Another great article over at Creative Capitalism, with some good comments following it up.
Global recognition replaces local shame
After realizing that no one actually seems to have a coherent definition of creative capitalism, or at least no one can agree on one, I thought this made sense.
And the apocalypse…
While I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the incredible changes that could occur as a result of things like creative capitalism and microfinance, I think that there’s an equally enormous change brewing as a new generation enters the workplace and brings with them a totally new view on how work should serve them.
Just as we’re beginning to realize that companies can do good and do well, it’s also becoming clear that employees are demanding they be fulfilled both emotionally and financially by their work. A recent article in The Guardian argues that this has incredible implications for the future of business. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I think that it will be such a sea change the ripples will be felt throughout society.
Just consider for a moment how much differently you act when you’re content with life. How much less irritated are you and how much more empathetic are you when life is going smoothly? The answer is obvious and think about how much better happy people are for the community because they spread those good vibes around without even realizing it. We live in a world increasingly obsessed with work and increasingly stressed out by work. To think that this does not adversely affect the general human interaction beyond the office is shortsighted. Unhappy workers aren’t just bad for business, they’re bad for all of us.
I don’t think that as the next generation replaces the boomers that we’ll all magically be transported to Xanadu, but I do think that it could make life less stressful. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Born in 1983, I fall somewhere between “digital immigrant” and “digital native”. These are the monikers aptly used to describe the two kinds of humans who went through their important developmental years either before or after that point on the digital timeline when the internet became a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. Digital immigrants have to adapt to technology, whereas anyone who’s seen a teenager these days can see that the digital natives have to do very little adapting to the machines they grew up believing had always existed. I grew up with Nintendo, didn’t have a cell phone until late high school and didn’t use the internet on a daily basis until college, so in some sense I grew up alongside these disruptive technologies and not before or after. I like to think this gives me a unique perspective on how these modern conveniences affect the way we think and how we look at the world. Although I’m more in tune with computers than most people at my parents age ever will be, I still find myself shocked whenever I see ten year olds with cell phones or hear about elementary school students doing anything on the internet besides playing Oregon Trail.
So the world is changing and it seems our childrens’ brains are changing as well just to keep up. Ages ago, humans evolved to use tools to adapt to the natural world, but now we find ourselves forced to adapt to our own tools. How did we end up on the wrong side of the stick? It seems like we’ve created a feedback loop of biology and technology, but sometimes I’m not entirely sure that our biological adaptations serve us as much as they serve to facilitate the runaway growth in complexity of technology. In some sense, I think we’re so enamored by our digital creations that we assume whatever progress we make is inevitably good progress and therefore the onus is upon the human brain to keep up. We’ve prostrated ourselves before the altar of the microchip.
The reason I mention all this is because I recently learned of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child program. I was totally blown away by the scope and vision of the program - to provide the world’s poorest children with “a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.” The mind reels considering what sort of possibilities this can open up for these children and for the entire world. Like my last Op-Ed piece pointed out, who knows how many Einsteins and Edisons are waiting for an education in the developing world? For the purpose of giving these kids connection to the outside world, freedom to pursue their own intellectual passions and the resources to become autodidacts, I wholeheartedly applaud Mr. Negroponte. This program has the potential to transform the world in countless ways and I can’t wait to see the effects.
What gives me pause, however, is the concern that we will stop at the laptop. I’m concerned that sending laptops to Kenya will become the educational equivalent of dropping sacks of rice from the sky - well intentioned, but ineffective in creating long term change without some further human interaction. Even in the richest nation in the world, we’ve begun to find that computers in the classroom do not show any correlation to improved test scores. It’s completely commonplace today for American middle and high school students to have their own computers and yet I’d feel quite confident wagering that far less than half of their time on it is spent for educational purposes. Some circles of education are finding that computers in the classroom are actually having negative effects on the progress of students.
