The Realist Idealist

Sitting here in Red Rock coffee shop in downtown Mountain View, CA - the fabled home to tech giants like Google and innumerable startups - you can almost feel the innovation pulsing through your veins. It permeates the air. You suck it in with every breath.  Like politics in DC.

I’m in a chair by the window upstairs surrounded by MacBook Pros and steaming mugs. I’m probably getting cancer there are so many wireless networks transmitting data all around me.

My friend Omar just stopped by to demo his startup’s new browser for hand-helds.

I overhear some dude grunt “that’s the kind of plug in I’m talking about!” into his bluetooth headset. It’s so over the top. I can’t help it. I kinda love it.

It’s a bit of a bubble though. Maybe a bubble is a good thing when it comes to the fragile environments in which innovation truly thrives, but today I found myself thinking about the ways that it’s not so great.

I went over to building 45 of Google’s campus for lunch with my friend Tanya who is working to support nonprofits in using Google Earth for their work. What she is able to offer nonprofits is a way to leverage one of the sexiest and most powerful non-military mapping tools on the planet for “good” work. The possibilities are huge. I wrote about it when they first launched it here:

Google Earth for Nonprofits

The problem is, it’s almost too innovative. It’s too amazing. Too far beyond what nonprofits think of (for the most part) when it comes to their work.

A lot of what I’m thinking about these days is how to get nonprofits and other do-gooders to adopt tools like Earth and so many others that are free and incredibly useful when harnessed.

What I’ve learned so far: It’s damn hard.

Who’s got some lessons out there?