I was moved today by a simple thank you from a friend…
thanks Renee for showing me I’ve something to offer
Perhaps I’m still a bit emotional from watching Avatar yesterday but her simple note made me cry because it reassured me that this concept – that People are Assets - can and does make a difference in lives and communities.
This talented lady is currently my go to person for anything regarding the preservation of food. She is talented, fun and generous with her time and knowledge. She continues to teach and inspire me.
We volunteered together to provide a preserves workshop last year, in which she shared her time and knowledge about preserving. The connections made from that initial volunteer effort have lead to further connections and opportunities, in an ongoing movement toward community resilience.
It is people like this that make our communities stronger, happier and healthier places to live and enjoy life and I am immensely thankful today for these people who sustain my capacity to live [work] & hope.
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.
Our Values; what is important to us in life and in business
A wise person once told me about the importance of establishing shared values. His advice, when given, was in regards to a personal relationship but being the most inspiring entrepreneurial leader I’ve had the privilege of working with (so far, I expect there will be many more) I naturally applied his advice to working relationships too.
Discovering Shared Values
On the basis of said advice perhaps the most important thing we did in establishing Worknow was to take the time to discuss our values.
Way back right at the beginning, seven months ago, when Jamie and I first began to look at working together we sat down and discussed the values that are important to us. The values that defined who we are, what we do and why we make certain decisions.
This not only helped us recognise that we were highly compatible as business partners it also established our shared set of beliefs with which to guide our venture moving forward. Initially, we listed and expanded upon:
Leadership
Helping People
Community
Business Excellence
Communication
Integrity
Gratitude
Lifestyle
Of One Accord; Refining Our Values
In discussing with Josh whether he would work with us our values were again one of the first things we discussed.And being the gifted young man that he is, Josh helped us to refine our company values even further and so eight became six;
Leadership, Business Excellence and Innovation combined under our value of Excellence
Helping People and Community both focused on the value of Service to Others
Communication and Integrity spoke of one accord
Plus we added Collaboration because it is fundamental to everything we strive to achieve
Our founding company values
It is on the basis of these shared values – recognising each others talents and working together in a spirit of trust and collaboration – that we move our company forward.
EXCELLENCE: We aim to be number one in our field and constantly strive to improve.
SERVICE: Helping people is our passion, exceeding expectations our reward.
INTEGRITY: We keep our promises, treat people fairly and value open and honest communication.
COLLABORATION: talented people, working together for the benefit of each other
BALANCE: work / life – future / present
GRATITUDE: We are thankful for our blessings and embrace both rewarding and challenging circumstances with open hearts.
Our team is our greatest strength
I am so thankful to have Jamie and Josh to work with and I have immense faith in our ability to honour the values we have set or ourselves. With our Beta so close, I thought it timely to reflect on why we are doing this. The hard work is about to begin. I can’t wait! xo
Saturday 24th October 2009, International Day of Climate Action
This weekend I was absolutely inspired by the collaborative efforts and talents of our young people driving action and solutions for climate change. The leadership that encouraged and inspired action is living proof that Gen Y is a growing force for positive change.
The creation of a Spring Food Festival, that drew more than 15000 visitors to the Dunedin Railway Station on Saturaday, shows that collaboration – with a focus on solutions vs. problems – is the best way to get individuals, communities, countries in fact the entire planet to unite for the common good.
For more information on the wonderful work of 350 teams around aotearoa and the world check out some of these links:-
It’s time to provide greater recognition for all types of volunteer community work because while it’s not the kind of work that “pays the bills” it is the efforts of volunteers in our community, every single day, that connects and holds our society together. Massive Respect.
This simple fact is the basis for forming Worknow. Whether as a freelance contractor, outsourced supplier, trades person or community volunteer we simply wanted to make it easier for people to find, connect and work together.
Time Trade especially, is based on recognising that we all have talents that could be used to help others and recognises that networking technology has made it easier than ever to match need with talent.
