7/13/2010
Two Friendships: A Response - Opinionator Blog
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
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Earlier columns in The Stone have raised the question of what philosophy is. Surely among its tasks is to think about matters that are at once urgent, personal and of general significance. When one is lucky, one finds interlocutors who are willing to share that thought, add to it in one way or another, or suggest a different direction. In the comments from readers of my earlier post, “Friendship in an Age of Economics,” I have been fortunate.
I would like to linger over two friendships described in the comments. One, offered by Echo from Santa Cruz, describes a life-long friendship with someone from whom she was physically separated for many years, and who eventually died of cancer. (I am inferring from the context of her comment, that Echo, as in Greek mythology, is a woman, though she never says so explicitly.) The other is from E. Kelley Harris in Slovakia, who recounts the example of an intimidating seaman named Frank with whom, over the course of intense theological dispute, a moment of intimacy arose in an unexpected way.
The non-economic character of friendship does not lie in its altruism, but in its lack of accounting.The friendship described by Echo is one that many of us will find examples of in our life. I am still close friends with the person who sat by my bedside 38 years ago, even though we live far from each other. Regarding her friendship, Echo comments that, “There was no work to that friendship. Our instincts told us what to do, in the same way as a new mother takes her child and holds it to her breast.” I am sure Echo would agree with me that a friendship without work is not something that is given; it is an achievement. Friendships take time. They must be cultivated, sometimes when one is in the mood, sometimes when one is not. That is part of its non-economic character. What Echo describes in personal language is an achieved friendship, one that likely started with a spark, but has been tended over the years and allowed the two friends to continue sharing with each other up to the end of one of their lives.
Several comments insisted that one would never become friends with someone unless there was something to be gained. This is certainly true. Close friendships are not simply exercises in altruism. Friendships that come to resemble relationships between donors and recipients begin to fray. Eventually they come to look like something other than friendships. The non-economic character of friendship does not lie in its altruism, but in its lack of accounting. We are friends not solely because you amuse me or assist me, but more deeply because we have rooted ourselves together in a soil we have both agreed to cultivate. Echo has provided an example of the fruit of that cultivation.
What E. Kelley depicts is a more unlikely friendship between someone who can best be described as a bully and another person, the author, who found himself in the unenviable position of bunk mate. Over time, passionate theological conversation developed between them, leading to a moment where the author put himself in a vulnerable position before the bully, who declined to play his expected role. As with Echo’s example, there is the accretion of shared time that is necessary for that moment to occur. It would hardly have happened the first night Frank stepped from the brig. But there is something else as well. There is the development of aspects of oneself that otherwise might have gone neglected or even unrecognized. E. Kelly displayed a kind of courage that seemed even to surprise him, and Frank lent himself to passionate discussion without having to overpower his conversational adversary. This is what I meant when I wrote in my column that in close friendships we step into the stream of another’s life.
One might say that there is, among seamen — as among military personnel and those facing collective harm generally — a motivation for a common bond that helped drive the two together. BlueGhost from Iowa says this explicitly in his discussion of his son’s decision to join the military. If so, this would be another example of the idea in the column that we are always creatures of our time and our circumstances. There were some who worried that in criticizing the consumer and entrepreneurial models of friendship, I might be suggesting that there was a previous period in which friendships were better or more pure. That would be, as the comments noted, naïve. Each age has its context, and people in that age — or in one specific aspect of it — cannot escape engaging with the themes of that context, its motifs and parameters. Consumerism and entrepreneurship are dominant themes of our age; if my column is right, they are a threat to our friendships. Other ages have had different themes and their friendships different dangers.
There is, of course, much more to be said about how consumerism and entrepreneurship endanger our friendships. I neglected to do so in the column because my goal in that short space was not so much critique as a description or a reminder of how we often still participate in relationships whose value is not the subject of most of our public discourse about them. To trace the development of consumerism and entrepreneurship in their particular character over the past 30 or 40 years, as well as their effects on our relationships, would require a much longer discussion as well as an engagement with many contemporary theorists and social scientists — basically, a book. What I counted on in the column was that there would be a resonance among readers for what was being suggested. If the comments are any indication, I was fortunate there as well.
