Bill believes that climate is even important than “vaccines and seeds” and is challenging us to “innovate to Zero” emissions.  I love that he is using a positive word like innovate - rather than a call to wage another war.  Bring it on I say and let’s see who can compete best and quickest in service to the planet.

I wonder if Google has hit the recruitment jackpot in weeding out the jerks and hiring the lovable stars - people who are both smart and likeable.  As you might guess from your own experience - there seem to be fewer stars than jerks in most workplaces.  Perhaps that’s because all the stars are working at Google.

A friend of mine says, “I refuse to allow someone else’s meanness to determine my generosity”, so give now to Haiti if you have a few extra dollars.

Check out Fast Company’s list of the 5 Social Capitalists for 2010 and their businesses.  From a number of sources I am getting the message that mobile phones and the accompanying connectivity are life changing in rural areas, where landlines are non-existent.

Also check out Better World Books which recycles books.

1. “What’s my [epitaph] sentence?  E.g. “She loved connecting people with ideas that their growth”.

2. Was I better today than yesterday?”  …or the strengths-based version - “How was I better today than yesterday?”

I like a lot of the comments and found the comment by David Willcox from NEM particularly appropriate and amusing: Not-for-profit is a misnomer and most NFPs “would object if they were referred to as “for loss”.  In reality, NFP are ‘not for distribution of their net profits, except in accordance with their constitution’”.

If you are interested in joining the Next Director community send an email to sharon[at]apassion.com.au and I will invite you to the discussion group.

TED is coming to my home town of Sydney and I’m looking forward to getting involved before and during the event.  If you know about TED, click here to find out about TEDxSydney.

If you don’t yet, know about TED, do yourself a favour and check out the TED site for some fabulous talks about “ideas worth spreading”.

Last night I finished my paper exploring the year’s lessons, which I get to present at the SLaM Conference: Feb 11-14. The paper attempts to answer to the question I’ve been asked all year when I talk about the Salon - “What do you mean by social enterprises?”

The real lesson for me has been how much I love nurturing and supporting these inspiring people and connecting them with ideas, contacts and access to support.

A new niche is opening for me personally and with A Passion for Results.

Medical, psychological, marriage and business research all seem to be converging on a similar prediction - that high performance teams, partnerships and individuals all have in common a three to one ratio of positives to negatives.

(more…)

Work clothes go to Suited for Work - a not-for-profit organisation that provides clothing, styling, presentation and interviewing support to disadvantaged women to help build their self esteem and support them to gain independence.

Items that aren’t good enough for sale can be listed on your local ReUseIt site - a website for people who have second hand junk that might be someone else’s treasure and who want to see less go into landfill.