The Socializers | the human heart

Inspired by Greece

admin April 28, 2012 No Comments

The speakers at NIC 2012 – The National Innovation Conference today were truly inspirational.

About The Conference: The NIC 2012 conference IS a living community of inspired, successful and unique people who believe in Greece and the potential of Greeks. Every person at this conference is at the center of a community, a parea, a unique network that has tremendous vitality. For an example of a very dynamic slice of those present, check out the 40 Under 40, an esteemed list of young Greek leaders in North America who have excelled in their respective business endeavors and who simultaneously strive to make the world around them a better place through community involvement, philanthropy and/or volunteerism. WHEN such networks are activated fully, Greece truly will realize itself, to quote Peter Economides, as the “apple of the Mediterranean.”

George M. Logothetis, Head of the Libra Group, stood out as a leader that could very well take the helm of Greece itself. He said, “Greece is an ancient society that has overcome many difficulties. Greece just needs the ceiling of negativity and cynicism to be lifted. Let us talk about what Greece can be.” The house filled with applause at this statement by Mr. Logothetis. He went on to quote his grandfather, who said, “The impossible I can do. It is miracles that will take a little longer.”

Paul Efmorfidis, founder of Coco-Mat Beds, encouraged the audience to “Look around you. What is around you? Work with that.” Mr. Efmorfidis went on to speak of a good business, a business that can say, “We are proud of what we are doing. Our doors are open. We do not have secrets.” Efmorfidis also insisted that “we have to be alert in this life…we have to be awake.”

THE PHILANTHROPRENEURISM PANEL: A panel discussed Philanthropreneurism, focusing on how Greeks can use entrepreneurship and new technology for the benefit of Greece. The panel included Basil Mossaidis, Director of Ahepa; Endy Zemenides, Exec. Director of Hellenic American Leadership Council; Emanuel Manoussakis, Co-Founder & CEO of Groopio.com; John Pyrovolakis, Exec. Director of Innovation Accelerator; Loukas Pilitsis, CEO of Piraeus Equity Partners at Piraeus Bank; and Kostas Mallios, VP, Intellectual Ventures.

QUOTES AND THEMES FROM THE PHILANTHROPRENEURISM PANEL:

“Think positive and be realistic.”

“Make sure creativity does not get lost during the process of setting up a new business.”

“Young professionals in Greece are choosing to live with family or groups of friends and become entrepreneurs vs. working for increasingly low wages or jobs where pay never arrives.”

“Social networks are in the DNA of Greeks.”

“Mentorship of young entrepreneurs in Greece is crucial.”

“One of the most actionable steps in the short term: familiarize young Greeks with how to connect with funding and wealth.”

“We are living a technological revolution in Greece.”

“The Israeli innovation model is what applies in Greece.”

“We need a true innovation eco-system in Greece.”

“Israelis push for leaders, they cultivate leaders, they push young leaders. This is the model we must also choose.”

“We must find leading students and teach them, involve them in internships, mentor them.”

“We must train and cultivate young Greek leaders here in America and then send them back to Greece.”

“The private sector should lead Greece.”

“We must have successful private sector leaders actively participating in hand-holding and mentoring. We must leave the State out of this.”

“In 1974, when Cypriots lost everything, Greek-Cypriots came and rallied and brought Cyprus back to health.”

“The path to integrity is through the crisis itself. This is not just a financial crisis. This is also a social crisis. The crisis itself will create honesty and integrity.”

“Corruption has happened because it can. When corruption cannot happen, then changes will happen.”

“Greece has hit rock-bottom. There is nowhere to go but up.”

“We must get those in need of menthorship in touch with mentors. Social networks can do this.”

Stefanos Sitaras (http://www.stefanossitaras.com/), a film director and super creative thinker, asked, “How do you learn to take a crisis and become a better person through it? The mechanism of doing this is like an elevator that takes you to the very bottom where you hear negative voices and you really feel and experience the crisis within your body. And then you sacrifice all of this fear, timidness and pain. You give it up. And you eliminate your dependance. And you see who you are and rise to your best self.”

