By
Clare on
August 31, 2010
I’ve been experiencing lots of moments of inauthenticity at work lately. Moments when I feel like I’m being inauthentic. Moments when I feel others are being inauthentic. Moments when I feel that situations and interactions would be vastly improved by just ‘getting real’, taking a moment (event just a fraction of a second) to consider what others may be thinking/feeling/perceiving, and exercising just a little bit of humanity.
The PS News lands in my email inbox every Tuesday and lately I’m finding that many of the articles echo this inauthenticity. A recent article that stood out gave tips on how to remain professional at work when you are not feeling well. Maybe I’m being too harsh, or too unrealistic, but do we need an article to tell us how to hide the fact that we’re physically unwell from our co-workers and managers? Ummm, what about the implications in terms of presenteeism and reduced productivity? What about if we had a work culture where we were sensitive to that fact that sometimes people feel crappy (in a variety of different (and potentially more uncomfortable and embarrassing) ways) and that we’re adults and can treat these situations with compassion and discretion when required? Is that such an impossibility? Or better yet, what about we work in a way that reflects the values/approach of the Results Only Work Environment and work when we feel good, and don’t when we don’t. And as long as agreed outcomes were achieved, it wouldn’t matter when or where you did it. No more sitting by the door in meetings, with your emergency stash of painkillers, willing the day to be over so that you can get home and go to bed!
And today there was an article about how to decide if an unsatisfying job is worth keeping. Huh? There was much that frustrated me about this article – jumping between talking about careers vs jobs etc. But most of all, I was frustrated about the lack of options and optimism in the article. And I know it’s syndicated content and wasn’t written specifically for the PS News or its audience, but I though it lacked any kind of innovation or inspiration. How depressing is it to think that at the end of reading this article you might in fact decide that keeping your unsatisfying job is indeed worthwhile? Hmm… what about figuring out how to make your job more satisfying? What about figuring out what you do like about your job and trying to emphasise those parts while reducing the parts you don’t like (Marcus Buckingham‘s love it and loathe it exercise is a great way to start identifying these – google it for more detail)? What about some guidance or inspiration for figuring out what you do find satisfying so you can go get a job (or create a job) that aligns? I realise that there were a few useful tips in this article (eg. determining if it really is your job or something else in your life that’s making you unhappy) but on the whole, the tone seemed pretty negative…
So, now that I’ve had a little rant about other people’s writing (and I realise that often it’s much easier to criticise than create) what am I going to do about it? I’m going to challenge myself to write an article for submission to the PS News. A more positive, inspiring article. I’m not sure about what… Perhaps about the perils of sitting at your desk (not really very upbeat at all), and the fun ways that you can get more movement into your work day (that’s the upbeat bit).
Published:
August 31, 2010 | Tagged: work |
By
Clare on
August 17, 2010
So, today I turned 30 and so I thought I should provide a little update on where I got to with my ‘before I’m 30′ challenge that I blogged about it my last post…
Over the last 10 days, I’ve tried out a number of crowd-funding / donation platforms and contributed $25-$30ish to the following:
A couple of quick reflections…. Fundbreak and Kickstarter are my favourite models. I love the creative blurbs, videos and rewards that project creators have come up with. I think they create a connection between the creators and backers and allow backers to get a strong sense of what they’re contributing to and really feel part of the project. Both sites are beautiful and easy to use (which always helps).
I actually found searching for a project to fund on Kiva quite difficult. I was simply overwhelmed by the volume of available projects and the similarity between many of them. There is a comprehensive search functionality but there are just so many to select from… I would have liked to fund a ‘green’ project but unfortunately there weren’t any projects available. Also, the loan I funded had already been pre-disbursed (which means that the funding from Kiva supporters is used to backfill the loan)… I understand that this is probably a necessary part of how the micro-finance industry (and Kiva) needs to work but, in my opinion, it does tend to diminish the connection between the funding recipient and the donors. And maybe it’s not feasible given the volume of loans on the Kiva site, but it would be great to see more stories featured about the recipients and the impact that the loans will have.
By
Clare on
August 7, 2010
I’m turning 30 in about 10 days (gulp!), and so I’ve decided to start a little last minute ‘before I’m 30…’ project! Basically, what I’m going to do is give gifts of $30 to support individuals/organistions that are using web-based crowdfunding platforms to raise funds for projects/initiatives/products that I think are cool.
I’ve known about sites like Kiva and Kickstarter for ages, and think they’re great. I tell lots of people about them and think that they are an exceptional tool for using the internet to connect entrepreneurs and investors at a micro-level but with a potentially huge impact. But I’ve never used one of these sites myself. Time to put my money where my mouth is so to speak, and consciously direct my online attention to things that I care about.
Sites I’m looking at…
The different sites/models that I’m looking at using are:
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GlobalGiving: an online marketplace that connects you to the causes and countries you care about. You select the projects you want to support, make a contribution, and get regular progress updates – so you can see your impact. All donations go through the GlobalGiving Foundation.
GlobalGiving works on a pretty traditional charitable donation model, but makes it easy to search a range of different causes by country or topic. Each donation amount is matched to an outcome (for example your $50 donation may provide stationary and books for 6 months to an education centre in India) so that you can see the kind of impact that your donation will have.
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Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending. Kiva is based on a lending rather than donation model. Entrepreneurs repay their loan and once their payment is received, Kiva uses these funds to credit the appropriate lenders with their loan repayments. Lenders can re-lend their funds to another entrepreneur, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds via PayPal.
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Kickstarter allows project creators to seek funding for their projects. Every project has a funding goal (any dollar amount) and a time limit (from 1 – 90 days) set by the project creator. When the deadline is reached, there are either of two results – either the funding is successful, or the funding is unsuccessful. Funders make a pledge to a project in exchange for rewards which are determined by project creators. Every Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires or no money changes hands. Project creators keep 100% ownership.
RocketHub is a similar platform although seems to be aimed more at creative projects. Both Kickstarter and RocketHub are dominated by US-based projects, so it’s great to see the recent launch of Fundbreak – Australia’s first crowdfunding platform.
For my 1st $30…
I’ve made a donation via GlobalGiving to provide affordable sanitary pads for 1500 Ugandan girls. It was at the 2009 Social Enterprise World Forum that I heard Lillian Masebenza talk about how girls in many African villages were missing 5 days of school per month because they didn’t have access to basic female sanitary products. For all that we might invest in establishing educational facilities in developing communities and in driving cultural change that promotes the value of educating young girls, if these girls are missing almost a quarter of their school days then they remain hugely disadvantaged.
By
Clare on
August 6, 2010
TED is all about ideas worth spreading, right? So I figure that one the best indicators of an effective TED talk is that I end up telling everyone and anyone who’ll listen about it. I’ve enjoyed tonnes of TED talks on a range of different topics, but I’m very conscious of a few that I talk about constantly. Here they are…
Published:
August 6, 2010 | Tagged: TED |
By
Clare on
August 1, 2010
My personal test of a life well lived? To me, the answer lies in the quality of our personal relationships and the care we devote to them. Everything else is peripheral, and mostly trivial. Our personal relationships – the test bed of our sensitivity, our moral courage and our capacity for love – are not only the source of life’s richest meanings, but as we struggle to establish them, nurture them and sometimes forsake them, they teach us that notions like happiness or sadness are mere accidents of our fluctuating emotional state, and are incidental to the great realisation that it is in loving we are made whole.
Extract of a fabulous speech from Hugh Mackay at the Happiness & Its Causes 2010 Conference.
(via Zoe Lamont)
