11 days old

I have been thinking about this issue quite a lot now that the formal announcement of Bilanthropy are about 11 days old

Format for this weblog of Billanthropy : I am quite experienced at timeless blogs- ie a blog on an issue that needs a long-run debate from every diverse side we can search. We over-ride the date-stamping; give each co-editor their own linkable section ; and use the top of the blog like a contents page to what questions are brewing up to the top

Here are a few of my homebrews, now we are about 11 days into billanthropy world

If concerned communies of 15000 people such as omidyar's explorers of microfinance could organise a vote on most effective use of monies for the bottom of the pyramid that provide replicable models - just suppose we could agree on a top 20. How many of them would Bill and Melinda actively know about? How do we all make sure that information reaches them on those types of solution they have never seen. I don't know how we construct such a survey - but one thread that goes a step towards this is http://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/news/1368/ (note you may need to free register to see this or ask me at chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk for the open survey html kit )

Another thing I have noticed in mapping networks of people for about 20 years now. However powerful you are, there's a limit to how many you listen to everything they share with you. Partly because its a simple frame I look at 8 people and 24 people most differentialy contributing to an overall person's views. Of course this is a survey that builds by having as many people as possible watching , searching who is being teamworked with, co-funded etc. The format I use is at http://asinworld.blogspot.com/2001_09_01_asinworld_archive.html
Gatesway: If anyone is able to help develop this grid around each of the 2 Gates - even one nomination of a top 8 or top 24 influencer helps

I am also concerned that at the end of the day, Bill Gates' organisational system of life has so far been in a closed source and quite hierarchical structure, albeit one that must have enabled some of the internal market structures my father's early Economist survey of service economics staged debates round in 1982 http://normanmacrae.blogspot.com . So it is my personal conditioning (reinforced eg by the success of mircofinance as well as Gandhian perspective) that ending systemic poverty starts the triangle the other way round (from just top-down governance standards) looking at the future of the smallest voice (but replicable eg millions of children without parents due to HIV and in extreme poverty) that's been externalised or discriminated against, and seeks to open source questions and project knowledge that this voice would ask http://clubofdelhi.blogspot.com

I don't know a lot about the big HIV budgets including the Gates' But did attend one budget-holders meeting in Washington Dc where there was very little evidence that these budget-spenders approached much project funding from deep context perspectives rising
Lastly, its a very rough survey and largely reflects the situation prior to the last fortnight, early figures suggests the Gates' are about 4th most talked about in onet conversations of external influencers on the future sustainability of humanity. If that feels wrong to you , we are always accepting new google returns of the who's externally who influencing the 15000 people who converse here at http://www.omidyar.net/group/suggestions/news/278/

a stimulus to the Billanthropy conversation at Charlie Rose
original video Rose- 2 Gates', Buffett - currently free to view

Can a man who ran microsoft - closed sourcing a language - design/lead an open source citizen networking organisation exemplar for 21st C worldwide philanthropy matching most vital human need?

the rumor doing the rounds is that Buffett thinks yes but only if Bill promised not to try to run 2 different organisational systems -top of microsoft, open source centre of Gates Foundation. I'm a bit less sure : Buffett has a very open networking style that I have never previously seen in Bill even though I have tracked a lot of the structural views he has presented on 21st c management.

For an admittedly severe example, I was at a risk profession's annual conference 3 years ago where the keynote was given by a huge corporation chairman. He confessed if we want to improve the world, the leader of a market sector: could identify the biggest globalisation risk that whole sector has to future sustainability; transparently announce this inconvenient truth at the annual shareholders meeting; and invite every major competitor CEO to attend and join in preventing this future risk from costing lives or economic slumps. In other words collaborate over greatest future risk to sustainability a sector might compound while competing over serving benefits and human progress. When asked what CEO had got nearest to doing this - Buffett was the reply. Translate this to the software sector. If Bill Gates had chosen a time to announce that he was inviting all software and IT companies to join in ensuring China did not censor its people from the web, I believe American influence over this worldwide sector soft was mighty enough to have ensured that. I don't blame Gates for failing to lead that way ahead with Microsoft but believe there will be many more parallels to do this transformational co-creativity in his newly open world.

Its fantastic for example that the Gates Foundation is bankrolling the Africa Progress Panel (see some of the 5 by 5 social networking maps of panel members whose liftime contributions -eg Eigen's on Transparency valuetrue mapmakers have been tracking - to judge whether the G8 keep their promises to start ending global systemisation of poverty onto Africa.

But who or what open network will be the World Sercice Progress Panel to monitor if the Billanthropy sustains the greatest promises it is now capable of compounding through inspired collaborations?

Had Rose been told there were boundaries to what questions the Gates' would take? Subliminally I felt there were no boundaries with Buffet but there were with Gates' or was it just that Rose knows the Gates' less well than Buffett?

Just in case: We are collecting exercises on how to max the transparency of a social meta-netwrok organisational design at http://asinworld.blogspot.com/2001_09_01_asinworld_archive.html