision it for yourself, at all times considered within the framework of the Holy Qur'an, focus your attention on all the conceivable possibilities of concerted human action that only recently became possible, at about the time that you burst onto the world stage. Righteous communications compounded are key. In the meantime, during such moratorium on the bloodshed as may be agreed upon more and more of us shall not only study each other's Sacred Texts but moreover testify to the Truths therein to the agnostic, atheist, extremist monotheist and polytheist alike. Many have never been exposed to those Truths. Many are estranged from Them. Most pernicious, however, are the many that ego-centrically, narrow-mindedly and ignorantly pervert the Truth. Amongst the latter are too many of the adherents of the major monotheistic religions; chronologically: the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. Their mutual prejudices belie their largely common beliefs. Each is uniquely arrogant and parochially unaccepting of the others. Being the first to receive Allah's revelations many of the "chosen" are duly and understandably proud over that distinct honor. That many of their people have turned away from Yahweh time and time again is less dwelled upon. Christians on the other hand are notoriously "confused", fracturing into many distinct faiths since Luther in the 16th century. The Muslims' Qu'ran is Allah's primer as Sacred Texts go (writing materials were not readily available during the time during which it was revealed to the illiterate Muhammad [pbuh). The Muslims and the kaafir (non-Muslims) alike need to appreciate that the historical context within which it was revealed and thereafter has been a "warlike" one throughout. Allah in His Infinite Wisdom Knew that for those "chosen" people fortifying their willingness to fight for their faith was paramount and critical to their survival. Geographical and social mores further complicate and compound the conflict. Starkly differing cultures and tongues further exacerbate the impasse. Yet all of those divisive factors paradoxically belie in turn that there is more that unifies us, i.e., our faith in a common Deity, righteousness in life, the Hereafter and the day of Judgment, than divides us. Thus, overcoming our "minor" differences is our crucible within the Divine Design. The prejudices and outright hatreds of many are so ingrained that no plea nor plan for peace may ever convince the most hatefully committed amongst us to embrace long time enemies. The old enmities won't just dissipate. After all we're the only species in all of nature that kills with malice aforethought, for greed, patriotism, pleasure, and revenge. We're the legatees of aggressive patterns of conduct ingrained over tens of thousands of years of competing for our neighbor's water, his kill, his campfire, his cave, his woman, his children, his slaves, his pelts, his horses and livestock, his salt, his gold, his tools and his lands. All that before we even began to blasphemously slaughter each other in the Name of God. In other words, we've been conditioned to behave selfishly and thus, we act accordingly. In the short term, our goal shall merely be to reign in the madness and put an end to the gratuitous killing. Juxtaposing the guarantees, a rescinding fatwah and the ensuing moratorium shall give peace a chance, at long last, to root and grow. Given such a bloodily tragic legacy it's nothing short of remarkable that we're still around to either, turn it all around, or run it all aground. However, new capabilities promise that human activity shall be ever less constrained by time, space and a heretofore natural inability to speak or write more than one word at a time. Thus, a spiritually inspired, technologically enabled, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, global communicational infra-structural approach to peace, prosperity and a happier communion with our Supreme Being would be an eminently reasonable course of action. Already in place is an interfaith silent majority of us that cannot abide, precisely because of our faiths, the reckless slaughter of innocents for base political gain. All our governmental, educational, social and religious institutions must be joined forthwith. It may yet be too late, so we effectively have little time for the ineffectual wrangling debate so typical of human institutions. The disrespected, misnomered United Nations is a prime example, particularly in view of the exposure just this past week of the fat cat style corruption that there exists of a tainted but available resource that might be turned around quickly. Revamped, it shall be the logical platform from which those systemic reforms suggested herein shall be so implemented. Our religious institutions, perennially on the sidelines, must take a leading role in the vanguard. Henceforth, where ever a people's will has been usurped by another, two or more peoples are in a state of conflict, or indeed, where ever and whenever any dispute or condition exists, the resolution of which is in the global self interest, said dispute shall be resolved by as many of us as may be deemed appropriate by whatever administrative body shall be charged with ongoing conflict resolution of such global entity as shall be formed that shall represent each of us directly, on-line. If we don't opt for such a radical departure from our time-dishonored bloody traditions of conflict resolution, we shall have chosen by default to suffer the consequences. That having been said, please be advised that the UN itself shortsightedly does not foresee a global community per se but rather a continuation of the international model that has not worked, is not working, and will not work. Rather than properly envisioning its own role as a precursor entity to an effective global legislative and administrative body it has undermined its own potential to be a more productive catalyst for positive change. We now number more than six billion at this potentially watershed window of opportunity in human history. At this juncture of that history a tiny fraction of us only ineffectually cooperate in furtherance of the Divine Design. Another tiny, anarchist fraction of us actively and effectively refuse to cooperate. A large fraction of us lack the means to cooperate. Worse yet, and most dishearteningly, the remainder of us, in contravention to the Divine Design, and no matter whether ignorantly, misguidedly, selfishly or overtly evilly are so busily exploiting those remaining finite resources not already hoarded away or so obliviously competing for our lives and livelihoods that we are effectively the unwitting allies of the anarchists. Truly, we have met the enemy, and he is, unfortunately, us. We need an international strategy to implement a global educational modality. Accordingly, this message to the nations is transmitted to those nations via global mass media outlets so that the people may learn of it and arrive at their own conclusions. Much is at stake. Will we "wire" the world and thereby begin to bring not just food and water and other life sustaining services to all in such need but afford as well the opportunity for substantive, cost-effective education that promotes the global institutionalization of democratic principles in their most literal sense? Given an adequate infra-structure i.e., as many terminals as necessary, wouldn't the overwhelming majority of the world's peoples, whom abhor violence and condemn it's use as a political instrument, use those terminals, especially if they were their own (thus assuring their anonymity), precisely to prevent such senseless violence in their own communities ? E-mail may be used in a scientific manner to simultaneously achieve social, educational and political goals. All of that while continually enabling the further collection, evaluation and operational use of the raw data