I find that there are two principal ways I “seal in” new learnings. 1. is to reflect on them, 2. to pass them on to others. What I love best about writing my reflections like this, is I get to do both simultaneously!

It has been quite a while since I have put the two together, as it has been a long, intense run of productions and personal passages (including divorce and mastering the art of full-time, single fatherhood). But here we are, on the other side, with a little break from event production and settled into a good rhythm at home, even with a quickly expanding almost 10-year-old!

My focus over the past 6 – 12 months has been on:

• Building FLOW in general
• Applying my cause alliance marketing model to building the FLOW campaigns
  • Conscious Capitalism
  • Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs
  • Peace through Commerce
• Beginning to distill my learning into a Working for Good book and program to support others to cultivate conscious entrepreneurship and to build successful social enterprises.
  
  

Here is a brief overview of some of the developments with each of these:

FLOW

• The FLOW Book – Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good is essentially complete and available for download
• FLOW Activation Circles are alive and well in NYC, San Francisco and Austin, and soon to be beginning in other cities. The SF FAC is becoming a Conscious Capitalism Circle, beginning in April.
• The FLOW team is solid and slowly expanding. Randy Eisenman just joined the FLOW board, and Praveena Vadrevu is brilliantly filling the core administrative support position in Austin.

Conscious Capitalism

• We recently convened a small gathering at John Mackey’s ranch outside Austin, focused on Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism. In two days, the highly aligned group, which included David Wolfe and Raj Sisodia, co-authors of Firms of Endearment, Robb Smith, CEO of Integral Life, Michael Strong, and others, initiated an array of development projects to bring the Conscious Capitalism movement to a new level of activation, including a Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism conference, scheduled for November 7 – 9, 2008, at The Crossings in Austin.  
• If you have not yet read John’s seminal article on Conscious Capitalism, you can read it in the new FLOW book.

Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (formerly Empowering Women Entrepreneurs):

• Right after the Conscious Capitalism retreat we convened the AWE retreat at The Crossings in Austin. The group of 30+ (mostly women) worked with great intensity and focus to infuse the Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) campaign with wisdom, focus, and energy. Many collaborations were forged out of the retreat, including core partnerships between FLOW and others on the campaign. One of the key developments, which reflects how we are advancing the FLOW mission, is the broad and deep recognition of the critical need for legal reforms to provide the context for women entrepreneurs to flourish. Michael Strong’s superb presentation on the role of economic freedom and legal reforms was brilliantly reinforced by Dahlia Khalifa of the Doing Business project of the World Bank’s IFC.
• Graphic facilitator Diana Arsenian brilliantly captured the substance and spirit of the retreat and the campaign, which you can view on the FLOW web site. Here is one of the many reflections we received after the retreat from participants:
  
  

Congratulations on an AWEsome retreat!! It was a stellar group of women that you drew together to discuss a significant subject – women’s economic empowerment. Each presentation and working session continued building upon the previous discussions, thus propelling both the development of the movement and the enthusiasm of the retreat participants. Cheryl was a magnificent facilitator who inspired great thinking and helped to keep conversations focused. Michael’s presentations drew upon insightful research and highlighted the importance of economic empowerment. Your hard work over the past months paid off spectacularly!

It was a thrilling experience to reflect on the progress that was made in such a concentrated amount of time. We look forward to accelerating the framework that was established at the retreat.

Congratulations again!

Warmly,
Barbara Barrett
And Jamie-Brooke Forseth

Peace through Commerce

• The PTC campaign continues to develop, thanks to the funding catalyzed by the challenge grant from Ken and Frayda Levy and Harvey Cody, and matched by many FLOW supporters. We recently viewed the nearly complete, and very exciting, PTC promotional video produced by Jim Tusty and Maureen Castle of Free to Choose Media (and Mountain View Productions). Michael Strong is working with Jim and Maureen to refine some of the language, and we’ll be ready to put it out. Simultaneously, Jim, Maureen and Michael are completing the treatment and plan to produce an hour-long Peace Through Commerce documentary, with three segments that will be repackaged for distribution to high schools throughout North America (and, ideally, beyond).
• We have also begun to collaborate with Timothy Fort, Executive Director of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility at George Washington University, School of Business, to produce a Peace through Commerce conference in November in Washington, DC. Michael and Tim have been cultivating a “thought-partnership” for over a year, and Tim attended the Conscious Capitalism retreat this month.

