Basically there’s more and more money being spent on live shows and, consequently, more money going to artists themselves. At the same time the labels are being squeezed out of the equation because sales of recorded music are falling.

The Times adds:

It’s interesting too that, overall, industry revenues have grown in the period—though admittedly not by much—which arguably adds strength to the notion that, when the BPI releases its annual report claiming how much ‘the music industry’ has suffered from the growth in illegal file-sharing, what it perhaps should be saying is how much the record labels have suffered. For other people in the industry, not least artists, the future arguably holds more promise.

Indeed. With the exception of Lars from Metallica and a few others, you don’t get the sense that musicians are the ones leading the charge against file sharing.

Via PSFK.

A new book looks at the surprising and inspiring ways people of all stripes can affect social change.

With his new book Actions Speak Loudest, Bob McKinnon has brought together some disparate names to explain how change is fueled by action—not just talk. From Newt Gingrich to Donovan McNabb, Jeffrey Sachs to Jimmy Carter, the book illustrates the many ways in which changemakers leave their mark. McKinnon also heads up Yellowbrickroad, a communications and marketing company that promotes social change through programming, communications, advocacy, and action. We sat down with him to talk about his new book.

GOOD: What inspired the book?

Bob McKinnon: We all have this implicit promise to leave the world a better place for our children. Generally, over the course of previous generations, we’ve been able to keep good on that promise—but what the data now points to is that we may not make good on that promise. We may actually be creating the first generation of children to lead shorter, unhappier, unhealthier lives than their parents, which, in a country with the resources, ingenuity, and the brainpower that we have, is sort of an unacceptable outcome. So the thought was “What do we need to do to draw a little more attention to this promise and the issues that affect it?”

G: And what did you come up with?

BM: We have a short attention span in terms of being able to deal with multiple issues at one time; we’ve got an “issue of the month” mentality. We talk about childhood obesity for a while or maybe climate change gets a lot of attention. We don’t treat them holistically. Our point was to talk about these issues in one project and for us to show how connected they really are. We then wanted to give people some very specific things to act on in the hopes that small actions can accumulate into something much bigger and more powerful.

G: The book has a lot of contributors. How did you pick what to include?

BM: We wanted to select contributors who had demonstrated an action-oriented approach. There’s a wonderful Helen Keller quote we use in the book: “All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” That’s what these people represent. So, our contributors range from Jeffrey Sachs to Jimmy Carter, Rachel Ray to Dave Eggers. Some of them are household names, but there are also people who have experienced the issues that we’re talking about and have a very firsthand knowledge. For example, there’s one written by Richard Castaldo, who was paralyzed at Columbine. I think those are some of the best essays in the book.

When you look at the contributors and what they share in common, these are people who reached into the muck and mire of life and made something more beautiful—a better outcome.

G: The book also has a companion website where you’re encouraging user-generated content.

BM: We wanted it to be a resource, so if people are interested in the work of our contributors or the organizations that are listed in the book, they get more information about what these organizations are doing and how you can get involved directly. We also created a widget, which scrolls through the different actions that are encompassed within the book so every time you visit the site, you can be inspired to do something very immediate. People can tell us about their own actions, about what they’ve done to make the world a better place. It’s been a great way to allow people to demonstrate how their actions are speaking loudest.

G: Who are you hoping to reach with the book?

BM: People who love social change and have an interest in a broad variety of issues. Juan Williams, who contributed both a chapter and the foreword, said two really cool things about the book: One is that a person who has this book in their hands is a dangerous American because they’re empowered to make change. The other thing that he said is that when you look at the contributors and what they share in common, these are people who reached into the muck and mire of life and made something more beautiful—a better outcome.

Buy Actions Speak Loudest here.

