Simply Nirvana

http://openfarmtech.org/wiki/Global_Village_Construction_Set is a set of 50 tools/ technologies for building post-scarcity, resilient communities. This innovation truly puts the tools of development into the hands of communities anywhere. Exciting innovation! The founder, Marcin Jakubowski, is now a TED Fellow and received much support at TED2011. Follow here:

Chris Guillebeau regularly serves up inspired blogging in his Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work and Travel website. From today’s entry:

Second, learn to accept that not everyone has the same logic as you.

You might assume that logic is universal, since it is supposedly based on facts instead of opinions. But you would be wrong, as travelers inevitably discover, and the sooner you learn that logic is inseparably tied to culture and context, the easier your journeys will be.

In some countries people will give you the wrong directions to a place rather than tell you they don’t know how to get there. Does this make sense to you? To me, it doesn’t. If I don’t know how to help someone, that’s what I’ll say. But not everyone thinks like me, and in some cultures, it is embarrassing to say you can’t help someone, so better to give the wrong answer than none at all. [I’m thinking, “World Bank.”]

Speaking of help, in some cases people will offer to help you because they want something from you; other times people will go far out of their way to help you while repeatedly refusing any reward. In some cases you may think a problem is small only to find out it is insurmountable (and naturally, the opposite is true). In some cases “no” means “ask three times first.”

How do you learn to interpret different situations and relate them to what is true to you? Well, experience is the best teacher. Unlike waiting, interpreting culture does get easier over time. But first you must understand that logic is hardly scientific.

Foreign aid won’t help Haiti change its course

Jonah Goldberg Commentary
Idaho Statesman
January 16, 2011

Ninety-five percent of the debris from the Haitian earthquake one year ago hasn’t been moved.

In other words, billions of dollars later, with none other that Bill Clinton serving as the foreman for a massive international cleanup and reconstruction effort, most of the country pretty much looks exactly the way it did when dust and screams still filled the air.

Except of course, for all of the tent cities.

More than a million people remain homeless. The good news? The Red Cross is building 300 semi-permanent wood homes. That would be sufficient if they could each serve a family of 3,300 people, semi-permanently.

To get a sense of Haiti’s dysfunction, Fox News’ Steve Harrigan reports that some 64 brand-new trucks donated after the earthquake by the Unites States to be used by aid organizations remain parked at the airport. Apparently nobody will pay the steep import tax on the vehicles, so they sit idle, overgrown with weeds.

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was not only the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, it was one of the few nations in the world to get poorer over the last 50 years. And this is despite the fact it has had some 10,000 international aid organizations working there for decades.

As I’ve written before, one of Haiti’s biggest problems is that it has a culture of poverty. Some cultures add value, some don’t. For instance, a low-skilled Mexican worker becomes 10 to 20 times more productive simply by crossing the border into the United States. It’s not that there aren’t entrepreneurs or hard workers in Haiti, but the system holds them down rather than unleashes them.

Most of the wealth of any society rests in what economists call “intangible capital”–not the stuff of gold mines and factories, but the laws, knowledge and customs that define a given society. Social planners love to invoke the Marshall Plan, whereby America helped rebuild Western Europe after World War II, as proof that foreign aid can create prosperity almost overnight. What is left out of the discussion is that while Europe’s roads and bridges may have been smashed, its intangible capital remained relatively intact.

You can hardly say the same thing about Haiti, which has seen its storehouse of intangible capital devalued for generations. Many ambitious Haitians of means leave the country. Worse, those who stay home are thwarted when they try to break through the cycle of indisputably well-meaning agencies.

In a reported essay for Slate, Maura R. O’Connor asks, “Does International Aid Keep Haiti Poor?” That’s a tougher question than it sounds, but it’s sure as hell clear international aid has done nothing to make Haiti rich.

Aid seems to be a tourniquet on a mortal wound. Take the tourniquet off and the bleeding will get dangerously worse. Leave it on and the would can never be treated.

O’Connor writes that Haitians increasingly see the foreign-aid industry as exactly that, an industry. “There is a vicious paradigm to it: If everything is OK, the NGO has no mission. Maybe that begs some questions,” George Sasine, a businessman and  president of the Haitian Association of Industrialists, told Slate.

