Tag Archives: Sauder School of Business

Community by Design

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An iceberg: such an apt visual for design thinking about climate change.

An iceberg: such an apt visual for design thinking about climate change.

Gregor. Gordon. Stephen. I hope you guys are reading (or lackeys managing the blogosphere for these fine fellahs; that’s cool too).

In the past year, arguments have been made that Harvard MBAs ruined the world. While partly true, one could make an equally strong case for Physicists killing Wall Street and sending the world into an economic spiral of despair and Fox News.  Luckily for Copenhagen, the planet and our future, UBC’s Sauder School of Business has a collection of 40 or so MBAs who are poised to save Earth from annihilation the likes of 2012 by employing innovation, business-sense and sustainability by design. “John, what the heck does this all mean?” you ask. Well, it means there’s hope in the world and that UBC is leading the way in harnessing such a thing to create a better community for everyone. Recently, I sneaked into a UBC 2.0 Sustainable Business by Design workshop at the University of British Columbia’s Robson Square campus. Actually, I didn’t sneak in, I just didn’t want to make the Province, CTV, the Vancouver Sun, CBC, and citycaucus.com jealous by telling them that The Daily Gumboot was the only media invited to this exclusive event that is, as I type, changing the world.  Alright, perhaps, “snuck in” or “only representation of media” are a little too strong of terms, as might in fact work for UBC and may or not have been invited.

Moving on…

The purpose of the conference is, according to eminent game-changer/world-saver, Dr. James Tansey, “engage students in an active dialogue with world experts on major issues that will shape the business environment in which they spend their careers.” The project focuses particularly on three key frontiers for UBC graduates: the geographic frontier of being a major trading hub between North America and the rest of the world; the technological frontier of UBC being at the epicentre of R&D on the West Coast; and the cultural frontier between, arguably, the Western World and Asia.

The way that students were encouraged to create ideas and concepts was even cooler. Enter Moura Quayle, one of Sauder’s newest faculty members. The group of 40 plus MBAs were shown how to incorporate Design Thinking into their planning. So, what is design thinking? Well, Ms. Quayle has some great explanations for such questions: “design thinking is a collaborative, exploratory process, rooted in user research, in which a multi-disciplinary team applies creative and critical thinking techniques to conceive, test and develop innovative responses to design, policy or business challenges and opportunities.” Design thinking is all about being integrative and holistic, thinking visually and spatially, iterative and non-linear, and it’s a safe way to risk (testing ideas before implementing them).  Now, not everyone is a fan of design thinking. Take Peter Merholz, for example, who argues that design thinking marginalizes the “spreadsheet crowd” and, really, is actually just “social science thinking” in disguise. Ms. Quayle, as I imagine she does all the time, has an answer for this, given that her approach actually fuses “business” and “design” thinking, well, it’s easy to see why Sustainable Business Design lives up to Ron Kellett’s, UBC School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, quote: “as a matter of survival, successful business will learn to design and continuously improve itself as a matter of course rather than exception…” The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management turned to a Design Thinking concept on the heels of last year’s financial meltdown.

Here’s a brief glimpse of the process (the previous link to Jim Ratcliffe’s Apple.com blog has six steps, while Moura Quayle’s model below has eight):

  • Define: where is the opportunity?
  • Discover: what are the resources? Engage participation!
  • Re-think: what does it all mean?
  • Envision: brainstorm!
  • Select: what concept should we develop?
  • Develop: how can we translate this concept into tangible, testable form?
  • Deliver: empower and implement.
  • Evaluate: what is our process for ongoing monitoring?

Very important. These concepts are to be arranged, visually-speaking, as part of an interconnected circle into which you can enter through any theme, depending on where your body, heart, mind, and soul are in the design process. ACTIVITY: draw a circle and create eight sections (think pie, people).

Six Thinking Hats - a cool graphic with some expansion below!

Six Thinking Hats - a cool graphic with some expansion below!

If you haven’t already, check out Vancouver’s handsome Mayor’s face on the cover of The Georgia Straight. Gregor Robertson’s vision is to make Vancouver the Greenest City on Earth. Fair enough. Great idea. And it’s going to take more than just him, the Vision Vancouver team and committees of enthusiastically uncompromising bureaucrats. Such a project must be designed by all of us. And here’s where it gets interesting. My suggestion is that, no matter what community you’re trying to build, you engage your clients, collaborators, neighbours, stakeholders, partners, and/or sheep with the following tagline: this is our community by your design. “Our community” implies ownership, inclusiveness and importance – we all have a stake in this community. “Your design” implies collaboration, accountability and impact – you will play a major role in shaping this community with your ideas.

