More and more people are responding to need where they see it. My first experience with these causes of the heart (which Nicholas Kristof recently coined as DIY Foreign Aid) was through the work of my dear friend, Maria Miller, and her friend, Sasha Bilar, who co-founded Toys for Thailand (T4T). T4T provides support for orphaned, abandoned, and refugee Hill Tribe children in remote villages in Northern Thailand.
Where two or more gather…let them do so with consciousness Version Français I have spent over 25 years working and consulting for all types of organizations – big, small, public, private, for profit and not. One thing I have found to be consistent is a general malaise in these organizations. The unbridled pursuit of profit at any cost has left them with products that are commoditized, employees at the brink of exhaustion and environments and communities close to depletion. Why is this happening? To understand, I removed myself totally from corporate life and gained a new perspective. I left my consulting practice and immersed myself into the mindfulness community. I went inwards using today’s contemplative practices to gain insight. I have been researching the most successful leaders in consciousness and sustainability looking for the best wisdom teachings. What I found surprised me and gave me hope. […]
What is Cloud Computing? In plain terms, Cloud Computing refers to working with a variety of software applications that are available online (for free or limited fee) to fit your specific need. In the case of a socially conscious enterprise or not-for-profit organization, this means using a combination of online software (SaaS or Software as a Service) designed to help communicate with stakeholders inexpensively. This allows social entrepreneurs to leverage the latest communication techniques that currently exists without having to rely on IT knowledge or investing in expensive software. By using free or low cost web-based software to build web sites, blogs, emails, etc., social entrepreneurs have access to their own virtual workbench to design, build, deploy and measure their own communications and campaigns. New social media, personalization technologies coupled with marketing automation, all available online, provide the power tools to cost-effectively create, manage and deploy communications that can adapt to new information, interactions and data. Especially in light of the recession, forward thinking organizations are seeing the large cost savings that can be realized from the cloud [...]
Much has been written about the unprecedented global economic crisis, including the causes - greed, selfishness, financial and loan schemes, rampant consumerism. As I hear talk of the recession easing, I am a bit concerned that we will come out of it too quickly to make real change. Our current economic model is not sustainable. Many of us are waking up to this fact. We have a chance to create a new economy based not only on the profit bottom line, but also on the social and environmental bottom lines - referred to as the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit.