A last note. Several comments suggested that there may be other ways to characterize friendship than by appeal to the Aristotelean distinctions I invoked. This is undoubtedly true. It is also true that there is a certain oversimplification to any categorization of friendship. There is more to Echo’s and E. Kelley’s friendships than the themes I have isolated here. What Aristotle offers us — and this over two millennia after his death — are tools that help us think about ourselves. It is not that there are three and only three types of friendships. Rather, in thinking about Aristotle’s categories of friendship in the context of our time we can begin to see ourselves and our relationships more clearly than we might otherwise. This is also true of many other philosophers, a number of whose names were invoked in the comments. It is what philosophers who stand the test of time offer us: not rigid categories to which we must conform, but instead ways of making sense of ourselves and our lives, of considering who we are, where we are, and what we might become.
Todd May is a professor of philosophy at Clemson University. He is the author 10 books, including “The Philosophy of Foucault” and “Death,” and is at work on a book about friendship in the contemporary period.
Kristie Arslan: Senate Wakes Up and Pays Attention to Small Business
On the eve of expiration for a number of key small business tax deductions and with the Small Business Administration running out of funding for small business loans, the U.S. Senate finally wakes up and begins to pay attention to small business. The same sector of the business community they have been touting will pull us out of this economic downturn.
With the guidance and leadership of Senator Mary Landrieu, the current chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Senate leadership has finally introduced legislation that includes help for our nation's smallest businesses. The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297) includes a one-year business tax deduction for health insurance costs for the self-employed, an increase in the start-up business expense deduction, expansion of Section 179 expensing limits, increases in SBA loan limits, and a new Small Business Lending Fund to help increase access to capital.
To make things even better, Senator Barbara Boxer, has introduced an amendment to the Small Business Jobs Act to create a standard home office deduction option. This would allow millions of qualifying home-based business owners to forgo complicated paperwork and calculations to take a simple, standard deduction which will save them both time and money.
Can it be that policymakers are realizing that the self-employed -- which number 23 million, represent 78 percent of all small businesses, and contribute close to $1 trillion to the U.S. economy -- are the economic backbone of our country?!
Whatever the impetus behind the Small Business Jobs Act, we're happy lawmakers are starting to pay attention to the self-employed.
For more information, please visit:
Senate Committee on Finance newsroom
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Scott Ballum: Radical Shopkeeping: Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the People
I often get asked to comment on entrepreneurship initiatives. Most commonly, the focus tends to be on "innovation", interpreted as hi-tech, and highly lucrative, endeavors. Why are there such distinctions made between entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and small business owners? We need them all, and we need them all to be innovative.
There's a neighborhood I've heard about, with the most remarkable sense of community. On one block there's a giant warehouse outfitted for woodworking, photo studios, computer rooms, and painters studios. Across the street two women collaborate with building owners to build rooftop gardens and parks. Last year, everyone in the neighborhood chipped in to help another pair of women open a bookstore so they would have a nurturing place to bring their kids together for story time and to meet their favorite authors. There are tree nurserys that work with the schools to teach about native plants and beekeeping; restaurants that exclusively serve food raised and prepared nearby; clothing boutiques that carry local designers' fashions, collective coffeeshops that sell fairtrade coffees next to another baker's cupcakes; homes use energy from the solar panels on their own roofs; and there's even a movement to create their own currency.
I admit, this isn't just one neighborhood in some small town somewhere. But these businesses are real, in real neighborhoods in real small towns and cities all over the country, as is the fact that they are supported by their communities as much as they make them better places in which to live. These are not boring nicnack shops, or franchise restaurants. They are vibrant, successful businesses run by passionate, driven individuals who know that we all have a responsibility to look at all sides, all ends, of everything we produce and consume. Just increasing our own personal wealth and our own influence is not enough, regardless of what you say you're going to do with the money later. If your heart is really in it, you'll look to see how you can make this a better, more sustainable, more accessible, more exciting place to live for as many people as possible with every decision you make.
