This is part two of “Pizza, Beer & Stock Options Don’t Cut It Anymore: Technologists and Social Entrepreneurs” - part I is here. 

In my role with Ethicodes I’m designing a mobile game-type app for ethical and sustainable consumption. In my professional life, I’ve been a designer and programmer for web and mobile. That means I have the unique experience of having been on both the management / programmer table. The work I do for Ethicodes can’t be done alone, and I’ll admit, there are (many) elements of programming that are better left to the specialists. In my juggling of these two worlds, I’ve come across the paradox of social enterprise technology. Most often it comes down to money, understanding and respect. Here’s some advice from both sides of the table.

Part II: Tips for Developers

• No Eye Rolling. Sometimes opportunity is about showing up. We understand everyone from your grandmother to your boss is asking you to fix something. But please be open to the possibilities and try to leave the jaded personality at home. It takes a certain type of person to be a programmer—some say it is a cynic’s exterior over an incurable optimist inside—after all, it is your job to constantly find ways to break your own code, with the expectation that there is a way to make it logically perfect eventually. I suspect the social entrepreneur is the exact opposite—incurably optimistic on the outside (we can fix the world!), with a constant cynicism on the inside (because the world needs fixing badly).
• Consultation Fees. An interview is not a consultation. Everyone understands you are in high demand, and your time is valuable (at least they do if they read the above). However a 1/3 of a total standard consulting fee should be business and overhead related. That means $50 of your $150 fee is there to account for this initial meeting, as well as computer upkeep, and the time it takes to invoice clients. I recently had a very talented developer request a consultation fee before even discussing their skills. They were off the list immediately, but a little further research revealed their skillset wasn’t the greatest—which could have been a costly mistake for me. On the other hand, if they had agreed to an initial discussion, they would have gotten the opportunity to convince me otherwise.
• Understand business etiquette. As a programmer you have a lot of wiggle room as far as business attire goes. In fact, I frequently feel like the older the t-shirt I wear, the more I am assumed to be a talented programmer. Very few people expect you to show up in a suit (and if the above is true, it might actually work against you). So when I say business etiquette, I am not primarily talking about attire (though sweatpants might not be the best idea). Despite what you learned from your brilliant CS professor, some basic social and conversational skills are necessary. Texting and muttering during a meeting are not looked upon favorably by anyone. Inability to manage your own schedule and terse, incongruous and borderline rude emails (despite a footer that says “sent from my iPhone”) are also not working in your favor. You will need to be able to work with other people in some capacity for the rest of your life regardless of how talented you are.
• Be clear about your skills. We all know you can learn as you go along, and too often that is what must happen as new technologies and languages arrive. Hiring managers should understand this. That said, be clear about what you know now versus what you can learn. When I worked at LiveJournal, all the programmers had to learn BML (Brad’s Markup Language - which only existed in Brad Fitzpatrick’s work). Obviously, no one came to the company knowing how to do this (aside from Brad of course) and all of them learned. However, there are always going to be programmers who know Ruby, C+, and all of the main languages better than you. Managers just want to know what they are signing up for in the skills department, so be honest and clear about what you know now and what you would be happy to learn in the future.
• Invest in future employers. You undoubtably will come across social entrepreneurs who are hoping that you can “share their vision.” Sometimes this means working at a discount or being available for questions when otherwise you would not. You shouldn’t do all of their work for free or let them stomp all over you. Make this clear from the start, but also let them know how interested and invested you are in their vision. Try “I {am;am not} really into the goal of {fixing the world;helping the poor;educating children} so I {can help;cannot help}. However I think it would be a good business decision if you hired {me;a specialist;a team} to do x, y, and z.” Knowing your investment level from the start will help them gauge how much they can lean on you when the going gets tough, and will prevent any misunderstandings for both sides.
• Don’t steal ideas. This should be another obvious one, but isn’t. You may have the CS talent to bring an idea to fruition with little help. However, social entrepreneurs likewise have talents that you don’t have, usually business and field-specific ones. They also (hopefully) had legal agreements, copyrights, and precedent over an idea long before they brought you in on a project. It is a much better option for both of you to work together for a common goal than get into messy legal battles later.
• Agree on Baby Steps. Entrepreneurs want a perfect product, and often don’t yet have the backing or technical process-knowledge to make it bulletproof. And you might not be sold on their product or time commitment. A good way to start off is to both agree to a minimum viable product - meaning the smallest commitment you as a programmer can get a way with while still testing some of their business and usability assumptions. It might be as simple as a programming diagram, a series of mobile web pages or a pong-level app (free of fancy graphics or complex engagements).Taking a small first step will help everyone figure out if they work well with one another and how on board everyone is. After that, you can throw in the towel or figure out the next small step.

