Interview with Gary A. Bolles on Xigi, Capital Markets, and Social Good

Sure, happy to do it.

We find that people using unstructured digital information, especially Web 2.0 data like wikis, blogs, and Google documents for projects are often saving information that they then promptly lose. We think that people are having challenges finding the "good stuff" in all that unstructured data, and are often unable to easily share their "insights" - the main takeaways from the data they find, save and use.

Now we're shifting gears a bit, so I'll back up from the software arena, and talk in general about the arena of "money for good." There is currently no set definition of the social capital market, so it's a little hard to say there's a specific number. Is it only money that generates a return or a profit? Does it include donation money, which typically looks for no return? Is it "blended capital" that includes both? What *kind* of return does it look for - financial return (just money), social return (people are helped), or environmental return (planet is helped)? Depending on how you slice it, the arena encompasses billions of dollars, but how many billions depends on how you define it.

Xigi Software's godfather was xigi.net, a non-profit site that was created to help people in the social capital space to find each other. It's both a social network and an information network. On Xigi.net, we help people discover others who also want to accelerate the flow of capital to good. As for Xigi Software... we're still somewhat in stealth mode, but I can say that we see the opportunity to connect people and information in new ways.

Depends on what we mean by "contributors." If it's people contributing their information to the non-profit xigi.net site, then yes, we've had thousands of people come. They add a brief profile, and define their "power relationships" in the social capital space - who they invest in, what boards they're on, etc. - and they can see a dynamic "map" showing their connections.

It took a few months to get going, like any social network, but once it reached a critical mass of a few hundred, people saw a lot of value in the connections being displayed graphically, because there were enough people to connect to.

For the non-profit xigi.net site, we want it to grow as the arena grows. As more and more investors are looking for ways to have an impact with their money, we want the site to reflect that rapidly-expanding group.

For the for-profit Xigi Software, we see it as solving a variety of "wicked problems," complex information coordination challenges where teams are collaborating to gain insights or reach a goal. We'll measure our success by building a great company that helps people manage their need to coordinate these kinds of insights.

I actually had a number of stints at Ziff Davis... Launching Interactive Week as a joint venture with them; managing the launch of what became Yahoo! Internet Life, and Smart Reseller; re-launching their online group; and helping to launch their custom events group. After ZD, I was in a partnership for three years on Microcast Communications with Al Perlman and Mike Perkowski, where we grew the MuniWireless.com business, as well as other projects. But on the side, I'd been working on projects related to the social capital arena for the past 7 years, so when I left Microcast, I decided to focus more on social capital and helping organizations solve complex challenges.

The non-profit xigi.net has gotten great feedback; people routinely tell us how valuable it is for finding contacts, and information about what those contacts are involved in. Xigi Software has installed in its first customer, and will have several more installations coming online in the next few months.

Again, I'll apologize for being a little vague, and focus mostly on the problem. We hear from many people - in small organizations and large, in for-profits and non-profits - that they are continually losing their information in Web 2.0 tools. What they really want to do is to save and share the insights - the most important takeaways from that data.

Say you're an expert on social capital. What's your view of that arena? What are the most important ideas, people, articles, sources, etc.? And how are they connected? That's where we focus.

One of the challenges of the social capital arena is the "social" social capital part - what other people are doing, how they are investing or donating, and what the results of their efforts are. We have several efforts underway, for example, related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), helping people share what projects they're supporting. And if you could find out what others are doing, and why they're doing it, you'd have better information to make your own decisions. So if you plug into one of these social networks, then yes, it's likely you'd get some ideas about where to focus your efforts, whether it's your money or your time.

Yes, thanks for asking. (By the way, it's pronounced "ZIG-ee," for those struggling with our non-standard name. It comes from "Zeitgeist," as in "spirit of the times.")

Xigi Media is our third "leg of the stool." Xigi.net is our non-profit, much like, say, a google.org: It's the philanthropic "face" of our for-profit work. Xigi Software is the application company. And Xigi Media is an events and research company that is producing the first "social capital markets" conference, in San Francisco, at Fort Mason in October. More information at www.socialcapitalmarkets.net.

Thanks, this has been great. For anyone looking for more information, please check out xigi.net and socialcapitalmarkets.net. You might also find the newsletter from one of our partner organizations, GoodCap.net, a great education in the social capital space. Finally, watch for more from Xigi Software; we'll have more to talk about early this fall.