The Efficiency of Direct-to-Need Giving

Maybe you want to help some folks, but you’re not sure how much of the money will get to them if you donate to a program or non-profit. Every agency has administrative overhead, and they also usually have an agenda. What if you think that the people who need the money would actually make the best decisions about how to spend the money? What if you want to decide each month who exactly gets the money, based on their actions and attitudes? You can’t do that through an agency that you don’t control.

With a Propits account, you can decide. You know that 90% of your money goes right to the people to whom you Give Props. You Give Props to the people you think deserve it. If more people deserve it, you Give Props to them too. If some people don’t need the help anymore, you can remove them from your Props list. Regardless, you know that the money is going right to the end-user, the person in need. They’ll decide how it will help best, and you’ll decide whether to keep helping. Now you have a direct relationship with those you are helping, without having to actually show up in person or deal with complex or even dangerous logistics.

New skin

In case you didn't notice (and I'm not sure how you couldn't), we have a new look! We're pretty excited about it! This new look should help facilitate new upcoming features sliding into place a bit better. It's not completely done, so we'll call it "Propits 1.9". 

In the mean while, let us know what you think by dropping us a line!

Ninja economics

So they say the economy is bad. All the relevant measurements are down, and it seems like even the die-hards that resist labeling a recession have been forced to agree.

But what does that actually mean, a bad economy? I know it means less new jobs, lower tax revenues for government, lower sales for retailers, and a harder time borrowing money for consumers.

But why does it happen? I know it happened because of securitizing bad mortgage debt, and everyone on the stock market overleveraging their assets, and commoditizing goods like oil that we need for national infrastructure. And then politically, we could blame the President, or Congress, or rich people, or white people, or whatever.

But what does it mean if one person can't get work, and so they don't have money to buy things, so their neighbor loses his job too? Isn't that just two guys who both want to work, and want work from the other, staring at each other complaining about the economy?

The complexity of the system is what gets us stuck. The money comes from the Department of the Treasury, ultimately, and they don't hand it out on street corners, so the regular guy has to go work for somebody. That person has to get their money from a ton of consumers, who in turn get their money in return for providing a variety of specialized services. So I can't work for my neighbor and have my neighbor work for me, because my neighbor doesn't know how to make snowboarding goggles (which is what I want), and I don't need any spreadsheets managed (which is what he does), and he doesn't want martial arts training (which is what I do), and I don't know how to make lawn fertilizer (which is what we wants). So, the whole complex economy and money was created to make all that easier.

But still... if we're both bright capable guys, and we're both willing to do more, and we want more... then the "bad economy" is just a matter of poor organization, not an actual lack of labor, willingness, or even goods. America (and Earth in general) already has all the factories, people, education, and energy needed... it's just poorly organized and the complexity of the system creates times of irrational exuberance (1999-2004) and times of irrational depression (now).

Get off the bipolar train! The bad economy is a purely mental construct! It's real because we say it is, and we act like it is, but it has no basis in physical circumstance.

So how do we fix it? We find motivation to provide goods and services outside the paradigm of the given system. We help our neighbors, as one example, or volunteer with our excessive free time after being laid off.

But how does that pay the bills? That's where Propits comes in. Without Propits, good feelings from your neighbors are nice, but they don't mean anything that can buy you food, so instead of volunteering, we sit on the porch and complain. With Propits, those neighbors give you Props, and real money comes to you. That real money comes the usual places - the credit cards of those for whom the current economy is still working. And in return, those who receive it happily spend it back into the real economy... but the point is, when the economy partially paralyzes itself due to mass organizational stupidity, Propits can keep things moving, can keep people doing good work in the world and being rewarded for it. It is the cure for that which ails us.

Multiplexed Microdonations

The Convenience of Multiplexed Microdonations (How to give a little something to everyone)

Let’s say you really like to help. You encounter dozens, or even hundreds, of people, causes, charities, and even for-profit companies that you would like to support. Unfortunately, you’re not yet a billionaire philanthropist, so your budget is limited. Maybe you can afford a couple of hundred dollars a month – maybe just a couple of tens of dollars per month.