Just like last time, I’d love to hear from other management / developers about experiences, tips, and frustrations in the comments.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes and Research Associate at the Ethiopian Global Initiative. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

Related articles

• What is a Social Entrepreneur? (fiwal.org.uk)
• Entrepreneurship and the Social Entrepreneur (ruralstops.blogspot.com)
• Four Business Tips for Social Entrepreneurs (bayintegratedmarketing.wordpress.com)

In my role with Ethicodes I’m designing a mobile game-type app for ethical and sustainable consumption. In my professional life, I’ve been a designer and programmer for web and mobile. That means I have the unique experience of having been on both the management / programmer table. The work I do for Ethicodes can’t be done alone, and I’ll admit, there are (many) elements of programming that are better left to the specialists. In my juggling of these two worlds, I’ve come across the paradox of social enterprise technology. Most often it comes down to money, understanding and respect. Here’s some advice from both sides of the table.

Part I: Tips for Social Entrepreneurs

• Enthusiasm is contagious, but not that contagious. You are the idea guys, we all understand that. You are doing what you are doing because of a love of something - sustainable energy, or poverty alleviation, or accessible education - but don’t expect everyone to share your enthusiasm. And more importantly, don’t expect technology professionals to do what they do for free. It’s true, if you find the right person, with the right values and skillset you can get a lot done for very little money. But understand that this is very rare.
• Know what you are talking about (or find someone who does). A viable app, website or product includes a lot of moving parts. It is your job to plan and research which of those parts are needed. For example, if you are creating a web product you’ll need to know what platforms you are working on (Web, iOS, Android, etc.), what language you are working in (C+, XHTML, Flash, Ruby, etc.), and how users interact with it (login through Facebook or Twitter, create an account, etc.) to name a few.
• Rome wasn’t built in a day. In some cases you’ll have a product that gets developed and launched and doesn’t change ever, but only if you work at Microsoft. As a social entrepreneur you’re probably going to look for agile or iterative development, meaning you decide on a basic goal for a beta product and expand out from there based on a constant feedback loop. Don’t begin a programming request with “and then fireworks shoot out of the screen.” Decide what kind of core you need and worry about the bells and whistles later.
• Respect talents and time (and expect the same). If you are talking to a programmer, it’s because they are better at programming than you are. Contrary to popular beliefs, they are not kids geeking out in their parents garage anymore. They have invested a massive amount of their lives, and usually a lot of education, getting to know code. They would also be happier spending your meeting time watching Futurama. In order to respect their time and talent, be specific about what you want out of meetings and how long you will be there. If you are talking to a back end Ruby programmer, it’s a waste of everyone’s time talking about the UI and CSS, or worse yet, monetization and business practices.
• Know who you are talking to and what they can do. Again, if you are talking to a Ruby programmer, have a basic grasp of what that means and stick to it. If you are unsure what different roles, languages or processes are or what might be needed, get a technical project manager or ask around. Great tech products are not made by one person anymore, that hasn’t happened since 1998. Jut because you’ve found one programmer doesn’t mean you should expect them to do everything. In most cases they can’t and in all cases, they don’t want to.
• Appeal to desire to do good, but make it clear that you understand what the kind of commitment entails. You are asking for a lot of results, for what is usually - in the early startup days - not a lot of money. There are oodles of private companies with squillions of dollars looking for great programmers. Sell yourself as a growth opportunity and most importantly as an opportunity to try all the cutting edge stuff they wouldn’t have the freedom to play with in a big organization.
• Stock options, student ‘samples’ and hack-a-thons are lame. It’s not 2000 anymore. Developers see right through stock options and internships. Anyone who was around for the boom can paper their walls with useless stock options, and anyone who is younger than that has been in high enough demand since high school that a job that offers only these are laughable. I’ve also noticed an alarming trend toward requiring sample code tests for job applications. Code quality is important and should be tested before a hire, and third party tests like those offered at CodeEval are totally valid. However, when you request a sample that does exactly what a piece of your product is supposed to do, it is highly suspect. The same goes for design—when you are looking for someone to redesign your website and you require a “test” that forces someone to redesign your website before they are even hired, we are all on to you. Hack-a-thons—which are sometimes interesting meetups of like-minded individual, are also quickly becoming shorthand for “write my code for free.”
• Don’t steal code. This seems obvious, but it needs to be said. If you are using other people’s work without attribution or share-alike permission, you are undermining the people you are relying on most. If there is a bit of code that you think would be useful or modifiable, you’ll get surprisingly positive results by writing to the author (yes, coders are ‘authors’) and asking if they want to work with you.

