NBA Predictions

Growing up, I basically followed five sports, more or less in this order: MLB, NFL, NBA, college hoop, and college football.  When I got to college, that number actually dropped to zero, and it stayed at zero until the 1999 MLB All-Star Game, when they brought Ted Williams onto the field and all the all-stars crowded around him like little boys.  That was the moment that my own boyhood love for baseball was rekindled, and I have followed pretty regularly since.  I picked up NFL and NBA, as well, and watched college hoop in March like everyone else.  But college football I haven't followed in quite some time, and even college hoop got the boot, even in March. 

Drifting away from NBA was the one that has surprised me the most.  There was a long period of time in my childhood that basketball was far and away my favorite sport to play and watch.  I even went to a bunch of 76ers games, and the NBA Finals I actually planned my schedule around.  So it was weird to realize recently that I have no love for the NBA.  But still it's fun to throw out some predictions and see how they pan out at the end of the year.  So here are mine for 2006-2007:

SW - 3 Mavs 4 Spurs 6 Rockets
NW - 1 Nuggets 8 T'Wolves
Pac - 2 Suns 5 Clippers 7 Lakers

Atl - 2 Nets
Cen - 1 Bulls 4 Cavs 5 Pacers 6 Pistons
SE - 3 Heat 7 Wizards 8 Magic

1st rd W - Nuggets, Lakers, Rockets, Spurs
1st rd E - Bulls, Nets, Pistons, Cavs
2nd rd - Spurs, Rockets, Bulls, Nets
Finals - Spurs over Bulls in 5

Government and Job Creation

So I was walking downtown near the Reading Terminal Market with my boss, talking politics no less, when who did we bump into but Lynn Swann.  Yes, the Republican gubernatorial candidate was in town to shake hands and get the message out.  Combined with a conversation I had with a friend over coffee earlier this morning, it got me thinking about my view of government and job creation, a particularly relevant topic with our state's upcoming election.

"Fast Eddie" Rendell is the consummate dealmaker, and a darn good one at that.  And a state surplus this year means money for deals.  So he's canvassing the state with big checks (both literally and figuratively), and Pennsylvanians from Erie to Philly are glad for the money and jobs those government funds mean for their communities.

Never mind, of course, that a lot of those jobs are in industries that were once vibrant but that are now well past their prime.  Pennsylvania is a good Rust Belt example, dotted as it is with countless communities that once depended on big plants that mined, processed, and made stuff for their jobs and wellbeing.  Industry shifts, of course, and other macro-economic forces have shrunk most of that business.  And yet we're still trying to prop up old economies and Old Economy businesses. 

And who can blame the politicians, from Fast Eddie on down, for going this route?  After all, it's a merciful thing to help a person, a family, a community to retain its livelihood.  Investing in a business or in upgrading its machinery is a tangible thing, as is a job saved from the cutting board.  People tend to remember these things when they close the curtain and stand in front of the levers.

It may the merciful thing to do in the short run, and even in the long run, and it may even be the economically prudent thing to do in the short run.  But in the long run, the state falls behind other states in terms of producing, attracting, and retaining the kinds of businesses that can grow and create jobs as a result of that growth. 

I'm not just talking about pitting Old Economy against New Economy, either, since manufacturing is still alive and well in the USA.  But too many deals to prop up dying businesses and dying industries for the sake of dying communities can make a state lose its competitiveness amongst its peer states. 

Better to retool people through training, improve education (which attracts productive newcomers AND makes existing residents more productive), and create a business-friendly environment (i.e. through lower taxes and/or public amenities that help businesses).  This is the Republican way of juicing an economy (not the shopping spree you've seen over the last few years by the Republicans in Congress).  And from what I've read about Swannie, this is how he views things: government isn't for creating jobs, but for creating the environment in which businesses can create them. 

You may not agree with me here, and even if you do, there's no guarantee that Swannie can, if elected, actually make it happen.  But it's definitely not the way Fast Eddie thinks when he thinks about government and job creation.  Think about that when you go to vote next month.  

PS I suppose I should backtrack a tad here: 1) you have to do some deal-making, and so the fact that Fast Eddie's good at it is certainly a plus for PA, 2) some of his deal-making has been quite good in terms of moving the state into a more competitive position in the New Economy, 3) he did turn Philly around, so you gotta give him a halo effect there, and 4) you might be just as correct in saying the bad deal-making I slam above is due to the state legislators on both sides of the aisle as it is to Fast Eddie. So don't ignore what I'm saying here, but don't take it as a total Rendell bash either.

