{"id":487,"date":"2009-02-27T08:03:35","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T08:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/?p=487"},"modified":"2009-02-27T08:03:35","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T08:03:35","slug":"helping-clients-to-exist-or-become","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2009\/02\/27\/helping-clients-to-exist-or-become\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping People to Exist or Become?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been banging on about enterprise as being a process for the <a href=\"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/2008\/09\/03\/enterprise-as-a-process-of-becoming-the-emergence-of-identity\/\">emergence of identity<\/a> for a long time now.\u00a0 Enterprise provides the (nearly) perfect vehicle for us to explore our talents and passions and have the results of our efforts judged in real time by real people.\u00a0 When you are enterprising honest feedback is always available.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But I have been nowhere near strong enough on this. <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#3366ff;\"><strong>Enterprise is a process for creating and shaping lifes &#8211; NOT for increasing the start up rate.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was brought home to me again last night listening to <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/amhqnq\">Frazer Irving<\/a> at the Leeds College of Art.\u00a0 Frazer told us the story of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdrecorder.co.uk\/content\/barkinganddagenham\/recorder\/whatson\/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&amp;category=whatsonmisc&amp;tBrand=northlondon24&amp;tCategory=whatsonnewham&amp;itemid=WeED15%20Jan%202009%2009%3A41%3A28%3A757\">his journey<\/a> from schoolboy geek reading (and loving) comics to becoming a professional illustrator and artist working on some of the top <a href=\"http:\/\/www.2000adonline.com\/\">comics in the world<\/a> and providing artwork to support advertising campaigns for blue chips.<\/p>\n<p>Key elements in his journey were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>lots of study &#8211; school, college &#8211; taking every opportunity to develop his talent and passion &#8211; and having the strength to survive crass and damaging teachers &#8211; &#8220;Frazer &#8211; don&#8217;t waste your time on comics &#8211; when I was editing Women&#8217;s Weekly we sold 4 million copies every week &#8211; how many copies do comics sell?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>lots of &#8216;suffering&#8217; &#8211; crap jobs, dole, survival &#8211; but still developing the passion<\/li>\n<li>persisting long enough to &#8216;get lucky&#8217; with some breaks &#8211; (funny how years of practice and development of his craft finally got him the &#8216;luck&#8217; he needed&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>a real and enduring passion for his work &#8211; talking about the importance of &#8216;the muse&#8217;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now just imagine Frazer had come to you as a young graduate (2:2), currently holding down a string of temporary jobs (selling sex toys, security guard, office work etc) and told you that he wanted to become a freelance illustrator, not just working for top comics like 2000AD, but providing his own innovative style of illustrations.\u00a0 Doing HIS stuff &#8211; that at the time no-one was publishing.<\/p>\n<p>Would you have the type of service that could really help him with what is inevitably going to be a long journey?<\/p>\n<p>Could you support a journey measured in years, possibly decades, rather then weeks or months?\u00a0 Will your funders let you?\u00a0 Do you have the ability to support that kind of relationship?<\/p>\n<p>Could your service help him to persist, survive and develop as he worked his way around Europe developing his experience, style and technique?<\/p>\n<p>Would your relationship have had the strength, compassion and faith in his potential to endure while he became something TRULY excellent?<\/p>\n<p>While he served a REAL apprenticeship (this was no government scheme designed by employers &#8211; this was real self discovery) that gave him a platform to become excellent &#8211; could you have maintained your support?<\/p>\n<p>Or, in a possibly unconscious pursuit of quick fixes dictated by funding streams and service design, would you have tried to persuade him that his passion was OK as a hobby- but never really going to turn into a lucrative career?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">&#8220;Do you know how many illustrators send their portfolios to 2000AD every week?&#8221;.\u00a0 &#8220;Now let&#8217;s talk about how we can increase your sales of rampant rabbits.\u00a0 Have you ever thought of setting up an e-bay shop?\u00a0 We have a one day workshop&#8230;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Frazer was lucky.\u00a0 He knew what he wanted to become and he held onto that dream for long enough for it to become a reality.\u00a0 Many of our clients stopped dreaming a long time ago.<\/p>\n<p>So my questions are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Should enterprise services be designed to provide short cuts to economic survival, <strong>or<\/strong>, to help support the <em><strong>long term<\/strong><\/em> development of human potential?<\/li>\n<li>Which of these will create greater value in the long term?<\/li>\n<li>What are you trained, and your services designed, to achieve &#8211; REALLY?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Time for a policy, strategy and service redesign anyone?<\/p>\n<p>People really are our greatest assets and we are often not investing in them well.<\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"An imaginary open letter: To those who would &#8216;engage&#8217; us&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/08\/09\/an-imaginary-open-letter-to-those-who-would-engage-us\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">An imaginary open letter: To those who would &#8216;engage&#8217; us&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Some thoughts on Best City outcomes\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/07\/05\/some-thoughts-on-best-city-outcomes\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Some thoughts on Best City outcomes<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Some Barriers to Engagement\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/06\/13\/some-barriers-to-engagement\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Some Barriers to Engagement<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Getting to Grips with Social Finance &#8211; FREE TRAINING\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/06\/12\/getting-to-grips-with-social-finance-free-training\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Getting to Grips with Social Finance &#8211; FREE TRAINING<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Working In Community Development Today&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/05\/23\/working-in-community-development-today\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Working In Community Development Today&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been banging on about enterprise as being a process for the emergence of identity for a long time now.\u00a0 Enterprise provides the (nearly) perfect vehicle for us to explore our talents and passions and have the results of our efforts judged in real time by real people.\u00a0 When you are enterprising honest feedback [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[38,67,141,209,226],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-enterprise","category-entrepreneurship","tag-community-development","tag-enterprise-coaching","tag-operations","tag-training","tag-wellbeing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}