Friday Reflections

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

Sometimes what you think initially as bad for you turns out very good for you. - Thaddeus Gardner.

Storyline:

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. But then if opportunity came in a direct form, everyone would grab it. Here are a few stories worth pondering:

1. In the late '70s, a fellow I knew got laid off. Newly married and with a new house, he had trouble making ends meet, and desperately needed some income. While looking for a job, he met this entrepreneur who had just founded a new company in the computer graphics field. Impressed with this young man's knowledge of design and passion for technology, the entrepreneur asked the young man to join the new venture. Of course he could not afford to match his old salary and offered this fellow minimum wage for engineers at the time and a share in the company. The young fellow took the offer which was a big risk. That company went on to become a very successful in the computer graphics field. Later, this fellow became Chief Technology officer of a company with $15 billion dollars in sales,  and is now a very successful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.


2. Hilary Swank, two time academy award winner, was originally cast as a regular on the TV show "Beverly Hills 90210" when she was first trying to break into the Hollywood scene.  One day, her producer let her go, telling her it wasn't working out. She was very upset and thought she failed as an actor. Two weeks later, she got the script for a movie titled "Boys Don't Cry", and because she didn't have her commitment to 90210 she was able to take the job. She was nominated for best actress that year, and won.


3. Lee Iacocca, a President of Ford Motor Company, was fired in 1978 - despite his great contributions and having made $2 billion in profit that year. Chrysler, a competitor to Ford, was on the verge of going out of business and hired Lee to help turn Chrysler around. He revived Chrysler and made it profitable with a line of well-regarded car models. He retired in 1992 as one of the most widely recognized businessmen in the world.


4. Nathaniel Hathorne, an employee in customs house in New England, lost his job due to politics when there was a change of government in Washington. His wife encouraged him to return to his life long passion of writing. Two years later in 1850, he published The Scarlett Letters. The book became an immediate best seller and his life changed for the better ever since.

Reflection: "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."  Alexander Graham Bell

Your Reflection?

Try One More Time

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Your Reflection?

This month's "Out of the Box Thinking" puzzle winner is 'Yoony' - congratulations!  We will be contacting you to send you your prize, a copy of the Friday Reflections book!

Before pointing to someone's dirty laundry ...

Thanks to KS/Atma Baweja for sending this wonderful story for self examination. (Original source unknown)

A young couple moves into a neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hang the wash outside.

"The laundry is not very clean", she said to her husband. "The neighbor does not know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor hung her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About a month later the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look! She has learned to wash correctly, I wonder who taught her this?"

The husband said: I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows!

Reflection: How clean is your window?

And so it is with life: what we see watching others (peer groups, competitors, different cultures and nations) depends on the purity of the window through which we look.

Before we give criticism, it might be good idea to check our state of mind and ourselves if we are ready to see the good rather than to be looking for something in the person we are about to judge.

And oh yes! I almost forgot ...

I see you much cleaner than I did yesterday ... And you?

No harm in trying!

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Your Reflection?

To the World you may be one person, but to one person you may be the World.

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. - Howard Thurman (from www.charityfocus.org web site)

Today’s stories are about four common people like us who applied Out of the Box Thinking in the fields of Economics and Technology to make significant positive difference in lives of millions around the world. This can happen only with “Us Involved.” Stories #2 and # 3 are from the Silicon Valley High Tech world.

1. In 1976, during visits to the poorest households in the village of Jobra in Bangladesh, US educated Economist Dr.Yunus discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. Jobra women who made bamboo furniture had to take out usurious loans for buying bamboo, to pay their profits to the moneylenders. His first loan, consisting of US$ 27.00 from his own pocket, was made to 42 women in the village, who made a small net profit each on the loan. From his experience at Jobra, Yunus realized that the creation of an institution was needed to lend to those who had nothing. While traditional banks were not interested in making tiny loans at reasonable interest rates to the poor due to high repayment risks, Yunus believed that given the chance the poor will repay the borrowed money and hence microcredit could be a viable business model.

