Going networking? If we want to make create the conditions for innovation that unfolds flourishing futures, we need to ask a new question.
Whether you’re going to a trade fair, conference, event, soiree, class…there are always some moments when you need and want to talk to with other people. We say hello. Look at name badges, awkwardly, because they’re increasingly hard to read because of positioning or middle-aged eyesight. We state who we are. Name. Position (rank in the hierarchy, thus confirming the hierarchy). Organization. And then, the dreaded question, “What do you do?” To which, in response, we give back labels to each other and go into transmit mode. I find, “What do you do?” incredibly difficult to answer. Not because I haven’t got an elevator pitch ready but because it seems to demand a transactional response and I don’t work in transactions. I work with humans. I work with Mother Earth. I work with problems and who has them. I work with ideas and solutions. I work with behaviours and needs. I work with the possible futures. I work to surface hopes and dreams of flourishing. I find, “What do you do?” closes down the conversation to a logic that I don’t get, to a snap decision that we might not share values or purpose or expertise. It’s either, or. All or nothing. It promotes those ick moments when you’ve responded and someone decides you’re not worth talking to. I propose something different instead, for all of us. A new question as a signal of change. Don’t ask, “What do you do?” when you meet someone. Ask, “Who do you help?” There’s something so profoundly “opening” and “open-hearted” about “Who do you help?” I’ve been asking this question and it changes everything in the dynamic. It’s the great leveller of age, experience and expertise. It’s an invitation to bring multiple perspectives into a shared space. As a question, it’s an invitation to share, to reflect, to explore the problems that you’re in-love with, and even to acknowledge that you don’t know who you help. Even if you ask it in anger, in judgement, with assumptions, you may find these challenged…or at least you will have more insights and so will the person that you’re speaking to. (There are many politicians that I’d like to ask this question). Asking someone, “Who do you help?” acknowledges them as a problem-solver…or with the potential to be a problem-solver, a change-maker, an impactivator, an unfolder of flourishing futures. It immediately creates that space for a Venn diagram of shared purpose, of diverse perspectives and the need for diversity. However, you also need to be prepared for an existential crisis happening in front of you, so be kind. You are planting seeds of disruption amongst the status quo. How would you answer, “Who do you help?” What if, the next time that you’re at any kind of event, gathering, conference, get-together, you ask this question, knowing that it’s a signal of change unfolding infinite possible futures? Ask it and listen to the hope and optimism manifesting in front of you. Share your own response and notice what happens. #strategicforesight #foresight #futuresthinking #impactinnovation #innovation #impactentrepreneurship #unsdgs #climateaction #flourishing #flourishingfutures #signals #bethesignal Global Entrepreneurship Week Geneva starts in just 14 days! The programme is announced!
https://liberezvosidees.ch/ Join me to play a Futures Game, called Swiss Innovation: Inventing 2032 and be the innovators and entrepreneurs setting the GPS to the green, clean and equal futures that we need to unfold together. It’s on Tuesday 15th Nov, 12h – 14h in Salle MR150, UNIMAIL, Bd du Pont d’Arve 40, Geneva. I’ll be joined by two extraordinary women Barbla Plattner Head of Talent and Organisation Development,Innosuisse and Vanessa Rueber Enviro Marketing Operations Coordinator, Patagonia Switzerland who will share some epic insights to spice up the game. To create the stories of hope and success in the future, we need to imagine them right now and we’ll be tapping into the abundance of #innovation from Swiss start-up and scale-up entrepreneurs as signals of hope to get us there. Everyone is welcome. It’s free. Email me [email protected] to register so I can buy enough snacks 😊 https://liberezvosidees.ch/event/swiss-innovation-inventing-2032/
Educators!