From teaching someone a new laungage, to walking a dog, weeding a garden or lending a listening ear – someone somewhere, often closer than you think, needs exactly what you have.
Time is our common, finite resource, which is what makes it such an effective measure of value. What you choose to do with your time, defines who you are and what we are suggesting is that by giving it away helping others, you not only become a contributing citizen but by law of karma, you may find it comes back to you when you most need it.
We are Social Creatures, we need Community
We believe todays networking technology can help harness the collective potential of communities, groups and dispersed teams. Indeed our Worknow team is evidence that todays social networking tools can bring people together to collaborate and create new projects, business and we hope work.
A social network [online community] enables participants to make themselves known to one another and to communicate more effectively. It allows one to establish their identity online, to post their credentials, and to provide other information for others to see. It also can track correspondence and behavior within the network, establishing one’s reputation and enabling an impersonal medium to serve as a tool for building a matrix of trusting relationships that can lead to collaboration and coordinated action on many levels Tom Greco
We are gathering a community of talented people willing to collaborate and build shared intelligence in more entrepreneurial and flexible ways. I invite you to join our journey today by adding your talents to the collective potential.
Until I am measured I am not known but oh how you miss me once I have flown
When I was ten my cousin Hemi gave me “The Hobbit” to read. Ever since I read that first book J.R.R Tolkien has been one of my favorite authors. His genius and talent for fantasy, heroism and adventure, while rivaled, is not surpassed but I did not fall in love with Middle Earth at Chapter One. No, it was not until Bilbo meets Gollum and the riddles begin that I knew I was on to something epic.
I love riddles, puzzles and logic games. They appeal to the part of my nature that loves to solve problems and find answers.
History shows riddles have been used throughout the ages for everything from children’s games “Ring a Ring a Rosey” to matters of life and death. But in the context I now set out to use them I hope that they will simply help people think about some things, a little more. “What things?” you ask. Which is of course, the answer.
Until I am measured I am not known but oh how you miss me once I have flown
CLUE:090909@9:09
Obvious, too easy? As the title of this post indicated I do not provide answers here. This is only a post for posing questions. If you would like to confirm the answer to this riddle you could Google it, or join a community movement upon which the answer to this riddle is founded and measure yourself the value of ______?
We are a generation influenced primarily by peers and friends.
It’s a fact. In a world awash with information we’ve become adept at questioning the messages feed to us by the media so in order to make informed decisions we turn to those we trust and know. Traditional advertising, barely even registers with us.
Instead of watching TV you’ll find us engaged online and on the move. While the odd Facebook ad might generate a click through (relevant to our social profile) in general, unless it’s funny, sexy or otherwise “hot” it probably won’t even measure on our radar.
Unfortunately, the non profit sector is one where these “general” rules can’t be applied because it’s probably not funny, selling sex can be a crime and hot involves sub Sahara living conditions.
Where traditional advertising and marketing don’t apply it becomes even more important to engage Gen Y through peers, friend and the communities in which we interact. Here at Worknow we rate online communities and networking tools as the most effective way to reach and communicate with Gen Y and luckily for us, we’re not the only one’s backing online community.
The approach we recommend involves creating and maintaining a community – a permission asset if you like – that attracts, captures and leaves a legacy of goodwill around the interactions that occur for your brand or organization on a daily basis. Source
Champion of a cause
Time Trade is a tool to help empower recipients of charity, by valuing their experiences as a means to help others – to provide recognition for the Champions of a cause. As you can watch below, empowering champions is a common theme in of Youth Marketing for Non Profits
If you’d like to hear more about how Non Profits can engage with Gen Y we are holding a workshop at the biennial New Zealand National Volunteering Conference on the 28 – 29 October 2009 in Wellington Town Hall. For more information on this years conference check out the Volunteering New Zealand Website Our abstract aligns with the one of two conference themes:
Volunteering Tomorrow: New Opportunities – new ways for volunteering
And will incorporate concepts on:-
* Generational diversity
* Volunteering in community development
* New and interesting ways of doing volunteering
Go to Time Trade and click on “go here to spend time”
You can then credit people for sharing their talents and time with you
And so it begins, Yay!
