#TMB #AmaLartey #Ghana #tedtalk #TEDxAccra #ReachForChange #Ethopia
The new wave of #business, #reinventing business in a way drives #socialvalue but also create a #financial retain.
Introduction
Problems are complex they arrive out of long history.
Problem sometimes feels like a fixed wall.
There are people who insist that problem needs to be solved and solved now.
Their approach is a way that sustainable merges business principles with social passion. They are called Social entrepreneurs.
Highlight of Some social Entrepreneur
Tesfadesh
She leaves in Adis ababa, she is bothered with young mothers on the street.
Her idea is a sustainable business to
1. Create a local food product factory using an ingredient that will make the price of injera(a food), the food cheaper than market price.
2. Vocational skills training
She trained the street mother how make the food in a better quality and pay them to be able to:
1. Take care o themselves
2. Have their children to school
3. Rent an apartment
4. Transform their lives
Hearnest
His sister died because of no blood donor.
His idea is to use his application for blood donors to register and capture the blood donors information like blood type.
Information Captured is to:
1. Engage them on health issues
2. To send targeted message to them when someone of their blood type needs blood.
His hope is to transform health care and blood delivery System.
Naomi
She spent many years in the hospital and her idea is to create schools in the hospital for children like her.
James
He was trafficked as a child and his idea is to rescue children from trafficking and integrate them into the society.
Why are Social Entrepreneur Successful
1. They have a deep knowledge about the problem
2. Their solutions were from the deep knowledge of those problems.
Lessons
1. Local Entrepreneur are needed
2. Funding is important
3. Build a team that's is as passionate as you are.
4. Have sustainable revenue stream not dependent on donors.
Don't join the critics be part of the solution no just for financial retain but to solve social problems.
#TMB #CameronRussell at #TEDxMidAtlantic #2012
Looks aren't everything. #Believe me, I'm a #model
Acknowledge the #power of #image in our perceived #successes and our perceived #failures.
0:11
Hi. My name is Cameron Russell, and for the last little while, I've been a model. Actually, for 10 years. And I feel like there's an uncomfortable tension in the room right now because I should not have worn this dress.
0:31
(Laughter)
0:32
So luckily, I brought an outfit change. This is the first outfit change on the TED stage, so you guys are pretty lucky to witness it, I think. If some of the women were really horrified when I came out, you don't have to tell me now, but I'll find out later on Twitter.
0:48
(Laughter)
0:53
I'd also note that I'm quite privileged to be able to transform what you think of me in a very brief 10 seconds. Not everybody gets to do that. These heels are very uncomfortable, so good thing I wasn't going to wear them. The worst part is putting this sweater over my head, because that's when you'll all laugh at me, so don't do anything while it's over my head. All right.
1:21
So, why did I do that? That was awkward.
1:25
(Laughter)
1:27
Well --
1:29
(Laughter)
1:31
Hopefully not as awkward as that picture. Image is powerful, but also, image is superficial. I just totally transformed what you thought of me, in six seconds. And in this picture, I had actually never had a boyfriend in real life. I was totally uncomfortable, and the photographer was telling me to arch my back and put my hand in that guy's hair. And of course, barring surgery, or the fake tan that I got two days ago for work, there's very little that we can do to transform how we look, and how we look, though it is superficial and immutable, has a huge impact on our lives.
2:19
So today, for me, being fearless means being honest. And I am on this stage because I am a model. I am on this stage because I am a pretty, white woman, and in my industry, we call that a sexy girl. I'm going to answer the questions that people always ask me, but with an honest twist.
2:37
So the first question is, how do you become a model? I always just say, "Oh, I was scouted," but that means nothing. The real way that I became a model is I won a genetic lottery, and I am the recipient of a legacy, and maybe you're wondering what is a legacy. Well, for the past few centuries we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we're biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures, and femininity and white skin. And this is a legacy that was built for me, and it's a legacy that I've been cashing out on. And I know there are people in the audience who are skeptical at this point, and maybe there are some fashionistas who are like, "Wait. Naomi. Tyra. Joan Smalls. Liu Wen." And first, I commend you on your model knowledge. Very impressive.
