No Snivelling - Home

“Nobodies to Somebodies: How 100 Great Careers Got Their Start” book signing with author Peter Han

by

Nobodies to Somebodies

Our friend, Peter Han, had a book reading/signing at the University Village Barnes & Noble this eveing, and it was really fantastic. The name of the book is Nobodies to Somebodies: How 100 Great Careers Got Their Start, and he’s been touring the country promoting it. He spoke with the crowd for ~45 minutes, and talked about his motivation for writing the book (he and his best friend both felt confused about how they’d make their dreams a reality), the process he went through to get the book’s contributors (ranging from Senator Bill Bradley to the CEO of Best Buy, Brad Anderson) to offer their stories and advice (he essential cold-emailed a massive number of people and worked his way tenaciously through the response rate!).

It was very compelling for a number of reasons:
1) Peter is an incredibly busy full time employee at a local software company, and he found the time to not only pull of this book, but also has been filming and producing an upcoming film, called What It Takes, covering world-class triathletes — where does he find the time?!?
2) The book’s topic is a very solid one — many younger people wonder how, or even if, they’ll make the transition to greatness. Peter’s approach yielded very concrete advice and stories from people — I think this will be an inspiration for young readers.
3) His list of contributors was so impressive… included Fortune 1000 CEOs, Nobel Prize-Winning Scientists, Senators, Governors & Cabinet Members, Emmy, Tony, Oscar & Grammy-Winning Artists, Pulitzer Prize-Winning & Best-Selling Writers, and Non-Profit Leaders

Socially Responsible Investing class

by

We all receive the flyers advertising classes at local community colleges and universities, right? Well, I was leafing through the UW Experimental College brochure, and saw an inexpensive one-day introductory class covering socially responsible investing that sounded interesting. So, I signed myself up and enjoyed the quick 3-hour intro. Before attending, I had read a little bit about the topic, and was hoping that the day would be more than just a sales pitch for the two instructors 🙂

It turned out to be quite informative. They didn’t do any selling, which was extremely good… instead, they just talked through the history of SRI — they first discussed the first level of SRI, which is generally the negative screens that many funds put in place (i.e. we won’t invest in companies related to sin elements like alcohol, tobacco or gambling), but then extended the discussion to talk about the advocacy efforts that many SRI funds employe (i.e. using their purchasing/investing power to help shape company policies… examples being getting companies to change their board compositions, to end harmful environmental practices…) and then broadened the discussion even more to talk about local practices you can undertake to get more involved (i.e. investing in community banks that make loans to historically underrepresented groups).

All in all, it was a very interesting day — if you’d like to learn more, either sign up for the class yourself, or contact one of the two instructors, Eric Smith or Justin Harris.

Experiencing the impact of microfinance firsthand

by

I have continued to be interested in microfinance since my first meeting with folks at Unitus — so much, in fact, that I decided to attend their Partner Expedition to Mexico to visit their partner, Pro Mujer Mexico.

On April 20, I flew to Houston and then on to Mexico City. My first impression of Mexico City, from the air, was how massive it was — I later learned that its population of 18 million is much larger than New York City!

I met the main group in the airport and we then hopped on our bus for the 1-2 hour drive in heavy traffic to Tula (an area north of Mexico City) — the other travelers were several Unitus employees and 6-8 others like me who were interested in learning more about what Unitus does, and how microfinance impacts poor borrowers. We arrived at our hotel in Tula, the Hotel Real Del Bosque, which was quite nice, and then crashed. The next day, we went into Tula and visited the main Pro Mujer Mexico office — the center’s director, Armando Laborde, introduced us to his staff, showed us a map of their different loan offices, and talked of their growth plans — it was really compelling to see how hard they were all working, and also how much they truly seemed to appreciate the relationship they have with the Unitus team.

I’ll leave out a lot of detail, but the remainder of the day and the following day were amazing — we were able to sit in on a loan repayment meeting, where women came to make their bi-weekly loan payments (remember that many of the loans start at levels as low as $100, and then have short 6-month repayments; when they repay their loan, they know that they’re automatically eligible for a follow-on loan), contribute their required savings, and then watched their training class (the topic on this day was ‘Communication’).

After that, we went out to the markets to visit Pro Mujer borrowers at their businesses — we met with shopkeepers selling produce, dresses, and more, and also visited a home where a woman used her loan to purchase cooking materials and supplies to make cheese, and then sell it door-to-door to friends — she was quite proud of her operation… she showed us how she mixed all the ingredients and then shared some of her finished product… the cheese was delicious, and the proceeds have allowed her to support her family of 4 children and a husband who has been laid off for the last 6 months — very impressive.

We also got some touristing activities in… got to visit the pyramids… always amazing to see these tremendous feats of determination!

In the end, the personal introduction to microfinance was very powerful — was inspirational to see the Pro Mujer Mexico staff, especially, as these people don’t need to be doing this… management is staffed by professionals who could easily find higher-paying work in Mexico City; however, they believe in what they’re doing is making a difference, and honestly, I agree with them.

If you’d like to hear more about the trip, contact me!

Poker Night out with the boys

by

The wives planned a ladies night out, so Jeff, Sam and I wasted no time in putting our own revelries in motion… namely, 3 hours of 4-8 limit hold’em poker at Club Hollywood Casino, followed by a quick stop at Brouwer’s Cafe and Six Arms.

Regarding poker, I continue to be amazed at how poorly the majority of people play the game — biggest faults of most people are playing poor starting hands, chasing draws, playing middle pairs, and betting passively — when you combine all four, it makes for a costly evening (depending on which side of the coin you’re playing).

All in all, a great evening — and, for local players, Club Hollywood’s poker tables are far superior to the Drift on Inn, assuming they have players. The smoke was 90% less (only because of improved ventilation, I think) and they’ve got the large tv’s, etc. However, when we got there at 8:40pm or so, no one was playing — it didn’t take us long to attract a full table, but I’d bet that the Drift on Inn probably had 2-3 full tables the entire time.

Podcast Meetup at Six Arms v2

by

We had our second Seattle Podcast Meetup at Six Arms this evening, and our attendance almost doubled (from 3 to 5 🙂 ). I definitely need to do a better job as an organizer, because when you don’t have signs posted, and you don’t tell people where to meet (i.e., upstairs), it is very hard to get a group together when you don’t know what people look like! We were able to get five grouped together, but we did miss one person who couldn’t find us…

All in all, it was a very positive gathering, I think… discussed the different sites maintained by attendees (Crapmonkey, HOT Radio, and Syndic8) — and, talked about ideas for projects… primarily working on getting a Seattle Podcaster/ee site up and running on one of the generic domains that we own — keep your eyes peeled for more.

Finally, I got an email from MeetUp this week, telling me that they’re moving toward charging a monthly fee for their service — now, I understand that they need to make $$$… I really do! But, I find it strange that they didn’t maintain ANY free element to their service, such as the first 3 months free… but, maybe I’ll pay… we’ll see how the group grows over the next few weeks/months.