To wrap things up, here are eight simple tools (one for each stage of Moura Quayle’s design thinking formula) that you can use while collaborating with your friends, neighbours and, possibly, sheep to better design your community:

  • Tool 1 – Free Write: just as it sounds, find a blank piece of paper and start writing about ideas!
  • Tool 2 – Asking questions: whether you ask “why?” five times during a conversation or try to ask 10 open-ended questions beginning with “how” or “what” – well – this is a great way to discover key concepts about your project.
  • Tool 3 – Six Thinking Hats (see amazing image to the right and below based on Edward de Bono’s theory): depending on what problem you need to solve or what conversation you need to have, you might require a different thinking hat; it’s always great to have visual aides to get a point across.
  • Tool 4 – Brainstorm: pretty straightforward; remember, everyone contributes good ideas during a brainstorm.
  • Tool 5 – Synetics: take your idea apart and put it back together to make sure it works.
  • Tool 6 – Open Evaluation Matrix: well, it took until 3/4 through this business-minded article to get to the word “matrix,” which was, I think, Forbes Magazines business word of the year for 2009…
  • Tool 7 – Time-task Schedule: while being realistic, outline the whole process and assign tasks to people, no matter how minor they might be.
  • Tool 8 – Storytelling: keep an accurate and detailed record of your idea’s story so that you can effectively evaluate it’s impact on your community; more importantly, how can you present something amazing if it doesn’t have an amazing story to go with it?

So there it is. People in communities reading this blog. I encourage you to get out there and work together to better design your community. After all, we don’t want the MBAs of the world to get all the credit again, do we?

Have fun with it!

- JCH

Copyright Paul Foreman - de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats" - which one is your favourite?

Copyright Paul Foreman - de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats" - which one is your favourite?

Learning from Pirate Communities – Entrepreneurship

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This post is certainly for general-viewing, as it has a relevant, snappy and important message – albeit a rather lengthy one. This post is also a Web 2.0 guide for members of the 2009 CACEE Conference who are participating in Philippe Desrochers’s and John Horn’s round table discussion: “What do Pirates and the Economic Crisis have in Common?” Enjoy, and make lots of comments to help continue the discussion!

Entrepreneurs love a downturn. And there’s no better – or worse – downturn than the one our global economy is wringing us through right now. According to an up-and-coming business publication, the Harvard Business Review, “entrepreneurs look at financial challenges or a recession and, instead of wringing their hands, find ways to innovate and spin them into gold for social transformation.” The biggest immobilizer today is fear. Fear to take risks. Fear to innovate. Fear to change. People don’t need to possess a natural risk-taking personality to excel as entrepreneurs, either. You can set yourself apart from your competition simply by being adaptable and adept at managing change. Be nimble. Respond quickly to market shifts and the opportunities they might create.

Speaking of market shifts, let’s talk about Somalia. In his article, “You are being lied to about pirates,” The Independent’s Johann Hari examines the circumstances by which many Somali fishermen have been thrust into the world of piracy. After the fall of the country’s government in 1991, Africa’s longest coastline (Somalia’s coast spans about 2,000 miles) has been unprotected. This power-vacuum has provided a perfect opportunity for the international fishing industry to steal Somalia’s food supply and use the region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste (“yes: nuclear waste,” says Hari – cadium and mercury were also, allegedly, thrown in the mix). Hari interviewed Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, who claims that “there has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention” of such a gross example of pollution. But one can also see how market forces have driven them to think outside the box, get creative, take risks, and work together in innovative ways. In a recent Time magazine article, Ishaan Thardoor argues that “Somali piracy has metastasized into the country’s only boom industry. Most of the pirates, observers say, are not former fishermen, but just poor folk seeking their fortune. Right now, they hold 18 cargo ships and some 300 sailors hostage — the work of a sophisticated and well-funded operation.”

“But John,” you’re undoubtedly saying. “What the heck do pirates have to do with the economic crisis and entrepreneurship? Where are you going with this?” Oh dear readers, by this point in the history of The Weekly Gumboot, you shouldn’t be so wary of my ability to link, connect and develop seemingly unconnectable ideas, events, facts, and findings. As ideas-man and innovation-guru Franz Johansson outlines, “individuals, teams and organizations can create an explosion of remarkable ideas at the intersection of different fields, cultures and industries.” Some of the interesting “intersections” of which Mr. Johansson speaks include, but are not limited to, computers and candy, burqas and bikinis (pictured), locusts and Volvo, and Dr. Martin Luther King and Russian Techno music.

As we connect the entrepreneurial spirit with the service we provide to students and clients around the world, what can we take as the answer to this equation: economic crisis + pirates + CACEE = ? Well, there’s only one way to find out. Read on!

