"Our goal is to raise a new field of Web-enabled, Web-based social benefit projects."--Daniel Ben Horin, Founder and co-CEO of TechSoup, from "The Amazing Freecycle Story."

Here are NetSquared, we're honing our focus a bit towards fostering web-based innovation that has a social impact by connecting web innovators with members of the Innovator Support Network and creating opportunities, like N2Y2, that will accelerate projects' progress.

Soooo, for all you web innovators, I found an interesting interview Guy Kawasaki did last month with Scott Berkun, a former manager at Microsoft, who is the author of the book, The Myths of Innovation.

What I found most interesting about the interview is that although we tell innovation success stories in a tidy, linear fashion, the reality is that innovation is chaotic, and filled with challenges and failures.

When asked what the toughest challenge is that innovators face, Berkun said:

"Finding support, whether emotional, financial, or intellectual, for a big new idea is very hard and depends on skills that have nothing to do with intellectual prowess or creative ability. That’s a killer for many would-be geniuses: they have to spend way more time persuading and convincing others as they do inventing, and they don’t have the skills or emotional endurance for it."

That's why we are looking for more folks to join the Innovator Support Network who would like to offer web innovators, like the ones who submitted proposals for the N2Y2 Conference, with:

1. In-kind contributions of developer expertise and talent.
2. In-kind contributions of nonprofit technology assistance provider skills.
3. Appropriate web-based tools and services.

For more information about how to join, contact Billy Bicket at bbicket@compumentor.org.

For more information about the Myths of Innovation and Scott Berkun, check out his web site and blog.