GoHuman Blog

Another week means another camera goes to an active GoHuman.com community member. Congrats Mark Schnee of Forney, TX, who just won our 6th Flip HD video camera!

Mark believes in GoHuman.com’s potential to level the playing field for independent professionals.

He said, “I love that you and Wade and your team are creating a community with positive relationships and where we can share our abilities and services with others who are in need of them and find and develop relationships with those that supply our needs for a talent or service.  GoHuman!”

Thanks Mark. We’re doing it for you and millions of other people doing quality work who deserve more. Hire Mark to play piano for your next event.

It’s not too late to win a Flip HD camera by posting before Halloween!

A recent Time Magazine cover article praised Twitter’s “game changing” nature – touting the brilliance of its simplicity, and the ecosystem built around it. It described a “home depot” of ways outsiders tweak the way tweets are created, reviewed and leveraged for a variety of purposes.

Another Time article, on facebook, discussed how divorce lawyers mine Social Media for personal information. When Susie shares on facebook that Bob bought her a necklace, Bob’s wife’s lawyer uses it in court. Or if his wife claims she can not work to increase her case for alimony, Bob’s lawyer uses Jane’s discussions on LinkedIn with potential employers.

The real news here isn’t technology, it’s the behavior of people. This may be an endless chicken and egg discussion, but it’s clear people are exercising less caution about sharing things – in writing – publicly. Facts previously hidden are coming to light more often.

In general, I find this to be a good thing. Our founding fathers established a balance of power which includes a Judicial branch – our legal system – for the sake of justice. The unveiling of facts, the sharing of secrets, enables justice to triumph, where, otherwise, the more savvy lawyer has carried the day – truth and facts be damned.

Will the growth of Social Media result in more truth? Can we handle the truth?

GoHuman.com’s advanced reputation model is designed to both catch and grow this wave, on our way to a more transparent, and therefore more effective, not to mention fair, marketplace.

Are you ready for transparency?

A very special congrats to Kim Cooper, of Los Angeles, CA, who just won our 5th Flip HD video camera. Hire Kim to help plan your next memorable moment!

Kim has been a stalwart supporter of GoHuman.com since the very beginning, and we’re glad she was able to pick up a Flip camera to spread the love.

She says, “I LOVE GO HUMAN because it’s the only site that lets me find local businesses in my area AND provides feedback directly from previous customers. It takes the guessing game out of hiring a person or a business.”

Thanks for all the continued support, Kim.

It’s not too late to win a Flip HD camera by posting your service before Halloween!

Congrats to Tim Farley, the 4th winner in our weekly Flip for Your Community HD camera contest. Hire Tim for computer repair and graphic design today!

Tim joined GoHuman.com because he sees “GoHuman.com as an online community, in which we will be able to connect and communicate with people and businesses in our neighborhoods who share similar challenges and interests. And through this interaction… support and spend more of our dollars with local independents that desperately need and deserve support.

”If we all join together, we can all help make our community a better place to live and work.

“GO HUMAN!”

Thanks Tim. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

You still have multiple chances to win a Flip HD camera by joining GoHuman.com and posting your service before Halloween!

Check out Shift Happens: Education 3.0, for an interesting barrage of stats demonstrating just how quickly the world is moving in education and business. One of the reasons we started GoHuman.com is to help independent businesses keep up with all the changes that otherwise might leave them behind. Individuals are being rewarded for their ability to work independently and fluidly now more than ever. GoHuman.com helps those people find good customers locally for all their various talents.

As we watch the fallout of Capitalism gone wild, and what it does to those who indulge their greed and lust for power, it’s important to remember that the little choices we make along the way are determinate of big choices we would make if we were in those positions.

In this light I read an interesting article in the May, 2009 Ode (the magazine for intelligent optimists). You have to love the tag-line, as the editors are aware that they are at risk of being called naive. You can check out the article “Getting to the Heart of Money” online.

Two choice examples used are an Israeli day care that implemented late fees and found parents were more motivated by common courtesy and perception than money, and volunteers collecting more for charities than those paid to canvas. Bruno Frey, economist at the University of Zurich maintains “People are much more altruistic than standard economics claims,” and lays down the following gauntlet: “The challenge is for economists to nurture this intrinsic motivation instead of crowding it out.”

At GoHuman.com we’re working to attract people to the vision of a better marketplace, that not only helps small businesses reduce marketing costs, improve branding, and grow their customer base, but ensures those who care about making things better are also rewarded for their contributions and the value they create.

We thank those of you who are already on board, and hope to continue this dialogue as a reality check on how we’re doing in maintaining this delicate balance. We view our members, customers, supporters and co-owners as mirrors that keep the operators honest, to ensure that the small choices we make today are in line with the philosophy of creating a transparent market that rewards all contributors in an equitable fashion, no matter when they joined or what positions they hold.

Let us know how we’re doing!

We’ve just announced our 3rd HD Flip video camera winner, Rich Weiser of Katonah, NY. Rich is helping us find local marketing coordinators (LMC’s) for GoHuman.com to find and help businesses that don’t otherwise have access to Web marketing resources. Thanks Rich!

Rich likes GoHuman.com because “It’s a vehicle that’s been designed by people to serve people. Opportunities exist for all who get involved, and the services and benefits to the community are easy to access and unlimited in potential. As the space grows, I believe the light will shine on the power of the GoHuman neighborhood and what it has to offer.”

Flip for Your Community for a chance to win a camera by joining GoHuman.com and posting your service before Halloween.

You’ll have noticed the GoHuman byline above: “change the way your world works.”

Well, the folks at GoHuman.com aren’t your only friends who have that dream – witness Google’s 10th birthday initiative 10^100.

It began in September 2008, asking the public to submit world-changing ideas, from which Google would select and invest $10,000,000 into the most promising.

I’m quick to give a big “thumbs-up” to this, because with Google’s money, public image and presence they’re in a fantastic position to bring in some great ideas out of the 150,000 which have been submitted so far! Hey, who wouldn’t want better methods of clearing landmines, or more effective ways of making our taxes work? So, expect some great things out of Google!

But the skeptic in me keeps reminding me that Google, as a publicly traded company, has an over-riding legal responsibility to constantly deliver the greatest profit for its shareholders!

So what happens to the vast majority of those 150,000 ideas which have profit-making potential? Have the rights been signed over to Google?

One assumes the people contributing these ideas do want to help the world, so they don’t mind if they personally don’t make anything out of it. Or, perhaps they are hoping Google will recognize their genius and take them onboard. But are there any guarantees?

And what about the ideas which would bring great good to the world – but not great profit to Google? What if an idea would be of huge benefit to the world, but also reduce Google’s profit, increase a competitors’ profits, or reduce Google’s market power?

Isn’t Google, like any large corporation, despite having lofty sounding ideals and the greatest of goodwill, trapped by the capitalist system?

I expect, and I’m ready to applaud some real world-changing improvements out of the 10^100 initiative, and I hope I’m wrong in my fear that the best will never see the light of day.