The Grey Tones of the Holiday Season

The Grey Tones of the Holiday Season

Not having any artistic talent to speak of, I nonetheless am learning something of the “design” world. When I say grey tones of Christmas, from a design perspective you don’t just have the bright reds, whites and greens, but you have the shadows, the contrasts, what makes the bright stuff stand out and shine. The same is true in our lives of course: we don’t always surround ourselves with the joy of extended family and holiday traditions, nor immerse ourselves in the nativity, the story of just how much we are each loved by our Abba, creator that he gave us Jesus, the first of many brothers and sisters. And so many in this world celebrate with bright colours this joyous, family time of year.

But for many people, these bright colours do not manifest in their lives, but rather as a sort of negative contrast, highlight the greys with their absence. There are people who have experienced these joys in the past, but can only now mourn their passing; others for whom trauma impairs their ability to access the joy of this season. For those who cannot celebrate these bright colours, their greys are darkened as they try to find ways to endure this time: some will succeed of course more than others, but they all feel the same dark pull, each in their unique way.

For those feeling this dark pull, whether you have completely admitted it to yourself or not, let me say something of my intentions for this time. For those who find themselves outside of the mainstream, there is an opportunity not available to those caught up in the busyness of career, families and social obligations. At some level we all know that we are one human family, all connected to each other in ways we don’t even understand, one of them being that we are all children of the creator: at some level we know this, but for many of us it does not come into our sense of self, who we are in our own eyes. Instead of being God’s/Gaia’s/the Universe’s children, special and gifted each in our own unique way; instead of such a consciousness we get entrapped in feeling less than, reduced or victimized, caught perhaps in a downward spiral dragged deeper by this dark pull. The opportunity I speak of is to simply change our focus: to be grateful for what we have (for we all have a LOT), and to take every opportunity to bless another. Do this as a simple decision, a choice of on what to focus, and whether it happens dramatically or gradually, your experience of yourself and this season will become different. This is my intention then for this period: to be grateful, to remember who I AM, and to bless others as I find the opportunity to do so! J

May you be blessed and a blessing! J

Your brother Dan J

feeling blue . . .

I am feeling a bit blue today, it's that time of year and there is a major blizzard blowing. I'm cooped up alone in the house with my internet friends for company as I work away on business development and getting our new charity going. I am tired and a bit disheartened. . . but I know better than to BE this mood, rather this mood will change just like the weather outside will change - who I AM is more than this mood. From my eastern teacher I learned that there are four sources of energy, and that when our energy is low, we tend to feel depressed even hopeless. By simply taking care of ourselves, by providing ourselves with enough energy, we feel very different about the same circumstances. The four sources of energy then are sleep, fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh air, and meditation or a quiet mind. All of these contribute to increasing or lowering our "life force" or prana: the higher our prana, the better we feel, the lower, the more depressed. There is much more that can be said about this, but I guess my main point is - don't worry too much about feeling blue today, don't get over-impressed by how bad your situation seems when you feel like this. Rather, get more sleep, eat fresh fruit and vegetables, get out in nature (near water is good) and breathe deeply some fresh air, and, practice focusing on something that makes you feel more peaceful, more tranquil. Doing so increases your energy levels, which in turn positively affect your mood. But, remember, your moods and feelings are always changing, for reasons often beyond your conscious awareness or control: as such they are best treated like the weather, something you experience but something that does not define you. Thus you do not have to medicate them, or worry about them, but rather accept your present moment, accept yourself, and in this acceptance, the conditions for a deeper knowledge of yourself are born.


In the end, "feeling blue . . ." without panic or need to medicate, but rather with full self-acceptance, can in the end be a gift, as who you really are becomes more and more available to you; for in the end, your life is a gift, and, you are a gift given to many. Feeling blue can in the end be the wake up call to who you really are . . . :)

Why I will invite Canadian Companies to set up a branch in Ethiopia

Okay, let's get the obvious objections out of the way before we even start. Everyone knows that Ethiopia is subject to intermittent drought, famine and ongoing security concerns (sharing borders with Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia), so why would any Canadian company be interested in setting up business there? The fact is that most of Ethiopia is green, relatively prosperous and secure, and in fact construction is booming, both in infrastructure and buildings.

There are many buildings under construction, but on many of them work has ceased as power, concrete shortages and land speculation are slowing down the pace at which construction can proceed. However, by next year, greatly increased hydro electricity supply will alleviate many of these issues, creating more of the conditions sustained, rapid growth.

Buildings are often constructed of a rough concrete, iron window and door frames with poor quality glass – perhaps like inexpensive building construction from the early in the last century in Canada. When better quality materials are used for more elaborate designs, finishing is often poor because the workers don't have the required skills or tools to work with them.

There is a crying need (and thus a great opportunity) for more concrete production, more sophisticated steel and aluminum production, plumbing pipes manufacturing of all kinds, PVC extrusion, doors and windows technologies, etc.

The problem is that purchasing western materials is prohibitively expensive as the Birr is worth approximately .10 of a Canadian $, but, materials manufactured in Ethiopia could do very well not only in Ethiopia but in the rest of Africa. Africa needs to increase its own manufacturing capability, and mature its construction industries; and in this lies a huge opportunity for Canadian businesses.

My emphasis on Canadian businesses is in part because of a CIDA (Canadian Government) program which pays for the feasibility study for a Canadian company looking into whether it could work to set up business in a country such as Ethiopia; and, there also is money to support the training of the new work force. Total support can be as high as $500 - $600,000CDN.

CIDA itself describes Ethiopia as:

Heir to an ancient civilization going back over 2,500 years . . . a prominent and strategically located country in the Horn of Africa. With a population of 77 million, the country has a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Agriculture is the economy's mainstay. Ethiopia plays a major role in African affairs as home to the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and in its pivotal role in other regional development organizations.

I also have formed good working relationships with construction developers, businessmen who can partner with a Canadian company, assisting with land acquisition, building development, and of course with a detailed understanding of the construction industry and opportunities for growth.

Finally, there are as well clothing manufacturing opportunities as Ethiopia produces very good quality cloth and a lot of leather. So far however, they have not made much of a foray into manufacturing clothing or shoes, and in fact a good tannery is needed, as is training in animal husbandry so that the raw hides are in better shape for leather goods.

So why, outside of sensible business reasons, am I inviting Canadian companies to consider setting up a branch in Ethiopia? Well, for one thing, I believe that good business involves also making a positive contribution to one's society and the world. I'm also in love with Ethiopia and intend to spend more and more of my time there. As an entrepreneur committed to doing good, helping such businesses get established is good for them, good for the people who will work in them and buy their products, and good for Africa in general.

So join in with me and spread the word!! :o))

When we suffer . . .

When we suffer, we are experiencing the effects of frustrated desire, expectations and conditioning, but we are also on the verge of breaking out into the light. Let me explain . . .

I remember when I did my first intro course in Buddhism on the way to my PhD in Religion: I heard Buddha saying Desire causes Suffering, and to me from a very Christian background this made no sense at all. I could quote it and get 100% in the course, but there was absolutely no resonance in me to this sacred truth. More than a decade later, when due to being tired of too much suffering in my life, and yet again finding myself full of peace, love and joy after one of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's advanced silence courses, I decided that I needed the knowledge, I needed to understand why I always ended up emeshed in suffering after the effects of the course wore off.

As I opened to the knowledge and pursued it with all my heart, with my full attention, it opened to me like a lovely flower, bit by bit revealing the sweetness and perfection of these sacred truths. Guruji's style of teaching was so simple: I got one basic principle through his example of coffee and a gulubjamon (a favourite Indian sweet): He gave us the example of sipping a sweetened coffee, then taking a bite of the gulubjamon and then taking another sip of the coffee. On the 2nd sip it tastes quite bitter, but it is the same coffee. The light came on for me. Our reality, what we experience in life is constructed: our perceptual abilities have been conditioned by cultural judgements and personal experiences. We don't see things as they are, but as we expect them to be. Any student of human perception knows that this is the case: that we don't see things that are there because we don't expect to see them, and we see things that are not there, because we expect to see them. This is a fundamental truth about the human condition, our experience of reality is illusory; we live in a world built of illusions.

So it is the illusory world we individually and collectively construct that gets us all mixed up with desire: because we are taught what is desirable and what is repulsive. In our consumerist world, where we are fed lies by advertizers all day long about what we need to be happy, this web of illusions has certain predictable if unfortunate results, such as young girls and women suffering from Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia because of having been seduced by false or illusory visions of what it is to be an attractive female. The point is that one of the ways that desire causes suffering is by the fact that what we desire hurts or kills us like tobacco and yet theses desires seem inescapable for many.

