Inner View

Interview with Paul Burt

 

• Why are you starting this organization?

• How would you define your services?

• Where did the idea come from?

• Why are you starting with authors?

• What about editors, layout and cover artists, publishers, etc.?

• What type of organizational structure are you planning and why?

• What impact do you hope to have on our culture of commerce?

• What impact do you hope to have on the daily lives of your members and users?

• What are you asking of people as you go from model to reality?

 

 

Why are you starting this organization?

 

“Because people don’t want to ‘do’ they want to 'be.' They want to be less busy and more productive, less alone and more connected, less fearful and feel more safe” (Bernadette Jiwa, the StoryofTelling.com).

 

Caveat emptor, fear and greed, are still too prevalent in our world of commerce. Think of all the stress of uncertainty around any number of buying decisions. The speed of living in our modern world challenges our health and happiness. Seth Godin said it well in a recent blog, “Too much noise, too many choices, and most of all, too many people asking for everything, all the time.”

 

Online research is time consuming with questionable reliability. Marketing is a big time drain, particularly for creative entrepreneurs like authors and musicians and small businesses with limited resources.

 

Technology serves us while also being employed to exploit us, missing the true potential to simplify and enrich life. It is time to put people above profits.

 

Our mission is to simplify commerce and modern living to make safe and fair trade commerce a reality worldwide. That’s obviously huge, but like Occupy Wall Street, we’ll start small and grow fast because people are crying for a way to bring order to the chaos. The status quo isn’t working. Government and big corporations are not going to get it done. We can’t wait around for something better to just come along. WE have to create it.

 

We all deserve a commerce system that serves all equally and rewards us for our contribution. People can “be the change” when empowered with the right system.

 

How would you define your services?

 

We are a buying filter with automated personal and business organization. The model core is: tell us what you want and we’ll filter out everything that doesn’t qualify. The buyer gets the value they expect, and the seller gets a fair price for their work.

 

Think of it as a quality control filter for discovering, buying, selling, and organizing. Forget hype. Skip the endless, ineffective research and “must do” promotion. The quality of your work, rather than your marketing, will be the key to market value and success. We will begin with subjective but controlled ratings and add objective transactional data as the system infrastructure is developed. The real beauty is in the life simplifying details!

 

We’re here to facilitate win-win-win, including creative expression on both a professional and amateur level.

 

Where did the idea come from?

 

Where do ideas come from? I was relaxing in the living room one evening when the idea started revealing itself. Originally it was a new twist for music. I had worked with a start-up jazz label focused on old masters who never received the recognition they deserved. It was months before I connected the dots on how it fit for book publishing. Once that clicked, the big picture and endless applications became evident.

 

The model has continued to draw me back in from life distractions, and become what feels like my life’s mission. Since the beginning, I would have an idea and within a short time a variation of it would come to my attention in a book, online, wherever. There are pieces of it everywhere in the emerging trends. I’d hear about something and think I was too late, it was already being done. Then, looking closer at the new online service, I’d find it missed the mark in some fundamental way.

 

The ideas are still coming, details and refinements, but now it is time to get more minds involved to keep it growing and developing. The foundation is ready for the users to make it their own.

 

Why are you starting with authors?

 

Authors always have and will play a catalytic role in change.

 

As a publisher, I am immersed in the book industry, and while there have been wonderful advances in Print on Demand and eBook technologies, there is no true “system” to reliably connect readers and books. Authors live with caveat emptor, buyer beware, at every turn. There are those out to exploit their dream amid a maze of well-meaning providers. The quality of editing, design, publishing, and promotional services cover a wide spectrum. Finding the right help is hit and miss even after extensive research. Authors face information overload with only a slim chance of even recouping their investment.

 

Authors struggle to connect to potential readers, while readers miss most of the books they'd love to read because they never hear of them, even when they are actively searching. A reliable solution has remained illusive.

 

We can quickly begin serving the main genres while we grow. Our system’s core benefit of consistently connecting the reader with the right books can be implemented without the complexity of the full model.

 

On the practical side, books have a worldwide audience and digital content is easier than dealing with physical product. Authors are also readers so our audience and providers grow simultaneously. Writers are willing to help each other and are active online, so they can spread the word to help grow our community and their own success simultaneously.

 

What about editors, layout and cover artists, publishers, etc.?

 

We need and want them all! They provide critical services. We are here to let their true value shine and facilitate connection to their audience. It will take a little longer to implement, but our rating system works for them as well.

 

What type of organizational structure are you planning and why?

 

My concern in choosing a legal entity has always been to secure transparency and member control for the long term, to lock out greed and stay true to the mission in every detail. Since the system needs to sustain itself, and shouldn’t have to depend on charity, the non-profit option didn’t seem to be a great fit.

 

My first choice was a “benefit corporation,” a new class of corporation that voluntarily meets higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability, and transparency. I think a B-corp is still a viable route, but where large amounts of money are involved who knows what might happen.

 

I considered co-ops or cooperatives, but they didn’t seem to allow for raising the kind of capital necessary. The International Cooperative Alliance defines a cooperative as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise.” Members own and share in the profits of a cooperative; one member one vote.

 

When I recently learned about multi-stakeholder or Solidarity cooperatives, I could see the match to our intentions and long-term security concerns. We could back up the promises we wanted to make with a supporting legal structure that allowed for raising capital without ceding control. We could even distribute profits equitably to those who help create them—our members and employees. The structure verifies our intentions to serve one and all fairly.

 

What impact do you hope to have on our culture of commerce?

 

We see our role as fair trade facilitator. It will be the collective will created by each individual and organization working in synergy that makes the impact. We want to help facilitate awareness of our interdependence, facilitate “. . . a shift of mind from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing people as helpless reactors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their reality, from reacting to the present to creating the future” (Peter Singe, “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization”).

 

Our actions and our being impact the whole in subtle ways. As we see with our environment, we are all in this together—one planet, one human race. It is in our self-interest to create a culture, a system, where no one needs to lose for us to win.

 

Our system is designed to enforce win-win-win by making transactions visible so a buyer’s experience is no longer an isolated incident. If you choose to cheat someone, or provide a sub-par performance, you hurt your future earning power. Cost and quality become quantifiable value. Deliver value and your earning power rises. Self-interests are aligned in every interaction.

 

What impact do you hope to have on the daily lives of your members and users?

 

As self-interests are aligned, imagine the worry and stress reduction reverberating. Feel yourself relax as you make decisions based on reliable information at your fingertips. Notice the fear and hype tactics used to sell you become irrelevant and fade.

 

Think about what you’ll do with the time you used to spend in researching and comparison shopping, or in endless promotion to reach your audience, or in organizing and accessing records. Feel yourself flowing rather than battling the current as you take control of your schedule and life.

 

I envision people following their passions, nurturing their creativity, connecting more genuinely with each other, slowing down to take time to just be. I see them becoming more conscious of who they are and who they want to become.

 

What are you asking of people as you go from model to reality?

 

Patience and participation. Getting to full functionality will take a little more time than any of us would like, but it is important we get it right from the beginning.

 

Without participation, all we have is a good idea. Connect with us early and help shape the future. We will expand to music and other arts and services ASAP. For now, we have to get the business of books working. We will gladly assist you in organizing locally to expedite the process, but don’t wait for us. Jump in and make it happen! Services and products of all kinds will follow. You determine where and how we grow; for the people, by the people.

 

 

All for one, and one for all.