You could agonize over your list, decide who is most worthy, and send one of these people a check each month. Over time, you would touch a few, but many more would go unrewarded. Meanwhile, you have to research each time where to send the money and who to make the check to. You have to get around to the post office, buy stamps, and get the envelope in the mail. It shouldn’t be all that complicated, but in your busy life, it never seems to get done. All this effort and to-do items just to send a worthy cause a few dollars.

Or you could just establish a Propits account and Give Props to all the worthy causes. Your money gets divided up into small amounts, maybe even a dollar or less, but it combines with thousands of others who also give these small amounts. It makes a difference. It’s easy, and you never have to worry about the “how” – you just have a good feeling, see the Give Props button, and click it. You know that those folks get a little something for making the world a better place. And, if you want, you can set your Propits account up so that a certain group is always on your list. It’s like having your own private foundation or annuity, giving a little bit every month to keep the cash flowing to groups that need it.

On purpose and use

It's always interesting to make a thing that other people use. Inevitably it will be used in ways that you never thought it would. People will do things with it that you did not anticipate, and not do things with it that you feel are critical. At every turn it is constantly both surprising and refreshing to get feedback from the people who use a thing that you make.

I imagine it would be the same regardless of the medium. In my case, of course, I'm talking about code, but I remember my grandfather as a professional photographer when I was a child. He was the photographer for the Phillies and the Blue Jays. Both teams had spring training in my old home town, and so while my grandpa was taking their pictures for baseball cards, flyers, all sorts of promotions, and god-knows what else, I would sit in the dug-outs with the players and just be having the greatest time in my life. To me, the reason he took pictures was so that I could hang out with major league baseball players. I imagine that that wasn't really his intention when he started in his craft four decades before my birth.

My grandfather died several years ago, and the only thing of his that I own are some pictures of the Grand Canyon that he took. They are stunningly beautiful, and remind me baseball...

At this early stage of Propits, it's fun to see new people sign up, and with the relatively low number of users we can take the time to check out people's web sites (a lot of cool stuff, actually) and watch people's habits and figure out what we need to do to accommodate how people are actually using the system instead of how we imagined that people should or would. Most of the feedback that we get from people is not in the form of actual emails or phone calls, but rather in habits and patterns that we have to use to try to get our heads wrapped around what people are thinking as they use the system. We are standing behind the plate with a camera watching an intricate dance, all the while trying to figure out what a five year old is doing in the dug-out with a bunch of foul-mouthed roid'ed-up adults. There's a joke about the internet in there somewhere, but I'll let someone else make it.

The real trick is that the child in the dug-out is the most important person on the field. If something were to have happened to me on those outings with my grandfather, he would have never have forgiven himself. But at the same time we all have our normal jobs to do, our lives to attend to; an endless array of distractions all clawing for our attention.  And, those are partially the things that we are trying to uplift with the Propits ideal of supporting the people and things that we love.

So this blog update is all about those things. There are things in our lives that take all our attention. There are things that are temporary distractions. There are an endless array of everything in between. The goal is to have all of that simplified by allowing the things that are really important rise to the top. Make sure that the child is having a good time, and then worry about taking the picture that actually pays the bills. An economist would tell me I was insane, but as normal people moving through our lives, we can all see the value in a trust-based network of friends that all work to uplift each other.

When you get your Propits account, put your button on those pages that you own. Pass the word along to the people that make you happy. The player will swing the bat plenty of times. In these confusing and tense times we need to make sure that we get support for the things that really matter. It takes just a few moments to copy and paste a bit of text onto a website, and in the end it makes the whole field and everything on it exist just for you.

I've run the baseball metaphor into the ground about as far as it will go, so before I start rambling, I'll just say this: The real power of Propits comes from people being able to tell you you are cool in a real way. For them to do that, they need a button (at least until we can make computers read your mind... That's version 2.0). Log into Propits, and on your home page on the left, you will see options for your button, and some text to copy and paste onto your websites. Without it, it strikes out.... Sorry. I had to throw another one out there.

Yet more new features!

Holy cow! It's a feature-fest up in here!

