See Validation or The Chase and get inspired by the innovative ways talented “amateurs” get paid for their co-created video vignettes.

You, too, can gather the team for your video story. Media agencies can provide the sponsoring companies that want to be associated, by name, with a positively captivating vignette or story that can be seen, for free online or on our new TV/computer.

With the proliferation of screens, we will get used to watching video most anywhere:

• The appetite for engrossing, increasingly well-done, short-form and long-form “movies” will explode – and so will the need for content.

• The power of the video story and word-of-mouth will attract viewers rather than a TV ad campaign.

• The clusters of people who prove they can create audience-attracting content will attract sponsors; soon they may not need the middleman, the media agency to get paid.

• Different teams of talent will form, including  “amateur” actors and editors.

• Individuals will make money teaching others how to create the videos.

• Many teams will create for the niche they know best – people like them. Those “markets” may range from college students to church-goers, from labradoodle lovers to locavores. And they may get paid by the companies that want to reach that market.

• The cream will rise to the top. Some teams of video co-creators won’t last as individuals re-group into more permanent groups of most-talented individuals. Some individuals may get involved in more than one group as their interests change or their talents develop.

•  Like the already disrupted worlds of movie creation and distribution, we, as video storytellers will continue to morph in the ways we co-create, get paid and get our work seen on screens. But this shift will increasingly benefit the adept collectives of storytellers.

Why? Because, in this increasingly connected world:

1. Ideas and stories that pull us in are more valuable than advertising that is pushed at us.

2. It will keep getting easier for talented individuals with a shared interest to find each other and cheaper to co-create stories.

3. Increasingly businesses will pay to be associated with content, including video stories, that reinforces the personality and differentiating value of their brand.

4. The need for middlemen melts as as the number of direct distribution channels (online, smart phone, tablet etc.) increases.

5. The ability for an unknown group to build a loyal, growing and sometimes collaborative following for their stories increases as #4 increases.

6. As the power  continues to shift for consumer-serving companies, from sellers to buyers, buyers gain a bigger voice in what they want to watch so the makers of their favorite videos gain clout and capacity monetize their work. Plus those video storytellers can get real time feedback via their own site, Twitter, Facebook and other social media so they can use that input in their future creations.

• Within a year you’ll probably see a crowdsourcing-style web site where companies can call for the kind of stories they’d like to have created for them.

More excitingly:

- Individuals will recruit others to join them on a specific video project.

- Teams will seek businesses to pay for their concept or completed video.

What video role would you like to play in this next chapter of your life adventure? Writer, actor, videographer, multi-media mash-up editor, location spotter, scenes or costume creator, or?

“I had a woman in Idaho tell me that her options for employment went from one job to hundreds because of her ability to work from home after receiving broadband,” said DigitalBridge founder, Kelley Dunne.

In partnership with others including Internet providers he offered online access to rural or otherwise “underserved areas of the country such as Native American reservations, rural communities and inner-city low-income housing.”

Dunne ‘s lifelong work path provides us with step-by-step insights on how to accomplish greater things with others and savor the friendships along the way.

Here are his steps that we can adapt to our work in our own way, even at a later stage in life:

1. Continuously deepen expertise in one single area that matters to you and matches your talents.

2. Practice working in teams, as a leader and a team player – especially self-organized teams – those not required by a “boss.” More important than leading in this increasingly connected and complex world, see how to become the Most Valuable (kind of) Player most needed in each situation.

Then you’ll stay sought-after for future opportunities on other teams. Morten Hansen calls this T-shaped management yet anyone – even non-managers – can practice it.

3. Learn how to scale and/or replicate the projects on which you work.

4. Keep an eye out for problems to solve and opportunities to seize, where you can employ your deep expertise and befriend apt partners along the way, before you need them.

5. When that irresistible problem or opportunity presents itself be ready. To tackle it find the right partners who complement your talents (and no extra people) and who share a sweet spot of mutual interest with you to tackle that task.

Together get specific on your actionable goal to create a different service, product or organization and/or to serve a different niche better together than you could on your own.

In keeping with those steps, Dunne described what he has done, in a recent interview:

1.“As I started my career, I decided that if I was going to participate in society, I wanted to first do something to serve others. I joined the Army, where I was involved in rolling out some of the first digital wireless communication systems.”

2. “Being a lieutenant in the Army taught me accountability, leadership and teamwork.