Join us 26th March 2022 at Impact Hub Lausanne for the SDGs in the Classroom Workshop for this 2-hour workshop that will act as an implementation sprint to help educators personalize ways to bring the #SDGs into the classroom. I’ve been researching start-up entrepreneurship eco-systems, especially those with a focus on Smart Cities. These eco-systems seem to be defined by a lack of women: as investors, as business mentors, as entrepreneurs, as business owners. I’ve been wondering what the consequences are for putting ourselves on the 1.5 GHG emissions trajectory[1] through Smart Cities initiatives, if more than half the sky is missing from the problem-solving. Obviously, it means that half the sky is missing from the pipeline that will be creating education, employment and economic wellbeing for all. Surely, it also means less innovation, less creativity, less likelihood of doing what we need to do in 2022, to get us to where we need to be in 2030. That’s more of a statement than a question. What to do? Some of the steps to get there are women-led spaces. The EQUALS-EU programme focuses on creating digital inclusion for women and girls, so that they can engage in education, employment and economic wellbeing. Part of the programme includes Innovation Camps and you can register to take part in the one being led by Dr Claire Somerville and Carolina Earle at The Gender Centre at The Graduate Institute Geneva here: https://form.jotform.com/220375406093351 and find out more about it here https://www.iheid-equals.ch/ I’m delighted to be involved: join us 28th – 30th April 2022 to invent the future. My invitation to you is, that as we approach 8th March – International Women’s Day, that you use gender equity as the lens to look through to imagine solutions, as you interact with students of all ages, as you create conferences and business solutions, as you support start-ups, as you create your start-up product or service…knowing that it’s going to create expansion and return on investment for flourishing futures. It’s not an either/or situation to fix things. It’s an embracing of a plurality of voices and their creativity. No-one loses if the eco-system balances. Here’s a great report from UN Women if you want to learn more about looking through a feminist lens for your education, humanitarian, innovation and entrepreneurship eco-systems: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2021/09/feminist-plan-for-sustainability-and-social-justice [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/ A week ago, I had a draft version of this newsletter ready to go. Then came the invasion of Ukraine. And it seemed important to pause a moment to take that in. As changemakers, this has happened on our watch.
As Bill McKibben put it in his article this weekend, “We should be in agony today – people are dying because they want to live in a democracy, want to determine their own affairs. But that agony should, and can, produce real change.”[1] As educators, humanitarians and entrepreneurs we need to be asking ourselves right now, “How will we produce that real change through our eco-systems? Where will this present moment lead us if we don’t urgently and clearly imagine with our communities, the flourishing futures that we do want?” Why imagine? Because imagining is the first point of owning solutions: it is the source of optimistic innovation. It’s the starting point of youth activation. It’s the start of community engagement. It’s where hope starts. 1st March 2022 is World Futures Day: a global conversation over 24 hours to explore the challenges and imagine opportunities for building flourishing futures. You can join in the conversation organised by The Millennium Project at 12 noon in your time-zone via this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5221011954?pwd=UEg4TXhYMnU0TGxyNzNsUUd6dXQ4Zz09#success I’ll be there 12.00 CET and 12.00 GMT. Join in. If you can’t join the call, you can still inspire hope in your professional communities, especially with young people, using three simple steps:
It’s a simple activity, disrupting the status quo and initiating action. What strikes me from Bill McKibben’s article is the link between this act of aggression, climate and the urgent need to reclaim precious minerals like nickel from phones, batteries and electrical goods, in order to reuse them in renewable energy. Imagine if we ramped that up over this year as a problem solved? There are extraordinary consequences. More than ever, catalysing ourselves to reclaim the future starts with ideas as small acts of great love. Imagine it, then unfold it: what seeds of hope will you plant this coming week, what optimistic, urgent innovation will you spark? Stay safe and well. Elaine [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/25/this-is-how-we-defeat-putin-and-other-petrostate-autocrats [2] https://www.toolshero.com/decision-making/futures-wheel-jerome-glenn/
Often, I’ll set out a futures-thinking challenge aligned with achieving a UN SDG. This time, though, given we were hot off the heels of TED Countdown and COP26, I wanted to know more about the problems that were resonating with them.