Arianna Huffington (who joined by video), said that all humans must learn to “Stop looking for the victor on the white horse to arrive and start looking at the victor in the mirror.”

Peter Economides, founder of FelixBNI, closed the conference with THE riveting and exact presentation on ReBranding Greece that has won hearts and minds the world over. He praised Athens as the city that “inspires love” and as “the most inspiring place on the planet.” Mr. Economides emphasized how “brand are a set of impressions inside of our heads…brands push the human race forward.” He insisted that Greece IS “the apple of the Mediterranean” and that it is up to Greeks to nurture this beautiful reality. Economides’ rooted his talk in the truth that “everything communicates” and that it is up to Greeks to nurture, guide and create the Greece that will be victorious.

Leda Karabela (http://yhesitate.com/) led a powerful session after Mr. Economides’ talk, in which she asked the audience to state words that captured their feelings, voice plans that could be driven by these feelings and make vocal commitments that would bring these plans to fruition. The audience fully participated with many voices chiming in and contributing to a rich close to the conference. The hall outside afterwards buzzed with conversation as networking and introductions ensued.

One could definitely say that Gregory Pappas and the Greek America Foundation put on a truly successful event, which we hope will contribute a significant slice of human capital to the growing support for Greece worldwide.

Good technology serves and nurtures humanity

admin April 5, 2012 No Comments

We must place the pace of the human heart before the pace of the machine. This is vital.

Yesterday, in Athens, Greece, a 77 year-old man took his life in broad daylight because the government had severed his pension and his debts had run too high. Rather than eat from garbage cans and saddle his children with debt, he chose to end his life. Greek psychologists on the radio called this a murder by the State and a failed system.

One way of understanding this event is through the lens of the human heart, the emotional center of the human being. The Greek system had its own pace, a momentum and rhythm out of sync with the individual who took his life. If the system had been in sync with this gentleman, he would have received what he needed on that day, in that week, during that month. The system would have been in tune with this man and his pain, his loss, his need. And he would have had a number, an email, a chat room, a physical person to reveal his situation to. And this person would have made a plan with him to ease the weight for that week at least, or even that month. And a life would have been saved.

The machine in current times bears much the same complexion as in decades and centuries past – a banking and corporate system driven by supply and demand, by profit and loss. The difference in today’s world is the sheer velocity of the machine we now interact with: from the millisecond pace of the currency trading world to the speed of next-day delivery, humans have upped the ante in terms of “estimated time of arrival.” And, in the case of the 77-year-old gentleman in Athens, we have accelerated the “estimated time of departure” as well. That man did not need to go when he did. And the way to change this is to incorporate a system that compliments or matches human pace.

Debt is an excellent market niche to locate the discussion of human and machine pace. The varying strata within the loan universe carry varying levels of velocity in terms of repayment. Most are inhuman, determined by an equation vs. the natural pace of the individual being lent the money. Some systems are different and more human. Let us take an option called Cumulus Funding. With Cumulus, the human being can share his particulars and then be lent money based upon his income potential (as measured by what the IRS has recorded). And, over a period of 8 years, this individual is charged a minor percentage each month of his varying income. If his income ceases for a time due to sickness or loss of job, then Cumulus will not draw from his account. When he finds a job again or his health improves, then Cumulus begins drawing again. Cumulus Funding is an example of a human-based lending system, based upon the natural rhythms of a typical human life and career. And, in the ideal Cumulus world, both the individual and the lender win.

Such a system is precisely what the 77-year-old gentleman in Athens needed. He needed a system that understood the needs of his stage of life, of his week, of his month. He needed to be in relation to an intelligence machine…one could even say, an emotionally intelligent machine. We need a culture of technologists oriented toward the human animal. We need a banking culture oriented toward the human family. To be clear: It is vital that humans leverage technology to create a more humane world. Business must be about pleasing the heart vs. pleasing machines.

