The Life of Dan

£10k - we did it! THANK YOU!

2010-01-20T00:44:00.003Z

We've all been a little giddy over the last few days as it's slowly sunk in that we are actually going to Borneo in about 24 hours time :-D

You've helped us beat our target of raising £10,000 and I just wanted to say a massive thank you to every single one of you who has supported us.

Not everyone gets truly life-changing moments (or at least good ones), but this money is going to help create just a few more of them, for individuals who need it the most. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will be changed in powerful, positive ways by what they get out of (and put into) Raleigh. That is what we've achieved together, and I think it's an amazing thing!

I'll warn you now, I'm about to go into full "Oscar acceptance speech" mode, but I just need to thank everyone...

(feel free to just skip to your name)

Starting at home, first of all thank you Mum, Dad and Kate - especially for telling everyone about the challenge, and Sadie for being an excellent snow-training assistant. Thanks also to Sheila & Ed and Claire & Brian.

Everyone on the BTC (or ex-BTC): thanks for putting up with our hundreds of e-mails about everything we were doing, and thanks Dave, Will, Shruti, Rich B, Kevin, Henry, Rob, Richard M, Sham, Leon and Laura for your donations.

A special thanks to Jon Mills for giving me the flexibility at work to fit fundraising around my schedule, your great enthusiasm for the more gambling-esque fundraisers and the best bonus I could have received (thanks Gordon Walker, Bob Scott and Greg Hyttenrauch for your parts in that). Thanks also Mark Benton, Judy Kenward and everyone else in Croydon who donated or bought raffle tickets and/or brownies.

Thanks Murray, Tariq, Flor, Declan, Niall, James, Laura, Holly and Julia for your donations to the cause. Thanks Roz for disobeying your rule, and Juliane for pushing it over the £10k!

Thanks Femma for all the re-tweets and re-yams... and anyone else who tweeted / liked messages about our cause.

Drew & Lina - sí, hay helado! :-)

Andreas - thanks for previous jungle adventures, and the tropical fruit-based powdered drinks to get me into the mood!

Thank you to my flatmates Patrick, Charlie, Thom and Susie for encouraging some of the more unconventional fundraising ideas, and putting up with at least six months of me talking of nothing else.

Thank you Aleja for believing in my dream to see monkeys in the wild and making sure I took all my vaccinations ;-)

And thank you to everyone who unleashed their energies on the Treasure Hunts and Sports Day, shouted at the TV at the Race Nights, bought cakes, took part in the Wimbledon Raffle, ran and raised money in the JP Morgan race (especially Assad), or participated in anything else we did!

Of course thanks Dan Maggs, Debra Hay and everyone at Raleigh and BMF for supporting our fundraising and setting up this crazy adventure we're about to embark on!

Finally, a massive, massive thanks to John Gillard, Liz Benison and Julie Fisher for supporting us as the Capgemini Kinabalu Challenge team and believing we could do it. John, thanks for pushing us when we needed it.

Oh, and thanks Ali for being there for the first half of the journey, and being such an outstanding dancing pirate :-)

Right, enough of that - time to go to Borneo!!

I'll be tweeting from the Challenge whenever I can at www.twitter.com/dancunningham (which is re-posted to Facebook and Yammer with the tag #borneo)

(I hope I haven't missed anyone, but please don't be offended if I have, it's been a long journey we do appreciate your support!)

What's the CRAZIEST thing you've ever done for charity?

2010-01-07T20:28:00.004Z

Well, I've done quite a few crazy things in my time for charity - dressing up as a cow and running around Soho, going vegan for a month, standing around in the freezing cold with a collection bucket to catch last-minute Christmas shoppers, but which is the craziest??

Well, we're running a competition to find out, and to see who has done the craziest thing for charity!

The one with the most voted upon story by Friday 15th January will receive a FREE YEAR'S MEMBERSHIP from our friends at TasteLondon, giving you 50% off at 1000s of excellent restaurants around London. A truly great prize!

It's open to everyone, so head over to http://bit.ly/crazything to submit your story!

(and if you don't live in London, this will make a storming great gift for someone, and surely sharing crazy stories is good enough reason to enter anyway!?!)

Or, just vote for my craziest thing :-) (please do!)

I know some of you must have done equally crazy (or even crazier) things than me, so...

What's the CRAZIEST thing you've ever done for charity?