When President Obama delivered his stay-in-school speech, reminding students for the umpteenth time that they can’t all grow up to be rappers and basketball players, he caused a stir. It sparked overblown controversy, but it also brought into the national conversation the fact that every year, 1.2 million kids drop out of school—or, one every nine seconds. It’s a shamefully high number, which is why filmmaker Mary Mazzio focused her lens on the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship program in her new uplifting new documentary Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon. NFTE is a program that helps students from low-income communities learn skills that will actually help them more forward in life—preventing them from dropping out in the process. Her film, which opens today, offers a dynamic picture of inner-city life, following a handful of kids as they compete in NFTE’s business-plan competition, all the way to the nationals. We asked her a few questions about the process.

GOOD: The competition starts with tens of thousands of kids. How did you choose who to focus on?

Mary Mazzio: The competition starts in the classroom, then it goes to the school, then it’s cities, states…. I waited until it was regional, it was down to 1,000 kids: I saw all of them, and to be honest, I wanted to follow all of them. It was unbelievably hard to choose. I originally wanted to just do six kids, but that was almost impossible. I thought, I can’t just do six kids! So I then looked for kids I thought would win, and who had compelling and diverse stories of the inner city.

G: You seemed to go to great lengths to paint a dynamic and upbeat picture of the inner city.

MM: So many stories that come out, and so many documentaries, it’s so effing bleak, and it’s all stereotypes. I didn’t know much about inner-city life going in so I learned a lot in the process. And one thing I learned was that for all the Rodneys [a character] in the film, who are so sweet and aspirational—there were hundreds or thousands of kids just like him and they need so little. All they need is a good education. This program isn’t the be-all end-all, but this is a pretty great tool in the anti-dropout toolkit.

G: Because kids are learning things that are relevant to their everyday lives?

MM: “Trig makes no sense—I’m hungry.” “Chaucer? Who cares about Chaucer if my mom is laid out with a drug issue.” Right? That education is completely irrelevant in the lives of these kids. What if you tell them, go to the wholesale district, buy five watches for $5 and sell them for $20, this makes sense: There is money in their pocket, and they learned something, too. But the beauty of that is the traditional education still makes it in there: They still have to learn math, negotiation, and then they stay in school. That’s the point of the whole movie.

G: What, that kids stay in school?

MM: No, that they’re given a reason to be excited about school. Instead of losing a generation of kids, we do something about it. These are tomorrow’s job creators. They can help take us out of the recession: they have the chutzpah, the smarts, the energy, they just have no money.

G: Right, but since not everyone can win, I guess the idea is more that it gives kids a sense of what is possible. What did you think of Obama’s stay-in-school speech a couple of months ago?

MM: Oh my god. It shocked me with the controversy it created. I was stunned. I think we’re so polarized in this country that it’s paralyzing for the nation. But here’s the one thing about this film: I am as left as they get—full disclosure—but I have been getting calls from all kinds of folks on the right, about how excited they are about this film. Here is a common ground, because it’s business, and it’s “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” and that makes sense to someone on the right, and someone on the left. The idea of creating your own opportunity is appealing to the right, but opportuinity and education to me are nonpartisan issues.

G: Or, they should be.

MM: The message about teaching people to be entrepreneurial is nonpartisan. Tom Friedman wrote an editorial recently about how you can’t just be good at what you do, you have to be entrepreneurial and you have to be an innovator. We call it “entrepreneurial” in the film but really it’s about teaching kids and encouraging them to be innovators.

G: The bootstraps argument can be a little contentious when you’re talking about kids,  though, because it can be argued they can only do as much as they are set up to do. Not every kid gets to go through this program.

MM: Well that’s the point: Every kid needs this kind of education. The second goal of this movie is for policymakers and people in positions of influence to say “Whoa, this kind of education is life changing. Why isn’t this in every high school economics curriculum?” Why is it—and let me get on my soap box real quick—that you have to go to a vocational school to learn quote-unquote business. That is ridiculous. When you have a generation of people, especially women, who can’t balance their own check book, who don’t know what a 401(k) is,  and you have to go to a vocational school to learn that? It is so backwards that to learn financial literacy you have to go out of your way. The issues have to be taught to our kids.