Okay, none of these businesses are going to be the next Facebook, which seems to be the holy grail of entrepreneurship. But do we really need another place to play Farmville? How about a way to support actual farms? And you have to know that Facebook didn't spring from the head of Mark Zuckerberg fully formed. It was a place for college kids to stay connected. What if instead you put your energy behind connecting alternative energy sources, or connecting school kids with where their food comes from? Who knows where it will lead.
Somehow, small businesses have got a bad rap from the entrepreneurship community. Somehow if it doesn't incorporate VC's, business plan competitions, and massive potential for scalability, it isn't worth the brick and mortar it's built with. Unfortunately, if you believe that, you're missing out on hundreds of thousands of inspiring stories, and the chance to make a solid difference in the lives of people in your community, even if you won't make the cover of Forbes. So if these exciting business opportunities aren't in Silicon Valley, where are they?
Well, some of those businesses I mentioned--the artists workspace, the bookstore, and the greenroof landscapers--are in New York. Others are in San Diego, CA. And San Francisco, and Portland, OR. There are small business hubs in Denver, and Austin, and New Orleans. Of course, they are in fact in every city and town in the country. But if you just think about the old Main Street USA, you think of dry cleaners and teeshirt shops, and probably think 'how boring is that? I'd rather work on the next Facebook.'
Let me tell you about Holstee, a teeshirt company started by two brothers, Mike and Dave Radparvar, in their mid twenties. They had some nutty idea about putting a pocket on the side of a teeshirt. Not that great of an idea, maybe. But they didn't just think about pockets on teeshirts, they thought about how to make this the best damn teeshirt company in the world, using exclusively sustainably and safely made materials. They found fabrics that they track back to their source, they found seamstresses who believed in the project and then paid them a solid price for their labor, they slept on friends floors and ate ramen and put everything they had into building this product and building a website that would get it out into the world. They incorporated streaming music from the Holstee Boombox on their site, they wrote about the women building the shirts, they started selling products from other small companies they liked in their e-commerce site, they encourage visitors to be part of the community, saying "tell us what your skills are and we'll find a place for you to help". Another business that makes biodegradable dog poop bags -- I'm not kidding -- commented on their packaging, and now the Holstee shirts ship in biodegradable bags, that you can then take with you when you follow around your dog. Yes, all of these innovations have got them talked about in the press, and they're selling alot of teeshirts. And they're still two young brothers eating a lot of ramen, and having alot of fun, and doing alot of the right things by this planet. And I guarantee you they aren't working on their exit strategy.
Here's another story--a story as old as civilization--a guy got fed up with his corporate job selling consumer electronics, and decides to open a restaurant. Boring. But it wasn't because he was a good chef--he didn't know the first thing about cooking--it was because he loved everything about his neighborhood except that there wasn't a good, healthy, sit-down place to hang out with friends without getting on the freeway. And because he wasn't a 'restaurant guy', he didn't really know how the restaurant industry was run before getting into it--and it turns out it he didn't like it. He didn't like that the only suppliers in his region carried meats and produce from far outside the region, so he stopped buying from them and went to the local sources himself. He didn't like that his state's regulations on server's wages, combined with traditional tipping policies, actually incentivized poor service--so he paid everyone in his restaurant better, added a service fee, and abolished tipping. This all means that prices at his restaurant, San Diego's The Linkery, are higher than his neighbors', but it turns out that people are willing to pay for better food and better service. He promotes the farms and butchers that his food comes from, he collaborates with other local businesses to support biking and public transportation initiatives, and he doesn't try to compete with other restaurants that have popped up because in the end they're all serving his original purpose of making the neighborhood a better place. It's not boring, it's not been done. It's a totally innovative, forward thinking, controversial, news making local restaurant. And he would love for you to open another one around the corner.
