For those who found the iPhone debut an amazing excursion to the twilight zone of hype over substance, there is an alternative brewing on the horizon, called OpenMoko.

OpenMoko is an Open Source project to create the world's first free mobile phone operating system.

The OpenMoko project is a community that anyone can join, to help design their ideal phone.

The long term goal is that phone software won't be tied to a phone. You can install any OpenMoko software over the whole range of phones, and if you upgrade your phone, you don't lose the software. Bugs fixed on one phone are fixed on all.

With OpenMoko, you won't be locked into a mobile phone vendor that spends a good portion of its technology trying to bill you outrageous amounts for trivial information. Don't like your mobile phone service? use a local wi-fi. Want to travel to another network? Buy a local SIM card. Want to download some innovative GPS/video/mapping application? go for it.

Maybe a little competition will improve the quality of our service for all.

Just in case folks are bored with the issues of globalization, civilization faces another, longer term issue, call it galactization. We've had SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence looking for signals from outer space, for some time. No luck yet, but maybe they are so smart that they don't want us to know about them. As my neighbor David Brin points out, if you were wandering around a dark jungle at night, it probably isn't a good idea to shine a bright light on yourself and shout, "Anybody out there?" See his essay, SHOUTING AT THE COSMOS: ...Or How SETI has Taken a Worrisome Turn Into Dangerous Territory.

Now, there is a new issue civilization faces: METI: Messaging to Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. This might seem a little advanced to some, for example, the iPhone doesn't support it. The issue revolves around whether we should be actively sending messages to possible extra terrestrial intelligences. Should we broadcast our presence out into space, hoping to attract the attention of other civilizations? What are the pros and cons of this?

This is definitely a "long fuse, big bang" type of problem. Even if the Other gets the message in say 20 years, then the earliest we would get a reply would be 40 years... unless they've figured out some physics we don't quite know yet.

Leaving the improbability issues aside, though, this still brings up an issue: just who decides whether to have a coming out party for Earthlings? Is this a UN issue? Do astronomers decide this? If New Age enthusiasts want to broadcast a message from a pyramid, do we let them speak for everyone on earth? Do we create a METI Institute?

See Meet the neighbours: Is the search for aliens such a good idea? in the June 25, 2007 issue of the Independent:

"Many scientists, frightened by the danger that might lurk out there, have argued against our actively seeking contact with extraterrestrials. Jared Diamond, professor of evolutionary biology and Pulitzer Prize winner, says: " Those astronomers now preparing again to beam radio signals out to hoped-for extraterrestrials are naive, even dangerous."

I have been lurking on some of the mailing lists talking about this issue, and that even on a fairly closed list, the conversation broke down amidst typical mailing list dynamics. Its kind of ironic that a homogeneous group with a common language, culture, environment, and biology are having trouble talking about the possibility of communication with others wildly different.

I've been harping about patient safety for quite some time, harking back to the Institute of Medicine's Report "To Err is Human" estimating between 44,000 and 88,000 deaths per year caused by preventable medical errors.

What I'd Like Homeland Security to say, and The National Health Emperor has no clothes.

During a recent trip to Germany, I noticed an that the German health ministry estimates 17,000 deaths per year due to "Behandlungsfehler" - which seems to parallel the US numbers.

The Josie King Foundation looks like it is doing something about this. I think that their grass-roots approach is laudable - and necessary. I don't hold much hope for the industry to spontaneously fix this problem themselves.

If you go to any mom-and-pop cafe, you are likely to find the waitperson swiping a security card in their order entry terminal before entering your breakfast order. The kitchen gets a perfectly formatted, readable order, and they have a secure, accountable, efficient system.

Your local hospital, however, probably is working off nearly illegible handwritten scraps that can be faxed to the pharmacy by anyone who knows the fax number. They may have little or no security on orders that have life-or-death consequences.

Why is it that you restaurant order has such tight security and accountability whereas potentially life-critical information such as a medication order is so poorly handled?

