Princess Zindaba’s ornate gown glistened jade under movie grade lighting while each attendee gaped intently, enraptured by the discussion. “My sisters and brothers lives were claimed by AID’s and I will not allow myself to return to Zambia, without a solution.” What transpired on Friday the 19^th was African royalty speaking directly with each individual member of this ad hoc discussion panel comprised of young entrepreneurs in a business casual loft on the top floor of a Chicago skyscraper. 

Home to the newest community of Midwest based .com entrepreneurs and 63 E. Lake street is now the birthplace of a new breed of start-up, based in Africa. The developing collaboration between the Princess and the solar powered company that attended the event, is indicative of several other projects in Sudan and Nigeria that the Nile International Connection is supporting. Sunflower inc. is proposing to extrapolate fresh water from aquifers using solar power, to support a village of more than 450,000 people.  “I don’t want to leave this room without a plan!” Dar of Sunflower Inc., while captivated by the opportunity that the Princess proposed to the group, was determined that promising’s of this collaboration were not left up to chance. 

Coupled with continuing project and organizational development, Princess Zindaba, will relay the footage of this event to the President of Zambia as one of the founders of the Nile International Connection and as Shaka Zulu’s great granddaughter.  She is an avid supporter of innovation in Africa and the Nile Connection will continue to have soirees as hosts connecting innovative companies and intrepid African Leaders, speaking for the people of Africa.  Princess Zindaba has a new book coming out in February, Tears for Africa, that she is promoting, which articulates a compelling view of United Africa.   

This event marks the first official soiree of the Nile International Connection and if you are interested in getting involved in the next event or learning more about the projects, join this site: http://nileconnecting.ning.com/

Crowdsourcing is about to become so ubiquitous; that the term is going to lose meaning (if it has any now). In fact; crowdsourcing has already changed how we live.

Crowdsourcing means relying on the crowds (anonymous people) to complete tasks otherwise performed by one person; or one company. The growth of the internet enables crowdsourcing since it allows many anonymous people to interact without meeting or leaving their homes- and instantly contribute to the crowd aggregate.

Snakes on a Plane is a prime example of crowdsourcing. Specifically; the hype around the divulged movie title ’snakes on a plane’ grew to such a fervor online that online user requests ended up defining the dialogue and content of the movie. From a single movie concept- the content became crowdsourced; where thousands of internet users provided the direction otherwise provided by 1 writer.

midVentures takes full advantage of crowdsourcing. We find designers on 99designs.com; where companies source design work to any wandering freelance designer; and your company only pays when you use their work.

Elance.com, Getafreelancer.com, Dice.com- these are all ways of crowdsourcing your opening to the marketplace. Anonymous strangers review candidate providers; and you benefit from the reviews of the crowds.

Wikipedia is nothing if not crowdsourced knowledge.

Lastly; Craigslist is the unspoken lord of crowdsourcing. Not because of what you ask for- but because of what you do not ask for. When I post an ad for a developer opening at midVentures.com; freelancers apply. But the crowds also reply with ideas and responses.

Posting to Craigslist has attracted the attention of dozens of entrepreneurs combing the list and looking for cool projects. Not always for work- sometimes just to chat. If I post an idea to craigslist; I crowdsource the responses and criticism to that idea. Its like crowdsourcing your imagination to a world of craigslist combers.

Facebook Apps and iPhone Apps are essentially crowdsourced development studios. Instead of facebook and apple developing everything in-house; development is crowdsourced to micro-entrepreneurs. (No offense.)

Even the phenomenon of open source only really reaches peak interest when it leverages crowd sourcing. Friends collaborating is old open source. Strangers collaborating is new open source.

My predictions? We aren’t entering the freelance economy. Well, we are, in a sense. More significantly, we are entering the crowdsourced economy. If you are good at something; start doing it, and the crowds will identify your talent. As your portfolio of work grows; you’ll get paid for it- either by employment or contract work. Crowdsourcing lowers the barriers of entry to a skill down to nothing; but it also enables new entries to rise as high as possible. There is no barred entry- and no ceiling- to crowdsourced skills.

Law, Medicine, and Corporate Finance will take time to capitalize on crowdsourcing. But news- media- project collaboration- software development- sales- marketing- and socializing are already immersed.

How does crowdsourcing affect my midVentures business philosophy? Listen to the crowds; or you will lose the next team member- customer- and idea.

10. “Their loft is loftier than ours” Zac

9. “I tried to explain midVentures and my dad couldn’t figure out whether we were a web development company, an venture capital company, or a tech incubator community” Jamie

8. “Geoff- you don’t have enough Twitter followers. You’re dead weight.” Alex

7. “My dad called me one day and asked me to help him film a rap video for ‘Who let the goats out’” Jamie

6. “Tell me in 2 sentences what you are selling, Geoff” - Brian
“No.” -Geoff

5. “Routeroo.com: providing wireless router consulting services to south Chicago daycare centers!” -Brian

4. “I didn’t really understand what he was saying so I just repeated whatever he said back to him, but with a lot of excitement.” -Geoff

3. “I think the midventures mascot should be a sherpa” Jon
“Is he guiding a bunch of business people up a mountain?” Geoff
“And there would be a midventures Ninja jumping over him” Jon
“How do you want the Ninja to be drawn?” Cristina

2. “midVentures: we’ll probably do something amazing!” Geoff

1. “How many people work for you?” Northwestern Interview
“Well, there are only 4 chicago employees. But we have a design team in England; a development team in India; a php programmer in Connecticut; an illustrator in New York; lawyers and investors in Rhode Island; business development consultants in Cleveland; I don’t know where our CFO is right now…”