Where's my Stimulation Payment?

Most of us haven't received our $900 from the government and we can probably bet that it won't be found in accounts until the very last moment, May 15 11.59pm!  When we receive our payment we will note that $900 is $50 short of the originally proposed amount of $950.  Shall we complain?  Let's not.

I have received the information regarding the $650 million plan for this $50 we seem to have "stolen" from us.  It has created a lot of excitement as we read the potential of this fund.  You can read about this initiative here: 

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Employment/Pages/JobsFund.aspx

Now let me explain my excitement.

Jobs Fund Government Initiative, $650 million.

Basically the government is looking to local, government and community organisations (yes, including churches) all across the country to come up with innovative ways to create, sustain and encourage job creation during this current economic crisis.

Brilliant.  As a social entrepreneur I began to dream.  If we are successful we will be able to create our Social Entrepreneurs Hub which will support individuals in fulfulling their dream to meet some of society's biggest challenges.  Further to this, we have three great ideas: an arts centre which focusses upon young people to keep them off the road to self-destruction, a cafe which trains young people to be the best baristas in Australia and an open source consultative group which will help low income and small business best utilise free software available to them.  

But most of all we will be in the process of helping people find value and experience belonging which is the purpose for which NationsHeart Connect exists.  

The fun bit? Well, inside of 30 days we have to have a business plan and strategy for success on the desk of some government public servant.  This may seem impossible but we will have fun trying to get it all done and imagine the dreams we will create in the process.  All hands on deck!!

If you are interested in joining us for an hour or two of brainstorming,, 1pm Friday 1 May 2009, give us a ring.  If you have a skill like writing or business plan formation, we would love to hear from you.  Come on, let's not just complain about losing $50, let's have fun spending it!

Ronaldo

24 April 2009

Voices in my head

"What in the world have I done?" I put my head in my hands and said it again, "At some point I must have thought this was a good idea, but... what... have... I... done???"

In CATS:The Nine Lives of Innovation, Stephen C. Lundin writes about social entrepreneurs and how that which they do is both caught and taught. Despite doing innovation well because of their nature, social entrepreneurs get better at it (nurture) by applying the 9 CAT principles. Principle number one, he says, is this: Overcome the clutter of life. Social Entrepreneurs, he tells us, must learn to quiet the voices, the clutter, we hear in our heads. These voices, sometimes loud and audible, are "full of doubts and fears. Often, just as a CAT is beginning a creative effort, a voice says, 'You're not good enough,' 'It will never work.' 'Remember what a fool you made of yourself the last time you tried something like this?'

As I sat, head in hands, the voices were very loud. I was, at that moment, stopped in the pouring rain at the end of a dead-end street, lost somewhere in the town of Taree NSW which I had flown into 45 minutes earlier. I came to Taree to pick up an unseen and untested 1985 Econovan with camping equipment I had bought outright on ebay. Like Jacob who expected to find his beautiful Rachel under the bridal veil only to find her not-so-attractive sister Leah (Laban their father did the swap), I discovered that the van was not all that it was advertised to be.  In fact, I struggled to get it into gear and over 60kph!  I doubted it would ever survive the 600k trip back to Canberra.

On the top of all this, the moment I drove it out onto the road I lost my way.  My only map was in my phone which now failed to connect to any server.  Around and around in the pouring rain, grinding gears, holding up the little traffic there was.  It wasn't long before my luck ran out and the twists and turns led me down an unmarked road.

Exhausted, lost and having lost all hope of ever returning to my home, the voices started to win. 'That was a silly thing to do -- buy a van like this one sight unseen.' 'Won't everyone laugh at you when they find out what a rip off you got taken for.' 'How can you even face telling the world that you just threw away $5000 for nothing!'

If it had not been for the pouring rain I think I would have easily left that vehicle parked at that dead-end and have gone off into the bush which beckoned to me. But then it happened. The words which I had read earlier from Stephen's book came back to me: quiet the voices in your head. I sat bolt upright and said to myself, 'Don't listen to those voices and get on with it, this is a good idea.' And that is what I did.

I learned at that moment that when you are facing the end of a dead-end street, there's really only one way to go. It's not really a tough decision just turn around. And that way led me to more streets which led me to an area where my phone maps connected to the server and soon I was walking through the door of my motel room. 12 hours later I was laying on my sofa in my house. And, I'm sure, within a few weeks I will look at my van and say, 'That was a really good deal, Ron, you've done well.'

So I say to you, "Quiet those voices and get on with your good idea, you can do it, I believe in you!"