Let’s examine four tales of piracy that reflect four pillars of entrepreneurship: risk-taking and creativity, knowing the most, personal/professional branding, and relationship-building. Here we go:

Risk taking and creativity in the Gulf of Aden. To quote Stephen Colbert, “it takes balls” to navigate a tiny speedboat nearly 300 miles off the coast of Kenya into the Gulf of Aden, climb aboard a Saudi oil tanker, capture it, steer it into port, and then hold it ransom for $20 million. But that’s what happened in November 2008, when a rag-tag bunch of think-outside-the-box pirates captured the Sirius Star and its crew, which was carrying 2 million barrels of oil, 25% of Saudi Arabia’s daily output. From the BBC to CNN to Al Jazeera, the world suddenly became very interested in these seemingly small-time hijackers. They did what nobody thought possible and they got noticed. Like, really noticed. Oh, and they made $3 million from the ransom, too.

The takeaway from this story: look for opportunities where you’ve never looked before (for example, several Canadian mining companies are setting up shop in Mongolia and they need analysts, operations experts and supply chain managers).

Sir Francis Drake knew the most. In the ultimate example of a cross-functional, inter-cultural, and multi-dimensional information interview, Sir Francis Drake gathered enough information from a group of French sailors (Le Testu was the name of their leader – unfortunately, he was caught, tortured and killed following the heist), cimarrones (escaped slaves who had no love for the Spanish), and also from secret English documents that divulged important Spanish trade routes to pillage the Caribbean port of Nombre de
Dios. In the end, according to Samuel Baulf, “in gold alone the raiders had seized some 100,000 pesos (the peso was worth eight shillings three pence of English money)…and including gems and what silver they managed to recover, the total value of the haul was likely in excess of £40,000.” And here’s the kicker: Drake and his boys stole over 15 tons of silver. Drake knew all their was to know about the port, which, Angus Konstam argues, resulted in a watershed moment for the Spanish Main: “attacks by Sir Francis Drake proved Nombre de Dios too vulnerable to pirates.”

The takeaway from this story: a recent study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that the top reason that candidates are not hired out of an interview because they don’t know enough about the company; being entrepreneurial means standing out in a crowd because you know the most.

The personal brand of Edward Teach. Konstam calls Teach – also known as “Blackbeard” – “the most famous pirate of them all.” Blackbeard worked hard to establish a fearsome and terrifying image (see his flag, pictured – a demonic figure stabbing a bleeding heart), but, according to Konstam, “no evidence exists to suggest that he ever killed anyone who was not trying trying to kill him.” He even preferred marooning a crew to outright slaughter. Sure, other pirates caused more mayhem, captured richer cargoes, more ships, and more valuable prisoners, but Blackbeard has come to represent the pirate genre more than any other. And it has to do with his personal brand: in 1717 a victim described him as “a tall, spare man with a very black beard which he wore very long.” He added to his menacing appearance by wearing a crimson coat and and bandoleers slung over his shoulders, but it was the “burning lengths of slow match” woven into his hair that have been immortalized in everything from sailors’ tales to the Blackbeard t-shirt that I own. His reputation became bigger than he ever was.

The takeaway from this story: personal branding “expert,” Kristie T, points out that 75% of buying decisions are made on emotion and, given that we are exposed to over 3,000 marketing messages per day, it is important to distinguish yourself from the rest of the world. I’ll sum it up with a Kenyan proverb: “utu wa mtu ni tabia yake” (roughly, it means “you are the way that others see you.”) As you build your value proposition, think about how you want to be seen.

Building relationships with Madame Cheng. It was 1807 and hundreds of Chinese pirates were looking for a leader. An opportunity presented itself. And on to the scene emerged the greatest pirate in the history of pirates. She called herself Madame Cheng. Madame Cheng was ruthless, wily and charismatic. She could also build relationships and had an eye for talent. As she cajoled and negotiated and charmed her way to prominence in China’s pirate community, Madame Cheng took on a young lover; the adopted son of a fisherman named Cheng Pao. And here’s the kicker: she made the kid head of the Red Sea fleet, which was the biggest and most important in the Confederation. By 1810, Madame Cheng’s pirate fleet was larger than those of most countries navies. Through organization, relationship-building and recognizing top talent, Madame Cheng created a pirate fleet the likes of which no one has ever seen (or well ever again see). And for three years she ran the shipping lanes of the China Sea and Strait of Malacca for decades.

The takeaway from this story: it’s an easy one; over 80% of employment opportunities are developed because of who we know, not necessarily what we know. Furthermore, when you have positive relationships with clients and co-workers, they will be excited and eager to spread the word – the good word – about you.

