Category Archives: Wicked Solutions

vs. the apparently-most-possible of the allegedly impossible

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Colossal_octopus_by_Pierre_Denys_de_MontfortYesterday, one of my friends (founder) asked why I don’t start easier ventures? The reason relates to the framing (and re-framing) of the challenge: No matter what I think about, it has been my experience that the leap-frogging steps of a disruption are nearly always seen as impossible/hard to comprehend . . . 

. . . (and in this, it appears not so much that the barrier is a belief in the “impossibility”, but that the person cannot intellectually follow or comprehend how I got there and ego seems to get in the way).

So, if whatever I do is seen this way, then (perhaps paradoxically) it makes more sense to me to do the biggest scariest monster.

Because this takes exactly the same effort as the apparently-most-possible of the allegedly impossible.

Not to mention massively satisfying.

Image: Pen and wash drawing by malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort, 1801, from the descriptions of French sailors reportedly attacked by such a creature off the coast of Angola. Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken

Replacing the US EB-1 and E-1 with a BE-1 Visa?

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Many entrepreneurs need to follow the money to Silicon Valley. But US visa programs can be a challenge.

Blueseed Ventures offered a solution: Putting a tech incubator in international waters with a ferry traveling to San Francisco every day.

Lots of interest but not enough funders. Not to mention legal entanglements such as border controls and inspections, all rightfully a responsibility of the United States to its citizens.

Is a new visa program, paradoxically, the easier way?

100 miles inland & 100 miles offshore

Could the US create a new “Border Entrepreneur visa (BE-1)” that allows entrepreneurs to enter and operate startups and companies on US soil, to get access to US capital, without living in the USA?

Here is my thinking:

  • 100-mile border zone inside US land border
  • 100-mile border zone adjacent to the coastline of US states and territories
  • Visa region includes US territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, etc)
  • US citizens get priority hiring as employees (core team exempt from the rule)
  • Mutual benefit for entrepreneurs and US economy
  • US evaluates entrepreneurs without having the entrepreneur burden US services
bc-wa-border-visa-zone

Washington State/BC Border Zone

Example: a BC entrepreneur could operate in Whatcom County (Blaine, Bellingham, Ferndale) and return home to Vancouver every evening. Or simply move to Seattle or Tacoma.

 

 

What would this do for Plattsburg, NY, or Detroit, MI, or Yuma, AZ?

Could this alleviate the ‘undocumented alien’ challenge along the Mexican border? And produce certainty for authorities and law-abiding immigrants?

Could BE-1 visa holders demonstrating good citizenship and contributions to the economy “graduate” to the resident visa/citizenship stream?

Could the BE-1 produce legal/economic certainty for sea-stead ventures located between the coastline, and the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone or 12-mile offshore treaty border?

A new map of the Coast?

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A new map for BC

In the case of Tsilhqot’in First Nation, the Supreme Court of Canada recently decided that aboriginal title never got extinguished. And Premier Clark recently declared that the treaty process is not working–part of her reasoning for cancelling the appointment of the province’s treaty commissioner.

treaties-bc-01-001

Perhaps it is not working because most of BC has returned to First Nations title?

Perhaps the hard truth is that the British Columbia has legally shrunk to a handful of treaty lands covering less than 1/3 of the land area?

Perhaps the new reality is that First Nations do not have to participate in treaties any more?

 

Should First Nations establish a new Province?

treaties-bc-03b-001Perhaps First Nations could in fact create a new Province of the Peoples of the Coast (black outline), with a capital and legislature where First Nations people want it — Prince George? Kamloops? Prince Rupert? Or an entirely new, planned, capital city? And a provincial regime that assets the constitutional rights of the landowners? A capital where foreign embassies for other Provinces, the federal government, Province of BC treaty nations (red) and other States could locate?

 

Should Lower BC become a Megacity-sized Province?

lowerbc

We have a funny situation. Most of BC has nothing in common with the metropolitan area on its lower big toe. But that ‘big toe’ governs everything.

In the face of the Supreme Court decision, is that equitable? In the face of that decision, after the horror of the residential schools, isn’t the right thing self-governance under the United Nations Charter?

Maps:

https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/DAM/DAM-INTER-HQ-AI/STAGING/texte-text/mprm_treaties_th-ht_bc_1371839407696_eng.pdf

http://www.bctreaty.net/nations/nation_maps/Treaty-Negotiations-in-British-Columbia-Map.pdf