Desire also causes suffering when what we desire is harmful for others, either directly or indirectly. Men's desire for young females is a case in point, as is our desire for personal comfort and wealth that is satisfied off of the backs of very poor, even starving people. Desire also causes suffering when our way of providing for our needs and wants leads us to damage and destroy the environment that sustains us: witness that increasing industrialization in 3rd world countries that is resulting in so much air pollution that lung and heart diseases are on their way to being the leading causes of death. Despite how obvious this pollution is they have nothing on us asa the first world's contributions to degrading the planet on which we live is so much greater than theirs. A wise friend of mine, who has witnessed the relentless onslaught against the Congo River Basin Rainforest said to me, perhaps we really do deserve to be annilahated, or at least, that's likely what we're going to do to ourselves.

Finally desire causes suffering when we can't have what we desire with responses ranging from fear and anxiety that we won't get it or we'll lose it to unhappy disappointment to bitterness and anger or despondency and despair. All of this is caused by inappropriate ways of constructing our reality, of deciding what is important and what it is that we must have or else. But I have good news: the good news is that suffering opens the possibiity of escaping these illusory constructions, these empty promises of fulfillment and happiness, because all human contructions are flawed, are imperfect, are incomplete versions of reality and human nature. As Leonard Cohen, my favourite musician and poet, famously says, "there is a crack, there is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in!"

People "broken" by suffering, often end up being healthier, stronger and freer than those still caught in their illusions, still running the rat race, feeding the beast, trying to stay happy, when at heart they know they are as fragile as anyone else, that disaster can strike anyone, anytime, no matter how strong your illusions are. You see suffering often knocks people out of the mainstream, at least for a while, and in that time, reality can break through one's illusory defences.

All this to say, that if you're suffering, I want to encourage you by saying this is not all bad: stop to consider just how your desires, expectations, and related fears are at the root of your suffering, or are greatly amplifying the effect. I can tell you from my own personal experience that you are in fact, in the natural/spiritual centre of your being, peace and joy and love. If you can remember how infants and little children experience the world, you still have that capacity, that child-like way of being within you if only you can drop the fear, the desire for control and abandon yourself to the care of the Universe, to God, to whatever you can call that in which we live and move and have our being. I know that each of us is loved and precious and a channel of joy and peace and love for others if only we can awake. The ones who can hear me now are the ones who have already suffered, and who have already realized that there must be something more than career, possessions and family: to you I say, don't be discouraged by your suffering but surrender and find the meaning of this suffering, the liberating truth of who you are. To those of you so caught up in the pursuit of happiness, of wealth, of being somebody, I wish you the blessing of suffering when you are ready to benefit from it!

grace and peace to you all

your brother Daniel

Everything is always changing and Some things never change!

My former teacher, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, once had all the people on a course go through the following process: we were to pair up and take turns complaining to each other about the biggest problems we had in life. The person listening was instructed to give one of two responses: "Everything is always Changing," and "Some things never change!" Well as first I sat and listened to my partner complain it was amazing how well one or the other response suited what I was being told. The same happened when it was my turn. You see my teacher was a subtle user of paradox. No system of thought and belief no matter how well elaborated and defined can cover all of our human experience: but contrasting truths go a lot further in that direction.

What brought this memory to mind for me in the last few days was just how much my life keeps on changing. As I wander from person to person, from place to place, simply being with people, supporting them, and then moving on, my chosen path is one of transience, of fleeting moments of insight, times of grace and love which then have tranformative impacts both on myself and those I'm with. And yet, increasingly I find myself being drawn back into business activity, albeit business activity that not only is good for those involved, but that contributes to worthy causes at the same time. I am finding more and more like-minded people, people wanting to build businesses that mean something as well as earning an income. So I have quite a balancing act now with this will-o-the-wisp style of being in the world with my friends which clashes some with the different demands of being in the business world.

Now Ethiopia, Ethiopia was a wonderful, challenging, transformative experience. I watched one person almost come apart because of the stress of the culture shock; I experienced a lot of really bad customer service in hotels built to be real estate investments rather than client service establishments; I experienced the joys and hazards of a "working girl" culture where the bar us white guys were patronizing would suddenly fill up will all manner of attractive, hungry women, and in one case they found out where we were staying and tried to get to us through the front desk; I experience the joys of a new cuisine (the raw meat was wonderful!) and the pain in my guts as new bacteria caused havoc; I found generous friendly people, but also on all sides people with their hands out, even people with good jobs looking at us as a cash grab opportunity.

A Begging Culture
On the last point, while in Dese, there was an old woman outside our restaurant begging: now when you've just had scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, it's natural to want to give something to those who apparently are in need. So after avoiding her eyes for some time so that she wouldn't be all over us, when our car was approaching I went over and gave her a couple of Birr - a generous enough gift when most people give them  much less than a Birr. She was at first really grateful and talking to us about the little ritual she wanted me to go through with her in accepting her thanksgiving as an instrument of God, etc. But then it shifted suddenly as she shifted into greed; she even grabbed my arm, digging her nails in as my companions intervened and steered her away with a vigorous scolding. I'm sure they were saying something like get a hold of yourself, you should be ashamed, etc. This small event is a microcosm of what has gripped many in this way from very young children who instead of waving, yell "money" as they run after us. Where there is a clear need, generosity is likely appropriate although in reality the beggars are putting in a full day's work like anyone else, except their work is to try to attract enough sympathy and money rather than sell enough of this or that. But it is really sad to have children, adults, and older people who clearly have a life, clothes on their backs, are healthy enough and food to eat, to have them chasing tourists hoping to get money. They are in fact driving many tourists away, as are the speculators who happen to have chosen a hotel as their way to make money in real estate, but allow them to fall into disrepair, and have not a clue about good client service.

This is the country that we plan to build a tourist business in; where we will give nature lovers, those who wish to experience different cultures and cuisines, where we will give them the wonderful experience that Ethiopia is, while working to eliminate the more aggressive, greedy pursuit of tourists. Our plan is to build up the tourism infrastructure in the Woldiya region by both writing up the sights and sites so that people know what they're looking at, what the human and/or geological history is what they're looking at; as well as training communities in how to welcome tourists into their village so to speak so that they have self-respect as they peform their cultural rituals such as the coffee ceremony. With this arranged provision of services will also come the opportunity to purchase cultural arts and crafts from a local outlet rather than from the crowd of artists and vendors hoping to score a sale from this or that hapless tourist.

As you can see, Ethiopia is calling me back, because white guys like me with 3 decades of experience in all things western, business, etc. are needed there to build their emerging economy. So I went to Ethiopia knowing that I needed to experience and understand what was there in order to build the kind of business that would be good for Ethiopia and good for us white guys who wanted to contribute meaningfully somewhere. I mean, in my case for example, who wants to keep on producing shelfware (reports that get shelved) no matter how much you get paid to write it. I'd rather go and work with teams of Ethiopian developers who've been trained but don't have much experience, and help them set up their governments computer systems.

The founder of Alchemy World Projects, http://alchemyworld.org/, told me that in his estimation 85% of people in Ethiopia, all hard-working people, work either in subsistence agriculture or subsistence trading. We will work together (One Village Foundation Canada and Alchemy World Projects) to train local people in internet, English and business so that they can become 21st century entrepreneurs. If I can add a recent discovery of interest, Canada in the original aboriginal language meant "Big Village" and our hotels, touring business and web development businesses are all going operate under variations of One Village Ethiopia. The genius of our Hotel and Tour approach is to ensure that tourists always feel like they're being welcomed into a new village, their new home for a day or two. For we all despite our differences are part of our one global village! :)


But I digress from my main theme of how everything is always changing and yet some things are always the same. I now have many Canadian and Ethiopian irons in the business fire, and more and more of my waking hours is consumed with the many activities required to keep things heating up on all fronts. Yet, I continue to experience the synchronicities of apparent happenstance which opens this door, pauses this effort, moves my focus here for a bit, and so everything is getting done, but in a flow, rather than by a well-organized project plan. As it says in Proverbs, and I requote colloquially, "Man proposes but God disposes" or even better, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans!! :o))

So what remains the same is a certain uncertainty as to what is next, and yet the certainty that meaningful and significant events will continue to occur with transformative impacts on myself and those around me; what never remains the same is "the plan" what in fact exactly is going to get done!! It's really quite entertaining if one can maintain a certain level of detachment as one continues on towards the goal, whatever that goal might be. Returning to my former teacher again, it is so Guru and disciple for the teacher to tell their disciple to do so and so, not so much because they want it done,but because of the impact of trying to do so on the disciple!! :)

For those on the path, whose life is being guided, turn upside down, and transformed, may you be swift to see and slow to fear; for those are still stuck in the traces, still caught in the rat traps and chains of work with the pitiful inducements of more comfort, more stuff, more prestige keeping you there; well, may you have the grace to wake up some day soon!! :o))

your brother Daniel

Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change has to be Addressed NOW

As my readers know, I'm just back from Ethiopia. As much as I love Ethiopia, and for that matter, Ghana, China and India, I found the same pressing problem in each of these countries, and that is air pollution. These countries are often blanketed with a permanent haze, and being on the streets is dangerous to your health because of the diesel and other fumes that choke the roadways. People are of course dying, some slowly, some quickly as a result of this unchecked air pollution. However, we are also changing our planet, changing it in ways that will render it uninhabitable for humans.