I eventually joined a very small company that was delivering DSL technology to apartment communities across the country. We grew rapidly.”

3. “I brought vision, leadership and execution and the ability to build a scalable business. In 2000, when we sold it to Verizon, it became Verizon Avenue.”

4. “I began to see that as the world evolved more into a wireless one, we could create different business models toserve areas that were harder to reach.”

5. “I came up with a plan to do this and pitched it to Verizon. We applied new technologies for underserved areas of the country such as Native American reservations, rural communities and inner-city low-income housing.”

We worked in cooperation with other partners in the industry to help figure out how to serve different parts of the country.”

“I’ve always been an admirer of One Economy. I love the way they ran it like a business, created very collaborative public-private partnerships and focused on the holistic solution – not just access but content training and sustainability.

Here was an opportunity to bring wireless to underserved communities on a bigger scale with a very well-respected organization that has a long track record and is poised to do some fantastic things both domestically and globally.”

Next step for Dunne? He is now the excited new ceo of One Economy, eager to train and mentor more “Digital Connectors” to help low income people improve their lives, including by gaining access to computers and online resources.

Hint: Collaborating around a sweet spot of mutual interest often leads to dreaming bigger and opens new doors of opportunity and friendship.

Become an opportunity-maker for the member organization that most matters to you. Imagine that your association or special interest group kept innovating to create more value and meaning for members.

That’s what TED has done and we can too by taking three collaborative steps over time:

1. Offer a single major conference  – as most associations already do, of course. Involve the members in choosing topics, speakers and formats, base on core guidelines, chosen by member vote. Create a format that enables members to participate in reach a single – and singular goal.

2. Encourage the launch of local conferences yet don’t try to control them. Instead create ground rules for local leaders to succeed while maintaining the quality of the “brand.”

3. Co-brand a fresh version of your national conference with another respected organization on vital topic that matters to the members of both organizations. Allow the founders of your local conferences to co-sponsor that new conference by enabling their members to view it together in their area.

The team at the TED conference announced this third step today.  See how you could adapt these steps to the member group that most matters to you.

Step One

The national TED conference has grown increasingly popular throughout the past 22 years, with the biggest community of members becoming those who avidly watch the videos of speakers.

Step Two

Building on the strength of that largely online community, TED launched, just last April, local events dubbed TEDx. Rather, in true collaborative fashion, they announced guidelines for these local events and invited people to co-host, design and run them. In just one year local leaders stepped up and hosted over 600 such events around the globe.

Hint: To encourage local events, the guidelines start with the benefits for the local organizers and provides an easy-to-follow toolkit: “In the spirit of ‘Ideas Worth Spreading,’ TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience through events they themselves organize, design and host.

We’re supporting approved organizers by offering a free toolkit that includes detailed advice, the right to use recorded TEDTalks, promotion on our site, connection to other organizers, and a little piece of our brand in the form of the TEDx label.”

In so doing, local communities bonded, learning together and created other local collaborations.  Imagine! In over 25 languages were spoken at these talks with opportunities for translation to spread the messages farther – and make speakers more well-known, thus spurring participation by great speakers.

Hint: the more popular your events become the more people you attract to donate their services.

This is the path to peace – and savoring your life with others. Diverse individuals meeting to learn and share best ideas with each other – and, in conversations during the event and afterwards, to find ways they can accomplish greater things together, than they can alone.

Step Three

Today the third step was announced. A new event is linking local groups to the mother ship of the national group – around a new topic area, yet connected to the underlying TED brand of innovation, new ideas – and solving a problem together.  Local groups will get to meet and share this new event live – with other local chapters around the world.  The announcement was that “On September 20, 2010, more than 150 of the world’s leading thinkers and doers will come together in New York for TEDxChange, convened by Melinda French Gates … and hosted by TED founder Chris Anderson.”

With such member loyalty, interest and clout accumulated by TED it can attract a big-time partner – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Also together they share a Sweet Spot of mutual interest – bringing bright minds together to address a big problem: how to improve health around the world.

Plus smart partners tie their collaboration to as many meaning goals and events as they credibly can.  For example, this conference is tied to the 10th anniversary of the famous Millennium Development Goals.

This is a three- stage template that you could use to grow the value and visibility of your profession association – and make it more meaningful for your members.

