MOVING FORWARD: The road ahead

The FanBox Presidential Election

Money won't create success, but the freedom to make it will

--Nelson Mandela

While we believe Mr. Mandela's statement to be true, it’s clear that the relationship between modern governance and corporate interests has resulted in a world in which hope and hopelessness are separated by only the slimmest of margins.

It is innate to the human spirit, however, to seek self-determination. Regardless of their limitations, most people are strongly driven by the need to realize whatever vision of success they hold.

They know they can’t do this on their own.

We believe that the purpose of social networks is to facilitate connection. We know that wherever large numbers of people come together value is being created, transacted and enhanced.

We believe that the most popular social networks have demonstrated the viability of a well-designed system to substantially influence the lives of their members, to permit them to share and create value and to generate revenue along the way.

We also believe that the time has now come for the emergence of a system that shares the commercial value created in its system with its members through a democratic system of self-governance.

Ultimately, we believe you should be free.

                                      ================

The time has come for this community to take the next step -- and elect its leader - the President - so that true freedom via self-governance can begin to take hold.

The President’s Role

The FanBox President will be responsible for the FanBox Corporation.

Also, the President will represent the FanBox community and help us move closer to completing our mission to uplift humanity by enabling opportunity.

While certainly not limited to this, the President will:

·       Represent the community and ensure its concerns are being heard and its needs are being met

 ·       Run the FanBox Corporation -- meaning all top executives of the company report up to the President

·       Serve the FanBox community for one term of 6 months, from this September 21st, 2013 to March 20th, 2014. The President will not be eligible for reelection.  Future terms will be longer – but let’s let our new democracy learn to walk before it runs.

·       Live in San Diego, California, USA for the duration of the term

·       Help bring into fruition the laws and policies brought forward from the Senate and Congress, including finalizing the drafting of the Constitution

·       Work hand-in-hand with FanBox’s staff at its corporate headquarters, and act as a bridge between employees, members, statespersons and Success Coaches

·       Choose a President’s Cabinet from current SCs

·       Represent the community to the public

·       Prioritize product ideas and drive change

Compensation

Being the President of a democratic social media website like FanBox is a huge responsibility, as is moving to the corporate headquarters in San Diego.

To ensure this is a possibility, the President is offered the following compensation:

·       A monthly salary of $8,000.00 USD

·       Paid-for round trip flight to from his or her home, to San Diego.

·       Access to a vehicle paid for by FanBox

In order to concentrate on the role, upon his or her election, the President will not be able to continue as an SC or earn on FanBox during the duration of the term.

However, the President’s SC status and any of the President’s previous Clients will be automatically returned once the term ends.

Who can be a candidate?

In order to allow the community the opportunity to choose a President that would serve them well, candidates are limited to those that have already shown that they are motivated to serve the community.

In other words, Politicians (including the President) must first be Success Coaches.

In this manner, we can be assured that they:

1.  Are well trained on the workings of FanBox

2.  Have already demonstrated that they wish to serve community members

3.  Are interested in the President role for the right reasons

4.  Are already very familiar with the ideas, issues, opportunities and concerns of the community

Politicians and Success Coaches have already been instrumental in making democracy a reality by guiding their clients towards success.

By providing them the information and tools needed to become Power Users, economy builders, and great community members, they have proven themselves more than capable of fulfilling this task of democracy and moving FanBox into a new chapter in its history.

Any Success Coach who meets the three following criteria will qualify to announce their candidacy:

1.     Must be a current SC

2.     Must have been an SC for at least 3 months

3.     Must have strong verbal and written English skills

We believe all our SCs have already done an outstanding job representing FanBox and have been instrumental in helping their Clients succeed.

However, newer SCs simply do not have the experience necessary to represent the community as a whole. 

While SCs with less than 3 months of experience will not qualify this time, they will certainly be able to by the next election.

We also believe having strong English language skills is a necessity.

FanBox.com (the website) is currently only available in English, our headquarters is located in the United States, and our staff primarily speaks English.

We apologize for those SCs who may not qualify for this reason, but being able to communicate in English is essential for efficiently performing your duties as President. 

However, as FanBox grows and becomes more localized, this will no longer be a requirement.

How can YOU become the President?

It’s actually very simple.

First you need to be a Success Coach.

(How do you do that? Speak with one of the FanBox Founding Mothers: Zoe)

Election Timetable:

Right now -  Current Success Coaches are considering if they will choose to announce their candidacy

June 25th - All candidates are announced to the community

July 1st  - Initial voting begins to determine top 5 candidates

July 8th - Initial voting ends

July 17th  - Second round of voting starts to determine top 2 candidates

July 24th - Second round of voting ends. Top 2 candidates are announced and invited to the Presidential Debate

August 14th - Candidates arrive in San Diego for Presidential Debate

August 16^th - Presidential Debate will be videotaped and presented to community

August 28th - Presidential Election Polls are open

September 4^th – Presidential Election ends and winner announced

September 20th - (Last day of summer) Presidential Inauguration and ball (A big party on a sailboat)!