Now it's not that I'm worried about Gaia, the name many call her when thinking of our planet as alive, as an organism, as goddess; Gaia has not always been habitable by us, and is not likely to always be habitable by us. No, the problem is what we're doing to our own environment and to that of our children and our grand-children.

We have to stop using petroleum for everything-- it is so dirty and it has been fouling up our planet and our bodies for a long time. We also have to stop consuming way more than we need. We have to stop designing campaigns to get people to buy things they don't need! Whoever dreamt up the expansion of the economy as some sort of inalienable good has left way too many things off the balance sheet. The cost of cleaning up our messes now has to added to this balance sheet in govenment and international policies, and, we need to aggressively invest in changing how we do things: the status quo of expanding consumption and our use of petroleum has to stop.

So I leave you with a citation from David Berman, who in is presentation "Weapon of Mass Deception" and his book "Do Good Design" (with Design Struck out) very effectively makes this point:
". . . global branding strategies are the most powerful tools used today to encourage over-consumption amongst growing Developing World populations, resulting in the largest long-term threat to global harmony and the environment. Communications professionals have more conspicuous power than they realize, and play a core role in helping some corporations mislead audiences in order to invent unfulfilled "needs" in larger and larger markets. In a World where design has become a recognized corporate asset, creative people have the opportunity to use their persuasive skills responsibly and to accelerate awareness of the messages the World really needs shared. Recent developments regarding professionalism and ethics offer hope. Designers and other professionals need to choose what their still-young professions will be about: creating visual lies to help sell stuff, or helping repair the World by bridging knowledge and understanding. http://davidberman.com/seminars/howlogo.php#description

grace and blessings

your brother Daniel

What has happened here?

(Yesterday's post – accidentally appearing after today's! J

I came, I saw, I experienced, I fell in love! J This has happened to me so many times now! I'm this Canadian who keeps falling in love with very un-Canadian countries, peoples and ways of life. First it was India, back when I was a follower of His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who I still respect more than any other person in this world. Being in India, immersed in the mystery and wisdom, yet poverty and disease, I was attracted and repulsed, but in the end very in love. More recently I spent time in China, again being impacted by the mystery and ancient wisdom, yet the poverty, disease and spiritual hunger of a people raised during the cultural revolution. In the end I was very much in love and happily would go there again for a protracted period of time. Last winter when I got to Ghana, it was again the same thing – in fact I thought I was back in India, it was so familiar to me what I was seeing: the air pollution, the dirt, poverty and disease, yet a vibrant, strong, virile people whose drive towards life is an expression of the ancient life force that emanates from the land. Three lands, three civilizations, three ways of being quite foreign to a Canadian and yet I felt so at home. Now here in Ethiopia it is starting all over again. But first let me tell you a bit about Ethiopia itself.

Ethiopia shares quite a bit with Ghana but has some very distinct differences as well. They are both very Christian with a sizeable Moslem minority, but Ethiopia is an ancient civilization, and both its Christian and Moslem roots go deeper and further back than in Ghana. In fact The Prophet Mohammed declared that Jihad would never be declared against Ethiopia, because the Ethiopian Christian king protected his family members when the rulers of the pagan city which he had offended with his new teaching and path, came with gifts asking for them. The king on listening to what they believed (the Mohammedites and the Pagans) said that the Mohammedites were closer to his beliefs, they were his guests, and that they were welcome to stay with him. So Ethiopia ever since has had a certain level of tolerance between their Christians, Moslems and traditional religionists. Although Ethiopia like Afghanistan has been conquered, it has never been colonized; Ethiopia like China went through a communist period (only 17 years), but it has shaken it off as a dark chapter in its history, not having suffered the same dislocation from its traditions and spirituality as happened in China. So today, Ethiopia is modernizing rapidly, and while much of the infrastructure has been delivered through international aid and development channels, today business is taking off in many sectors. But as it modernizes, the government is also working hard to support its poor, creating jobs like Street Parking Payment workers, and building thousands of low-cost, basic multi-story condominiums as it flattens one story slums. Ethiopia today is a multi-faith society that is opening up increasingly to investment and the modernization of its agriculturally-based economy. It is a place of opportunity for those with business skills and capital, a relatively stable society in which corruption is not such a feature of life as it is in so many other developing countries.

Whatever the case, again, I have seen, I have been repulsed by the air pollution, dirt and disease and yet I am deeply attracted to this place, to these people, to their food, to what it means to live and work here. So do come over here sometime and see for yourself about why it is that so many people like me, once they've been here, are bitten, changed, and never the same.

It’s a long road to freedom

It's a long road to freedom, a-winding steep and high. But when you walk in love with the wind on your wings and cover the earth with the songs you sing, the miles fly by. I love this old chorus from my charismatic renewal days: it is so easy to soar into ecstasy, or at least savour the memory and potential of ecstasy in the words and music. These days I am more likely to remember who I am, to soar into ecstasy with Rumi:

I am Life itself

You have been a prisoner

of a little pond

I am the ocean

and its turbulent flood

Come merge with me

leave this world of ignorance

 

Be with me

I will open

The gate to your love

 

And again . . .

 

Defeated by Love

The sky was lit

by the splendour of the moon

so powerful

I fell to the ground

 

I am ready to

forsake this worldly life

and surrender

to the magnificence

of your being.

I have tasted the joy, the ecstasy that flows from this knowing who I am, knowing the great I AM, knowing who I AM. And yet I continue to walk in this world, in this world but not of it; and as such I find myself increasingly immersed in business, in human frailties (including of course my own) rather than simply leaving it all behind me.

Today I am tired, today, my last day in Ethiopia for now I find myself already grieving this place, somehow wishing I was staying, and yet knowing there is much work to be done in Ottawa and other places before I can return. It is indeed a long road to freedom, when it winds through the valleys of this worldly existence rather than across the mountain tops of the sublime joy of merging with our creator, our lover, our mother, our Abba. Yet this is my path, learning as I go, dropping attachments as quickly as I can and yet finding myself tired this day . . .

It is of course all good, my arms are open wide as I walk and as I remember to sing. There are no easy answers, no quick solutions, I cannot give money to every beggar I see, not even to every seemingly deserving beggar I see. Even when meals cost a dollar or two, when bus fares are 15 to 35 cents, even with such a low cost of living, still I cannot give money to everyone who wants it from me. No, I have to harden myself, so against my nature, although yesterday I started telling little children to stop begging and they listened! J

On the path as it leads from Ethiopia back to Ottawa . . .

Your brother Daniel

Feeling at Home in Ethiopia

Ottawa, Canada is such a crowded place, crowded with well-educated, professional people. I have been part of that society, a top IT management consultant to the Federal Government, but now I find myself feeling more at home in Ethiopia or Ghana than I do in Canada. In the developing world, there is such a need for senior people of good will to participate with them in the building up of their society. But in the past, people like myself have mainly been present through religious charities and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), it has been a trying to help out or rescue people in trouble. Now, the way I and my colleagues are participating is through doing business, but business oriented not only to being profitable, not only a good ethical business, but also one that purely does good. Gone for us are the days of making money being some kind of virtue in and of itself, the means that justifies any ends. Now instead we are purposefully choosing ways of engaging in business that benefit the wider society, not just in terms of jobs, but in building capacity in a society based largely on subsistence farming and trading to one that participates meaningfully in the 21^st century internet economy.

So, when we plan to bring tourists trekking across mountains and plateaus, we do not go through community backyards so to speak (almost everywhere in Ethiopia is inhabited or grazed by someone) as we see fit so that our tourists get a view of this or that. Rather we will work with each community, organizing them so that they are able to appropriately welcome tourists into their communities, so that both they and the tourists end up with a good experience, and, income for the community. When we build a hotel or a resort, we will share the land with Alchemy World Projects and the One Village Foundation who respectively provide an entrepreneurship centre for young adults and an internet-connected community center for those lacking accessibility, resources and skills. Thus, the communities in which we situate a hotel will benefit in many ways from the many and diverse impacts of our partnerships in the region.