Cut-Throat and Caring

During my senior year at Wharton in 1994-1995, I looked around for a place where I could meld my business interests with my Christian faith and found The Enterprise Center, a small non-profit organization in West Philadelphia.  While I couldn't have predicted then just how satisfying, stimulating, and rewarding my ten years would be there, I knew even as a fresh-faced college kid that I would be happiest in a place where I could apply my cut-throat mindset and equally cut-throat training not just to maximizing the financial bottom line but to maximizing other, fuzzier bottom lines, like community and diversity and environment.  It made perfect sense to me, but in a milieu that produces the world's best i-bankers, a lot of people thought I'd sprouted another head. 

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was in the sweet spot of a sea change in business thinking.  In the two decades since the "greed is good" mantra peaked with the 1987 movie, "Wall Street," we've seen the rise to prominence of a kinder, gentler capitalism.  The disaster that was Enron might have demonstrated that cut-throat capitalism was still alive and well, but it also left a bad taste in mainstream America's mouth and opened their minds to a more inclusive, progressive way of doing business.

What is most pleasing to me is that the pendulum hasn't swung too far to the other side.  After all, I'm still as cut-throat in my mindset and I haven't forgotten all of my equally cut-throat training from Wharton.  I am delighting, then, in seeing how such a mindset is still in play, just in better ways.  Take the environment, for example.  It is likely that in our lifetimes, we'll see a tax on carbon.  And the more visionary companies, anticipating this, have worked hard to minimize their carbon footprint, not just because they want to save the environment, but because they're preparing for the day when it'll save them money.  You're even starting to see some members of heavy industry lobby for a carbon tax, instead of dragging their feet against it, because they've geared up their operations for such a world, and they know they'll thus derive an advantage over competitors of theirs who haven't. 

Business Week just ran a cover story on "karma capitalism," or the ascendancy of Indian-born management thinkers who articulate a management worldview that is broader than the typical shareholder focus that dominates most Fortune CEO's.  Whether influenced by the spiritual teachings of the Bhagavad Gita or by the messy realities of an Indian nation that is predominantly poor and politically corrupt, these Indian business sages, like C.K. Prahalad and Ram Charan, espouse such principles as putting purpose above self-interest and answering to multiple stakeholders rather than just your shareholders.  In other words, it's good for your business and good for your soul if you're not just stomping on people and principles in the hunt for one more buck. 

Thirdly, I've seen an ascendancy of good, solid non-profit management.  Of course, I'm biased because I run in these circles and because Philadelphia is noteworthy in this field, but nevertheless I think this still registers as a trend.  People are just more comfortable with companies pursuing social good for reasons besides selfless charity, and the social service sector being equal parts cool mind and hot heart.  Gone are the days where the business acumen was the purview of the corporates and the "save the world" mentality the purview of the do-gooders, and never the twain shall meet.  Instead, you have some people running caring campaigns talking about how they can be used as competitive advantages and other people running homeless shelters talking about balanced scorecards and performance metrics.

These are just three examples of a larger revolution that says no to a bifurcation of profit and purpose, of for-profit mechanisms and non-profit causes, of cold-blooded assassins and shiny happy do-gooders.  When I started down that path, I didn't know where I was going, nor that I was being joined in spirit and body by so many others.  I just knew that, though the road was lonely at the time, it seemed the best road for me.  Maybe I'm too secular to join a commune and rail against free trade, and too wimpy to evict my grandma to turn a profit, but I'm OK with that.  I just hope that the path I've trod is faithful to my God and to the unique set of gifts and experiences He has given me.  And I hope even more will join me on the path, that together we can be equally cut-throat and caring in getting the right things done in the right ways for the right reasons. 

Let Kids Lose

What I'm about to write might make you think that I've become evil incarnate, or at least subject me to catcalls and raised eyebrows, but oh well.  Remember earlier this year when the Little League baseball coach from Bountiful, Utah, intentionally walked the other team's best hitter with a runner on third in the last inning of the championship game so his pitcher could face Romney Oaks, a cancer survivor who wore a special helmet?  Young Romney struck out and cried about it, the other team won by one, and people nationwide were livid about it.  From ESPN to MSNBC to Sports Illustrated, people lamented that this is what our society has come to: winning at all costs, even to the point of teaching our kids that it's OK to pick on the weak.

Sorry, but while I wouldn't wish to be in the baseball coach's position, if I had to be there I'd do the same.  Of course winning isn't everything: you shouldn't cheat, you should be a good sport, and having fun is more important than who wins and who loses.  But kids need to learn about success and failure, too, and sports are a great way to do that, because there are times you win and times you lose.  We do our kids a disservice if we sugar-coat strikeouts and losses, or insulate them from experiencing them in the first place. 

