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Greetings friends in FLOW,
Well, I have to admit that the FLOW Action has been so voluminous, that I have not been able to maintain the level of communications about it that I aspire to. I trust that you will pardon the lapse in communications, and receive this brief update as a reflection of recent, current, and upcoming FLOW Action.
Here’s what I’ll cover:
* Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Events & Activities
* FLOW in the Media
* Peace Through Commerce Development
* The FLOW Book – Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good
* The FLOW Web Site
* A call for help - Bangladesh
We wish you a happy, healthy holiday season and a flow-filled New Year, and we look forward to working with you to make the world a safer, happier, healthier place for all, by liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good®.
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Events & Activities
One of the key themes that comes up for me as I reflect on the recent Empowering Women Entrepreneurs events in Austin and San Rafael is gratitude. The other, humility. My goodness, it took so much effort, energy, and thoughtful attention, on the part of so many people to make these events happen, and to make them the success that they were. From the event team and the event partners and presenters to the dozens of people who attended the events, for 7 hours each of the three days, so many people have helped to inform, influence, and bring the events to life.
Special thanks to co-designer and facilitator Alicia Stammer, who volunteered to collaborate on the project in May during a FLOW Activation Circle meeting in San Francisco, and who has been steadfast and focused ever since. We will soon be posting notes from the events produced by Graphic Facilitator Diana Arsenian. On the EWE Page of our new web site, you can find one of her images produced for the events, representing the Women’s Economic Empowerment System, as we presently envision it, soon to be refined with input from event participants.
Our next EWE event will be a small, private retreat in March, with representatives from organizations in all sectors, convening to collaborate on specific on-the-ground initiatives and to explore ways to collaborate on our EWE Outreach and Education Program.
We are looking ahead to presenting events in connection with the Working Group on Women’s Economic Empowerment, chaired by Barbara Barrett, and to launching a college campus tour in collaboration with Students of the World, and others, late 2008 or early 2009. We will keep you posted.
You help give women in difficult circumstances an opportunity this Holiday Season by contributing to development projects via GlobalGiving and by buying gifts made by women entrepreneurs through World of Good, SURevolution, and EDI Imports, among others. You can also make loans to women social entrepreneurs via eBay’s new Microplace web portal.
FLOW in the Media
The EWE events catalyzed a flurry of media coverage in Austin and the SF Bay Area. Thanks to Katherine Goff at Elizabeth Christian & Associate Public Relations in Austin and to Steven Van Yoder and Amabelle Mosteiro of Get the Word Out Communications in San Francisco for their support.
Here is a link to a brief report on the Austin event from KUT radio.
And a longer interview with Michael on What if it Really Works, which aired a couple days before the events.
Here’s a sample of the kind of print coverage we received in advance – this one for the event in San Rafael.
Austin Woman magazine will be publishing an extensive article in their next issue.
Peace Through Commerce Development
We have begun collaboration with Free to Choose Media to develop a brief PTC promotional video, which will represent our intentions and approach to building the PTC program, and to develop and produce a 15-minute PTC video principally for distribution to schools in North America through Izzit Media.
We are beginning to plan for a Peace Through Commerce retreat, and for a PTC event in connection with FLOW Day at FreedomFest next July in Las Vegas.
Michael continues to collect content for a PTC curriculum, and to build relationships with allies to take the message to policy makers, academics, and the general public.
The FLOW Book – Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good
We are truly almost done with a complete draft. The newest installment is Section V, principally by Michael, entitled Making the World a Better Place Through Entrepreneurship and Markets. You can find it, as well as Sections I – Introduction: The Source of FLOW and Section II - The Direction of FLOW, at our recently launched new web site.
Next month we will publish Section IV - Conscious Capitalism: Changing the Course of the Mainstream, with the remaining Sections to follow shortly thereafter.
The FLOW Web Site
The new web site is ready for test-driving. We are adding new content pages and welcome entries into the wiki/database. We’ll send more information soon, when we have populated the wiki with more content, as well as added more static FLOW content pages.
This is, by design and necessity, a collaborative, community project!
A call for help - Bangladesh
Our friend Susan Davis, VP of Ashoka and Chair of the Grameen Foundation US, has asked us to notify you of the work Ashoka Global Academy member Fazle Abed's BRAC is doing to respond to the cyclone in Bangladesh. Like Grameen, they are a great entrepreneurial social enterprise.
Yours in flow,
Jeff Klein
Executive Director &
Chief Activation Officer
FLOW
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