September 23rd – The new President begins his or her first day on the job at the FanBox headquarters in San Diego, California
 

  ========= The NEXT Presidential Election ============

December 25th, 2013 –  Candidates are announced to the community -- for the next Presidential Election

January 16th, 2014 - Presidential Debate will be videotaped and presented to community

January 28th - Presidential Election Polls are open

February 4th – Presidential Election ends and winner announced

March 20th - (Last day of Winter) Presidential Inauguration and ball

As an engaged and responsible community member...

What can YOU do now? 

1.  If you believe your SC would represent the community well, encourage him or her to announce their candidacy.

2.  The next election takes place in about 6 months from now... if you believe that YOU would make a good President, consider becoming a Success Coach now (speak with Zoe) so you might be eligible by the next election.

3.  Get ready to vote!

Think about the community as a whole. As I heard Josh Manske say in an earlier blog comment regarding this topic, vote with your head and not your heart.

Any questions? Concerns? Ideas?  I'm here for you.

MOVING FORWARD: Part 20 - In Conclusion

We live in a world of global inequity.

Broken markets founded on corrupt economic models operating within malfunctioning social and political systems represent capitalism’s greatest failing.

Where it was once believed that democracy would enable effective self-governance and, by extension, that the free market would self-regulate, we now know better.

Better informed, empowered and enabled than at any other time in history, we have become enslaved by an economic model that inspires hope for self-determination while failing to provide the mechanisms necessary for its realization.

Our notions of success have been hijacked by an economic model that knows only one way to value it. We have become entrenched in a way of living that rewards us for maximizing revenue instead of by creating value.

The ubiquity of communications infrastructure has emerged in response to our ever-increasing demand for connection and has achieved unparalleled growth as development costs have diminished. Now more than six billion people are capable of establishing direct communication with each other.

The social web, by extension, connects billions of people via trillions of transactions a day. The world’s largest social networks generate revenue by enabling user-generated content and then serving advertising back to those users. In short, they trade the novelty and utility of their services for the opportunity to commercialize our time, data and connections. Along the way they generate high volume revenues and correspondingly high-profit that the law requires they disperse to their shareholders.

So while the tools of the social web are undeniably impactful in terms of facilitating communication, they have done little to truly revolutionize the plight of the every man and woman. It is difficult to be motivated to create meaningful change in one’s own life when the mechanisms for achieving self-determination are frequently beyond reach or comprehension.

Now imagine a social network where the members are rewarded for their interactions, where they shared in the distribution of earnings, were encouraged to gift to their favorite charities and ultimately determined the strategic direction of the company in order to support it in doing even more of the same.

Imagine a world uplifted.

==================

What's Next?

The next step in the solidification of our combined efforts is for all community members to vote and elect our next leader – the new President of FanBox - so that your community can be even more accountable to you.

     Read details on the Presidential Election here

In the meantime, encourage your Success Coach to announce that they are a candidate!

MOVING FORWARD: Part 19 - The first Statespersons 

=====================  UPDATE =============================
Before we continue, let's answer these two questions many are asking:

Question: How can I be a leader (Senator or Congressperson)?
Answer: You first need to be a Success Coach.

Question: How do I become a Success Coach?
Answer: Speak with Zoe.  She is ready to assist you.
========================================================== 

Thank you for staying with me in this conversation...

... as we moved from a very high level reminder of why the world needs fanbox to a more specific dialog about the mission, approach, money and capitalism -- all intended to encourage you to start thinking about the community's biggest challenge and potential solutions.

We then introduced the power user -- but immediately dove head-first into a plan for your financial success -- knowing darn well that if we didn't, we'd risk losing those of you with attention deficit disorder when we declared our liberty and debated what's wrong with democracies and how we might avoid that here.

Heartened that everyone stayed tuned in, we then discussed our constitution before meeting our founding mothers and chatting about the initial democratic process and code of official conduct for politicians.

Which leads us to today's announcement.
 