As I asked each young person to reflect on and then share the problem that they were in-love with, I knew that I was inviting them into a space of great vulnerability. It felt a little ‘out there’ given that they were jet-lagged, pierced through by the freezing Geneva wind, coping with wearing masks for the duration of the workshop and no chocolate until lunchtime. Yet, as each young person stood up and shared the problem that they were in-love with, they shared something real and relevant to their lives. Tender hearts were revealed, by young women and young men alike. In the warmth of the SoftSpace co-working room (thank you Aurore Bui), they listened to each other with empathy and compassion, catalysts for wellbeing. I found myself utterly humbled by their grace and courage; young people hold such an intuitive wisdom that picks apart the status quo, empowering them to blossom from their unique creativity. They’re the source of my radical hope and optimism. At a time when young people are experiencing significant mental health issues relating to climate change[2] [3], let alone the impacts of COVID, it’s vital that they experience safe, inclusive spaces where they can show-up as problem-solvers, again and again, to discover their purpose and a starting point for living it. I love innovation challenges for that. It’s always in those first moments that the seeds of self-belief are planted within each of them and the vast unfurling of who they are begins, like prisms refracting light. Surely, we all want that? Let’s run more of them together. [1] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220113-the-sci-fi-genre-offering-radical-hope-for-living-better [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02582-8#ref-CR1 [3] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/10/climate-crisis-eco-anxiety-is-growing-in-young-people/
However, it’s always good to know where the great chasms are in achieving our race to zero, so that we can manage them.
At the same time, it was an epiphany moment for me, about the problem that I’ve always been ‘in-love’ with: that people don’t believe they can create flourishing futures. “Well then,” I thought, “I need to do something about that…”, which, to be honest, feels a bit like Frodo setting off to Mordor. My question to you is, “Do you believe that we can make the radical changes that we need to make?” What do you hear, when you ask yourself this question? I know that you believe the science and I know that you believe that we should, you’ve told me so; but, what about the doing of it? What’s stopping you from acting with urgency today? If we haven’t won our own hearts and minds on believing that we can act, we won’t win the hearts and minds of the people in our communities, who want to live well, in peace. They need to know how greener futures are going to fulfil their needs for wellbeing, education and livelihoods. They want to feel safe and heard and respected. The choice we must make — to believe — is a daily practice of learned optimism. I’ve used innovation and entrepreneurial challenges for many years now, to do that, to ignite those starting points in communities. It thrills me every time people start to believe in their ability to make change happen. Starting now, believing that we can, has to guide us on the paths of innovation that we’re walking: our heart-felt intention in what we design, create, reform, restore, must be about flourishing as a planet and a society. These lines from the Jena Declaration on Sustainability[2], published in 2021, capture this: “…with our body we are ourselves an integral part of nature, and we also incorporate it into our practices in specific ways, depending on what we are doing. This premise inverts the perspective on sustainability from a nature-society opposition to a society-nature interdependent relationship.” Believing that we can take action needs to go hand-in-hand with a recognition gained from walking into our own hearts, that all of us and all of this exquisite existence is worth saving. I think like me, that you believe this to your core. When we’re looking back from 2030, just 8 years away, let’s remember 2022 as the year that we empowered ourselves and our communities, to take a leap of love into being fully human in the Age of the Anthropocene; where we embraced our interdependence with nature and the planet that quite literally breathes us. Where we recognised that we were ‘of’ it, not outside of it. Let’s remember it as the year that we won hearts and minds for the planet because we chose to believe, in our respective professions, and engaged our communities in believing that they could create flourishing futures too. In my heart, I believe we can. I believe 2022 has the potential to be an excellent year. A defining year. The year that changes everything. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/#SPM [2] https://www.thejenadeclaration.org/
I’m excited to be partnering with The Gender Centre at the Graduate Institute Geneva, on the EQUALS EU Project designed to build capacity and expand networks for women and girls in social innovation and entrepreneurship.
Next step is the Innovation Camp being designed and implemented by students as young leaders, taking place on 28th – 30th April 2022 to coincide with Girls in ICT Day. Following that, a selected group of women-led start-up enterprises will develop their business models. Find out more about EQUALS-EU and get in touch to find out how you can sponsor the Innovation Camp, empowering young people to lead the way to flourishing futures. |