Stay tuned next week for the other side of the table—Tips for Developers. I’d love to hear from other management / developers about experiences, tips, and frustrations in the comments.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes and Research Associate at the Ethiopian Global Initiative. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

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There’s been a lot of press this past week about Foxconn, the Taiwanese company whose Chinese factories produce iPads, iPhones and many other high-end consumer electronics. The New York Times and This American Life rightly highlight working conditions, and problematic trade issues. 

“The reality is that Apple, adhering to a sound business model, strives to make the best products possible at a quality level that is second to none. Unfortunately, the workforce and infrastructure in the United States is not up to the task.”

Adam Clampitt, Made in the USA: It’s More Complex Than You Think

Apple’s business model is no surprise and no secret. It relies on an imbalance of value, of material, of labor standards, and, yes, of human expectations. In essence, it is the business model of roughly the past 2000 years of trade.

Trade on the Silk Road began in the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and created some of the most successful cities and empires of the ancient world. Despite the name, the Silk Road was not about silk. It was about goods being brought from one end of the world to the other, across continents, cultures, and value systems. Fabrics, spices, medicines and tools were manufactured in one place where they were relatively abundant and cheaply produced and brought to other places where they were not. 

What we see with Foxconn, and with the lurking and enormous problem of manufacturing goods in the USA, is the inevitable trajectory of a system which makes the world much smaller and infinitely more connected.

When I was a child, my family took a vacation to eastern Pennsylvania. For me this was a trip to Hershey’s Chocolate World, where I had fantasies of diving into natural lakes of chocolate alá Augustus Gloop. But there was another part of the trip, which probably made my chocolate induced hyperactivity a little more excusable for the adults involved. We stopped in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, outside of Wilkes Barre to see where my grandmother, then in her 60s, grew up. 

She always spoke excitedly about riding the Mauch Chunk Switchback Gravity Railroad. If you’re into trivia, you’ll want to know that it was built in 1827, and it’s considered the first “roller coaster” in the US. Actually, it was built to be an innovative way to shuttle coal from the mines of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company to the Lehigh Canal, where it would be shipped off to the rest of the country, to warm houses in New York, run steam trains to the Dakotas, and power the steel industry in Pittsburgh. Coal, and the things it ran, were the microprocessors and iPads of the day.

When we arrived in Jim Thorpe (the modern, de-natived name for Mauch Chunk), I remember driving around for a long time. It’s not a big place but my grandmother couldn’t quite figure out where the house used to be. It was a long time ago, it was all gone. We asked, “Well, what was the address?” She answered, “Mine 7”. Needless to say, Mine 7 was no longer the name of anything there. You see, all of her family worked in the coal mines, almost as soon as they could hold a shovel. Because women were ‘not suited’ for mine work she was able to stay in school until eighth grade, longer than any of her brothers. It was a town of immigrants and cheap labor and the ones that weren’t killed in accidents eventually got what they called “the black lung.” They worked in appalling conditions, lived at their workplace, and owed their paycheck to the company store.