One factor in education, however, has proven to be extremely beneficial and most of the world’s best scientists, artists, politicians and engineers have cited it as having a highly critical impact on their own success. That factor is having a good teacher. Connection to the internet is extremely powerful and so is educational software, but absolutely nothing can replace the sort of passionate curiosity that can only be instilled by parents, teachers and mentors. In a recent New Yorker conference, the erudite Malcolm Gladwell proclaimed, “There’s nothing you can do to improve school more than by improving the teachers [sic].” More than class size, computers or any other resource, good teachers equate to good education. But, he went on to note that being a “good teacher” actually boils down to something quite ineffable, citing a recent study which showed that the best educated, most prepared educational experts performed on par with a random sample of ordinary people. I can’t say this for sure, but I feel very confident that this ineffable quality probably boils down to two things - passion and the ability to connect. I say this because I know that the teachers I learned the most from were always the ones who inspired and motivated me with their passion or through their connection to me on a human level.
So, let’s send laptops to Uganda and Cambodia. But let’s not forget that the people that built those laptops probably had a whole cadre of teachers and parents pushing them forward. If we really want to teach these children we also have to instill in them a passionate curiosity. Otherwise, we’re just giving them a window into another world.
This article from the LA Times disturbed me a bit, but did not entirely surprise me. The more that I learn about traditional philanthropy it seems the more I am convinced that we can find new and better ways to approach the problems of our time. Whether some new form of capitalism is that solution waits to be seen. But, it’s articles like this one that give one pause about the current status quo.
For-profit fundraisers collect loads, but nonprofits see a sliver
And a bit of more upbeat news. Kiva has burst onto the world of social media, getting involved with the juggernaut that is Facebook.
Kiva + facebook = involver
I just read another great article on creative capitalism over at Creative Capitalism: A Conversation. It touches on something that I’ve thought about a lot recently: the perception of capitalism as a solution for poverty. Despite the fact that capitalism is by definition an economic system, I think for many people it is a gut reaction to instinctively judge it as though it were an ideology. Proponents of capitalism point to the incredible wealth created and the growth of the middle class in the countries that have benefited from it, while opponents highlight the sweatshops, the environmental disasters and the endless pursuit of cheap labor that has devastated small town America. When you get right down to it, capitalism is capable of producing both incredibly good and incredibly bad results. You can build a house with a hammer or bludgeon someone to death with it, but this does not make the hammer good or bad. I don’t think capitalism is any different.
In the past century capitalism has done an even mix of good and bad, but individuals tend to focus on only one or the other. If capitalism is truly to be used as a tool for eliminating poverty we must treat it just like the hammer - with respect and with an understanding that it’s our responsibility to ensure it produces positive results. As Kyle Chauvin points out in his essay, we have already seen that the benefits of capitalism have already begun to creep beyond the borders of western nations into places like South Korea, Isreal and Peru. So, we have good reason to believe that it is a sound strategy to continue to promote the growth of this economic system in the developing world, which has borne the brunt of the negative side effects of capitalism in the past century. But, we cannot forget that simply spreading capitalism isn’t enough. We must spread ethically and environmentally responsible capitalism. The choice between global prosperity and poverty lies in the way we approach this issue.
Evolution, for some reason, is a touchy subject. Why it’s touchy I’ll never understand because I can’t imagine a better reason for standing in absolute awe of your preferred deity than if he/she/it had a hand in this most beautifully flowing process that gave rise to everything around us…or perhaps your god is that process. But, let’s leave religion aside (as much as possible) to consider just evolution itself for one second.
We’ve all got a general concept of what the process entails: the strong organisms survive to pass on their genes, those genes continue to be expressed and so every species, through its interactions with the greater ecosystem, is in a constant state of refinement towards the end of being better suited to survive and procreate. Where evolution gets really interesting is at the very tip where we find ourselves today.
This is a time when humanity is more interconnected and organized across the entire planet than ever before. Years from now we will look back with fascination at the way our species is coagulating on the internet, slipping and sliding across time zones, forming into groups and splitting like cells and generally merging into one great big organism unto itself. People move about the globe at incredible speed just like blood cells coarse through our veins and ideas are transferred just like signals from our brains fly along our nerves. We are more dependent on each other than ever before and more affected by the successes and failures of cultures halfway around the world as well. Somehow, we haven’t assimilated that concept yet.