thereby collected in a medium (the internet) that provides by its very nature a scientifically controllable and manipulable setting conducive to replicable results. Since the process minimally ensures that, social and educational goals are being met and since, moreover, the spiritually oriented procedures outlined therein are amenably implementable cross-culturally in that they are not only non-violent, non-confrontational but empoweringly educational it's a "no- brainer". Furthermore, they are inordinately inexpensive relative to the cost of reliable bombs, sincere soldiers, and armies at the ready. Just as energy-sapping and time-consuming are the mutually exclusive, multi-tiered bureaucracies that frequently insulate our privileged politicians and government officials from their responsibilities and ultimately diffuse the many productive efforts that are ever more increasingly productive. Yet, even those well-intentioned efforts are patently inadequate to successfully address even the subsistence-level needs of all too many of our brothers and sisters these days; much less in the near future and far less still in any far-off future if we only reasonably presume that we won't adapt before it's too late. Our governments and the UN wisely ought to exploit without any further delay the incalculable promise that e-mail holds as a tool to achieve global social goals. Considered conjunctively, world events over the ages and their recent counterparts, reveal an alarming pattern of ever more frequent, ever more reactionarily vindictive reprisals upon counter reprisals. Recent global events have the human herd not merely teeteringly poised, at the lip of the brink of a precipice, but ready, willing and able to suicidally leap into an abyssmal anarchy. Or shall we embark on that mutually assured destruction scenario once naively thought to be a deterrent to its own possibility. As if lemmings to the sea. What we do going forward, one might quite reasonably foresee, shall decisively determine whether the course of human events veers suddenly away from its current, cataclysm-bound, drunkenly clumsy course toward a New Dark Ages rife with all of the horrible human suffering in all its manifestations that we ought to be already oh so scarred by; or might we yet adapt the already considerable resources that are pre-positioned to ably and relatively speedily institutionalize the innovative, empoweringly enabling, spiritually-based and morally-principled mindset prerequisite to progressing to the peaceful and prosperous global society that A Supreme Being intended for all of his children if only we so wanted and wished for that society that we concertedly worked toward it with but a fraction of the instinctively-based behavioral efforts that characterize the "single-minded" efficiency of the ant and the bee. Blessedly, we are neither ant nor bee, nor, more to the point, are we lemmings, particularly those of the European persuasion. Our God-given consciousnesses intimate to us and thus allow us to appreciate to a limited extent the Divinity inherent in an unknowably complex universe, that so expressly manifests that pervasive duality of nature, that constant binary quality apparent in all of creation, that so elegantly simplifies the myriad universal possibilities, complexities, considerations, actions, omissions, consequences, experiences, memories and expectations into a universal ledger of accountability and thereby, judgment, reserved. Therefore, if we don't radically alter our social modus operandi our destinies shall be more akin to that of the instinctively doomed lemmings than that of the intuitively survivalist, and ever subsequently, socially successful insects. Shall they be the life forms that inherit this Earth? Most damning to humanity is a premise-less and thus baseless belief that man is capable of effectively governing himself. Illustratively illuminative of man's plight are our scientifically documented observations of the behavior of rats when confined to an area with finite life sustaining resources. None survive. Our beloved Earth too is a limited space of finite resources. An illusory veneer of civilization often lulls us into a complacency that dulls our senses and obscures our capability to act in timely fashion to obviate or mitigate against predictable perils. So we spin our wheels in a mud-hole of our own making, stuck in the cyclically destructive behavorial patterns of the past so analagously reminiscent of the alcoholic condition. Indeed, that malady is an ironically apt illustration in microcosm of the bankruptcy of spirit so ever increasingly epidemic in modem times and so corrosive of the global social fabric that we might more accurately describe it as globally endemic. Alcoholics are generally sane, often good people, so powerlessly caught up in a self-destructive pattern of self-propagating, self-reinforcing, negative conduct, that they "insanely" act against their best interests, time and time again. Historically, most thusly afflicted persist in engaging in that very conduct that often directly or indirectly comes at the cost of everything held dear. The sum total of their unrealized potential ought to give us pause. It has been only during this past century that new treatments and especially an international organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous and its spiritually-based program have succeeded in rehabilitating and returning many alcoholics to their families and formerly productive lives. Those fortunate few know well that recovery includes, from the very outset, a frank self-inventory that is instrumental to that recovery in that it provides a precise plan for recuperation. Similarly, although nations generally understand that they need to find a way to coexist and cooperate peacefully they nonetheless continually relapse into war and conflict in all of its many forms. Even negotiations, after all, are but one of the many ways that we express our competitive instincts. And, as if an alcoholic condition weren't a sufficiently gloomy enough harbinger of their collective future, nations suffer as well from a collective case of global myopia that prevents their seeing the forest but for the trees. That latter condition virtually seals the fate of the hapless, accident-prone "alcoholic" nations whose muddled "minds" doom them to a totally unnecessary, yet ever possibly preventable premature demise. So let's investigate how we may improve individually and collectively by imitating the industriousness of the insects; let's learn a lesson from the loony lemmings; and let's not ever forget but rather regularly recollect, recall and remember the ravenous rats. So, almost incredibly, but quite literally we ride astride this strife-torn planet apparently precariously balanced atop a uniquely warm, pretty, water-pooled, jaggedly surfaced, oasis-like pebble staying a course charted by The Creator. It was and is therefore, the quintessence of Omnipotence and not merely an unlikely but fortuitous happenstance that the Earth's primordial component elements were at their appointed places, in their appointed concentrations in configurationally just such a way and at just such the precise instant of what we perceive of as time since that defining moment that was the Beginning. Any billiards player might recognize if not fully appreciate the dynamics of such a moment. That was when, instantaneously and simultaneously, incomprehensible events were set in motion such that, an estimated thirteen billion or so years later a finite furnace was trapped in the Earth's rocky core, a precursor atmosphere was retained on the outermost fringes of that light, in a rock, in a protective bubble, that was to become our home. Praise God! Our planet took its place in a universal formation moving at the speed of light, spinning about its own axis at a constant speed and tilted just so ever