The point that I’m trying to make, is that nothing has changed. Some day, the workers at Foxconn will have just as difficult of a time pointing out “Dormitory 82” as my grandmother did finding “Mine 7.” The thing that has changed are our expectations of humanity, our understanding of human rights, and our global interconnectedness. Those three things are at odds with the 2000 year old system that relies on imbalances in values and standards. They will not let the old model of a free market stand much longer.

I am not an opponent of the free market, or of capitalism, but I believe the current system is breaking down in ways that may not be fixable. We are all going to need to come up with new ways of thinking, and set new standards and expectations if we are hoping to thrive in this increasingly connected world economy. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know we’ll need to figure it out sooner than later.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes and Research Associate at theEthiopian Global Initiative. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

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This week I’ve been reading “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter” by Tom Bissell. Bissell spends a lot of time looking at first-person shooters and the nuances of storytelling in open world games.

The whole point of any game is to be interactive. There is some reason for you to press a button or push a joystick left or right, whether it is to make sure the glowing Pong orb doesn’t fly away or to kill a zombie in Left 4 Dead. For various reasons, the standard video game priorities can be summed up as “Collect & Destroy”—that is, collect the things (coins, weapons, magic potions) that help you get towards a certain goal (the princess, the safe house, the next level) while simultaneously destroying anything that gets in the way (zombies, the Koopa Troopa, orange pixelated ghosts). This has made me think a lot about—at the risk of getting overly philosophical—what we want from our human experience.

Games, in general, are not about real life. Of course, like any good book or movie, part of the reason for that is escapism. If I wanted to live my life, why would I do so on a Wii? But I think the major reason is just that real life is ultimately pretty boring—desperately slow moving and depressingly uneventful. Even real-life games like The Sims have to speed up time and create obstacles like peeing your pants or setting yourself on fire. Just like in literature, we can say that it is “conflict and drama” that make games interesting. But what we seek out in real life is usually avoiding conflict and drama at all costs. As it turns out, the easiest way to get to the safehouse, is to make sure you don’t encounter any zombies at all.

At Ethicodes I’m working on the logic and needs of a game in which the player is a coffee farmer. The goal, like your average zombie apocalypse game, is simply survival. But instead of battling zombies you are simply battling the current global trade economy. By far the easiest thing to do is to avoid all conflict, but in the current agricultural market, avoiding conflict, not fighting for every penny of that sale, means starving to death. Can we make not-starving-to-death as compelling a goal as reaching a zombie-proof bunker? Our lives may depend on it.

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For once I’m not sure I agree with my co-blogger Kris Gryte’s last post—Why Ethical Deals Send the Wrong Message. I mean, I do agree with it on all the fundamental levels, but I think there are some key points missing. As someone with a lot of marketing experience, I think Kris’ sentiment represents a Pie-in-the-Sky argument that isn’t necessarily realistic.

If consumers are even moderately aware of ethically sourced goods, I believe they are keeping all this in mind. For instance, if you are invested enough to be reading this blog, I’m confident you are already aware of the nuanced balance between fair trade and free trade and do your best on a purchase-by-purchase basis to do good. The challenge comes in moving the much larger portion of the consumer market away from the dark side.

Ultimately it is a language barrier. The larger market forces have created the language: daily deals, holiday sales, doorbusters, discounts and coupons, oh my! Sites like Groupon and Living Social use these linguistic gymnastics to stress one thing—that price is the most important thing consumers can base their purchasing decisions on. When ethical brands try to push the idea that (surprise) ethics, and real people and experiences behind the products might be more important, the message is quickly drowned out by the other 90% - Sale! Cheap! market noise. The market is shifting, there’s no doubt about that, but the ethical message is still no more than a whisper.

Understanding the larger language issue puts the marketers of ethical goods in an awkward spot. If they only focus on transparency and ethics, as Kris suggests, they are preaching to the choir, the portion of the market that is already listening very intently for that whisper of ethics. If they buy into a daily deal or push holiday sales, on Blissmo, EthicalDeal, ecomom, GreenDeals, and Fair Trade A Day, they are using the dominant language to possibly shift a tiny percentage of the market, who in turn, might start listening a little closer next time to the ethical message.