Conversation as a vessel to heart destinations

admin April 3, 2012 No Comments

Personality and personal identity are in some ways like co-ordinates on the street map drawn by our intersecting relationships. We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and reasons for loving them. ~Gregory David Roberts, author of Shantaram

Many human beings have worked over the last three-four years building maps of acquaintances and thoughts. Personal social networks are maps of heart sensation and the timelines we now study are chronologies of feeling. A timeline in Facebook is a history of where and when an individual has hooked his or her most sacred desires and closely held fears to specific events, memes and relationships. Every relationship is a vessel, carrying feeling, intention and action to some collectively agreed-upon destination. Social networks offer up several hundred potential journeys of this nature in any given hour.

A common form that the vessel of relationship takes in social networks is conversation. The conversations an individual chooses in comment threads, on Skype, or via texting, emails and chats, are surface signals of underlying realities. And the translation of these signals for personal gain is the number one priority of most human beings. Every one of these signals or actions via personal digital communication is like a fisherman throwing out a line for some form of happiness or connection. And these “trawlings” are indicators of the lightning-fast world of word of mouth, where human beings are connecting with one another for some form of gain – whether this is gain of the heart or the wallet. Big brands want to know the Five W’s of personal conversation (and resulting gains) in digital and mobile networks — the is THE hot content for researchers. And this is also why emails, chats, text messages and other personal threads are of great interest to research organizations like Facebook and Google.

Discovery of bliss as a means of avoiding pain is a primary motivator for many individuals. The mythologist Joseph Campbell has captured the essence of this psychological phenomenon when he writes, “Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.” You have a chronology of bliss-pursuit and pain-fleeing in your Inbox and Facebook timeline…right now.

When I log in to Facebook and see the options of who is available now for a chat, I associate these faces with a story and a feeling. And I make a choice to enter a story or not based upon the feeling within. In fact, Facebook technology serves up ads to me based upon my heart-choices on any given day. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, writes, “The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.” Gone are the days where the mysteries of fluctuating markets confounded scientists and researchers. We know for certain now that individual choices are made based upon fluctuating feelings. And the densest clouds of conversation in social networks collect around phenomena common to the heart of every individual: pain and desire.

Try searching your maps of acquaintances today as a clue to your identity and your journey. Look at your timeline closely to see how you journeyed and associate this with a history of feeling. You created a map of heart sensation and you own a chronology of your own feelings. Study where you hooked your most sacred desires and closely held fears to specific events, memes and relationships. Take note of the relationships that carried you to destinations of happiness. Now create a spreadsheet of several hundred potential journeys to happiness that currently exist…right now in front you today.

Humans are in the process of knitting the global heart together

admin April 2, 2012 No Comments

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” via @Oprah

In the early 21st century, human beings constructed social networks that connected everyone. In the midst of this process, it became fashionable to share one’s deepest self with the network. The result of this sharing was a profound sense of global connection between all humanity. Within a few short years, a wave of emotional warmth and peace swept through the cultures of the planet. People started to really listen to one another and help each other in myriad small ways. There were a few bumps along the way, but these very same challenges became the greatest of opportunities for connection and cultural stabilization. The norm became full acceptance of the whole human with both shadow and light. The norm became an open-heartedness to others. The norm became to embrace “the Other” and welcome difference. The norm became to love one another…deeply and fully.

In the early 21st century, humanity walked across a collectively built light-fiber highway of data into an un-ending, harvestable dreamscape…each person’s inner world became visible and tactile. Such is the complexion of this spreading digital network, once unknown…now an increasing source of physical and spiritual sustenance to all. Human heart “stuff” has become the content of regular newsfeeds and the impact of this deep sharing with one another is profound. Consider the momentum towards global understanding that such intimate newsfeeds create. Consider the inescapable intimacies that result from hearing each other’s hearts. Consider how tightly bonded our human community has become and how instantly a wave of liking and care spreads now through digital networks. The inner realm is currently accessible and moldable via social networks in particular. Humanity has got what it takes to create a Golden Age of peace and prosperity…very quickly.