Tag Archives: opportunity

Quote of the Week: Are We Ever Done Working?

I was out at dinner tonight and overheard another table. Maybe you’ve heard something similar before. It goes something like this, “He made how much? from that? If only I’d thought of that, I could cash out. Call it a day and be done.” The truth is though, we are never done. I mean really, what is done?

So, as you wrap up your week, ask yourself: What am I working for? Are you working for retirement or are you working with a purpose? Clayton Christensen, over at the Harvard Business Review, offers some great insight into work, meaning and our purpose in life. In his words:

For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.

Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of auto correlation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned.

Working with a purpose–no matter what that purpose is–whether it be to put dinner on the table, to provide opportunity for your family to doing what you love, matters. And we are never done. Call it an end-of-the-week rant, but what do you think–are we ever done working?

flickr credit: markbarky

PS: Christensen’s HBR article is quite possibly the best article I’ve read to date. It’s worth the read.

Four Phases of Online Social Change

red heartYou may agree or disagree with me on this, so I encourage your thoughts as I’m transcribing some of my own observations into the online social change field. These observations boil down to four “phases” of online social change that I think reflect our maturity into using social media tools to meet our organization’s aims:

  1. Awareness Building
  2. Fundraising
  3. Contests and Competitions for Change
  4. Advocacy

In the beginning, I feel many tools were leveraged as awareness-building mechanisms. From the initial launch of Causes to recruiting fans, followers and friends, many tools were initially set out to further awareness-building of an organization.

Then, I felt like the tools and our use of them matured as we discovered ways to leverage the tools into dollars–from Twestival to Tweetsgiving to Goodsearch. Even Causes adapted and identified birthdays as a way to increase micro-donations. You could say that online fundraising in and of itself has seen a phased formation and continues to evolve. See Beth’s Kanter’s recent post: 5 Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2009.

Then, enter the behemoths–contests and competitions like “America’s Giving Challenge,” hosted by the Case Foundation entered in the next rendition. You could say this ties into a more advanced type of fundraising, but I felt like it deserved to be on its own. As, I don’t yet think this area has been “tapped out” and neither do organizations according to Andre Blackman who interviewed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who uses contests and competitions to further public health innovation.

However, where I feel we are still in our infancy is with online advocacy for social change. It’s starting to creep up–just look at LiveEarth’s 2009 campaign “Love, the Climate” where people were encouraged to write love letters to office holders who worked to prevent climate change or the “Be a Voice for Darfur” movement which utilized activist and blogger toolkits to further realize the campaign’s objectives. Even act.ly provided a way for people to create and spread petitions with a call to action via Twitter.

Like I said, I think advocacy is where we have the most potential to further expand. I could be biased based on my government and citizen engagement day-job type of work–but I think there’s more ways we can get involved, as citizens, in decision making and peace keeping in our local, state and Federal governments–even internationally. What about you? Where do you think we have the most room to grow and what do you predict as being phase 5? Perhaps, partnerships and collaborations might be a phase five as we see how online and social media open up new doors of opportunity across organization firewalls. Or, another phase 5 might be storytelling–as more of these functions become interwoven and organizations get better at telling their story.

What do you think?

flickr credit: flatfield


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How YOU Can Attend the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama

With the holidays quickly behind us, many are looking forward to the next one: The Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. Indeed, many companies [at least in the DC area] are giving an added holiday to their employees in recognition of the day!

Other organizations are offering ways for individuals to get more involved and to attend:

The CASE Foundation recently launched a “Change Begins With Me: initiative that coincides with a free trip for two to the inauguration. The campaign calls for people across the nation to visit the CASE Foundation’s Web site and make a personal pledge to “be the change” in 2009 by finishing the sentence “Change begins with me…” No idea is too small or big…whether it’s a personal commitment regarding one’s neighborhood, school, community or world. As an added bonus, this person will also participate in the Washington, DC Martin Luther King Day of Service. To get the creative juices flowing, the CASE Foundation has some other great initiatives that allow one to take action and also lists ways to “be the change” on their blog. Entries will be accepted until 3pm Jan. 12.

The Presidential Inauguration Committee is also offering your potential “ticket to history” to ten lucky winners between now and January 8. To be considered, you just have to answer the question, “What does this inauguration mean to you?” If selected, you and a guest could be flown to Washington D.C., put up in a hotel, and be part of this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Road Trip to Change. On a budget? No worries. Organizers, led by Horace Mackey, are gathering people in over 20 cities together in groups and car-pooling to the big day! If interested, you can still sign up, join the fun and make new friends along the way.

 

What have I missed? Are there other contests/opps out there not listed?

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