Somewhere along the line we forgot that this is entrepreneurship, too. Maybe because its easier to search for Mark Zuckerberg than it is to learn about the woman who started the organic ice cream shop at the end of the block. But at one point, actually making something was an honorable trade, and contributing to making your community a great place to live got you keys to the city and a photo on the front page. Sure, what we make and what we sell might be different now--for our planet's sake I hope it is--but we can still use our creativity, our passion, our drive, our entrepreneurial spirit without losing sight of our neighbors.
I don't know if there's really one neighborhood anywhere with community bookstores and artists spaces and urban gardens and organic ice cream shops and beekeeping and local produce and revolutionary restaurants and internet teeshirt shops all on the same block. But wouldn't it be an awesome country to live in if we made that every neighborhood?
Photo: Michael McGuan of the North Park Meat Co., by Doug Gates
Follow Scott Ballum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sheeplessco
Arianna Huffington: The Unemployment Benefits Stalemate: Our Broken Politics on Full Display
It's a terrible calamity that those in charge never should have allowed to happened, it's doing incalculable damage that will last for generations, and even as the destruction continues to spread, the government seems powerless to stop it.
No, I'm not talking about BP and the Gulf. I'm talking about President Obama, the millions of unemployed Americans, and the gulf between what needs to be done to deal with the jobs crisis and what is actually being done. It speaks volumes about our country and our deeply dysfunctional political system that not only have we been unable to bring the unemployment rate down, we can't even pass a bill extending unemployment benefits.
As the Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney points out, by the end of this week, Congress' failure to act will bring the total number of long-term unemployed prematurely cut off from aid to 2.5 million. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' June 2010 numbers, the unemployment rate is currently 9.5 percent. Almost half of those out of work have been looking for a job for over six months. What's more, the only reason the unemployment rate went down .2 percent in June is because over 650,000 people had become so discouraged they left the workforce altogether and are no longer being counted. Also not being counted are the underemployed -- those hoping for full-time work who've had to settle for part-time jobs. When you factor them in, you have nearly 26 million people who are unemployed or underemployed. And, over the next few months, upwards of 700,000 Census workers will be looking for a job, their services not required for another ten years.
And yet our system seems incapable of doing the obviously right thing. Yes, some of the hold-up in extending unemployment benefits has to do with the intricacies regarding the replacement of the late Senator Robert Byrd. But the fact that something so necessary to the well-being of the country has to come down to arcane Senate procedures is a gigantic warning sign of how seriously out of whack our nation's priorities have become.
The White House has the ultimate PR weapon -- the president's bully pulpit. But he seems unwilling to use it on this issue. Why isn't his administration doing everything possible to make it impossible for Congress not to pass the extension? If you'd told the members of Obama's team during their first week in office that, come the summer of 2010, unemployment benefits, which were routinely extended under President Bush, would be allowed to expire for over 40 days and counting, they -- to borrow a phrase from Richard Clarke -- would have been running around with their hair on fire. And rightly so. Yet does anybody see that kind of urgency coming out of the White House? Not just about extending unemployment benefits, but about creating jobs.
Instead, the administration keeps reminding us how much worse things were before it took office. "Understand," Robert Gibbs said Sunday on Meet the Press, "the last six months of 2008, we saw an economy that shed three million jobs. The first six months of 2010, the economy has created 600,000 private sector jobs...We think if you take a look backwards and look forwards, there's no doubt that we're on the right path." We may be on the right path, but we're traveling down it at a snail's pace when we should be putting the pedal to the metal.
Maybe one of the reasons the administration is so reluctant to take on the ludicrous Republican economic arguments currently holding the country hostage is that it has adopted so many of them itself. Which is why we get nonsense like this, from Tim Geithner last week: "This president understands deeply that governments don't create jobs, businesses create jobs."