And the notion that it's reprehensible to pick on the cancer survivor?  Take it from someone who also struck out to end a championship game in Little League: painful as it was, and I cried after it happened just like Romney did, I'd choose having the chance and failing than not having the chance at all.  In fact, young Romney seemed surprised the story was making the rounds nationally, and was quoted as saying he just hoped to have another chance in the future so he could get a hit and win the game.  He too, though it hurt to fail, was glad for the chance to fail, and even wanted another chance. 

In sports as in life, failure is often just as rich, if not more so, with lessons and with opportunities for growth.  Let's stop babying our kids: if we take the time to tell them we love and value them no matter what their external performance, then we're free to celebrate their wins and acknowledge their losses, instead of shielding them from those losses or vilifying their opponents who would dare try to win against them. 

Better For Even Better

In one of my new favorite books, Revolution at the Roots, William Eggers and John O'Leary call into question a recent best-selling government administration book's claim that if a government program can help but one person, it's worth it.  That claim, according to Eggers and O'Leary, neglects the fact that public resources were consumed in helping that one person, resources that might be better consumed elsewhere or not taken out of the public's pocket in the first place.  So the appropriate comparison isn't one person helped versus no one helped, but one person helped in Program A versus how many people could have been helped in Program B, or how many people could have been helped if no programs were done and the public had more of its own money to do positive things.

I say this not to beat my fiscally conservative drum -- although keep this in mind the next time advocates of a government program on the chopping block try to say how negative it will be to zero out a program that is helping people.  I say this to say how easy it is to give into this mindset when it comes to our perishable assets, namely time and money.  How quickly we'll give a little time and money here and there, considering only whether it will make a difference, rather than whether it is the best way we can make a difference.  

Let's be careful here: Jesus told a story about two religious people who didn't help a person in need and a "good Samaritan" who did to remind His listeners that sometimes we don't dictate when and how we're being called to positive action.  Nevertheless, that lesson doesn't negate the value of the opposite lesson, that we do worse for ourselves and for the Kingdom of God if, when given a chance to do positive, we take it because it's positive, instead of considering if greater positive can be done elsewhere.  It's this sort of careless thinking that causes too many of us to short-shrift the rest we need, and to diffuse our impact to the point of making no impact.  We can do better.

Over the Top Consumption

Earlier this fall, I signed myself up for a trial subscription for one
of these lifestyle mags that talks about easy things you can do around
the house and in your day-to-day to create beauty without breaking the
bank. Yes, sounds very metrosexual, what are you going to do?
Anyway, while the mag clearly skews female, I have to admit that I
enjoyed looking at different uses for common household items, and
before-and-afters of made-over kitchens, and tips for how to reach out
to people grieving in various ways.

What I didn't like was the over-the-top consumption that this
magazine's ads represent. I mean, I'm all for capitalism and have no
problem with the fact that there are some very rich people in the
world. And what I'm about to say, I say not on a high horse, for
though I am relatively well-off I still give into the covetousness of
new window treatments and classy furniture.

Still, I was bugged by the sentiment that many of the magazine's ads
seemed to convey. One has a sultry woman leaning forward, the
advertised product (a fancy watch) barely visible, with the tagline:
"It's your watch that tells most about who you are." Is that so?
Catch me on the right day, and the only thing my watch will tell you
about me is that I like the Oakland A's.

A second ad says in big block letters: "Ralph Lauren Paint: Over 60
Perfect Shades of White." Are they being sarcastic? Are there really
60+ different shades of white? And they're all perfect?

The third took the cake, and forced me to the computer. It shows the
sexy, stockinged legs of a slender female, surrounded by shopping bags
and ornate accessories, and says, "A whole new you put together by a
Saks personal shopper: $3,800 . . . another great session with your
retail therapist: priceless." It goes on to say: "It's hard to feel
blue with your new red croc clutch."

Wow, where to begin? First of all, I have to ask, "What is a clutch?
Isn't that what you use to shift gears in your car?" But seriously,
is that all we need to do to chase away our demons, is a good shopping
spree? Does anyone really believe that the holes in our lives can be
filled with possessions, even ones that are new and red and "croc" (I
can only suppose they're referring to crocodile skin, which poses its
own set of protests)?

The letter by the publisher seemed to concede the folly of it all.
The issue was devoted to holiday prep, so the publisher spoke of how
silly it is to fret like we all do when there are parts of the world
that don't have running water or that face constant civil war. And
yet, the publisher continued, our worries are no less real.