For instance, American agricultural aid keeps millions of Haitians from starvation or malnourishment. But thanks to the “Bumpers Amendment”–named for former Arkansas Democratic Sen. Dale Bumpers–we forbid any agricultural aid for crops that would compete with those of our own farmers. So Haiti, which could grow rice or sugar quite easily, grows mangoes and lettuce. Never mind that sugar subsidies in the U.S. are an economic, environmental and political scandal in their own right.

O’Connor writes that the overwhelming sentiment among Haitians themselves, according to surveys, is for the country to break free of the international aid community’s embrace. They will still want help, but they’re sick of having the aid “process” run out of New York treat Haitians like minor variables in a spreadsheet.

It is tempting to argue that benign neglect alone is the answer. But benign neglect amidst such chaos, including a cholera epidemic, probably wouldn’t be all that benign.

Still, you have to ask: How many more decades of “help” making things worse do we need before it’s time to take off the tourniquet?

JonahsColumn@aol.com

The following is a Tweet from today’s TEDxChange hosted by Melinda Gates. The speaker, Mechai Viravaidya, gave one of the most inspiring talks about large-scale behavior change:

@ideasforafrica #TEDxChange - “Poor people are business people without business training & access to credit.” Mechai Viravaidya

Written by Paul Sloane

How to Create or Destroy a Culture for Creative Thinking and Innovation

Business managers have much more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and responses. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection. If you want to crush creativity in your organization and eliminate all the unnecessary bother of innovation then here are ten steps that are guaranteed to succeed.

1. Criticize

When you hear a new idea criticize it. Show how smart you are by pointing out some of the weaknesses and flaws which will hold it back. The more experienced you are, the easier it is to find fault with other people’s ideas. Decca Records turned down the Beatles, IBM rejected the photocopying idea which launched Xerox, DEC turned down the spreadsheet and various major publishers turned down the first Harry Potter novel. The same thing is happening in most organizations today. New ideas tend to be partly-formed so it is easy to reject them as ‘bad’. They diverge from the narrow focus that we have for the business so we discard them. Furthermore, every time somebody comes to you with an idea which you criticize, it discourages the person from wasting your time with more suggestions. It sends a message that new ideas are not welcome and that anyone who volunteers them is risking criticism or ridicule. This is a sure fire way to crush the creative spirit in your staff.

2. Ban brainstorms

Treat brainstorming as old-fashioned and passé. All that brainstorms do is throw up lots of new ideas that then have to be rejected. If your organization is not holding frequent brainstorm sessions to find creative solutions then you are not wasting time on new ideas. Instead you are sending a message to staff that their input is not required. If people insist on brainstorm meetings then make them long, rambling and unfocused with lots of criticism of radical ideas.

3. Hoard problems

The CEO and senior team should shoulder the responsibility for solving all the company’s major problems. Strategic issues are too complicated and high-level for the ordinary staff. After all, if people at the grassroots knew the strategic challenges the organization faces then they would feel insecure and threatened. Don’t involve staff in serious issues, don’t tell them the big picture and above all don’t challenge them to come up with solutions.

4. Focus on efficiency not innovation

Focus solely on making the current business model work better. If we concentrate on making the current system work better then we will not waste time on looking for different systems. The current business model is the one that you helped develop and it is obviously the best one for the business. After all, if the makers of horse drawn carriages had improved quality they could have stopped automobiles taking their markets. The same principle applied with makers of slide rules, LP records, typewriters and gas lights.

5. Overwork

Establish a culture of long hours and hard work. Encourage the belief that hard work alone will solve the problem. We do not need to find a different way of solving a problem - rather we must just work harder at the old way of doing things. Make sure that the working day has no time for learning, fun, lateral thinking, wild ideas or testing of new initiatives.

6. Adhere to the plan

Plan in great detail and then do not deviate from the plan regardless of circumstances. ‘We cannot try that idea because it is not in the plan and we have no budget for it.’ Keep to the vision that was in the plan and ignore fads like market changes and customer fashions - they will pass.

7. Punish mistakes

If someone tries an entrepreneurial idea that fails then blame and retribution must follow. Reward success and punish failure. That way we will reinforce the existing way of doing things and discourage dangerous experiments.

8. Don’t look outside

We understand our business better than outsiders. After all we have been working in it for years. Other industries are fundamentally different and just because something works there does not mean it will work here. Consultants generally are over-priced and tell you things you could have figured out anyway. We need to find the solutions inside the business by working harder.

