Letters from Haiti: Day Two
#1 Thing to Learn from This Post:
Haiti has an amazing amount of potential and innovative people are here committed to help unleash it.
Special Thank You:
I want to thank everyone who has donated to support our trip. To date, 13 people have joined me in giving $50 or more. Want to join us with your investment? Learn more and donate here.
A More Detailed Exploration:
The more time I spend in Haiti, the more I appreciate the nuances of the challenges and opportunities here. Last year’s trip was my first time outside the bubble of the developed world and it opened my eyes to the realities of life without its amenities.
Yesterday morning started with the braying of a donkey a bit further down the mountainside. Perhaps by coincidence or design, Luke Renner from Fireside International arrived from the airport and added his humor and creativity to the group immediately. With coffee, an egg scramble, and fresh fruit in our bellies, our team piled in the truck for the bone jarring ride down the mountain side road on our way into the heart of Port au Prince for the day.
View from ESHI Looking North
Our first stop was at the Ecole Superieure d’Infotronique d’Haiti (ESIH), a burgeoning higher education institution with an impressive story. Patrick Attie, co-founder and vice president, spent with our team sharing his story and the success they’re building. Born in Africa to parents of Lebanese-Haitian and French heritage, Patrick began spending his summers in Haiti at the age of 17 after his folks had moved there from France. In time, he did as well.
Started shortly after the embargo of the 1990s, ESIH has grown in its 15 years to have 900-1000 students, most studying computer science and management. The campus, located in a middle-class area of the downtown, is compact and continuing to grow. The earthquake damaged the original building, causing the deaths of 11 students and a professor.
According to Patrick, the earthquake has been a partner amplifier for them. As companies and organizations come into the country to help with the recovery and rebuilding, they found an able partner in ESIH. Microsoft, Google, Net Hope and more work with them to provide opportunities for the students home and abroad.
Higher education represents one of Haiti’s greatest economic opportunities. Over $80-100 million flows out of Haiti for just the students attending university and technical training schools in Dominican Republic. Just imagine how much money could be invested back into Haiti if those students remained here for school.
Even as it is, ESIH has room to grow, because the Port au Prince area has three times the amount of need for its students than it currently graduates. Employment opportunities abound for these young men and women, 60-70% of whom come from Port au Prince middle-class families. One challenge ESIH faces is that most students who do matriculate into the program need a year of remedial coursework to make up for shortcomings of the primary and secondary schools.
After a short while, three new people joined our conversation. Jaako Helleranta, a Finnish ex-pat formerly with the World Bank, highly active with OpenStreetMaps, and now leading a startup in Haiti focused on GPS tracking devices, Adam Holt from One Laptop One Child, and Nick Doiron, One Laptop One Child volunteer leaving soon to join Code for America. These three men and Patrick are organizing an Open Space event on December 12 with the goal of generating a list of “things worth doing”.
As Jaako explained, open source is a new paradigm in the international development community that requires new policies and a mindset. With that in mind, our group brainstormed meeting best practices for integrating social media into the event to help them reach a wider audience and inform those who join the event. You can follow along from wherever you are on December 12 by tracking #OpenHaiti and @OpenHaiti on Twitter.
"Temporary" Tents in a Park
Ready for lunch, we made our way to the Hotel Oloffson to dine on the veranda while talking with Richard A. Morse, proprietor and leader the band RAM. As a close cousin to President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly and a man know for his critical voice of prior administrations, we had a mostly off the record conversation about political realties of serving as an advisor to the president. Enjoying the conversation and lunch served, we strolled the hotel grounds admiring the voodoo art, chasing the roosters and chickens, and envying the pool on a 93 degree day.
Hotel Oloffson - A Grand Dame
On our way home up the mountainside back to Bellevue, we stopped in the better-off Petionville neighborhood for some grocery shopping at Giant Market, which caters to internationals and upper class Haitians. It could have easily been a grocery store in the US with a wide selection of goods, local and imported.
Back at Bellevue, we enjoyed a delicious dinner and spent the better part of the evening working on the script for the video we’re shooting over the weekend. After 3 1/2 hours of writing and rewriting (3 hours of which were just sheer comedic lunacy), we called it a wrap and headed to bed.
On our third day, we’re getting up quite early to make the journey to the countryside west of Port au Prince to visit one of the seven schools built and managed by Haiti Partners, which are participating in the social business initiatives. You can bet on reading about it all in the next post.