Two weeks left, £850 still to raise!

2010-01-07T18:27:00.005Z

Gosh, just two weeks today until we fly out to Borneo!

It's been an incredible adventure so far, and the fundraising has been a much greater challenge than any of us could ever have imagined, but we're now over £9000 towards out £10k target.

That makes us all incredibly proud, but there is still a way to go!

If anyone can help out by contributing even a small amount towards that final £850, please make your donation at http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

The money we're raising is giving young people who've had a bad life so far the opportunity to turn it around by proving to themselves that they can do some good in the world. That means they go and work on incredibly valuable community projects with Raleigh all around the world (for example, in Borneo - building Gravity Water Feeds to give remote communities much needed clean, fresh water, or building enclosures at the Sun Bear Conservation Centre or many more).

Really important, valuable stuff on its own - plus it's helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their potential to grow into young leaders who can have a positive impact in the world. So it's a double win!

Please help us reach that £10k.

If you've already contributed, can you think of a friend who might want to support this cause? Passing on the message is just as valuable as making a donation!

Thank you.

26 days to go until the toughest challenge of our lives!

2009-12-28T00:04:00.003Z

Every now and then, I am reminded that this challenge is going to be bloody difficult.

You'll notice a few people in that video look just slightly tired and worn out. Well, this is why:

The Kinabalu Challenge - 9 stages over 6 days

1. (Mon 22 January 2010 - a.m.) 4km running race

After just two days of acclimatisation to the extreme heat and humidity of Borneo, the challenge kicks off with a 4k race into the jungle. I guess Lonely Planet's advice "do not do anything too physically demanding and avoid strenuous activity when you arrive in a hot climate" is kind of out of the window then!

2. (Mon - p.m.) Setting up camp

A nice hotel maybe? OK, a camp site? Tents even? Nope, this is proper Bear Grylls extreme survival stuff - building our own hammocks, shelter, fire - right out there in the jungle amidst all the mud, insects, cobras, scorpions and tropical rainfall.

3. (Tue - a.m.) Mountain bike / relay run - 6k - very hilly

After a trek out into the heart of the jungle, this stage involves taking it in turns biking and running on 6k of muddy off-road terrain, Camelbak's most definitely required!

4. (still Tue - p.m.) White Water Rafting

Then, in the afternoon, white water rafting back to camp. Time to get those upper body muscles engaged.

5. (Wed - a.m.) Bamboo Rafting

Yesterday too easy? OK, this time we have to build our own rafts and race back up-river, remember all this time we're competing against 7 other teams.

6. (Wed - still a.m.) 8.5k bike/run

Flatter terrain this time, so longer distance, not like we'll be getting slightly knackered by this point or anything!

7. (Wed - p.m.) Kayak relay race

2-man kayaks now. Probably in torrential rain. This is a very tough day.

8. (Fri) Up the mountain!

Mt Kinabalu. The biggest one in South-East Asia. Described as the "Stair Master from HELL", we will be ascending from 2000m to 3400m on this day - which should take us about 5-7 hours and really work those calf muscles.

9. (Sat) 2am start, to the 4100m peak

As if this isn't hard enough already, let's get up at 2am for the final stretch to the 4100m peak of Mt Kinabalu. This time we're raising against the sun-rise. Steep, rocky, freezing cold and in the pitch dark.

---

Now, each of those activities on their own might not seem too difficult. But doing them one after the other on six consecutive days. And doing them in hot, humid, tropical conditions. And doing them not at a leisurely pace, but in a race for which we've been whisked half way across the world. That's all going to make it hard.

But that is the challenge we're embarking upon in 26 days time. That's the crazy thing we're doing for charity. That's what we're doing to persuade and inspire people to donate to Raleigh's youth development programme: to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get out there, and to help Raleigh make an impact on community projects around the world. That's what our £10,000 target is for.

We've got 26 days.

We've got £862.86 left to raise.

As we are about to embark on the toughest, craziest challenge of our lives, please help us out with £5, £10 or whatever you can manage - http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

Thank you.

Hell Runner - I did it!

2009-11-15T22:24:00.001Z

Hell Runner - I did it!

Wow, never before have I seen / ran through / slipped all over / waded up to my chest through quite so much mud!