slightly off the plane of an elliptical rotation around a smallish local star, just close enough and yet just distant enough for us to live, sense daylight darkness, the seasons, and even relative motionlessness unless we overtly move about on the earth; or the earth itself disrupts our sense of time and space whenever it stirs; or, quite significantly, whenever we succumb to illusions. Illusions are often based on apparently real perceptions of reality and upon reality itself. As a species we are divided by "real differences of race, religion, nationality, educational and other class considerations, sexual orientation etc., etc. All of us are subject to them, individuals and nations alike, so it's an extremely complicated and ever volatile mix. Rising above and overcoming such a multi-dimensional illusory matrix likely will be quite difficult as a practical matter. Viewed through the prism of history our mutual tendencies to compete rather than cooperate has been understandable if not justifiable. Heretofore, we simply could not have imagined much less appreciated what has been happening. Only those now living may be privy to those capabilities at long last just now so tantalizingly within our reach. An enhanced capability to communicate with one another is key. We have only recently acquired (within the past fifteen years) those additional capabilities that are the internet and e-mail but their utilization has been shortsightedly constrained. We must expand their functions beyond the commercial, educational, informational and entertainment contexts to the diplomatic and operational spheres as well. Most importantly, we mustn't count on our leaders to make our decisions for us. They'll almost invariably fail us because their leadership is itself but yet another illusion. E-mail and write to your leaders today. We must be heard. Our children are counting on us. They deserve to live to have children of their own. That's been Allah's plan all along. A failure to plan is a plan to fail so let's look at the big picture, keep it simple and do whatever it takes. Please help publicize this effort. I look forward to all critiques, comments and/or suggestions. All correspondence may be forwarded to the attention of the undersigned by email to miavera@hotmail.com. More importantly, I await the tangible results that could be forthcoming so much more quickly than one might even have thought possible just a scant few weeks ago following the recent horrific revelations dateline Iraq. I'm sure I speak for many whom greatly regret all the lives there lost, particularly the children and other innocent non-combatants. My special condolences to the families of Nicholas Berg, Paul Marshall Johnson and Kim Sun. May all whom have died there rest in peace. Thus, for the sake of all we hold dear, translate, publish and disseminate this content freely if you deem it appropriate, suitable and in the public interest. God help us find the Way. Respectfully submitted, Chachomanopapa -------------------------------------------------- Re: EMAIL DIPLOMACY; A PEACE PLAN PROJECT SUMMARY The objective of chachomanopapa.org is to initiate a volunteer generated electronic mail campaign, global in scope, in which the participants will e-mail their opinions as to how a regional dispute be resolved to the heads of state and legislators of the parties involved in the dispute. Those institutions in whose interests it is to secure the rights of its citizens, i.e., the nations themselves, must take the lead and implement a duly considered, coordinated strategy designed to effect the resolution of current and future regional disputes. When the vastly under-exploited resource that is our global citizenry is educated about an issue and empowered to take an affirmative action toward its resolution, then e-mail diplomacy may realize it's potential to mitigate against gunboat diplomacy. The methodology contemplates that chachomanopapa.org issue an international announcement directed at the school systems of the various nations, through their representative embassies or other appropriate contact entities. Announcements are to be made in the body of a covering e-mail which will specify the timeframe for correspondence to maximize campaign effectiveness. An attachment would function multi-dimensionally as: A. an invitation to participate in an empowering action; B. an interdisciplinary lesson plan/discussion prompt; C. an opportunity to act affirmatively on a global scale; D. a ballot, a physical symbol of a most cherished right; E. a potentially revolutionary new way to project force; F. empowerment of the participating global citizen; G. a data retrieval device; chachomanopapa.org shall collect demographic and empirical data, out-source for appropriate statistical analyses, prepares reports and posts them online. The self-executing nature of the process presupposes a capability to continually evaluate effectiveness and adapt the methodology accordingly. So, might the pen yet be mightier than the sword? Perhaps not always. That notwithstanding, it behooves our global citizenry to empower themselves and project the force of nations via their collective and cumulative wills. It appears that the humble but ubiquitous e-mail ought to be used in this promising new way. Such a radical departure from our more historically traditional means of resolving international disputes would bode well for humanity. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Tied as it is to the what appears to be the interminably explosive growth of the internet, it's extraordinary utilitarianism, and it's cheapness to boot, e-mail has been embraced by the public at large and particularly so by the business community. There, time is money so the capability to communicate instantaneously is vital. But other vital interests have gone begging in the mean time. So why then such a short-sighted emphasis on e-mail as a tool of commerce and it's tragic under-utilization as such an immensely promising agent for social justice? It is distressingly quite evident that we are realizing as yet but an infinitesimally small fraction of e-mail's vast potential to become perhaps mankind's greatest tool of all time. It's promise is being short-changed. Even a casually superficial surfing of the internet reveals a dearth of public debate on the issue. There is not even a meaningful reference to its existence as a tool of public policy formation much less studies addressing it's effectiveness as such. Why hasn’t the use of such a promising tool been properly considered? More importantly, how may we yet still learn to promote nobly lofty ideals by using the same time-tested psychological and marketing principles and techniques that we so ably use in commerce? Most unfortunately, in our failure to see the forest for the trees, it is already too late for many. Witness the recent unrest in our very own hemisphere and our ever reactionary way of dealing with events as they unfold. In all fairness, the internet phenomenon has but recently emerged and old habits do die hard. Fortunately, on the other hand, the democratic peoples now have at their disposal a technological tool that they might well utilize to maximize the possibility that regional conflicts and disputes be resolved by careful planning, concerted action and coordinated follow-up prior to their boiling over, adversely affecting neighboring states and thus global stability. The emerging technologies therefore give us a new capability to respond in a measured and flexible manner to current and future hotspots. They provide as well the hope that slowly but surely wars may become increasingly avoidable so that some day we might effectively diverge from our legacy of war and all it's accompanying ills. Surely we owe something to the untold billions that have preceded us and suffered the consequences of conflicts and their aftermaths. We must