Letters from Haiti: Day One
#1 Thing to Learn from This Post:
Thanks to the generosity of a small number of people, I have arrived in Haiti and have joined up with my fellow travelers for five-days filled with learning and connecting.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Good morning from Bellevue, the growing operational center of Haiti Partners, settled up two miles up the mountain overlooking the sprawling city of Port au Prince. I’ve had my first cup of delicious Haitian coffee, served black with sugar, and am rested up from yesterday’s long day of travels.
The journey began at 3:15am in Boston with the wake-up alarm going off followed by the haze of getting ready and heading to the airport. My flight from Boston Logan to JFK went quickly thanks to my ability to sleep sitting up. At JFK, I joined up with Jesse Engle and his son, Jonathan, who took the red-eye flight from San Francisco.
Jesse has been traveling to Haiti to visit his older brother, John, since 1995 and this trip was the first time Jonathan, who’s 11 years old, was making the journey. As a father of a ten year old son, I know it’s going to be great to watch the son travel outside the comfy confines of the developed world with his father.
Landing in Port au Prince on a sunny day from the west is one of the most beautiful approaches you’ll experience. The deep blues of the Caribbean with the lush green of the Haiti shoreline make for a pastoral contrast to the dense urban expanse of Haiti’s capital and largest city. Disembarking the plane and getting on the bus to the main terminal, we were greeted just like every arriving plane with a band of Haitian musician.
Passing thru customs and entering the baggage claim area, the three of us meet up with another fellow traveler, Jonathan Chan, who serves as the Haiti Partners social media coordinator. He had arrived shortly before us on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale. After a short wait, we made our way outside the terminal to meet up with John Engle, our host, his two young children, and Felix, a local Haiti Partners team member.
Coming out of the terminal, you have to run what I’ll call the “Port au Prince Porter Gauntlet”. It’s a surreal experiences as men in red shirts jockey to help arriving passengers carry their bags to their cars. It’s the first sign that there is a great supply of labor in Haiti and a desire to hustle.
With a change of plans because of our planned fifth traveler, Mark Dowds, having to call off his trip from Argentina due to a labor strike, we load up the truck and head up the mountainside toward Bellevue, Haiti Partner’s operational center and our home for the next five days.
Driving thru the streets of Port au Prince, we came quickly across the ubiquitous tents housing the many thousands of people the earthquake displaced almost two years ago. It was encouraging to see the progress being made to resettle and rebuild, but much work remains.
After a respite over a late lunch at La Reserve, we made our way to Bellevue to settle into our living quarters, recharge our phones and laptops, and enjoy a delicious dinner.
Catching our second wind, we loaded up again in the car to drive down the mountainside to the Hotel Oloffson for the magic and mystique of RAM, a legendary rasin muzik band known for its Thursday night performances. It was a wonderful way to end the long day.
On our second day, we have a full agenda meeting with a number of leaders from different NGOs and companies to learn about the innovative approaches they are taking here in Haiti to help Haitians raise themselves up from the bootstraps. More to come on that.
Here We Go: Hendo Heads to Haiti
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
I’ll be in Haiti today to start a five-day trip to help Haiti Partners take their education + entrepreneur initiative to the next level. You can come along for the ride here with daily posts.
A More Detailed Exploration:
As Jesse Engle of ExactTarget and my fellow traveler said yesterday, “Here we go!” This afternoon, we’ll be landing in Port au Prince for a five-day trip hosted by his brother John Engle, co-founder of Haiti Partners.
You can learn more about the exciting partnership between Haiti Partners and Grameen Creative Lab that seeks to empower families to start their own businesses to fund their children’s education. And if you feel so inclined, you can join as a charitable investor in this adventure by making a gift of $50 or more here.
I’ve been looking forward to returning to Haiti since I first visited it last year. We’ll be meeting with numerous Haitian leaders, including Richard A. Morse (aka @RAMHaiti), to discuss ideas for how to forge a stronger link between education and entrepreneurs. Plus, we plan to catch the weekly show of RAM, a mizik rasin band, at the Hotel Oloffson. Great times ahead!
Here’s a great introduction to Haiti Partners:
Send Hendo to Haiti to Help Kids and Entrepreneurs
On November 17, I am headed to Haiti along with a select group of entrepreneurs to help Haiti Partners chart the next phase of a very exciting initiative bringing together education and entrepreneurs. It’ll be my second time there and this time I want more people to come along for the journey.
While huge numbers of people stepped forward immediately after the 2010 earthquake, most everyone has moved their attention elsewhere. Unfortunately, people in Haiti still have great needs, especially the children of Haiti.