Has the Treasury Secretary never heard of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority? If so, why is he cynically mouthing GOP claptrap?
The two main Republican arguments against extending benefits -- that they will add to the deficit, and that they make people less likely to look for work -- are easily shot down.
Dean Baker makes quick work of the deficit argument:
"The latest extension of unemployment benefits would have added $22 billion to the debt by the end of 2011. This means that the debt would be $9,807,000,000 instead of $9,785,000,000 at the end of fiscal 2011, an increase of the debt to GDP ratio from 65.3 percent to 65.4 percent."As for the claim that unemployment insurance keeps people from seeking a job, a report by Congress' Joint Economic Committee found it to be less than credible:
"The best evidence suggests that during this current economic downturn both the unemployment rate and duration of unemployment were minimally impacted by unemployment insurance benefits and the extensions of benefits. To the extent that the unemployment rate even rises, UI may be providing an enormous social benefit by preventing people not from taking jobs, but from dropping out of the labor force altogether (and often permanently), relying instead on more costly programs like disability benefits."The report also notes that the average weekly benefit comes in at 25 percent below the poverty level for a family of four. So are we to believe that millions of people are not looking for jobs so they can maintain the cushy lifestyles enjoyed by those living well below the poverty rate? Shouldn't the president and his team be banging home the ridiculousness of these claims -- and the hardheartedness of those who make them?
Since the jobs crisis is clearly the most pressing domestic problem facing the country right now, it's hard to figure out what's worse: the fact that our system seems unable to do anything about high unemployment, or the growing acceptance that this is just the way things are in America today.
THISDAY ONLINE / Nigeria news / African views on global news
FG Partners US, ADPED on Youth Entrepreneurship
From Senator Iroegbu and Abimbola Ajani in Abuja, 07.13.2010
The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), has partnered with Africa-Diaspora Partnership for Empowerment and Development (ADPED) and Barry University of Miami to empower and train 60 youths on entrepreneurship, thereby creating self employment for the growth of the country.
The Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Programme (YEP) which is funded by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Exchange seeks to provide expert training to 60 youths in areas of entrepreneurship and economic development.
The Director General of SMEDAN, Alhaji Umar Nadada while addressing the press in Abuja, stated that the partnership with these bodies will not only empower the youths and create employment but it will uplift the nation’s development.
“The future of the country is in the hands of the youths, they need more attention and clearing unemployed youths off the street by empowering and training them on how to develop Small and Medium Scale Enterprise is for the good of the country”, Nadada said.He expressed appreciation at the interest of ADPED and Barry University in the development and empowerment of the youths, saying it will go a long way to assist the federal government in the fight against poverty.
The minister of state, for commerce and industry, Ms Josephine Tapgun during the courtesy visit of SMEDAN and ADPED to her office said that training youths is very laudable and it is line with the provisions the present administration is trying to input into the system.Tapgun stated that the orientation most Nigerians have about industry is that of a gigantic structure but in reality it has to start with small and Medium Enterprises. She added that all hands must be on deck to ensure that positive development occurs in the country.
The trainers in charge of YEP, ably led by Dr. Adewale Alonge visited some SMEs in the Federal Capital Territory, namely Kugbo Furniture Cluster and Government Secondary School Jikwoyi , taking notes on their challenges and seeking ways to further educate these entrepreneurs.
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Mini Startups » Archiwa bloga » Entrepreneurship
Are you interested in the topic of entrepreneurship? It is well made, as this article will describe the most important information about entrepreneurship. What is this entire enterprise? The easiest way would be to explain that this is a character trait or set of characteristics in a group, and behaviors appropriate for true entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is also seen as an important production factor, next to labor, land and capital. The establishment must demonstrate the ability to see above all the needs and improvement ideas, the ability to use the much easier way, as well as the courage to take violent, but important decisions. In addition, you have to be expansive, that you have the ability to match the best and strongest on the market also need to put a high, while ambitious goals, which obviously then translates to better advantage. To this must be innovative – you are here to seek out and bring new ideas, of course, though it was not such good ideas that will bring tangible benefit to the company. The business can be divided into several theories, but all of them here I will not write in, but I give this second A certain scholar Kinght (1921) – believed that entrepreneurship is contact with the uncertainty and risk. The second scholar Schumpeter (1934) – he considered his theory that the establishment has to carry out new combinations in the organization of the company (such as adding new products, finding new sources of raw materials, introducing new working methods, etc.). Each of these theories is of course good in its own way, but all at once can not be used, though perhaps with some, yes, but certainly not all.