I absolutely agree with Kris’ message: 

So, as this holiday season comes to a close, let us step back, reflect, and realize the true impact of purchasing decisions. Think twice about that ethical ‘deal’, but rather spend your money consciously, wisely, and ethically, endeavoring to build a sustainable relationship between you, the good, and the producer who brought that good to life. What is not so important is how great a deal we offer or find, but doing our bit of good by remaining true to our core values and ensuring a brighter, greener, more transparent, and ethical future. 

But I’m sure if you are reading this, you were planning on doing that anyway.

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The Millennium Challenge Corporation just released their scorecards for 2012. If you are not familiar with the MCC, every year they publish scorecards that provide a quick, one-page crib sheet for each country as it relates to US foreign policy goals in accordance with the Millenium Challenge. They try provide quantifiable criteria for determining aid for things like agriculture and irrigation, transportation, water supply, sanitation, access to health, enterprise development, anticorruption initiatives, and access to education. As much as I disagree with distilling an entire country’s policies down to a handful of charts, I can see how it makes the job of determining policy a bit easier.

In working with the Ethiopian Global Initiative, I’m looking at Ethiopia’s scorecard. There have been some significant changes in criteria this year. I’m really happy to see “Gender in the Economy” (100%) and “Freedom of Information” (22%) as new markers. Though I applaud them for keeping current, I wonder why those weren’t there in the first place. One change that caught my eye though might seem subtle. Previous years’ “Natural Resource Management” section becomes this year’s “Natural Resources Protection.” What this represents, according to their Selection Criteria and Methodology Report, FY 2012, is essentially a division between people and environment. Here are their definitions:

Natural Resource Management: An index made up of four indicators: eco-region protection, access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, and child (ages 1-4) mortality. Source: The Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy

Natural Resource Protection: Assesses whether countries are protecting up to 10 percent of all their biomes (e.g., deserts, tropical rainforests, grasslands, savannas and tundra). Source: The Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy

This caught my eye because in the case of Ethiopia, the scores in this area are wildly different. According to the old criteria, NR Management is at a dismal 39% (though up by 12% from last year) but NR Protection is at an impressive 78%. With all land in Ethiopia under the administrative control of the government, it may not be surprising that they score high in ‘protection’ — but what does protection mean exactly? The Methodology Report doesn’t go further into it. I’m sure their data analysis is more complicated, and it’s true the government of Ethiopia highly values their natural resources, but if the Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy are not using culture-specific criteria for determining whether land is protected, any country with a government-owned land use system could potentially score high on the scale.

With the Natural Resources scorecard change, the MCC is moving away from a mixed enviro-public health approach to a 100% environmentalist perspective. I fully support a criteria based on environmental protection, especially in a region where deforestation has been so devastating. However to put that in the place of access to clean water and sanitation is potentially problematic. History teaches us that it is access to clean water and sanitation that gives people the freedom to make the environment a priority. In other words, it doesn’t matter how protected a river is, when a person needs clean water, they are going to use it—whether or not it is at the detriment of the environment. 

As with any kind of analysis, this change may tell us more about the priorities of the authors than those of the subject. If you have country-specific knowledge, I’d be really interested to hear more about a comparison between the old and new Natural Resources scores on the MCC scorecards as you interpret them.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

I was at home with the flu last week, but my previous post  (two weeks ago!) elicited a response that got me thinking further on the role of technology in government. Speaking about Ethiopia, I wrote in my response:

 I try to remain impartial to politics (on this blog anyway). What I do wholeheartedly support, is the means for people to choose their own solutions. Current policies discourage both free media and international understanding, which both reflect badly on the government and discourage economic and intellectual investment from local and international communities—no one wins. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem and I don’t propose to have the answer. Which comes first, a more open government that encourages free media or a free media that encourages a more open government? The overwhelming trend in the past few years is that media comes first, simply because media advances more quickly than governments’ can take actions to limit them.

