The Kev Blog

Marc Stamos, who I introduced in a previous entry about Startups and Fear, has been doing great things with his new organization REBEARTH. A series of talks scheduled for Waterloo, Montreal, and Toronto is just about complete. The Toronto event will take place next Tuesday, November 27th at 7pm in the Bahen Centre for Information Technology at the University of Toronto. All are invited - check out the link HERE.

To give you an idea of exactly how compelling Marc’s talks are (not to mention REBEARTH itself), check out this article which was featured on WorldChanging.com today!!

Fund, Design and Build: The project of (y)our dreams?

Jon Booren
November 21, 2007 2:44 PM

As Jason Diceman pointed out last month, Worldchanging has covered quite a few social networking sites, all trying to bring people together in slightly different ways. Here is one more project that is worth reading about.

Marc Stamos, an entrepreneur from Montreal, has a vision. He wants to help grow a world that 6.6 billion people would want to live in.

While articling as a law school student, Marc had an opportunity to see David Suzuki speak at the University of Toronto. Coming away from that experience, he felt so inspired to effect change that he decided to finish his position, stop and regroup. He took the next number of years to educate himself, network and find a place where he might be able to help. His conversations, work and effort have all culminated with this: REBEARTH.COM

On Tuesday evening, Marc spoke to an audience at McGill University in Montreal and laid out a world that would contain the following appetizing characteristics:

• Businesses that increase employee morale, regenerate the environment and are profitable.
• Children’s toys that are fun, engaging, profitable and release nutrients when chewed.
• Desirable transportation that is silent, clean and profitable.
• Human impact is a positive, prosperous and regenerative force.

Okay, so that sounds simple enough. Where do we start?

What Marc and his collaborators want to do is create an internet hub that links ideas, with finances and skills; wiki-style networking, with a bank account and muscle power.

REBEARTH’s immediate goal is to begin with one project, a house.

Have you ever thought about what your dream house would look like? What characteristics would it have? Would you be willing to contribute your thoughts to help this house take shape? REBEARTH’s hope is you would.

How about your skills as a project coordinator, designer or architect? No skills, just cash? Fine. They’ll take that too. Getting the prototype off the ground will help work out the system they hope to form. A system that can then be applied to anything we want.

Perhaps you’re not interested in building a new house; you want a new shoe, fabric, community heating plant, or bicycle tire. Suggest it, collaborate, design, fund and build.

REBEARTH wants to take collaboratively formed ideas and make them marketable. Taking any generated innovations and share, systemize, franchise and/or license them out to other companies for use, but there is a catch. There goal is not to just make money from the commons, REBEARTH was started to help grow a world that 6.6 billion people would want to live in. Companies who want to use the innovations in traditional application, without the social or environmental contribution will have a bit of a tougher time.

And the money that comes in, goes around. Not only to those who put up the financial backing, but to all those who have been involved in the project.

Interested in finding out more? Marc will be making presentation #2 in Toronto this coming Tuesday, November 27th, at 7:00 PM in the Bahen Centre for Information Technology at the University of Toronto. For more details you can check out this internet invitation.

Those of you unable to make it to Toronto, please visit their website and email them, they would love to hear from you. Because after all, it’s going to take people just like you to make this thing work.

http://www.worldchanging.com/local/canada/archives/007605.html

This is going to be a unique post for me; in the Tom Peters, rant-style, in the heat of the moment kind of way.

I’ve recently been shooting emails back and forth with Albert Lai. For anyone who doesn’t know, Albert was featured on the cover of Canadian Business magazine in June 2008.

Here’s what I can tell you about Albert:
-28 years old
-founded, invested in or consulted with over a dozen startups in the past 10 years
-Founder of:
-MyDesktop
-BubbleShare
-BuyBuddy
-and a TON more

From what I hear, he sleeps about 3 hours a night - bed at 1am and up at 4:30am. The guy is incredible, and what I’ve written doesn’t do justice to the work he is doing or how highly regarded he is in the web/tech world right now.

Read the article in Canadian Business here.

Something that has come up a lot over the past few months is being visionary, forward-looking, and determined to follow through with an idea - no matter how crazy people think you are.

There’s been a few times over the past few years (and heck, even more when I look back to ever since I can remember) where I did NOT follow through with something (an idea, a project, a business, or even saying something) no matter how good I thought it was. “What will other people think?”

Well, Kev, what the hell were you [not] doing?

I was recently speaking with my dad, one of my most trusted mentors, about Albert.

“How the heck does he do it, Dad? People search their whole life for just one idea. Here’s this guy that’s taken over twelve ideas and turned them into profitable, exciting, and most of all disruptive new ideas.”

My dad’s answer:

“No Fear.”

And, just like most father-son moments, he was exactly right. You can’t have fear.

Most importantly, when people say you’re crazy (and they will!), you’ve got to keep pushing.

A good idea is a good idea. Want to follow through? Just do it. Don’t let anyone tell you no.

To be completely honest, I think you’ve got to be at least a little crazy, quirky, weird, and/or straight up strange if anyone’s going to listen to you. People might tell you you’re crazy, but that’s when you know you’ve got their attention.

I’ve had the “crazy talk” with a few people recently. Most notably, Marc Stamos. Another ‘crazy one’. Here’s a guy who ‘had it all’, including a lucrative career in corporate law.

But, he did something very unique. Marc looked up the corporate ladder at the firm he was with, and decided it wasn’t for him.

What did he do? He quit.

And he turned his attention to what is one of the coolest projects/organizations I have seen in a while: REBEARTH (www.rebearth.com)

Another “crazy one” who didn’t let fear get in the way.

It makes me sad when I encounter someone so scared of change that it almost paralyzes them. I actually, no word of a lie, feel sad - because they’re missing out on the exhilaration of trying something new, taking risks and working for something they actually believe in - not to mention the possibility of success! They let fear get in the way.

So here is what I’m going to do (and I owe this to the person who gave me some very good advice today over the phone). The next time I have an idea - I’m just going to do it. I’m not waiting for anyone’s permission to try something out, and I’m certainly not going to wait to have things perfected before I get the ball rolling. I’m just going to do it, ‘crazy’ or not.

You see, ‘crazy’ is a relative term. You’re only considered crazy until everyone else thinks the same way.

And besides, who will listen if you’re not half crazy?! In the words of Jack Welch:

“You can’t behave in a calm, rational manner. You’ve got to be out there on the lunatic fringe.”

Here’s my commitment to living out on that fringe. I am a lunatic. And I am more than OK with that :)

Just to finish things up, here’s a great ad from the mid 90’s Apple campaign called Think Different:

Please, if you do one thing tomorrow: be a little crazy. The world could use a few more crazy ones.

-K