I attended last week SOCAP 2009 (Social Capital Markets conference) in San Francisco which was certainly worth my trip from Zurich. I have attended the Skoll Forum for the past three years and it is the same kind of awesome energy with so many social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, investors, as well as foundations and government people aiming to find solutions together. There were over 900 attendees from 32 countries 40 panels and 100 speakers. The recent article on the Economist titled Capital Markets with a Conscience also refers to this topical subject. The keynote address was given by Sonal Shah, Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation. Topics in the panels ranged from how to measure impact investments, social stock exchanges, social innovation on the web, and the broad spectrum of social capital (from philanthropy to hedge funds). There are many blogs on SOCAP but I would highly recommend the coverage by the team of nextbillion.