Our very first Senators and Congresspersons

Without further delay, here they are:

Congresspersons:

Egypt    Nourein Mohssei

Germany   alchimist :)

India   barkha neeelam

Indonesia   ArchyLen Farizt

Israel   Mari Juana (MJ)

Jordan     Anmar Alshatarat

Malaysia  Nasa Jaafar

Nepal   November Rain

Netherlands    May Ram

Norway      Katherine

Pakistan    Shehreyer

Pakistan    Asif Mughal

Philippines    Aliah  Reynales

Philippines    Gloria Calzita

Philippines    Nap Bayasen

Romania    Pop Mircea

Russia     lana ferra

Slovenia     Secko Rama

Trinidad & Tobago   Judith Young

Uganda   Edrisa African

United States     Chrystal A

United States     Catherine Herdt

United States     Cindy Woods

United States     PaulaAndreaPyle

United States     Marie Frabutt

United States     wendy williams

United States     Melanie Jarman

United States     Meliha Colic

Vietnam   LE THANH KONG

Senators:

India   Sudha

India   Arun Kumar Sriv

Italy    Crazy Dog Terry

Italy    Georgiana Yoana

Jordan     Anna  P

Jordan     Koko S

Pakistan   Muhammad Khalid Jalil

Pakistan  * Shahzad *

Philippines    Cool Ayz

Philippines    Dave A

Romania   Manuela Alexuc

Romania   manu enah

United Kingdom   D Poet Rhumour

United Kingdom  Vicky SC

United States     Brian Woosley

United States     Ryan Page

Their opportunity is about serving the people of the world

As volunteering Success Coaches, they are already serving people.

As statespersons, they will be serving a much larger group of people: All current and future FanBoxers. 

Even though they will now be Senators and Congresspersons from, say, India, the U.S., Germany or Pakistan...

... along with representing the needs of the people from their country...

... their more important responsibility is to fairly serve and represent the people of the world. 

Congratulations to them on this outstanding achievement!

The Founding Mothers discussed and researched long and hard -- and selected them from a much larger group.

Of course this is a big moment and achievement for the community - as it took many twists and turns to arrive at this moment.

We have waited years to take this action -- because we needed to ensure we had the right people involved. 

We didn't want to do this with just anyone. 

We needed to make sure the community had candidates of this caliber before making the move. 

Along with what this means for our community, this is also a very big achievement for them personally...

... because it demonstrates the trust and loyalty that they have successfully built in the community...

... armed with nothing but their passion & motivation, selflessness & intelligence -- and a willingness to serve.

It's the next step for their influence and power to make a real difference in the world. 

I'm not just talking about the ability to create the next big technology company... 

... or influence the next big product features or technologies...

... but I’m speaking about the power to actually create opportunities for millions and eventually billions of people...

... life-changing opportunities that might actually change the direction of life on this planet.

(If you think I am exaggerating, I'd remind you to think of those 600M jobs that need to magically appear in the next 8 years -- without which we will have poverty and famine on a scale that our world has never known).

All great things start with one small step... and move forward one step at a time.

This is our next step together.

If your name is listed below:

Congratulations!

And thank you for taking on this extra responsibility for the good of the community.

And if your name is NOT listed below (but you wish it were):

Don't worry, you can be a statesperson too.

I'll explain:

This is the first time -- and the last time -- that candidates will be hand-chosen.

After this, they will be selected by performance.

IE: FanBox is becoming a merit-based democracy.

In other words, the Success Coaches with the highest performance at the end of this quarter (March 31)…

... will automatically become eligible to be a Senator or Congressperson for the 2nd quarter of 2013.

And from there, they can become members of the President’s Cabinet…

... and from there, the President of FanBox…

... as we discussed last week.

So if you're interested in becoming a statesperson and making a difference...

... speak with Zoe. She is ready to assist you.
 

So, please help me congratulate our very first class of Statespersons...

... and wish them the very best of luck!

They will need your love, energy and support... no doubt about it!

In the coming days, they will receive their special powers, so they can get to work on behalf of the community.

Any questions? I'm here for you.

Photos courtesy of * Share  
Thank you * Share!! 

MOVING FORWARD: Part 18 - Code of Official Conduct

In preparation for our announcement of the community's first Senators and Congresspersons...

... I've asked our Founding Mothers to draft a "Code of Official Conduct" document for Senators and Congresspersons.

Upon nomination, all Senators and Congresspersons will be asked to click an "I accept" button at the bottom of the "Code of Official Conduct" document...

... only if they agree to these terms...

... at which point they system will instantly enable their account with their special powers, capabilities and designations (badges).

Before we do that, however, I wanted to give you a chance to modify the Code of Official Conduct document -- shown below.

Would you change anything -- or is anything missing?

Code of Official Conduct
for FanBox Senators & Congresspersons

1. A FanBox Statesperson shall behave at all times in a manner that shall raise and reflect the creditably and spirit of the Community.

2. A FanBox Statesperson shall adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the Success Coach Program and FanBox.

3. A FanBox Statesperson may not receive compensation or gifts from the Community with the intent of improperly exerting influence.

4. A FanBox Statesperson may not discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions because of the race, color, religion, sex (including marital or parental status), disability, age, or national origin of such individual.