Are they? The angst of arranging seats at your dinner party so that
conversation flows and everyone has fun is as important to us in this
country as providing clean water for one's family in most of the rest
of the world? The stress of the holidays in America can be likened to
the stress of living in the middle of civil war in any number of
war-torn countries around the globe?

Don't get me wrong; I had a blast thumbing through this eye candy of a
magazine. Kudos for their design and their insight. My beef is with
our society, and in pointing fingers I have to admit that three of
them are pointing back at me. For as I stated earlier, I might not
drown my sorrows in purchases of things new and red and "croc," but I
do dwell in the land of discontentedness and want of possessions, when
I have more in the material than I could ever need and when I know
that the material isn't what makes a man rich anyway.

The holidays are certainly stressful, with germs and gift-giving and
family awkwardness to navigate through. I'm not so deluded as to say
I've so mastered the contented life that I can sail through all this
with peace and joy. But I do hope to be able to detect over-the-top
consumption when I see it, and rather than giving into it call it for
the ridiculous and tragic and soul-destroying sin that it is.

More People, Not More Driving

Urban renaissance + anti-sprawl sentiment = more bodies in our cities.
And that's a good thing. But to make more of this happen, cities are
going to have to figure out how to get people comfortable with higher
density. Otherwise, you'll have the paradox of what a sage politician
once quipped: "People hate two things: sprawl and density." In other
words, out of one side of people's mouths will be calls to fight
against sprawl, and out of the other, an equally vehement rejection of
that mixed-use development in their neighborhood.

What riles people up about more density in their neighborhood is that
it will lead to more driving, which means more congestion, more
pollution, and more fights for the same number of parking lots. It's
inferior to just accommodate more driving, via building more roads or
lots, but some cities have no other choice.

Or do they? Two cities are making a go at having more people without
more driving. Portland has massively expanded its shuttle bus
service, creating such a convenience that trips that used to require a
car because they were too long for walking can now be accomplished by
a short walk to a shuttle stop, a short ride on the bus, and a short
ride from there. And Chicago has created a cycle center to encourage
more bike commutes; bankrolled by corporate sponsor McDonalds, the hub
offers rentals and repairs, 24-hour secure bike parking, and even
showers.

Most big cities have room to grow, from a public infrastructure
standpoint; after all, their populations were much larger a generation
ago. So whether it's immigrants from other countries, boomers seeking
the downtown lifestyle, or hip young knowledge workers, let the influx
of bodies continue. Cities, just figure out ways like Portland and
Chicago to keep the increase in driving to a minimum.

Charity or Compassion

I have written not one but two posts this month about the
ineffectiveness of charity to alleviate poverty, so perhaps I have
made my point already. But let me say it again, since I so got on my
soapbox on the issue earlier this week while talking a walk with my
wife that she actually said, "Yeah, OK, I get it."

The subject was homelessness but it could've been any one of a dozen
other facets of poverty. In recounting to her a recent article about
Philadelphia's growing homeless population despite commendable and
successful efforts over the past few years, I said, "It's working in
Philly because the people working on this find homelessness
unacceptable. So instead of making the homeless comfortable in their
homelessness, they're providing services that move people out of
homelessness and towards more productive lives."

Food given out freely doesn't solve the problem of homelessness. Food
given out in connection with people taking their medications, staying
in a shelter, and seeing a job counselor -- now that starts to get at
a solution.

Far from being uncaring, this approach is the epitome of true
compassion. Because, again, it finds homelessness unacceptable.
Unlike the unknowing do-gooders for whom the homeless become an outlet
for their self-soothing good works. Or the judgmental moralists for
whom the homeless and their "poor decisions" are "what's wrong with
our country nowadays."

Instead, poverty solutions that purposely avoid charity do so because
they have nothing to gain from people staying poor. Advocates of this
approach don't need the poor to continue to exist so as to make them
feel useful or important or better. What drives them, instead, is the
unacceptableness of poverty and the desire to see people lift
themselves from it. Give me more of that compassion, and less of the
other charity.

Two Circles

It's a line that's guaranteed to get peoples' attention: "Everything
you could possibly learn in business school, I'm going to summarize in
the next 30 seconds." I exaggerate for dramatic effect, of course,
but I proceed to tell my audience that where your company should be is
at the nexus of organizational strength and market need. Success in
business is really that simple.

Well, not really. But let me back up a bit. The context for most of
these presentations was not a room full of businesspeople but rather
prospective managers of business incubators, who were there to learn
from me some tips on how to get a business incubator off the ground.
In my previous work life, I did a number of presentations on the
subject, advising groups on how to assess the feasibility of their
business incubator initiatives.