So now as my time here in Ethiopia winds down and I prepare to return to Ottawa, we already have a plan for my return for a much longer time the next time, as I find my place supporting the growth and development of this economy and these people with the many close friends and colleagues I am being blessed with. One of my many agenda items while back in Ottawa will be to prepare the way for friends and colleagues from around the world who may want to join in with us in supporting a dynamically growing economy with the experience, expertise and capital they have acquired in our lives to this point. Those who do choose to join in with us will share our common vision of not only seeking out profitable investments, but meaningful ones. I happily anticipate being able to look back with the community of friends who have joined in over the next decade or two with us, looking back and seeing just how many people have benefitted in so many ways from our choosing to join in with them in their life here in Ethiopia.

Counting down in Addis

Your brother Daniel

Ethiopian night life & sex trade workers

There is no such thing as a singles bar in Ethiopian society: what they have instead are bars where sex trade workers get friendly with patrons, perhaps getting drinks bought for them, perhaps a little something more like dancing together at the bar, or perhaps going "home for coffee" and an all night gig for the equivalent of $20 - $30. I found myself into the world when sitting in a bar with my friends, wanting to start something I invited an attractive young woman I took to be our server to come over and chat. So she sat down beside me and with translation assistance from my friends we chatted. Our driver, Ziguy (we often affectionately called him ``the guy``) was VERY good at chatting up the women and could easily make them comfortable and so was soon engaged with her teasing and joking with both of us. After a while I realized that she was in fact a sex trade worker and why there were so many good looking young women taking turns standing on the other side of the room waiting for something to do.

So the three of us had an enjoyable time as we continued the teasing, joking, interplay with her of course trying to warm me up for something else having already invited me to her house for coffee. J I asked her through Ziguy what it was she had planned for her life, and she said she would like to get married someday. Finally I told her that I really was not into getting laid tonight, but that I would be coming back in 4 months, that she should work on her English, and that will look her up when I get back to Woldiya. I also tipped her the equivalent of $10 for her time with us, my generosity bemusing my friends.

Afterwards in discussing the sex trade with my friend Derebew, (he has been an international development researcher and project manager in his own country for 14 years) he explained that these girls work for themselves, and that there is not the same stigma to being a sex trade worker, neither is it criminalized. As such these women represent an available pool of talent for a hotel which will want to provide western levels of service to their clients as they are more client-centred than the staff in the hotels we visited in small town Ethiopia, where levels of service are often nowhere near where they need to be. The hotel likewise can be for them a way of transitioning into a less risky line of work that can still give decent remuneration.

A couple of nights later in Bahir-Dar, we were again in a bar that soon filled with over a dozen attractive women, focused on the prospect provided by a couple of white guys. On my last night there I invited over the most attractive of the women and ended up with an amazingly wonderful evening of dancing, joking, talking with this mature, intelligent, gracious, gorgeous and oh, so sexy young woman. We both really like singing and dancing and so had a wonderful evening enjoying the music together, with me being absolutely blown away by her dancing, and telling her so often. She told me that she planned to continue in the business for another couple of years until she had saved up enough money to open her own business. I promised her I would look her up when I got back to Ethiopia, she said she would be happy to come and see our new hotel in Woldiya, and like with the first woman I ended up with her phone number, real name and working name. She also got tipped, the equivalent of $18. J

 

The Proposal

Doing good business, doing good is taking form for us here in Ethiopia as the One Village Ethiopia project: it combines developing a hotel, a tour service, a school for poor young high-school drop outs that produces young entrepreneurs and our very own Digital Village – a community internet center that provides access, training and consulting to the surrounding community. Woldiya has tourist potential that is as yet largely undeveloped, yet with the tourist business worldwide predicted to peak and plateau in the next decade it is one of Woldiya's most sustainable ways of gaining income as well as emerging into the 21^st century internet economy.

My original plans for Woldiya involved a drilling business or NGO, because ½ of the countries 70 million or so inhabitants still don't have reliable access to fresh water, but in fact our expertise and "guidance" has ended up bringing us to support Woldiya's emergence as a modern town, still well rooted in their rich and diverse cultural traditions. Thus we have submitted a proposal to both the Town and Region received with resounding support (including the gift of land!)

This proposal is intended to support Woldiya's successful emergence into the 21^st century internet economy. We will be working with local communities to who will welcome and host our tourists on their hiking trips up or across mountains, or trekking across highland plateaus to the breath-taking vistas that await them at cliff's edge. We have forests with monkeys, baboons, gorillas and tigers, lakes with hippopotami, camels all over the place in the lowlands, donkeys in the highlands, most of this within a few hours drive from Woldiya depending on which direction you head out. These communities will welcome our tourists as members of their families, all of us being One Village, giving themselves and the tourists a lovely sense of belonging as they share their food and cultural dances, songs and crafts with their guests. At the same time we will be connecting many sectors of the Woldiya region with the internet, giving them lessons in English, computer skills, and entrepreneurship so that they can with our support build Woldiya's new relationship to the world.

We have one more week here, a week that will be spent setting up the new Ethiopian company that will develop this hotel and touring business, that will host these charities. But tonight, we are off to have some fun, as it is Greg's birthday and so we will be having a good time with our Ethiopian friends, as only they can have fun!! J

Ethiopia Day 7

We are now in Woldiya a little past Dese heading North but not as far as Lalibela. We have surveyed the potential sites for our new hotel, which will include our Digital Village and an Alchemy World school as well as a bar and restaurant, having chosen a nice one on the road between Woldia and Bahiothr-Dar; but far enough from the traffic that a nice fresh breeze sweeps across the land as it slopes gently down towards the river bed (during the rainy season there is water but it's mostly mud and stones now).

As you can see the setting is spectacular, Africa at its finest!! The grain is Teff, an ancient grain endemic to Ethiopia, the first grain to be cultivated, the grain that is used in making Enjera.

This evening I sat down to write the proposal to present to the mayor of Woldia, a really nice, wise 40ish man who is really pleased at what we want to do: in his words, "he will not let this opportunity pass him by." This sitting ended up being on a white plastic patio chair I pulled out of the Internet Café to sit on the Marble walkway alongside the Hotel and Café, tapping away at the laptop in my lap. Within minutes an enterprising 10 year old boy had me agreeing to let him shine my shoes for 10 Birr ($1 CDN). As he worked away others walked by, stopped to stand behind me and watch for a bit, or tried to find some way to engage me beyond the smile and nod I'd give. Then a large truck carrying a load of sheep pulled up and 20 or so were loaded off the top section of this truck into the waiting hands of the a catcher who then passed them along a chain of people into the bowels of the restaurant. They believe in fresh meat! Later as I was sitting with some of my colleagues and new associates in the quadrangle restaurant of this 2 year old hotel, (2 years going on 50) they were released from where they had been penned up and ended up pouring into the restaurant section before they were finally herded outside. In Ethiopia there is a marked tendency to do everything yourself from scratch and so just as this hotel restaurant clearly butchers its own meat, so too, the building contractor we visited today has his own cement blocks made on site, his own gravel crushed, etc.

This hotel is as good an example of developing world as compared with what I'm used to. It is cheap we've got rooms for 5 of us averaging out to $4 each per evening. It has a nice design with an open quadrangle and three stories, but despite being only two years old, well designed and built with nice materials, everywhere you look the actual construction, finishing and maintenance are very poor. The stairs are not all the same size and have a slope downwards so that slipping is easy; the water is not working in much of the building and in my room where there is supposed to be a wall outlet there are only wires protruding. The window to the outside in the bathroom is permanently open with the result I killed 4 mosquitoes, three of whom got me first. There is a TV running permanently in the open quadrangle which resounds effectively into all the rooms whether the door is open or not, which has been going since 6 am this morning! J

Day 8

Having finished the letter of intent, in the late morning we headed up one of Woldiya's mountains to see the Church on top. These drives up the mountains in a good strong 4x4 are nonetheless often hair-raising as we repeatedly seem to come within inches of the edge, and even just looking out my passenger front seat window, I experience some vertigo looking down the sheer drop into the valley below. We went past many subsistence farms where they've managed to create a plot of corn or teff and/or keep a few head of goats or cattle. These are certainly highland peasants: according to Zinabu highlanders share more cultural commonalities across the tribes with other highlanders than they do with the lowlanders of their own tribe. So we made it to the top without incident, were greeted by a couple of young men in their early teens who at Zinabu's request brought us leafy twigs (Olive tree) with which to brush our teeth. We simply peeled back the bark, crushed the wood with our teeth and ended up with a nice set of bristles for brushing: very effective! We were not allowed into the Church because it turns out that western visitors used to talk their guides into selling them the holy hardware so to speak, so that valuable ancient cultural items of great significance to the local community ended up gracing someone's wall or desk with the guide pocketing the equivalent of perhaps $100.00! We each did the available obeisance, respectfully leaving a 10 Birr note in the collection box.