Tags

You can now add tags to your user. Tags are like categories. If you have a blog about the flying spaghetti monster you can add tags like, "religion, alternative, crazy, parody"... Things like that. That will make it easier for people to find and prop you. Of course, the easiest way of all is to add your button to your website!

Twitter integration

Now you can integrate Propits with Twitter. If you put in your twitter username and password, every time you prop someone new, your twitter profile will be updated, letting your friends and family know that they should check it out.

Both new features can be configured in your profile edit page. Just click the "Advanced options" tab.

More new features!

It's that time again. The time when we here at madpropits.com let you know that we haven't stopped doing what we do. We just rolled a bunch of bug fixes and new features, and wanted to let you know about them. So without further ado, here they are:

User Alerts

You can now customize automated alert emails that will let you know when certain events happen. For example, the defaults are to alert you if your monthly credit card charge fails, and when your account balance reaches $100. To find out more, log in to your account, and click "Edit my profile". From there, click on the new "Alerts" tab.

Statistics

You now have a statistics page on your account. When you log in, click on "Account Statistics" above your Props sliders, and you can find out all sorts of cool information about your account.

Featured Proppers

In the top nav-bar, there is now a link called "Featured". This is replacing the spammy, "show every single page on every CMS ever" sightings page. Feel free to email us suggestions for things that you would like to see there.

Better suggestions

Head over to www.madpropits.com/suggest to suggest more sights that you want to see a Give Props button. For the more web-savy of the world, there is also a special bookmark that you can add that will let you drop us suggestions while you are surfing around the web.

Speed improvements and bug fixes

We always want to squash the bugs that sometimes plague a computer system. So we've done that. Along the way we installed some monitoring software to let us know what the slowest parts of the system are, and are working on getting those to be faster.

As always, shoot us an email at ideas@madpropits.com if there is something that you want to see. We are adding new stuff all the time, and would love to hear your ideas!

New features!

I just wanted to let everyone know about some new features that we have been rolling out over the past few days. I'm sure that you've noticed some of them, but here's a head's up if not.

First up, we have an all new getting started click-path. If there was any part of the propits experience that you are confused about, head over to www.madpropits.com/getstarted for some clarity and help.

Also, on the share page, you can now import your contacts from gmail and Yahoo to invite your friends in just a few easy clicks. More mail providers are coming soon, so if you don't use either of those, be sure to let us know.

Lastly, we added a new feature on the rewards side. If you have rewards in your account waiting for you, you can now either claim them, or you can recycle them back into the community. This lets you pass your rewards onto the people who you prop.

There are lots of new features on the horizon, but if you have any suggestions, be sure to drop us a line at ideas@madpropits.com

Self-Employment via Propits

Imagine this: a person rides their bicycle across the country, picking up trash along the roadside and blogging their experience. They’re seeing the world and making it a better place. It sounds cool, but how can they afford to do it?

Now they add a Propits button to their blog. Their friends and family, reading the story of their adventures, get a chuckle out of it. Each person Gives Props, and each Prop represents a slice of the money that person gives to the Propits community. If the story is a good story, word spreads. More people read the blog, more people Give Props.

Now the bicyclist-adventurer-trash-picker gets money from those Props. It might only be a dollar from each reader, or even less, but it doesn’t take many readers before they have enough to fund their modest expenses. The world supports their helpful and entertaining contribution.

Imagine all the people who could generate an income just by making the world a better place. They could help those in need, create cool art, educate with instructional videos or websites, amuse with humorous contributions, or amaze and inspire others with their feats. They tell the story through blogs or videos online, and they could earn income on it without having to be bought, sold, and repackaged by a major media company.

All they need is you, giving what you can afford and Giving Props to what is worthy!

Coding for change

I was sitting at lunch the other day with my friend and business partner, Kevin, discussing direction and next steps for Propits. During the course of the conversation there was a moment where we disagreed with one another on a seemingly fundamental point about the direction that we are taking, and are preparing to take as we move forward with this great social experiment.

Now, disagreements will happen. It wasn't even a big one, and was resolved quickly, but it got me thinking about how I code, and the vision that we started with for the Propits network. I started thinking about the different "levels" of coding, and what it means to write code that really matters.

