Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Aspiring Social Entrepreneur | Proactive Volunteer

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.

Pursue your talent | live your dreams.

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.

Service to others is one of our company values because we aspire to help others and genuinely enjoy doing so. In fact, I love working with people and for people. I’m sincere, friendly and helpful where I can be.

To some extent I will even shoulder blame and aggression if it makes it easier for both sides because I try to be assertive and not take it too personally. That is until it starts to get ridiculous! which is exactly what has happened during my efforts to create a PayPal Business Account for Worknow.

How NOT to create a PayPal Account

I had assumed (my bad) that a service provider – PayPal – that deals with millions of transactions a year would have evolved to the point of making the “sign up” process easy which is why it took me three attempts at creating a PayPal Account before I recognised that the failed attempts were actually NOT due to my human error.

1. https://www.paypal.com/nz > Select Business Tab
2. Accept credit cards and PayPal. Customers shop on your site and pay on pages securely hosted by PayPal > Click
3. Sign up for a premiere Business Account > Click
4. Create your PayPal Account – NZ check > English check > Business: or merchants who use a company or group name >  “Get Started”
5. Account Sign Up: Business Account – Enter business information > primary contact information > primary contact address > “Continue”
6. Prompted to enter additional business owner details > “Continue”
7. But instead of a page for confirming details, as the above breadcrumb indicates I am moved to the page shown below which begins:-

WARNING: You must log in before you access this page

PROBLEM: seeing as I haven’t created the account yet and haven’t entered a password, I think I must have made a mistake.

Pay Pal Account Set Up: Attempt II

Now, because at first I attempted to “skip the step” of adding owner details I again assumed it might have been the systems annoying, albeit effective, attempt to make me offer more complete information. Except second attempt, owner information included and BANG! same result: WARNING: You must log in before you access this page.

What the?

1. Check my email in case there’s some kind of auto generated password. NO
2. OK try “forgot password” only to return the error saying the system does not recognise my email. Little wonder since I haven’t finished registering yet. Maybe its just a glitch?
3. Go back….TIMED OUT!!!!

Pay Pal Account Set Up: Attempt III

So I enter all the company contact and owner details, again, with the exact same result WARNING: You must log in before you access this page. Vindicated, I decide it’s time to  contact support, surely they can help – another of the bad assumptions I made during this process…

PayPal Customer Service FAILS to help

I work through the maze that is designed to deter people from actually  contacting support to discover they only provide a US phone number so I choose to email:-

Original message:
——–
Form  Message
customer  subject:  I  am  creating  a  business  account.

customer  message:  Additional  Information:  ’After  entering  other  owner information  I  select  continue  and  am  asked  to  login.

But  I  have  not  yet  entered  a  password  and  the  system  does  not  recognise the  email  address  I  have  attempted  to  register.

I  am  frustrated  as  I  have  now  entered  business  registration  information three  times. I  just  want  to  set  up  an  account

Please  call  +##  ##  ##  ###  ##   (GMT+##)  or  email  with  solution.

Kind  regards,
Renee  Lee
New  Zealand’

AUTO RESPONDER: at last count x 6

Thanks for your email. We’ll do our best to get back to you within 24
hours. It might take a bit longer (depending on the question), but we
try hard not to keep you waiting longer than 72 hours. Blah blah blah…

Enable to best assist you, kindly contact us over the phone so that we
can search for your account and help you log into it.I’ll be glad to hear from you if you need clarification. Just give us a call at 1-402-935-2050 and we will try our best to give you immediate
answers. Thank you for choosing PayPal for your online payment needs. We
appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Dayna
PayPal Consumer Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

RENEE  to Webform

Please note the account has not been created as I could not finish the process.

I am in New Zealand & I do not want to call the US which is the only number I can see listed on your website.

Who do I contact in New Zealand?

WEBFORM RESPONSE:

Thank you for contacting PayPal, my name is Pauline and I am happy to assist you today. I am sorry to hear that you are having difficulties setting up a business PayPal account. I showed that with the email address you used, you already have an account with us. We may be able to assist you better if you call the Australian Customer service number as we also handle New Zealand accounts.You may contact the PayPal Customer Service Agents at (02) 8223 9500/1800-073-263

The remainder of the email advises that I can email them using the “Contact Us” link on the website? OK so you mean exactly how I got in touch in the first place? righto.