Needless to say, there all several aspects of entrepreneurship – piratical or not – that can be applied to the non-entrepreneurial world of employment.

Practically speaking, by the time this post has been live for a few hours, Philippe and I will have experienced a simply outstanding conversation about the entrepreneurial spirit being applied to finding, securing and developing a meaningful career. Also practically speaking, if you are interested in and/or excited to pass along such ideas to your students and/or clients, strongly consider wrapping your proposal in a pirate package. A veritable pirate pack, if you will. In my experience, kicking off a workshop or a topic in a workshop with a fantastic, out of this world, pop-culture-immersed tale of a famous – or infamous – pirate really piques the audience’s interest. Take pirates as a metaphor for student-engagement, people: superheroes, film characters, musicians, politicians, and cartoon characters work well, too. And once you’ve seduced them with said edutaining strategy, start sprinkling in the career education content (an easy connection, as you can see) as well as some tangible and specific next steps that they can take away from the workshop. Just when an audience realizes that, in fact, they’re not actually listening to an amazing story about pirates, but are actually learning about networking, gender-equality, resumes, multi-culturalism, environmental stewardship, or entrepreneurism, well, it’s too late. And it’s a beautiful thing.

Yes, many – or most – of the pirates are gangsters. No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking okay. But this arti
cle has outlined some of the ways that these seagoing thugs are dealing with a recessive global economy. “Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world,” says Hari. They didn’t like the rigour, restrictions and “oppressiveness” of the seafaring alternatives of, say, the Merchant Marine or Royal Navy, so they chose a more independent, democratic and risky life at sea. Recent findings show that in excess of $300 million US in shellfish is being stolen from the Somali coast by illegal trawlers each year. They have no government to speak of. Organizations are dumping nuclear waste in their waters and on their land. Somalia just might be the worst place on Earth.

Kinda puts the global recession in perspective, eh? They don’t “fit” in the current economic system, which is probably why the independent Somalian news site, WardheerNews, found that 70 per cent of Somalians “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.” Some even call them the “Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia”! And we can most certainly call them entrepreneurs.

So, mateys, take what ye learned today and apply it to yer teachin. Being entrepreneurial might just get us out of this economic mess.

- Sir John the Pirate

Learning from Pirate Communities – Treasure in the Classroom

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As per usual, I’ll do my best to tie this whole thing to pirates. So, readers, are you skeptical as to my ability to bring together pirates, a Web 2.0 classroom, discovery-based learning, buried treasure, and constructive criticism from one of my students?

Well, I challenge you to read on, my friends.

The Situation…

A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in the Sauder School of Business’s e-learning “play day.” Okay, it’s not like they just called me up because of my stylish, gumbooty notoriety; I work in the school’s Business Career Centre and manage the career component of the Early Career Masters program. Some wonderful and, I gotta say, pretty darn brilliant colleagues, Denise, Rob and Vivian, needed a classroom facilitator to, I kid you not, “walk the plank” and test out some of Sauder’s new classroom technology. So, I stepped up and presented a career development workshop called Managing your Online Presence. It was sent to Denise a week or so before, and she infused it with technology and ideas that, well, basically made the workshop better. We were ready to roll.

I showed up to the coolest and most amazing classroom in which I’ve ever taught. Video screens and giant monitors covered the walls. Flat screen tvs were like bookends on the tables/desks. And the lectern was equipped with enough widgets, microphones, cameras, screens, and flashing lights to make Captain Kirk and James Bond horribly jealous. Two groups of students were participating. One group was located right in front of me at the Robson Square Campus, the other was “beaming-in” from UBC Point Grey. I was mic’d up. Palms were sweaty. The video feed went live. And I was thrown – albeit with amazing tech-support – into e-learning at the University of British Columbia.

Now, I’m tech-savvy, sure, but I gotta say that I was a bit out of my comfort zone during this experience. Live, streaming video beamed me into the Point Grey classroom as I went through my lesson. Using their laptops, students could race online to solve problems I gave them and conduct five-minute-research on questions I asked. There were iClickers (cool tools for ongoing, interactive engagement that is basically a virtual multiple choice test). There were headsets and microphones. Denise and Rob prepped me for using the Wimba Classroom (approachable, intuitive and in possession of several wonderfully distracting bells and whistles), and, when I inevitably hit a wall, they were there to help. Basically, Wimba allowed for a digitally collaborative classroom, where students could share ideas with instant messages, draft lists and presentations with a wiki/whiteboard and tackle assignments in small groups with the breakout rooms. Sure, it all got messy (headsets worked, then failed, then worked, but the student was in another room by that time; then everyone realized that they could draw funny pictures of me on the whiteboard!), but it was the first time any of us had seen this experience go live and, hey, we all saw the potential.