And I always came back to those eight words: "the nexus of
organizational strength and market need." I would then draw two big,
overlapping circles, and shade the overlapped part. There's two
points there. First, that the shaded part is where you want to be.
And second, that there are plenty of non-shaded parts where you don't
want to be: doing something you're good at but for which there is no
market need, on the one hand, or doing something for which there is
market need but which you're not good at, on the other.

Of course, these two points are valid in business as well. You can't
make money selling something, however well-conceived, that no one will
ever buy. And you also can't make money selling something, however
hungry the market, that you can't make well.

These two circles also speak to the non-industry sectors, as well,
business incubators being but one example. Social service agencies,
educational institutions, and even government agencies would do well
to get a better handle on their two circles, and make sure their
offerings fall in the shaded area and not in the non-shaded areas.
Churches and ministry groups darn well better figure out how to be in
the shaded area, tempting as it is to do a lot of stuff they're good
at that no one needs or to do a lot of stuff that people desperately
need but that they can't do well.

As I mentioned before, it's not quite as simple as I'm making this out
to be. These two circles take place in a context. For business
incubators, there are two kinds of contexts: macro-economic trends
which are the political, economic, and cultural winds that shape where
the opportunities and threats will be, and ground-level considerations
like the immediate neighborhood or the facility in which the program
will be located. Businesses might consider demographics and the
competitive landscape. Other organizations will have their own
outside forces that affect the drawing of their two circles.

Again, I exaggerate for dramatic effect when I say that this is the
entirety of the MBA experience. But sometimes simpler is better. And
what could be simpler than drawing two circles?

Charity is Not an Answer to Poverty

You usually think of Nobel Peace Prizes winners as diplomats and civil
rights leaders. But this year's winner was economist Muhammed Yunus
of Bangladesh, whose Grameen Bank was the original microlending entity
that spawned the entire microlending industry.

It's a simple but powerful premise: lift people out of poverty by
giving them enough capital to buy something that they can use to
produce income. Bamboo plants from which furniture can be made and
rickshaws which can be used in a taxi service are two examples of
assets that are not consumed, but that rather continue to produce
value for their owner. Combine that with the fact that most of the
loans go to women, all too often excluded from their country's power
structures and capital markets, and you have yourself a model that is
commendable on many levels.

To paraphrase a well-known axiom: give someone a chicken dinner, and
you feed them for a day; give them a chicken whose eggs they can sell
in the market, and you feed them for a lifetime. And that's the
beauty of the Grameen model: sustainability and dignity are vastly
superior approaches to poverty reduction than charity and dependence.
Or as Yunus himsefl put it: "Charity is not an answer to poverty. It
only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away
individuals' initiative to break through the wall of poverty.
Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer
to poverty."

Well said. And well done.

Talented, Innovative, Connected, and Distinctive

In a perfect world, I'd jet to interesting conference after
interesting conference, meeting interesting people and writing
interesting summaries . . . and still be able to get my daughter up in
the morning and tuck her in at night. Dream on, right?

Well, thanks to the Internet, I can at least crib the notes. CEOs for
Cities had their annual gathering in Miami last month, and I was able
to review a half-dozen of the presentations.

One of them, entitled City Vitals, argued that a successful city is
one that is talented, innovative, connected, and distinctive. It used
some interesting measures for each of these categories (some examples
below):

* Talented = % workers employed in "creative class" industries, % pop
age 25-34 w/four-year degree, and % pop age >25 w/college degree and
born outside US

* Innovative = patents per capita, venture capital raised per capita,
% self-employed

* Connected = % pop that volunteer, % non-poor that use transit, wi-fi
hotspots per capita

* Distinctive = cultural event attendance vs. cable subscription,
ethnic restaurants vs. fast-food restaurants, movie preference vs.
national norms

You can OD on buzzwords like "creative class" and "agglomeration
economies," but there is still some truth there: you want your city to
be vibrant, welcoming, and productive. By these measures, for
Philadelphia it's good news and bad news:

* The talent is there, thanks to world-class "eds and meds" . . . but
the public school system, while improving, still has a long way to go;
and we lose too many of those "eds and meds" brains to other, hipper
cities

* The innovation is there -- we claim Ben Franklin, remember? . . .
but in other regards Philly is hostile to entrepreneurs, with a high
tax burden and a VC community that doesn't put a lot of money inside
city limits

* The connectedness is there, since you can't beat the walkability
factor or the close proximity to the financial and political capitals
of the world . . . but our neighborhoods are still segregated and
we're still not as friendly toward or attractive to educated
immigrants as Boston, New York, or DC

* The distinctiveness is there, from the art scene to the accents . .
. but not enough people know about the good stuff we've got here

So is the glass half-empty or half-full for Philly? I'll call it
half-full . . . with the chance to pour more in, if we do this right.

