Creating Value There’s an old saying that goes something like, “a problem shared is a problem halved”. The implication being that two people, in this case, can share the emotional burden of a difficult situation through conversation. This may be the glass-half-full version of what it means to connect. It might be more meaningful to …
Space Making Whenever we create a safe space with “others” we learn to see possibilities and collectively choose our response instead of reacting through dysfunctional impulses. Even in erratic and chaotic situations, we learn to break bread together; share what we have without judgement or prejudice. We connect. Why? We are born with the tools …
Squiggling Reality We are all born with the instinct for creativity, then life happens. Think “cave paintings” and ask yourself what inspired people to decorate the walls of a cave with images and glyphs? They were arguably making sense of the world around them by recreating it in graphic form. Similarly, if you’ve ever observed …
Creating Value Is Intimate Work Doing rewarding work is like art in the sense that its value is completed through contact with the intended or incidental audience. In some organisations, the perceived distance between inputs and outcomes can be so great it’s difficult for those doing the work to see this equation. It’s a well-documented …
Who Suffers Most When Systems Fail? Should we expect the organisation that provides our housing to also support our education, employability and wellbeing needs? For this to be a question and not a straightforward statement of fact in the 21st-century is abject system failure. When systems are failing, the obvious question should always be “who …
Old Needs New Purpose Whatever our hopes and fears were at the start of the new decade, few people predicted the devastating impact of the current global pandemic and the underlying economic crisis. The most vivid manifestation of the impact, as is often the case with a crisis on this scale, is felt within communities. …
One of the most rewarding things about working with someone like Olive is we inevitably get to know each other. That’s the nature of the learning process; you chat and discover those apparently insignificant things that somehow knit themselves together to form the fabric of a shared experience. It’s a similar dynamic to the conversations …
The Priceless Gift of Serendipity We often talk about the serendipitous nature of conversations that lead to meaningful innovation. We also like to talk about the system magic that happens when lives touch. We first met Yinka Suleiman 3 years ago at a Community Resilience workshop sponsored by Birmingham City Council and a local forward-thinking …
Serendipity Is Priceless A new wave of wellbeing is being fueled by tech-savvy creatives with a passion for social justice and a shared vision of a better world. Their mantra is “do good things, keep moving and stay in touch.” It’s communities doing what they do best and leveraging digital tools to accelerate impact. In …
Neomakers Creating impactful outcomes for social value requires us to look past the outdated conventions of competing public and private sector forces. The game has changed. The revolution has come and gone. The reality of 21st-century economics is a fast-moving fluidity that brings us together in more ways than we dare to imagine. (Age of …