In fact any member-based club or special interest group could adapt it to their needs to grow its capacity to make powerful changes while imbuing its members with a sense of meaning in their participation.

Think what the Rotary Clubs have accomplished over 20 years with their single goal, bottom-up approach to wiping out polio.  Imagine local Rotary clubs have rallied around this single cause and have raised about $127.4 million for this cause – plus personally worked on projects to make it happen. That gives their lives meaning and builds extraordinary bonds between members and with those they selflessly serve. That dedication and progress towards a singular goal (key to great collaboration) attracted the Gates foundation as a partner.

Tip: When people bring out each other’s best talents in collaboration around a sweet spot of mutual interest they accomplish greater things together than they ever could on their own – and they savor the experience along the way.

To make your member-based organization a member-attracting tool for major change and a source of meaning in the life of your members what singular goal would you suggest they achieve?  For your organization, how would you adapt this three-step approach that has been wildly successful for TED?

We can now pay less for some services and products we want. Venture capitalists are betting millions that we will love this approach.

It’s a fresh take on group buying. Several online start-ups negotiate for their members deep discounts for products/services – provided that enough would-be buyers sign up within a limited time frame.

They offer daily online deals that you can get delivered via Twitter or to your email in-box.

Today, for example, those of us in the San Francisco area can buy sailing lessons for $185 rather than $375 because the deal “tipped” when 50 bought and 52 now have. Or your family can visit the Oakland Zoo for $40 rather than $85 – if enough people say they want this offer.  

A side benefit of such sites is seeing what people in your area think it worth buying or not – even at a discount.

These start-ups encourage members to urge friends (via Facebook and mobile phone app) to also sign up to buy so that they can capture the opportunity to get what they want for that low, low price. 

To sweeten the deal for these encouragers, buyers can get freebies if enough of their friends buy too. (You can also buy something for a friend.)

Two such startups, LivingSocial and Groupon have each raised a whopping $30 million. Both are user-friendly. Groupon is bigger, starting first.  Just last month it attracted two million U.S. visitors.

There are several others.

Which one will break away from the pack and become our “go-to” service of this kind? I’ve enjoyed the savings and the ease of buying two deals at Groupon but LivingSocial will give them a good run for their money (and they both have buckets of it).  Tell me what you think.

Share a bike, find a babysitter, make a home wireless and other  needs for ad hoc services to find, rent, sell and hire could be made safer and easier for buyers and sellers with National E-Markets (NEMs). “Think Ebay writ large and better regulated.”

With more opportunities for short-term work more people gain at least slivers of employment. And slivers mean lot when people don’t have enough money for food and a place to live. 

Also many people can help each other as they help themselves with this approach, especially in this bad economy. What’s needed say experts is government mandated tighter/safer regulations so we can trust the online systems that private companies create to support this collective activity.  

British-based Connected Community: “How can such a system we brought into being? The private sector would fund these markets if Government could put the conditions in place…The Government needs to work much more with the natural behaviour of people. Selling time and possessions, rather than products as such, is very difficult to regulate, tax etc, but it can and should be done. The technology is not the problem, the problem is political will.”

Net Benefit author Wingham Rowan goes further and dubs such systems guaranteed electronic markets (GEMs).  In academic language he cites this ultimate public benefit: GEMs would run alongside ordinary electronic commerce, but disintermediation would mean that they would be less expensive. They would abolish the dominant position of large businesses, with all participants having to reach minimum quality and reliability standards.”

This is not a new idea – just an easier and cheaper one with the advent of online innovations. Better than the black market or unregulated bartering this approach enables the government to set standards for a system to be created by private firms in the public interest, making it safer for us to exchange goods and services – especially for short periods of time. 

Done right it leverages the efficient, people-serving strengths of democracy and capitalism.

Imagine if our local governments had a system like some British municipalities have to match people with limited free time with individuals and firms needing part-time or temporary staff. 

Currently, for some local and national e-markets we can gain some of the benefits of a NEM but not a GEM.  Usually these are group-regulated online services, often dependent on a dedicated, volunteer community manager as at my Marin freecycle chapter.