On 1 October 1983 the pilot project began operations as a full-fledged bank and was renamed the Grameen Bank (Village Bank) to make loans to poor Bangladeshis. As of July 2007, Grameen Bank has issued US$ 6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers. More than 94% of Grameen loans have gone to women, who suffer disproportionately from poverty.  The payback rate on these loans is over 98%. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." (Source of the article: Wikipedia)

2. The success of the Grameen model of microfinancing has inspired similar efforts in a hundred countries throughout the developing world and even in industrialized nations. Here is a neat case (www.kiva.org)  of how technology has been applied to connect millions of people in different parts of the world; those seeking loans with those financing them. Matt Flannery and his wife Jessica founded this organization in 2004 as a side project from their regular jobs at TiVo  Inc. In 2005 Matt left his job to devote full time to Kiva.

3. The final story is about a young man from the high tech world. Nipun, a varsity tennis player, joined Sun Microsystems after graduating from UC Berkeley. But from childhood, his heart was always in helping the needy.  In 1999, Nipun combined his passion for helping needy with his technical background and created Charity Focus (www.charityfocus.org), an organization that has partnered with hundreds of small nonprofit organizations (NPO) to build custom web-solutions. Charity Focus' unique model enables volunteers to deploy a broad array of expertise to help NPOs better deliver services to their beneficiaries and more effectively reach their target audience. Having witnessed his progress through the years, I would say that he is the pioneer in creative use of internet technology in helping needy people.

Matt and Nipun's vision is shared by an impressive group of professionals from various walks of life who have enlisted in their cause. Many of you will see reflection of yourself when you read the background of the people.

Your Reflection?

Sources of articles and additional information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus#Grameen_Bank

Out of the Box Thinking - Sep 2008

It's that time again - watch the video above as we rotate a simple image, and let your creativity run free!  Let us know what you can see in the comments section.  The best idea (leaving an email address) will receive a free copy of Friday Reflections.

"One Hen": How one person can make a Big Difference

"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed." - Napoleon Hill.

Katie Smith Milway’s "One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference" is the inspiring story of Kojo, a young boy from Ghana in West Africa.

Kojo and his widowed mother are scraping by in their daily existence by selling firewood. One day Kojo gets a few extra coins from his mother and buys a single hen. He decides to sell eggs, and with the savings buys more hens. A year later, he has 25 hens, and savings help him to pay off the loan to his mother and join a school. Eventually, he goes to an agricultural college, and upon return starts a poultry farm. As his farm grows, Kojo is able to spread his wealth throughout the community, providing loans to encourage other people to succeed.

The story of Kojo in "One Hen" is based on the true story of Dr. Kwabena Darko, who worked on a chicken farm in Ghana when he was a young boy. The turning point in his life was when a banker took a chance and gave him a loan to study farming. 

As he became successful, he created an organization (Sinapi Aba) that made loans available to people who could not qualify for normal bank loans due to their financial or social status. The loan amounts are small (a few hundred) but it made a difference in the lives of over 50000 Ghanaians, who have been able to start small businesses. It's good business too: the repayment rate for loans is over 98 percent.

Today there are thousands of mico-finance organizations around the world helping millions of people to rise out of poverty. Also there are thousands of volunteers helping in this noble cause. For my colleagues in the technology business and for my OBT class fellows, here is a link to one of those organizations that demonstrate how technology and OBT work together to help in this great cause: www.kiva.org

(Katie Smith Milway is publisher and global editorial director for management consultancy Bain & Company. She heard Dr. Kwabena Darko telling his life story in one of the conferences she attended. It inspired her to write this book which is inspirational for children and adults alike.

The concept of microlending was pioneered by Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangaldesh for which he won Nobel Prize in 2006. This story will be covered in the next FR.)

Your Reflection?

Productivity?

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Your Reflection?