Teachers of the world. Students of today learn differently than you did; even than I did. It’s getting more competitive to fill up postsecondary classrooms (let alone do it in a meaningful way with an engaged and responsive audience). So, if you are interested in (and hopefully excited about) seeing students use laptops in class for things other than updating Facebook, shopping online and/or various other endeavours to twitblog the interscape, keep reading and get ready to embrace some creative, student-led solutions to a nineteenth-century problem! Needless to say, with players like Vivian, Rob and Denise – not to mention internationally renowned faculty – Sauder is on the way to solving this problem.

Learning from Pirate Communities

So the story goes, pirate communities rejected “the system” in (or under) which they were expected to live. They also buried treasure. Let’s explore these ideas.

In 1573, Sir Francis Drake – an English privateer or “corsair” who made life pretty miserable for Spanish merchants from Europe to, allegedly, Vancouver Island – collaborated with several French pirates and about a dozen escaped slaves – or cimarrones - and hijacked a Spanish mule train loaded with gold, silver and precious gems. According to Samuel Bawlf, Drake, his crew, Le Testu (leader of the French sailors), and the cimarrones smartly ambushed the Spanish traders at the Campos River, about “two leagues” from the town of Nombre de Dios. Working together, they kept quiet and, under their massive loads of booty, staggered to their ships, which were hidden in the mouth of the Rio Francisco. How much, um, booty were they staggering under? Well, “in gold alone the raiders had seized some 100,000 pesos (the peso was worth eight shillings three pence of English money)…and including gems and what silver they managed to recover, the total value of the haul was likely in excess of £40,000.” And here’s the kicker: Drake and his boys stole over 15 tons of silver. Obviously all of this loot couldn’t fit on board their ships. So, they buried and hid the treasure in the forest around the Campos River. The point is that although stories like Treasure Island have romanticized the uncommon occurance of pirates actually burying treasure, it did happen, with Drake and Captain Kidd being the most notorious of booty-buriers.

A recent article in The Independent by Johann Hari suggests that modern day pirates, like their historic brothers and sisters, have rejected today’s unequal, corrupt and punishing global “system.” Hari cites the last words of William Scott, a pirate hanged in Charleston, South Carolina during the Golden Age of Piracy: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.” Fast-forward to 1991 in Somalia, where the country collapsed and, according to Hari, the worst-of-the-worst in the Western world saw this power-vacuum as a perfect opportunity to steal Somalia’s food supply (over fishing) and use the region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste (“yes: nuclear waste,” says Hari – cadium and mercury were also, allegedly, thrown in the mix). Hari interviewed Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, who claims that “there has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.” Recent findings also show than in excess of $300 US in shellfish is being stolen from the Somali coast by illegal trawlers. Yes, many – or most – of the pirates are gangsters. No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking okay. But also keep in mind that life, the universe and everything is a subjective experience. And also recognize that a new system has emerged in Somalia, as, according to the independent Somali news site WardheerNews, 70 percent of of Somalis “strongly supported piracy as a form of national defense.” Heck, another term for “Somali Pirates,” according to the “Somali Pirates,” is “the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia.” The old system failed Somalia, and people in the region need something different to sustain themselves.

Long story short. I argue that students – like pirates swashbuckling through societies in and around Somalia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Haiti that no longer recognize their governments as part of a fair and equitable global “system” of organization – are rejecting the classroom system. They also like finding/discovering treasure.

“Make us Your Treasure Hunting Corsairs”

The above quote is from one of my students, Anton Rudenko, who also participated in the e-learning “play day.” As educators, I think we’ve been forcing learners into a nineteenth-century paradigm for long enough. Now. I’m smart enough to know a good idea when I see one (they come from everywhere, you know). Anton has a good one:

“You can even consider presenting the whole career program to students next year as a game,” he said. “It could involve a treasure hunt adventure for your students. They are corsairs and the treasure is their job. You can call it “career quest”, and develop a point system with different activities worth a certain amount of points (gold coins?).” Hopefully he’s kidding on the last part, but the young man keeps on describing this outside-the-box approach to career development. “Information interviews would be worth a lot of points. Each information interview would be a ‘captured ship carrying a piece of the map that leads to the treasure.’ So if you capture enough of them, you will eventually put the map together, and get the treasure.” Multi-facetted, multi-levelled kinds of discovery, honestly, blew my mind. And then he brought it all home: “I think it’s a pretty cool analogy. You can go crazy with this. But then of course you are running the risk of students getting addicted to the game and skipping lectures :-) ” Well said and, hey, what would a note from Generation Y be without an emoticon?!