Real Beauty

I don't consume much entertainment so I was only peripherally aware of
Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. But last night I came across two
video shorts they've produced for the campaign. One is a time-lapse
depiction of the transformation of a pretty but imperfect model into
the visual perfection shown on a billboard, a transformation that is
equal parts real (eye shadow, blush, hair styling) and virtual
(removing blemishes, puckering up lips, thinning the neck). The other
is clips of pre-teen girls being interviewed about their
dissatisfaction over their bodies, times they were told they were fat
or ugly, and what they do in response to the poor-esteem that results.

I think it's safe to say that we as a society have substituted real
beauty for a mirage; and that not only does that make us deluded but
it has caused us deep pain. Not to let the women totally off the
hook, but you can pretty much blame most of that pain on the men. I
can't speak for all men but I can speak for myself and say that I
deserve some of that blame; and that I too, enlightened as I'd like to
think I am, am deluded. A colleague of mine at my previous job once
remarked to me that all of the interns I hired were physically
attractive. My somewhat lame explanation was that people who are
physically attractive are usually more confident, and it was the inner
confidence and not the outer beauty that sold me on them. I think
that's a valid point, but it isn't the whole story: like most of the
rest of my generation and my gender, I value the physically attractive
over the physically unattractive.

So I applaud the efforts of Dove to inform our culture that what we
equate with beauty on billboards and in magazines is a fairly shallow,
artificial, and easily manipulable construct, and that by upholding
such values we are causing great confusion and hurt, especially upon
our young girls. My only criticism of the campaign is that it focuses
on the mother-daughter relationship as a way to war against these
lies. While I agree that is a relationship that can build up
self-esteem where it is being torn down, I wish there was more of a
focus on the responsibility of us dads. We need to build up our
daughters, to tell them they are beautiful and to define for them what
real beauty is, and then to live lives that are not inconsistent with
those lessons, in terms of who and what we value. I don't know how
successful Dove's campaign has been so far, but it's reaching at least
one dad, who hopes to reach at least one little girl.

Save Money to Save Orphans

For over a decade, I have "sponsored" kids at an orphanage in Kenya.
Run by Silas and Winnie Owiti, who I had the pleasure of meeting two
years ago at a conference hosted by Christian Aid, which administers
the sponsorship program, the Ebenezer Orphanage Home literally saves
lives: kids orphaned by war or AIDS find a home there as well as
vocational and spiritual instruction, as opposed to sniffing glue or
being trafficked.

Because the orphanage is run by Kenyans and because Christian Aid
keeps its overhead low, the cost per head to me is $15 a month, less
than half what it'll run you at other US agencies that do child
sponsorship. Every six months, I get a report card on each of my
kids, so I can see how they're faring in their school subjects and
what their personal interests are. My first batch of kids, who I
started sponsoring in the mid-1990's, turned 18 last year and found
jobs, and so I'm getting to know a second batch.

I hope you'll consider sponsoring a child or ten through Christian
Aid. Let me help you get comfortable with the fact that you have the
money to do this. $15 a month is $180 a year, and if you itemize on
your tax return, that works out to a net of $135 -- assuming you're in
the 25% tax bracket; it's even less on your wallet if you're in a higher
bracket.

Where's that $135 going to come from? Consider making some reasonable
cuts in four areas of your life. Let's start with food. If you clip
and use $1 in coupons on your weekly shopping run, and eat out one
less time per month (assuming a $8 meal), that's $148 saved, more than
enough for one sponsorship. Make that $3 in coupons and two less
meals out per month (at $10 per meal) and you're at $396, almost
enough for three sponsorships.

What about drinks? One less latte at Starbucks ($3) and water instead
of soda ($1) during two of your lunches out per week means $260 more
in your pocket at the end of the year, enough for almost two more
sponsorships.

Let's talk clothing. Buy one less shirt ($15) and one less pair of
pants ($30) per season, and one less pair of shoes ($60) per year, and
you've got yourself $240 for almost two more sponsorships.

Finally, we can make some cutbacks on entertainment. Every three
months, we'll buy a CD used instead of new ($5 vs. $15), forego
another CD altogether, and download three less songs off iTunes ($1);
we'll also wait for one movie to come out on DVD instead of going to
the theater ($7). Now we have $140, just enough for another
sponsorship.

In other words, without making a whole lot of major lifestyle changes,
one can save up enough money to sponsor orphans. We haven't even
talked about bigger savers like canceling your cable subscription or
riding your bike to work or turning down the thermostat at night. So
now that you've seen the math, I hope you'll consider saving some
money to save some orphans.