Zinabu then suggested we walk down the mountain rather than driving back down!! What a great suggestion that turned out to be as Greg, Zinabu, our young guide and myself took the next 2 hours walking down the mountain in the bright early afternoon sunshine (no sun-stroke or sun-burn to speak of and I was not wearing sun glasses a hat or any other special protection. We enjoyed the most spectacular views and increasingly were convinced of what a wonderful tourist experience hiking in these mountains could be. Oh, and part way down we shared the path with a small herd of 15 goats ably managed by a 10 or 11 year old boy. He had a makeshift bullwhip – a wooden handle about a foot long to which a 2 metre length of rope had been attached. Could he ever make that thing crack. Zinabu cracked it not far from my head almost deafening me with the gun shot! Greg got pretty close to a good snapping sound but I gave it up realizing I was to used to snapping towels, which it turns out is a different motion. I also made friends with one of the goats who started nibbling on my olive branch, in the end, he got the whole thing but there were first several familiar, comfortable interactions as we made our way down the mountain together. We said goodbye to our guide sending him off with 30 Birr and the encouragement to pick up his schooling again – he had yet to finish grade 10 but was not in school. He is a potential student for our Alchemy World Projects school – but more about that in another post.

We then headed over to meet with the mayor, handed him our letter of intent and were sent back to make a detailed proposal, and that's what I'll be doing all afternoon and evening of Day 8. Over and out for now!

Ethiopia Day 5

We have made several important discoveries about Ethiopia, each of which are shaping our experiences here to date. First they are behind most countries in the development of the internet. There are 351 broadband customers in all of Ethiopia, but this broadband is a stepped down broadband, and many internet applications are reputedly banned or unavailable. The form of dial-up that is more present in internet cafés I'm told can take 5 minutes to send an email. Using the dial-up available through our friends in the construction business is faster than that, but is very buggy, hard to get on, and you often need to hit "send" multiple times in order for an email to go. Thus our ability to be actively involved in our business has been extremely limited, meaning our fourth partner has got a lot to manage on his own. Construction is continuing on a fibre optic ring but there is no official date of completion or when broadband will become more widely available. However, when it does, (probably within the year) there will be significant opportunities for a company like ours who handles all aspects of communications, especially if partnered with a good local company like the one with whom we're already in discussions.

Second, the banking system is also significantly behind so that the only Visa transactions are at a bank for withdrawing cash. Thus we are doing our best to avoid needing to tap that particular reserve putting quite a bit of stress on our cash supply. The third impacted on the second as in we've found that many of the people we meet here, in the words of a Ghanaian friend of mine, "see us as their bank from which they can withdraw money," and so we've found our cash supply getting stressed by "friends" we are meeting, who as it turns out have their own assumptions and plans for us! J

Anyhow enough griping, these are really comments about differences in expectations and functionality, differences I'm adjusting to. However this trip South to Awasa had many highlights, three of which I've included in photos for this blog. Suffice it to say that Greg and I did the tourist thing and very much enjoyed our confrontation with the majesty and beauty that is Africa:

Our guides kept a respectful distance and so this pod of 11 Hippos – two of whom left as we were arriving, tolerated our presence occasionally lifting themselves out of the water or cracking one of their trademark yawns. On this boat trip on Lake Awasa we also saw a kingfisher, cormorants and an eagle all fishing and enjoying their meals.

 

We all very much enjoyed our encounter with this wild Columbus monkey that was coaxed down out of the trees by our guides, and who patiently sat with us eating a peanut at a time from our hands.

 

The storks were huge and not at all shy if there was food around. In fact a human could get stampeded if the fish scraps were thrown out with him in between the birds and the scraps. There were huge numbers of these huge birds: again I am so taken by the virility, the powerful life force that throbs throughout Africa!! This trek we took to Lake Awasa and later to Emporer Haile Selassi's resort, shower and hot springs was a trek through the Rift Valley, an amazing geological, cultural, and natural feast of diversity, all somehow co-existing and thriving, despite our sensationalist news generated opinions of the hazards and difficulty of life in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia by the way is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations dating its origins back to centuries before Christ. They have a remarkable religious and cultural tolerance sewn into the fabric of their daily life as they have been coexisting as Muslims, Christians and Traditional Religionists for more than 1500 years. More on that as we continue our quest to understand Ethiopia, to understand perhaps our place in Ethiopia, in contributing in some ways to the re-emergence an ancient civilization into the modern world.

Ethiopia Day 2

The endless day is over, (more than 50 hours between beds) I slept 8 hours last night and I am "on the new schedule. " We are over 2,000 ft above sea level which may account for the shakiness I'm feeling inside(effects of altitude), but overall I am well, and happy to be here. The weather is wonderful, it gets nice and cold at night – probably less than 15 degrees centigrade, and even when it is hot in the afternoon, the breeze is still cool. The air unfortunately is quite polluted but not as bad as either Beijing or Accra, and in general so far Addis is more affluent than Accra.

There are herds of sheep sometimes with a few cattle thrown in, bevies of donkeys carrying burdens that can be seen from time to time, making their way with haste down the side of the road, or even as part of the traffic; and this is right in the middle of down-town Addis, so pastureland is rather scarce! We have been feasted twice already by Limenew, Zinabu's cousin, at two different restaurants, with Enjerra and various delicious meat and vegetable concoctions: beef, lamb, goat green vegetables I don't recognize. So far the chillies have been on the side, which is a good thing, since their version of hot is pretty hot!

We are staying in what amounts to a very comfortable cottage: Greg is in the master bedroom under mosquito netting in a rather opulent white set-up; I am in the kids' room with perfectly comfortable bunkbeds and Zinabu is in the servant's bedroom which includes a small double bed and a sink. There are no screens on the windows, but then there aren't many mosquitoes either, given the altitude and cold nights. The windows themselves are a latched set of of glass windows on the outside and latched wooden panels on the inside. The grounds are well manicured with lovely hedges, trees and cacti, many colourful, musical birds and generally a quiet, restful atmosphere. The air is nice with the exception of when a neighbour's servant is burning some yard refuse.

 

Yesterday (the endless day) after arriving in Addis I had several intense, fruitful meetings as I began exploring the construction industry looking for gaps that Canadian manufacturing or services could fill, met with the Carlos, the founder of Alchemy World – an Ethiopian NGO, and his executive Director, Daniel a local. We found many synergies between our ideals, visions and approaches and are likely to, partner together with them (One Village Canada) on getting our first Digital Village up and running.

Carlos, like myself, comes from the software Industry, also on the marketing, sales & consulting side of things, but 5 years ago began to explore his roots (his Mom is Ethiopian, while his Dad is Italian). In coming to Ethiopia he was struck by the millions of people living in poverty but realized that they were hard-working people who just didn't have good jobs. So, he set about creating jobs by developing entrepreneurs. He is working with the poorest children who have not finished school but who are bright and show initiative and drive, 70% of whom were female, and supports them in finishing their high school. But he also trains them in the use of computers and in business. Each of his schools handles 25 children at a time and his programs take a year or two each. He already has 4 schools going and aims to have 100 someday, each churning out 100 graduates a year. They will end up pouring new entrepreneurs who will each become small to medium sized businesses, and therefore increasingly transform the Ethiopian economy. This is especially likely as so far Ethiopia has yet to embrace the computer age, having very limited internet (only as fast as our dial-up – and often very slow) so that businesses are not on the web, there is no online banking, etc. But by next year a fibre-optic ring will be completed linking in much of the country with hi-speed to the rest of the world and thus these entrepreneurs will have a competitive advantage when it comes to getting businesses online.

Alchemy World is a natural fit with The One Village Foundation as we take a similar approach on the importance of access to the internet and basic computer training for the alleviation of poverty. Since they are already well established, including with the Amhara (the ethnic group we will be working with in Woldia) we will be able to leverage that reputation but also add to their program elements that will increase the good being achieved, and, even produce trained Open Source developers who will themselves be contributing to the Ethiopia's emergence in the 21st century knowledge economy.

