SI and Social Business

5 Nick_Roy 07 November 2011 11:25PM

I asked this question for the Q&A:

Non-profit organizations like SI need robust, sustainable resource strategies. Donations and grants are not reliable. According to my university Social Entrepreneurship course, social businesses are the best resource strategy available. The Singularity Summit is a profitable and expanding example of a social business. Is SI planning on creating more social businesses (either related or unrelated to the organization's mission) to address long-term funding needs?

I also recently asked this of Luke for his feedback post before the Q&A was up, and he mentioned in his response that SI is continuing to grow the Summit brand in a multifarious manner. Luke also asked me for additional social business ideas, citing a lack of staff working on the issue.

Less Wrong's collective intelligence trumps my own, so I'm fielding it to you. I do have a few ideas, but I'll hold off on proposing solutions at first. I find that this is a fascinating and difficult thought experiment in addition to its usefulness both for SI and as practice in recognizing opportunities.

Edited to add: I posted my own ideas concerning SI and social business in the comments. What are yours? Also, addressing some valid points made in the comments, what are some other innovative ways to fund SI?
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Shikamaru vs. the Logical Fallacies

10 Nick_Roy 04 March 2011 12:35AM

Presenting: Shikamaru vs. the Logical Fallacies, a rationalist fanfic set in the Naruto universe and starring a realistically rational Shikamaru. The writer is a friend of mine going under the alias FanFicBias, and I am an editor along with the author.

We welcome reviews on FanFiction.Net and both reviews and discussion (naturally) are welcome here. We are looking to improve our work, so please be as honest and as harsh in constructive criticism as you like. Praise, however, is also always welcome!

This story does contain SPOILERS for the Naruto series. Readers who are unfamiliar with Naruto may have a hard time understanding what's going on, but it would still be interesting to hear from non-Naruto fans, since perhaps we can ameliorate this issue with the aid of constructive criticism.

We do strive to follow the First Law of Fanfiction and the Rule of Rationalist Fanfiction, so please call us on it if we fail to do so.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6781426/1/Shikamaru_versus_the_Rational_Fallacies

Note: Thanks to all reviewers and participants in this discussion! We're trying hard to make Part 2 even better.

 

 

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