mark's bio

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mark beam

I grew up with tornadoes in the Midwest. Swirling, naturally forming chaotic swarms intrigue me. From swarms of bees to the buzz of new trends and world events to social networks like Facebook, an embedded collective intelligence can be found that nests itself oh so subtly. At CI we both study and create these nests around which intelligent phenomenon attract. In an age of accelerating change where everything becomes miscellaneous, these “knowledge networks” become crucial to understanding the new laws of natural attraction whether forming organizations, building movements or simply deciphering ecosystems.

My first immersion into this realm was on Wall Street where I spent eleven years working on trading floors making markets and then covering some of the largest portfolio managers in the country including Morgan Bank, Putnam, Western Asset Management and BGI (Bill Gates Investments). I launched beaming, llc. (1995), a new media venture consulting firm in San Francisco, advising technology and telecommunication companies like NTT in Japan on the acquisition of media properties during the swarm commonly referred to as the dot com era. I also produced a critically acclaimed lecture and performance series focused on the impact of technology called New Minds that led to the formation of an art, science and technology network called Creative Disturbance (1999), one of the early web-empowered social networks.

I co-founded Collective Intelligence in 2001 and xigi.net in 2005 to help catalyze the emerging capital market for good and now act as an advisor to Good Capital a new private equity fund for the social capital market. I work closely with artists and designers through artbeam, my gateway to understanding insight intelligence revealed through creative expression. Perhaps not surprisingly, I found myself living in Oaxaca Mexico where a grassroots social revolution arose and a tornado of events often compared to the Paris Commune of 1871. I still live there with my two kids Weston and Sky.