Kiwi Scrum

January 2009, Newsletter

Hello Everyone,

As well as being USEFUL, this newsletter might be stir some pots.

The January LinkedIn hint:
What have you got to give away that is USEFUL to other people? Take an interest of your own, and develop a web page or two about it. A Squidoo Lens might be a good idea. Put together your best links with a little commentary. Link to it from your Linkedin page.

The Useful Common:
The Internet changes everything; but many politicians are slow to learn. For most of the last month, the boards have been full of Israel's propaganda about how Hamas started the war in Gaza. Except that, within 4-5 days, everyone who cared to find out, could see clearly exposed how Israel planned this attack months ago, and how it was Israel that broke the ceasefire and refused to even acknowledge a continuing truce agreement from Hamas that lay on the table, ignored. The propaganda engine continued to churn out the same string of lies, exposed many days before. Israel looks not only foolish, but in the eyes of many, also guilty.

Have we witnessed a new Guernica in our time? Here's what Picasso thought about that, and the history of what happened at Guernica in 1937. Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza continues as I write. Economic blockades are supposed to be serious war crimes, according to the Geneva Convention. We have not heard the last of this. See my Ryze Team Downunder Network if you want to know more.

Engage with other people and Groups:
If it is to be, it's entirely up to YOU. The most neglected networking opportunity is failure to follow up on your invitations. Learn about the people you are connected to, and find some small ways to HELP some of them. The most efficient way to be involved as a helper, is to join groups of people who are like yourself. (Communities of Practice?)

Invitations
When you connect to people on LinkedIn, do you send them a note? If you invite people to connect to you, offer a business link to an interesting page. When you are connected to that person, offer a different link, perhaps to an interest of yours, or to your sporting efforts. Try to be a real person, not just a name and an email address.

Volunteers
What people choose to do as volunteers makes a critical difference in the world. When the financial world is sliding into crisis that's even more obvious. Human groups are bonded by shared experiences, by working together, and by service to each other. It looks like we have our fair share of hardship to bare in the next two years. Build your networks and consolidate your friendships. Find mentors for yourself and be a mentor to someone else.

The Value of New Beginnings
The collapse of business and economic confidence is driven by a direct conflict between "economic growth" as it's usually defined and the maintenance of the environment and therefore the human race. (This is the story never told, because it's altogether too scary. At root it's a moral problem, not a financial one. What is the right relationship between human kind and the planet?) [Lloyd Geering from 3min to 7min] The old business model cannot stand, and the new business model is not yet ready. We, the unwilling, are about to discover how to build a sustainable economy. Necessity drives a hard bargain. No amount of money will buy a solution. You and I have to MAKE a solution, by doing sensible things, building trust.

GDP measures "bad's" and "good's" and by addition puts them together and calls the sum a measure of our productivity. We know that GDP will decline in the coming year, but it's a nonsense measure anyway. Focusing on GDP is part of the problem. Thinking "more growth" at least in the old way is part of the problem. It takes us back to where we've been, and that doesn't work, and can't be made to work. Throwing cash at the problem simply buys time and more of the old wrong solution.

We have to make better personal and collective choices? Can we by choice, strongly reduce the "bad's" we produce? Can we keep more than our share of the "good's" we need in our lives? In the process we may learn some useful lessons about ourselves, and about how a sustainable economy might be built. Don't ignore the small things you can do.

Regards
John