RJ's Blogtastic Universe
Creighton has a new major in social entrepreneurship. Got a slide reader here. We’re in the poverty group. Entrepreneurship – assuming both risk and endeavor. Entrepreneurship is a creative function. Knowledge entrepreneurship – college students. Getting involved in an activity without knowing if you will get any payback out of it. Strange… we measure our success by change. Opportunity to create social value. Still spotting a place (opportunity) in the market, just with a different goal. Lingo: we’re changemakers. Need communication, passion and skills. Social entrepreneurship is about stewardship. Public administrators as social entreprenuers?? Study the Montessori school system. Who’s highlighting the changemakers – lists of changemakers. Homeboy Industries. “Everyone is a whole lot more than the dumbest thing they ever did.” Created an organization based on values. Unconditional love. How important love is to people that have been hurt. Look these guys up. Homegirl potatoes and toast. USC is studying what they do. (This is turning into a Creighton commercial.)
People all think that the group that they joined – poverty, health, family… that their chosen problem is the source of all the other problems. Interesting. Life is too short to write in black ink! Turningpoint technologies.com – the clickers. They are revolutionary!! Entreprenuers are people who think they can do anything – so why such trouble with IT? Opportunity @ work works with microenterprises.
So – what keeps people down is an idea. The idea that they are second class, they deserve to be second class, and they will never be allowed to move. Put anything you want in the second class blank. Gay, Native American, so many things. There are two phases to the problem – the US offers second class citizenship. It does so in an informal way, but it’s pervasive. And official. And sanctioned. I don’t know if there’s a way to change this top down – we’re going to have to go ground up. Which brings me to the second part of the problem – people think they have to take the second class citizenship that is offered to them. They think they don’t have a choice. They think that second class citizenship is better than nothing, so they take it.
It’s like placing a value on people. White male landowners are at the head of the class. It just goes down from there, in a sliding scale. What if we were convinced that people were all of equal value? Or than we cannot really measure value at all, so we agree to treat everyone as if they were equally valuable? Hmmm… It’s going to have to be a choice that second class citizens make.
This goes back to how we treated my little sister when we were kids. Like we were the cool ones, and she didn’t live up to our standards. We acted like hanging out with her was charity. And she flat refused to believe us, basically. She came up with better things to do than play with us. I remember that she had quite the imagination.
Second class citizens know that the construct is wrong and get angry about it, but that doesn’t change things. You can only get angry about something that you believe is real. I only get angry at people when I believe their actions mean something about me.
Systemic thinking combined with “what if” thinking, that is what will make the difference. I have always believed that we have enough of everything we need, and that it’s a problem of distribution and imagination. What if I were equal to other people? What if I could have an idea that would change things? What if, what if, what if… these are the thoughts we need to be having. What we’ve been doing is looking at how hard it is to get out of the structure that we believe we’re trapped in. What we’ve been missing is permission and opportunity to imagine and strategize our way out of it.
How can I help to create this?
Grameen guy here. He talks about bringing people together, communities of 20 people. Borrowing money in the traditional way is demoralizing (and impossible) for some people. 1500 paid off in a year, while they teach people about money. Hook up with this dude!!! See if they need IT teachings.
How can the change process become the empowerment process?
Grameen Bank guy talking now. Impact. The idea of the moneylenders. Money lending for social change. People percieve money as power, money as a way to make a different choice. As a way to can say you can make choices, that others cannot force their will on you. I’m saying that you have the power to make that choice right now. If you had the power to make that choice right now, what would you do with it?
They’re having a grand opening, and the big guy will be there. I must meet him. I must. “We give them trust.” Meet with us every week and we’ll teach you about money.
Of course… take a model that works really well, and add something to it, see if it still works.
So how can I get these two together? Do I just copy the model and add IT, or do we get these two together? Grameen loans the money, I bring in the IT workshop with Google. Will they loan across the river?
Will I still be able to get research for my thesis? Hmmm, that might be another post.
Categories: Tell Us A Story, RJ...
Our Arizona reunion story actually begins with another story – the tale of my 35th birthday.