It was VERY tough, but I completed the 10-mile Hell Runner cross-country race quite a bit faster than my 2 hour target – in 1 hour and 31 minutes :-D

The first muddy puddle that you had no choice but running through was the moment I realised, right, let’s just go for this. Yes, I’m going to get ridiculously muddy, and yes, my feet will be absolutely squelchingly soaked. But 2000 other people are doing this with me, and at least it isn’t raining!

From the firecrackers and smoke grenades that marked the start to the 3-piece band marked the half-way point, it wasn’t actually too bad.

Then came the “bog of doom”- chest-deep gloopy, cold and energy-sapping thick mud, followed of course by a massive muddy scramble. After that they just kept it coming – ridiculously long, steep hills, lots of scrambling and sliding up and down – it was certainly hard to keep going at times.

Then atop another tough hill, suddenly there was another steeply-embanked 20-30m river crossing, just as deep as the first. Then more hills, more mud, and more wading. You get the idea.

But then all of a sudden it was the finish line. And I sprinted for it!

I had completed Hell Runner.

I felt ready for anything!!

Ready for Borneo certainly, bring it on!

HELL Runner 2009

2009-10-31T18:01:00.005Z

Hmm, not quite sure what I've got myself into here...

This is the first big event in my training in the run up to Borneo.

It's going to be nature at its toughest. It's 11 miles (longer than I've ever run before). That's almost a half marathon, but I think it's going to be much tougher with rough terrain, steep hills and muddy pools to navigate.

So I've got to train hard over the next couple weeks. Today I did my first really long practice run - from Clapham Junction, 1.5 times around Clapham Common, back to Brixton, then twice around Brockwell Park. Mapping it out when I got home, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a total of 9.3 miles - so not far off my target.

I think the longest I ran before was Bay to Breakers in San Francisco in 2005. That was 7.5 miles, which I did in 1:06 so my target is to hit the same pace for Hell Runner.

Wish me luck!! Or even better, make a donation to Borneo for this - we're over 2/3 of the way towards our target of £10k now but still got over £3000 to raise by the end of the year...

Join the Quest for the Golden Chicken!

2009-07-29T01:29:00.003+01:00

I love making things like this happen...

If you're going to be in London on Saturday, do join us for this treasure-hunting, sightseeing, beer-drinking, clue-solving day of mystery, intrigue and adventure!

As you can tell, I'm rather excited about it :-)

More info / sign up here

JP Morgan - 472nd (in the women's race)

2009-07-12T17:35:00.002+01:00

Every year Capgemini enters a big team into the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge – and this year was no exception. Among the 12,000+ running in London on Wednesday there were 90 from Capgemini, including Ali, Andy and I...

Head over to the Borneo for this! Blog to see how we did.

Sutherland

2009-06-19T00:50:00.001+01:00

Reflections in loch at dusk

This was the view from our cottage.

What an amazing place!

It was a wonderful weekend - great to be on a proper Cunningham family holiday, to enjoy fantastic Scottish food (especially that venison!), witness Sadie's mountaineering talents first-hand and just to be in such a remote, peaceful and beautiful place.

Training for Kinabalu

2009-06-19T00:44:00.001+01:00

Me and Dad climbing up Mt Arkle

Properly started training for Mt Kinabalu now!

Spent three great days in the Scottish Highlands - the far north-west coast - which is absolutely stunning.

On the second day, Colin and I (and Sadie, our dog), went up Mt Arkle - a long, hard rocky ascent up to 787m.

The mountains in this region of Sutherland are quite unique. They are part of The Moine Thrust - not a painful warm-up exercise in the gym, but a geological feature left over from the formation of Scotland. These mountains are made from quartzite, 530 million year-old rock, resting on a slanted base of Lewisian gneiss. It's almost white, hard, sharp and definitely quite challenging to scramble over.

After setting off at 4pm, we managed the 18km round-trip in just over 4 hours. One of the joys of the far north in the summer is that it doesn't really get dark!

Turns out Sadie's quite a mountaineer too, with no fear and able to scale almost anything.

That was 787m. In November, Mt Kinabalu is 4100m. It's going to be tough.

The Go Game

2009-05-23T21:10:00.005+01:00

It's important to play.

The concept or urban gaming is always something that's intrigued me: a group of people coming together in a city and turning it into their playground, interacting with their surroundings and with each other in a completely new way.

Technology is one thing that's making these kinds of games possible, but more than that I think it's our desire to be part of something, part of a community, connected to one another and our surroundings.

