I’d like to think of  the 60+ hours a week I volunteer as the work of an aspiring social entrepreneur, having labeled myself as such is rather vain of me when really I’m just a very proactive volunteer.

Volunteer or social entrepreneur ~ either way, it works for me.  I get to do what I love in my own way, on my own time, in hopes that the work I do now, will eventually pay off in terms of actually helping other people.

For me, volunteering is as much a part of my life/work landscape as my friends and family. I am immensely grateful to be surrounded by talented, passionate people that encourage and inspire the journey.  That said, I would not suggest I have a traditional outlook on volunteer work.

While I do collect for the Red Puppy Appeal, attend charity music events for the likes of Sea Shepherd and volunteer my social media skills for 350Aotearoa ~ volunteering is about the 60 hours+ a week that I invest as work experience in order to create my own future work/life path.

my talent and time | pursuing the dream

It is as true for me as anyone else on this planet that our most valuable personal resources are our own talent and time.  Importantly, you get to decide how you value yourself and how you apply your time and talent. What we have to give and gain from this life is up to us to decide.

On that basis,  I’m going with a “priceless” valuation on my time and talent:) I work because I hope that what I do is of much greater value to me than a monetary value might prescribe.  From Worknow to Augmented Reality to Social Development Banking & Funding models to communities like the Distiller and the Social Innovation Hub as well as work on the board of trustees with KUMA ~ the Southern Maori Business Network and The Malcam Charitable Trust Foundation. It may seem eclectic, but all this unpaid work caters to my aspirations to help people using technology to connect and harness our collective potential

the highs and lows of being “unemployable”

One could point out that I am unemployable ~ which in the traditional sense of a 40hour work week would be an understatement.  No “employer” would pay me to do what I do, there is no job description that would comprehensively cover what I set out to achieve or my methods for doing so.

The stigma attached to the label of being  “unemployed” is sometimes a challenge. It’s difficult to explain what I do in any quick way except to say that I volunteer, a lot. To quickly  summaries my work life often strips from my description all the passion and well being I enjoy. To explain in even basic detail often means a five minute spiel all about me and the amazing talented people I know.

I sometimes struggle to share with the fact that I love my job, that I don’t get paid and actually could achieve nothing without the many many people that I work alongside. Some days I feel like a fake and it’s easy to see why no one pays me.  Other days it all just comes together, it makes sense and I absolutely trust that I’m on the right path.  If it is about the journey vs the destination, then I’m loving the ride.

Project based work life

Although only one of my current projects Worknow, is all  about supporting my project based work life. Perhaps through determined belief and in living the lifestyle we promote I can show that volunteer work experience ~ choosing what you love and applying your talent to achieving your dreams ~ does pay. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps never in terms of cold hard cash but in so many other ways, that money could not buy.

If you aspire to entrepreneurship and work life freedom, if you seek to discover and live your talents and life with passion and joy then potentially, we can help.  Your talent profile here will help you connect with the growing number of people that share our work life outlook . Tell us about your talents and skill your interests and values, and we’ll match you with work opportunities. What do you have to gain? that is up to you to define.

Our company values are by nature idealistic, intended to help us lift our game and aspire to excellence. However, I just noticed that they also underline our ability to deal with situations when we fail to exceed expectations .

# Integrity: We keep our promises, treat people fairly and value open and honest communication.

Honestly, major fail on our part

Kia Ora

Hey I understand you’re working with Jolyon in Timaru on the time bank and that you guys had a go at using our system the other day while it was way out of whack, which is really unfortunate. I promise it’s not normally so error ridden.

Last Thursday, we finally put the paid work marketplace live. This requires shifting a whole lot of new code from our staging to live website. As you experienced, like Jamie & I did here too, there were some major errors.

While http://worknow.co.nz registered all the changes http://www.worknow.co.nz was still hosting the old website. This lead to a whole raft of problems & a pretty major Fail on our part ~ all due  to a very small error on our Domain Name Server(DNS).

Sorry that you guys had such a bad initial experience. I beg your understanding that as volunteers, building this site part-time we had only just begun to pick  up on the faults ourselves, when Jolyon got in touch.

