Ordinary renegades

It both alarms and confuses me that there are so many successful entrepreneurs who dared to drop out of college. At my graduation from the University of Denver three weeks ago, our speaker was Roger Birnbaum, an entertainment business legend and co-founder of Spyglass Entertainment. 

Technically, the moral of the story was go for the gold because even when you have no idea what you’re doing, stuff will probably work out.In hindsight Roger now has all of these pearls of wisdom to share, but when he was my age, he had already dropped out of DU and moved to New York to make his career happen. At 22 years old, he had joined the ranks of the Renegades: incredible entrepreneurs who decided to chase opportunity instead of conventional education. Noteworthy alumni include Steve Jobs, Rachel Ray, and Mark Zuckerburg. 

Don’t get me wrong. I value my college education and recognize how privileged I am. But what am I supposed to think when I now work for a successful company created by two college drop outs? 

It’s a quandary. My takeaways from these insanely successful luminaries: 

• Check out to check in: I obviously missed the boat on dropping out of undergrad (probably for the better), but I took time off from college to teach and work in Western Kenya through an Orbis Institute Fellowship. It was a time of immense personal growth and memories I will never forget. Dropping out doesn’t have to mean completely pulling the plug. It can be taking on a weird hobby, interacting with a different social community, or even hanging out in different places. TED, for example, was made for people who wanted to get out of their intellectual comfort zone. Basically check out for a period of time and then once you return to your old world, you will be rejuvenated and ready to tackle new challenges.

•  Soft landing: Wouldn’t it be great if we could all drop everything to engineer our brilliant ideas while living off Roman Noodles in our family’s 8 passenger minivan? It’s not always possibly to put your life on hold to pursue your passions. I wish more people were honest about this reality. One way to combat this is to find some sort of security (whether it’s a job that pays the bills or a way of meeting other existing commitments) and start prototyping in your spare time. This is probably the biggest difference between us and our renegade idols. We’re so quick to glamourize the entrepreneurs who put it all on the line that we don’t value the ordinary dude across the street perfecting his own beer in his basement or the friend who has a photography business on the side. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur and you want a few resources, check out the Rocky Mountain Microfinance Institute and the Greater Good Academy for trainings and start up loans. Let’s give it up for the average American who keeps on trucking while pursuing his or her dreams. 

•  Listen to your obsessions: Sometimes we shoot down our ideas because we think they’re insignificant, but even the lamest idea can generate a buzz-worthy Tumbler or has a place on a shelf at Target. Ok, just kidding. But seriously. When did thoughts become commodities? An emerging field called design thinking that was pioneered by IDEO tries to get people to think and brainstorm out loud by associating their ideas with visual images. Everyone has ideas that no force of gravity will shake out of their heads. Become an expert in something you love (you probably already are) and share your ideas out loud. Map them out visually and see what happens. The Human Centered Design Toolkit is a great open source resource on IDEO’s website. 

We can all use a little validation for taking that shot in the dark, that stab at a crazy idea, that tiny step towards starting something of our own. If we glean inspiration from unconventional entrepreneurs, we may end up creating our own class of renegades. They might not make Academy Award winning movies about our lives and people might not know really intimate details about how we enjoy our coffee, but we’ll definitely be doing things differently and hopefully creating opportunity where it hadn’t existed before.

 Isn’t that the role of any entrepreneur?

A life sentence

*I wrote this poem for Dr. Kate Willink's Long Civil Rights Movement course and am performing it tomorrow night @ the Mercury Cafe!

What’s the sentence our country should receive
for a misdemeanor of ignorance in the first degree?
How many years should you do time for committing a felony of oppression?
When will we ever learn our lesson?
We have a debt to pay, its not going away
If Nelson Mandella rolled up into one of our public schools in the US
Would he weep? Would he grimmace? Would he rage in the street?
Because in the free world we’ve created an education system
In which minority students’ opportunities have been mortgaged
They’ve been bundled into neat little securities that we sell to other groups
who sell the them to other groups who in turn make money off of selling the debt to someone else
So at the end of the day, we’ve traded and hustled our way
out of owning the responsibility to reverse things like funding inequality
But who am I kidding?
Can we really say we’ve hustled our way out of anything?
Or has it been more like sitting on a gilded throne Of meriotocracy
Code word for-
I know what’s best for you-
rock-paper-siccers-glue
Something just doesn’t feel right
Maybe it’s the shocking sight
Of segregated apartheid communities
Ghosts of the long Civil Rights Movement
going unnoticed in a” fair and equitable” universe
For me this isn’t over, it’s not quite done
Even though I’m privileged , I’d hardly say I’ve won
Because the history I know
Of people who look like me, do the electric slide like me,
are obsessed with Justin Beiber and try to hide it like me
Ignores the true narrative, the real beauty
Of dreams not deferred, not languishing in obscurity
It turns out that “the other”
Happens to know a different story
One that’s far less boring
One that I need to hear
So I can stop waking up at night
Sweating tidal waves
Because I have this
Creepy crawly feeling
I’ve missed something
And its written on the ceiling.

Social Grams

In a post-Scrabble world, BannanaGrams has made spelling cool again. Recently I was playing and losing the game with my family and it got me thinking, what would a social enterprise themed round be like? What words make up the common vocabulary of today's social entrepreneur?

Check out the SocialGrams I came up with below and let me know what other words you think belong in the bunch.


Definitions
Vertical:
1. Impact: Includes social, environmental, and financial impact and must be the core competency of the social venture.
2. Metric: The quantitative and qualitative measurements that demonstrate to key stakeholders the impact of the venture.
3. Cashflow: One of the greatest challenges facing social entrepreneurs, the lifeblood of the organization.
4. Obsessed: A characteristic of high impact social entrepreneurs who are extremely driven and committed to realizing social change.
5. MDG: Millennium Development Goals are being addressed more substantially with grassroots social enterprise than through traditional aid programs.