G: And that’s what this program teaches them?

MM: It’s innovation and financial literacy. It is my hope that the people who serve these kids to realize how aspirational they are, and that they only need a little bit of water! What is that water? This kind of education so they don’t drop out.

G: You have said you want to make sure kids to see it. How will they?

MM: We signed this innovative arrangement with AMC theatres. It’s unprecedented to have a documentary in a multiplex—in an urban multiplex—and not just your arthouse cinemas for the NPR crowd. There [were] free screenings for kids and teachers on November 12, then there is a wider release. We’re also having a screening at the Smithsonian in DC chaired by policymakers, people from treasury, and influencers. We are taking a multi-pronged approach.

Gabriel Echoles and Rodney Walker, pictured at top, were finalists in the competition. Photo by Richard Schultz. For more information visit Ten9eight.com.

Ten9Eight opens today in major cities.

It’s no secret massive waste pervades the health-care industry. Some of that waste stems from unnecessarily complex interactions between doctors, patients, and insurance companies. By making the entire process hospital care more efficient, we could help limit that waste. By using electronic medical records and streamlining procedures, hospitals could save billions of dollars, which could in turn be spent on better care.

A collaboration between GOOD and Oliver Munday.

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” —Henry Ford

One hundred years later, Ford’s customers are asking for greener SUVs, and that is what Ford is giving them. Whoever gives Ford’s customers a whole new greener way of getting from A to B will become one of the great business legends of this century and will remove a huge barrier between us and a environmentally sustainable future.

But who among the many entrepreneurs, executives, advocates, and inventors working on “greener” transportation will it be? Can we predict which technology will do for automobiles and their emissions what the automobile did for horses and their manure? One place to look for clues is the work of scholars who analyze the progression of technology and the businesses built around them. Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christiansen studies what he has termed disruptive innovations—game-changing technologies and strategies that put entrenched and dated business models out to pasture. His research shows that not all innovations are disruptive, just as our experience tells us that not all “green” technologies are really sustainable. We can use his theory to tell the difference between those innovations that merely help a company maintain its current business model and profit margins (e.g. speedy horseshoes), and those that do the same job as the incumbent technology, but better, cheaper, or in a way that is available to more people.

This exercise in forecasting isn’t just for bragging rights fifty-some years from now. Especially on issues like climate change and species loss, the indicators are consistently pointing in the direction of us heading for a global catastrophe. Moreover, in Washington, D.C., and in countries and companies around the world, hundreds of billions of dollars are being allocated to addressing these problems. Some of this money is going to greener SUVs and their environmental milquetoast cousins in electricity generation like “clean coal,” and some of it is being bet on more ambitious technologies. Even a slightly less cloudy view of the future could make a huge difference to our planet and our pocketbooks.

Disruptive Innovation for Environmentalists
Over the past several decades, and in a large part due to the innovation boom driven by computing, we have seen disruptive technologies and business models enter the marketplace and displace large, highly profitable incumbents. The classic cases are well-known: Mobile phones, at first expensive, unreliable, and conspicuously pretentious devices, eventually disrupted land lines as their price, quality, and size improved because the could be used almost anywhere; desktop printers disrupted copy centers due to their convenience; small Japanese cars disrupted big American gas-guzzlers due to their low cost and efficiency. Disruption does not necessarily mean extinction as anyone who still has a land line at home or at work knows, but it does mean decline and marginalization of the disrupted technology. Executives of traditional telephone companies and American automakers are acutely aware of this.