What I am wondering now is: does my stance on the freedom of media make me by default a promoter of American democracy abroad? I don’t know. Promoting an adherence to a strict American style of democracy feels a bit too close to imperialism, and historically doesn’t always translate well. What I think a truly free media does is create a forum for a population—of a nation, town, or just Zuccotti Park—to create their own rules and their own flavor of people-led governance. But in order to have a free media, you need a government that isn’t afraid of what the people might say. Which, in itself might necessitate some kind of democratically appointed government.

What the responder on the previous post was calling for, as I understood it, was an intervention (whether by citizens or outsiders) into a government that does not promote an open media. However what we’ve seen recently in the arab spring and in some US protests, is that media prevails eventually, usually despite authoritarian intervention strategies. Is that just because governments move so slowly? Or because people will always find a way to communicate, even in the most dire of circumstances?

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the BuildEthiopia Conference at Harvard University. Hosted by Ethiopian Global Initiatives, the conference aims to “encourage participants to envision and support the transformation of Ethiopia by providing a space for constructive dialogue, learning and sharing.” The program encouraged thought on a lot of topics, and I’ll probably cover a few of them in the coming weeks.

One theme that recurred through several speakers is that Ethiopia (and most of Africa in general), in colloquial terms, has a bad rap. Liz Ngonzi explained this by way of a Google image search. Type in “Ethiopia” and what you get most often is what she aptly described as “poverty porn.” Starving children, barren fields, no water. It’s true, in many areas these things are indeed issues. But just to put things in perspective, areas of California have those things too. Type “California” into a google image search and I bet you get some very different images. 

If you are in marketing you know that bad publicity is very hard to recover from. One rat in the french fry cooker and you are out of business for good. In modern media, these things can follow you around for decades. Ethiopia is not free of problems, no place is. But it is not a stagnant pool either. Victorian and colonial ideas about Africa being “a land before time” are dangerously persistent. Ethiopia’s television media coming-of-age was during the famines of the 1980s. This may have dug them even deeper into the negative media abyss than most other places. 

A quick story: I have a friend, Karen. She is a brilliant chemist and slightly younger than me—putting her in grade school in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Up until a few years ago when she started getting papers published, a search for her full name led to a penpal letter she wrote in second grade to a school partner in Japan. Eight-year-old Karen liked horses. A lot. Those horse followed her around for decades. Ethiopia has the same problem as Karen. But instead of horses, Ethiopia had famine. A lot.

From Newsweek to South Park, the image of starving children cannot be plucked from the collective western mind. Combine those first “Save the Children” television images with problematic ideas about Africa as somehow outside of the movement of time and what you get is the recipe for a public relations disaster that is hard to shake.

The new media paradigm—social networks, global connectivity, mobile web access—all have the incredible potential for reshaping that collective conscience, and doing it quickly, what TMS Ruge termed “Africa 3.0.” The responsibility lies on all of us, in Africa and out. With the relatively recent installation of submarine fiber optic broadband cabling along the east African coast, subsequent connectivity and skyrocketing mobile saturation, it is finally Ethiopia’s turn to lead the conversation.

At the same time, I hope the images that define Ethiopia for this next generation are not handpicked by Ethiopian government and tourism authorities. I don’t expect the famine images to disappear. What I am hoping for is simply reality—from real people, showing the beauties and the difficulties of their daily lives. As in almost every large scale news event, from post-Katrina New Orleans to pre-revolution Tunisia, what is most important in shaping the current dialogue—and shaping history—is media by the people, for the people.

During lunch, I had the opportunity to sit with Tesfaye Yilma, the Ambassador of the Embassy of Ethiopia in the US. While I don’t agree with all of what he said, he reminded us that culturally it is not considered proper to boast, (I think the Amharic word he used was ደልቃቃ — dälqaqa — “an arrogant person”). At a table of mostly young, media savvy people we tried to remind him that marketing and communication is different than arrogance. Marketing and more importantly, the freedom of average people to communicate in new ways, is imperative for the Ethiopia of today.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.