aspire to eradicate this bain of all humanity so that all those lives prematurely cut down shall not have been sacrificed in vain. Chachomanopapa.org envisions a broader utilization of the internet and its adjunct capabilities, email in particular, by expanding it's function from just the commercial-educational-informational-entertainment contexts to the diplomatic and operational spheres as well. It is furthermore envisioned that the eternal hope that time and time again has sprung forth from the human spirit to sustain some of us even under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable will inspire us all to first think, then act as a global citizen should and would if they could. But we can't make effective decisions as to our global best interests until we empower ourselves first, then take an affirming action and thereafter continue to condition and ingrain that positive feeling at every opportunity. Chachomanopapa.org suggests that one such opportunity might well fall on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2004 on the eve of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan. That near coincidence should be taken by all as an inter-faith gesture of reconciliation intended to be respectful, by not co-opting the date, while at the same time closely associating with it to help better repair the Jewish-Christian-Islamic relationships in particular. It is at that time that an observance of a proposed GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP DAY (hereinafter GCD), ought to be undertaken even if that observance is but a mere thought or whether it rises to the level of a prayer. As for a precise moment in time for a formal observance - 2:00 p.m., PST, may be an ideal time, allowing as it would for U.S.A. students to partake in a variety of activities, from, for example, the release of message-laden balloons (for 4th through 6th graders) to the transmission of e-mails and follow-up letters as homework assignments (for 7th through 12th graders). As more and more of us avail ourselves of the opportunity to consider ourselves global citizens positive change can get on a fast track. As the globe's citizens increasingly communicate with one another it will become apparent to many of them that the very nature of the sense of community that led to the formation of nations in an anachronism today. But whether one declares their global citizenship on that date, before, of afterwards, on the date on which they do so declare that citizenship they shall have taken that all important first step towards freeing themselves from that artifice that is nationality. The concept of nationality, once so useful, nowadays retards what should be our nature progression into a global community. Eventually, we must be rid of these constantly shifting imaginary lines of demarcation that all too often are redrawn in the aftermath of armed conflict. And those lines may yet get the best of us. So it is then that many of us now urgently appeal that the peoples of the world take that first step. Declare your global citizenship. Let's not be deterred by the likelihood that no one alive today may live to see a day when the world is at peace. Do it for your children, (all adults, teachers and parents alike ought to be encouraged to participate), their children and for the children of all the children of the world. The children. They are both the reason and the way we may yet prevail to secure a new "new world order" predicated on human rights that promise freedom of expression free of retribution and freedom to worship free of persecution. And it would be a sweet irony were this to be so. After all, it is the childish behaviors of adults and the nations they are a constituent part of that perpetuate this managed-chaos-state-of- affairs that is our perpetual status quo. Typically childish behaviors such as hoarding but not sharing the cookies and chauvinistic assertions that my God is better than your God or my God is the only real God mirror the same selfish and intolerant patterns of conduct that nations have historically displayed. Moreover, those two particular behaviors are microcosms of the nationalism and radical religionism that too often has plunged God's children into regional conflicts that more recently have wreaked havoc on an expanded global scale. Between the two, radical religionism has emerged as the more pernicious since our faith is very often more central to our beings than even our sense of patriotism. But surely both will resist any new world order whether or not it purports to preserve and protect human rights and notwithstanding the lessons of history. Fundamental to the resolve we must mutually share to move toward the global community ideal is an understanding that this quantum leap sort of revolutionary change must rise from the bottom to the top. There is little reason to believe, given human nature, and so long as national interests form the bedrock principles that determine policy that the powers-that-be will be enthusiastic as the disenfranchised about what is in effect a redistribution of power calculated to achieve a reasonably just allocation of limited global resources. Those resources are the God-given patrimony of all the globe's peoples. As this is written and as you read it as well people are born and shall go on to live and die amidst a squalor that has been their birthright for God only knows how many generations. In stark contrast, one who can send and receive electronic communications has at a minimum the basic amenities necessary to do so. So why then do we wonder why we are targeted by some notwithstanding the many billions dollars in aid that the developed nations do in fact deliver to the less developed nations? Clearly, many perceive that cookies are being hoarded. Chachomanopapa.org suggests that accessing all population centers should be a critical component of any coordinated plan to deliver services that has as it's goal the enhancement of quality of life beyond it's mere sustenance. Wiring the far-flung reaches of the planet would permit interactivity and thereby the realization of all sorts of dreams from simply reaching out to a loved one in a far-off land to, more profoundly, meeting new people and participating in the free exchange of ideas. Such an aggressive, pro-active approach is in the best interests of all nations because the empowerment of this vast, untapped resource that is constituted by more than six billion minds would almost certainly serve to marginalize the radical elements within our various cultures that, thus ostracized, could be thereby more effectively neutralized. It is relevant and consequently quite possibly illuminating that we ought to consider, particularly in view of the recent success in Spain of radical elements’ terroristic means to effectively coerce a nation to change it's national policy, whether this might not be an opportunity to take whatever types of globally empowering action might be necessary to turn this potentially deflating development into a watershed moment for humanity. Chachomanopapa.org contends that given an adequate infrastructure i.e., as many terminals as necessary, the overwhelming majority of the world's peoples, whom abhor violence and condemn it's use as a political instrument, would use a terminal, especially if it were their own (thus assuring their anonymity), precisely to prevent such senseless violence in their own communities. Were we to do so we might quite successfully counter attack the terrorist weed at it's root, it's leaves and it's stalk simultaneously. We certainly would be using a strategy akin to their strategy of using our own resources to attack our people and institutions. The twist shall be that our global resources, in their full panoply, shall be trained on them. E-mail communications by virtue of their instantaneous nature could extend the reach of our national