“We really believe for Haiti to improve significantly not only is there a need for improving education in general terms, but specifically helping children to grow up learning more entrepreneurial skills.” – John Engle, Haiti Partners
Only 8% of Haiti’s schools are publicly-funded, leaving the rest to charge fees too expensive for many families. As a result, nearly 50% of school-age children aren’t enrolled in school, and those who are often receive a poor education from teachers who lack adequate training and materials. While the government is working to make free, quality education available to all children, it will be many years before this goal is realized.
In the meantime, Haiti Partners (co-founded by John Engle and Kent Annan) has teamed up with Grameen Creative Lab to pilot social businesses at seven Haitian schools that Haiti Partners supports, financed by loans from SAP and Accenture. The purpose of the program is twofold:
- Create sustainable revenue streams that reduce their reliance on school fees and outside support
- Develop a culture of entrepreneurism among administrators, teachers, students, and parents that will help create jobs and drive economic growth in their communities
The goal of this month’s trip is to assess the program’s current progress and generate a strategy to attract significant numbers donors to support the program long-term. You can read more about the program in this news article.
SInce you can’t come in person on such short notice, I’d like for you to become an “investor” by making a gift. The first ten people to donate $50 or more will be recognized as “Series A Investors” in this endeavor. As a Series A Investor, you will receive amazing karma for your investment in the future of Haitian children and families. I’ll also throw in a special gift from Haiti and a special video message from the team while we’re there.
I need to raise $1,000 and I hope you will join me in making a gift. I’ve started things off by making the first gift: $500. Yay! We’re already halfway to the goal. Can you pitch in and make a donation that is meaningful to you?
Making the Most of Conferences
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Reading Ryan Hupfer’s advice on conferences will dramatically improve what you get out of them. Go read it now.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Much of my success in the past couple years has come from connections and opportunities I created while attending conferences like SXSW Interactive. On a number of these occasions, I worked in tandem with Ryan Hupfer, who works for iSocket. We have fun when we’re together and we’re highly productive in creating opportunities for ourselves and others.
Take a moment to read his post that shares his secret success formula: 3 Simple Rules for Conference Success. The couple minutes it takes you will be pay great dividends for you.
And if you’re headed to ad:techNew York this week, be on the look out for Ryan Hupfer (he prefers to be described as a tall, blonde sexy beast).
Creative Clusters: Introducing the Free Radicals
#1 Thing to Learn from This Post:
Tapping into the clusters of creative experts (aka Free Radicals) is important to driving innovation and progress.
A More Detailed Exploration:
For more than half my career, I have worked in startups or as a free agent. I have had the fortune of working on projects helping some of the world’s largest organizations. These experiences have shown me the various advantages and disadvantages to hierarchical structures, as well as more networked structures.
With the proliferation of online and mobile media tools, it has become very simple to make a living without being an employee of traditional company. In fact, we need to give thought to the growing number of people who are choosing to start their own small, agile endeavors designed to work collaboratively with other companies to achieve big projects.
This past week, Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, published a manifesto for these individuals, entitled A Manifesto for Free Radicals: Less Paperwork, Less Waiting, More Action. There’s more in his post, but this is the actual manifesto:
We do work that is, first and foremost, intrinsically rewarding. But, when we make an impact, we expect extrinsic validation: We don’t create solely for ourselves, we want to make a real and lasting impact in the world around us.
We demand freedom, whether we work within companies or on our own, to run experiments, participate in multiple projects at once, and move our ideas forward. We thrive on flexibility and are most productive when we feel fully engaged.
We make stuff often, and therefore, we fail often. Ultimately, we strive for little failures that help us course-correct along the way, and we view every failure as a learning opportunity, part of our experiential education.
We have little tolerance for the friction of bureaucracy, old-boy-networks, and antiquated business practices. As often as possible, we question “standard operating procedure” and assert ourselves. But even when we can’t, we don’t surrender to the friction of the status quo. Instead, we find clever ways (and hacks) around it.
We expect to be fully utilized and constantly optimized, regardless of whether we’re working in a startup or a large organization. When our contributions and learning plateau, we leave. But when we’re leveraging a large company’s resources to make an impact in something we care about, we are thrilled! We want to always be doing our best work and making the greatest impact we can.
