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I want to work with people who turn me on

posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 12:50 PM

Six years ago I left the world of banking having spent ten years in NatWest. My first job at NatWest was as a young graduate in the aerospace department. I found it hard going as much of the work involved complex financial structures and working alongside people who knew far more than I did. After a couple of years I left aerospace and worked first in the market intelligence department (surely a contradiction in terms) and then eventually I became the bank’s Political Adviser. My promotion was helped, I suspect by me having been a parliamentary candidate for Tony Blair’s Labour party during of Labour’s first win in 1997 (I lost !).

But in 1999 my world was turned upside down. NatWest was subject to a takeover bid from Royal Bank of Scotland and it was pretty clear we would not survive. I took myself off for a weekend break to Barcelona to think of my future. I was not worried however. I was well known in the corporate world, had lots of experience and was arguably one of the best in my field. I would have no problem getting a new job and began to contemplate who I should go to work for; should it be BA, BP, BG, BBA, BAA or some other such distinguished organisation.

But standing on the top of Parc Guell on a warm crisp November morning looking down on the beautiful city of Barcelona with the sea beyond I suddenly realised “I don’t want work like this anymore”. I knew exactly the job I would go into, exactly the nature of the many organisations I could choose from, exactly the kind of people I would be working with. Far from being excited about working in a huge new company and the salary package and material benefits that would come with it, I felt a sense of dread. I knew exactly how my life would pan out, what I would be doing when I’m 40, 50, 60, right up to when I’m lying on my death bed. The only uncertainty about my future would be what was in store for me in the life beyond. Would I meet the God of my choosing or would I be condemned to a less savoury experience. The longer I stayed in a world where the central objective was boosting share prices on stock markets with little corporate concern for the people or the impact on the environment, the less desirable the outcome would be for me.

But most of all, I was bored. I knew everything there was to know about my working life. I craved something new. I wanted to throw myself into a world I knew little about. I wanted to have a steep learning once again. I wanted a whole new experience, working not in some stuffy air conditioned office, but working out of coffee shops, in film studios, hot desking in some converted warehouses. Above all, I wanted to work with fabulous new people. People who were full of energy, who were creative and brilliant. People who cared about the world they live in and have amazing ideas and passion about how to make it better. This was the life I wanted making a difference solving major issues and inventing new ways to make society a better place. I wanted to be a social entrepreneur. I wanted to meet all the amazing people in the world who are doing amazing things. I wanted to work with them, to learn from them. And just maybe, I might be good at something that would be good for them.

In the following six years I met so many people who were indeed amazing and doing amazing things. With many I ended up working with, sometimes on a defined project and sometimes in more sustained businesses. During this time I have created or co-created a number of socially oriented businesses – kikass (a charity), Eurobandits, Hot Potato, Champ, Inpeak etc etc. The projects are way too many to list. Some were great successes and fun to work on; some were simple horrors: soul destroying, loss making disasters.

But I would change none of it. Even the nightmares proved to be a life enriching experience. And the people I usually worked with have made every day a joy. I have met some truly amazing people and none more so than my business soul mate Mike Ward. He has helped shape most of what I have done this past couple of years. He is the very essence of the kind of person I hoped to be working with – passionate, creative, fun and very smart.

More than a year has passed since we first began to work on i-genius. In that time seven organisations and over twenty individuals have helped us and given enormous amounts of time to generate the ideas and provide practical support. Our small team has probably had almost a thousand meetings gathering ideas and enthusiasm from people and organisations from London to Paris, New York to Bangkok; Cape Town to Delhi, Jakarta to Puerto Vallarta. If you add up the countless dialogues from all corners of the world, by phone, email and webcam I can confidently say that i-genius is already a truly global enterprise.

Despite all the hard work to get to this point, I am very aware that this is just the beginning. But I have utter confidence that in i-genius we are going to have an unbelievable experience. We have a wonderful opportunity to build a world community of social entrepreneurs where people are inspired by each other, tuned on ,by each other’s passion and ideas and turned by on each other’s personalities and the good they are doing. These are the people I want to work with. These are the people I want to help change the world with.

Welcome to my first blog. I want to read yours.

Comments

Jeremy Sweeney

Friday, December 22, 2006 01:03 PM

Courage and tenacity, and a goodpedigree in laudable failure, are probably necessary essentials for the entrepreneur. Things you have demonstrated in spades. I admiore you putting that in the service of a greater good and wish you well. i-genius is a great idea, well executed and bound to serve others well and so suceed.

Henry Warren

Sunday, December 24, 2006 03:07 PM

Great concept mate. Lets hope we can all help you make this a success!

Kevin Jones

Friday, January 12, 2007 04:44 AM

really nice site. would love to talk about partnering with our http://www.xigi.net effort. Kevin Jones

T T

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 01:14 PM

Excellent site - i have just registered, would love to hear from other entrepreneurs who need advice/assistance on any projects they have in mind. Please visit me and my daily rants at my blog for entrepreneurs www.ukpreneur.co.uk

G U

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 01:31 AM

nothing less than the best, thanks for the opportunity for expression of self. We will work together to make it a great success

Robert Tolmach Tolmach

Thursday, February 01, 2007 04:19 AM

Good luck with this! You will be interested in seeing http://www.ChangingThePresent.org. In particular, check the section on Social Entrepreneurs. Bill Drayton is among the Advisors.

Justin Canning

Monday, February 12, 2007 12:42 PM

Here here to all of the above. Just signed up myself in the hope that my new venture www.projectfreesheet.com will start to make an impression. The more like-minded people are able to gather in one place, the more of an impression we will make, and I can think of no better forum than this. Many congrats to Tommy for getting the ball rolling.

Stephen Chapman

Monday, February 26, 2007 01:07 PM

Inspired.

Tommy Hutchinson

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 04:10 PM

Thank you very much for the kind comments. We are constantly trying to improve the site and its great so many people are joining and using it to illustrate what they are doing and connecting with others.