In a big city like London, everyone is in their own bubble. Sometimes, it's good to break out of that bubble and try something new!

When I approached The Go Game to see if they would be interested in collaborating on a London Urban Adventure to raise funds for Raleigh and The Princes Trust, I was overjoyed that they were just as excited by this concept as I was. And now, it's happening next weekend - the first London Go Game for Good:

London Go Game - Sat 30 May

This event's open to absolutely everyone, so if you're going to be in London next weekend, get a team together and sign up now at:

www.thegogame.co.uk/community

Hope you can join the game!

Bolognese Frustration and Mock Duck

2009-05-17T19:01:00.005+01:00

Day 21 of 28

Feeling healthy rating: 6 out of 10
Feeling frustrated rating: 9 out of 10
Weight: 75kg (-1kg)

Definitely counting down the days now.

About a week ago, this moved from being a fun novelty, to just being a very frustrating experience.

As you might have seen if you were following my tweets, the absolute peak of frustration came earlier this week. After waking up late and missing breakfast at home, I had to make do with a cereal bar. Then at lunch Boots had run out of vegan sandwiches, leaving literally no option there.

But the saving grace throughout all of this was that I had already planned what to have for dinner. I was going to make a really delicious Shephard's Pie with quorn mince and sweet potato.

When I got home, Susie was cooking spaghetti bolognaise, so I decided to follow suit and make my own version with quorn.

So I ran out to Tesco, where - yes! - I got the last tin of chopped tomatoes, the only ingredient I needed.

So, after half an hour of conjuring up a delicious quorn bolognaise, with red onion and just the right mix of herbs, it was tasting pretty good.

I started to tidy up while it simmered away on the hob. As I picked up the empty quorn packet to toss into the bin, I saw this:

Possibly one of the most disappointing moments of my life

EGG WHITES?

Why the hell do they have to put egg whites in quorn??? And why did I have to look at the packet?

Seriously disappointing.

But, as Susie pointed out, this is what makes it a challenge. And I am committed to making it through the 28 days, so I didn't eat my bolognese.

Today, I had this interesting delicacy which Patrick found in Brixton Wholefoods (which has lots of vegan foods including vegan cheese):

Mock Duck

It kind of looked like duck. But it certainly didn't feel like it. I'm just quite happy that I managed to get through an entire portion.

So, 7 days until The Week of BBQ. I am seriously looking forward to so many good, real, proper cheesy, meaty and delicious foods.

I now at least partially understand how it must feel to have a real food allergy or sensitivity and have to cope with the constant frustration of having to explain it to everyone and be incredibly limited in your food choices. It is really hard. And I have a great deal of respect for everyone who can't just eat what they want.

The purpose of this endeavour is to raise money for Raleigh and The Princes Trust.

It's all about rethinking things. I'm rethinking what I eat for a week. The Princes Trust is about helping young people to rethink their lives, to see new possibilities and opportunities. Raleigh is about providing them with challenging experiences to help them see these possibilities.

Read more about Raleigh's Youth Agency Partnership programme.

Watch a video about what The Princes Trust does.

I'd like to ask you to rethink what you're doing to help society. Could you spare a few hours each month to volunteer? Could you make a regular or one-off donation to help us raise funds for these causes?

A huge thank you to Tariq, Niall, Declan, Patrick, Mum, Kate and Christina for your donations.

First week of veganism

2009-05-02T14:39:00.006+01:00

Day 6 of 28

Feeling healthy rating: 8 out of 10
Feeling frustrated rating: 7 out of 10 (and rising with this BBQ going on beside me)
Weight: 76kg

Well, I'm still alive. No apparent weight loss or signs of malnutrition yet, and I'm feeling pretty good with all the healthy eating that seems to go side-by-side with a vegan diet. Plenty of dried fruit, nuts, seeds, pulses (mostly hummus) and good, fresh, organic stuff.

I don't think it's a bad thing at all to be forced to be so conscious of what you're eating, making sure you're filling that food pyramid.

Occasionally stepping back and re-thinking a big aspect of your life (such as what you eat) is quite a challenge, but a rewarding one.

Definitely avoiding dairy is the hardest part. Sandwiches, pizza, pasta are all a bit lacking without cheese, and so many baked products and snacks are out of the window without milk. So that's quite difficult and frustrating.