Thanks, Buck

Blitzing through my sports webpages this morning, I saw the headline:
"Buck O'Neil Dead At 94." For you non-baseball fans, Buck O'Neil was
a Negro League pioneer, an ambassador of the game of baseball, the
star of Ken Burns' 1994 documentary on the sport, and an all-around
good guy.

Here was a guy who faced ill treatment as a black man and
discrimination as a black ballplayer, and yet never lost his sunny
disposition and his rock-bed hope. Even when bypassed for the Hall of
Fame -- inexplicably -- by a special committee that voted earlier this
year, he demonstrated his cheerful optimism and gracious perspective:
"Before, I wouldn't even have a chance. But this time I had that
chance. Just keep loving old Buck."

For one who had honey for a voice, it was ironic to read in the
article that he had lost his voice shortly before his death. Indeed,
we have lost a great voice for baseball and humanity. I can only hope
Major League Baseball does the classy thing and honors him during this
season's playoffs. Thanks, Buck.

The Incubator Analogy

I had never heard of a business incubator when I started working for
one eleven years ago. But the analogy wasn't too hard to understand:
just like an incubator for babies or eggs is a perfect environment for
growth, a business incubator is intended to be a perfect environment
for business growth.

The usual business incubator amenities include small office space,
conference rooms, shared office equipment, and a professional
address/location (i.e. not your basement). Good business incubators
also throw in networking events and training opportunities, and even
better ones go to bat for their fledgling businesses, in terms of
getting them meetings with local big-wigs and potential customers.

But there's something about just being part of a larger group of
like-minded people that creates an intangible benefit oftentimes
greater than any tangible resources and services. Physically and
psychologically, you don't feel alone. Rubbing elbows with people who
are the same yet different sharpens you. Your confidence, motivation,
and courage grows when you feel there are others with you, doing the
same thing, cheering you on as you cheer them on.

Earlier this year, I was talking to a colleague of mine who runs a
national association and who also has some experience in business
incubation. He and I agree that running an association is like
running a business incubator, in that there are tangible services his
organization can provide its members, but they are far outweighed in
value by the intangibles of fostering a community of like-minded
individuals and agencies engaged in a common cause.

Also earlier this year, I spoke to another colleague of mine, who used
to run a downtown association and now works for a foundation. When I
compared both his previous and current job to running a business
incubator, he also concurred, as he elaborated to me that his vision
in both cases was to create a camaraderie across tenants/grantees, and
not just build the relationship between his organization and them
individually.

After these two conversations, I was left thinking how ironic it was
that my experience running a business incubator was so relevant for
understanding the nuances of running a completely different type of
organization. What are the odds, right?

Yet the more I think about it, perhaps the incubator analogy is more
widely useful than I had originally imagined. Do not educational
institutions hope to foster a common spirit among their students and
teachers, such that there is stimulating discourse and cooperative
venture over and above the formal, one-to-one interactions in the
classroom? Should not religious entities seek a similar empowering of
their members, so that there is a "priesthood of believers" serving
one another and others and not just being served? Would not parents
be pleased to know they have provided the perfect environment for
their children to grow, such that they are owning and practicing the
right values in their relationships with their siblings and friends,
and not reliant on the constant nagging of their parents to do the
right thing?

Everybody has a framework or frameworks for viewing the world. Until
this year, though, I don't think I realized how useful and versatile
my business incubator framework was for me.

The Do-Gooders are Short-Circuiting the System

I don't often like to just copy/paste from other places, no matter how
good the writing is. Where's the value-added, after all? But I
couldn't resist posting this excerpt from Otis White's Urban Notebook,
in which he discusses LA's approach to the homeless:

"Which brings us to a city that has done most things right,
Philadelphia. Philly has built enough shelters and provided sufficient
services to dramatically reduce its downtown homeless population. But
even so, it has noticed the number of people sleeping outdoors creep
up in recent months.

"What's causing the rise? Downtown officials aren't sure but think it
could be the result of do-gooders (college kids and suburban church
groups, for the most part) staging public feedings. And this gets to
the heart of what makes the Philadelphia approach work: It doesn't
engage in charity. Services for the homeless, including food, are
earned by good behavior, which means taking medications, living in
shelters, visiting job counselors and so on. The do-gooders are
short-circuiting the system.

"'They think they're helping when they're not,' one downtown
association official told the Philadelphia Inquirer. 'Food should
always be connected with the opportunity to get help. They enable
people to remain on the street. It's enabling people to remain
addicted. We are not helping ourselves as a city if we encourage and
enable these [homeless] camps.'"