We have fixed the DNS issue and all should be back to operating as normal. We are also working to build you your own separate marketplace and if we haven’t completely lost your interest, please take a second look, have a play and yeah make your call now that what we offer, is working.

You guys are welcome to call or email me anytime with  questions, feedback or criticism. Appreciate your understanding.

Kind Reagrds
Renee Lee
Co Founder

“The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation.  You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew.  Seek, therefore not to find out who you are, seek to determine who you want to be.” ~ Conversations With God

Absolutely! I believe we create our own futures and I live the belief that one of the best ways to determine who we want to be is by focusing on our talents, interests and passion. At the same time though I cherish the fact that life is a process of discovery, discovering truths and purpose, talents and passion, discovering the joy of other people.

Augmented Reality

Over the last couple of weeks I have begun work on a project involving the deployment of an Augmented Reality showcase of Dunedin’s heritage, arts and culture.  Our project is inspired by immersive heritage experiences like  Museum of London | Street Museum with so much potential for the platform we propose, I feel amazingly blessed to have discovered collaborators to help create and share this vision for our City.

In order to create my own future,  I’ve committed to this project the most valuable resources I own, my talent and time, passion and energy. I wholeheartedly believe that this project will serve our City for years to come, providing not only a fun and engaging, compelling and immersive user experience but also establishing an open access platform that many members of our community can contribute to and potentially monetise.

Collaboration & Gratitude

I am inspired and encouraged by the range of support I have discovered in bringing together this collaborative. I see this project as a catalyst for on-going and future collaboration, spanning many of Dunedin’s most talented and creative industry sectors.

Most importantly, Thanks to my Great Omnipotent Deity for blessing me with talented people to work with. Thanks & massive respect to my talented collaborators Stu Fleming Tim Calder Pierre-Emmanuel de La Bussière and community support from:-

• Tourism Dunedin
• The Southern Heritage Trust
• Samuel Mann at Otago Polytech
• Applied Design Research Centre
• Otago Settlers Museum
• Taieri George Railway
• NZ Sports Hall of Fame
• many folk within the DCC &
• As always, my crew at The Distiller

Arohanui xo Renee Lee

July 2010: Another year older, wiser and closer to living out some childhood dreams

Ever since the Jetson’s introduced me to holograms I’ve looked forward to the day that a similar type of technology would be within my reach. Over the last month several things happened that bring me closer living this dream. It’s exciting times.

Instead of going into the detail about how my life rocks what I would like to say is that the freedom I have gained ~ as an aspiring social entrepreneur ~ to choose how I apply my talent and time to this life, is my pursuit of happiness. I am blessed to have in my life many talented, beautiful people that inspire, challenge, support and love me.

Life is beautiful | live your talent | pursue you dream

I’m not saying that applying your talent to pursue you dreams is  easy, where would the fun in that be? And  although I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t envy my income at the moment, as cliche as this is, happiness is not something money can buy.

You can choose the work that you want. By creating an online talent profile with us and sharing your talents, your values and your passion with the world you too can begin to discover the beauty of living your dreams.

Born 1979 outside or upper end of the generational “age bracket” does nothing to change the fact that I identify most strongly with the Y Generation. While I can see in many friends my age, a stronger tendency to Gen X some of us never had the new generational “stereotypes” to qualify our actions.

Generation Y on Careers

I had to live my “traits” before they became widely touted indicators of our generation. My work career for instance in which I’ve had more than 10 jobs in the last 10 years. Inevitably, there were interviews in which I was asked to justify my job “hopping” to which my response involved learning, challenge, personal circumstance.

Now, in retrospect I can claim this as normal for an entire generation of people. No longer such an outlier, there is some reassurance to the fact that the following opinion is as true to me, as it is Amanda and probably millions more like us.

