Cool Projects Mauilocavesting

Last Friday I attended an all day workshop in Honolulu featuring the operators of several of the top accelerators in the U.S. This was organized by StartUp Hawaii, an affiliate of StartUp America an organization funded by Maui Land & Pineapple majority shareholder Steve Case (cousin of the Congressional candidate) and founder of America Online which later merged with Time Warner. Case was also instrumental in lobbying for and passing the JOBSAct this last spring. The Hawaii Legislature just provided $2 million via the Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation (HSDC) to help fund up to three Hawaii accelerators. HSDC issued a request for proposals last month, for what they are calling the Lava Program, due at the end of August.

Over 150 small business owners and community leaders met on August 2nd on the Island of Hawaii for the first ever TechConKona to hear ideas, learn about the most effective tools and network. I spoke about the Hawaii Community Exchange project that I am helping to develop. Over the next week or two I plan to go in to more detail, but here is a summary of my notes with some commentary.

Happy Independence Day! Two hundred and thirty-six years ago seem pretty distant, but we can still share the determination to overthrow tyranny, the uneasy feeling that comes from taking risks, and the exuberance that comes from jumping into a cause with great meaning.

Here is an interesting infographic to use as you are designing a crowd funding campaign, but also useful in designing a great website. Motivation Wheel: Learn how to motivate the crowd.

The Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act was signed in to law today by president Obama. It has multiple components and covers start-ups to companies with just under $1 billion in revenues doing initial public offerings (IPOs). There will be rule making by the SEC so some parts of this, like equity crowd funding, will not go into effect until 2013.

Last week Teena Rasmussen, Maui County Economic Development Coordinator provided a short debrief or overview of the County’s activity for the APEC conference including sharing beautifully produced booklet and video which you can download and see here.

This week we see the inaugural TEDxMaui, in what will hopefully be an annual event focusing on ideas from a diverse collection of thinkers and doers. It should be an inspiring day, and as with its parent TED Talks (Technology, Entertainment, Design) should produce a dozen or more short videos that will join the hundreds of invideos that provide small doses that motivate and inspire.

Hopefully it will also stimulate interest in moving beyond ideas and taking actions: engaging in projects to solve problems and making a better world. We need more tools to help do this and hopefully TEDxMaui as well as other efforts on Maui can come together on a more frequent basis, at least monthly to help this happen.

Crowd funding is primarily known for helping individuals and organizations raise money through donations. In early September 2011 both the White House and Congress reached bipartisan agreement on reforming securities regulations to go beyond donations to include raising investment from personal networks. Go to http://coolprojectsmaui.com for more detail and links.

Both those developing green businesses and those interested in investing will want to meet Michael Kramer and James Frazier based in Hawaii with Natural Investing. There will be two sessions on Tuesday, September 20th at 11:30 am and at 5:30 p.m. Both at the Maui Research & Tech Center in Kihei and also via http://coolprojects.webex.com