Innovation vs The confines of routine

At my spin class at the gym last week, the instructor was making some point to the class about the validity of horoscopes when she turned to me and said: People like us need routine, don't we, Ron? (she remembered, I did not, that our birthdays were only days apart).

My first thought was: it is that obvious? I mean, that a semi-stranger was aware of my love for routine? Then, thinking about it, I realised I am a routine-person. I get up most mornings at 6:15am and at work by 8.30am and the two hours in between, well, I think you could set a clock by what I do.

My week is structured as well. Mondays are my days off. But I have routine: bike ride, grocery shopping, afternoon rest, preparing dinner (which is served at 6pm sharp most nights). Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays are all filled with the same routine. Even as I write this I am amazed how much routine is built into my life.

So why does it bother me when I realise I build this kind of routine in my life?

Innovation.

In the book "The Power of Unreasonable People" the authors give us a 10 part definition of Social Entrepreneurs. The first four are these:

Social Entrepreneurs...

• Try to shrug off the constraints of ideology or discipline

• Identify and apply practical solutions to social problems, combining innovation, resourcefulness, and opportunity

• Innovate by finding a new product, a new service, or a new approach to a social problem

• Focus—first and foremost—on social value creation and, in that spirit, are willing to share their innovations and insights for others to replicate

The common theme is obvious: innovation. Innovation is a major characteristic of social entrepreneur. Innovation is defined as creating and implementing a new idea. Social Entrepreneurs innovate; they come up with and put to practice new ideas for solving social problems.

But here's the point I'm trying to make: Innovation's nemesis is this: the box. Routine. Old ways of doing the same thing. We've always done it that way mentality.

Do you get my frustration? I am trying to live in the social entrepreneur world with a life that seems to be stuck in the box of routine. Am I a fraud? Am I really innovative or am I really stuck in the box and don't realise it? Am I just fooling myself?

Thank you, Stephen Lundin. For in Stephen's book entitled oddly enough CATS the nine lives of innovation he shares this truth :

Why does a car have reverse gear? This may seem like an odd question but let's approach it scientifically for a minute. Suppose you were doing a simple cost-benefit analysis and found your car is in reverse gear for 0.001 per cent of the time, but to have reverse gear costs about $500. It would be a lot of money for such a small amount of use. But reverse gear is to the car as creativity is to normal. When you need it, you need it badly. Being normal is just fine for much of your life. But when you need a new idea it requires escaping from the bonds of normal.

Innovation requires that on occasion we escape the routine or 'get outside the box'.

Woo hoo. I can feel secure with my routine, schedule and in-the-boxness and still be innovative. I just got to learn when to throw the whole thing in reverse. And that's the fun of it all. Hang on everybody, this rides going to be interesting.

Oh my, I got to get going if I am going to have dinner on by 6pm. Later...

Ronaldo

12/04/09

I want to help the world, too!

I arrived in Sydney for my School of Social Entrepreneurs class Tuesday night before the Wednesday class. I was scheduled to take the bus to my hotel but it appeared I arrived 45 minutes earlier than expected. Instead of waiting, I decided I might go by taxi. I rarely go by taxi. Meter-phobia. That's probably it. I really can't relax during a taxi ride watching that meter in its relentless pursuit of making me poor. I think I've had nightmares of arriving at my destination in taxi to discover the meter demanded $50,000!

But I decided, this night, to take the chance. I got in and to my surprise I couldn't even see that black box (more like a black hole, to me!). To my further surprise the taxi driver was friendly. The usually niceties: "Where you from?", "How was your flight?", "What are you doing in Sydney?". I told him: I'm part of a team of people who in the first year of the School for Social Entrepreneurs. This he wanted to talk about. So I told him, in the 7 minutes we had, of what I am doing and how we are making a difference and what I get up to back in Canberra (having just 2 hours before this served pizzas to the community). He kept saying: "We need more people like you in this world, there's enough of the bad stuff, we need to balance out the bad with the good!"

On that note, we arrived at my hotel. I came back to reality and realised this also was the moment of reckoning. How much would this bill be? Just then the meter, this one built into the dashboard, read $15.20. My taxi driver said: "Give me $10." "What?" I responded, "are you sure?"

His smiling face reflected what he then said with his broken Indian accent: "Yes, I want to help the world, too!"

Ronaldo

09/03/09

Bromley-by-Bow

I am in the middle of reading Andrew Mawson's The Social Entrepreneur. Making Communities Work. I tried to read this story about a month ago and failed to get into it. Now that I am doing this stuff, I can't put the book down. It's Andrew's story of developing the fantastic entrepreneurial work at Bromley-by-Bow. It could easily have been entitled: The Struggle-by-Bow.For,indeed, the process he describes toward Social Enterprise was anything but easy.