I also visited the Caterpillar Offices and Garage and was really impressed at the sophistication and scale of these multi-million dollar heavy equipment sales and maintenance facilities. It has been in operation for fourteen years, is owned by a Frenchman, but totally manned and operated by Ethiopians exhibiting Caterpillar best practices in every aspect of their business. The construction industry is booming as Ethiopia industrializes and modernizes at a tremendous pace. In keeping with our doing good business and doing good philosophy, we are hoping to play matchmaker between a Canadian manufacturer or services company, who knowledge will be a boost to the Ethiopian economy, just as opening another market would be a boost to them.

Day 1 - The Three Amigoes hit London

Something interesting is happening with several 40 – 50 something guys, who first ended up on a soccer (football) team together, then became business partners, http://www.glsdezign.com/, started a charity and now are in Heathrow airport on their way to Ethiopia.

Two years ago Zinabu and Daniel were on the same soccer team and began talking together about developing Canada-Ethiopia charity and business activities. This year, Gregory and Harrison joined the team. Daniel and Gregory got talking, with synchronicities popping up like Gregory already being convinced he was going to Africa before we started talking. Then Daniel and Gregory invited Harrison, who's also in the design business and an entrepreneur to join in. Once Zinabu saw what was happening with Daniel, Gregory and Harrison, then he wanted in. What he contributed to this business were his contacts and investments in Ethiopia, and Gregory's company GLS dezign took on some new partners and a new mission: to do good business but also to simply do good, inspired by David Berman's vision as enunciated by example in Do Good Design. In fact David Berman Communications is one of the new GLS dezign business partners.

Harrison is running the Ottawa arm of GLS dezign for his partners while they go to Ethiopia for 3 weeks. So today, day 1, Gregory (behind the camera) Daniel and Zinabu went and explored Pickadilly Circus, taking advantage of our 15 hours between flights at Heathrow. Greg had never seen London before so after arriving at 1 am Ottawa time and grabbing a hour or so of sleep on airport benches we included our sortie in this admittedly low energy day. We will eventually fly out by 4:30pm Ottawa time (22 hrs so far) and arriving in Addis at 7:20am Perhaps exhaustion will make us better sleepers on the 2nd flight!! :) All told it will be 28 hours of travel and more than 2 days without getting to bed.

I will be posting pretty regularly, and also putting pics up on Facebook. So over and out for now for these "it's time to do something really different" trip, guys who are remaking themselves, remaking their company, and looking to do their bit to make the world a better place.

Daniel Berg

Being, Doing Good, Being in Business

Being: Being happy in your own skin, content and grateful for whatever comes your way

Doing Good: working for the betterment of those given to you, those who choose to work with you, making yourself available to those with needs

Being in Business: doing good business with a preference for providing services to those who also in their own way are doing good

Thus is GLS dezign transforming itself, becoming a company that not only does good work, but it does good! Thus we have started the One Village Foundation Canada Trust, a non-profit organization, in order to raise money for bridging the digital divide in the developing world. We are beginning with Ethiopia: while we are there we will be doing our facts-finding, establishing the level of need, the cost of setting up a digital village (a Wi-Fi connected community centre) so that we can establish the plan for our first project.

But while in Ethiopia, we will also be researching and engaging in various business opportunities, each of which will be designed to strengthen Ethiopia in some way:

1. Researching how Web design, development and hosting is currently offered in Ethiopia, looking for how we can partner for mutual benefit with anything from outsourcing web development work through to designing and hosting websites for Ethiopian businesses looking for direct access to western consumers;
   
2. Researching the construction industry looking for what new manufacturing or service capabilities could do well in (and thus strengthen) the Ethiopian economy, so that we might ask selected successful Canadian businesses to consider setting up a branch in Ethiopia with Canadian government support and our consulting services;
   
3. Researching the current state of tourism in Ethiopia as we explore how to strengthen cultural tourism and eco-tourism in Ethiopia through partnerships with InterCulture of the University of Ottawa and Addis Abeba University;
   
4. Begin developing a hotel in Woldia, a small city situated at a major crossroads, accessible to many important and attractive tourist destinations in Ethiopia;
   
5. Import/Export opportunities we discover as Ethiopia can export to Canada duty free, and needs to develop its export markets.
   

So follow us to Ethiopia and perhaps in some way join with us in our path: being happy, doing good, doing good business.

Daniel F. Berg, PhD

Web 3.0 Imagineer

GLS dezign.com

Web 2.0 / 3.0 and the small or medium business or organization

In order to understand what Web 2.0 and 3.0 might mean for your approach to and use of the internet today, it always helps to see what in fact these terms mean. So, think of Web 1.0 as a library. You can use it as a source of information, but you can't contribute to or change the information in any way. Web 2.0 is more like a big group of friends and acquaintances: The library features of Web 1.0 have been augmented by your network of social relationships, so you now have many more ways to learn and find stuff. So what then will Web 3.0 likely be?

Some internet experts think Web 3.0 is going to be like having a personal assistant who knows practically everything about you and can access all the information on the Internet to answer any question; others compare Web 3.0 to a giant database. But what is likely to be true is that intelligent software behind the scenes will be giving you librarian-like access to what you and your friends know, how it's relevant to any new thought or issue that arises, and what information out there might be most relevant to you right now. Star Trek will have arrived, at least the all-knowing computer-assisted part of it; personally I can't wait for the "beam me up" technology!

So what does all this mean for your business or organization today? Two things:
One, to satisfy your future omni-librarian, there will never be a better time to get your information in order. Today a well-organized information architecture does everything from increasing your findability via Google to improving your clients and members search experiences at your website. Tomorrow you will be ready to reap the benefits of the new technologies that harvest and share your well-organized information.

Two, it's time to fully leverage today's Web 2.0 internet: today's successful business or organization does not only have a good local network of friends and colleagues, but is leveraging the internet to exponentially grow this network through social media communities such as Facebook and Twitter. We will help you understand how to be a solid citizen of the new internet, and to effectively network and market yourself in the rapidly expanding WWW!

Doing Good & Sustainable Business

I came into my Monday with Bruce Cockburn's song on my mind:

http://www.nme.com/awards/video/id/ZL4CdHd9ma4/search/lions

This troubador of the soul sings of a life lived without fear, but instead walking in joy and love. What does walking in joy and love have to do with the business world, if anything?

It is a truism that the markets are driven by fear or greed, and sadly this is often true of business dealings. But there is another way, something beyond the rapacious greed of mindless earning and consuming, mindless because somehow continuing to maximize bottom line profits, to maximize the successful lifestyle, that somehow these means are ends in themselves. Oh, there's some blather about not restraining market forces so they can make us all rich . . . but I'm talking about real world values now . . . not some mystical $ in the sky that will bless us all if only we pursue it freely with our whole beings!

But something else is going on now: we live in a shrinking, not expanding world - where consuming more means others have less, where consuming more is slowly, perhaps even quickly destroying the conditions for our ability to continue to enjoy life on this planet. Then there's the coming of age of the baby boomers, who once were idealistic and wanted to make this world a better place, and then got sucked in like most everyone else into the consumerist system, and now more and more of them with decades of work experience and wisdom want to create sustainable businesses, want to do good as part of doing good business. This is what we're doing at GLS dezign, and soon we will have our first announcements of this good business that does good.

But it was a lovely synchronicity to see the in the Harvard Business Review this morning an article on a book, "SuperCorp: Values as Guidance System" (link in subject line above) in which the author, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, writes of how IBM and others are moving into a sustainable approach to big business, perhaps finally closing the door on the General Motors style of capitalism (whatever is good for GM is good for America). More and more books are coming out now on the theme of doing good business, of doing good. (One of my favourites is David Berman's Do Good Design http://davidberman.com/social/index.php in which he enourages designers to integrate doing good into how they do good design and good business.)

Something important is happening in the world of business today. Businesses are being established explicitly to do good such as o3b networks who is already well into establishing high speed broadband services to the developing world through a network of affordable satellites.
(http://www.o3bnetworks.com/press_o3blaunch.html) People in their 50's are tired of being cogs in the consumerist system and want to consider something worthwhile with the most productive years of their life.

Join in! :) You don't have to be in your 50's, all you have to do is decide that making this world a better place is an important part of your business plan! :)

Building a Business that does good

Three things happened to day which are bringing into sharp relief something I've believed for sometime (it shapes how I am with people) but have yet to "realize" it corporately so to speak. In the business world, generally you work with whomever you can, so long as it is profitable first, and enjoyable second - and the first can eliminate the second (we need the business).