Meals of varying success so far:

Day 1 - came home to a DIY pizza workshop that Charlie had set up, at which I made myself a colourful veg-fest of a pizza topped with onion, pepper, olives and spring onions. It was a bit sad not to have any mozzarella, but a worthy meal nonetheless:

Day 1, dinner: Vegan pizza

To my horror, most beer isn't vegan. It's settled in vats which use animal derivatives such as isinglass (fishy) or gelatin (meaty) as fining agents. Luckily, Meantime ale (one of my favourites) is suitable for vegans, as are all these.

Day 2 - got home late from work, and made the mistake of trying to get something quick from the worst Tesco Express in the world. As they didn't have baking potatoes I ended up having Baked Beans with Gnocchi. Not really recommended:

Day 2, dinner: The shop had run out of baking potatoes :-(

Day 3, lunch - asked the confused waitress in Miso Noodle Bar about ten different questions about whether the vegetarian ho-fun stir fry contained any egg (no), milk (no), was made with rice or egg noodles(rice), or was cooked in butter (definitely not, that actually got a laugh from her!) then when it arrived felt compelled to confirm again whether this was tofu or omelette. Ahh, vegan paranoia!

Day 3, dinner - time to get serious. found a whole bunch of great vegan recipes on BBC Food. I made Spinach, Aubergine and Chickpea curry, with plenty of freshly ground coriander and cumin seeds. Very successful and went down quite well with everyone:

Day 3, dinner: Spinach, Aubergine and Chickpea Curry

Day 4, dinner - discovered to my great delight that Wardour St is really kitted up well for vegans. I had an absolutely delicious and extremely mega-healthy-tasting hearty meal from Vita Organic. Got a scoop each of mashed pumpkin curry, spicy noodles, chickpea stew and apple and beetroot salad. It's all vegan and wholefood, and even cooked at under 46 degrees Celsius to preserve all the vitamins. Extremely satisfying, fully recommended, and proof that vegan food can be extremely good:

Vitaorganic (photo by Andrew Hunter)

Day 5, dinner - another late night at work, which meant that dinner was a falafel sandwich in the train station on the way to the pub, where I drank some organic cider as none of the beer was certified vegan.

Day 6, BBQ - right now I'm sitting writing this with the smell of smoky BBQ meats enticing me from the garden. I've managed to resist some awesome-looking Colombian Chorizo and the next challenge is lamb koftas. Going to get some caramelised taro on the go soon!

If you want to see me keep this up for a full 28 days, please please please give what you can on my sponsorship page - http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

All donations are going to Raleigh, who are working with The Princes Trust to provide underprivileged kids in the UK with personal development opportunities that inspire them to see that there is a way out of whatever difficult situation they may be tackling.

A huge thank you to Murray, Susie and Flor for your donations so far. And to Connie for volunteering to ship some home-made hummus over the Atlantic!

The Kinabalu Challenge

2009-04-12T01:00:00.002+01:00

Extreme Ironing on Mount Kinabalu

Well, I might not take an ironing board but I am going up Mt Kinabalu.

This November (rainy season in the Malaysian Borneo), me and three of my colleagues are going to spend nine days hiking, cycling, kayaking and rafting through the jungle to the 4100m summit of Mt Kinabalu.

It's going to rain hard, the leeches are going to bite hard and we're going to have to spend the next six months training hard and preparing for this tough challenge.

But we're not just doing this for the adventure, we are doing it to raise money for two great charities - Raleigh and The Princes Trust.

Around one in five young people in the UK are not in work, education or training. Youth unemployment costs the UK economy £10 million a day in lost productivity, while youth crime costs £1 billion every year.

The Princes Trust gives practical and financial support to the young people who need it most, helping develop key skills, confidence and motivation, enabling young people to move into work, education or training.

Raleigh runs expeditions and challenges to inspire people from all walks of life to make a difference to their communities and reach their full potential as global citizens.

We aim to raise £10,000 to support young people nominated by The Princes Trust to go on Raleigh expedition, and to experience something that will change their worldview forever and turn their life around.

Read more about what we're doing on our fundraising page:

http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

We have a massive target to reach, we are determined to reach it, but this relies also on your support. So please, visit the link above and give what you can and help us to support Raleigh and The Princes Trust to turn young people's lives around.