The environment enters the picture because environmental issues are changing the marketplace. With change (such as concern about air pollution and global warming) comes demand for innovation (like energy from non-fossil sources) and opportunities for disruption (distributed solar power, for example). These shifts in demand can shift the criteria on which a customer chooses a product, and not just in big polluting industries that are most closely associated with environmental concerns. Some of the most environmentally innovative companies are in apparel, retail, financial services, and construction. But not all of these companies are responding to environmentally driven marketplace shifts in a disruptive way, so not all of these green innovations will help us make meaningful progress toward a sustainable future. For a sense of what scale of progress should be considered meaningful, see earlier paragraph on looming global catastrophe.

The theory of disruptive innovation asserts, in part, that as businesses establish themselves in a profitable market, they tend to focus mainly on innovations (such as engine horse power) that help them maintain and increase profits from their best customers, without focusing other customers’ needs on avenues of improvement (like miles per gallon). When there is a change in the marketplace (like an oil crisis or global warming), this creates an opening for other firms to introduce products and services that are cheaper (if less profitable), and/or compete on a different basis (MPG instead of HP), capturing customers who may never have had access to a product before (think mobile phones in parts of the world that have never had land lines) or simply don’t need all the features of an expensive product and are happier with something good enough (like a little Kia instead of a Cadillac).

Disruptive innovations have the effect, in the long term (and sustainability is specifically concerned with the long term), of displacing established businesses and technologies. In that a given innovation can be either disruptive to a business or can help to maintain it, depending on how it is used, it isn’t always obvious, when looking at a given innovation, whether it is disruptive, and whether it will make a long-term difference to the environment. We have to look at the business model of how it is being applied, by whom, and to what end.

Let’s begin by examining a popular technology for improving the sustainability of transportation: The hybrid gas-electric powertrain. The best-known implementation of hybrid technology is in the Toyota Prius. The Prius uses its batteries, regenerative breaking, and electric motor to improve the range the car can achieve on a single tank of gasoline and thereby the environmental impact of operating it relative to a similar, conventional automobile. However, the Prius is still 100 percent gasoline-powered, unless it is modified by a third party so it can be plugged in. In this way, the Prius is a just a greener version of a regular car, helping Toyota and its partners in the fuel industry maintain their current models of doing business, not disrupt them.

Next year promises quite a different take on the hybrid in the form of the Chevy Volt. General Motors actually rejects the term hybrid for the Volt’s powertrain, because the Volt will be an electric car first, with an on-board gasoline engine for charging the batteries that run the electric motor, the only motor in the car that will directly drive the wheels (the Prius can be driven by both its electric motor and gasoline engine). Most importantly, the Volt can be plugged in, so it never has to use gas. The gas tank and generator are included in the car to extend the range afforded by the batteries, not the other way around.

If GM successfully introduces this vehicle it will in fact be a disruption of the incumbent fossil fuel-powered transportation industry of which they are such a big part. However, it is unlikely it will be disruptive enough to change the nature of transportation as much as the introduction of the automobile did. And of course cars are the source of many problems beyond emissions, so we need to keep looking for a champion among the many other contenders, from bikes to buses to aircraft to video conferencing.

By examining other common green technologies using the lens of disruptive innovation, we can learn whether they are truly sustainable technologies, or if they are just green luxury, or even greenwash. Subsequent pieces in this series will consider different types of solar power, different forms of agriculture such as organic and local, the age-old paper versus plastic question, and the value of green building. Some green technologies may literally save the world, but the faster horses of the green technology world will have little meaningful environmental benefit—and so will have the double negative effect of diverting resources from genuinely sustainable, disruptive innovations, and of making the people who purchase them feel as if they are doing their part for the planet, when in fact they are not.

Michael Keating is Business Development Manager at The Open Planning Project.

Luckily, it’s nothing insidious. The money all gets loaned out to people who need money. Rather, it’s a question of perception and transparency. When you go to Kiva to donate money, you are not giving your $25 money to a specific entrepreneur, which is the idea that the company promulgated. But in reality, you’re giving money to institutions that then give money; that goatherder whose picture you clicked on and your money aren’t necessarily going to meet up. The blog post that made this clear (here) used only information from Kiva’s site, but information that wasn’t quite forward facing. Kiva has since changed the tagline on its website from “Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty,” to  “Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty.”

