It’s kinda funny to be posting food pics because I’m so not a food photographer! Also, as tasty as the pictures below look, they do not do justice to how awesome the flavors actually were. Like that clear, benign looking tom yum soup? That was a hit-the-back-of-your-throat-spicy, highly satisfying soup to drink. Mmm!

Pad thai

Roast duck in red curry

Pomelo salad

Tom yum soup

“The day after the fire, if somebody said, ‘Where’s your home?’ It wouldn’t be any good, because there was no physical place I could point to. So the only home that would have any significance would be whatever values, affinities, and loyalties I carried around with me everywhere.”

-Pico Iyer

Notes from the last few days of conversations:

Singapore used to be worried about the brain drain and struggled with how to make people want to stay. Is turning this country into a high-end playground the answer? If not, what’s up with casinos and luxury waterfront housing and Formula One night racing and Ion Orchard? It actually makes me cringe a little to walk past Ion and see the humongous Cartier and Prada store fronts.

What happened to making us a knowledge-based society? Have they decided that our comparative advantage is in shopping, and that we should build a country of ultra-consumers instead?

What is Singapore doing to raise the quality of life (not just income) for people who cannot afford to shop at Ion?

Why aren’t our (well educated, privileged) peers more engaged in community building? What would it take to lower barriers to entry enough so that they would actually participate?

Suddenly, he’s on to Project Space Jump. He plans to jump from 120,000 feet. You’re in near vacuum at that height, he says, so you need to be in a space suit. No aircraft will fly at that height, so he’s going up in a gas balloon. He needs two balloons for each of his test jumps and also for the main jump, because they’re known to tear. At 100,000 feet, without a suit, your blood actually boils and it’s called vaporization. He notes that that’s probably not very fun. We agree. His mission still needs a major sponsor but he’s confident they’ll find one.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

That’s right, this goes on the bucket list.

Sashimi platter

Sauce

California hand roll

Sliced beef in garlic sauce

Unagi and egg

Gindara

Yuzu ice cream

(I’m still figuring out how to get better pics off the iPhone. If you have tips, please share!)

]]> http://causeforthought.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/tatsuya/feed/ 1 Ai Sashimi Sauce Hand roll Sliced beef Unagi and egg Gindara Yuzu ice cream http://causeforthought.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/who-needs-a-resume-anyway/ http://causeforthought.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/who-needs-a-resume-anyway/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:56:23 +0000 Ai http://causeforthought.wordpress.com/?p=84 Continue reading →]]> Susan is not trying to find a job. She is trying to hire a boss.

Her entire website is dedicated to explaining to you why you would love to be Susan’s boss. She says:

My superpower is getting things done. It’s an exceedingly rare and critical superpower.
I battle the agent of chaos. I overdeliver. I delight. I amaze.
And I’m looking for a place in need of a superhero like me.

It’s the kind of idea that makes me go, man, I wish I thought of that!! They say you should not send in gimmicky resumes when you apply for jobs, but this is the kind of gimmick you’d not only get away with, it’ll probably get you hired.

Even though you and I cannot pull off this stunt now that Susan has beat us to it, think about this – if the best companies to work for spend so much energy telling us why working for them will be the bestest experience ever, what have we done to convince our potential future bosses that working with us will be the bestest experience ever?

charity: water was mentioned in Nick Kristof’s column. I found myself clicking around the website and just marveling at how every page looks. so. good. This is not just gorgeous design but fantastic communication. The story, the numbers, the how-you-can-help, it all comes together beautifully.

I’ve heard people in non-profit say they feel like they shouldn’t have to sell their cause, that the need, the injustice should speak for itself. To that I say, come on. If you think your cause is so important, you should be willing to sell it. What if more non-profits rebranded charity by doing what charity: water does – make giving exciting, joyous, empowering and hot?

Do you like TED talks? Check out this video of founder Scott Harrison pitching the charity: water story. It is not a TED talk but it should be one. Sometime around 14:50 my brain started saying “wow that is genius” and didn’t stop until the very end.

Until fairly recently, this was how I thought. I would rather give to something I understand. I always imagined I would prioritize contributing to my local community, because that’s what I know best.

Since getting into this global health work with vaccines and reading up on social entrepreneurship in countries I have never visited, I’ve had to shift the way I think about where to give. Giving is always going to be ultimately an emotional decision, but I think it’s worth putting some structure to how I could approach this. So I’ve come up with a list of dimensions I care to maximize when it comes to contributing (either money or time/effort):

1. Where is there greatest need

2. What do I understand best
(this does not excuse me from learning about what I do not understand)

3. Where can I contribute most efficiently/effectively
(i.e. maximize impact per $ or unit of effort)

4. Where will my contributions have the most sustainable impact
(i.e. how do I give a gift that keeps on giving?)

_

What else would you add to my list?

**

There are a lot of causes out there that fight for our attention. Think of all the causes you know about, the ones that you personally support. Imagine all the others that exist but remain unknown to you. What would it take for a cause to get on your radar?

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a full day planning session for World Pneumonia Day (Nov 2). In a small lecture room in the semi-basement of the NYU medical campus, I got to be part of a group of 36 people representing 16 different organizations, from UNICEF to the Center for Disease Control to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to the GAVI Alliance. We were there to advance the fight against pneumonia. Pneumonia is the number one killer of children, killing more children than AIDS, measles and malaria combined.

We began the day by discussing our goals for the session. As we went around the room and people offered their goals, I was honestly overwhelmed by how we were going to accomplish all that was put forth. Create awareness. Put a human face on pneumonia. Engage the private sector. Leverage networks. Take advantage of the Obama administration’s focus on global health. Communicate a clear message. Have the day. All great goals, but I could not imagine how the session would not just descend into utter chaos if each organization tried to advance its own agenda.