intelligence services conceivably into every nook and cranny of our globe. The possibilities are endless. Just think of what might be the dynamics of having every home in Israel and in the Palestinian-controlled territories wired to the internet. Wouldn't terroristic operations and recruitment be hampered as their organizations were forced further and further underground? So global policy interests eventually must replace parochial national interests in determining how global resources are to be allocated to achieve global goals. And our children are not only the reason to do so but the means by which said transformation might evolve. How might this all come to pass? That is the zillion dollar question. It is essentially about education on a global scale and then focusing the efforts of vast numbers of knowledgeably enthusiastic volunteers to help resolve issues of global concern. As a pilot project dispute chachomanopapa.org has initiated a call for a world-wide referendum on the international political status of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, one of the few remaining colonies in the entire world. Chachomanopapa.org has emailed this proposal to: 1. the various nations of the world and the U.N.; 2. the President of the U.S.A. and many of it's Congressmen of both chambers; 3. the Governor of Puerto Rico and it's legislators of both chambers; 4. global media outlets; 5. religious institutions cross-denominationally; 6. ngo's and other, orgs, particularly those associated with human rights; 7. Hispanic and Latin-American organizations and, 8. other organizations and individuals as well. It is hoped, notwithstanding the truncated time frame, that teachers, their students and as many adults as possible as well will take the opportunity to opine on this initial important regional issue recognizing what the ultimate goal is to apply the very same principles and methodology to international disputes elsewhere in the world. The lesson-plan-prompt herein is essentially an outline for a lesson plan for presumably middle and high school computer classes that by it's very nature functions inter-disciplinarily. That is to say that the individual teacher's lesson plan might very well note that in addition to computer skills learned or practiced thereby the student is also learning: 1. civics; 2. history; 3. English and Spanish; 4. psychology; 5. marketing; 6. sociology, 7. political science; 8. geography; 9. comparative religion and, 10. ethics. The lesson plan outline is the key component. As previously noted it operates multi-functionally (see Project Summary). For the purposes of the pilot project participants ought to educate themselves about the unique history underlying the symbiotic, sometimes contentious, occasionally tragedy-marred relationship between our two peoples for a couple of days during the week immediately preceding the previously referenced 10-14-04 GCD. Participating would be naturally staggered because students would participate in accordance with the dates and times of their computer classes and adults could participate as convenience dictates. Note that the goal is to pressure the decision-makers, not cripple their governments. In the week following that date participating students, and as many others who might choose to participate as well would follow the instructions in the lesson-plan-prompt, opining, and it is hoped, influencing and thereby hastening an ultimately and pristinely democratic resolution to this century-old conundrum. That would be a landmark for my people, allowing us to move on to the pursuit of happiness and other quality-of-life issues with all of the energy and enthusiasm that we now continually waste in rancorous, bitter debate amongst ourselves over what ought to be done and how best to proceed toward that end. That we are so caught up in such endlessly divisive debate is a direct consequence of a three party system that effectively allies the 95% of our population that truly values our relationship with the U.S.A. with the less than 5% that are struck in the increasingly archaic and anachronistic nationalistic mindset that has beset mankind throughout history. Whatever outcome may result from this initial pilot project it would be just that a pilot project; there are far more seriously vexing problems in this world to confront. But, following on the heels of the GCD, it would provide two opportunities in relatively quick succession for our global populations to begin to empower and positively condition within themselves the concept of global citizenship, thus encouraging participation in succeeding opportunities to interactively, and thus actually, make a difference. Chachomanopapa.org confides that given such a specific timeframe within which to correspond to the decision-makers in the pilot dispute and in succeeding disputes the effect of the sheer volume of email would be exacerbated by the multiplier effect of receiving it all in a relatively short period of time. Such an occurrence might very well be a newsworthy phenomenon. Subsequent media analyses would amplify the already global scrutiny brought to bear. The combined glare of an intensely focused spotlight ought to be quite helpful in the pilot project dispute and, it is hypothesised, in other regional international disputes as well. The gist of the proposal therefore is that it is constituted by a local plan (the lesson plan) within a second larger regional plan (resolution of the regional dispute) which itself is preliminary to a third plan, global in it's scope (world peace). The three plans taken together test the hypothesis that focused and/or sustained e-mail campaigns designed to influence the decision-makers in regional international disputes may be an effective way to resolve said disputes on a case-by-case basis. The pronounced use of minors in this effort: 1. educates those whom shall inherit this earth; 2. significantly increases the resource base; 3. dramatically delivers an emotion-packed message. The goals of the pilot project i.e., to set in motion a determined effort to resolve the political status of Puerto Rico are to: 1. take the issue off the back-burner and put it on a front-burner and, 2. set a precedent with enormous implications for the whole science of conflict resolution not to mention it's radical potential to revolutionize diplomacy. The goals of the global plan are to: 1. educate the global citizenry; 2. mobilize an empowered and thus aroused global citizenry to take an interactive role in the resolution of international disputes thereby influencing the decision-makers to do so as well; 3. promote the human rights of the many hundreds of millions of the world's inhabitants whose basic human rights must be secured before they might aspire to peace and prosperity; 4. achieve a measurably more homogeneously peaceful and prosperous planet. Chachomanopapa.org believes this relatively inexpensive, self-executing, confrontation-less, common-sense approach to pressuring our decision makers to do the right thing is a strategy we can't afford to disregard whether viewed from a national perspective or a global one. In fact, national security concerns alone ought to dictate that we aggressively pursue this new potential to "speak softly but carry a big stick". LESSON PLAN PROMPT Theme: Email diplomacy international dispute no. 1: What is your opinion regarding the international political status of Puerto Rico? What would you suggest be done by the legislatures of the United States and Puerto Rico to expedite the resolution of this dispute? Instructions: Empower yourself! Between 10-14-04 and 10/22-04 email your opinion on how to resolve this international dispute. It is suggested that participants electronically correspond to at least four individuals e.g., the two Chief Executives and at least one legislator from each legislative chamber. Date: Name: Mailing address: Age: Gender ( M / F): Contacts: Identify by title and name the people you e-mailed; four spaces are provided; you may contact more or less; should you contact more than four please advise chachomanopapa.org accordingly by listing those additional contacts below where indicated. 