Social entrepreneurship is an opportunity for Philadelphia to create a regional distinction for attracting and retaining startup talent, was the central theme of my Pecha Kucha presentation Saturday night.

It was an extension of my writing on social entrepreneurship here.

The lightning talk event, in which a dozen speakers use 20 seconds for each of 20 images to give a five-minute perspective, was having its ninth iteration locally, after having been launched by graphic designers in Tokyo in 2004. See the slides from the presentation below.

Philadelphia’s Pecha Kucha [pronounced peCHA kuCHA] is held in part-time yoga studio, part-time neighborhood anchor Studio 34 and organized by a pair of Wharton students, though the 50-person crowd was largely made up of 30 and 40-somethings who lived near the Baltimore Avenue corridor of Cedar Park neighborhood in West Philadelphia.

My opinion is that Philadelphia’s considerable quality of life problems — violence, poor education, dirt, blight and more — are an opportunity for mission-driven business solutions to be based where they are most needed among large markets that have investment, marketing opportunities and access to more of both.

Soon, I’ll post the audio and the video of the presentation.

“In the U.S., political power flows from economic power, not the other way around” Tom Wicker in 1996 on shortcomings of Civil Rights movement speaking on the Charlie Rose Show.

The whole night was a treat, as I preceded Pecha Kucha by visiting the high-end modern Southern fusion-based Marigold Kitchen, in a renovated 1907 West Philadelphia rowhome, which has received great reviews by Craig Laban and Philadelphia magazine. Also, though cold and snowy, I got my first more thorough Baltimore Avenue experience, having landed there by the 34 trolley.

My good friend Eric Smith, whose successes in publishing and audience have kept me motivated, wrote some very flattering things in celebration of his own birthday, mostly about how we love to faux battle by way of our respective geek blogs Geekadelphia and Technically Philly. An excerpt:

… Without realizing it, Chris had finally given me the greatest gift of all… playful competition. I love being able to throw a jab at him now and again via Twitter or on the blog. Mocking him when I see the buzzwords flying… I should list that as an interest on my Facebook profile. I’m thrilled when I hear about a local PR firm thinking Chris and I (aka Technically Philly and Geekadelphia) hate each other. When he gave his keynote speech during the first Philly Tech Week, I ruined his moment with a tweet (this was an accident though!). When he received an award at the Geek Awards, he slammed the hell out of Geekadelphia, and I loved it.

But despite the joking around… Chris makes me want to be better at what I do.

Below watch video of my Geek Awards presentation when I had a little fun at Geekadelphia’s expense, though their fans let me hear it.

Moderating a panel on web security, as being aired yesterday on CSPAN 2 Book TV.

The Founding Fathers would have loved and leveraged social media but been fearful of its future implications on privacy and speech issues, said a host of experts at an event on the impact of new communications patterns.

Earlier this month, I moderated a panel on the subject at the National Constitution Center featuring Jennifer Preston, a social media reporter from the New York Times, Kashmir Hill, a web law reporter from Forbes and Lori Andrews, the author of a related book which served as regular fodder for the discussion, which appeared on CSPAN 2, Book TV.

Find background and audio of the entire program on the NCC blog here. Watch the entire hour-long panel discussion on CSPAN here.

Thanks to Stefan Frank for organizing the event and including me. Below, I have a three-minute clip of the final question of the night, in which, after spending the evening speaking about the perils of social media, each panelist reminds us of the power and benefit.

Some takeaways:

• A herculean battle is being balanced between the speech and communication power of the social web against privacy and security concerns.
• There is a gray area between private company and utility — when does presence on a social network become so part of social life that there should be greater scrutiny over privacy than any other service?
• I created this document and circulated it with my fellow panelists before the event.

I’m moderating a panel on privacy, security and democracy concerns surrounding the social web at the National Constitution Center in Old City, Philadelphia next Thursday.

You should come. More details here. It costs $10 for non-members.

Story Shuffle 10 happened this month and the theme of Parents offered a handful of interesting stories.

See them all here or listen to mine below.

Listen here.