Taking a brief glance over our shoulders, we can see that, in the time that has passed since the Enlightenment, humanity has increasingly seen itself as separate from and superior to nature. The health of our very home and the wellbeing of our own brethren have taken a backseat to the project of human progress. There’s truly no other explanation for the present state of pollution and mass extinction we have inflicted upon the planet than this grand illusion that somehow we’ve got no one to answer to but ourselves. We’re already begun paying the price for our self-imposed isolation from nature and the price is only moving upwards. I think that realizing our role in the grand scheme of evolution can help to solve the problems that we’ve caused believing we’re above nature.
The first step towards a peaceful symbiosis with the earth is recognizing that we are only one piece of the equation. We must recognize that as a species we’re not the general manager of the planet; we’re just another player on the team. Thankfully, it seems like this is beginning to happen. Books like The World Without Us are showing in very real terms that team earth will continue to play without us, and play quite well. In many cases the planet is better off. It’s a startling realization. It will take time, but it seems like we’re beginning to come to terms with this idea.
Being at the leading edge of evolution as we are, though, we’ve got the intelligence to be the star player. We’re just not living up to our potential and we need to find out how we can. So, the second step we can take as a species is to make sense of all this interconnectedness and organize our priorities. We are splitting ourselves into pieces running in ten different directions at once. We need people like Bjorn Lomborg, renowned Danish economist, at the helm to put things in perspective (for more info check out this video of him at TED). He’s come up with a startling ranking of the most cost-efficient global problems to put our money and effort towards and it will probably shock you how incredibly inefficient we are as a group. Horrendous humanitarian crises like malaria and malnutrition could be checked off the list in years and yet they seem to be placed lower on the list than global warming, which will take exponentially more money to fix and the results will take decades or more perhaps.
If humanity is becoming a meta-organism than it’s a paraplegic right now. Imagine how much more efficient we would be, how much more effectively we could address grand issues like global warming if we had access to the billions of potential Edisons, Einsteins and Salks on the earth right now who are hidden behind curtains of poverty and disease. Just imagine how much more talent this meta-organism is working with because of the civil and women’s rights movements…it’s staggering. Now, consider that there are a billion people on earth living on less than a dollar a day. We’re nowhere close to accessing the full capabilities of the human race.
I’ve always been amazed by massive schools of fish and flocks of birds that zigzag through water and air, cutting back and forth in complete unison at lightning speed. I’ve always wondered how it’s possible that such seemingly “dumb” animals are able to act as a single unit with such grace and speed. At some point, however, they didn’t do this I realized. They learned it. They evolved to do this. Although it seems obvious, it’s one of those incredible epiphanies to realize that these creatures learned over time to move together like this as a pack. It’s astonishing what even the tiniest form of life can accomplish when it has to. I can’t even begin to imagine humans trying to do the same thing as these birds and fish, whose brains are a fraction the size of ours. But, we can learn to fly and swim like them in our own way. We can act together as a unit just like them and become much more intelligent, quick and graceful than we are now. It’s becoming an evolutionary imperative that we do.
So far, this blog has focused a lot on microloans, philanthropy and so forth. More largely it supports the notion that real growth is spurred by opportunity, not blind aid, and that dignity is more important than wealth. But, while reading a recent article from the New York Times, I realized that perhaps it would be a good idea to explain exactly why we believe these ideas to be true.
The article, “If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow”, is a fascinating primer on the work of Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist. Her years of research have led her to the conclusion that talented individuals achieve their maximum potential when they believe their talent is flexible. This means that individuals who believe that we work our whole lives with the talent we were born with are actually going to make less use of that talent than those who believe that growth is possible. She says that individuals with “growth mind-sets” achieve more than those with “fixed mind-sets” because they are more open to risk and learning from the mistakes that inevitably come from risk-taking behavior. In short, these people instinctively know that you miss all the shots you don’t take.