Great idea. It’s got edutainment, experiential learning and is a student-driven collaboration with the instructor. Sure, there are kinks (ie. this pirate thing may or may not be desperately unprofessional and will need to be re-visited by a certain Editor-in-Chief one day soon), but it’s something on which we can collaborate.

Here is why a student-centred, democratic classroom involving “treasure hunting” strategies is so important:

Equality: recent findings from an up-and-coming “newspaper,” the Globe and Mail suggest that un-equal communities fail to flourish and meet their potential. The classroom is no different. Great ideas come from everywhere. Even from students. Belay that. Especially from students. There is so much information out there that we cannot expect a “balanced” and “fair” and, to be honest, “accurate” assessment to come for just one person and/or source. So, encourage them to plug-in, engage and explore the myriad of online resources that exist within the maze of pipes and tubes that is the internet. Pirates chose to be pirates, in large part, because a career in the merchant marine and/or Royal Navy was too authoritarian for them to flourish as people and professionals. Providing a student-centred, collaborative environment for our learners engages them on an, ahem, equal playing field.

Technology: this is a generation that has been bathed in bits. During the classroom technology “play day,” there were moments when, in a split second, a picture or resource found online was copied by a student, pasted on the digital whiteboard, studied by the entire class (simultaneously at two campuses), and discussed by the group (simultaneously at two campuses). Amazing. These mediums allow learners to access and present information at lightspeed, which adds value – and dimensions – to everyone’s experience in the classroom. Further, if educators don’t embrace technology – as well as encourage students to embrace it – then it will be the medium they use to tune out from what we say. Sending them on “missions” or “quests” with their computers, phones and iPods is much more effective then telling learners to turn off their media and pay attention.

Discovery-based Learning: I talk too much. Partly because I love being the centre of attention. Partly because, when it comes to career development, I’m emerging as an expert. Wow. Talk about a dangerous combination for a classroom, eh? No wonder students don’t always pay attention for the full two hours of my workshops! Recent findings suggest that students today can’t pay attention for very long (they’ve/we’ve taken breaks while reading this article to text a friend about the article, make a YouTube video, blog about the NBA playoffs, and purchase food/clothing/term-papers online). For true, pure engagement, we need to make them captains of their own ship and give them personalized autonomy that will allow them to customize their learning experience. Allowing them to discover their education for themselves is the key, my friends. Students should be pirates (Editor’s note: wait, no, that’s stupid. We here at The Gumboot do not in any way condone students or graduates to become pirates or embrace piracy). But think about Anton’s multi-levelled, collaborative, discovery based concept of “the treasure hunt” as you take steps towards planning your next lesson. We provide the map. They discover the treasure.

Trust me. Pirates or not, when you push your comfort zone you’ll have fun with it. And you’ll learn a lot, too.

- JCH

Serving our Community: from Obamania to Rwanda

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Leave it to Obama. In tough economic times, when citizens are struggling to make ends meet what does the President do? He pushes through bi-partisan legislation embracing free labour. Yeah, I know managers and directors and CEOs can’t afford to pay their staff, but, come one! Basically, he’s mandating that people work for nothing. That’s right. No wages. I don’t know what kind of perverted, crazy voodoo socialism this guy is tryi-

What? The bill is about volunteering and community service? It’s a good thing? National Service? Encouraging Americans to push aside petty, partisan values and work together to make their communities better places? Passed into law just 22 days after being proposed? Wow. That’s pretty cool.

Sorry about that, folks. I got a little carried away there. And, for the record, I like Obama. A lot. Not just because of all the hope, either. Or because of his sincerity. Or because of his amazing oratory skills that inspire millions – nay, billions - of people around the world. Mostly, I like Obama because he collaborates with Spider-man and Abraham Lincoln to create amazing, progressive and world-changing community-service legislation that does so much to make America the leader that so many people around the world want it to be. Or so my sources tell me.

Moving on…

Friends, we’re at the end of National Volunteer Week! On Tuesday, April 21 President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which “reauthorizes and expands national service programs administered by the Corporation for National Service…[and seeks to engage] over four million Americans in results-driven service each year.” On April 22, the Corporation reported that AmeriCorps received 17,038 online applications in March, nearly triple the number from 2008. From Senior Citizens to students, from NGO management to service learning initiatives, the Serve America Act provides millions of dollars that, according to Corporation Board Chair, Alan Solomont, “…will help unleash a powerful new wave of service and civic action to help tackle our nation’s toughest challenges.”

From Millennials to Baby Boomers, Obama has people moving. And, clearly, for the patriotic, narcissistic, spiritual, community-minded, and apathetic alike it’s the stuff of inspiration.