Global Giving’s problems are a little tamer, stemming from the fact that some of the projects you can fund (which you can do by subscribing to GOOD), are not nonprofits, but the nonprofit projects of for-profit companies. There is nothing wrong with this, it’s just that no one was told. The CEO, Dennis Whittle, has written an interesting post at Huffington Post talking about the whole issue and GG’s attempts at transparency.

What’s the lesson here? It’s not that there is anything wrong with these two great, incredibly important companies, but rather about total transparency in the internet age. Everyone is going to find out the truth despite any misleading or obfuscation, and then someone else on the internet will care that you misled them. You might as well just be totally honest in the first place.

In the world of nonprofits, as in most organizations, decisions can be made fast. Opportunities arise and actions must be taken, sometimes without informing the entire staff of what’s to come. Information Technology, or IT, is too often the last department to find out about the plan – a plan that frequently requires our involvement to implement. IT departments often feel like they’re trying to catch up, versus being an integral part of the planning process, which I believe can make a major difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of a nonprofit organization.

Let’s think about that for a second: Would you come up with a diagnosis for yourself, then go to the doctor and tell her to operate? No, the right thing to do is to go to her first, present the problem and with her expertise, she will recommend the best solution.

When it comes to technology in the workplace, the IT department should be your first call. We are the technology doctors and our “patients” are both staff members and clients.

Technology at CHF International
At CHF International, we communicate daily with thousands of people all over the globe who are providing emergency relief, delivering economic support and implementing crucial health programs to some of the poorest areas of the world. Our headquarters needs to be able to communicate with field officers regularly, and our field officers need the technology to communicate with the people they are there to help. Simply put, we cannot do our jobs without technology.

The solution is to speak up
In the nonprofit IT world, efficiency is paramount. People are very passionate about what they do and they can sometimes get carried away with ideas. It is our job as IT experts to speak up! We know what is realistic and what isn’t, we know that there is a much simpler solution, or that the first solution won’t work very well. Efficiency in the nonprofit sector, especially in the humanitarian aid work that we do here at CHF International, could mean saving lives.

The best way to have our voices heard is to make sure we have something good to say. If your organization isn’t giving you room to think like a business, make room – they’ll thank you later. If we allow ourselves to be business-driven, we can source the best possible solution to the situation at hand.

Here are five important questions every IT department should be asking when making a project decision:

1. Is this technology practical?
In development work, environmental conditions are big obstacles to overcome. Sure it’s great that we have just figured out a way to talk in real time over the internet. But when a storm takes out the internet access in a small African village, that communications vehicle will no longer be of use. Technically the technology works, but practically it is a failure. Better to re-evaluate early on and, in this instance, develop offline workarounds.

2. What is the true cost of this technology?
Ongoing maintenance, training and other staff costs beyond the initial investment are elements business thinkers factor in, not necessarily IT folks. Some experts estimate that the purchase price of a new technology is merely 10 to 15 percent of the long-term cost.

3. Are we looking at all the options?
Sometimes, what the organization thinks it needs is not actually what it needs. We as IT experts (and business thinkers, as I’m encouraging) need to make sure we hone in on what the actual problem is, then go from there; not hear what someone else thinks the solution is, then deliver.

For example, in one country, some of our field workers thought they needed a very sophisticated product to be able to complete part of the project. That product would have been costly to not only purchase, but to install, teach to use, and maintain. By taking a moment to go over all other options, we discovered that there was freeware available that would get the job done just as easily.

4. What existing solutions are there within the organization’s global operations?
Closely linked to considering all the options is making sure we check our existing inventory, see if we can outsource, and research what we can buy off the shelf. In development we do not have a Fortune 500 company IT budget, so we must figure out how to choose the best solution for our size of organization.