If villagers living in the midst of poverty and war can be nudged to work better together with just three simple rules (honed via a parental competition study) and a reward (money, in this case) then maybe your group (team, board, committee, etc.) could too:

1. The village leaders (or your project leader) are elected by secret ballot.

2. The village (or your group) holds communal meetings – meaning open to all participants and no secret side confabs.

3. The results of all meetings are covered completely and accurately and that coverage is made available, quickly, to all participants. Here are two other posts you may find helpful:

How We Help Each Other Do the Right Thing…Sometimes

Disagree? How to Keep Talking Instead of Arguing

Thank you Guy Kawasaki & team for placing two of my blogs on the top of your Alltop category – Collaboration - How We Partner and this blog.  In celebration of this recognition I finally updated my blog roll here on Moving From Me to We.

Unfortunately, whilst I posted these valuable collaboration-related links I cannot yet get them to appear. I have appealed to my blog design hero Cody McKibben for help) so let me share then with you here right now because, well we can be smarter together. 

Alltop/Collaboration

Beth Kanter

Bioteams

Center for Citizen Media 

Collaborate

Collaboration 2.0

Collective Intelligence

Cognitive Daily

Communities Dominate Brands

The Community Roundtable

Connect NESTA 

Cooperation/Berkman Center/Harvard

Consumer Generated Media 

Conversation Agent

Converstations

Creating WE / Judith Glaser

Creative Class

The Culture of Collaboration

Danah Boyd / Zephoria

Don Tapscott 

Full Circle / Nancy White

Herd 

How We Partner

Idea Architects / Jeffrey Cufaude

Interpersonal Skills Lab

Kolabora

Logic + Emotion / David Armano

Made by Many

mashable

Mass Customization 

Mastermind Group Resources

MIT Convergence Culture Consortium

MIT Center for Collective Intelligence 

Networked Performance

Network Weaving

Ning

Nudge

OpenCongress

P2P Foundation

Public Journalism Network

Putting People First

Resonance Partnership

Shel Holtz

The Situationist

Skoll Foundation

Smart Mobs

Social Customer

The Social Age

Social Edge

Social Media Biz

Social Psychology Network

Social Science Statistics

Society for Industrial & Org. Psych

Trends in the Living Networks

Ugluu

Vizthink

Wikinomics

Winning by Sharing

Wired to Care

“We live in the age of interdependence. Borders don’t count for much or stop much, good or bad, anymore ~ Bill Clinton

One person didn’t cause it. Like most great events Independence Day happened because people came together around an idea greater than any single individual. Within that revolutionary declaration of how these united states should be governed are “firsts” that inspire us today.

“Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.” ~ Robert South

When some of us believe that a freedom or responsibility in this noble experiment is being ignored fierce – and open –  debate ensues amongst many of us.

“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Our greatest weakness comes not from without but from within. Each time we do not vote or speak up in civil debate or take action, we dilute our collective strength. In celebrating this day of independence let’s recall it happened because people came together to accomplish something greater than they could alone.

“Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.” ~ Antoine de Rivarol

That is the inherent Me2We opportunity for Americans. Wherever you live the possibility of peace and freedom burn bright only when people rise up together. It may not be the way yet it is the most likely way.

In celebration of this day, here are some Me2We thoughts (what are your favorites?)…..

“It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.” ~ Tom Paine

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” ~ John Lennon  

 “Perhaps we are not here to see each other but to see each other through.” ~ anonymous

“The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievement, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, I was wrong.” ~ Sydney J. Harris

“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.” ~ Henrik Ibsen  

“Step into the strong currents of history and shape your country’s future. Your own story and the American story are not separate, they are shared. And they will both be enriched if together, we answer a new call to service.” ~ Barack Obama

“To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.” ~ William Hazlitt

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, that is an idea whose time has come.” ~ Victor Hugo

“The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.” ~ Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kenney

“Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there’s got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you’re at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together.” ~ Yo Yo Ma

“A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We judge others by their acts, but ourselves by our intentions.” ~ American proverb

 “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Human beings are essentially here for two purposes – to learn about and express love, and to create.  We learn about love in all our relationships.” ~ Angeles Arrrien

“The best way that we can begin to produce positive change is to make peace with what is in ourselves and others, and then work to move forward and make life even better.”?~ Marshall Goldsmith?