1. 2. 3. 4. Opinion: Query: Which international dispute or problem should be next? Why? Additional contacts: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Additional comments: cc: chachomanopapa.org ------------------------- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Concept Chachomanopapa.com (hereinafter cmp.c), and its analog, chachomanopapa.org (hereinafter cmp.o) are the complementary components comprising the corporate entity of the same name (hereinafter cmp.lnc). The corporate purpose is to establish an island-wide cooperative providing access via the internet to products, services and information using the affiliatory mechanisms already pre-existent and establishing as many others as possible in order to give members of the cooperative maximal access to said products, services and information. Cmp.c, the for-profit component, shall potentiate access to members to products and services from participating vendors. The discounts accumulated (often between 6 and 15% or more) via the affiliatory mechanism shall be shared with members of the cooperative. It is contemplated that membership shall be free to all who register, including, significantly, those prospective members from other nations thus enabling entry into international markets, thereby taking full advantage of trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA. Cmp.o shall provide information services free of charge, affiliating principally with those educational and cultural websites that promote prosperity and globalization in order to potentiate conflict resolution internationally. Thus cmp.lnc. links prosperity with world peace. In these austere times, our own government might well provide for tax deductions or otherwise subsidize the purchase of personal computers for the populace in order to mitigate the across the board governmental and quasi-governmental increases now being implemented. Thus, cmp.lnc. creates an economic-informational engine that holds the promise of not only offsetting the aforementioned increases but, by virtue of the inventoriless, inclusive, peace and prosperity-promotive nature of the enterprise, Puerto Rico might well become a player on the world stage, exporting this economic model internationally and in the process go a long way toward resolving its own status issue one way or the other. That is to say that our increase in prosperity, allowing us to stand more steadily on our own two feet, would certainly make our people less afraid of being an independent people. Likewise, a prosperous Puerto Rico would make us a much more attractive candidate to the United States for admission to the union, or alternatively, free association with that nation. TEAM ID NAME: CHACHOMANOPAPA, INC. SUMMARY: Imagine that a business model has the upside potential to transform PR into a prosperous paradise, a place where quality-of-life rather than political status issues dominate debate. In these most austere of times featuring across-the-board actual and prospective governmental and quasi-governmental cost hikes (including "Willy" municipal taxes), membership in a consumer cooperative, global in scope, but arising from our tiny isle, would not only minimally serve to mitigate against said hikes but, moreover allow for, via our "national" websites, the carving of an international presence in e-commerce as the innovative proponent of an inexpensive socio-economic model with radical implications. A. Product/Service Proposed Chachomanopapa.com (hereinafter cmp.c), and its analog, chachomanopapa.org (hereinafter cmp.o) are the complementary component domains operated and administered by a similarly named corporate entity (hereinafter cmp.Inc). A corporate purpose is to establish an island-wide cooperative providing access via the internet to products, services and information using the point-of-entry affiliatory and hyperlinking mechanisms inherent to e-commerce in order to give members of the cooperative maximal access to said products, services and information. Cmp.c, the for-profit component, shall provide access to members to products and services from participating vendors. The discounts accumulated (often substantial) shall be shared with members of the cooperative. Cmp.o, the non-profit component, shall provide information services free of charge, affiliating principally with those educational and cultural websites that promote prosperity and globalization in order to potentiate conflict resolution internationally. Thus cmp.inc. links prosperity (cmp.c ) with world peace (cmp.o). Were private industry interests to ally themselves to such a governmental effort PR might yet pro-actively impose itself not only as an economic player on the world stage but, moreover, as the international proponent of an innovative and inexpensive socio-economic model that draws upon the resources of children and adults alike, simultaneously informing, educating and enriching user/members. An economic-informational engine might be created thereby that not merely offsets said increases in the cost of living (locally and world-wide) but promotes and fosters those communal principles that we have traditionally cherished but now witness eroding around us at an ever alarming rate, threatening the integrity of even that most fundamental of our communities, our nuclear families. The successful implementation of such a synergistic enterprise logically ought to allay as well the tensions that so characteristically negatively influence the tenor of the debate over our future political status. B. TARGET MARKET AND CUSTOMER Clearly, with manufacturers and service providers' overhead savings translating into on-line consumer savings, it's cheaper to buy over the internet. And as security issues are ever resolved in favor of the consumer's privacy, the public confidence engendered thereby in conjunction with the unparalleled convenience of shopping on-line bodes well for e-commerce's future. The local island market numbers approximately three million individuals of school age and above. Even if only 10% of those have internet access and but 10% of those actually buy just $10 worth of products or services then the cooperative's gross after distribution of the consumers' 1% share equals $27,000.00. After the first year, due in part to it's novelty, a properly and timely implemented marketing plan, ought to result in growth in excess of 25% per year for the first five years thereafter. These projections are purposely conservative given that a sound marketing campaign ought to be able to take advantage of the benefits inherent to consumers and merchants alike. C. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE To the best of my knowledge, no cooperative I know of takes the global tack that my international cooperative envisions. PR desperately needs to distinguish herself before the world, now more than ever before. The linchpin educational modality, inspiring interactivity as it does, will only augment the loyalty that consumers might feel toward a "national" website; accordingly the corporate and domain logo has been designed to foster cultural pride amongst our own people by prominently featuring various icons symbolic of our culture. The possible fatal flaw: a high PR underutilization rate. Of course, that's nothing that a dedicated alliance of governmental and non-governmental interests can't overcome. Singapore's citizens all already have high-speed access to the internet. Nothing so dramatic is necessary here. Our mission need only be to get people to buy as much as possible on-line at the national websites, chachomanopapa.com. and chachomanopapa.org.

