VIDEO BLOGS ON HOLD - I'M WITH KIVA!

I am going to put making video blogs on a hiatus for now. I've gotten involved with something that could use the 2 hours that I normally set aside for making a video.

It's been a lingering desire of mine to get involved with microfinance. My recent transfer to my company's finance department couldn't have been more timely, although corporate finance (at EPCOR) is slightly different from the idea of eradicating poverty through microloans. However, the ideas of valuation, risk management and capital costs are part of the same language that is found in both. I stumbled across an organization called Kiva (Swahili for "agreement" or "unity") who facilitate microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. On their site, you choose a business initiative that interests you, find out what their loan is going to be used for and then make a loan. The loan (most people loan out $25 at a time) is done securely through Pay Pal. The loan is for a set period of time at which point the money is returned to your Pay Pal account for which you can then withdraw or reloan to another intiative. There is no interest earned on this loan, but then, most who engage in this initiative are probably more concerned about the social returns. Well, they were looking for volunteers and I contacted them. I received a response right away asking if I had time to help with some of their marketing initiatives (weird how another part of my work history now comes back into relevance). Basically, I "crawl" through the blogosphere, looking for posts on Kiva and thanking the writers. I then ask if they would consider placing a permanent link or banner on their site (there's no cost to this, just pasting some code into the blog). What this does is extend the shelf life of Kiva's message as readers return to their site. It's about 10 hours a week but I'm loving it: I get to read about other people's involvement in microfinance and I get to stay up to date with how microfinance is developing in the world! Of course, I would't be adding much credibility to my comments if I didn't put a Kiva.org banner on my own blog!

Standing at a bus stop, a teenaged kid is grinding his skateboard on the edge of an overturned newspaper box. What else is a kid with a skateboard, waiting for his bus, supposed to do? Back and forth, back and forth, riding up to the metal box, and then hopping onto it, sliding the entire length of the box with the skateboard's tail. Clearly, the lady sitting on a nearby bench was not impressed and I'm sure she was reinforcing the ongoing bun fight between the general public and skateboarders in her mind. The bus pulls up. The kid does one more grind. THEN HE PICKS UP THE NEWSPAPER BIN AND PUTS IT BACK IN PLACE ALONGSIDE THE OTHER NEWSPAPER BINS. He even takes an extra 5 sections to straighten it out!