Open for the Season

It just doesn’t seem possible that we are already breaking out the fireworks… but yes, it’s summer. And with that I’d like to share a few updates with everyone.

First, our inaugural Digital Capital Week went amazingly well. We had well over 5,000 people register and pass through various DCWEEK events throughout the ten day festival – here’s a recap of the first few days. It was a huge endeavor with our co-producers iStrategy Labs, but we did it – and how amazing was it to watch other people run with interesting events throughout the week! We’re going through all the feedback now and will soon begin planning for next year. Keep checking the site for updates too – you never know when something interesting might happen.

Second, Shiny Maine Lobster is now taking orders!  Summer isn’t summer until you’ve had your first fresh lobster of the season. Capt’n Dave and Frannie have been working on their boat, the Spitfire, all spring, and now they are hauling traps with YOUR lobsters in them. There are a number of tasty packages on the site, but if you are interested in a custom order or even “buying” a lobster trap for the season, let us know. We’re all about creating a great experience for you. Lobsters are delivered fresh overnight with cooking instructions and other goodies.

Third, we’ve been steadily building the Thankfulfor community and now have tens of thousands of Thankfulfor posts that could keep anyone inspired for a lifetime. We love reading the public “stream of thanks” so much that for Mother’s Day & Father’s Day, we created special ebooks that you can download and view. These are the first of many and we are looking for interesting partners so please reach out if you are interested in chatting.  We also have some creative new features in the works coming soon!

We hope you are enjoying the summer months and wish everyone a festive, joyful and safe July 4th!

On Saturday morning was a highlight of the weekend – Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh gave a talk about his new book, Delivering Happiness, followed by a book signing and lunch. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon the crowd at our GWU venue was completely engaged asking question after question. Our own Frank Gruber did a great job moderating the discussion with Tony and the audience – we’ll post video from the session here soon.

Photos by J Nicholas Tolson

The session was followed up by City Camp DC moderated by Peter Corbett, from our co-producing company, iStrategy Labs. The crowd spent the afternoon discussing issues most important to them in DC, and then in true unconference style, formed into groups using the time to brainstorm 3 big ideas, assigning team members to follow up on each. Some groups used Sunday afternoon to do some fieldwork around the city  -others are following up with their teams with specific action items.

Most exciting to me is getting to meet SO many people everyday of the festival. It’s just amazing and inspiring. Want to follow along with the festival? We have an incredible volunteer blogger corp making updates all festival-long to our main site: http://digitalcapitalweek.org and via Twitter @dcweek. We’re also tweeting updates from @shinyheart so there are lots of ways to see what’s happening throughout the festival.

Here are a few posts covering the weekend so far…

• DCWeek Opening Night: Art in Motion
• A Night Of Excitement: DCWeek Opening Party
• Hsieh Delivers Happiness @DCWEEK
• Quick Vids & Pics From Opening Night
• A Few Of Our Favorite Tweets From City Camp

We just wanted to take a moment to share a slice of our Shiny Heart Ventures life as we took on the Easter egg coloring experience. We pulled out the PAAS coloring set and colored some eggs along with a few fingers too. We hope your holiday weekend is filled with love, laughter, happiness – and a few yellow Peeps too. We invite you to share your gratitude for the season with our gratitude community over at thankfulfor.com.

Happy Easter!

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

The story of charity: water – The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Last week we were at TWTRCON in DC for Frank to take part in a panel called The New Rules for the Real-Time Business. We went a bit early and were able to see Scott Harrison on stage talking about Charity:Water. It was a fascinating preso for me because after it was over, I thought more about it and what a major shift has been happening in the “social good” (or charities) space and how much a part of my mind-share it’s had lately. When I think back through the years of my parent’s and my own experiences with charitable groups, I recall the names of just a few major organizations, maybe some fundraising events like a concert or sales drive and then I think about numbers and charts – pretty uninspiring stuff. When I was a kid I remember just one organization that personalized the experience -  my parents “adopted” a little boy from Ethiopia (as I’m sure many families did) and fed him for less than $1 a day or something like that. We had his picture on our family bulletin board. But I grew up hearing one message that stuck – “we’d give more money but who knows where it’s really going.”