Social Entrepreneurship: Leveraging Your Masa Israel Experience for Success « The Masa Israel Journey Blog
Masa Israel Journey strives to engage talented young adults in the global Jewish community, bolstering the next generation of Jewish leadership with a cohort of passionate, innovative individuals who have deep, personal connections to Israel. Through the Masa Israel Community, participants have access to leadership training during your time abroad. Now that you’re back, you have access to conferences, networking opportunities and leadership development programs .
Many Masa Israel participants come up with ideas about how to improve the global Jewish community while they are in Israel, and some have the chance to explore those ideas further on Building Future Leaders (BFL) shabbatonim and seminars with Masa Israel staff. A number of Masa Israel alumni are already proven thought leaders, bringing innovative new ideas to the Jewish world and taking part in a variety of prestigious incubator programs. Even if you didn’t get a head start in Israel, there are many organizations that offer outstanding opportunities for Birthright and Masa Israel alumni to develop and launch initiatives within the Jewish world.
PresenTense Social Entrepreneur Fellowship
The PresenTense Summer Institute, an intensive six-week bootcamp for entrepreneurs in Jerusalem, brings together innovators on the cutting edge of creativity: programmers and designers, informal educators and rappers, nonprofit managers, biotech visionaries and anyone with a vision and a portfolio of innovation who is dedicated to solving problems facing the Jewish People and the world. Fellows receive training in the practical skills of social start-up development and guidance from PresenTense and the PresenTense Network in launching their ventures into the world. To learn more about the PresenTense Summer Institute, visit http://www.presentensefellowship.com.Spotlight: Matt Bar, Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies Alumnus
While studying at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studie, Matt Bar was selected to be part of Masa Israel’s Building Future Leadership (BFL) Seminar Series, a professional and unique leadership seminar that enables participants to develop an educational-social project for implementation in Israel or back in their communities of origin. There, and at the PresentTense Institute for Creative Judaism, Bar developed the Bible Raps Project, which aims to excite young Jews about Judaism and Jewish text. Bar approaches selected biblical narratives and quotes set to a modern beat. The Bible Raps Curriculum is now used in more than 150 classrooms in 20 cities and six countries, garnering Bar a nomination as a Jewish Community Hero.
Joshua Venture Group
The Joshua Venture Group invests in leaders with unique ideas that they believe will significantly impact the Jewish world. Social entrepreneurs selected to participate in the group’s Dual Investment Program receive more than $100,000 in funding and support – including training, exposure and access to networks in the Jewish world – which equips them to realize their visions and transform the Jewish landscape. To learn more about the Joshua Venture Group, visit http://joshuaventuregroup.org/.
Spotlight: Eli Winkelman, Young Judaea Year Course
After participating on the Young Judaea Year Course gap year program in Israel, Eli Winkelman launched a program called Challah for Hunger as an undergraduate at Scripps College. The idea started out small: bake fresh, delicious challah every week and sell it to students and faculty to raise money for hunger and disaster relief. The program was a hit (even former President Clinton took notice) and began to spread to other colleges. By 2009, Challah for Hunger had chapters on 30 campuses across the country and had raised more than $130,000, with half of the proceeds going to American Jewish World Service’s Sudan Relief and Advocacy Fund and half going to local, national, or international organizations chosen by campus organizers. Eli has participated in the ROI summit, was a PresenTense Fellow in 2007, and was recently selected as a Joshua Venture Fellow. She was named one of the NY Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” in 2010, attended the White House Jewish American Heritage Month reception, hosted by President and Mrs. Barack Obama.To learn more about Challah for Hunger, visit http://www.challahforhunger.org/.