3:27
(Laughter)
3:29
But unfortunately, I have to inform you that in 2007, a very inspired NYU Ph.D. student counted all the models on the runway, every single one that was hired, and of the 677 models that were hired, only 27, or less than four percent, were non-white.
3:46
The next question people always ask is, "Can I be a model when I grow up?" And the first answer is, "I don't know, they don't put me in charge of that." But the second answer, and what I really want to say to these little girls is, "Why? You know? You can be anything. You could be the President of the United States, or the inventor of the next Internet, or a ninja cardiothoracic surgeon poet, which would be awesome, because you'd be the first one."
4:08
(Laughter)
4:11
If, after this amazing list, they still are like, "No, no, Cameron, I want to be a model," well, then I say, "Be my boss." Because I'm not in charge of anything, and you could be the editor in chief of American Vogue or the CEO of H&M, or the next Steven Meisel. Saying that you want to be a model when you grow up is akin to saying that you want to win the Powerball when you grow up. It's out of your control, and it's awesome, and it's not a career path.
4:35
I will demonstrate for you now 10 years of accumulated model knowledge, because unlike cardiothoracic surgeons, it can just be distilled right now. So, if the photographer is right there, the light is right there, like a nice HMI, and the client says, "We want a walking shot," this leg goes first, nice and long, this arm goes back, this arm goes forward, the head is at three quarters, and you just go back and forth, just do that, and then you look back at your imaginary friends, 300, 400, 500 times.
5:02
(Laughter)
5:04
It will look something like this.
5:06
(Laughter)
5:08
Hopefully less awkward than that one in the middle. That was -- I don't know what happened there.
5:13
Unfortunately, after you've gone to school, and you have a résumé and you've done a few jobs, you can't say anything anymore, so if you say you want to be the President of the United States, but your résumé reads, "Underwear Model: 10 years," people give you a funny look.
5:26
The next question is, "Do they retouch all the photos?" And yeah, they pretty much retouch all the photos, but that is only a small component of what's happening. This picture is the very first picture that I ever took, and it's also the very first time that I had worn a bikini, and I didn't even have my period yet. I know we're getting personal, but I was a young girl. This is what I looked like with my grandma just a few months earlier. Here's me on the same day as this shoot. My friend got to come. Here's me at a slumber party a few days before I shot French Vogue. Here's me on the soccer team and in V Magazine. And here's me today. And I hope what you're seeing is that these pictures are not pictures of me. They are constructions, and they are constructions by a group of professionals, by hairstylists and makeup artists and photographers and stylists and all of their assistants and pre-production and post-production, and they build this. That's not me.
6:20
Okay, so the next question people always ask me is, "Do you get free stuff?"
6:24
(Laughter)
6:25
I do have too many 8-inch heels which I never get to wear, except for earlier, but the free stuff that I get is the free stuff that I get in real life, and that's what we don't like to talk about.
6:35
I grew up in Cambridge, and one time I went into a store and I forgot my money and they gave me the dress for free. When I was a teenager, I was driving with my friend who was an awful driver and she ran a red and of course, we got pulled over, and all it took was a "Sorry, officer," and we were on our way. And I got these free things because of how I look, not who I am, and there are people paying a cost for how they look and not who they are.
7:01
I live in New York, and last year, of the 140,000 teenagers that were stopped and frisked, 86% of them were black and Latino, and most of them were young men. And there are only 177,000 young black and Latino men in New York, so for them, it's not a question of, "Will I get stopped?" but "How many times will I get stopped? When will I get stopped?" When I was researching this talk, I found out that of the 13-year-old girls in the United States, 53% don't like their bodies, and that number goes to 78% by the time that they're 17.
7:32
So, the last question people ask me is, "What is it like to be a model?" And I think the answer that they're looking for is, "If you are a little bit skinnier and you have shinier hair, you will be so happy and fabulous." And when we're backstage, we give an answer that maybe makes it seem like that. We say, "It's really amazing to travel, and it's amazing to get to work with creative, inspired, passionate people." And those things are true, but they're only one half of the story, because the thing that we never say on camera, that I have never said on camera, is, "I am insecure." And I'm insecure because I have to think about what I look like every day. And if you ever are wondering, "If I have thinner thighs and shinier hair, will I be happier?" you just need to meet a group of models, because they have the thinnest thighs, the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet.