But now I have some new experiences to draw upon. I’ve been to two Twestivals – my first donation went to Charity:Water. My second went to a local charity called Miriam’s Kitchen. I’ve donated to Kiva a few times and watched our friend Sloane blog and tweet about her work in the field as a Kiva Fellow. I’ve seen several of the new generation of organizers speak about their projects and show the results in real-time. Recently, Shiny Heart Ventures even signed up to work with Epic Change on their Tweetsgiving campaign to help school children in Tanzania. We were able to watch the founders interacting real-time with the kids in Tanzania last week via videos posted on Tumblr and Tweets they sent out. The kids even started a dialog with Frank. And now I’ve spoken with other groups whom we may work with in the coming months or years. My point is, in this new world of giving, it’s no longer faceless. It’s no longer another world. It’s no longer throwing money over a wall and hoping someone honest is there to catch and put it to good use.

When it comes to the leaders of these organizations, we can see them at work and follow them online. We’re able to connect and build trust. When it comes to the aid, we can track it online. And the recipients – we can see them and feel a connection. And it’s important because this stuff makes us feel good – and what have we learned? We remember how people make us feel. Charity:Water’s updates from the field make me feel good about my donation and I’m more likely to open my wallet for them in the future. The “TwitterKids” of Tanzania are all over our Thankfulfor blog and how can you say no to those adorable faces? The new social good leaders have realized that they can create their own media, and affect people by bringing it closer and making it real. And not to be outdone by the small organizations, even the Gates Foundation gets it – and have created their own channels to move the needle. Like the others, they’re using the power of gorgeous photographs, video and music – and not only brought it online, but recently brought it to an audience in DC, where people could have a larger-than-life experience to move them emotionally. We were moved by attending and seeing Bill and Melinda Gates deliver the message in person to a filled theater.

I used to give funds to the Red Cross and United Way (pretty much only after a major disaster struck) just because they were large trusted institutions and it was easy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t give to these groups – they’re still great organizations. I’m saying it feels like we have choices now that are more visible and close at hand (via online tools) than ever before. Groups like Causes and Network for Good have been instrumental in bringing many projects and audiences together, and now there are even events like the Nonprofit 2.0 Conference to help more non-profits along. We’re excited about this shift, as a company that wants to do good things & work with causes, and as individuals who want to see major change happen in the world.

Rainbow in DC

Recently, I have been somewhat addicted to the Kid Cudi song Pursuit Of Happiness. It’s soothing and interesting. We’re all on the pursuit of happiness, right? Well, as much as I love the song, I think Kid Cudi got it wrong. He sings:

I’m On The Pursuit Of Happiness And I Know Everything That Shines Ain’t Always Gonna Be Gold
I’ll Be Fine Once I Get It; I’ll Be Good

It’s the same old paradox. Everyone’s trying to find or figure out the things that will make them happy – another person, money, fame, things. At Shiny Heart Ventures, we take the opposite view – be happy first, then bring your happiness to everything you do. It’s a mind shift for many people. Some may not think it’s possible. It is. It’s not only possible, it’s imperative to making great things happen and to living your best possible life. Life is a journey – so if your journey isn’t enjoyable you’re wasting precious time.

It may all sound somewhat trite, but it’s one of the most difficult truths for many of us to absorb and put into practice each day. It takes practice to wake up and be happy and put that into our daily work – not letting the mundane of everyday life drag us down. I recently read this in Positive Psychology News

Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania teaches that happiness is not something that just happens to us but rather something that we must consciously choose. By being mindful, we increase our opportunities to choose. Kirk Brown of Virginia Commonwealth University and Richard Ryan of the university of Rochester write in a summary of self-regulation that mindfulness is “an open or receptive awareness of and attention to what is taking place in the present moment.” – Suzann Pileggi

Mindfulness takes practice…and practicing gratitude is one way to help us stay on track, which is why we created Thankfulfor. The more you can slow down, identify and focus on the things you’re thankful for, the more you realize what you have and can invite more of those things into your life.