Just another instance of the perverse incentives in our health care system.

P.S. That hospital, however, would probably have a near-perfect billing system to track every box of Kleenex they put in your room.

Civic Ventures announced this week the opening of nominations for the 2007 Purpose Prize, a major initiative that invests in Americans over 60 who are leading a new age of social innovation.

The Purpose PrizeTM provides five awards of $100,000 and ten awards of $10,000 to people over 60 who are taking on society’s biggest challenges. It’s for those with the passion and creativity to discover new opportunities, the experience to come up with practical solutions, and the determination to make lasting change.

Winners in 2006 addressed problems such as intolerance, racial disparities in preventable deaths, job opportunities for the disabled, housing needs of the elderly poor, and the disrupted lives of children with a parent in jail.

Who will take the Prize in 2007?
Make your nomination now at www.purposeprize.org.
Nominations will close on February 1.

Send questions to info@leadwithexperience.org.

I just got a call from Bank of America, who after a lengthy introduction about the rising identity theft problem, offered to send me a free credit report and start a "service" to monitor my credit activities.

Rather than call this "Identity Theft", I think we need to call it "Promiscous Credit." Banks are issuing credit lines to nearly anyone with a little information, and refusing to instigate procedures to verify the credit line with consumer. They will simply issue the credit; if there is a problem, the push the problem off to the consumer.

This is protection racket, not to far removed from a mafia character offering to "protect" your restaurant from an "accidental" fire.

The identity theft problem could go away in an instant if we just were more careful about issuing credit.

This is an interesting example of a viral video for infectious good, which happens to be the theme of my next Uplift Academy workshop in New York Oct 4.

It's collected over 500,000 views in its first 5 days on YouTube.

And here are some of my YouTube videos.

The winners of the first-ever prizes a major new initiative to invest in Americans over 60 who are leading a new age of social innovation have been announced. The prize is managed by Civic Ventures (at which I am a senior fellow, but not directly related to the prize)

The winners reveal the wide variety of backgrounds and experiences that those over 60 bring to the task of solving some of society’s most pressing problems in what used to be called the retirement years.

“As the first of America’s 77 million baby boomers turn 60 this year, The Purpose Prize winners are doing what society least expects people over 60 to do: innovate,” said Marc Freedman, founder and President of Civic Ventures.

“These men and women – some national figures, some local heroes – disprove the notion that innovation is the province of the young and show us the essence of what’s possible in an aging society.”

The $100,000 winners - selected by a jury comprised of 21 leaders in business, politics, journalism, the arts, and the nonprofit sector - include:

Conchy Bretos (age 61, Miami, FL):
Bringing assisted living services to public housing
Born in Cuba and sent to America when Castro came to power, Bretos lived in a Nebraska orphanage for three years before reuniting with her parents. As an adult, she worked university and public sector jobs, then became Florida's Secretary for Aging and Adult Services. Appalled to see what poor, older adults endured to avoid nursing homes, she became the force behind the nation's first public housing project - the Helen Sawyer building in Miami - to bring assisted-living services to low-income adults who need help to stay in their homes. Today she runs a consulting company that has helped 40 public housing projects in a dozen states bring assisted-living services to their residents.

Charles Dey (age 75, Lyme, CT)
Engaging high school youth with disabilities in the world of work
At 64, Dey had a long career in education and a record of starting programs to ensure equal educational opportunity. Alan Reich, a friend who founded the National Organization on Disability after an accident left him a quadriplegic, told Dey to "do for young people with disabilities what you did for minorities in the '60s." Dey created Start on Success, a National Organization on Disability program providing paid internships and workplace mentors to predominantly minority high school students with physical, mental and emotional disabilities. Over 1,500 students have had internships at universities, hospitals and businesses in five cities, and 85 percent have gone on to full-time jobs or further education. Dey is working to expand Start on Success, while also building the National Organization on Disability's efforts to help disabled adults, including returning veterans, find jobs.

