I must admit I got caught out recently when I thought I was doing the right thing by this young tradesman. I needed some landscaping to be completed at the front of my property and it just so happened that at the same time I was considering my options, a young man (around 25 years) happened to drop by with a business card offering to quote me on the job. He had been doing some work in the area and noticed that I had been preparing my front yard for a major facelift. He seemed knowledgeable about his craft (landscaping and concreting) and was personable enough in a rough ‘tradie’ kind of way. Once I had seen his handiwork on some previous jobs, I felt comfortable he could complete the work to an acceptable level, so I decided to give him the opportunity. So far so good… [Read more...]
A Short but costly Lesson on giving too much Freedom
First “Do No Harm… and then Do Massive Good.” The amazing story of Dr Sam Prince
Dr Sam Prince is a Scottish born, Australian medical Doctor with Sri Lankan heritage running a chain of Mexican restaurants. He’s an aid worker and founder of ‘One Disease at a Time’ which is currently on a mission to eradicate scabies from our indigenous communities. It seems that Dr Prince knows no limits. In fact he lives by a motto his mother gave him… ‘Expand your life to the limits of your mind and expand your mind to the limits of your life.’ [Read more...]
Here’s a company with a big heart and purse strings to match – ‘Conscious Capitalism’ in action
Atlassian is an Australian software company that lives, works and plays by its noble cause and values. The people at Atlassian exist not only to provide quality software to corporate Australia and the rest of the world but also to help companies share information, be more collaborative and help people all over the world to live better, more purposeful lives with deeper and richer relationships. They are certainly on track to doing just that. [Read more...]
Imagine a High School where ‘Adult Learning Environment’ is the reality not just an idea
And where there is an Information Resource Centre where books are borrowed and returned on an ‘honour’ system; where there are no bells or buzzers because the students are responsible for their own time keeping; and where appreciative enquiry, team teaching and collaborative study in an open learning environment is the order of the day. If you remember those old school days between 15 and 18 years of age when you sat in dreary classrooms while the teacher stood at the front and filled you full of information that you had to commit to memory and regurgitate at appropriate times, then it’s time to consider a new form of student utopia. [Read more...]
‘Idealisation’ – A New Word with a BIG Meaning
There’s a new word to describe a wonderful movement that started here in Melbourne just five years ago which has been taking our country by storm. Idealisation – The Realisation of an Ideal through an Idea whose time has come. The cause that I speak of is Thankyou Water – until recently a little known social enterprise which is destined to have a global impact on the provision of safe water to those communities for whom safe drinking water, staple food and basic hygiene is a non-existent commodity. I know that the catch-phrase ‘Social Entrepreneurism’ has been bandied about to explain this new breed of thinking where ‘making a difference’ in the world goes well beyond just plain charity, but I believe that this new description of mine, “Idealisation,” better describes the essence of what this amazing young team of social entrepreneurs is all about. Here’s a short history of their incredible journey so far… [Read more...]