I know nothing about forging partnerships, but I got to witness how it works that day. With the help of a skilled facilitator, we attacked what needed to be done. People asked questions, explained their struggles, shared campaign stories, offered great suggestions, and piggybacked on each other’s ideas.  The facilitator moved the discussion along but let the group take the lead. People from organizations that are so different in size, scope and agenda came together and built consensus.

We had so much to learn from each other. I had a tremendous amount to learn from everyone else in the room. These points on how to build coalitions for change stand out:

1. Have a consistent message. If you want to convince millions to join your cause, you need a message that is clear and easy to communicate. Everyone needs to be saying the same thing. For a long time, the pneumonia campaign has stalled on this front. Even calling the disease “pneumonia” was an issue; previously, it went by many names, most of which involve long words describing the respiratory system. Today, there is still some debate on what are the most effective measures to combat the disease. Dr Renee van der Weerdt (UNICEF) pitched a message that was distilled into 3 easy boxes:

1. Prevent – with breastfeeding
2. Protect – with vaccines
3. Treat – with antibiotics

Proof that her message works? Everyone else started using it. I didn’t even have to check my notes to repeat it here.

2. Be inclusive. We can’t be a group of 36 people trying to save 2 million children from dying of pneumonia every year. We need to be hundreds of thousands. We need to build partnerships with a broad reach across organizations and sectors. Allow each group to own their piece of the campaign. Let people contribute resources in whatever way they can. Let it go viral.

David Rubenstein (founder of Best Shot Foundation) shared his experience running the Save Darfur campaign. One of their key successes was getting lots of student groups to organize local events. Over 4,000 websites eventually linked to the Save Darfur website. Politicians and celebrities, notably George Clooney, joined the cause.

Once we agree on #1 consistent messaging, the challenge is to reach as many people as we can. For World Pneumonia Day, the groups in the room volunteered publicity in internal newsletters and public websites, links to government officials, contacts at global health organizations, commitments to bring more partners on board. The list goes on.

3. Failures can be great successes. Lance Laifer (founder of Hedge Funds vs. Malaria and Pneumonia) told us about the spectacular failure that was Dunk Malaria. The idea was to get people to dunk a basketball through a net as a way of showing support for the fight against malaria (basketball nets, malaria bednets, get it?). The event turned out to be a failure: no one showed up. So what did Lance do? He took the basketball and spent an entire day walking around New York City asking random strangers, would you dunk a shot to support the fight against malaria? He eventually got over a thousand people to dunk that day. This was in 2006.

Despite Dunk Malaria’s failure, the idea was adopted eventually by other organizations and became Nothing But Nets, a campaign against malaria that counts Sports Illustrated and NBA Cares among its partners. Chances are, today in 2009, you are aware of the campaign against malaria (along with AIDS and TB – now add pneumonia to your list). As much as we love successes, sometimes they grow out of failures.

We started the session as a loose group of organizations who were dedicated to the fight against the forgotten killer that is pneumonia. At the end of the session, each organization pledged what their group would commit to the cause. We had an action plan, next steps, that we as a coalition of organizations would take. Our facilitator took us through our list of goals from the morning once again. I was amazed by how we had integrated practically all of them into our action plan. We had set in motion steps to take to make these goals happen for World Pneumonia Day and beyond.

Of all the causes out there that vie for my attention, I admit I write off some because they don’t inspire in me the belief that something can actually change. We must do something to stop children from dying from pneumonia. Being part of a dedicated coalition armed with the tools to stop the disease persuaded me that we can. To borrow a participant’s words, “the train for pneumonia is moving”.

I can’t remember what I said to that, but it was probably an unsatisfactory answer. It just… made sense to me that this was the right next step. But how do you explain to someone who is motivated by money and position and power why you would want to do this? How do you explain it to someone who doesn’t get it?

For that matter, how do you explain it to someone who does get it. I had the odd experience a couple months back of being asked on a phone interview for a non-profit internship, why do you want to do this internship? Of course, there is nothing odd about the question. It is such a classic interview question that I should have crafted a perfect answer for it beforehand. Instead, I was horribly unprepared. The moment I started talking, my brain started throwing out all these random threads from my history. I was trying to make sense of why I wanted to work in non-profit on the spot. This was a terrible idea. I had too much to say and no idea how to say it. I had too many motivations and no clear motivation. Needless to say, I did not get a call back.

Why do we want to help? Why do we want to give?

Next Billion has a great post with a meditation on “giving”. Towards the end, the writer asks, “Does choosing a life and career in non-profits or development always require a personal touch of fate?” Do we really need to be personally affected by a specific issue in order to find our conviction to give back?

I have been told before that I need to find my cause, a cause that I believe in with my heart and soul, in order to do this work well. That bothers me. If the improvement of the world depends on people being personally affected in order to get involved, then we are in trouble. Not enough of us will have such life-changing experiences. In fact, those who are privileged, who have enough resources to be spared a lot of these traumas, are precisely the people whom we want to get involved. What good is being given a lot if you can’t do something good, something more with it?

What I say these days is, I want to help solve interesting, pressing problems. I want to take what I have and what I can do, to contribute to something bigger. I want what I do to count.

That is still very vague but I see my answer as a work in progress. Helping to save lives with vaccines, or simply learning more about how we can save lives, seems as good a way to start doing something that counts as any. My eventual answer might even have nothing to do with non-profit work, but for this summer, this was the right next step. (More in my next post on how it has been absolutely the right next step.)

I’m still not sure I would be able to answer my baffled colleague in a satisfactory way, but everyone gets that surely – I want what I do to count.