ROI Community for Young Jewish Innovators
Founded in Jerusalem in the summer of 2006, ROI is a global community of outstandingly creative individuals who have a personal vision about how to make the Jewish world a better place. Built around intensive networking and skill-building activities in Jerusalem, online, and around the world, ROI enhances its members’ ability to re-create community in their own image. ROI embraces the diversity and dynamism of Jewish life, with a youthful energy that represents its best hope for the future.
Spotlight: Olga Skulovich
Now an ecological analyst working on her Ph.D, Olga Skulovitch spent five months on a Masa Israel program in Haifa , an experience she recognized as linking her future and her community’s future to Israel’s. After moving back to her home in Belarus, Olga and her sister launched the “Mind Games” project, which utilized a popular quiz show model to promote Jewish education in the Belarussian Jewish community through questions on Jewish history, Jewish tradition and Israel. Olga is a member of the ROI Community and attended the ROI Summit in 2009.Masa Israel is continuing to foster innovation and leadership in the Jewish world through the first annual Masa Israel Leadership Summit, taking place on July 18th, 2010 in New York City. Successful Masa Israel alumni and community members will be there to tell you how you can get involved, launch your own initiatives and assume leadership roles in the community. Register now.
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allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Chinhoyi University Shines
Published by the government of ZimbabweZimbabwe: Chinhoyi University Shines
13 July 2010
Chinhoyi — THE Chinhoyi University of Technology this year won the Boost-Sife competition for outstanding community projects by university students.
The competition fosters entrepreneurship and the spirit of helping communities develop through imparting life skills.
CUT will now represent Zimbabwe in Los Angeles, the United States, at an international competition pitting them against universities and institutions of higher learning from about 60 countries.
The university beat 10 other local institutions to win the coveted trophy and a ticket to represent Zimbabwe on the international arena.
Speaking at a reception for the winning team, CUT Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr Pardon Kuipa said excellence did not end with academic achievement but should be complemented by community involvement.
CUT's winning formula was pinned on three projects in Wedza, Kariba and Chinhoyi where they conducted workshops with artists and distributed models on financial intelligence, market economics and entrepreneurship.
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This saw the improvement of artists' revenue streams after they embraced modern marketing systems and bookkeeping techniques.
Boost stands for Building Opportunities on Student Talent and aims to equip university students with skills to become future community and national leaders.
Sife is an international organisation running under the Boost Fellowship and stands for Students in Free Enterprise.
Dr Kuipa said the competition helped mould complete students who would be able to contribute meaningfully to national development.
Project co-ordinator Mr Chenjerai Muchenje said a lot was put into their preparations for the competition to shrug off the challenge of last year's winner, Africa University.
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Facebook | Tim McClew: 'Science of the Soul': To give is to receive
My friend Tim McClew wrote this great article about the new science. The science of the soul. Great information.
4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook
Leyl Master Black is a Managing Director at Sparkpr, one of the world’s top independent PR agencies. Leyl has more than 15 years experience driving high-impact communications programs for emerging technology companies.
A couple of months ago, we talked about ways to engage your fan base on Facebook. Several readers asked how B2B companies could take advantage of the tips we shared, and I know that some organizations are still wondering if it even makes sense to try to reach a business audience on Facebook (
).
In my view, Facebook presents a unique opportunity to connect with and educate your target market in a way that your website and even your blog can’t match. The trick is coming up with meaningful content that people will want to share, and that brings them back again and again.
Here are some tips for creating a powerful presence on Facebook that will engage a business audience.