9. Promote people like you from within

Promoting from within is a good sign. It helps retain people and they can see a reward for loyalty and hard work. It means we don’t get polluted with heretical ideas from outside. Also if the CEO promotes people like him then he can achieve consistency and succession. It is best to find managers who agree with the CEO and praise him for his acumen and foresight.

10. Don’t waste money on training

Talent cannot be taught. It is it a rare thing possessed by a handful of gifted individuals. So why waste money trying to turn ducks into swans? Hire our kind of people and let them learn our system. Work them hard, keep them focused on our business model and do not allow them to fool around with crazy experiments. Workshops, budgets and time allocated to creativity and innovation are all wasteful extravagances. We know what we need to succeed so let’s just get on with it.

Paul Sloane is the author of The Innovative Leader published by Kogan-Page. He gives talks and workshops on innovation and leadership.

From: aristarchus munish
Subject: Things are Getting Better
To: “Nirvana Cable”
Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009, 6:45 AM

Hello,
GCA’s ATT [Global Community Africa, Alternative Thinking Training] is indeed a journey. Sometime back I saw you wearing a T-Shirt and on it was inscribed the words, “Not all who wander are lost.” Looking back some two-and-one-half-years ago, one would have easily brushed off the ATT concept and the direction we were bound. The destination was uncertain, to say the least. However, if there are still any who doubt the power of ATT, then I bet him/her to accompany us in our work. Nirvana, some of the results we are now getting are far beyond anyone’s imagination.

Kilonzo, Nderitu and I are just from a training in a place called Maungu. We had split the team into two because the trainings were arranged to run concurrently.

The youth in our training had given up on life. This was evident from the sharing they had, with a vast majority confessing they had resorted to drinking to hide away from the harsh realities of life. As this life is addictive, we needed a strategy to deal with this. And yes, we got one. What was readily available was a quick flashback of our own lives right to the point you introduced ATT to us. Personally I remembered how addictive my former lifestyle was and how I managed to put that past in the past. I also realized that, in dealing with such tough situations, one needs to drop (give up) one thing and pick up a new one. You simply can’t drop and move on. You must fill the space created by dropping down something [by filling the space with something to replace what is being dropped].

Sharing the challenges they were facing, they mentioned unemployment, lack of capital, poverty, witchcraft and poor education as some of the impediments to their success. Then Nderitu led them to picking the main problem or identifying the priority. They all shouted, “Of course, poverty is the main problem.” “How do you feel when you think the thought, ‘I am poor?,’ he asked them. One by one they poured out their hearts, “miserable”, “weak”, “devastated”, “a nobody”, “I have no say” and “powerless”. “Up to date, up to now, that’s what has characterized your lives,” he told them, “However, there is good news!” All eyes were wide open, all ears attentive, with everyone curiously waiting to hear this one, good news. And as though this was taking forever, they simultaneously asked, “You mean something can be done to ‘repair’ our lives?” “Yes,” we answered. “How many are willing to live different lives?,” I asked them. Instead of raising their hands, some stood up while others shouted, “Me, me, me,” as though they were competing.

We noted down on a black board all they had said. Then I told them, “That is your past life. I want you to create for yourselves what future you envision for yourselves.” “A satisfying life where I enjoy plenty,” one said and the rest nodded in agreement. Another added, “A life where all live in unity is ideal for me”. One participant who was holding his cheek captured my attention, and I asked him what he was thinking. Shaking his head and referring to the list of how they feel when they think they are poor, he said, “I’m staring at what I have been carrying all along my life. I can’t carry anymore these truth!” ”No wonder we appear skinny, it’s because we are overburdened by these poor thoughts!,” implored another.

Thanking GCA, one youth said that they have realized that “the youth are picking excuses for who they are. Yet they make who they are by carrying such poor thoughts.”

One realization the youth woke up to is that the catalogue of their woes has one seamless thread that binds them: their woes are, to a great extent, man-made and trying to blame unemployment, rain scarcity and leaders, for example, simply won’t do. They all committed to living differently.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One youth proudly shared what he is witnessing in his community following the training we offered in May. He said now in his community there are over 4 women who have started vegetable farming and set up small shops and over 8 women who have started Mandazi [donuts] baking to sell to the community. All these women were depending on their husbands before our training. When they went back they said, “We can no longer sit and wait for our husbands to provide for us. We must be responsible for our lives and compliment on what is given to us.”

The youth will take us to visit these women after this week’s  programme.

Talk soon.

Munish.