8:27
When I was writing this talk, I found it very difficult to strike an honest balance, because on the one hand, I felt very uncomfortable to come out here and say, "Look I've received all these benefits from a deck stacked in my favor," and it also felt really uncomfortable to follow that up with, "and it doesn't always make me happy." But mostly it was difficult to unpack a legacy of gender and racial oppression when I am one of the biggest beneficiaries.
8:54
But I'm also happy and honored to be up here and I think that it's great that I got to come before 10 or 20 or 30 years had passed and I'd had more agency in my career, because maybe then I wouldn't tell the story of how I got my first job, or maybe I wouldn't tell the story of how I paid for college, which seems so important right now.
9:13
If there's a takeaway to this talk, I hope it's that we all feel more comfortable acknowledging the power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.
0:12What I want to talk about is, as background,is the idea that cars are art.This is actually quite meaningful to me,because car designers tend to be a little bit low on the totem pole --we don't do coffee table books with just one lamp inside of it --and cars are thought so much as a productthat it's a little bit difficult to get into the aesthetic sideunder the same sort of terminology that one would discuss art.And so cars, as art, brings it into an emotional plane -- if you accept that --that you have to deal with on the same level you would with art with a capital A.
0:45Now at this point you're going to see a picture of Michelangelo.This is completely different than automobiles.Automobiles are self-moving things, right? Elevators are automobiles.And they're not very emotional; they solve a purpose;and certainly automobiles have been around for 100 yearsand have made our lives functionally a lot better in many ways;they've also been a real pain in the ass,because automobiles are really the thing we have to solve.We have to solve the pollution, we have to solve the congestion --but that's not what interests me in this speech.
1:18What interests me in this speech is cars. Automobiles may be what you use,but cars are what we are, in many ways.And as long as we can solve the problems of automobiles,and I believe we can, with fuel cells or hydrogen, like BMW is really hip on,and lots of other things, then I think we can look past thatand try and understand why this hook is in many of us --of this car-y-ness -- and what that means, what we can learn from it.That's what I want to get to. Cars are not a suit of clothes;cars are an avatar. Cars are an expansion of yourself:they take your thoughts, your ideas, your emotions, and they multiply it --your anger, whatever. It's an avatar.It's a super-waldo that you happen to be inside of, and if you feel sexy,the car is sexy. And if you're full of road rage,you've got a "Chevy: Like a Rock," right?
2:07Cars are a sculpture -- did you know this?That every car you see out there is sculpted by hand.Many people think, "Well, it's computers,and it's done by machines and stuff like that."Well, they reproduce it, but the originals are all done by hand.It's done by men and women who believe a lot in their craft.And they put that same kind of tension into the sculpting of a carthat you do in a great sculpture that you would go and look at in a museum.That tension between the need to express, the need to discover,then you put something new into it,and at the same time you have bounds of craftsmanship.Rules that say, this is how you handle surfaces;this is what control is all about; this is how you show you're a master of your craft.And that tension, that discovery, that push for something new --and at the same time, that sense of obligationto the regards of craftsmanship --that's as strong in cars as it is in anything.We work in clay, which hasn't changed muchsince Michelangelo started screwing around with it,and there's a very interesting analogy to that too.Real quickly -- Michelangelo once said he's there to "discover the figure within," OK?There we go, the automobile.That was 100 years right there -- did you catch that?Between that one there, and that one there, it changed a lot didn't it?OK, it's not marketing; there's a very interesting car concept here,but the marketing part is not what I want to talk about here.I want to talk about this.Why it means you have to wash a car, what is it, that sensualityyou have to touch about it? That's the sculpture that goes into it. That sensuality.And it's done by men and women working just like this, making cars.