1. Become an Industry Resource
Whatever business you’re in, chances are that you’re keeping up with industry news and maybe even writing about it on your blog. You’re likely running educational webinars or speaking at industry conferences. You’re also engaging with customers, helping to solve their business problems and maybe even documenting the process with case studies. This means that you probably already have a large number of resources to share. Why not funnel this content onto Facebook and make your Page the go-to place for insights and information on your particular industry?
A good example of this approach is 360i, an award-winning digital marketing agency. Tapping the deep expertise of its team, 360i keeps its Facebook Page updated with industry insights on topics that matter to the brand marketing audience, such as how businesses are taking advantage of Google Places or new trends with Foursquare.
The 360i team showcases industry research and reviews cool new technologies that marketers can use in their programs. They post a weekly summary of all the important industry news, and provide readers with astute commentary that puts the news into context. In short, they’ve positioned themselves as experts in digital marketing and become a valuable resource for their target audience on Facebook.
2. Engage the Community
In the past, your customers may have had little interaction with each other, and the outside world could only see a list of customers on your website (if you put them there). As a marketer, you wouldn’t know what all your customers were doing with your products, or even how to reach them.
Now, you can use Facebook to engage directly with your customers and make them part of your marketing efforts. For example, you can ask customers to share their successes on your wall and get feedback on new product features. You can encourage them to recognize great service people and reward them for their input with a discount or other promotion. You can also solicit customer references for case studies and media opportunities and find out who’s doing something innovative with your product.
BigCommerce, a company that offers e-commerce shopping cart software, routinely reaches out to its Facebook fan base to identify reference customers and uncover interesting use cases for the media. For example, when the company wanted to promote the success of its recently launched Facebook shopping application, they simply posted a query on their page asking which customers had seen a boost in sales from the application and who would be willing to talk to the media. Within 24 hours, the company had generated fifteen new customer references and were able to immediately turn this information into media coverage.
3. Expand Beyond Your Wall
There are now a host of different applications for Facebook that let you do more than post on your wall. If you’re selling B2B products online, you can set up a shopping tab on your page to drive traffic to your e-commerce site and encourage viral sharing of your products. Get Satisfaction (
), a popular social CRM and customer support platform, recently launched a Facebook version of its application so your customers can ask questions and get support right on your Facebook Page.
You can also set up a promotions tab using Fan Appz to offer special deals to your Facebook fans and even use these deals to support lead generation programs. For example, if you sell software licenses, you could offer a 20% discount on the annual fee for people who enter the promotion code at an upcoming webinar or bring the coupon to your booth at a conference.
4. Lighten Up
While many of us use Facebook in our day-to-day business, the vast majority are usually there to have fun and engage with friends. So no matter how serious your product is, inject some humor and levity into your page.
For example, if you’re selling enterprise security software, why not do a poll where people rate the most evil tech baddies in films like Hackers and The Terminator? If you’re a marketing agency, you could do a “Which Mad Men Character Are You?” quiz that assigns users an identity based on their answers, which can then be shared with their friends. Just keep it relevant to your industry and safe-for-work.
And even if your website needs to stay “all business,” Facebook is where you can give a face and personality to the company. You could do an “employee of the month” feature on the page where you profile someone who’s making a big difference at the company or who achieved a significant milestone. Include photos or even a short video.
You can highlight what the company or employees are doing in the community or in support of a particular cause, which has the added benefit of putting the weight of your fan base behind these efforts. You can also consider posting behind-the-scenes photos of engineers hard at work on the next product release, or a smiling customer service rep on the phone with a client. All of these ideas will help your fans make a stronger and more personal connection with your company.
These are just a few examples of how companies can use Facebook to engage with B2B customers, and I’m sure there are many more out there. If you’re using Facebook to market to other businesses, I’d love to hear what else has worked for you!
More business resources from Mashable:
- 10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers
- 13 Essential Social Media Lessons for B2B Marketers from the Masters
- How Venture Capitalists are Using Social Media for Real Results
- Why Co-Working Makes Sense for Small Businesses
- What Facebook’s Open Graph Means for Your BusinessFor more Business coverage:
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