: week of june 29 - july 5 : camp imadene :

hey folks ... this time tomorrow will be sweltering in the heat bowl of Vancouver Island's Cowichan Valley, doubled up by kitchen heat at Camp Imadene, where I will be working 0700-1100, and 1530-1800 hours daily :)

Some of you may have noticed Jamie's and Darryl's 'wordle' pictures on their 'blogs, so I thought I'd give it a wordle myself. Wordle grabs the text and word count of a document like a word cloud? and makes a graphic represntation of it. The wordle above is the text of my resume, sans contact information and references. Seeing as in my spare time next week ( 1300-1500, and 2000-2200 hours ) I will be banging out resume packages, I thought this might be appropriate?

dlc

ps. I only ever figured out how to Twitter via FaceBook, so it's disappearance from FB has meant no more updates from me ... until I bother to figure it out, maybe mid-July. UPDATE : just decided to 'give er a go' and sort out Twitter sans FaceBook, and did it.

: social entrepreneurship :

... I have been reading How to Change the World : Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.

Bill Drayton is one of the world's more recognized social entrepreneurs, often given credit for coining the term ( which he didn't, by the way ). He is the Founder and CEO of Ashoka, a pretty cool global outfit. Chapter 5 of HtCtW:SEatPoNI talks about his influences as a young student, one of them being Martin Luther King Jr's adaptation of Gandhi's non-violent change approaches/tactics. Just give this a read for your thinking ...

" ... over the years Drayton came to believe that Gandhi's greatest insight was recognizing, early in the 20th century, that a new type of ethics was emerging in the world -- an ethics grounded not in rules, but in empathy. It was a change that was necessary as human society grew increasingly complex. In the past, when people lived in homogeneous communities, and rarely moved far from their birthplaces, rule-based ethics had been adequate to govern human relations. But the world had become too fast-paced and interconnected for rule-based ethics. There were too many interactions in which rules were outdated and belief systems clashed. The new circumstances demanded that people become more ethically self-guiding: people had to be able to put themselves in the shoes of the others around them. Those who could not navigate situations in which rules were changing or could not master the skills of empathic understanding would find themselves unable to manage their behaviour(s) wisely and ethically; increasingly, Drayton asserted, they would be seen as 'loose cannons' and marginalized within society" ...

The line "those who could not navigate situations in which rules were changing or could not master the skills of empathic understanding find themselves unable to manage their behaviour(s) wisely and ethically; increasingly, they would be ... marginalized within society" kind of jumped out at me. Between all the work done by people like Peter Senge, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Goleman, Otto Scharmer, Dee Hock, Meg Wheatley and others ... there is a common theme, this common denominator ... understanding systems, understanding organizations, understanding yourself ... and coming to a mature contributing mindset where your awareness, your emotional intelligence, your worldview ... is both empathic and ethical. I wonder what that looks like? Thankfully some very, very smart and motivated people are working towards that goal. We need to be listening to them ...

dlc

: how will people spend a hundred 'green'backs : :

... four $100 cheques arrived in today's mail for Meggan, Fraser, Karen and I.

Now BC's residents have some decisions to make. Wonder what the majority will do?

The good old Tyee has an article on it from back in February here and BC's suggestions can be found here with ideas like ...

thanks Carol,

dlc

: forging a future : m. scott peck :

“To develop a broader vision we must be willing to forsake, to kill, our narrower vision. In the short run it is more comfortable not to do this - to stay where we are, to keep using the same microcosmic map, to avoid suffering the death of cherished notions. The road of spiritual growth, however, lies in the opposite direction. We begin by distrusting what we already believe, by actively seeking the threatening and unfamiliar, by deliberately challenging the validity of what we have previously been taught and hold dear. The path to holiness lies through questioning everything.

“The only obstacle to building and maintaining community within an organization is not structural. It’s political.

If you get somebody at the top who is not willing to relinquish the structure, even temporarily, or who has to dominate everything, there’s no way you can have community in that organization.

So the people in the organization, particularly at the top, have to be willing to temporarily lay aside their role and their rank.”

no comment(s)

dlc

: priority check :

... over at 'Open Hands' Mark posted about a unique response to a potentially resource-abundant situation north of Toronto. I'll add a link, and maybe you can enjoy a little reading over your coffee Saturday morning?

On the flip side, Coop is asking about what our churches might do, in more resourced-challenged type situations.

One of my all time fav books has to be John Stott's 'Christian Counter-Culture' on the message of the Sermon on the Mount. In it he speaks repeatedly to Kingdom priorities. I think the community of faith referred to here, and Ms. Dueck's insights both give us examples of right thinking.

dlc

ps. on a scale of health vs resources, this faith community may be so healthy it not only looked a gift horse in the mouth ( Globe & Mail ) it has a full on 'bells & whistles' web site ;)

: okay, so i was wrong :

... about not much to say. It has been a busy couple of weeks. Resumes. Courses. Stuff.

But moments after posting about not having much to say, or time to say it, I looked over at David Armano's Logic+Emotion site again, and loved this graphic.

Of course, Armano is a marketer, but I think if you substitute almost anything into his "brand" slot ... leadership, staff relations, governance, customer service, it works. If only I knew how to 'doctor' graphics ... JimmyK ??? where are you when we need you?

dlc

: not much to say :

... and no time to say it.

Busy days.

dlc