3:37Now this little quote about sculpture from Henry Moore,I believe that that "pressure within" that Moore's talking about --at least when it comes to cars --comes right back to this idea of the mean.It's that will to live, that need to survive, to express itself,that comes in a car, and takes over people like me.And we tell other people, "Do this, do this, do this," until this thing comes alive.We are completely infected. And beauty can be the resultof this infectiousness; it's quite wonderful.This sculpture is, of course, at the heart of all of it,and it's really what puts the craftsmanship into our cars.And it's not a whole lot different, really, when they're working like this,or when somebody works like this.It's that same kind of commitment, that same kind of beauty.
4:17Now, now I get to the point. I want to talk about cars as art.Art, in the Platonic sense, is truth; it's beauty, and love.Now this is really where designers in car business diverge from the engineers.We don't really have a problem talking about love.We don't have a problem talking about truth or beauty in that sense.That's what we're searching for --when we're working our craft, we are really trying to find that truth out there.We're not trying to find vanity and beauty.We're trying to find the beauty in the truth.However, engineers tend to look at things a little bit more Newtonian,instead of this quantum approach.We're dealing with irrationalisms,and we're dealing with paradoxes that we admit exist,and the engineers tend to look things a little bit more liketwo and two is four, and if you get 4.0 it's better, and 4.000 is even better.And that sometimes leads to bit of a divergencein why we're doing what we're doing.We've pretty much accepted the fact, though,that we are the women in the organization at BMW --BMW is a very manly type business, -- men, men, men; it's engineers.And we're kind of the female side to that. That's OK,that's cool. You go off and be manly. We're going to be a little bit more female.Because what we're interested in is finding form that's more than just a function.
5:25We're interested in finding beauty that's more than just an aesthetic;it's really a truth.And I think this idea of soul, as being at the heart of great cars,is very applicable. You all know it. You know a car when you've seen it,with soul. You know how strong this is.Well, this experience of love, and the experience of design, to me,are interchangeable. And now I'm coming to my story.
5:45I discovered something about love and design through a project called Deep Blue.And first of all, you have to go with me for a second, and say,you know, you could take the word "love" out of a lot of things in our society,put the word "design" in, and it still works,like this quote here, you know. It kind of works, you know?You can understand that. It works in truisms."All is fair in design and war."Certainly we live in a competitive society.I think this one here, there's a pop songthat really describes Philippe Starck for me, you know, this is likeyou know, this is like puppy love, you know, this is cool right?Toothbrush, cool.It really only gets serious when you look at something like this. OK?
6:23(Laughter)
6:25This is one substitution that I believeall of us, in design management, are guilty of.And this idea that there is more to love,more to design, when it gets down to your neighbor, your other,it can be physical like this, and maybe in the future it will be.But right now it's in dealing with our own people,our own teams who are doing the creating. So, to my story.The idea of people-work is what we work with here,and I have to make a bond with my designers when we're creating BMWs.We have to have a shared intimacy, a shared vision --that means we have to work as one family;we have to understand ourselves that way.There's good times; there's interesting times;and there's some stress times too.You want to do cars, you've got to go outside.You've got to do cars in the rain; you've got to do cars in the snow.That's, by the way, is a presentation we made to our board of directors.We haul their butts out in the snow, too. You want to know cars outside?Well, you've got to stand outside to do this.And because these are artists, they have very artistic temperaments.All right? Now one thing about art is, art is discovery,and art is discovering yourself through your art. Right?And one thing about cars is we're all a little bit like Pygmalion,we are completely in love with our own creations.This is one of my favorite paintings, it really describes our relationship with cars.This is sick beyond belief.
7:48(Laughter)
7:50But because of this, the intimacy with which we work together as a teamtakes on a new dimension, a new meaning.We have a shared center; we have a shared focus --that car stays at the middle of all our relationships.And it's my job, in the competitive process, to narrow this down.I heard today about Joseph's death genesthat have to go in and kill cell reproduction.You know, that's what I have to do sometimes.We start out with 10 cars; we narrow it down to five cars,down to three cars, down to two cars, down to one car,and I'm in the middle of that killing, basically.Someone's love, someone's baby.This is very difficult, and you have to have a bond with your teamthat permits you to do this, because their life is wrapped up in that too.They've got that gene infected in them as well,and they want that to live, more than anything else.
