Wisdom From The Web

Streaming .TV shows by UstreamSo much of what I love about the Web is the serendipity and richness in the random connections I've made through the various network nodes I open.  For example, this morning I received two tweets from different but related contacts I follow.  The video above was posted by coworking pioneer Alex Hillman, co-founder of Independent's Hall in Philadelphia.  It's a brief address by "Chief Ideologist" Morten Lund of Lund XY Global Ventures at LeWeb 08.  He makes a very interesting point about how the economic downturn is irrelevant to entrepreneurs.  He notes that entrepreneurs can fail any day, whereas the big bankers have discovered that they can, too.  Some additional  sound advice from Lund is to focus on getting good people rather than good ideas.  Good people can make bad ideas successful, while bad people can tank good ideas.  This echoes Jim Collins' proscription: "First, Who."

About an hour prior to Alex' post came a link from New Work City's Tony Bacigalupo to an item from Belmont University's Dr. Jeff Cornwall about how the entrepreneurs emerging from the millenial generation are motivated less by making money and more by making a difference.  

I think what we have to get used to is that they are redefining what entrepreneurship is all about. To them, it is not simply a ticket to unimaginable riches.

When I talk to students about why they want to be entrepreneurs, the answer "to become the richest person in town" does not come up like it did back when I was teaching Gen X-ers.

They are using entrepreneurship as not just an economic tool, and not just a social tool as we see with their fascination with Social Entrepreneurship, but as a cultural tool.

What fascinates me about this is the synchronicity of the messages in these different channels, and that they both were brought to my attention by my colleagues in the coworking world.  Clearly, there's a close connection between coworking and entrepreneurship as it is evolving.  That connection is community.

We've been building and promoting venture communities as an engine for prosperity, and the challenge is keeping that engine fueled, lubricated, and driving initiatives that produce global impact while creating sustainable value -- and values -- at community, regional, and statewide levels.