What does this have to do with aid and microfinance? Well, I think it informs the way we look at poverty and human potential. I agree with Dweck’s assertion that, “Society is obsessed with the idea of talent and genius and people who are ‘naturals’ with innate ability.” This obsession is found in sports, business and practically every other field, but not many stop to question whether it is a productive perspective to hold. It lends itself to a belief that the world is a meritocracy and frames the developing world as void of talent when it is anything but. Anyone who has read Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” would agree that the current state of world affairs actually has more to do with the distribution of resources and geography than anything else and would certainly agree that the division of power is not the sole indicator of distribution of human talent.
The bottom line is that belief in one’s self and belief in one’s ability to adapt and learn are just as important as IQ. This is what microfinance capitalizes on because loans are not given just on need or even talent, but also on the confidence that the recipient has in him or herself. The recipient has the sort of “growth mind-set” that Dweck champions.
This sort of research is refreshing to hear because it helps untether humanity from the notion that the world is split into winners and losers. Understanding “growth mind-sets” allows us to look at the world, especially the developing world, and our notions of poverty and potential in a much more realistic way.
I was originally going to write another opinion piece, but after finding this moving article in the NYTimes I decided against it. It’s a humbling reminder of the effect even the smallest amount of aid can have when it’s given to someone who is truly deserving of it.
Spending a majority of my time at work on the internet, I find it easy to get frustrated at the incredible amount of “noise” that seems to clutter the digital landscape. It’s easy to forget, however, that , relatively speaking, the internet is a recently discovered place. New and fantastic opportunities are emerging all the time that are having profound effects on society. This review helped remind me of that and might have sold me on the book already.
Review of Here Comes Everybody
Finally, a slideshow to remind you just what heady times we are living in…as if you anyone needs reminding of that. Pretty astonishing facts on here.
A couple of days ago I wrote a bit about NextEinstein, which is an initiative to fund the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. It made me optimistic because it focuses on allowing Africans to help themselves by providing scholarships and materials to allow the country to develop a much needed corps of native engineers, physicists and scientists. All too often, philanthropy is all heart and no head, but NextEinstein is a step in the direction of putting the two together.
Serendipitously, Christopher Hitchens just wrote a piece in Slate magazine about donating towards the same end in Iraq. The loud debate over whether or not we should have gone to Iraq and whether or not we should stay often ends up leaving the Iraqis themselves voiceless to the rest of the world. Hitchens notes how depressing it is to know that what was once,
“one of the world centers of humanistic learning and philosophy—is in a profound crisis of intellectual unfreedom. It boasts of no great centers of study; it translates pathetically few books from other languages and cultures; it is prone to waves of intolerance and fanaticism under which books are actually burned. Thus the attempt to reverse this trend and to lay the foundation of a liberal and cosmopolitan education for the next generation of educated Iraqis is of the highest importance from every conceivable point of view.”
Practically all of the country’s intellectuals and professionals fled the country during the war, leaving behind a country absent of intellectual manpower. Just as Africa can only lift itself up by developing a foundation of professionals from its own population, Iraqis, who did not ask for war, are trying to put their shattered educational and intellectual assets back together.
It may take decades for American forces to “rebuild” Iraq or perhaps we’ll pull out before that happens, but the real rebuilding can only be done by the Iraqis themselves. You cannot import the scientists, writers, lawyers, engineers and statesmen that make a country great, they make themselves. The American University of Iraq is requesting books so they can begin rebuilding the most important assets of the country: the minds that will lead the country towards a hopefully peaceful and prosperous future. It is an unbelievably worthy cause in my mind. I plan on finding whatever books I can to send over.
To read more of Hitchens’ article click here.
To find out more about sending books over check out the mailing address and instructions at the bottom of the Slate article.
Who invited Gordon Gecko to the microfinance party? Is greed good again? I’m not qualified to answer that, but the Mexican based CompartamosBanco is making that bold claim and it’s ruffling some feathers in the microfinance world. After receiving some flack, the company has begun to defend itself and they seem to make some good points. The Economist reports that “[Compartamos] has become convinced that by pursuing profits it will be able to provide financial services to many more poor people far more quickly than it would if it had continued to act as a charity.” Read the full story in The Economist here