bono's prayer breakfast remarks

A friend recently forwarded me Bono's February 2nd prayer breakfast speech. I love the awareness that he is bringing to the plight of the poor. I love his genuine spirit. He has done a tremendous amount of work in raising money and eliminating the debt of the oppressed. I do pray that we better unite to bring both temporal and eternal hope and relief. I don't believe these to be independent - Jesus modeled service to the whole of the person.

a room with a view

I’m typing this from the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle Washington. It’s a beautiful hotel – elegant and stylish with textures of wood and marble. It’s very well done. Staying here makes me feel important.

I’m here because of a Partner Advisory Council that Microsoft hosts twice a year. I get together with a couple dozen peers from around the world to meet with Microsoft, get an early preview of what’s coming, and influence their strategy for Collaboration and Portals. It’s exclusive. Participating makes me feel important. Better yet, telling other people that I participate makes me feel important.

I don’t like this about myself. I don’t like that these externals have the power to affect my self worth in any way.

I would often stay in nice five star hotels during my trips to India. They were not dissimilar to the hotel that I’m in now except for one thing - the view. My current view overlooks the streets of Seattle. The clean lines of the high rise buildings etched against water and snow capped peaks in the distances. My view in India was not clean – but of the poorest of the poor. People living in slums slammed together in one large garbage laden slow moving organism. Watching people suffer below my five star window didn’t make me feel important. I felt guilt, sorrow, and hopelessness. But I quickly moved on. I did nothing. I suppose that I had more important things to take care of.

Why is true of us? Why is this true of me?

“And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” – Mark 4:18,19

fractured body

I was recently listening to NPR on my morning commute. They were reporting that countries around the world were in London discussing the strategies for the future of Afghanistan (link to article). It struck me. In spite of significant ideological differences, a broken and secular world seems to be better equipped to unify in addressing global needs than the fractured body of Christ. Why are we not meeting together to develop strategies for reaching the lost with the Good News?

Break us. Forgive us. Heal us.

Give us the ability to lead in Jesus name.

collaborative forms

My current professional life is focused on technical solutions to better enable both inter and extra corporate collaboration. When speaking with companies about the need and value of collaboration, I find that we often get tripped up in problems of ambiguity with the term itself. For clarity, I use the following model when speaking about collaborative forms with clients.

Communities of Interest are loose associations of like-minded people with some common pursuit. They don't necessarily work in concert, but derive some benefit from being associated with one another. A professional association is a good example of a community of interest - something like AERDO in the area of Christian relief. While participants all have interest in Christ-centered relief work, a community of interest may bring together organizations with different specialties (child relief and education, AIDS relief, etc.)

Communities of Practice are more formal in nature but not necessarily exclusive. These groups generally have some common objective in mind - although the objective may evolve over time. While a community of interest may bring together those with like interests but with different focus, a community of practice focus on a particular aspect of like interest. For example: child relief and education. Or, the community of practice could cross different types of relief, but focus on some aspect of it … for example, a group of organizations that routinely submit and evaluate impact assessments for the purpose of improving field effectiveness. Participants not only benefit from association, but serve to benefit the whole through codification of best practices, formal knowledge sharing and feedback mechanisms.

Formalized Teams have controlled membership and are formed with one particular objective. It's focus is tactical collaboration. The team typically has a lifespan (could be renewable) based upon what it is intended to do. The team could be made of up like individuals (a medical relief team) or be more cross functional in nature.

The final form of collaboration occurs through what I call Linear Cooperation. These are extremely well structured partnerships that allow people or organizations to focus on a specialty that feeds a very specific objective. It allows each participant the ability to serve the whole while maximizing efficiencies and minimizing waste. While extremely efficient, these teams require a maturity and tight alignment of purpose and role. In essence, its Ford's assembly line. One organization might focus on raising funds to feed an organization that manages logistics for another that handles field distribution working with someone else who handles medical care.