Propits is a new and unique endeavor. I don't know of any other company or group that has tried to do quite what we are trying to do. The ultimate goal is to bring people's understanding of economy and money in general back to what money was created for: a physical expression of an internal feeling. That's not an easy thing when every time you turn on your TV there is some well-dressed, seemingly educated man sweating with panic over the "bad economy". All the vision and hope in the world will only change a small number of minds. There needs to be something more.

When you first learn to program computers, you learn some basic concepts of programming. Things like loops, conditional branching, variable assignment, etc. Nothing too complicated. Loop over some bit of code until something called "a" equals 10. You learn to do this in a single language. After you can solve standard problems with that language, maybe you learn another and another. At some point you can honestly say, "I am a programmer", at which point it's time to start looking at higher-level concepts.

The actual code that runs the Propits network isn't terribly complicated, aside from some math. Sure, there's a bunch of stuff to make sure that rounding errors don't make the money disappear into the ethers, but that is all industry-standard stuff. There's the user handling code that keeps track of all the information of each person that uses the system, even that's not a terribly large amount of information, and it's relationships can easily be expressed in human language (something that doesn't always happen in information theory). The genius of Propits is the vision. The idea that it represents and expresses through its use and function.

Once a coder has learned a couple of languages, discovered the things that the major ones are good for, or not good for, figured out how to write all the standard algorithms and patterns, it's time to look at programming techniques. A programming technique being a methodology, or mentality, that you enter into the coding experience with. A process that you follow to accomplish some goal. Some of the google-worthy methods are Test Oriented Programming, or Aspect-Oriented Programming, Xtreme Programming, Getting Real, etc. They are language-agnostic, and can be applied to any project or group (with greater or lesser success depending on the project and group). They aren't "programming" as such. They are the patterns of work that people have found arise naturally to solve some problem that always comes up regardless of how you program, or in what language. Specifically to solve business or inter-personal problems, as apposed to just "why does this thing always crash when the user presses shift?!". Once they have been named, and books have been written about them, these meta-concepts become "things" that other people adopt into their day-to-day work. For the most part, this is where the industry stops encouraging growth in it's coders.

Propits uses a programming methodology that I like to call "Kick it out the door, it's not that fricken complicated". The basic idea of this coding method is that the system isn't that complicated, so get it out there. To date, the only real problems that we have had fall into two categories: 1) Our credit card processor freaks out (not our fault, and is now resolved), and 2) Sloppy code written at 2 in the morning (solved by not pushing code written at 2 in the morning). The total lines of code in the system is less than 2000. You've probably read more text in this blog post than exists in the entire site. Because of it's simplicity and small size, and the fact that it's me and Kevin sitting at the kitchen table kicking this stuff out, there really isn't a methodology of coding as such. Just a vision, and a driving desire to make it a reality. That's what makes Propits cool.

As I said before, the industry tends to stop developing its coders past the level of "Here's how we do business, now go do it". I understand this. If a programmer never grows beyond that they will be able to write code that works well, quickly, and make more money for the effort. Capitalism is based on the idea of efficiency and constant production, so it makes sense to stop there. There are programmers who will say "It's not about the money. It's about the code, man", but you won't find their manager or HR rep. saying that. But there is more. There is coding for change. Meta-meta concepts that arise from the knowledge and constant use of different programming methodologies and techniques. Actual "things" that come up consistently if you are constantly writing code with certain goals in mind. I could write a book on the topic, but I won't because there aren't really words for it. Imagine writing code with the mentality of the user in mind at all times, and making the code that they never see, that never connects to any interface they use in any meaningful way, change the way they interact with the system at a fundamental level. Change the way they think about computers and their place in the world. That's Coding for Change.

Propits is an Idea for Change, half-conceived by me because of my meditations on the economy, and half-conceived by Kevin because of his other-worldly ability to express anything as math. The code is Code for Change because how it directs the flow of data fundamentally alters the flow of ideas. The only thing left is enough people using it to have that really matter. Enough people who see the value of open-hearted generous giving, and open-hearted receiving. My explorations into code now involve getting really good at all the basics, and being able to make programs that not only express themselves and their use in a basic way, but which also change the views of anyone who encounters it in such a way as to express it's value.