Marilyn Gaston and Gayle Porter (ages 67 and 60, Bethesda, MD) :
Empowering midlife African-American women to improve their health
With African-American women dying at rates greater than any other group of U.S. women, Gaston and Porter were inspired to stop many of these preventable deaths. Accomplished health professionals, they created Prime Time Sister Circles - part support group and part health course on exercise, nutrition and stress. The meetings, taking place in convenient locations like churches and community centers, encourage goal-setting, peer support and empowerment to change how African-American women approach their health and the health of their families and communities. Research in four cities shows that 68 percent of participants maintain improved health.

W. Wilson Goode, Sr. (age 68, Philadelphia, PA):
Mentoring children of incarcerated parents
In 2000, former Philadelphia Mayor (1984-1992) Wilson Goode earned a Doctorate of Ministry and became the director of Amachi, a nonprofit helping the 7 million children who have one or both parents in jail, on parole or under supervision. Goode, whose own father went to jail for assaulting his mother when Goode was 14, paired mentoring with faith-based recruiting. He rallied pastors in African-American communities to encourage their congregants to be mentors. Today more than 240 programs in 48 states are affiliated or inspired by Amachi, and mentors have helped 30,000 children. Without intervention, experts predict that as many as 70 percent of children with incarcerated parents would end up in jail.

Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed (ages 70 and 63, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.):
Fighting intolerance, conflict and terrorism through dialogue and exchange
After terrorists murdered his son, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, Judea Pearl, a computer science professor at UCLA, teamed up with Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic Studies and envoy to Muslims in the U.S. and abroad. The two travel the country to speak and lead dialogues on religious tolerance, linking their stories to a call for reconciliation and providing a rare forum for moderate Muslims in the U.S. Dialogue is central to the work of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which sponsors fellowships for journalists and an Internet news service for high school journalists, advocates press freedom, and organizes world music days to bring diverse people together.

The ten $10,000 winners are:

* Frank Brady, 63 (Paterson, NJ): Improving children’s access to healthcare through technology
* Robert Chambers, 61 (Lebanon, NH): Providing low-interest car loans to the rural poor
* Bernard Flynn, 71 (Sacramento, CA): Restoring river ecosystems for sustainable flood control and habitat preservation
* Benjamin Hooks, 81 (Memphis, TN): Preventing childhood exposure to lead poisoning
* Dagney Jochem, 64 (Raleigh, NC): Bringing HIV/AIDS education, prevention and care to rural minorities
* James Ketelsen, 75 (Houston, TX): Helping disadvantaged youth to graduate high school and enroll in college
* Suzanne Mintz, 60 (Kensington, MD): Giving a voice to America’s family caregivers
* Martha Franck Rollins, 63 (Richmond, VA): Restoring community vitality and helping ex-prisoners more productively re-enter society
* June Simmons, 64 (San Fernando, CA): Creating, implementing and evaluating new ways of delivering health care
* Herb Sturz, 75 (New York, NY): Expanding after-school care and tapping older adults for community service.

I recently bought a MacBook Pro laptop computer. My first Mac in a long time... it's taken some getting used to, and I still haven't fully shifted over to the Mac world, but it sure is nice some times.

It has a built in camera and microphone, so I can simply click on a button, talk into my laptop, and upload my gems of wisdom to the YouTube video sharing system. I've been getting smart in Final Cut Express as a way of editing my videos, which is a learning curve in itself (hint: Apple Stores offer ProCare for $99/year, which allows one hour per week of one-on-one training ... this is an amazing bargain, and in my three classes so far, I've really learned alot about video editing, composition, and distribution over the internet.)

I'm still learning the ropes, and I don't have much hopes of edging out Paris Hilton as the world's most popular YouTuber. Some say I have a delivery that makes Al Gore look exciting. But I am enjoying myself so far, and hey, there's lot of room for improvement.

