Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Hui – A – Tau Queenstown 2010

Our Southern Maori Business Network gathered last week for the annual Hui.

Four generations of people, Maori and non Maori, representing businesses from concept and start up to long established success stories, in fields as diverse as recycled glass art, spot factoring and farming to native perfume, tourism and accounting.

It was a great success and although all good things must come to an end I returned to Dunedin inspired by the talents,  intelligence and collaborative strength of those that attended the Hui.

I am encouraged by the vision of our people, our capacity for sharing and the enduring nature of Maori community. There were many highlights: great company, beautiful surrounds, delicious food, ongoing opportunities to learn and share and connect with people…

I’d like to Thank

• Karen, Viv and Trish for making this happen. Awesome work ladies
• The crews from the University of Otago Te Taituara Maori Commerce Students Association and Wakatipu High for your participation
• Ta Tipene O’Regan for challenging us to work for the collective good and find new ways to envision and create our future
• Llyod McGinty, for insight into the future of our green economy and the simple tips (from an energy consultant) like join powershop
• Phil Broughton, for making accounting “sexy” his words but we believe him and the students were swayed in favour due to his engaging styles and real life application of knowledge
• David Kennedy, for being funny while also making the important distinction that business can create logos and positioning statements but that brand is how our other people perceive our business
• Richard Kerr Bell, for highlight the importance of values such as communication and trust in business
• Robbie Paul, for evidence that our education system can innovate with today’s skills based learning, training and qualifications providing people with improved pathways to work
• Don Rhodes, for challenging the forms of organisation that I believe in and helping me to practice the skills of listening and remaining open minded

Supporting People in Business

I’m am forever thankful to have discovered KUMA at a time in my work life where I was being misled as to the importance of values.

I will never forget the manager that advised that sticking to personal values (honesty & personal integrity) could create barriers to getting work done.

I have never before been so disheartened and am thankful to have moved well beyond that place with a slew of lessons about “what NOT to do”. If it had not been for the wonderful support I received from KUMA – the Southern Maori Business Network I might not have stayed in Dunedin long enough to discover all the other great people and communities that I now know are here.

I’d like to especially thank Phil Broughton and Suzanne Spencer for your support and encouragement and for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this great network. It is an immense privilege to be a member of this board of trustees.

At that very first board meeting I discovered a true sense of caring and community (whanau) from a team of people proactively working to help others which confirmed that I could aspire to be in business to help people rather than on the basis of “what’s in it for us”. KUMA empowered me to believe in my values, aspirations and my motives and continues to help me be my most authentic self.

It’s great to see that our Gen Y entrepreneurial spirit is being noticed in industry and investment circles. Another positive to hear talk of increased funding for young entrepreneurs.

I support the belief that failure offers a wealth of positive learning outcomes. I believe in collaboration, building shared intelligence and I recognise that we will always have much to learn.

Indeed, I welcome support for environments that nurture entrepreneurship, that offer networking and growth opportunities and increase resourcing options for young entrepreneurs.

“The industry knows where the opportunities are, and these young guys have the capability and capacity. We need to go to a forum where we can bring these elements together and allow the market to decide where the solutions are and where the investments happen…If government doesn’t do it, if the software industry doesn’t do it, if the investment industry doesn’t do it, it’s going to happen generationally…within the next 20 years as these kids grow from college to business, they are naturally going to get entrepreneurial understanding and experience. We can either do nothing and wait for that to happen or we can interject and start to facilitate a sort of collaboration, ” Source CIO

20 years vs 2012

Fortunately,  NZ will not have to wait 2 years let alone 20 to begin seeing the value contributed by it’s next generation of entrepreneurs.

I am a member of a brilliant web start up community called the Distiller. We thrive on collaboration and continually seek ways to connect with industry.

We would welcome government, business, community and industry investors to “interject” but  – so you know – the collaboration you speak of facilitating, the forums for connecting that you suggest, we are working on this already, perhaps even ahead of you on this one. Investment welcome:-) watch this space….

The Financial Times has labeled us as ‘every employer’s nightmare’; while Fortune magazine claims we are destined to be the most high-performing in history.

Although leading opinion appears polarised with debate begins the development of a more balanced point of view which in turn moves us towards finding the common ground.

Having recently spoken of how irksome the prevailing media portrayal of Gen Y was to me, I’m finding it refreshing to see a growing number of authors now taking a step back to listen and learn from, rather than deriding our generation.

Yet, the scales still tip in favour of identifying problems, so as a solutions focused, Gen Y entrepreneur I’d like to suggest there is promise, despite existing “problems”.

Workplace Culture & Innovation

PROBLEMS of Workplace Culture, will occur for anyone expecting us to conform to the old school culture. Hierarchies, no matter how you construct them, be they pyramid, open or flattened, are simply not flexible or open enough to facilitate the collaborative learning and the construct of shared knowledge.

It’s time we reinvented the way we construct our organisations. Here at Worknow we used interconnected circles vs. square tiered boxes to represent our organisation because I believe the PROMISE of workplace culture is that a collaborative and communicative culture inspires innovation.

Leadership & Potential

It’s true, we have high expectations, which some characterise as making us demanding and needy but let’s consider the education system from which we are not far removed.

It’s an environment where variety, challenge and change are the status quo. Where performance expectations are established at the outset and tested, measured and rewarded.

Is it unrealistic to expect that work might present a greater opportunity for such variety and challenge? or that work expectations be established at the beginning for us to work towards.

PROBLEM is while many of us Gen Y recognise in ourselves a wealth of promise – we’re talented, enthusiastic and educated, connected and informed – in many cases, we lack the planning, time management skills, discipline and experience to fully realise our potential.

Therefore PROMISE exists for those leaders who can inspire, support and encourage the growth and personal development of the Gen Y workforce and in this way provide guidance and reason for us to stick around.

Worknow, Aotearoa NZ

• We are gathering a community of talented people that seek more collaborative and flexible ways to work together.
• We believe networking technology can help foster and harness the collective potential of existing communities and distributed groups
• We encourage and support a more flexible and entrepreneurial work ethic.
• We work to connect all that share this philosophy so that together we can build a more entrepreneurial and innovative work culture for  NZ.

What goes around comes around

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.

Register with Worknow to Start Trading your Time, Today.

Earn Time Credits by:-

• Trade your talent and time with community members that have credits to exchange.
• Be gifted or nominated Time Credits for past contributions to your community.
• You can request Time Credits for time that you have recently volunteered.

For more information read about time trade here