A blog that sings Philly's praise and argues that there's no free
lunch (literally)? That shines a spotlight on exemplary local orgs
like Project HOME and the Center City District? That uses the
sentence, "The do-gooders are short-circuiting the system"?
Copy/paste-worthy. (By the way, here's the Inquirer article the post
refers to: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15536080.htm.)

Trusting Without Understanding

Being a dad, especially to a daughter who is increasingly asserting
her independence and expressing her preferences, is teaching me a lot
about my own relationship with God. On my better days, there's
nothing on my mind but doing my very best for Jada. But sometimes the
very best doesn't seem that way to her. I might withhold from her a
steaming bowl of delicious food; in her hunger, she doesn't understand
that I'm waiting for it to cool down enough for her to eat it safely.
Every few months or so, I take her to the doctor's, where they poke
her with needles and claw around inside her ear; she can't make the
connection that these painful and uncomfortable things are for her
good. Nor can she figure out why I won't let her walk out into the
street or climb up a rickety piece of furniture.

On my better days, I'm OK with her pushing back, her raging, her
disbelief, because I know she's too young to get it. Of course, when
my patience is spent and my nerves are frayed, I want to yell to her,
"I'm doing this for you!"

And so I resonate with the passages in the Bible when God expresses
His impatience with His people. And I appreciate all the more all the
times in the Bible and in my own life when He is wonderfully patient
and longsuffering and compassionate.

I am in a position to demand my daughter's obedience, no matter what
she happens to want in the moment, because I am responsible for her
and because I know more than her. How much more so for God, who made
us and knows all!

Certainly there are things in my life, in my past, in the world, that
make no sense being true in a world in which an all-powerful and
all-loving God runs the show. Certainly there are days I doubt or
seethe. Certainly there are times when it is healthy and righteous to
rage at wrong.

Now that I am myself a dad, though, I am reminded that just as there
are things my daughter doesn't understand, can't understand, won't
understand for a long, long time, so there are those things for me.
And if I can summon the love, patience, and wisdom to do right by my
daughter, how much more is God fully engaged in doing right by me?

Perhaps it is something I want, but God is preparing something better,
like a steaming bowl of delicious food. Perhaps it is something good
for me, but it hurts at the time, like an immunization shot. Perhaps
it is something that looks appealing but is actually dangerous, like
running in the street.

Jada will one day understand why you can't eat food that's too hot,
why you get immunized, why you don't run into the street. And so I
may eventually have the wisdom and perspective to understand the many
"why's" in my life.

But there are some things I'll never know the answer to, no matter how
long I live or how much knowledge I obtain. Inexplicable, dissonant
things that I can't seem to reconcile with my view of who God is and
what life is for.

For such things, I will have to trust that as I am doing my very best
for Jada, so I have a Heavenly Father who is doing His very best for
me and for this world. It's been a learning process for Jada, that
her parents can be trusted to do right by her. She has a long way to
go. And so do I.

Crossing Cultures

I came across a great article in the US Center for World Mission's
monthly publication about missions work that accelerates versus
inhibits "movements to Christ." That phrase, "movement to Christ," is
apparently a missiological notion that so incarnates the gospel in a
local culture that oftentimes much of the pre-salvation religious
trappings are retained -- for example, a Muslim or Hindu keeping her
ethno-religious identity but becoming a follower of Jesus within that.

Wherever you fall on this debate -- some deem this no salvation at
all, while others consider this the only way conversions can happen in
some cultures -- you should agree with the points that were made in
this article. For they are relevant not only to cross-cultural
missions in tough settings, but to a lot of Christianity in general,
and even to less spiritual matters such as social justice and
community development.

Here, then, are seven dimensions to accelerating, rather than
inhibiting, indigenous growth:

1. Preserve an insider identity as believers, rather than establish a
foreign identity.

2. Penetrate existing communities with the gospel, rather than
extract believers into new communities.

3. Cultivate local leadership, rather than start with foreign leadership.

4. Emphasize community-oriented fellowship, rather than emphasize
meeting-oriented church.

5. Develop contextualized church practices for gatherings, worship,
and the sacraments, rather than adopt foreign church practices.

6. Develop contextualized doctrine, rather than accept traditional doctrine.

7. Preserve local independence, rather than accept foreign dependence.

It is fascinating to consider that while the gospel is universal
truth, it does not look the same across times and cultures. For those
of us in America, however close or far we are to the mission field, we
best get to understanding this, because it is likely that before we
die, the "center" of Christianity, in terms of numbers and influence,
will no longer be the West, given the remarkable growth of our faith
in such places as Africa, Asia, and Latin America.