I sent a letter to our CIO the other day asking for OpenID for the office. Strikes me that OpenID is one place where traditional interests of IT (ensuring users have access to what they need, compliance) jibe with those of Web 2.0 service users.
A month or so after Paul Graham and company started Y Combinator, that visionary mix of venture capital and summer camp, they took the motto “Make Something People Want.”
Last spring I attended the NetSquared conference, a competition for nonprofits using the net. The projects were fabulous, with MapLight winning first prize. As part of each project’s pitch, we heard what these organizations, some fledgling, some established, needed.
A friend’s client wanted to help Ghana. Microlending seemed to be a good way to do it. The client would collect money in the US, and fund small loans to farmers and entrepreneurs in Ghana. The web might even make the first half of this — collecting money and telling the stories of who was helped — easy.