So what are we up to in Canada? Well, my grandma, Betty, just got invited to a volunteer lunch as a thanks for all the service she does for the Senior community in the Comox Valley. And about 21 of my students here at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business are volunteering with the Strathcona Business Improvement Association on three service-learning projects that will help expand the community’s “Green Zone.” And speaking of talented young people, a few weeks ago, whilst in Toronto, I met a young man named Billy Strachan, who has embraced Social Entrepreneurship with his not-for-profit A Day for Africa. Check it out!

Those are some micro-examples. What about pan-Canadian initiatives and our general approach to volunteering as well as giving? According to a 2004 report called, I kid you not, The Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, 85% of Canadians collectively give annually nearly nine billion dollars (average donation of $400). Religious organizations receive about 45% of these donations. About 45% of Canadians over the age of 15 volunteer for about 168 hours per year, and their total contributions amount to two billion hours, or the equivalent of one million full-time jobs. The top 10% of volunteers, though, contribute to 52% of all volunteering in Canada. We help each other without going through registered charitable organizations, too. About 83% of Canadians reported helping others who did not live in their own household with a variety of tasks and projects (shovelling snow, car repairs, cleaning, gardening, painting, cooking). Needless to say, we’re good at getting involved. But we can do better. And should do more.

And, sometimes, you can easily combine volunteering and helping others with spectacular adventures. Speaking of adventures, this one time, I went to Rwanda and helped organize anEast African youth employment conference. I also played on a basketball team (can you find me in the photo?). Recently, my Rwandan brother Edouard Umunyarwanda (on my left, your right) let me know about a project the team is launching called Safeball. The program is meant to build community through basketball, dance and song as well as educate youth who are drawn to the celebration about HIV/AIDS, drug and alcohol abuse, physical violence, post-genocide reconciliation, and safe, healthy living. When he introduced me to the idea, Edouard said, “we needed something original, big, and new and also something that would always makes youth think about being safe.” My friend, you’re there and you are about to inspire a lot of people to help you.

So, we’ve gone on a service-related journey from the Comox Valley to Washington, DC to Vancouver to Kigali and back again. And we’ve learned a few cool ways to build community through service. And we’ve heard some stories that are pretty darn inspirational. So, what next? Well, if your from The Gumboot’s neighbourhood, start by hitting up www.volunteervancouver.ca and see how you can get involved.

As for who has a better plan to unite its citizens through service, well, readers, I’ll leave that to you. Both the Canadian and American models are wide in scope and ambition, but, when it comes to being nationally inspired/motivated, I think Canadians might fall a bit short. Or, hey, maybe we’re so good at helping that we don’t need to be inspired to go out and do good things.

Whatever the case. There’s no better time than right now to get involved. And, while you’re helping, remember to have fun with it. After all, smiles are totally contagious!

Thanks for the memories.

- JCH

Learning from Pirate Communities – Gender and Women’s Rights

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Long before universal suffrage, Roe vs. Wade, bra-burning, the Eveleth iron mine, Hilary Clinton, or the exporting of women’s rights to places like Afghanistan, a woman named Ching Shih watched her husband die in a hail of musket fire.

It was 1807 and Zheng Yi, a pretty darn good pirate in his own right, just got put down by the Royal Navy. A power vacuum emerged. Hundreds of Chinese pirates were looking for a leader. An opportunity presented itself. And on to the scene emerged the greatest pirate in the history of pirates. She called herself Madame Cheng.

Madame Cheng was ruthless, wily and charismatic. She immediately seized the opportunity (totally embraced planned happenstance, by the way) and consolidated power within the Chinese Pirate Confederation by leveraging her positive relationship with the members of her husbands professional and social networks. Madame Cheng also took a huge risk. As she cajoled and negotiated and charmed her way to prominence in China’s pirate community, Madame Cheng took on a young lover; the adopted son of a fisherman named Cheng Pao. And here’s the kicker: she made the kid head of the Red Sea fleet, which was the biggest and most important in the Confederation.

The move was shrewed and effective. Madame Cheng had an eye for talent, as Cheng Pao had grown up in a “floating community” of Chinese junks, adhoc houseboats and strung-together waterlogged debris. He had an uncanny understanding of the sea and Cheng Pao used such abilities to carry out his wife’s master plan, which, really, was nothing short of dominating the Chinese shipping routes from the Strait of Malacca to Australia.