We at GLS dezign are different, and there are in fact more and more businesses like us. When you are in an unpredictable universe, where things could go bad at any time, when times are tough, there is a tendency to prioritize $'s above all else. However, what more and more people are realizing, what the enlightened approach to business is, is to truly be yourself, to do good, and to work with people like you. We are attracted to each other, we are brought together often by fortunate "chance," but the more our self-statements and our marketing statements reflect this solid, grounded presence, this being good at what we do, and committed to doing good, the more we will attract these kinds of clients and partners.

So the three things that got me thinking about this:

First I had an email from a potential client telling me I had failed in my first impression, because of getting the time and place wrong for our meeting. This is quite common in business culture, to judge people, sometimes quite dispassionately, on their first impressions. I'm a businessman, but I've never done this: rather I look beneath the surface in everyone. I have also found to my dismay that the people in best control of their first impressions often made terrible business partners, and very difficult clients, because of how ruthless and unethical they were. I am no longer interested in working with such people.

Second, was an email invitation to take a course on social marketing. If you're ready to be snowed by someone, desperate and looking for answers and perhaps have already been burnt by slick, empty marketing that cost you money without delivering anything, then, you might be ready to take the plunge with this lady. However, she horribly over-promises the way so many "success" vendors do, and so, despite the glitz of her promises I'm really not interested in learning from her.

Third, a small charity I know running an orphanage and school in Ghana, recently put out the message I've pasted below. It's about getting consumers to slightly change their habits in order to direct small %'s of the sponsor's revenues to the designated charity. While this has the possibility of being able to create a revenue stream for your charity, it involves either changing how you search (therefore your effectiveness) as well as shopping online at this place rather than that place. From a marketing point of view this could work well for a charity with a well-established brand and 1,000's or 1,000,000's of "friends" a small percentage of whom might be willing to through the trouble to register and shop at this particular location. But personally, I prefer the granular one person, one business at a time approach we are using, working with people who share our values, in order to grow both our business and foundation. I will however check out Goodsearch and Goodshop, as she is a very small charity like us, and perhaps this can work at our level as well.

To close, there was in the Ottawa Citizen this morning two stories of interest that provide an interesting context to this reflection:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/rude+worker+poisons+whole+office+study+finds/1910315/story.html
is a story about research into the effect of negative behaviour in the workplace. While the focus is on coworkers, obviously negative behaviour from clients or partners can have the same effect, the more people that are exposed to it.

But to finish off we have Steve Wosniak who had the following and more to say about his philosophy of being in business:

One of the pioneers of Silicon Valley and the creator of the world's first mass-market personal computer has some simple words of wisdom for today's struggling startups:

"Believe in your product." Adds Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc.: "Don't ask yourself, 'Will this be successful or will this make money?' Ask, 'Is this what I want to do?' "Ask yourself, 'Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do to make a big mark in the world?' "

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Wozniak+words+wisdom/1910821/story.html

On that note, for business people of similar strip, let's forge our way with confidence and yet wisdom as we find the people like us with whom we want to work, and, find our way to making that mark in the world we have in mind!! :)

your brother Dan

********************
What if FosteringHopeInternational earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can!

GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up!

GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 37 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you’ll be supporting your favorite cause.

Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter FosteringHopeInternational as the charity you want to support. And, be sure to spread the word!

Collecting used not abused Athletic Shoes and all sizes of soccer cleats to establish selfsufficent sustainable farms for individual families in Ghana.

Elaine Brown, Director
FosteringHopeInternational.com
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Ghana 3: It is heating up!!

this is the 3rd in a series of my republished accounts of my trips in Ghana from January- February of this year, as a warm-up for my Ethiopian trip this September . . . more on that later!

For a cold-adapted guy like me, something more ominous than storm clouds is on the horizon, in fact it is already here. Each day is hotter than the last, and although these gains in heat and humidity are small, the fact that I've got a month of the same to look forward to is looming over me now! I'm now implementing the opening of windows in the evening once it is cooler, and then the closing of them again in the day once it starts to warm up. Every little bit helps, but the trend is undeniable. Fortunately my new clothes will be ready tomorrow evening as I'm sure I will sweat my way through at least one outfit a day, and I only have 3 or 4 light cottony outfits. V will have close to a continuous stream of laundry from me as S's washing machine broke down quite a while ago and V is its replacement. I sure do get nicely ironed clothes back from her!

Speaking of V, she is now learning her numbers from me: practising writing them as well as their visual recognition. Her English is also improving rapidly. We are able to communicate well enough that I now know that she likes the boy in Eremon who keeps calling her, that he is working, and that she's known him for about five years. He's a nice boy, smaller than her, but that's what she likes. I teased her about wanting to be the boss in her family, as this is a very patriarchal culture where the men still traditionally call all the shots. She liked the tease.

With the boys, I am the respected, loved and feared Uncle who supports their learning: so far I have helped K memorize his times tables, showed P how to ace exams, and helped R develop his soccer skills), and of course, at the drop of a hat they are being tickled or thumped, sometimes for no reason at all. S is now onside for the rough-housing, understanding the benefits for the boys in the development of their masculinity. P and S will also be taking some instruction in meditation and breathwork from me, as P had put together a meditation practice for himself based on what he found on the internet, but had been dissuaded by S because of the biased psychological and christian perspectives she had been fed. Fortunately she has a PhD in psychology and religion staying with her with a lot of experience in meditation who's all to familiar with the tendency of religious christians and religiously-biased psychologists to pathologize and demonize stuff they don't understand.

S and I have been working together a lot on her ideas for an NGO and what I'm finding in internet research, as well as going deeper into the spiritual direction, counselling side of what I do. She's encouraging me to think about setting up a counselling practice in Ghana; I'm encouraging her to think about a solar energy business since there is a UN NGO called AREED that supports the development of entrepreneurs in the renewable energy field, and my friend T's Dad has developed a really nice solar energy package viewable at wwww.solarfire.com. F has been away working this week, but when he's around we tend to focus a lot on guy stuff like watching soccer games and discussing bible translation, religion, and the country and its issues. At meal times, I've been telling them all about Holland, China and India rather than sitting listening to P and K extol the merits of one of their video games. Most evenings, S and I go out for a long walk in the cooler evening air, and I've had a couple of Skype computer to computer phone calls with T and A from Holland and L from Ottawa.

S and I met yesterday with a parishioner from St. John's (my church - Elgin and Somerset St. in Ottawa) and received some much appreciated support for our key perceptions and ideas, as well as some helpful networking contacts and general advice. He's acting head of the CIDA branch of the Canadian Embassy in Ghana, and a former international development professional, so he's being very helpful to us in many ways. Tomorrow we will meet with S's cousin, who's a senior bureaucrat in Ghana's Agriculture department. "Bit by bit the river grows, till all at once it overflows" is a line from an old song that comes to mind.

So I continue on living a day at a time, enjoying the walk, the company (both earthly and heavenly) and the scenery, if not the climate.

heating up in Ghana, but not sweating it too too much

Life in Accra

(2nd republished account of my time in Ghana in February this year: this republishing is a wetting of the palate in preparation for my trip to Ethiopia, Taiwan and Ghana beginning in mid-September)

Yesterday I was walking through Accra's downtown marketplace with literally thousands of other people, almost all of whom were very black (the only exceptions being one Chinese couple who owned a store we were in, one mixed race young woman working in that store, and one white guy I saw where the main business district boarders on the market). After picking up the things Stella was looking for we continued on prospecting for clothing for me. As the heat continues to build, so does my determination to be clothed in light flowing cotton, cut in the traditional style.

One of the really entertaining dynamics of our mutual exploration of this reality of navigating with a white guy through the 100's if not 1000's of sellers, is the tension between Stella's need to satisfy herself that I am not being ripped off and that she is being treated with respect that runs counter with my generosity combined with wanting the item that I want. Quite a few times the same scenario played itself out with Stella controlling the discussion (in English) with the seller, deciding they wanted a dollar or two too much and walking off leaving me without the item I wanted. One time I insisted on going back and getting the shirt I am currently wearing - -paying $7 for it instead of the $5 she thought it was worth, while another time she ended up promising me she would go back and get me the cup I wanted for $1 instead of trying to get it for less. All of this transpired in an atmosphere of relaxed work with lots of laughter as we continue to sort out how to handle things together. We did manage to get me 6 metre pieces of 100% cotton - one a bright patterned green, the other a darker, more subdued maroon - for having top and bottom sets of clothing made for me. One cost $10, the other $15.

Along the way quite a few men called me Jesus as I was going by, and in such cases I would smile at them and they would smile warmly back at me. Another time in our neighbourhood when we were out for a walk a group of young children excitedly called out "agroni" (white man) agroni Jesus. Meanwhile business and professional people have no idea what to think, as everyone here is of course closely cropped.

