Happiness is your business model

Check out this inspiring presentation by Tara Hunt with the title of Happiness is Your Business Model.

What are the conditions for human happiness? Tara cites the American Psychological Association’s list of four:

• Autonomy — in control of life
• Competence — ability to do stuff
• Relatedness — interaction with others
• Self-esteem — confidence in self

And the main barriers to achieving happiness?

• Fear
• Confusion
• Loneliness
• Lack of control
• Struggle for survival

Without further ado here then is Tara’s presentation:

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Also check out Tara's post The Axis of Misery.

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New marriage, new thinking

‘Is anyone else thinking what we’re thinking?’

That’s a question we asked ourselves when we first developed the idea, back in mid-2006, of marriage based not on family law but on contract law.

Sure enough we found that a number of innovative thinkers had been seeking a new basis for marriage and parenting outside the family law system.

Among them were writers, legal scholars, academics – even a Nobel-prize winning professor!

In our slideshare slideshow, entitled New Thinking, New Marriage, we've brought together a collection of thoughts from some eminent individuals who are re-thinking marriage for the 21st century.

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Our slideshow has been online for about ten months now and in that time it has received 1,600+ hits. Got a comment or feedback you would like to share? We would love to hear from you.

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Innovation in partnering, parenting

Jeremy Gutsche said it right. As CEO of TrendHunter.com, a global network that tracks and anticipates innovation in areas such as pop culture, fashion, technology, art and lifestyle, Jeremy knows where to look when seeking to find innovation.

In every industry innovation starts by observing customers

You can check out Jeremy's insightful Slideshare presentation below.

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In the realms of partnering and parenting one social trend is clear: the three-decade long replacement of marriage with cohabitation. In the UK, for example:

• The number of cohabiting couples increased by two-thirds over the decade 1996-2006, and by 2031 the number will double to 3.8 million.
• Cohabiting couples and single-parent households will outnumber married couples by 2014.

But not all ‘customers’ are the same. According to the diffusion of innovations theory developed by Everett M. Rogers, consumers can be grouped according to how quickly they adopt a new product, service or idea.

Thirty years ago, couples living together outside marriage were regarded as ‘visionaries’; ten years ago, as ‘early adopters’; now, in every developed country, cohabiting couples are the ‘early majority’.

In every developed country, it is not couples married to each other but partners living together that form the fastest-growing family type.

Cohabiting couples: from non-marriage to new marriage

Once cohabitation was merely the absence of marriage; now, slowly but surely, it is becoming a search for a new marriage. The first steps across the bridge from non-marriage to new marriage is the so-called 'cohabitation contract': a legal agreement, defined by the couple, that sets out their responsibilities to one another.

In June 2007 I took a screenshot of a Google search for 'cohabitation contract'. The number of results found was 793. Just twelve months later the number has more than trebled to 2,690.

What family law has taken out of marriage – mutual commitment – a still-small but fast-growing number of couples are putting back in. In innovation terms, they are the relationship ‘innovators’. Soon the ‘early adopters’ will join them, to be followed by the ‘early majority’.

The path to WeDo Marriage

But a cohabitation contract is just the first step towards a new marriage; to complete the transition, something more is needed: the wholesale rebuilding, outside the family law system, of a marriage that meets the description so eloquently expressed below by Professor Linda J. Waite.

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Earned income from social goods

You may have heard the term ‘social entrepreneur’, wondered what it meant and sought an answer in Wikipedia. Here is what you will find:

A social entrepreneur is someone who recognises a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organise, create, and manage a venture to make social change.

In addition to operating in a business-like way, social enterprise is also about:

• Social goods: Social enterprises provide ‘products’ that benefit both the individual consumer and others in the wider community too.
• Earned income: Rather than depend on private or government handouts, social enterprises earn income in the marketplace to sustain their organisations into the future.

From helplessness and inaction to social problem-solving

Award-winning journalist and writer David Bornstein has eloquently made the connection between our innate human need to make a contribution, to solve problems – and the lengthy list of unsolved problems that aren’t being addressed by traditional institutions, whether businesses, governments or nonprofits.

I write about people who have solutions to problems, and whose deep yearning in their lives meets the world’s deep needs. There is emotional pain associated with inaction, especially if we care about something.

More from David:

On the other hand, there is the upside of action: doing work that you find challenging and meaningful with colleagues whom you respect and care for. Social entrepreneurship offers this: the pleasure of collaboration, the feeling of satisfaction and thrill of making change happen.

From cosmetics and coffee to ... marriage

Two of the best-known organisations that have applied social enterprise principles successfully are The Body Shop and FairTrade.

By every measure, marriage is not just a private good but a social good. Married couples live longer, healthier and more productive lives. And the children of married couples are much likely to be contributors to society rather than drains on its financial and social capital. Marriage’s wider social dimension has always provided the state’s justification for regulating it.

But, since the 1970s state family law systems has taken over marriage to the extent that it is no longer a state-regulated contract between two citizens. It is instead a three-way contract in which the state is the dominant parter.

And so soon as family law took over marriage, individual citizens stopped buying the ‘marriage product’. Following the path taken by other social enterprises, WeDo Marriage intends to bring marriage back by offering a new marriage that will compete with the family law system in the marriage provision marketplace.

From The David Bornstein - How to Change the World on YouTube.

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Making meaning, building success

Do you believe in your work? If not, why do it? If it’s routine or empty, or doesn’t challenge you to live up to your potential – then what’s the point?

In our view no one has better made the connection between work and motivation than Guy Kawasaki: entrepreneur, investment banker, venture capitalist and author.

The core of entrepreneurship is to make meaning. Those companies that are fundamentally founded to change the world – to make meaning – are the companies that make a difference, the companies that succeed.

So what is this ‘meaning’ all about then, Guy?

Making meaning is the most powerful motivator there is. (But) meaning is not about money, power, or prestige. It’s not even about creating a fun place to work.
       Among the meanings of ‘meaning’ are: to make the world a better place; to increase the quality of life; to right a terrible wrong; and to prevent the end of something good.

Preventing the end of something good

Every survey and opinion poll tells us that today’s couples still seek marriage. As an idea, a sought-after goal, marriage is not dead but is still very much alive.

But the choices today's couples are making in their lives also tell us something else: they want marriage. They just don’t want the only version of marriage that’s available from the only people who currently supply it: the family law system.

If marriage is to have a future then it can only be outside the family law system, for the past tells us that marriage certainly has no future within it. What is called family law has 'protected' marriage to death. Life will come back to marriage when couples are enabled to create marriages that are protected from the family law system.

From The Art of Start by Guy Kawasaki on YouTube.

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