5. A FanBox Statesperson is expected to participate regularly in Congressional and Senate Forums.

6. Before a FanBox Statesperson may have access to classified information, the following oath (or affirmation) shall be executed:

"I do solemnly affirm that I will not disclose any classified information received in the course of my service as a FanBox Statesperson, except as authorized by FanBox."

7. A FanBox Statesperson shall agree to not utilize statesperson mass distribution capabilities for personal gain or promotion.

8. A FanBox Statesperson understands that the role of FanBox Statesperson may be redefined with additional duties given or rescinded.

9. A FanBox Statesperson understands that the role of FanBox Statesperson may run less than the originally appointed tenure.

MOVING FORWARD: Part 17 - initial democratic (Legislative & Judicial) process

We are now only days away from becoming the world’s first full-fledged democratic social network.

By now, you have read the Declaration of Liberty, which states that the community is to be free and in charge of itself.

To be in charge of itself, the community needs rules and laws. Together, we have started to discuss the contents of our Constitution.

The challenge, of course, is that to finalize our Constitution, we need leaders.

But we need a Constitution, to determine who our leaders are.

So we find ourselves in a “Which came first -- the chicken or the egg?” scenario.

To break this scenario, I asked our Founding Mothers to select the first Senators and Congresspersons, based on performance, from the Success Coach team.

The Founding Mothers have spent much time over the last couple of months, looking at all the performance data for the Success Coaches.

They looked at their student Grad Rates, student Ratings, average response times, QC audit rates, student earnings, and another dozen or so quantifiable factors.

The final list – our very first Senators and Congresspersons – is almost complete.

As soon as the list is complete – and the new product features mentioned below are launched -- it will be announced.

The Initial Process

Here’s my suggested process for how things will work -- until such time that any process is changed by the Senators and Congresspersons:

(To gain a full understanding of the thinking behind these decisions,
please review the earlier parts of this multi-post blog).

SENATORS:

•       Top two (2) Success Coaches from each nation

•       Selection automatic based on merit (performance)

•       Senators can create new rules and policies – to be ratified by two-thirds of Congress

•       Together, all Senators from around the world get an exclusive forum – to enable them to discuss issues & ideas

•       Senators will have mass distribution powers:  the ability to communicate with everyone in their country - so that they can best represent the interests of the people

•       Senators will be clearly designated via badges next to their name and profiles

•       Initial term will be one calendar quarter – likely increased after a few terms

•       Senators can serve for an unlimited number of terms

CONGRESSPERSONS:

•       Top fifty (50) Success Coaches from the whole world

•       Selection automatic based on performance

•       Congresspersons can create new rules and policies – to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate

•       Together, all Congresspersons from around the world get an exclusive forum – to enable them to discuss issues & ideas

•       Congresspersons will have mass distribution powers:  the ability to communicate with everyone in their country - so that they can best represent the interests of the people

•       Congresspersons will be clearly designated via badges next to their name and profiles

•       Initial term will be one calendar quarter – likely increased after a few terms

•       Congresspersons can serve for an unlimited number of terms

JUDGES:

•       Randomly selected from all Statespersons (Senators and Congresspersons) from all over the world

•       Each Statesperson serves as judge for one or two days each calendar quarter

•       Each day, there are two (2) Statespersons on duty as judges

•       The Executive (President) branch’s ability to delete accounts will now require “due process”:

•       Executive branch will place into limbo an account, notifying the accused FanBoxer and Court Administrator of the charge

•       Court Administrator will schedule a trial – handled via FanBox email – and based on that date, two (2) judges are assigned and copied on charges

•       If judges do not agree on the verdict, Court Administrator will bring in a third judge to act as final arbitrator.

PRESIDENT’S CABINET:

•       Selected by the President

•       They comprise the FanBox President’s think tank -- working closely with the FanBox President on issues, tools, rules, product features and functionality -- and voting on the selection of expert delegations that are nominated by the FanBox President

FANBOX PRESIDENT:

•       Elected by popular vote by the FanBox community

•       Lives in San Diego for the duration of term – expenses covered

•       Runs the FanBox Corporation and responsible for all employees and activity within the Corporation

•       Candidates are the top 10 politicians, with the most successful coaching organizations (coaching blocks)

•       The President can veto laws and policies brought forward from the Senate and Congress

•       No re-election: Presidents serve for only one term

•       Initial term one calendar quarter – likely increased after a few terms

Again, the very first Senators and Congresspersons will be announced in the coming days...

... as soon as the list is finalized and FanBox engineering launches the above-mentioned political tools.

Of course those folks will have the ability to kill, update or add to the above suggested policies and rules.

Questions? Ideas? Feedback? Pushback? Please share!