Until I figure that out, though, we need evangelists! :)   Check it out, spread it around, and give us feedback. If we get 50 people on board, nothing changes. If we get thousands on board, we have a chance.

In the end, we're going to do this regardless. We're going to do it because it's important to do. We're going to do it because we believe in it. It will work, must work, because we just won't stop (and we have contracts with people who will charge us a lot of money if we do stop). Even if it doesn't change the world, it will change the people who use it. Be one of those bright, intelligent people who understands what money is for and what economy is. All you have to do is click, and smile.

What's next for Propits

Hello Propits enthusiasts!

If you're not already a Propits enthusiastic, you ought to be, because the more we think about it, the more awesome it gets. Not only does Propits have the power to eliminate advertising, streamline media, and reward cultural contributions on the Internet, but it also has the potential to revolutionize social class divisons, revitalize the economy, and empower the average person to design their own career in life.

How?

It does all this by allowing money to flow wherever good feelings flow. If you can make someone feel good, they will prop you without hesitation, and props do translate into financial support. That means you can sit down and think about what makes the world a better place, do that, and be supported by those you assist. Think about how that could change the nature of work in modern society. It's like the opposite of a corporation.

But before we can get there, of course, Propits needs to saturate the known world. And to do that, we are focusing our efforts now on two things:

The first thing is brand clarity. The great world-saturating brands have clear, easily recognizable trans-cultural symbols. We're developing that now, and a new series of badges will emerge that strike a balance between user customization and brand clarity.

The second thing is intuitive usability. Once a person is setup on Propits, it's the easiest thing in the world to use, and that's where we focused our efforts initially. Now it's becoming clear from beta user feedback (thanks guys!) that getting setup is less clear and is serving as an impediment. So, we'll be streamlining the site design, adding a screen-cast video that walks you through it, and re-organizing the FAQ in a "Get Started!" way.

Thanks for your help! We'll look back on this time as the dawn of something amazing, and you'll be proud to know you were involved.

If you're not involved.... what are you waiting for? Email us at ideas@madpropits.com so we can invite you into the beta!

Propits in closed beta!

I'm proud to announce that we are officially in our beta testing phase on Propits. All functions appear to be working, and we're moving forward with cautious optimism as we add users. If you would like to be a part of the closed beta, please email us at ideas@madpropits.com.

It's been really exciting so far - everyone that we've introduced the site to has expressed their enthusiasm. One user declared herself "addicted" to giving props, and pointed out how much fun it is to tell people that they are cool.

Our main limitation right now is to make sure that the site is intuitive enough before we open things up for users to invite their friends. We have a few small features to add too that will increase the fun and the naturalness of finding and propping friends.

I strongly feel that this will change the world - being able to direct money directly to those that make you smile is a powerful meme that has needed to exist for some time. Turning the Internet social-networking phenomenon into a truly productive engine for rewarding intelligence and creativity... that has also been needed for some time.

Join us on our adventure! I'd give you Props just for creating an account! :)

Getting closer all the time

We are getting closer and closer to a launch all the time. We just did our first tests with real money on a live production server, and everything is looking sufficiently awesome!

Because we are getting closer, and because I can't control myself, I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. You can finally find out more about the site by clicking here.

If you want more information, or if you want to be included in one of our beta phases, drop us a line. Anyone who contacts us but doesn't get picked for the betas will get an email when we go live.

I'm getting really excited about this idea the further and further into the process we get. The implications and possible effect is huge. It is also a project that I can honestly say I am proud to be a part of, and proud to release out into the world. As we get closer, and advance through more phases (both beta and live) we will be writing more posts about the vision of the project and why it is so important. For now, though, just have a look at the FAQ, and start picturing an internet that works.

Propits to change the world

We are so excited about the imminent launch of Propits. This really will change everything about the meaning of the Internet, the way it appears, and the role it plays in our lives. I'm bursting to talk about it, but holding off for just a few more days until it is ready for a stunning debut. Stay tuned!!