Growing veg, stage 2 - community, chillies, beets, science and seaweed

2009-04-05T15:34:00.002+01:00

Beetroots planted!

Feeling like part of the local community after joining and buying seeds from the Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses Seed & Produce Growing Club last weekend. We even got some advice from a fellow urban food grower!

Chillies, coriander and beetroots hopefully on their way...

I've been checking up on our 5 varieties of chillies (probably too regularly), but no sign of germination yet. Based on the best chilli-growing advice available, we're moving them to the bathroom cupboard where they should get the optimum conditions - warm (should be 25 degrees celsius+) and humid. I really hope they work.

Beets planted out in the garden yesterday, along with Miracle Gro slow-release plant food. We're using science!

Hopefully going to buy tomato plantlings and scatter some seaweed on the patch today, which according to science contains plant nutrients and hormones that boost plant growth in only the most awesome ways.

Pancake Day, 24 Feb 2009

2009-03-22T19:44:00.001Z

24 Feb 2009

Probably my favourite holiday.

Growing veg, stage 1

2009-01-11T19:50:00.002Z

Tulse Hill, 11 Jan 2009

We dug the vegetable patch this weekend.

On the shortlist is currently potatoes, kale, chillies, peppers and tomatoes (for which we will fashion something out of glass).

The 6th annual Potato Fair and Seed Exchange will provide further inspiration and hopefully yield some weird and wonderful things to add to our list.

It feels good to be on the road to being less of a slave to Tesco, and the prospect of delicious home-grown veg for our summer parties is a fine one indeed!

Resolutions, To-Do Lists, To-Read Lists, Lists of Lists...

2009-01-03T00:29:00.002Z

So, I was going to make this list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, but actually I'm now not sure if that is really the best way to approach life.

We tend to fill our lives with to-do lists (well, I do anyway - I have several sitting in front of me right now!)

But what possible purpose do they serve?

They just make us stressed out because we always have something left on the list.

And what happens when we do them? The act often just generates more of them!

For example - I go through periods of finding lots of interesting web sites. These then lead to other links that sound interesting, and so on. I either open them all in tabs and never get round to reading them all, or save them to delicious and never get round to reading them all.

So, I have all these lists, tabs, bookmarks, e-mails, unread blog posts, news items, various bits and pieces with stars attached to them - and they're all just to-do items. It's all just clutter, isn't it?

It's time to put a stop to it!

Of course it's good to have objectives. But I'm almost certain that having too many is just detrimental to each one of them.

To-do lists force you focus to on the small, and then you forget about the big picture. The big picture is after all what is important. If you are focussing on the big picture, the little things that you have to do will naturally get done. Won't they?

So, I'm going to try something else. I'm going to focus the big things, appreciate the small ones, and let everything else fall serendipitously into place. Less lists!

That is my New Year's Resolution.

What do you think? Are you a list-writing person? Are lists necessary or evil? Is it a good idea to attempt to minimise them? Or are they actually what drives you to get things done?

Our collective potential

2008-08-21T18:15:00.000+01:00

This very compelling talk by Clay Shirky really highlights the incredible collective potential we have:

This is the fact that really bowled me over:

Wikipedia - by far the largest encyclopaedia ever produced my humankind - has taken about 100 million man-hours to produce.

In the US alone, 100 million man-hours are spent watching just the adverts on TV every weekend.

That's one Wikipedia-project per weekend!!

And globally, Internet users watch a trillian hours of TV per year.

Imagine if we spent our time just a little differently. Wow. What could we achieve?

But we are doing. We are spending increasing amounts of time producing, sharing, connecting and collaborating.

So with every 1% reduction in our TV-watching, that's 100 projects on the scale of Wikipedia that we can collectively create every year!

What does that mean for our potential for collaboration, innovation, doing good, being heard, fixing the world?

What would you do with those 100 million man-hours?

It is ready to be harnessed!

Reflections on the year

2008-08-16T02:20:00.002+01:00

(more a post for myself than for anyone else...)

One year ago today I left Venezuela.

Since then I have been: a person just quite joyous to be home, then a person a bit bored at home, then a crazy job seeker, a very motivated interviewee, an enthusiastic Christmas market stall-holder, a high-value IT contractor and finally I reached the objective of getting a position in the Capgemini graduate scheme and moving to the big big city.