So I am starting to get a little frustrated at this point because it does not appear that anyone believes this to be a simple technical glitch. It seems to me they are placing the blame squarely with me as the user because I have and want to retain use of my persoanl account.

RENEE to webform

Congratulations, I do have a personal account registered to this email. But that is irrelevant.

I require a completely separate business account, registered to an entirely different email and your system is broken in that I can not complete registration.

I do not want to go to the expense of making an international call. I have already spent too much time attempting to register and responding to these emails which do not yet address my concern.

How about you guys have someone on your team phone me please +64 ## ##### ###  or has anyone attempted to register to test the fault and maybe get your web team to look at it?

Increasingly frustrated.

Renee Lee
Worknow Ltd

enter eBay: customer service becomes even worse

By this time I’m starting to realise that making the phone call is probably going to save me time and I’ve put it in my diary as a to do for tomorrow but then I receive the following email:-

Dear eBay member,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to PayPal.

On reviewing your email, I see that the assistance you need is related to PayPal, so I’ve forwarded your mail to a PayPal agent, who will review it and get back to you as quickly as possible.

In the future, if you have questions or concerns about PayPal, you can contact them directly. Here’s how:

- Log in to your PayPal account and send a secure email from this page: http://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/helpscr?cmd=_help&t=escalateTab
- Call 1-888-221-1161

Although PayPal is a subsidiary of the eBay Corporation, your account information for eBay and PayPal are kept on two different databases forsecurity purposes. As an eBay agent, I am unable to access your PayPal account.

We are committed to making your eBay experiences pleasant and fulfilling.

Sincerely,
Robby J.

eBay Customer Support

Apparently my responses have been forwarded and now I’m being politely told that I have contacted the wrong people.

RENEE to eBay

Oh my gosh what are you guys up to? Get it together.

I never emailed your team at ebay & I have no idea why you guys are now also offering me irrelevant advice.

This is not only frustrating but I’m now starting to feel harassed.

I’m going to start posting your stupid responses to twitter … #FAIL #Paypal #ebay

Sort it out

Renee Lee
Worknow Ltd

And so we have it. They are probably to big to care about my few hundred twitter followers but if there’s one thing I know is that you don’t make empty threats. So voila!

Opportunity & Learning from Challenges

The best possible outcome is to have learned from these type of challenges right? so what have I learned?

1. Do not implicitly trust in size or technology
2. Communication can create conflict. Conflict can create poor communication.
3. Get informed,  learn what has / is going on before moving forward. If it doesn’t make sense ask for clarification.
4. Become more aware of the many assumptions I make, in order to make fewer.
5. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps that number for Australian customer services was an opportunity.

Escalate NOW

PS: Received after publishing this blog. At least I’m back to being harassed by PayPal which is of course why the following advice sounds so familiar….

Dear R. M. Lee,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

I am your frustration regarding your concern. I reviewed your account with your lee0007@gmail.com email address and I can see that there is already an existing personal account. If you would like to, you can upgrade this to a business account so that you need not to sign up for a new account. I have asked one of our supervisors and they said that we are not having issues right now with account registration.

To upgrade your Premier account to a Business account, follow these steps:

1. Go to the PayPal website and log in to your account.
2. Click “Profile” at the top of the page.
3. Click the “Personal/Business Information” link in the Account
Information column.
4. Click “Upgrade.”
5. Enter your business information and click “Submit.”

If you require more information other than what I have provided, you can also give us a call at 1-402-935-2080 and we will try our best to give you immediate answers. Thank you for choosing PayPal for your online needs. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Jo Anne
PayPal, an eBay Company

Pay Pal Admission of Fault

After three days and 30 emails (includes auto responders) finally someone admits that there was a fault in the system and suggested I could start a personal account and upgrade once resolved.

We are aware of this issue and I sincerely regret the inconvenience it has caused you. Our technicians are working to resolve this matter. We appreciate your patience and understanding

Being told the PayPal system was broken was a great result as compared to the condescending and complete lack of service I received up until the admission of fault.

In the end I felt it was all a too little like the National Governments talk of mining our National Parks and am left wondering whether all the preceding confusion and conflict was designed simply to divert energy and lessen the impact of the final outcome.

Sailing is an investment of time that I consider a rather noble pursuit but then I am biased because my dad was an avid sailor -  John Lee, Skipper of the Leeway – and he was easily one of the hero’s of my life.

leeway: To slip sideways downwind while moving forward.

Yet this adds weight to the fact that I’ve heard several people talking about sailing this year, from simply learning how to sail to planned journeys around the world.