Horizontal:
1. Mission: The driver of all social ventures, delivered by the social venture to address needs within an under served market, customer base, or community segment.
2. Exit: An exit strategy assures that the social venture does not make its customers or beneficiaries permanently dependent on it for their well being and that the organization can function beyond its founding social entrepreneurs.
3. Design: Crucial to the development of effective products and services aimed at solving a social sector issue. You must know what the end user needs, wants, and intends to use your product. You must also understand the ways in which your organization will impact the immediate and long term futures of the communities in which you work in.
4. Replicate: Ensures that the social venture's best practices and model can be expanded to serve greater numbers of people in an exponentially greater number of communities around the world.
5. Hybrid: The reason why social ventures are more efficient at addressing social issues, because unlike aid and charity models, they combine the best of the social and business worlds for sustainable and systemic solutions.
6. Humble: Social entrepreneurs know they are not the solution to the world's problems, but part of the solution. They recognize that systemic change is only possible when organizations partner with the communities they serve.

Mi segunda familia

I was 14 when I traveled to Ciudad Guzman, Mexico to participate in an exchange program through Longmont Sister Cities. Upon meeting my host family at the airport, I was immediately engulfed by dozens of hugs. My host mother, Gabby, was the warmest person I had ever met and so full of life. Every morning Gabby would pound on my door and her two children, Ruben age 9, and Christy age 8 would greet me with a chorus of “Buenos dias.”

I remember asking Ruben and Christy in my broken Spanish if they would be willing to show me a traditional Mexican game. For several days, they seemed to contemplate which one to show me. I was surprised one night when Ruben and Christy led me to a big open park in the middle of their Colonia. I could hear the rattle of bicycles coming down the dirt road as the neighborhood kids joined us. When everyone was accounted for, Ruben introduced me to his neighborhood friends and told me that we were going to play their favorite game “Footbase.” After several innings of “Footbase,” a game equivalent to dodge ball, the light from the evening sky began to drift away. The little girl next to me pointed to her cupped hands “Mira, mira alli,” she shouted excitedly. Quickly she uncapped her hands to reveal three or four fireflies and set them adrift in the summer air.

That moment fundamentally changed my life. For the first time I realized that there are other people sharing the same planet with me. To experience another culture through the eyes of a child is also something extraordinary as kids seem unable to censor or filter what they show you. It is almost as if they can only offer an authentic version because they aren’t aware they are introducing you to their world.

I recently went to a Longmont Sister Cities event called Thanksgiving in August. Every summer Longmont students spend 10 days in our Sister Cities in Chino, Japan or Ciudad Guzman, Guzman living with host families and then Mexican and Japanese students come to Longmont for ten days while the Longmont students host them. Thanksgiving in August is an opportunity for the students to share their traditions with each other.

As I walked into the event this past Saturday, I was once again engulfed in a warm hug and looked down to see that it was Gabby. Shocked and excited, Gabby told me that she was one of the chaperones this year. "Hace seis anos," we both laughed. I couldn't believe it had really been 6 years since I had seen her. She also told me that Christy was now 14 and Ruben 15 years old and that Ruben would be coming to Longmont next summer as part of the exchange program.

Seeing Gabby was a powerful reminder of how incredible living with a host family is and the strong relationships that are built across cultures. It made me so excited for my next big adventure; living with a host family for three and half months in Nairobi, Kenya. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn about the social enterprise occurring in Kenyan communities and to be able to experience it while living with a Kenyan family.

In 18 days I will depart for Kenya and I can’t wait to meet the incredible people I will be living with because I know they will impact my life as much as Gabby and her family have!

Moving beyond the brink

When I first told my friends that I was going to be spending my summer interning for the Unreasonable Institute, all of them laughed at me. When I asked why the notion was so humorous one of my friends remarked, "Jennifer, you are the most reasonable person I know." Although I have been active in bringing opportunities to engage in social enterprise to my fellow students at the University of Denver, I have always preferred to take the safe route after carefully Mapquesting directions. Maybe that's why my friends were initially skeptical that I could hack it in among the 25 greatest risk takers and disruptive thinkers in the field of social enterprise.

I was recently sitting in the Colorado State Capital three feet away from Governor Bill Ritter. When Governor Ritter walked to the podium before the graduation of the first cohort of Unreasonable Fellows, I was struck be the irony of the situation. It was here in these marbled halls that I had originally envisioned spending my career. It seemed like a pretty good gig: help make big policy changes that address social issues and they’ll even throw in health insurance and a regular paycheck. As I listened to the governor speak and looked over to the audience of Unreasonable Fellows, something shook me to the very core. How could I spend my days in a marbled building talking about change instead of eating, breathing, and living my social mission every day as the Fellows do?

After Governor Ritter spoke, the Fellows took the stage one by one to address their peers. Unreasonable Fellow, Pierre Bataille, spoke about the incredibly supportive community of change agents at the Unreasonable Institute saying, "For the first time, no one has told me to get a real job." Every fellow, mentor, and staff member at the Unreasonable Institute recognizes that being a social entrepreneur is a real job and that the work is significant, valuable, and urgently needed. This has truly inspired me.

Instead of being a scholar of social enterprise or watching the field develop from the Ivory Tower of Public Policy, I am now ready to take my own passion for social enterprise to the streets and live audaciously. I resolve to be part of market based solutions instead of being solely an advocate for them.

This is where my story begins and ultimately where I hope to move beyond the brink of radical change.