bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

When you are doing something new, unprecedented or remarkable you encounter the reverse long tail.

Each of your actions have what seem to be small consequences, however over the long run things begin to snowball and consequences increase.

Hence why…. perseverance is genius.

(Orig Picture by Hay Kranen / PD. Modified by Ben Young.)

Well they’re not laws in the classical sense.

Metcalfe Law
The number of users increases growth expotentially in a truly social system.

Moores Law
Technology doubles every 18 months.

Long tail
Half of your profits are hidden in the long tail.  How do you unleash them?

80/20 rule aka Pareto Principle
Take these rules.  Apply them to your unique problems, business model, whatever! Now see what opportunities these yield.

Parkinsons Law
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Give them all a read (links are to wikipedia entries), compelling thoughts & implications.

Philanthropy in the past has been limited to individuals of mass wealh or huge companies.

However every one does do their bit helping one another out and their local causes.

We view Philanthropy as out of our reach…. for now… maybe later in life.

Causes such as Kiva unlock this and unleash the long tail.  So we can all engage in helping others out (in $25 usd increments).

Kiva provides a platform for people like you and me to provide funds to micro finance companies in developing and third world countries.  On this platform you invest in their project or business and in return they provide blog updates and knowing you’ve had a direct hand in helping someone else out.

Your investment doesn’t end there.  Once its repaid you get the money back and can reinvest it in others.  Yup you get every cent back.

As a bit of a hobby economist this concept is awesome, using the multiplier effect (looking at how additional investment will flow in an economy) you can find how many times your investment will flow through the economy.  Simply 1/percentage of savings ie in Peru the savings levels are 17% so 1/.17 = 5.9.  Meaning your investment will add ~ $125 to the gdp of Peru.

Thats only on a basic level, there are further flow on effects.

So my idea to you is:

• Create a philanthropy focus in your company, commit some money to invest in projects like kiva.
• Let your employees pick the companies to invest in and follow their progress.
• Take it a step further and match the lend that your employees place in Kiva.
• Get your family together and place a loan in a business.
• Get your workmates together and all join in to support 1 business.
• Your local group such as Rotary / Lions or your church could support causes on this and get your members to keep up to date with what is happening.
• Help Kiva out with their operation costs by sending them a donation.

You can check out Kiva at www.kiva.org (my lender loan page is here).  Facebook group is here.

So jump on, lend some money, help make a direct difference and see what happens.

Your marketing decision can help others too.