By 1810, Madame Cheng’s pirate fleet was larger than those of most countries navies. She commanded between 600-800 coastal vessels, hundreds of small, river junks, and tens of thousands of pirates. Recognizing her growing power, the British, Portuguese and Chinese eventually banded together to stop Madame Cheng. But they didn’t. Following thousands of deaths – pirate and seamen alike – Madame Cheng decided to belay the bloodshed. From a position of power, she negotiated a peace treaty with the colonial powers and Chinese authorities and, following the agreement, sought an early retirement with her husband, Cheng Pao. Through organization, relationship-building and recognizing top talent, Madame Cheng created a pirate fleet the likes of which no one has ever seen (or well ever again see). And for three years she ran the shipping lanes of the China Sea and Strait of Malacca for decades.

Now. Madame Cheng wasn’t the only successful lady pirate. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are probably the most famous female pirates. Actually, they arguably made the inspiration for Johnny Depp, Calico Jack Rackam, famous by association. The three sailed together from 1718-1720 in the Caribbean, after Rackam, a charismatic fellow (not unlike another Captain Jack we know and love), was elected by his crew following the former captain was declared a coward and executed. Rackam, who was engulfed in a fairly tawdry relationship with Read, brought to two women aboard during a stop in Cuba, and the women joined the crew in pillaging small sloops and coastal fishing villages all around the Caribbean.

Life was good (there was even an alleged love triangle between Bonny, Read and Rackam), until 1720 when Captain Jonathan Barnet captured Rackam’s ship. Get this. All the men, including Rackam, hid below deck as the Royal Navy ship approached. Bonny and Read, who Barnet claimed could “swear and fight as good as any man,” charged the approaching sailors, killing and wounding dozens before they were finally captured. And while Rackam was quickly hanged, his body put in a cage near Deadman’s Cay, Bonny and Read, who – I kid you not – were both pregnant at the time, were allowed to have their children before returning to trial. Read died before re-trial, but Bonny escaped with her child, never to be heard from again.

Amazing stories, sure. And what does this mean for our current communities here on Earth? Well, I have some findings to report:

Leading women today agree with John’s idea. Okay, maybe, but probably not really. Still, having met Fiona Walsh (FM Walsh & Associates) and knowing her to be pretty darn brilliant and that she has a great sense of humour, check this out. Let’s see how Madame Cheng’s piratical example lives up to the three main components of Ms. Walsh’s Women in Leadership Program:

  1. Develop a professional “BIG PLAN” and have a “Plan B”. Check! Madame Cheng’s initial plan was to, well, dominate the China Sea and Strait of Malacca for another few decades. Plan B was to retire. Well played, ma’am.
  2. Understand your professional value (your reputation, specialized skill set, existing network) and build on these three components. Check! Madame Cheng (not to mention Bonny and Read) had fierce reputations. Cheng’s skill set involved top-level leadership, industry knowledge, talent recognition, and the motivational aspect of organizational behaviour. And she leveraged her husband’s network to become leader of the Chinese Pirate Confederacy. Brilliant!
  3. Build a powerful business network that will support your advancement through the world of business. Check! Beginning with the appointment of Cheng Pao, Madame Cheng surrounded herself with a variety of new business partners (river-going junks was a new idea, not to mention a very lucrative one) as well as a range of existing power brokers from the colonial and Chinese/Japa
    nese/Singaporean/Filipino/Vietnamese business communities.

Hilary Clinton running for President shouldn’t be a big freakin‘ deal! Well, yes, it should, because a woman leading the United States (arguably the world) is an amazing and inspirational concept; however, Madame Cheng, nearly two hundred years ago, showed us that women can not only succeed in a man’s world, but can absolutely and totally change the game. She took on Britain and Portugal and various Chinese city-states. That’s like Hilary taking on the economy, Climate Change and adultery! Point is, we shouldn’t be surprised. Women are, quite clearly, better than men at most things. Even piracy. Probably politics. More often than not, it’s just a matter of timing.

Women are unmeasurably powerful. Thing is, our economic measuring/value-system has been written by men for hundreds of years and, admittedly, is a tad biased. Get this. A recent study by the United Nations Human Development Index revealed that unpaid work, such as volunteering, caring for the young, old and sick, household management, do-it-yourself housing, food-growing, and community service, accounts for $16 trillion per year. The vast majority of this work is done by women. Further, a recent University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business study estimates the annual value of a stay-at-home-mom at $138,095 and points out that these community leaders work an average of 51.8 hours of over time per week. Now all we need are some metrics that measure this kind of contribution instead of just GDP…

Should we be surprised that the greatest pirate in the history of the world was a woman? Not really. Ladies, you might just need to embrace your inner-pirate. If you take one thing away from the story of Madame Cheng, let it be the part about recognizing an opportunity for success and seizing it. And when you do, be sure to collaborate with other women and share your success. Honestly, there are a lot of us out here who are excited for you to run the world. Sorry we’ve screwed it up so badly…

Good luck, and have fun with it!

- JCH