proposed solution is educational modality that takes a common-sense approach toward implementing a business plan that promotes peace on our planet and provides a springboard from which a cooperative venture, catering to both consumers and merchants alike may be formed and developed.

Solution by chachomanopapa posted on 11/14/2008 08:51 location: Puerto Rico

  • Currently 1.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(2 votes)
20%
 

International social networking site

Merge translation & social networking to form a site where people can communicate in their native language- the site translates in real-time.

Merge translation & social networking to form a site where people can communicate in their native language- the site translates.

Solution by kvanderh posted on 11/14/2008 17:18 location: United States

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(1 vote)
80%
 

Skill Building #1 Priority

With the exception of trade schools, there has always been a gap between the education received in academic institutions and the skills needed to be successful on the job.

But what if core competencies and skills could be better defined? if these skills can be defined, there should be a way to develop Computer Based Training that integrates with social networking.

Networking is a social activity but could be made more productive. This explains the success of organizations like Toastmasters International. While they're a great way to network with other local businesspeople, it's also a way to build actual skills that can be quantified on a resume.

I envision this social network being an equalizer too. While you may not be able to afford the best education, you can use your time wisely to build up skills that may not be easily acquired if you weren't working in a particular field. Indeed, this could be a solution to the usual Catch-22; to get more skills you need experience, but to get experience, you need skills.

Networking plus Skill Building - it's a win win situation.

Create a social network that centers around training activities to develop the skills of users so that they may be more competitive in the workplace.

Solution by jmachado posted on 11/29/2008 18:04 location: United States

  • Currently 0.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(your vote)
0%
 

LAN Party Pro! A Gathering for gamers

My Organisation, “LAN Party Pro!” is made up from volunteer staff. My intention is to bring PC gamers together in a venue – with their computers and favourite games – and to enjoy a night of fun, and gaming. The event focuses on a sense of community, with players getting the chance to actually meet and speak with the people their playing against, instead of just playing with people online who you will never speak to again after the match has ended. I feel that a lot can come from forming great relationships at “LAN Party Pro!”. Once the event is over, and the doors closed – the friendship groups can continue online – on our website and forums. This is a great way for people to stay in contact until the next LAN Party, and to just chat about gaming stuff. After all, chatting and playing games is the two things a gamer does best! At the event, I would like to make things as professional as possible. Even though I will be starting with a small number of people, the event still needs to make an impact to the attendees, so that they will bring their friends to the next parties in order for us to grow. I have already secured 1 sponsor for the event, Custom PC – A computer moddding magazine in the UK who is able to provide us with some prizes for the day. So, there’s my entry! If you would like to check out my site, your all welcome too at www.LANPartyPro.com Thanks for your time, and I really would love the chance to learn more about entrepeneuring a business and how to expand my social network idea – so it can keep on growing and increasing its reputation in the uk. All the best, ~Sam Deans

I have been developing an idea to unite Computer gamers, to bring them out of their houses, and really meet the people who they play online with. I will be holding frequent LAN Parties for people in the area to attend, bring their own pc, and get to know new people while enjoying their favourite games.