We consider “open source” technology, API’s, and the vast collective knowledge of the Internet to be our personal arsenal. Wikipedia, Quora, and open communities for designers, developers, and thinkers were built by us and for us. Whenever possible, we leverage collective knowledge to help us make better decisions for ourselves and our clients. We also contribute to these open resources with a “pay it forward” mentality.
We believe that “networking” is sharing. People listen to (and follow) us because of our discernment and curatorial instinct. As we share our creations as well as what fascinates us, we authentically build a community of supporters that give us feedback, encouragement, and lead us to new opportunities. For this reason and more, we often (though, not always) opt for transparency over privacy.
We believe in meritocracy and the power of online networks and peer communities to advance our ability to do what we love, and do well by doing it. We view competition as a positive motivator rather than a threat, because we want the best idea – and the best execution – to triumph.
We make a great living doing what we love. We consider ourselves as both artisans and businesses. In many cases, we are our own accounting department, Madison Avenue marketing agency, business development manager, negotiator, and salesperson. We spend the necessary energy to invest in ourselves as businesses – leveraging the best tools and knowledge (most of which are free and online) to run ourselves as a modern-day enterprise.
Count me in. These are powerful ideas already alive in the marketplace and community. How are you making it easy for the Free Radicals to help your cause?
The 7 Billion Milestone
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
This is the first billion population milestone we’ve reach when more than half of the world’s population can take an active role in celebrating it.
A More Detailed Exploration:
In January, I received an invitation to join a select group of people for a semi-clandestine gathering at Columbia University hosted by the UN Population Fund. Out of this unique gathering of leaders from media, corporations, NGOs, universities, and grass roots organizations was a watershed of ideas for how the UN could use social and mobile media to mark the 7 billion population milestone on October 31, 2011.
Just think, this is the first billion milestone when more than half of the world’s population can connect directly with each other because of online and mobile media. With this vision in mind, the 50 or so of us gathered for that weekend pushed each other to think big, yet practical.
In the weeks that followed, I was hired on by the UN Population Fund to help distill these ideas into a workable game plan that had a clear strategy and structure. We sprinted in an iterative fashion for a couple months building out these ideas into a realistic scope based on the inherent challenges of working with a large multi-party collaboration convened by the juggernaut of the UN. Out of it came the 7 Billion Actions, a global initiative to build awareness of the opportunities and challenges with a world of seven billion people and to inspire governments, NGOs, private sector, media, academia and individuals to take action.
Working furiously over Memorial Day weekend, we finished the first iteration of the initiative’s website. In the weeks leading up to Father’s Day, we launched a logo contest in partnership with crowdSPRING. Shortly after World Population Day, we launched another iteration of the website.
Various pieces of the puzzle started to come into place. National Geographic devoted a significant amount of their resources to telling the story of 7 billion. The UN Millennium Development Goals team signed to help bring Playing For Change on to produce an original song and video. IBM hosted a UN Hack Day on their 100th Anniversary’s Day of Service. SAP created a data experience, ThomsonReuters produced infographics and a video, Churchill Club, and many other corporations, nonprofits, and UN agencies joined with their resources.
There’s a lot of great lessons to unfold thru this initiative. All in due time. In the meantime, I hope you join in celebrating the 7 billion population milestone and adding your voice.
7 Billion Actions Overview
Everyone Has a Story – Add Your Story
SAP-Powered Data Experience
Global Film Contest
7 Billion and Me – How Does 7 Billion Affect You?
A Modern Day Crispus Attucks for The Occupy Movement?
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Deft use of media can galvanize a movement. Has the Occupy movement found its Crispus Attucks moment?
A More Detailed Exploration:
As a relative newcomer to New England and an avid history buff, I have churned through a number of history books on the American Revolution in the past year. The past couple years have produced a number of scholarly explorations of the Founding Fathers, all of which seek to strip away the mythology passed down over the generations.
Credit: Wikipedia
Reading through these, you quickly gain an appreciation for complexity and uncertainty that existed in the 15 years leading up to multiple colonies taking up arms against the Crown. In fact, it wasn’t until after the Boston Massacre in 1770 that colonists began to talk about independence. You can read a respectable summary of it on Wikipedia.
The British regulars’ killing of five civilians, who were verbally abusing and taunting the sentries who fired on them, was the spark to a conflagration of outrage. But it was the deft use of media by colonial agitators that served as the wind transforming what the British refer to as the Boston Riot into a raging fire of sentiment.
Paul Revere, silversmith and Patriot leader, etched his famous depiction event based on Henry Pelham’s drawing and printing presses throughout the colonies replicated the propagandized version of events. You see, mashups aren’t new.
