Dream of sea turtles

Last week I attended a cool gathering - a smallish group of people gathering over wine and munchies not just to network or socialize (that happens anyway), but to hear and discuss stuff outside of the regular work milieu. Kind of like the salons of a past century, but more oriented to ideas and trends than art and philosophy, though that would be cool too.

Last week's topic was 'Strategic Philanthropy' and there was a panel of leaders of different kinds of local successful non-profits. Each of them talked about what they do, why and how they do it, and how they're managing in the bog of the Great Recession. They were all very engaging, and provided fodder for some very interesting post-panel discussions, but I felt that one speech in particular had a strong entrepreneurial appeal and it's message was transferable to just about any endeavor.

Wallace J. Nichols, ('J'), is the director of Ocean Revolution, an international program using creative techniques to preserve our oceans. His was a very well-constructed pitch with high impact - started with a story, outlined a few key take-aways that he elaborated, and ended with audience participation and a very simple call to action with strong emotional appeal. Anyone looking for funds (for or non-profit) could learn from him. What I liked about his speech, was not just the delivery or the message of saving the oceans (a biggie), but his four guidelines for making things happen:

• Don't be afraid of the unconventional/radical/revolutionary
• Collaborate with others to make things happen
• Build networks actively
  
• Use networks to spread the word/do the work

The first point was illustrated by a story on how as a youngster he loved sea turtles and wanted to make a living around them and had no idea how to do it and 15 years ago everyone thought he was wasting his time. But, he dreamed big, got a theory on turtle migration patterns that he went about proving with the help of a turtle 'volunteer' tagged with a transmitter, GPS, a comp. sci grad who helped build one of the first live update tracking sites on the web and a bunch of young people across the world who got fascinated by the story of the turtle going from Mexico to Japan - which substantiates the other points. At first glance it may appear that the last three points are all the same, but he explained that they were not so: collaborating is seeking peers with synergistic core competencies to participate in your efforts, building networks is spending time getting to know people (not just on Facebook/Twitter) and finally using networks to engage in and actually deliver on your initiative (a la crowdsourcing). The last one may seem hard to do if you're selling widgets for bean-counters or something, but it is eminently feasible all the same.

All of these are excellent reminders for any entrepreneur, and I believe the turtle story would be a great one for any young person wondering how to hold on to a dream. The closer was memorable too - J gave a blue marble to everyone in the room and told us that it was a symbol of the earth and to cherish it and pass it on to the next person who would benefit from it. To really understand the spirit behind the blue marbles, I recommend checking out his post here - it's an awesomely simple way to get across a big idea.