Last summer, I took a class called Research Methods. It sounded like it was going to be a class about using Google, but it was certainly not as easy as that. In fact, it’s all about statistics (math, in other words). For those of you that don’t know, math is not exactly my strong suit. I knew it was going to be difficult, and at first I had the old attitude. You know, the voice in the back of your head that says – don’t do it!! You’ll never make it!! Quit before you make a fool of yourself!!
I’d been coming to a crossroads with this way of thinking for a long time. It has never served me well, but it’s always the first thing I think when I’m in a tough situation. The default setting, one might say. I decided to try another way, for a while. I decided that no matter what, I was going to tell myself that I could do it, that I would find a way to make the class work.
It worked. I ended up with an A+ in the class, and as I was looking at the grade, I remember wondering what the rest of my life would look like if I applied that single idea. I began to think about my 35th birthday, and how I really hadn’t celebrated my birthday in a long time. I decided that this would be the year that I would do something that I had previously thought I couldn’t do, something that I was afraid of. I considered different possibilities, including jumping out of an airplane. However, it’s just too cold to do that in November, and I am horrifically afraid of heights. No matter what I considered, it just didn’t seem like it fit. I ended up taking an Economics test on my birthday, which may be one of the least fun ways to celebrate. I decided I would put off the celebration until I could find something I really wanted to do.
Fast forward to to spring 2009. Facebook is fabulous, and through it, Brandy found me first. I was a little hesitant to write her initially. I honestly don’t remember too much about my personality when I was in the seventh grade, but I do remember that I didn’t like myself too much. I wondered if I had anything I needed to make amends for, actually. We met up soon after the first contact, and it turned out I had been afraid for nothing. See past editions of the blog for the story about that event – it was momentous.
I found Shawna on Brandy’s friend list. There were three of us that hung pretty tightly in those days, and these girls were my two best friends. We passed notes in class, and did things regular seventh graders do. I had some bad stuff going on at home, but I really loved school (still do) and seeing the two of them always made things seem better. Then, through a series of awful circumstances, we were split up. We kept contact for a while through letters. I really looked forward to the letters, and I kept every one of them in a trunk that I’ve carried with me all these years.
I never thought I’d find them again, but it happened. And I found a way to celebrate my birthday after all – by kidnapping Brandy and getting on a jet plane to see our Shawna. I think all three of us were a little scared, at first. Not that we wouldn’t get along, but that after @#$# years (that was for you, Brandy) we wouldn’t be able to relate to each other any more. What if our lives were so different that all we had in common was the past?
It was on my mind when Brandy and I were walking out of the gate. Then I caught a glimpse of a woman in a business suit, standing just beyond a column – and then she was coming toward us, as fast as her high heels could carry her. @#$# years vanished in about a minute. There was the usual hugging you’d expect, and I did get a little bit moist around the eyeballs. Another feeling came up at this point: gratitude. I was finally reunited with women to whom I never really got to say goodbye.
We left the airport and ran off to enjoy a fabulous couple of days. Shawna and Steve really know how to show people a good time. We got to meet new friends, catch a boat ride, hunt for rocks, and listen to the chronicles of Lake Havasu, as told by Shawna. We spent time with Shawna’s son, Shay, who was fun to be with. We also had the opportunity to catch up a bit, and look through the letters that I had saved. It was interesting, looking at life through the eyes of our teenage selves. My favorite part of the trip was late Thursday night, sitting in the jacuzzi, talking about our lives.
All of us are doing tremendous things, in our own way. Brandy’s raising a wonderful family, Shawna’s busy with a son, a Steve and the beginnings of a career in politics, and I’m on my way to following my dream to be an IT consultant. All three of us are surrounded by people who love us.
In the end, I didn’t have to jump out of an airplane to prove that I was fearless. All I had to do was be willing to risk a little bit, and it’s really all I have ever had to do. It’s funny, isn’t it? The things we think we have to do to prove to people that we are worth their time. The people in our lives that really matter are the people we never have to rehearse for, people that love us as we are.
This is the part of the chick flick where someone usually goes off the end of a cliff – but not this time! Our visit seemed to be about putting away some of the past. Next time (next June!) we’ll get to focus on the future, I’m sure. No matter what is ahead of us, it’s better when we face it together.
Thanks again to everyone – it was the most fabulous birthday present ever.
Categories: Tell Us A Story, RJ...
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