And it is their sense of purposeful adventure and discovery that has inspired my thoughts on the direction of my personal endeavors as well as our company this year.

Time to change tack

I resolved earlier this year to keep a written journal, a common device of those sailing the oceans.  Indeed, I much prefer the creative process of writing ones thoughts vs blogging and I struggled immensely over the past week to find the inspiration to add value to our blog conversation so far.

Beside commenting on articles that inspire conversation or challenge my thinking it seems 2009 provided all the time needed to convey our vision, values and service. Upon reflection I realise that I have said all I need to say about Worknow and it is simply time to change tack.

Tacking – Basic sailing maneuver refers to turning the bow of the boat through the wind so that the wind changes from one side of the boat to the other side.

While we maintain our heading, we now power up the sails with the stories of those with whom we collaborate and whose bearing impacts on the work that we do.

Indeed, it is only through the collaboration and support of people, with the vision and creativity to apply Time Trade as a tool to encourage volunteering in their own community, can we hope to reach our way-points.

Ready About

I hope to increasingly use this blog to share the story of those that serve our communities in the most direct sense of the word. I hope, like me, you will find their stories inspiring and thought provoking.

Most importantly I hope to convey the conscious, collective community spirit under which these people and teams operate in order to inspire and encourage us all  to volunteer our time and talent on a regular and ongoing basis.

Using the simple tools now at your fingertips just imagine what we can achieve, what change we can effect and the difference we will make when we work now, together for causes that benefit us all.

Building relationships with talented, passionate people is one of the most inspiring parts of my startup journey

Meeting talking and learning from others, whether supported and applauded or challenged and questioned is integral to achieving our vision to become a world class business that helps people and affects change.

Each and every person I find, connect and work with adds value to our idea, creating avenues from which to discover and explore new opportunities and challenge our thinking.

I am especially thankful for my two co founders, Jamie & Josh, without whom I would not be in a position to be pursuing a vision I am truly passionate about. And stoked on pursuing the path of entrepreneur alongside other talented people from both The Distiller and AIESEC communities.

The entrepreneurial mindset is surround yourself with great people

Worknow is a community and marketplace to help people find, connect and work together. Register with our talent community today to connect and collaborate with other inspiring, talented people .

It seems that deriding Gen Y has become a marketing tool in itself. Repeat something negative about Gen Y and you’ve instantly attracted an audience.

Some readers will flock in order to have their personal points of view validated. But how many more will read because we’ve learned the importance of “…know thy enemy…”

Everyday we learn more about why the entrenched workforce fears us but more importantly the negativity provides us a challenge to rise to.

It seems, my entire generation now has a point to prove and the best way I can see to do that is to overcome the negativity, choose life and community over career, step around the square box and do exactly what we are disliked for.

Be different, challenge the status quo and find better new ways to get work done.

Although people continue to highlight our flaws a growing number of people are beginning to realise that these traits which appear as weaknesses may indeed be indicators of our strengths.

As one onlooker notes:-

“It is quite likely that some sizable percentage of these [Gen Y] workers will never work in a steady job on the payroll of a single employer. And an equally large segment may never know a career different from that of a ‘permanent part-timer,’ contractor, or consultant.”

Gen Y’s fierce independence will accelerate the nation’s evolution from a corporate economy of worker bees to an entrepreneurial one of innovative thinkers and rapid change, one where a majority of the Gen Y workforce is self-employed or even part of an ever-widening proprietary class.

The Gen Y group will be fiercely start-up oriented, and “by 2013, perhaps two- thirds of all adult Americans will be classified as entrepreneurial.” Source

Gen Y Entrepreneurs

So while this article talks of our US counterparts perhaps we should take note. More than any previous generation Gen Y has a more flexible and entrepreneurial approach to work.

Our entrepreneurial spirit makes us increasingly willing and able to take risks, our education has armed us with knowledge and insight and today’s technology allows us to connect, share and collaborate in new, more effective ways.

The traditional dependency on employment has begun to weaken as more and more of us recognise the potential we have to connect with others in order to create our own forms of work.

While our entrepreneurial and flexible approach to work demands of us greater self-reliance in return we capture the ability to shape our own future rather than “comply” or “conform” to the expectations of a workforce that often fails to utilise our talent or understand our work ethic.

Worknow

At Worknow we support a more entrepreneurial work ethic and are developing tools to help people find, connect and work together in new ways