Solution by samdeans posted on 12/01/2008 13:52 location: United Kingdom

  • Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(1 vote)
100%
 

Online Pen Pals

I believe that it would be really neat to take the old system of Pen Pals and revamp it to the times. People could sign up, create a profile, and be randomly pared with people from other countries. They would then be able to chat with those people and see their pictures and blogs. I feel that this would be a great way for people of all age to become more knowledgeable about other countries and be more tolerant of diversity. I used to have a few pen pals, but always wanted one from another country that I could learn about. With technology, this would be much easier and much less costly using the internet and a social network.

Taking an old idea and changing it to meet with the times.

Solution by adamjones87 posted on 12/10/2008 17:52 location: United States

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(1 vote)
80%
 

New Social Network

A really cool idea for a new social network is for people with animals! You could have special profiles for you animals where you talk about what they look like, where you got them from, what they're personality is like, and more! If you were trying to find a playmate/playdate in the area or find a friend for your beloved animal in your local area, you could search for one that way! Many people are always looking for a mate and/or breeding partner for their pet, which you could also look for on the network. From dogs and cats, to bunny rabbits to birds! You could use this as a souce of fun for both you and your pet :)

New Social Network

Solution by kcbutt posted on 12/11/2008 09:57 location: United States

  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(1 vote)
80%
 
melsawah says Incentive?? ...
I suggest that you might rethink about your incentive. After all, if you have a winning idea, don't you think it should be worth more than a couple of "work shadowing" days?
Posted on: 10/21/2008 09:18
Kwiqq says More incentives ...
Melsawah thanks for your thoughts. I agree with you! Although do let me know what you make of the plan, as I saw it: Day 1: I'll taking the winner to high profile meetings with some of our clients, suppliers and the team. Lunch with the team and opportunity to meet founders and employees of the company. Perhaps join me whilst I'm interviewing for a new appointment at Kwiqq. Day 2: Work on winner’s idea on developing the social network. What you should be thinking about to go from planning to execution. Including developing logo, advice on software, planning stage with our lead designer/developer and myself. Alternatively an overview of entrepreneurship and how to grow a company with the founders of Kwiqq. Additionally: Blog about the person on Kwiqq.com and rajanand.biz. I will try and get a media partner interested to cover this in a newspaper/TV (although I can't guarantee this)
Posted on: 10/27/2008 07:32
Chris says Good clean fun! ...
It seems that everyone is trying to get healthy these days, and there are lots of campaigns around drinking less, quitting smoking, exercising more, etc. In London, the charity Drinkaware.co.uk is doing lots of marketing about encouraging people to pub/drink less. Their brochures even suggest "alternative activities" such as going to the cinema, museum or even bowling alley. One idea I have is to create an online social network for people who want to go out, have a good time, spend less money, but without getting drunk! Often going to the pub is simply the default activity for many social Brits - but a niche social network might help change this...
Posted on: 10/27/2008 08:47
Kwiqq says Thanks Chris ...
That is a fantastic idea! Thought I'd clarify to submit your ideas please click on the 'Add a new solution' button. Your ideas will then come directly to us :) All the best !
Posted on: 10/27/2008 15:22
Kwiqq says NEW DEVELOPMENT!! ...
I have managed to bring Prof Andrew Burke on board. Andrew is the Director of the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurial Performance and Economics at Cranfield School of Management and a non-executive at Kwiqq. He is willing to offer up to half a day (as part of the 2 days) of consulting to the winner of the competition. Andrew has been my mentor for a couple of years and obviously can add some real insight into entrepreneurship/start-ups.
Posted on: 10/29/2008 07:13
jermyn says Narrow the scope ...
Youth are challenged to keep up with information overload just any adult today. i suggest narrowing down the scope and purpose to the social networking site to meet the needs of youth participation in the local economy are related to various social issues. This will help them focus on a topic of discussion that may require more in-depth research and view from their unique vantage point. Another suggestion is to build "partners" from this forum that wish to give it instant global appeal by engaging youth from communities all over the world.
Posted on: 11/02/2008 10:48
Kwiqq says Thanks Jermyn ...
Thanks Jermyn ! Any chance you could enter your idea using the 'Add new solution button'. This will make it easy to track the entries. All the best !
Posted on: 11/03/2008 17:03
Kwiqq says Thanks ...
Thanks for everyone for sending their solutions. The competition ends 30th November.
Posted on: 11/12/2008 05:55
DrCook says I've got a Great Idea... ...
... I agree that the future of online networking should focus on the niche passions held by our diverse cultures. How about "Friends to-be-united" whereby you can categorize your hobbies so as to connect with like minded individuals to share interests and knowhow - kind of like, find a friend in your area who... mountain boards, crochets, plays bingo etc, etc likes going to metallica gigs but has no one to go with... you get the drift. Often people don't do stuff they love because they have no one to do it with - helping them to connect through an online network could broaden all sorts of horizons. I have a much more specific idea which I would welcome the opportunity to disclose appropriately. Please get in touch.
Posted on: 11/17/2008 16:08
msucwv says ...
I believe that the most social networking is done over Myspace and Facebook. I think it would hard to beat those networks yet best of luck trying. My suggestion would be a site more mature for the older generations to use rather than Myspace.
Posted on: 11/23/2008 16:40
samdeans says Hi - Great Contest! ...
Hi guys, Sorry about my late entry - I really do hope I didn't go over the deadline of "End of November" by too much! I actually met with Raj at a career convention, where we got in contact over my idea, and he told me to enter into this contest. I would really learn so much from this experience, and I feel it would be the perfect step for me at this stage - since I'm really getting into new ideas and entrepreneurship! Thanks for your time, ~Sam
Posted on: 12/01/2008 13:58