The late, late alonovo 2.0 Beta

is nearing completion and due to be released later this month. It is a complete rewrite of alonovo. The alonovo/amazon shopping experience is better and faster.

The registered alonovo community will have the ability to choose their favorite and most hated corporations, comment on blogs and rate blogs and comments and more.

alonovo 1.2 Soft Launch

We hope you enjoy the updates to the alonovo site as we move forward with a major rewrite that we will launch later this year. While some of the changes are cosmetic, we will be adding some new functionality that (with your help) will create more revenue share for our family of beneficiary organizations.

As always we are very grateful to all of you that use the service and help us grow.

A Brief Jena 6 Update -

I made the drive from Austin to Jena, Louisiana and attended a protest earlier today.(you can read more about the background at http://colorofchange.org/jena/index.html).


In the photo to the left -the families of the imprisoned youth speak out -many of their mothers and fathers are ex-military.

What strikes me as remarkable is the courage and resolve of the people I spoke with and at the same time, thinking that Dr. King Jr. gave his brilliant "I Have a Dream Speech" almost 44 years ago, yet here we still are.



The photo below is the march from the courthouse through the small town and back to the courthouse.



I was really glad to make the drive and be here, as much theoretical socio-economic stuff I do behind a keyboard when you have the opportunity to venture out and support people that are speaking truth to power it provides a deep well of motivation and inspiration.

Ready, set, Action -

After too long behind a keyboard trying to incrementally drive positive societal change, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. boom and echo through the back of my mind.


"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now the time has come to make real the promises of Democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood ..." (I Have a Dream, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -August 28, 1963).

So today, right after a critical strategy call for alonovo.com (which holds the potential for badly needed development resources and a more robust method for more comprehensive social behavior data about corporations, I'm off to Jena, Louisiana to support the Jena 6.

A note to friends at NASA CoLab

I'd sent the following in email to a dear friend (I won't name names, let's just call him "Andrew" for now) who continually counter-balances my Andy Rooney-ish tired crankiness with youthful optimism and intelligence. He was an early mentor on what was to eventually become alonovo.com and helped connect me to some amazing people at CivicSpace Labs. While I'm not deluded (enough, yet) to think that my notes are all that interesting, he encouraged me to blog this, so here it is ...

The more I think of some of the discussions we had at the Thai restaurant with your parents the more I understand how badly society needs to look up into the sky and dream about what is possible again.

The science and technology that once gave all people hope --that if we could walk on the moon, anything is attainable as a society or within the framework of our own lives --has taken a backseat to war, corporate profit and bling.

While the current administration hasn't totally cast us back into the dark ages yet, they have certainly diminished our educational infrastructure through lack of funding (beginning with the Reagan years). Early childhood education is where the spark of exploration (the desire for knowledge and understanding) begins with well resourced schools, talented, caring teachers and parents that have not totally been beaten down by a system of economic tyranny.

There is mountain of work for the NASA CoLab team ahead, (ironic we originally met in Mountain View?) however the intellect and optimism from that group holds great promise.

alonovo and the charge of the libertarian brigade

If I were asked to characterize myself at this point in my life I'd consider myself a pragmatic liberal. Nevertheless, I continue to keep an open mind (I must have an open mind that would easily explain why I forget things -as new ideas emerge, remembering where I put my keys gets more challenging).

As the concept of alonovo was formed (and yes, it started from a peace-loving, tree-hugging, born and raised in Los Angeles vegan perspective) an interesting thing happened. As I went looking for investment most of the time I found myself in the lair of conservatives and the occasional libertarian. It was pointed out to me that the concept of alonovo could benefit society without regard for political ideology. The concept of corporations trampling on all of us in search of bigger profit margins was something that could rally most of America. The more that I reflected upon this concept the more appreciation I had. Here was an opportunity to bring America back together as opposed to continuing to polarize, divide and conquer. In interviews I coined the phrase "You don't have to be a Democrat to want a blue sky, you don't have to be a Republican to want a growing economy."

As I met with people representing the spectrum of political ideology, I befriended some Libertarians, notably Ernie (Freedom's the answer, what's the question?) Hancock in Phoenix and Eric Garris in the SF area. I found their perspective refreshing and a handful of lunches and coffee's led to the individual weighting system in alonovo. Instead of alonovo determining what constitutes good corporate social behavior, we took the 30+ attributes of Corporate Social Behavior (or more commonly and incorrectly, Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR) and we provide a simple method for each alonovo.com user to establish their own experience by weighting the factors that are important to them. For example, if you are dedicated to environmental issues, however do not feel strongly about labor, animal rights and ethics --you can weight the attributes of CSB to highlight the environmental issues so the ratings that are displayed for you are very sensitive to the underlying environmental ratings data.

We felt this was an important intellectual contribution to alonovo from the Libertarian perspective and we have also applied this philosophy to the organizations we work with that range from CODEPINK to the National Military Family Association.

In a near future release, we expect to have some NGO's and beneficiary organizations we work with establish their own weightings that will be the default for their respective constituency (however can be overridden by their individual alonovo users).

alonovo.com, 2.0

The next release of alonovo.com is getting ready for the development phase while I continue to look for resources that will further the mission without jeopardizing the integrity of the alonovo concept.



I'm convinced that the method of connecting how corporations interact with people and planet is crucial to improving the quality and dignity of life in America and around the world. The alonovo engine is innovative and unique --and it is time to take it to the next level.

The key features of the next release are:

• The Universal Shopping Cart -imagine using an online shopping website that would allow you to shop from many of the merchants in the CoopAmerica Business Network, seamlessly.
  
• alonovo.com Private Label -NGO's such as CODEPINK and United for a Fair Economy can integrate the alonovo.com online engine directly into their own webpages. We would also make this available for public school districts for fundraising and other community-based organizations.
  
• Context-sensitive Content Placement -When people search for a coffee maker we provide a simple area within their search results that reminds them "not to forget their fair trade coffee" from companies like Larry's Beans, Peace Coffee and Equal Exchange.


• An education area -brief, edgy, compelling streams that show the significance of the attributes of Corporate Social Behavior (Sweatshop labor, pollution, lobbying etc.)


• A complete social network that will facilitate the interaction of the alonovo.com community and will help identify emerging products and services that are from evolved companies.


• Interface agnostic -Toolbar, PDA/Mobile Device/Web, anyway you want it!