Today we visited Stella's tailor and agreed on a price of $30 in total for the two outfits. We were a good team when it came to ensuring we got a fair price from him. As Stella says, every time a vendor sees us coming, they believe that Stella has brought her bank with her and want to share in the wealth. Pretty ironic! :)

On the price of things, we saw Broccoli in the store for $9 a bunch and bought ordinary loaves of bread for $7 each. Fabian tells me that bread is available for $1 a loaf on the street, but the hygeine issues keep Stella away from street vendors. Anything for the Western palate is really expensive, but ordinary Ghanaian food and products are very reasonable. For example there were a couple of motorbikes on display in one store we went into - one for $700 and the other for $1200 - probably a 250cc. The latter looked to me like one that could easily cost $5,000 or more here in Canada. When discussing Ghanaian manufacturing with one of Fabian's relatives he mentioned trying to bite a piece of Ghanaian chocolate - trying without success to break off a piece! I see lots of room for CIDA's technology transfer program here, getting for example a successful Canadian chocolate manufacturer to set up a Ghanaian manufacturing operation with CIDA's support.

Oh, yes - after coffee this morning early, Stella at the last moment took me on the morning excursion to drop the boys off at school after an hour of rush hour traffic, and then took me to a business her sister owns where they produce Pito - a fermented Guinea corn brew. I was given a healthy bowl of this to drink, with the information that many people start their days like this - particularly where they come from. Her sister and her decided that despite my skin colour I am Dagabo - one of their tribe and family! This designation is based on my acceptance and enjoyment of their cuisine, as well as my consumption of Pito in the morning without showing any ill effects. Actually i had a very liquid bowel movement when I got home - and we have a bottle of Tipo available now in the fridge; so we'll see what the longer term effects are.

Finally, Stella and I had a little heart to heart about quantities of food and alcohol I'd been having stuffed down my throat. We've agreed that now that I'm a member of the family, I can eat less without her having to worry about whether I like the food or whether she is being sufficiently hospitable.

Enjoying life in Accra,

grace and blessings

your brother Daniel

5 weeks in Ghana January – February 2009 1st Journal post

Technorati Tags: Ghana,foo foo,traffic,etiquette

Anticipating a trip to Ethiopia, and perhaps Taiwan and Ghana beginning mid-September, I thought I’d repost my experiences, experiences which to date had only been sent out by email and a couple of previous blogs to a long list of friends, colleagues & acquaintances. Now these experiences are being offered here on Blogger & Facebook.

The following was my first "impressions" piece about being in Ghana:

Well, hello India, it's nice to back! So much of what I see and experience here is straight out of my experience of India. Being as I absolutely fell in love with India, you can guess where this is going then! :)

So some of the flora and fauna is pretty familiar, as is the architecture, climate, roads, etc. Some important differences are however that there are many more cars and trucks than motorbikes, whereas in India, exactly the reverse is true. In Accra you don't see many bikes, motorized or not, whereas in India there is an overwhelming number of them. In Holland, there are certainly a lot more bikes than cars and trucks, but not on the scale or proportion of India. Anyhow, here traffic often crawls; drivers are often polite, with a few very aggressive drivers adding spice to the over-all mixture.

People are more allergic to accidents here in Ghana than perhaps anywhere else I've been. It's very interesting what policy can do to public behaviour. For example, in Syria, drawing the attention of the police to yourself always results in misfortune, and so people keep their noses very clean. One time, out in the country, a drug dealer had a farm, and had fortified it, had armed men, etc., Two police officers were shot at when they went out to make some arrests. A helicopter gunship flattened the place killing everyone. So a harsh police system cuts down on visible crime, unless it is, in the case of Syria, crime carried out by the ruling family.

Here in Ghana, the policy towards car accidents is that both parties in the accident have to go through the rigamarole of re-taking their driver examinations. Thus people are even more motivated than usual to avoid car accidents and to settle them privately if they have one. Thus aggressive drivers get away with it, because nobody wants the trouble of being penalized for getting in an accident with one of them.

When it comes to crime, such as burglary or fraud, anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the act would be very happy to see the police, because they can count on getting a major beating from the affected people, their family, neighbours and friends. Fabian told a story of a man who went around taking pictures of people in his village in Northern Ghana, collecting deposits, and then never coming back to deliver the goods. Unfortunately for him he forgot he'd defrauded this village and some time later came back through. They demanded their money back, which of course he didn't have so they took their satisfaction out on personally beating him, that is each one that had been defrauded got their satisfaction.

Fabian took me for a drive yesterday including through the very crowded central market area. We were in a vehicle without air conditioning so I had my window all the way down despite the crowds packed against the car. One woman said (in her language) "Look at that white guy, he's not afraid of anything!" Evidently white people driven through the market in cars are a bit timid and keep their windows closed and doors locked. I will be going down there later on foot (at Fabian's suggestion) as I'm still looking to pick up local traditional clothing. Of course one needs to be careful of becoming a "mark" or "target", as almost happened already last evening, but my experiences in India and China have helped me recognize the dynamics of these situations as they unfold.

I took Prescott to a small local garage store in search of batteries, but I was concerned he would not get the type right, so turned off the vehicle and went in after him. There was a group of 4 guys lounging to one side and sure enough one of them had situated himself near the vehicle when I was coming back out. He tried to make eye contact at which point I pointedly averted my eyes and walked past him, disappointing him in the process because he could not engage me. I just got in the car with Prescott and left. Body language and use of the eyes is pretty key.

Stella has also suggeted I take public transport up to Wa way up in Northern Ghana, and from there I can stay with a teacher relative of hers and by motorbike travel to the villages of Eremond. We shall see - it looks like it could be a 700km trip!:) http://www.mapsofworld.com/ghana/ghana-political-map.html

In whatever manner, and however I'm guided, the adventure continues. I've been meeting people with training and backgrounds who could contribute big-time to a sustainable agriculture, water conservation project, so it should in fact be a very interesting next few weeks! :)

For what it's worth, I've been given a passing grade by the relatives they had over yesterday for dinner. Evidently I'm not doing too bad at basic cultural niceties like eating Foo Foo with my right hand and keeping my left hand out of circulation. Foo Foo is beaten yams (a large root with white flesh) pounded for more than an hour by Stella's domestic (in a wooden bowl with 6 foot long pestle or pounding stick resulting in a sticky doughy mass served as steamed mounds that you serve in a bowl of soup and meat. The etiquette is to rip or scoop pieces off of the mound, dip them into the soup and scoop the mixture into your mouth with your fingers! Quite appetizing. Oh, and so far, I have yet to hit really hot food! :)

Anyhow, nuff for now!

Michael Jackson In Memoriam

The sad death of Michael Jackson, "our tortured genius" has had me reflecting for some time now. I was saddened and disgusted by American and British responses to Michael epitomized by the comment from British Foreign Secretary David Milliband: "Never has one soared so high and yet dived so low." I was heartened by the responses from countries like France and Japan where Michael is their hero!!

We laud ourselves on our democratic and humanitarian principles and yet we are perpertrators ourselves of great violence against so many people, believing in the justice of our actions. We all make mistakes, sometimes big ones, sometimes we hurt the people we love the most; but to demonize those who are a great force for good in our society because of such mistakes, betrays a fundamental weakness in our culture.

But enough of my ramblings, Michael's music more than responds to what our messed up society did to him. I refreshed my memory of his music by listening first to: "I'm Bad", and saw the rebel, the voice of all those who are so angry at a society and system that excludes or denigrates them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5NhkxQJQc

Then it was "Nobody really cares about us:" A deliberating shocking view of the brutality of our world, and the social legitimization of deliberate violence against so many, many people, whether that violence is physical or the destruction of someone's identity, reputation and everything good they've done in life. Do we remember Michael as the one who started Collective Star Rock concerts for famine relief? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HSNeHHuQA4

But the final word goes to Michael's message on how to change the violence and hatred in this world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9lq8oaK5Mw So many images of famous people, people who were agents of change in this world, now like Michael, all deceased, all people we reverence in our memory, and so are better people for it.

You know, we don't all make it. Even when we've taken the transformative path, become a vessel of grace for others, pursuing our own and their transformation with authenticity and love . . . we don't always make it. Perhaps Michael never quite made it onto this path, trapped instead in the shame/rebellion dance with way too many drugs to numb the pain. I don't know, I just know that I'm sad that we lost the creative force that he was, I'm sad for his suffering, and grateful that he can now finally be at peace.

RIP Michael Jackson