Over the year, I’ve caught up with many great friends and – since moving to London anyway – certainly made a few more. I have begun to build up a social circle full of people who I enjoy spending time with – definitely work in progress but getting there. I have properly entered the corporate world – some aspects of which are great and some slightly frustrating. I’ve had a few adventures, but certainly not on the scale of the year previously!

It feels a bit like it’s almost been a year in transition, moving from one world to another, trying to find my place in this new world while at the same time trying to hold onto or re-establish the things I enjoyed about the old one – doing something creative that I’m passionate about, working with great inspiring people and living a life of exploration and adventure.

I’m part of the way there, but it feels a bit like compromises have been made, or things aren’t quite where I want them to be. This is the reality. And it is – at least somewhat – in my control. So I am going to make the most of it and I am going to steer it in the direction I want it to go.

And what will the next year hold? Seeking new challenges in my professional life, continuing to find great people to share my life with and making sure to live some fun adventures both around London and in some far away lands.

That’s the idea anyway. We’ll see what happens!

Expressed without words

2008-08-07T12:35:00.002+01:00

Wall-E is Pixar's greatest film yet.

The real beauty of it is the simplicity.

That so much can be expressed in a film where the two main characters say no words except for each other's names is an inspiring reflection on the human race.

Companionship, joy, surprise, dance, laughter, beauty, fear, purpose, love - all these things can be expressed without words. All these things can be shared across humanity, regardless of background, culture, language or preconceptions.

So this is not only a story about love; it is a story about humanity. More specifically, it is about our place on this planet, and what we are doing to ourselves as a society and as a world.

Wall-E is set 700 years into the future. Earth has been abandoned and the entire human race lives aboard a gigantic pleasure-cruising spacecraft. Everything is comfortable, every need is taken care of, every amenity is provided. Everything runs according to the pleasant and monotonous daily routine of "perfection".

But in that routine, life of course loses all meaning. If everything stays the same, and there is no challenge or surprise, then what's the point?

The sad reality is, right now, for many people, that kind of life is what they are striving for. We plug in our iPods, shut ourselves off on our daily commute, play our trivial games on our phones, go through our day’s work, eat our microwave food, watch our on-demand TV, absorb some advertising, then repeat. We spend far too much time on making trivial choices and enjoying completely superficial entertainment, slowly making things more and more comfortable and convenient for the next generation.

That can’t possibly be our purpose on this planet. That can’t possibly bring us real joy, fulfilment and happiness.

In the film, the real joy comes when humanity realises that no matter how difficult it will be, it must return to earth, cultivate the planet, take action, strive to become at one with the ecosystem of our world once more, and to reconstruct a society based on human passion and endeavour.

This is the real important message of the film: Joy doesn’t come from routine or comfort, it comes from seeking new adventure, challenging ourselves, finding a greater purpose, working together to achieve something that at first may seem almost impossible.

Laughter Clubs

2008-08-06T18:44:00.003+01:00

Children at Heart

The Laughter Club. What a great concept.

If all those around you are laughing, it is impossible not to laugh. One of the universal human truths across all cultures?

Apparently the human body cannot tell the difference between fake laughter and real laughter.

There are around 6000 laughter clubs in 50 different countries, with people just getting together to share in the experience of laughter and embrace the joyous ridiculousness of it all.

I think I have to try this.

Next session in London is Wednesday 20th August, 6.30pm at Lincoln's Inn Playing Fields near Holborn.

Learning to fly

2008-07-03T22:44:00.005+01:00

I am in quite a philosophical and reflective mood of late.

This is inspired by:

1. On Saturday, attending a great session called Life After Now run by a great guy called Houston Spencer. It was all about challenging our ideas of what we wanted in life, and how we intend to go about achieving that. A life of passion, if we so choose.

2. Which then led me to buy a beautiful and wonderful book - Jonathon Livingston Seagull: A Story.

The story is about a seagull learning to fly, really learning to fly. But it's really about life. And meaning. It makes you think, a lot. It made me realise a few things that I already knew about what really is important.

I urge you to read the Seagull book. It will probably change your outlook just slightly, in a very good way. It will at least make you smile, in a big way.

quite world people, great things

2008-07-03T22:18:00.003+01:00

These are the words I have used most in my blog.

Clearly I'm not very good at adjectives, but it definitely pleases me that world, people and things are what I care about (actually not sure about things, I wonder if I mean tangible or intangible things?), and community and experience are important to me.

