On September 1st, 2009 Speechi became the first company to adopt the “Altruistic Capital” business model: 10% of its capital now belongs to the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), Eugène Rutagarama’s NGO. Eugène was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2001 and IGCP leads an outstanding conservation work of the very few last mountain gorillas in Rwanda. IGCP is now one of Speechi’s shareholders. It will from now on get 10% of all of our yearly profits. If Speechi were ever to be sold, IGCP would get a 10% cut of the deal.

Altruistic Capital is a donation in shares. Its goal is to assist public interest causes by giving them access to the substantial financial resources of private companies’ capital.

This preface is first and foremost a call to entrepreneurs. If there is one thing Eugène Rutagarama has shown in his life – the one thing I derived from our chats – it’s that every one of us can make a difference.

Entrepreneurs face a constant struggle in today’s economy, they are overwhelmed by daily tasks to the point that it’s almost impossible for them to act sustainably or altruistically over the long term. They can now very easily achieve this goal by embracing the Altruistic Capital model.

Altruistic Capital can be adopted by any company regardless of its area of activity. Each entrepreneur is free to select his non-profit organization and to decide what percentage of its capital should be donated. The NGO’s goal doesn’t have to be related to the company’s activity. The company’s profitability as well as the financial resources available to the entrepreneur are not hindered by such a donation. The company retains all of its performance and competitive edge and can even gain from the positive impact the donation may have on its public image.

In fact the more the company grows and develops, the more it contributes to its cause, one of its shareholders.

The main point here is for non-profit organizations to gain access to equity-based resources comparable to those of private companies, enabling them to act with comparable forces. Way too often do humanitarian efforts come to a screeching halt when Economic Interests take over.

Why the gorillas ? Much as for the White Whale, the Old Man’s fish, they stand for humanity itself. Most of Eugène Rutagarama’s preservation quest started after he escaped the Rwandan Genocide where his family was slaughtered.

Gorillas are also a personal and emotional choice. They inspire me, I’d like for my children to be able to see them someday – or at the very least know they exist somewhere outside of a zoo. Somehow it’s a choice from the heart – based on feelings I would have a hard time justifying rationally to anyone accusing me of excessive mushiness. This said, materialism – the holy grail of the past century – has caused millions of deaths. And we can now see the so called economic “logic” endangering the entire planet.

It’s time to give feelings a try.

In my previous post, I described a principle which according to me is of general interest since it summarizes the history of information in the last 5000 years. For mnemotechnic and narcissist reasons, I have decided to name it ” the Klein principle”.

The more the information support is lighter, smaller, readable, mobile, copy-able, shareable – in short, the more nomadic the support, the more information and knowledge are spread.

Then, I mentionned a quite extraordinary exception to this law, which spans over the last 40 years only, but has great importance to us since we litterally live in this exceptional time.

I will unmodestly name this exception the “Klein exception” and add a note for future generations that scientists that discover a general application law and one of its notable exception within the same post are not so frequent: my fight for truth is really priceless.

In the last 40 years, for the first time in history, the reduction of the volume of information, the ease in re-copying it, sharing it, etc… has not been 100% correlated with its utility. The main reason in this limitation is that information has been so much reduced that it is not as accessible or as readable by a human being as it used to be.

The eBook is an interesting illustration of both the Klein law and the Klein exception. The first eBooks appeared about 10 years ago. They then consisted in “simple” digital screens, comparable to laptop screens. These eBooks have been a market failure. Palm, Apple, Microsoft and in France, Cytale, had diverse initiatives in the field that failed.

However, attempts to create a peripheral that could replace the book in our everyday life never ceased – and we have been observing a real renewal of concept for several months. We now have daily annoucememnts (Amazon, PRS505, SEIKO, SONY..etc)

The eBook reveals the gap between the quantity of information and the readability of that information as well as the general, powerful dynamics that are acting to try to bridge this gap: despite all commercial failures, initiatives towards a more readable eBook have become more and more frequent, although the problem is not often stated as clearly as in the Klein law.

The advances of the last 2 years are almost uncorrelated with the advances in computers and flat screens and in some way even correspond to a real step backwards. Current eBook screens are usually black and white screens, with a quite low contrast, and a refresh rate mostly 10 to 50 times weaker than that of classic TFT screens – it is totally impossible to play Tetris or watch a video on a modern eBook.

EBook designers try by all possible means, to recreate the comfort of paper and they only recently understood that the increase of the pure performance of screens (miniaturization of transistors) is not necessarily the answer to the problem.

Where will the success of the eBook come from ? From the new techniques of digital ink that improve readability? From the reduction of weight and size of the eBooks? From the physical improvement of screens, that will make reading of an eBook as comfortable as reading of a book? From the decrease in cost? From the development of ePaper techniques that will a enable reading of a book on a simple digital paper?

I don’t want to answer this question, but the Klein law tells me that in 2, 5 or 20 years – a ridiculous duration at the scale of the history of information but probably long enough for another great number of eBook companies and projects to fail – we will indeed use the eBook.

[Translated from L’eBook: une bonne illustration de la loi nomade de Klein. Please note that due to lack of time, I don't translate posts myself and usually do not review translations, so they may not be fully accurate and/or present some imperfections. Thierry]

it’s one of the first articles that I see about the new era of nomadism in the “general public” press.

The Economist talks about “a new version of a very old idea: nomadism” (just as I do).

The Economist insists a lot more than I do on the importance of the “wireless” in the development of nomadism and the way in which the workspace gets reorganized on campus and in american companies.

The key figure is the curve showing the progression of mobile phones compared to the progression of Internet: mobile phones are becoming the convergence medium, as I mentionned two years ago.

Via SmartMobs

[Translated from Un excellent article sur le nomadisme digital dans The Economist. Please note that due to lack of time, I don't translate posts myself and usually do not review translations, so they may not be fully accurate and/or present some imperfections. Thierry]

Sylvie Lallet, sport teacher in Cordouan de Royan high school, has just published one of the best feedbacks on interactive whiteboards, all countries and disciplines included.

A fantastic work was accomplished and I particularly recommend the commented scenarios on Video (fr).

It is really interesting because:

• This work was performed under a loan (thanks to Robert Crépeau of Tedelec) and is a validation of the ‘natural approach’ I have often written about in the blog (ithe simpler the more useful).
• It was done in an atypical class (interactive whiteboards are usually not so used in sports…I think it’s a mistake)
• It takes advantage of all multimedia techniques that can be used in a class (video, podcast, web 2.0) while staying simple and cheap (using open source software). To achieve such results, an enormous teacher investment is necessary – and also talent.
• It also validates the “nomadic” approach that we have been developing for the last 3 years (the lighter, the simpler, the more mobile, the more open the approach, the more useful).

I have many things to say about the amazing examples that have been created and I will probably come back to it later, as Sylvie Lallet’s post is too rich to be described in a few lines …

See for instance the table tennis case or the work done on moving video images (as well as the video sample which is very useful to understand how students apprehend this new technology) .

[Translated from Un article fantastique sur l’utilisation du TBI mobile en cours de sport. Please note that due to lack of time, I don't translate posts myself and usually do not review translations, so they may not be fully accurate and/or present some imperfections. Thierry]