I just signed up for a Zaadz profile this week. Zaadz is a new social networking tool, geared towards folks who want to change the world. More specifically, it seems, folks who want to change the world from an integral perspective. (See my previous post for an explanation of "integral".)

For those who may be thinking "what the heck is a social networking tool?", let me explain. Basically, the term refers to the many web-based services that allow people to meet other people, usually around shared interests. Tribe.Net is pretty popular in my community of friends. Linked-In is a more professional, corporate-ish one. Dating sites like Lavalife are also social networking tools.
Apparently there are over 3000 of these on the internet now. !!!!!

So given that, you might also be thinking "Why on earth does the world need another one?" Do they really do anything besides suck up vast amounts of people's time? Well, I think there are two things that determine the value of a social networking tool:
1) the functionality of the tools themselves, and what they can allow people to do, and
2) the people who are using the service.

So Zaadz is doing some cool stuff as far as tools go - I see influences of 43Things (Zaadz's "goal" feature is very similar), and there's a whole lotta tagging going on, as well as blogging, podcasting, etc... lotsa Web2.0-ish action. But nothing mind-blowing, and the tools themselves aren't what have me excited (though I expect they'll ramp up the functionality dramatically in the next few months - they're still in very early days).

What's cool is the people who seem to have flocked to the Zaadz beta, and that appears (at the risk of making generalizations) to be the kind of "spiritual activist" crowd. The kind of people who are attracted to the Zaadz Plan, as laid out on their front page:

Ours involves Capitalism. Spirituality. Enthusiasm. Love. Service. Inspiration. Leaders. People CRAZY enough to think they can change the world. And courageous enough to do something about it. And committed enough to stick to it when they feel like giving up. The quick version of what we're gonna do: build THE most inspired community of people in the world... Imagine social networking with a purpose, a community of seekers and conscious entrepreneurs circulating wisdom and inspiration and wealth and all that good stuff. Fun fun fun.

I have to say that I was attracted to the vision.

My first 24 hours as a member have been pretty interesting, all told. I stumbled across the business model blog post and had some trouble with parts of it (as you will see from my comment if you care to click through). Brian, the CEO, immediately stepped up with a thoughtful response and a personal thanks for contributing to the discussion. I've done some additional reading since then, and I have to say that I'm left feeling very impressed with the quality and openness of the dialogue being modeled. The long and the short of it is that one member was quite put off by the openly capitalist intentions stated for the company, and posted that he was going to leave. What followed was an involved and very co-explorative dialogue that seriously left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. If we could all learn to handle conflict that maturely, compassionately and constructively, the world would be a very different place.

I'm not sure myself how I feel about the whole stated vision. But then, I'm still grappling to understand what it looks like when business, sustainability, and spirituality all come out to play together. (Anyone else have any thoughts?) Brian made some good points in his reply to my comment, but it still doesn't sit completely right with me. 

Beyond all that, though, I'm really excited about the kind of dialogue that could emerge from this group of people. And I'm excited to be part of "an open forum through which we can all inspire and empower one another to more closely define our personal truth while challenging each other to actually live it." Sounds awesome....

You might well be asking, what's an IntegralNaked podcast? Good question -- and it's probably not what you were thinking, unless you already know what both Integral Naked and Podcasts are. They're both kinda cool things to know about, though, so read on to find out.

Integral Naked is an online community, loosely centered around the "integral theory" work of Ken Wilber (and many others, now). 

"Integral" simply means comprehensive or inclusive. The core of Integral Naked is a series of intense, raw, straightforward discussions that cover a full sweep of contemporary issues—from business to personal growth, from education to meditation, from politics to ecology, from sexuality to spirituality. What would all of those look like if they were integral instead of partial, whole instead of fragmented, balanced instead of broken? 

Integral Naked has been up and running for a while - a couple of years? - on a subscription basis, where you could pay $10 a month and get unlimited access to all the audio and video dialogues they posted. Now they're offering some of theose dialogues as podcasts -- a podcast being an audio clip that you can download via iTunes to listen to at your leisure. Best of all, the podcasts are free!

So check it out if that's your bag... and explore the rest of the site too. I have to hand it to the IN folks for their efforts to stay at the front end of the curve when it comes to online community functionality, though I think the overall clarity of message could stand a little work...