I have been playing around with simple interviews with folks using the "movie" mode on my digital camera. This is much lower quality than a full video camera, of course, but there is something to be said for the spontaneity of the the film and the authenticity of the noises in the background. I took a video of this conversation in a restaurant in Paris by propping my camera on a wine bottle as a tripod. It captured a conversation between Marcia Odell of PACT and Tom Dichter, author of Despite Good Intentions. I am also playing with videos from my Isight camera directly, as I did with my NanoFinance Proposal to Omidyar Network (that got funded). I am also playing with High Definition recording (of course, compressed down for the web), such as my Uplift Academy Promo

I am also playing with a "quick interview" genre of folks and their ideas for a better world. Here is a quickie I took of John Francis, who has quite an amazing story to tell (you'll have to watch it to understand it).

And while you are watching the videos, why don't you drop some favorable ratings on them? I need a few more to catch up with Paris Hilton.

I am pleased to say that I am now a Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures based in San Francisco. They operate the Purpose Prize that is presenting five $100,000 awards to folks who have started an "encore career." I think that there is great potential to be tapped with folks who have made it through their first career, and are now interested in "going to work for their grandchildren." I video blogged some advice to Bill Gates on his encore career, too.

I look forward to helping Civic Ventures and others explore these paths...

From their web site:

An inspiring new group of role models for "engaged retirement" is emerging. Unwilling to stuff envelopes or go off quietly to the sidelines, these change-makers are taking matters into their own hands and fashioning a new vision of the second half of life, one in which the expertise and talent of a lifetime is refocused on finding solutions to challenges in our communities, our country, and the world. They are living proof that aging does not equal stagnation and decline, that later life is a time of innovation, productivity, and creativity as rich as the younger years. Yet, as a society, we have done little to elevate or underwrite the remarkable efforts of a new movement of individuals in their 60s, 70s, and beyond who constitute a lost continent of social entrepreneurship and leadership. This lack of recognition and investment reinforce the idea that the second half of life is a time of decline rather than a time of creativity, invention and contribution.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced that an employee took home electronic data from the VA, containing identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. Importantly, the affected data did not include any of VA's electronic health records nor any financial information. The employee's home was burglarized and this data was stolen.

I have some familiarity with this issue. I was one of the designers of the VA hospital information security system 20 years ago. I went through a certification check with some very dour security analysts from the federal Computer Security Center. As far as I know, the only losses have been from folks with authorized access, using this access inappropriately. The bad guys have come from within...

My other familiarity has come from my former employer telling me of a similar loss of data... someone stealing a computer from the company's offices. I asked my bank what to do, and they suggested changing account numbers. They said that this would be a simple thing - and it was for them. But a year later, I am still trying to fix the problems that they caused for me. A very long series of chain reactions followed; all my autopay information was deleted (and halted), checks were bounced, my credit rating was messed up, overdraft protection invalidated, and on and on. I sometimes wonder if identity theft might have been an easier alternative to deal with. I thought of starting a web page called US BANK SUCKS, but decided to just leave this phrase in my blog for Google to find.

The greatest damage that the bad guys can do with data is to take out lines of credit unbeknownst to the veterans. Rather than have 26 million veterans calling the credit agencies to fix this individually, we should simply not allow folks to take out credit lines without validating the request from the consumer directly.

In other words, we should put the burden of proof on the banks to confirm that the applicant wants the credit. The way things stand now, we put the burden of proof on the innocent victim of the identity theft that they weren't the party taking out the false credit line.

I am still trying to clean up my credit rating. Among other things, a credit union has dinged me for 13 delinquent payments on a closed account; a long distance phone company dinged me for non payment on a bill after they refused to cancel my service; and somehow they show me with $10 million in personal debt (I wish).

This is all incredibly sloppy information reporting and practices... They need to clean up their act so that thefts like the VA's don't trigger 26 million personal fiascos.