One piece of paper and two pens – how can you get involved?

A very wise man said to me recently:

Forget bronze, silver, gold sponsorship packages, you just need one piece of paper and two pens.

He was a wise man and he is right.

As you will have seen from an earlier post, Young Rewired State is growing – we are ambitious and unfunded, but we are focused and we will do this.

Many of you want to join in and this can only be achieved with community effort and a determination to enable global change. It is all very well me broadcasting what we intend to do, but that is useless if I don’t do it with a piece of paper and two pens.

History has taught me that community and volunteer help is as wonderful as it is debilitating. Everyone wants to help, I have failed at enabling this help in a focused way.

So here I am… pick up your pen

You have read the ambition, here is how you can join in. We need:

• evangelists – horrible term but it will do. We need to spread the word and if all you do is that – it is enough. One more coding child joining the community as a result of your sharing what we are doing, is a great achievement
• money – we cannot be turned into a body shop and we must maintain independence. Do you know anyone with a CSR challenge or social enterprise fund we can apply to/take for lunch? Make the introduction – that is enough
• staff – we will need to staff up in 2013, do you know anyone awesome who is looking for work? send us their details
• developer networks – do you belong to or know any developer networks worldwide who would be interested in being foster parents for Young Rewired State? Introduce them
• media – we cannot fell trees in a silent wood, we need media to amplify what is happening, both to attract isolated youngsters and to showcase the results. If you have media pals who may want to write about us, tell us

You can be a part of this, indeed we cannot really do this without you.

Pour coffee into sachet

There is something bothering me about politicians…

Surely not everyone who goes into politics is corrupt – yet that seems to be the general opinion. What happened to the person who was so determined to help the lives of himself/herself and fellow citizens? So much so that they dedicate themselves to public service? I refuse to believe that every one of them fell foul of some  mystical spell that turned each of them into self-serving , corrupt individuals.

We citizens are not stupid; explain what you (politicians) are trying to do, why and how – and we will get it! We may not support every policy as an individual, but if you explain the background – we will be able to compute what you are saying (and argue intelligently if necessary).

This works in international politics as well.

Politicians are not a breed or animal any different to homo sapiens – there is no barrier except one that is perceived or projected.

So why do we find it so hard to communicate? Why are we more content identifying and vilifying the one rotten apple, thereby brushing aside the fact that we need to understand and support the earnest intentions of the rest of those politicians who are determined to make some sense of the management of this country?

The job I choose to do is around enabling this explanation to happen, but I am increasingly frustrated by the reluctance to listen. I can enable communication until your ears bleed, but if there is no willingness to listen then there seems little point.

Democracy relies on the intelligence and candidacy of the community – should we not start taking account of our own actions?

It is too easy to lay blame at the door of corruption – pour sugar into sachet… we need to wake up.