GoHuman Blog

I’ve been cooking up this blog since I lived in Germany in the early 90s.  I read “Food 2000″, a coffee-table book, touting “food miracles” – scientists solving world hunger and such.  It was sponsored propaganda against Alliance 90/The Greens.  I was horrified by what I saw.

I was just beginning to recover from an “incurable” auto-immune-related condition little understood by Medical Science, using dietary and other natural methods.  I told myself I would help change the system of systems.

Now Agribusiness is moving from propaganda to sinister control.  Scientific American, explains how Bio-engineering companies own articles published about their seed. Cropchoice.com explains how farmers using seed infected by patented seed are guilty of stealing.  Food Inc. is eating up the conscience of consumers.  Watch it, and take a symbolic stand, however small.

Yesterday Forbes arrived, with Monsanto on the cover as Company of the year.  Forbes’ arrogance since the economic meltdown has shocked this longtime reader.  The Frankenstein monster of business is  running rampant.  Our food supply is controlled by companies bio-engineered for greed.

Greg Brown sings “I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall and I cried out in a song: if we could do all that in thirty years, then please tell me you all – why does good change take so long?”  Join us and speed up change.

Why GoHuman.com? reason #6?  Local Food

Fight for your right to control your own food!

Reason #1; Reason #2; Reason #3; Reason #4; Reason #5;

Next Time #7: All Hail Snopes! Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11; Reason #12

Capitalism is driven by advertising.  It pays for our lifestyle but at what cost?

Global corporations reverse-engineer our psyche with mega-million-dollar advertising budgets, and program us on what to buy.  A system of systems arose profiting from the consumption of crap – euphemism intended.  Stellar brands for worse than worthless products are built by these machines.

Coke “adds life” – and 8 teaspoons of sugar to a nation struggling with diabetes and obesity epidemics.  Sugar free versions contributed to cancer, alongside a cancer causing scourge sold to us by sexpots, future presidents, babies, Mickey Mantle and Santa Claus.  What no-one wants can be sold for massive profits.

What’s wrong with that?

Maybe sponsorship is merchandising the bodies and souls of men?  If that’s too dark, Raj Patel’s video on The Value of Nothing is a good chaser.

Why GoHuman.com? reason #5: Our business model is not advertising.  Our growth depends on members taking owning up, not selling out.

Does Santa Clause cancer?

Reason #1; Reason #2; Reason #3; Reason #4;

Reason #6?: Food Fight!; Reason #7; Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11; Reason #12

In this inspirational article about getting respect for being your own boss, I’m reminded of why I set out on my own more than six years ago to start a business and why I’ve been working the past several months to launch GoHuman.com to empower even more people to do this.

It’s about freedom, respect, standing on your own two feet and knowing that you are responsible for your destiny–as much as that’s possible for anyone. For me, it was about knowing that I alone had a unique way of serving my clients that kept them coming back for more. This serves as daily reminder of the importance of independent professionals and local businesses.

I guess I was lucky to have far more supportive friends and family than this article describes. Tough love is made of people who play devil’s advocate, but at some point if people see the fire in your eyes they should know they’ll serve you best to support you.

As the world gets more professionally diverse, people have more careers and skills throughout life than ever. This is more than a trend. It’s a sign of things to come. GoHuman.com enables you to represent all your talents and passions in one place. But it’s about more than telling people what you’re up to. It’s about connecting with real people near you who need your services and want to promote your great work to others.

It’s hard to find time to take a breath, but here are 5 easy tips for equalizing your independent life.

Decades ago Bob Dylan sang that the times were changing. There are again welcome indications of serious change underfoot. They are the real green shoots cropping up. One of the most recent ones I saw was the $500M apology from Goldman Sachs.

If anyone doubts that this is change, consider this. Goldman Sachs first blustered in defense of it’s profiteering coming out of the near global economic meltdown. They were obviously very happy to reap the spoils in a game of global chicken, in which the last one standing can make out like a bandit, if of course the horrifying crash is avoided.

They also took the standard arrogant stance that they deserved the out-sized bonuses they pay themselves for sucking enormous amounts of value out of the system, at the expense of those at the bottom, who’s blood they are harvesting as they squeeze the proverbial turnips.

But now they are apologizing. And in delivering the $500M to small businesses who have suffered from their exploitation of the so-called free markets and the resulting global economic serfdom.

So this is indeed a welcome start. It’s an indication that, ultimately, the world is programmed towards a new level of maturity. One in which the actual worth of each individual voice is equal, independent of their net worth.