I don’t think that staying at one company for 20+ years necessarily correlates with building a career. Gen Y’s are more adaptive and willing to jump companies if it means advancing their career and lifestyle goals. I believe that this is a strength of our generation, not a weakness. I would rather change jobs many times to advance my career than allow my career to stagnate due to “corporate loyalty.” ~ Amanda, Tustin, CA : July 8, 2010 4:24 pm

Gen Y on Opportunities

Granted, I can understand that a CV of contract research and 6 – 12 month “career” efforts probably looked disconcerting to potential employers. And probably well it should because each job was for me about discovering something new about what I wanted to do with my life.

In some cases I learnt lessons about what I would do and what I could achieve but in most I learnt more about what I didn’t want. It was a process of discovery that has lead me to the clear realisation that as an employee other people were never going to allow me to challenge the status quo, learn and grow by testing limits.  I was not made to fit the “employee” mold, a fact which I believe will prove true of many of our generation.

Community Action Group: Port Otago Dredging

Port Otago’s application to dredge the harbor, expand the existing port, and dump 7.2 million cubic meters of spoil six kilometers off Tairoa Head was notified to the public last Friday.

Take part in a community action project that will have real impact on the future of Dunedin City.

Apply your legal skills to an environmental conservation project and discover first hand how the public submission process works.
We encourage all people concerned or opposed to the proposed Port Otago dredging to enter a submission to the Otago Regional Council by Friday 5pm August 2010.

“…Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty…” Albert Einstein

If you are interested in working with animals a good place to start would be your local SPCA

The mission of The Royal New Zealand SPCA is to advance the welfare of all animals in New Zealand by:

• Preventing cruelty to animals
• Alleviating suffering of animals
• Promoting our policies through education and advocacy

Volunteering with Animals

Do you have some spare time? Your local SPCA is always looking for more volunteers to help. Each centre will have different needs; you could help to man the phones, or walk the dogs, or even get right into it by cleaning out cages. The jobs are varied and the work is rewarding.

If you’re interested in volunteering with animals and you have the following knowledge and skills:-

1) respect for animals
2) basic animal care knowledge or willingness to learn
3) ability to work unsupervised at times
4) use your initiative

Please check out Otago SPCA: Volunteer Animal Attendant or create your talent profile to connect with opportunities to work with animals in your community.

Tomahawk Smaill’s Beachcare Trust is a non profit organisation that aims to develop community supported environmental restoration, education and awareness.

TSBT started in 2000 with the aim of replenishing the local environment by replanting, dune stablisation and catchment care. Since then the trust has been active with dune clean ups, planting days and community engagement.

The nursery, managed by Gaileen Ross will produce around 4000 eco-sourced native plants each year and is the hub of the Beach care movement. As a charitable trust TSBT is always keen for volunteers. As an environmental volunteer with TSBT you can:-

• gain hands on learning in horticulture
• gain hands on learning in plant propagation,
• learn about local native dune species.

Aramoana Conservation Group

The community volunteer team cares for Aramoana beaches and the salt marsh. People are welcome to join the relaxed volunteer team during Spring – Autumn. As an environmental volunteer with TSBT you can:

• build team work skills
• improve your botanical knowledge
• learn about local eco-systems
• nurture an appreciation for nature

Orokonui Eco Sanctuary

In less than 10 years, the Orokonui Ecosanctuary has become the only place on mainland South Island of New Zealand where native birds, animals and insects can live a life safe from predators.

Volunteers are provided with direction, a safe walking environment and any equipment and materials needed. Contribute to a project that provides a legacy to future generations, gain new skills and meeting like-minded people. At the moment we need new volunteers for:

• Planting and weeding
• Pest and fence monitoring
• Track building and maintenance
• Regular care of habitat areas

Conservation Volunteers Needed, Dunedin NZ

If you’re willing to learn and happy to work outdoors then gather your friends and workmates and come help out as a conservation volunteer. For more information on volunteer work opportunities check out our volunteer marketplace.

If the right job is not here yet then simply create your talent profile and receive volunteer opportunities that match your talent, skills and interests as they are posted.

If your a community or charitable trust that needs volunteers please register a profile to promote volunteer work on our website.

Ancient wisdom. As true today as it was when Confucius – China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist 551-479 BC – wrote it some 2500 years ago.

Here at Worknow we believe you can find a job you love by connecting with work opportunities that match your talents, skills and interests, passion, values and experience.