“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.” ~ Cesar Chavez 

“I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences.”  ~ Margaret J. Wheatley  

“Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion.” ~ Dwight Macdonald

“Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” ~ Chief Seattle

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.” ~ Jimmy Carter  

“Peace is the result of the small stitchery of everyday actions, most of them unconnected to any of the others.  Each carried out in a long train of other.” ~ Will Kirkland

“Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.” ~ William Hazlitt

“We didn’t come over on the same ship, but were all in the same boat.” ~ Bernard M. Baruch

 “We take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere.” ~ Tim McGraw

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”  ~ Benjamin Franklin 

“I am becoming the people I love.” ~ Carlos Santana

The shocking moment for rising stars is when they meet someone who’s rising faster. For some of us this happens in fourth grade, for others it’s in college or on a job. The good news is that you’ve still got a way to get ahead. Even now. And it’s more fun. Hear how in my conversation with Zane Safrit. 

Hint: You may be smart, hardworking, well-intended – even good-looking. Yet if you can’t collaborate with people extremely unlike you (they don’t act right – like you) you’re leaving opportunity on the table. In fact, you may be burning bridges. Use your talent fully with others. Here’s four barriers to successful collaboration: 

1.   We were raised, especially in the U.S. to look out for ourselves first. The maladapted lone hero who does it his way is a popular figure in our country.  Group-centered successes aren’t conventional movie plots.

2.   We weren’t taught to create and work in teams. Luckily, for the past 15 or so years, many students have been studying in groups after school so they’re adept at sharing and collaboration.

3.   Working with others we lose control. We are vulnerable to the weakest link, the goof-off or control freak or other wrong team member. Yet, like working alone, collaboration involves a learning curve. You get better at starting simple, sizing up partners, doing more due diligence about them.

4.   Starting conversations by talking about oneself, giving background, taking too long before suggesting the “sweet spot” of mutual benefit when recruiting others. Instead describe the opportunity upfront,  what’s in it for them and what that person brings to the table, as a teammate.

Then adept Me2We opportunity-makers describe the rest of the team they have or want and why. At each step they seek other’s suggested improvements.  They don’t even have to be in charge if there is a better player to help us accomplish the goal.

Some are natural opportunity-makers.  Entrepreneurs are instinctively Me2We, especially those involved in start-ups. They keep in touch with diversely talented people, brainstorm ideas and love to look for opportunities. 

l seek role models who’ve honed their ability to be specific about a singular goal, recruit the right players, care for their stakeholders – and bring out the best side in others.  Some include Stephanie Evans, Brad Feld, Anita Campbell, Jim Fruchterman, Mimi Silbert, Ben Casnocha,  Michelle Obama and Jeff Skoll.

Got an idea? Feeling stuck? Underfunded? Alone? Seeking  a new way to work and live? Ironically, the key is often involving people you may not yet know. But they have the skills, the resources or the contacts you don’t. It is for us that I have been writing this blog.

Exuberant Zane Safrit interviewed me about why I feel so passionate about the power of a Me2We mindset.

In this increasingly transient, time-starved, connected world people crave camaraderie and shared success.  Adopt a Me2We approach with others to generate more money, friendship, independence – to live a bigger life.  In this kind of collaboration, the icing on the cake is the thrill of creating something greater  - with others – than one can alone.

Who knows? You may find yourself the co-author of the colorful adventure story you are meant to live. Co-create new chapters with engrossing characters, lively scenes, exciting plot twists and more meaningful outcomes.

What ways have you already collaborated to create something greater – with others? 

… do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them?”  That’s one question in Gallup’s recent poll of 140 countries. It turns out that the wealthier and more stable your country the more likely it is that you have friends to whom you can turn. 

(Guess which country tops the list, despite its recently reduced economy.)

This makes intuitive sense to me. Yet Foreign Policy’s Christina Larson wrote, “Poor countries are often assumed to have relatively weak government safety nets, but also strong social networks—extended families and friends who can pitch in during hard times.”

But the desperately poor, surrounded by conflict, don’t have the luxury of helpfulness.  The more stable a political and economic culture the more able citizens are to be supportive of each other. If you lost your home long ago and don’t know when you and your children will eat next, it’s difficult to find time to help someone else.

As Steve Crabtree observed last year, “Money can’t buy happiness — but it sure seems to buy a lot of life satisfaction,” at least relatively speaking.

One side note in seeing the poll results: I’m tempted to re-visit Ireland. By country, here are the percentages of poll respondents who answered “yes”:

48% Pakistan

54% Afghanistan

62% Cambodia

62% Iran

80% China

95% United States

98% Ireland