The structure of my story:

• As children, we have an opportunity to experience so many different friends households that its an under appreciated opportunity to evaluate what type of home life we want to live.
• I loved my childhood and my family and my parents but I still sought to find out how others did it.
• Particularly in high school, I remember how distinct the homes of my friends that I visited.
• I loved getting to know people’s parents at an early age. I was the guy in the car to the bowling alley talking to your mom.
• And I fell in love with the idea of personality types. There are lots of theories about how temperament define us. One of the oldest is the four temperaments which anthropologists say has been on display for thousands of years in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
• It was Hippocrates 400 years before Christ who tried to make it a medical theory. That’s all debunked but it’s still a novel way to see the world.
• It says there are four: the sanguine or impulsive pleasure seeking; the choleric or ambitious leader type; the melancholic or introverted and thoughtful and the phlegmatic or relaxed and content.
• The homes and parents I would visit as a kid fit into those groups.
• Reinhardt: ping pong and pool and firework and what gate. His father would play and yell. It was the sanguine house.
• Avondoglio household was neat and across a beautiful pond from the family restaurant. U remember first talking politics and business with Bryant and his father. It was the choleric house.
• Medvidick was behind overgrown bushes, dark and you never went in the front door. Dark and books were everywhere. Father tinkering, mother  referencing literature. It was the melancholic house.
• The Sheehan household was. Always unlocked, simple and cared for. Unnecessary apologetic and nothing ever changed. Time warp, hours passed. It was the phlegmatic house.
• Years later, I have such a broad understanding of how a home cn be run and how parenting can be done. I was give the chance or success because f my parents but had so many other lessons elsewhere.
• And that sharing of learning from one generation to another is parenting.

Near the close of the OpenDataRace, a popularity contest for data sets that affect nonprofit missions, I was asked onto NewsWorks Tonight, the daily, local drive-time news radio show from NPR affiliate WHYY. We recorded the segment last week and it aired Monday.

Read more about the contest here, see the data sets and register to vote here and listen to the NewsWorks segment below.

LISTEN HERE.

I was on the program back in June to talk about the open data movement and other initiatives here. I got some fun comments from friends, like this one.

How jealousy and other bad qualities can be shaped to help motivate you to reach your goals was the focus of the story I told at Story Shuffle 9, with a jealousy theme.

Listen to my story below or find it here, along with the other stories.

LISTEN HERE.

I reported on the funding for Technically Philly. Read her story here.

In the world of radio, there were a few versions, and I don’t have the full version with my audio included, but below hear two of the audio pieces: one from Maiken and my audio clip that was played following the host’s intro.

LISTEN HERE FOR FULL VERSION

LISTEN HERE FOR MY CLIP

Another Story Shuffle, this the 8th, the one year anniversary celebration and a theme of Anniversaries, was held in my Fishtown rowhome last week.

I told the story of Voyager II, an un-manned spacecraft sent out 34 years earlier in order to go farther than we ever have before. Like other ships send to deep space, it had to get far enough away so it could be seen, a subject I found fitting for both the space program and our own depiction of ourselves.

Give it a listen below or find all the stories here.

Listen here.

Below is a Creative Commons photo depiction of the Voyager II spacecraft.

Watch below a video interview with famed scientist Carl Sagan when Voyager II first passed Saturn.

Instagram photo by Daniel Victor.

White House Urban Entrepreneurship forum Better Together panel, featuring (from left) moderator Kathleen Warner from Startup America; Doug Rand from the White House Office of Science and Technoogy; Sherryl Kulman from the Wharton Program for Social Impact; Prof. Youngjin Yoo from Temple University's Fox School of Business; Jane Vincent from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Dept and, behind the camera, me.

One of seven White House Urban Entrepreneurship forums across the country was hosted at Temple University in Philadelphia Monday, and, in addition to Technically Philly being a media sponsor, I served on one of a dozen panels.

Find the Livestream and Technically Philly coverage of Philadelphia Mayor Nutter’s address here.

I was on a panel called “Better Together: Public-Private Partnerships to Accelerate Urban Entrepreneurship and Startups.”

Unfortunately, our time was truncated due to a late start, so I spoke briefly once and answered one question.

I spoke about Technically Philly involving itself in connecting startups and entrepreneurs with the city, by way of Philly Tech Week, the Open Data Philly initiative and further fostering collaboration in various corners of the region’s technology community.

White House officials are holding these forums, from Newark to New Orleans, to connect and discuss ideas with local business leaders and entrepreneurs. Philadelphia’s forum coincided with a meaningful minority business event. The forum was co-hosted by the White House, The Office of Mayor Nutter, U.S. Departments of Commerce, Energy, Labor, Treasury, Education, and several federal, state, and local agencies.