8:46Well, this project, Deep Blue, put me in contact with my teamin a way that I never expected, and I want to pass it on to you,because I want you to reflect on this, perhaps in your own relationships.We wanted to a do a car which was a complete leap of faith for BMW.We wanted to do a team which was so removed from the way we'd done it,that I only had a phone number that connected me to them.So, what we did was: instead of having a staff of artists that are just your wrist,we decided to free up a team of creative designers and engineersto find out what's the successor to the SUV phenomenon in America.This is 1996 we did this project. And so we sent them off with this team name,Deep Blue. Now many people know Deep Blue from IBM --we actually stole it from them because we figuredif anybody read our faxes they'd think we're talking about computers.It turned out it was quite clever because Deep Blue,in a company like BMW, has a hook -- "Deep Blue," wow, cool name.So people get wrapped up in it. And we took a team of designers,and we sent them off to America. And we gave them a budget,what we thought was a set of deliverables,a timetable, and nothing else.Like I said, I just had a phone number that connected me to them.
9:50And a group of engineers worked in Germany,and the idea was they would work separatelyon this problem of what's the successor to the SUV.They would come together, compare notes. Then they would work apart,come together, and they would produce togethera monumental set of diverse opinions that didn't pollute each other's ideas --but at the same time came together and resolved the problems.Hopefully, really understand the customer at its heart,where the customer is, live with them in America. So -- sent the team off,and actually something different happened. They went other places.
10:23(Laughter)
10:26They disappeared, quite honestly, and all I got was postcards.Now, I got some postcards of these guys in Las Vegas,and I got some postcards of these guys in the Grand Canyon,and I got these postcards of Niagara Falls,and pretty soon they're in New York, and I don't know where else.And I'm telling myself, "This is going to be a great car,they're doing research that I've never even thought about before."Right? And they decided that instead of, like, having a studio,and six or seven apartments,it was cheaper to rent Elizabeth Taylor's ex-house in Malibu.And -- at least they told me it was her house,I guess it was at one time, she had a party there or something.But anyway, this was the house, and they all lived there.Now this is 24/7 living, half-a-dozen people who'd left their --some had left their wives behind and families behind,and they literally lived in this housefor the entire six months the project was in America,but the first three months were the most intensive.And one of the young women in the project,she was a fantastic lady, she actually built her room in the bathroom.The bathroom was so big, she built the bed over the bathtub --it's quite fascinating.
11:44On the other hand, I didn't know anything about this. OK?Nothing. This is all going on, and all I'm getting is postcardsof these guys in Las Vegas, or whatever,saying, "Don't worry Chris, this is really going to be good." OK?So my concept of what a design studio was probably --I wasn't up to speed on where these guys were.
12:02However, the engineers back in Munichhad taken on this kind of Newtonian solution,and they were trying to find how many cup holderscan dance on the head of a pin, and, you know,these really serious questions that are confronting the modern consumer.And one was hoping that these two teams would get together,and this collusion of incredible creativity,under these incredible surroundings,and these incredibly stressed-out engineers,would create some incredible solutions.Well, what I didn't know was, and what we found out was --these guys, they can't even like talk to each other under those conditions.You get a divergence of Newtonian and quantum thinking at that point,you have a split in your dialog that is so deep, and so far,that they cannot bring this together at all.
12:53And so we had our first meeting, after three months, in Tiburon,which is just up the road from here -- you know Tiburon?And the idea was after the first three months of this independent researchthey would present it all to Dr. Goschel --who is now my boss, and at that time he was co-mentor on the project --and they would present their results.We would see where we were going,we would see the first indication of what could bethe successive phenomenon to the SUV in America.And so I had these ideas in my head, that this is going to be great.I mean, I'm going to see so much work, it's so intense --I know probably Las Vegas meant a lot about it,and I'm not really sure where the Grand Canyon came in either --but somehow all this is going to come together,and I'm going to see some really great product.So we went to Tiburon, after three months,and the team had gotten together the week before,many days ahead of time.The engineers flew over, and designers got together with them,and they put their presentation together.