To connect with other members of our talent community:
Go to PEOPLE then click on members name or photo to view their full profiles
Click on the “Request Connection” link found below the profile picture to send email request.
Once the other person confirms the connection, you can begin trading time with each other.
Please guys, feel free to share feedback, ideas and criticism via the discussion Forum so that we can incorporate this into to the ongoing build process.
I am so excited to see the Time Trade begin to take shape. There’s 21 founding members here and the opportunity is ours to inspire and grow Time Trade as a community building tool and working alternative to $NZ. Thank you so much for being a part of the Time Trade journey.
Discussing Time Trade recently, we were asked whether we believe Gen Y are as concerned or involved with volunteering as we might hope.
While we might not have as much cash to give, yet, I and others I know volunteer our time and talents to help with work as diverse as marketing to community gardening, environmental action to peer support.
Personally, I think we are as active, if not more than older generations but that much of our work goes unrecognised because we tend often to work together of our own accord (rather than under the umbrella of established charitable causes) by using networking tools to connect, collaborate and work together.
With Time_Trade we provide recognition and a measure of the value (T) Gen Y contributes as volunteers. Evidence of a generation, although often labeled selfish and self-centered, that are as passionate about causes and helping others as those before us.
The fact is, as the social networking phenomenon shows, many Gen Y’s are highly connected and community orientated.
Anyone seeking to engage Gen Y needs to recognise that as digital natives one of the most effective ways to communicate with us is through online networking because these tools helps us save time and achieve the work-life balance we seek.
In addition to work we may also be juggling study, friends, family, sport, other paid and unpaid work commitments. Hence the need for a more flexible, increasing mobile method of communication
Although Time Trade developed primarily as a tool to provide recognition for Gen Y volunteers Time Trade has the potential to help charitable oranisations achieve more with less money by maximising existing resources and:
empowering people that might only otherwise be recipients of charity and
encourages people that may not normally volunteer their time and talent.
We also understand that Time Trade can not replace the need for money so by implementing the bid, buy and feedback process we also offer the opportunity for individuals and organisations to source the best value service suppliers.
The paid marketplace will allow people to find the best deal on services from plumbers to administrators to carers and activists.
Reciprocity is integral in Time Trade but it’s a pretty simple philosophy akin to the ever popular concepts of Karma or the “Golden Rule” of : do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
At the most basic level it’s about giving and helping others without the expectation of receiving anything in return.Yet, reciprocity also describes the sense of “obligation” we often feel to return in kind the gifts or favours we receive from people.
“Reciprocity obliges a recipient of service to contribute…[while] free services can send an uninteded message: if you have no money, you have nothing I need, want, or value” Edgar Cahn
While it’s not always so easy to match favour for favour, gift for gift, dollar for dollar, under a system of Time Trade, we are all capable of matching one hour of time with one hour of time. Cahn, the inventor of Time Banking aka Time Trade, also talks about reciprocity as a tool that can:-
empower those we help
reinforce self esteem
bridge the gulf between market ($) and non market ($0) activities
generate greater generosity
Our Time Trade system is based around communities of people that are willing to support, collaborate and work with each other.
Time Trade is much more than simply a means to motivate, recognise or reward peoples contribution. In an world still dominted by the monetary market ($ valuations) Time Trade establishes a very important, universal measure of the value we contribute to our society. A measure of the trust and love, caring and community that we build each day by helping others and causes greater than ourselves.
By exchanging time credits with others in exchange for their time and talents – i.e. music, craft or companionship – the circle of giving grows ever larger helping to build stronger communities through reciprocity.