We had a bit of a time delivering the good news to our 7th Flip HD video camera winner a couple of weeks ago, but persisted thanks to all the great help Sasha Veljic has given to GoHuman.com. Sasha had a lot to say about GoHuman, so I’ll just let him say it!

“When I was introduced to GoHuman.com, its values and vision attracted my attention and admiration.  Primarily it is the vision of a better marketplace that is helpful to small businesses.  More and more people are interconnecting through the Internet.  That gives a chance to everyone.  The fact that GoHuman is built from the bottom up, with no top elite wielding power and reveling in greed is the principle factor that drew me in.

“I live in an area that has been affected by conflicts resulting in tremendous economic catastrophe that has plagued our nation for almost 20 years and continues due to current corruption and lack of legal state.  Living in strained economic conditions with many limitations and lack of commodities freely enjoyed in the West lead me to the conclusion that Internet-based small business venture is the best opportunity for me and others.  Besides, among GoHuman founders there are individuals who never cheated me in our past business relations, so GoHuman is a continuation of honest, altruistic business ventures with proven true business people that I share the same vision with.

“Internet here is not cheap.  However, it is a window to the world.  GoHuman has the best possible potential to provide all participants with equality on the market place.  Each user is able to form a list (circle) of reliable co-workers that can be better coordinated across local areas and the entire world.

“I believe I have caught the vision of GoHuman since its very inception.  A good cause cannot have a bad effect.  GoHuman values are timeless and its success certain.  My vision is to be a part of a successful worldwide business movement that will also cause changes in East Europe.”

Thanks Sasha! Beautifully said.

Hire Sasha for translation services (English and Spanish to Serbian).

WIN your own Flip HD camera by sharing a local service you provide or need!

Couldn’t help but share this article by James Altucher of Formula Capital who made minor headlines with his recommendation to legalize insider trading.

This comes in the wake of the demise of Galleon Group, a hedge fund whose head billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, was caught with a big hand in the insider trading cookie jar. This welcome clampdown on some of the real perpetrators, as opposed to the symbolic arrest and incarceration of Martha Stewart a few years back, is met with someone who should know better calling it a victimless crime.

I guess if the crime is not personal, meaning it’s committed against any and everyone indiscriminately, then those who are leveraging their positions of relative power and influence feel no one is really victimized.

Here at GoHuman.com we take a bit more of a holistic view of things. Our marketplace of local services is designed to be transparent, built from the bottom up, with shared ownership. We seek to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for insider information to even exist, much less be exploited by a privileged few at the top.

We hope you’ll catch the vision, spread the word, and help make this marketplace the wave of the future.

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?

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.

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.

On the surface I’m a typical white American male. Dig deeper and you’ll find that I was born in Canada and have lived in 7 countries. Some of my formative years were spent in Sweden, a “socialist” country bordering on the Soviet Union, during the Cold War years.

We didn’t follow regional basketball and baseball, we watched Sweden compete in Soccer and Hockey with countries that had opposing ideological, political, social and economic systems. My Swedish cousin used to joke that the Russian ships patrolling the Baltic borders were Keeping people from flooding into the “Worker’s Paradise”. I am fascinated by these differences, how they affect the individual, and the societies they produce.

Throughout history people have tried a variety of economic models, social systems and government structures, with mixed results. The Internet has enabled new experiments that leverage the “voice of the people” and democracy in new ways. In the US the Internet has played an increasing role in determining who can become a presidential candidate and, most recently, who gets elected.

I believe in the power of the individual, communities, and nations to achieve self determination, create change, and control their destiny. GoHuman.com addresses change up and down economic and power pyramids. It provides new ways of working and being compensated at the micro and macro level. It provides new ways of connecting, working and relating – one-on-one or in larger circles, in new, innovative, and positive ways. And I believe that as its adoption rate increases, it will produce real, lasting change.

GoHuman.com is not just “social networking”. It harnesses the power of the latest technology advancements of the human race, and pushes the envelope of integrating these into our daily lives, our economic philosophy, and our social structure. GoHuman.com has the power to improve the equality and dignity of individuals and communities across socio-economic boundaries, while celebrating their unique and cultural characteristics.

I believe in GoHuman.com’s primary tagline – that you can use it to change the way your world works. As John Lennon said in one of his most famous songs, “Imagine” “You might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”

Wade Fransson
GoHuman.com Co-Founder

Me and my gal