13:48Well, it turns out that the engineers hadn't done anything.And they hadn't done anything because --kind of, like in car business, engineers are there to solve problems,and we were asking them to create a problem.And the engineers were waiting for the designers to say,"This is the problem that we've created, now help us solve it."And they couldn't talk about it. So what happened was,the engineers showed up with nothing.And the engineers told the designers,"If you go in with all your stuff, we'll walk out,we'll walk right out of the project."
14:28So I didn't know any of this,and we got a presentation that had an agenda, looked like this.There was a whole lot of dialog.We spent four hours being told all about vocabularythat needs to be built between engineers and designers.And here I'm expecting at any moment, "OK, they're going to turn the page,and I'm going to see the cars, I'm going to see the sketches,I'm going to see maybe some idea of where it's going."Dialog kept on going, with mental maps of words, and pretty soonit was becoming obvious that instead of being dazzled with brilliance,I was seriously being baffled with bullshit.And if you can imagine what this is like,to have these months of postcard indication of how great this team is working,and they're out there spending all this money, and they're learning,and they're doing all this stuff.I went fucking ballistic, right? I went nuts.You can probably remember Tiburon, it used to look like this.
15:24After four hours of this, I stood up, and I took this team apart.I screamed at them, I yelled at them, "What the hell are you doing?You're letting me down, you're my designers,you're supposed to be the creative ones,what the hell is going on around here?"It was probably one of my better tirades, I have some good ones,but this was probably one of my better ones. And I went into these people;how could they take BMW's money,how could they have a holiday for three months and produce nothing, nothing?Because of course they didn't tell us that they had three station wagonsfull of drawings, model concepts, pictures -- everything I wanted,they'd locked up in the cars, because they had shown solidarity with the engineers --and they'd decided not to show me anything,in order to give the chance for problem solving a chance to start,because they hadn't realized, of course,that they couldn't do problem creating.So we went to lunch --
16:22(Laughter)
16:27And I've got to tell you, this was one seriously quiet lunch.The engineers all sat at one end of the table,the designers and I sat at the other end of the table, really quiet.And I was just fucking furious, furious. OK?Probably because they had all the fun and I didn't, you know.That's what you get furious about right?And somebody asked me about Catherine, my wife, you know,did she fly out with me or something?I said, "No," and it triggered a set of thoughts about my wife.And I recalled that when Catherine and I were married,the priest gave a very nice sermon, and he said something very important.He said, "Love is not selfish," he said,"Love does not mean counting how many times I say, 'I love you.'It doesn't mean you had sex this many times this month,and it's two times less than last month,so that means you don't love me as much.Love is not selfish." And I thought about this, and I thought,"You know, I'm not showing love here. I'm seriously not showing love.I'm in the air, I'm in the air without trust.This cannot be. This cannot be that I'm expecting a certain number of sketches,and to me that's my quantification method for qualifying a team.This cannot be."
17:46So I told them this story. I said, "Guys, I'm thinking about something here,this isn't right. I can't have a relationship with you guysbased on a premise that is a quantifiable one.Based on a dictate premise that says, 'I'm a boss, you do what I say, without trust.'"I said "This can't be."Actually, we all broke down into tears, to be quite honest about it,because they still could not tell me how much frustration they had built upinside of them, not being able to show me what I wanted,and merely having to ask me to trust them that it would come.And I think we felt much closer that day,we cut a lot of strings that didn't need to be there,and we forged the concept for what real team and creativity is all about.We put the car back at the center of our thoughts, and we put love,I think, truly back into the center of the process.
18:45By the way, that team went on to create six different conceptsfor the next model of what would be the proposalfor the next generation after SUVs in America.One of those was the idea of a crossover coupes --you see it downstairs, the X Coupe -- they had a lot of fun with that.It was the rendition of our motorcycle,the GS, as Carl Magnusson says, "brute-iful,"as the idea of what could be a motorcycle, if you add two more wheels.And so, in conclusion, my lesson that I wanted to pass on to you,was this one here. I'm also going to steal a little quote out of "Little Prince."There's a lot to be said about trust and love,if you know that those two words are synonymous for design.I had a very, very meaningful relationship with my team that day,and it's stayed that way ever since.And I hope that you too find that there's more to design,and more towards the art of the design, than doing it yourself.It's true that the trust and the love, that makes it worthwhile.