This visual representation served as a powerful catalyst for colonial leaders to move on to the path of independence. Of course, it would take five years until the American Revolution began with more American blood spilling in Lexington and Concord, but by then the Boston Massacre had become an emotional anchor and rallying cry.
Of the five civilians killed in 1770, Crispus Attucks is the only one most people remember by name. As an interesting side note, he moved to the forefront of the mythology in the years leading up to the Civil War, when abolitionists retold the story of Boston Massacre with him front and center.
So why this American History lesson this morning? Last week, the Occupy movement began to come under duress from the city governments where these demonstrations have formed. Police in Oakland sparked great outrage when they used tear gas and force to push the demonstrators from their encampment. In the melee, Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran and member of Iraq War Veterans against the War, sustained a severe head wound, reportedly from a tear gas canister fired by riot police.
Major media outlets picked the story up with Jon Stewart adding his voice to the coverage and the financial press joining, too. This video of the melee includes footage of Scott Olson moments before his injuries (around the 3:25 mark) – look for the young man wearing desert fatigues next to the sailor in his dress blues:
Olsen is now out of critical condition, but the injury damaged the speech center of his brain affecting his ability to talk. Since then, the city of Oakland has dialed back its police activities and protesters have rebuilt their Oakland encampment. People in many cities across the county have held candlelight vigils against police brutality and in support of Scott Olsen.
Will this one man’s injury help galvanize the Occupy movement and help it pull more people into the streets? Time will tell, but the Occupy movement might have just found a very tangible rallying point.
What is a Social Entrepreneur? A Definition.
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Social entrepreneurship is mindset that can be applied to any sector.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Are you as fascinated with the rise of the concept called “social entrepreneurs” as I am? It seems like in the past few years, more people have begun to identify themselves and others with this label – almost like a new fashion brand. Just as you may have noticed being a startup or entrepreneur is quite the thing these days, you’ll notice being a “social entrepreneur” will turn even more heads.
[If you happen to be someone who views her/himself as a social entrepreneur, I would highly recommend you read Brian Reich's advice to you. It's timely and very appropriate.]
Because of my work in the cause marketing world and founding the WeCanEndThis.com initiative, Dr. Jeff Davis from NASA asked me to speak on social entrepreneurs as the Space and Life Science Directorate’s Innovation Lecture Series featured keynote. Up until that point, I viewed myself as an entrepreneur focused on social issues, but hadn’t taken on the social entrepreneur moniker. I took it upon myself to crowd-source the definition with help from those who did consider themselves one. Great comments here.
Since then, NASA has created the NASA Human Health and Performance Center (NHHPC) to convene organizations from the private, nonprofit, academic, and government sectors to foster new collaborative initiatives. CauseShift joined the NHHPC as a founding member and during this month’s semi-annual gathering, I was asked to co-lead a workshop session for social entrepreneurs with the goal of spawning a collaborative initiative focused on helping the 1 billion without access to safe water.
To achieve our goal, I challenged the workshop participants, who included Opportunity International, Engineers Without Borders, NASA OpenGov, Manna Energy Ltd., Wyle, and The Zoological Society of San Diego, to help me define “social entrepreneurship” so that we could use the same mental framework. Frankly, I hadn’t found a solid definition that was differentiated from “entrepreneur”. After a very thorough, introspective hour, we crafted this definition, which I submit to the public domain for comment and critique:
Social entrepreneurship
- is a mindset, not a role, and is not exclusive to any one industry
- has a system-level awareness capable of identifying widely shared needs
- develops local solutions these needs that can be scaled thru replication or adoption
- creates intentional postive side effects and by-products
- requires a two-way value exchange (no handouts)
- assumes an equitable balance between private and community wealth
What are your thoughts? Got something to add, take away, or change?
Sandbox Sessions: Creating Space for New Thinking
Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of www.sandboxsessions.com, jointly created by CauseShift and Antler. Sandbox Sessions is a new approach using in-person events and digital media to shift the conversations surrounding important issues.
The Beyond Cause Marketing Summit 2011 serves as the first trial run of Sandbox Sessions. Over the coming few weeks, we will share videos, articles, and guests posts generated because through the September 16 event. In addition to the new website, we have created a new Facebook group to allow people to continue the conversation. Be sure to visit Sandbox Sessions and let us know what you think.
If you’re a brand interested in learning how Sandbox Sessions can help you create greater meaning, purpose, and relevance for you in the marketplace, we welcome your email or your Tweet.