Working for Good

• Since the time I came up with the name and concept for Working for Good over two years ago, I have been immersed in the process of working for good, principally in FLOW and the FLOW campaigns. I have been inspired my colleagues and collaborators, by the amazing people and projects I encounter daily, and by the continuing flow of people who join this community at Gaia (formerly Zaadz). I recently acknowledged that I feel a sense of responsibility to myself and to others, to draw from my diverse experience exploring and engaging in working for good, and on stories of the countless others I have encountered who are doing the same, to share information and inspiration for others who are committed to working for good. On that note I intend to blog (and email) more frequently and have begun to work on a Working for Good book and related workshop. Over the weeks and months ahead, I will post excerpts here and will send them to you in you ask me to do so.
• I have come to deeply realize the power of collaboration at all levels of enterprise creation and I look forward to engaging the Working for Good community to collaborate in creating Working for Good content that truly serves others in their journey to do good and do well simultaneously.
  
  

That’s probably enough for now.

I welcome your reflections back to me and I look forward to the unfolding of our collaboration within and beyond this community.

Namaste,

Jeff

I wrote this last night, on my way home (to Northern California) from Washington, DC, where I participated in the Breakthrough Summit convened by the Women, Faith, and Development Alliance (WFDA), held at the National Cathedral Sunday with a leadership circle working session yesterday at the Academy for Educational Advancement. What an amazing and inspiring two days. In addition to representing FLOW and our Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs campaign, I was honored to represent the Whole Planet Foundation and to present their commitment live (one of ten that were presented at the event at the Cathedral; the other 60+ were presented in the program and projected onto a screen). WPF is rapidly expanding their very effective Micro-credit program in countries where WFM sources products.

While I can’t even begin to convey the depth and breadth of impressions I took in (the people, place, and presentations were amazing), a few stand out. First, Her Excellency Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, is one of my new heroes. It is no wonder that Ireland is where it is today. What an amazing person – clear, wise, skillful – a true role model. Madeleine Albright, who gave the keynote yesterday, was superb - straightforward and effective. And the young people (from Jamaica, Uganda, and Kenya) who spoke towards the end of the event were probably the most inspiring and touching, so poised, grounded, and passionate. And Ashley Judd, who introduced and interviewed them, was great.

The work of this new alliance is to advance the position of women in society and, specifically, to do whatever it takes to alleviate poverty and other violence against women. Women Thrive Worldwide, one of the core partners in the Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs campaign I am producing with FLOW, is one of the core partners of the WFDA, and played a central role in organizing the gathering as it is playing in catalyzing the ongoing work of the Alliance. The AWE campaign will be deeply connected to the WFDA.

I was thrilled to reconnect with Linda Higdon, who is now running PEACE X PEACE (she was their partnership director when we worked together three years ago in the context of the Celebrate Peace program I produced for Peace Cereal). Their online portal to facilitate women to make personal connections with other women around the world is taking off.

I also met Kimberly King, who now owns the Peace Company (another Celebrate Peace partner) and is part of the organizing circle for the Women’s World Summit slated for 2010 in Sophia, Bulgaria.

And had a great time last night at dinner at the Egyptian Embassy with Elise Smith, the co-founder of Women Thrive Worldwide and a delightful woman of great service, and with Chris Grumm, CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, who kept me in stitches all evening (I suppose it was an even exchange). I must admit, working with women is great fun.

Hearing stories of rape, murder, HIV-AIDS, and other atrocities and abuses that many of the women experienced directly – themselves, in their families, communities, and in their work – was humbling and motivating. But the overall spirit was one of hope, unity, and determination, with deep commitments to coordinated action.

On another note, last Friday a small group of us were privileged to take a workshop with Jim Costello, who flew up to SF from LA to introduce us to his extraordinary brain fitness program™. Drawing on my experience with Spinning, ChiRunning, and music marketing and business development, I am working with Jim to package his program and take it to a mass market. He is an incredible person, who has worked for years to understand how the brain and body work together – physiologically, chemically, et al – how most of us have gaps in the development of our nervous system, which creates stress and dysfunctional patterns, and how we can re-pattern our system to achieve a profoundly higher level of well-being. It makes so much sense, and the results he produces with athletes, children with ADD, survivors of stroke, high pressured executives and others is quite remarkable.

A friend of mine who participated, who suffers from something called hand-eye dystonia, loved it and wrote:

The thing he is doing integrates several pieces, which I have been experimenting with for the past year and a half to manage the dystonia. I definitely learned a lot and I want to know more! Instead of manage it I would like to FIX IT! I would really like to correspond with him to see if we could do something remotely. Can you persuade him to move to the Bay area! 

Stay tuned for more.