Right now I am in quite a comfortable world, I don't have too many things and I have a few special people around me. I am part of several communities and I am experiencing a few great things.

Increasing the people, communities and experiences levels will be a good thing. Things things things. Everything's a thing. Oops, now I've done it.

CSR in balance

2008-06-08T19:28:00.002+01:00

One of the great things about the company that I work for is we do some really interesting Corporate Responsibility stuff. My manager calls it CSR in balance, meaning that he chooses initiatives that benefit both the community and as well as us, the employees, and in turn, the company. It makes sense. A couple examples of "extra-curricular" activities I've done already in my short time with Capgemini:

1. A community project with Raleigh International

Raleigh International gives people of all ages experiences that allow them to make a difference to communities and environments all over the world.

A couple weeks ago, 23 people from my programme spent a weekend in a big lodge somewhere in Surrey rejuvenating a nearby forest area for the community. It was beside a pretty poor council estate, and had previously been used by drug addicts, and filled with quad bikes, burned out cars, etc. But it's been under development for a few years so is now being used by the community in a good way now.

Filling up the dumpers

Our main task was to build a path through the forest to enable access for parents with prams, the elderly, dog-walkers, etc. Turned out this was quite a physically demanding task indeed, as we had to cart many tons of recycled motorway that we were using for paving. Lots of running around with very heavy wheelbarrows!

Constructing JD Corner

As well as definitely helping to foster a good team spirit and sense of community in our group, we were given quite a lot of responsibility in terms of deciding how we would structure the work and form work-teams to carry out various tasks.

Leadership

We all got a chance to lead some part of the project for about half a day - this is where the value of the experience really comes in. As the first leader of the path building team, people turned to me to make decisions about how we would start this off. So very quickly and with no more information than everyone else, I had to decide how we would do things and adapt this as we saw what worked well and what didn't.

One thing that was really interesting is as everyone gained confidence in what they were doing over the weekend, the effective leadership style changed into less decision-making and a more nurturing style, supporting and encouraging people who were by now quite exhausted but still working very hard.

I think this is quite an accurate reflection of situations that would present themselves during the leadership of a consulting project: having to make quick decisions with limited knowledge, and later on effectively using the knowledge that various team members have built up.

In the end we all felt a really big sense of achievement as we saw the first members of the public enjoying our beautiful woodland path:

The path receives its first actual user!

2. Bringing business to life for school students with Business Dynamics

I took my first proper volunteering day on Friday, with a charity called Business Dyanmics that goes into schools all over the UK to get young people excited about the world of business.

I like getting people excited about things, so I was up for this.

With just a short training session behind me, and a basic activity plan, I was pretty much thrown in at the deep end, in charge of a class of 30 13-year old boys for an entire school day.

Quite challenging

Having had almost no experience working with children, this was quite a challenging experience to say the least. Very exhausting, but very rewarding.

The idea of the day was to split them into teams each representing a small company who was to design, prototype, market and pitch an idea for a new roller-coaster at a large theme park - all the time relating what they are doing to my own experience and stories of the exciting world of business.

On one hand, it is quite an easy crowd as they do automatically have at least some respect for adults and they are excited to have a school day that's not just their normal lessons.

But as soon as you bring out the interactive activities and they're in teams working away with paper and card and a single marble shared between the whole class, boy have you got trouble!

I did manage to maintain order for a time, but at one point it did just descend into chaos with teams trying to buy and sell people from each other, people being fired, others quitting, the marble mysteriously disappearing, and even the odd outbreak of minor violence.

It was certainly a blessing to always have a real teacher in the room to bring everything back to order every now and then. They are amazingly talented people and I now have *a lot* of respect for them.

But very rewarding

I was very impressed with the creativity and enthusiasm of the students, and very encouraged that several of the teams realised that a key issue would be building and running their roller-coaster in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way.

Seeing the final presentations and discussing with them what their key learnings had been during the day was really great. They talked about growing in confidence, learning about working in a team, enjoying the day a lot, and wanting to do business studies and even start their own businesses when they're older.

Certainly kids these days are slightly less respectful of authority and harder to control, but I do think they are also more entrepreneurial and have more of a sense of the issues in business.

But a couple things I did have to clarify - no, I have not been on Deal or No Deal, and no, I do not (quite) earn enough to own a Ferrari :-)