Andrew's entrepreneurial commitment is evident throughout this book. He keeps referring to the need to allow the entrepreneur the freedom, the wings, to fly. What better place than in the church community to foster such an environment. I feel a kinship to Andrew.

Let me get to my point, though. It's this quote which stands out from the stories Andrew tells:

In Bromley-by-Bow, my aim became to firmly nurture an entrepreneurial culture, in which people from all kinds of different backgrounds would work together to fashion their own futures. My hope was that, in working hard and creatively, and engaging with the messy details, we would build physical structure that actually worked in practice and that were run and used by the people who believed in, and had an investment in, creating a successful, large-scale future. In staying with the aspirations, passions, hopes and fears of the people who live in 'forgotten' places, and helping them to take the raw material and talent they already have and use it in a truly creative new way, we would also build a team, build a common purpose: build a strong community.

I love this dream of Andrew Mawson and make it mine. Now I got to get back to my reading to see how he does it (or should I say, how it gets done).

Ronaldo

4/4/09

Risk Management

This past Sunday I spoke about the risks which Nehemiah took in the Biblical story of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem. Risk is about exposing oneself, others or one's reputation to danger. Risks are taken because the possible outcomes provide an opportunity for change for the better. Nehemiah. we are told, left a secure and prestigious job to do something which made him vulnerable to his enemies and his own people. The outcomes he realises are a safe place and a united community (see Nehemiah 1).

At the School for Social Entrepreneurs two days after I preached this sermon, we had the opportunity to hear Steve Lawrence share his story. Steve is the entrepreneur behind the successful endeavour WorkVentures which provides a number of social services to communities all around Australia. Steve shared with us that in WorkVentures they considered a "learning experience" any project which cost and lost them at least $10,000. Steve reminded us that it was through the process of taking risks, some big risks with losses, we actually learn.

To be a fool means to take unnecessary risks with resources that should not be lost. A person who has an addiction to gambling is certainly foolish in their money management. But it doesn't take an addict's character to make foolish mistakes. I'm not talking about risks which fail due to unforseen changes in the circumstances (look at the unsuspecting "fools" who were caught out with the current economic crisis). Sometimes we make silly judgments and risk things that are too valuable to lose. We've all been there and done that!

So how does one balance risk with security? Wisdom, insight, experience and just plain gut-feelings join together in the entrepreneur and drive him or her to step out in faith and take a risk on a project, in a person or with a resource. With time that risk pays off. Sometimes it does not. Sometime the result of risk is failure.

Failure is a difficult issue to face in our culture. We don't like to fail and we don't like to lose. In fact, we reward winners and success so often and to such a degree that failure for many is something that is dreaded, feared and never acknowledged. I wish we would teach our ourselves not only to fail but how to fail. We all fail but to acknowledge it and learn from it and grow from it is a valuable thing. But we will never fail if we never take the risk, expose ourself to the danger and admit that failure is a possibility.

Perhaps in the social entrepreneurial sector, we need to encourage more risky business, develop leaders who know how to risk without playing the fool and honour even those who in the midst of a fabulously designed and envisioned project find failure to be their lot.

A friend of mine sent me this quote after reading this blog:

(Thanks, Bob)

“It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat”
---President Theodore Roosevelt “The Man in the Arena”, Paris , 1910

Ronaldo
03/04/09

Launching SSE

Last night (Wednesday 1 April, 2009) was the official launch of the School for Social Entrepreneurs in Australia. You can read about this launch, the school and it's (impressive) students here: http://www.sse.org.au/

I have the privilege of being a student this year of this inaugural work which has 10 wonderful years of history in England. I drive up to Sydney on Tuesday evenings for classes all day Wednesday and to return to Canberra in the evening (600ks of driving). Is it worth it? Without a doubt it is. Having attended 2 weeks of classes already I am looking forward to what is in store for us throughout this coming year. I am already applying principles learned to actual practice in my work at NationsHeart (http://www.nationsheart.org.au/)

I fully endorse the teaching methodology of the School. Rather than piling a lot of theory onto our already full plates (and heads), the School's philosophy of learning is "learn by doing". Of utmost importance in this process is hearing first hand those who have travelled the road we are; expert witnesses come and share their story, we ask the questions and growth happens! I agree with this methodology.

I want to thanks SSE for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of this first year. I especially appreciate those supporter who have given to under-write the cost of my attendance. And to the SSE staff -- you are the greatest and I look forward to a fantastic year together.

Ronaldo
2 April 2009
Canberra