It’s taken four times longer than first thought and although still under testing and development we now have [ pause for drum roll & trumpeting fanfare to sound in my head ] Version 1.0! of our website live! Basically, this means a couple of new but important features & changes.

New Types of Talent Profiles

People can now register a talent profile as one of different types of entities:-

• Individuals: Can post requests and offer services on all work
• Business: Can post requests and offer services on all work

• Community Group : Can post requests but can not offer services
• Charity Organisation: Can post requests but can not offer services

With only a single field now for keywords we hope this change will help people focus keywords around the talents, skills and values relevant to the dream job they want to work toward.

We will work on improving profiles, without adding complexity, in the next round of development.

New Volunteer Marketplace

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Anyone can now request volunteer help.We are working to populate the marketplace with volunteer work opportunities. Please if you know of anyone that needs volunteer help tell them that they can list with us at $0. If you are interested in volunteering or finding volunteers please include “volunteer” in your keywords, for now.

New Workspace Workflow

We’ve implemented a new work flow to make it more clear – for each party to a trade – where progress stands. We’ve integrated a flow chart to highlight which stage the trade is at and applied colour indicators:

• Green represents work requiring your attention
• Blue suggests it is pending attention from the other party
• Dark Grey finished / closed.

A summary of your activity – Number of Trades; Number of Invites: Work Requiring your Attention vs Pending – is visible at all times in the top right corner of the web page : We hope this makes it just all the more easier to respond to work invites, requests and keep everything progressing

Changes to Time Trade

We removed the time offers section because it doubled up on the information required on people’s talent profiles. Basically all your skills and talents, strengths and passion, values, interests and experience need to be listed as keywords on your talent profile because

the keywords on your profile are how we can match you to work opportunities and the “job you love”.

Previous Development Changes

• Invite to Trade: Matching talent & work opportunities: Now each time you post a request Worknow can suggest people for you to invite to view your trade by matching keywords on your post with the keywords listed within their talent profile.
• Invite to Trade: You can also invite people you know to view your trade by creating a simple email invite. We’d like to invite you today to start trading & earn time credits simply by signing in and responding to our request for people to help test the trade functionality
• Group Marketplace: We’ve established Groups functionality to enable existing communities to self organise and build community specific marketplaces. At this stage groups are created on request by providing a group name and contact email to renee@worknow.co.nz
• Trade Status: We’re testing a new format for the Workspace to make it easier to understand trade status and actions pending on open trades. And we’ve updated the my posts page to provide a little more detail on the trades you have posted.

Worknow Start Up Tips & Tools

This is a copy of the email sent to member following the recent development update. I use and would highly recommend Mailchimp At start up stage Mailchimp provides all the email capabilities and performance measures you’ll need free of change when you have < 500 subscribers and send < 3000 emails. Brilliant!

We support volunteering because it can help people explore new fields of work, develops a service orientated work ethic and gain valuable work experience which in turn expands your work horizons.Some of the skills volunteers can develop include:-

* Leadership & team building skills
* Relationship building skills
* Communication skills
* Negotiation skills
* Creative thinking skills
* Organisation & time management skills

New Zealand is a leading nation in contribution made by volunteers.

A 2008 study of the New Zealand non-profit sector estimated that volunteers make up 67% of nonprofit workforce equal to 133,799 full time positions.

This represents 6.4% of the economically active population.

Research indicates volunteering can offer mental health benefits. In fact it may even help people to perform better in their paid work role. The many benefits of volunteering include:

* Volunteering offers an intrinsic sense of achievement and personal reward
* Volunteering builds peoples confidence through new challenges and experiences
* Volunteers will meet new people by actively participating in their community
* Volunteer work experience can help people explore new fields of work
* Volunteers can learn and develop transferable work skills
* Volunteering develop work ethic and looks great on your CV

Find Volunteer Work Experience

1. Register as a member of our talent community
2. Create your talent profile, entering keywords and phrases that describe your interests & values, skills & talents.
3. Interweb magik connects you with volunteer work opportunities that match your talent, skills and interests (keywords).