5. Have we hired the best we can afford?
While many professionals in our position will not be the decision-maker on new hires, we at CHF International unite to take part in that process. On a number of occasions, the IT department from headquarters was involved in setting up and interviewing the IT professional who would be working in the field. We helped find someone who we felt was up to the task because we knew exactly what the project needed. This helps ensure a smooth project start-up.

Regardless of what type of nonprofit you oversee, there are constituents who need to access data regularly. Technology is the link between those constituents, and it may not be the newest tech gadget on the market (in fact, in nonprofit work, it rarely is), but we’ve found that when you think in business-like, practical terms, there can be great hurdles crossed with simple technological fixes.

Working with your counterparts in the field, you can determine what’s best for the project, so speak up.

So, you’ve got

While there are many different social venture firms, each with its own philosophy and process, leaders have begun to emerge within the nascent space. One of them is City Light Capital. I sat down with Managing Partner Josh Cohen to learn what they look for in a good idea, and how they operate.

GOOD: Briefly describe City Light Capital’s mission.

Josh Cohen: We’re trying to make the world safer, more knowledgeable, and more sustainable. That’s what our three sectors of focus are designed to do. We’re looking for the top entrepreneurs building U.S.-based high-growth companies dedicated to tackling some of society’s toughest challenges.

GOOD: What differentiates City Light from traditional venture capital firms?

J.C.: We provide the same due diligence that exists within traditional venture funds. We provide the same focus on financials, the same focus on shareholder value, the same discipline in terms of investing. In fact, we’re often co-investing with non-social VCs. However, there are a few things we do that are different.

The inclusion of social impact as criteria for investment is certainly unique. One of the things that we believe in as a fund is the notion of an “impact premium.” Not only is there no tradeoff between making money and having measurable social impact, but we feel our companies will be worth more over time because of the data and the impact quotient.

GOOD: What sorts of companies do you look for to invest in? What are your typical terms?

J.C.: All of our companies have about a million dollars of revenue, but they’re less than $25 million in pre-money valuation. They’re all U.S. companies and they all fall within one of our three sectors of interest. We invest between one and two million dollars per round, hoping to invest between four and six million over the life of the company. Like traditional venture funds, our model is to look for ten times our money on every deal. On average, we own between five and 25 percent of the company.

GOOD: Talk about “skin in the game.” How important is it that entrepreneurs invest in their idea?

J.C.: It’s essential. The number is less important; the fact that it’s meaningful to the entrepreneur is important. If you can’t demonstrate you are completely committed and in love with your concept and the market and the opportunity, then it’s very difficult to convince other people to feel that way.

GOOD: I often hear about the danger of overshopping an idea.

J.C.: I’m not sure I’m a big overshop guy. I do, however, think there is value in finding a perfect partner. I would recommend that entrepreneurs do their homework on the venture community and pick their dream dates by looking at previous investments we’ve made, the language that we’re using on our website, the places that we show up. You need to understand what kind of business you have and what kind of partners to surround yourself with.

Additionally, nobody wants to be the last in line. If I’m the last guy seeing a deal, I know it. VCs typically co-invest with other VCs, so it’s not uncommon to talk about deals. You also know based on where an entrepreneur is in the process. If a company’s been raising money for nine months and you’re just meeting them today, chances are you weren’t one of their first picks

GOOD: Are there any things you’d tell the budding social entrepreneur to avoid?

J.C.: There are a lot of things that we see that are typical warning signs for us. People who believe they’re going to change the world overnight without relevant experience or without a growth strategy typically never do. People without a business model or business assumptions that drive their growth typically don’t get to see the next card. It’s really about the plan, the assumptions, and the approach almost as much as it is about the endgame.

The Takeaway: If you’re looking to implement major growth, social VCs are a fantastic opportunity for an infusion of capital. Evaluate your requirements, do your research, and determine if social venture capital is right for your business.