So, I hope if you enjoy the Kid Cudi song, you don’t take the words to heart. Don’t be on a pursuit of happiness. Be happy – take that happiness and use it on your pursuit of something else. He did get a few words right and I’ll leave you with those.

Imma Do Just What I Want Lookin’ Ahead No Turnin’ Back
If I Fall If I Die Know I Lived It To The Fullest

The Shiny Heart Ventures team was out in full force at the Creativity in Business Conference this past Sunday in Washington, D.C. asking attendees what they were ThankfulFor. Creativity is so important in business so it was great to devote a day surrounded by such forward thinkers. Here’s how Michelle James, the event founder and producer, describes the conference:

"Open" by Flickr user ChipGriffin

Great news – today we opened up the first version of Thankfulfor and we invite you all to come in and get your Thanks going!

When you get there, just click the Sign Up button or sign in with your Twitter account. By default, all your posts are public, so visit your settings page if you want to make your posts private. Once you are in, it’s pretty simple – just post what you are thankful for!  We suggest posting 3-5 things each day. Stick with it and pay attention to how you are feeling. Seriously, writing down or expressing gratitude on a regular basis is key to happiness and well being. Try it out for yourself! By the way, this is our beta release, so there are many more features coming down the pipeline – we’d also love your feedback and suggestions.

Today we are most thankful for the Interwebs, Bill our developer, Tia our designer and of course, all of YOU, our very first Thankfulfor friends and supporters. And if you like what you find, we’d be delighted and most thankful if you’d share it with your friends far and wide.

Grazie, Merci, Mahalo, Danke, Arigato, Xie Xie, Thank you!

Shiny Heart Ventures Announces Thankfulfor.com

The Shiny Heart team has two projects in the works:  one is more involved and it’s still in development (more about that later), and the other is just about ready for launch. It’s called Thankfulfor and it’s all about gratitude. We’ve talked with a few close friends and family about it and the first question we usually get is, why?  Well, why not?  As Jerry Maguire once said: “We live in a cynical world. A cynical world.” It’s the easy and expected path to resort to sarcasm and snark nowadays. But our mission is not to build products that remind people of jaded attitudes – it’s to build products that remind people of the joys of life. What better way to do that than to provide a way for people to take stock of the things – big and small – that they are thankful for each day. In my experience, when we are feeling thankful it’s just a hop and a skip away from feelings of happiness – and happiness is contagious, particularly across social networks. We have a perfect medium to take advantage of this and maybe do the world some good.

So, back to the point.

What is Thankfulfor?

Thankfulfor is a micro-blogging site focused on gratitude. You can enter up to 140 characters about what you are thankful for and post them to your personal “journal” of thanks, which can either be private or public. You can also choose to send each Thankfulfor post to your social network on Twitter (and soon Facebook), spreading the good vibes far and wide.

Thousands, maybe more, practice gratitude globally, many using gratitude journals where they write down a few things they are grateful for each day. Most of those people will tell you it’s more than just a journal – it’s a key to happiness and well-being. Thankfulfor promises to take the resources available today and develop tools for a growing generation of people interested in journaling their gratitude as well as expressing and sharing their thanks with others.

While we haven’t opened up the site to everyone yet, we’re very close. If you are in the DC area and want to be one of the first to see it, we will be demoing Thankfulfor at TECH cocktail DC at the LeftBank in Adams Morgan tonight, August 27.  Out-of-towners, sign-up for our email updates (above) and follow us at @iamthankfulfor on Twitter.

We are so thankful for all of you who are here and supporting us in your own way. We hope you’ll give Thankfulfor a try. More to come soon!