Uncategorized | The Pope and the CEO

How to Launch a Career in International Development

The following guest post was contributed by Liz Alton. It provides important advice for young professionals seeking careers in development. Every year, hundreds of young professionals hit the job market looking for jobs that provide more meaning, impact and intangible rewards than a typical 9 – 5. Helping people in developing countries by working in areas such as foreign aid, the diplomatic service, and global health are fascinating, but it can be hard to find good information about ways to break in. Here are five strategies to consider when you’re thinking about working in the international development field. Consider a contract on a USAID Project: The United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, is the government agency that awards contracts for implementing the US’ foreign aid projects. This includes everything from maternal health initiatives to helping foreign governments bolster key sectors of their economy. Industry sites such as DEVEX.org and the Aspen Institute’s ANDE network are a great place to start. Minimum qualifications usually include an International Business MBA or other master’s degree and a few years of relevant work experience. Individuals with language skills, previous experience living abroad and the willingness to relocate to interesting places (e.g. Bermuda… Read more
My Favorite Things of 2012

“These are a few of my favorite things…” This is probably the most interpreted (and one of my favorite) jazz tunes in history. I won’t give you my musical rendition, but I will tell you about some of my favorite apps and products of 2012: WAZE Probably the most perfect iPhone app. They call it a community-based traffic and navigation app and it does not fail to deliver. Especially for city traffic, this app has saved me countless hours this year. Thanks to Jo Tango who introduced me to it. DropBox DropBox is the perfect companion to my iPad when I travel. It’s the end of bringing along the usb stick, the end of not having the right file with you when you’re at away from your desk. Just load your files up to DropBox and access them fro anywhere – and share specific folders with others. Can you say super-productivity? Doc Scan – Iphone Scan and Fax App by IFunplay Great way to scan a document and fax it from your iPhone. I haven’t had a fax since forever… but hate it when I have to run to a UPS store to send something to an insurance company that… Read more
Simple Company Branding Advice…

Here’s a great post Pamela Wilson wrote for IdeaMensch on how to build a memorable brand for your company. 1. Find a memorable name 2. Create a benefits-oriented tagline 3. Choose two colors and use them consistently 4. Find unique, readable fonts and use them everywhere 5. Craft your Big Brand Promise I think naming and branding early on in a company is tricky – you can easily spend too much or too little time on it. Pamela’s guidelines strike me as a great way to do it well without over-thinking it.
PovertyCure – What if we’ve been asking the wrong questions?

“Charity has its place in emergency situations.… A life that is lived on as a recipient of charity is a miserable life. I think, in our DNA, the way God made us, we are made as co-creators. God wants us to perfect and to really finish His creation. And if you’re simply a recipient of charity, you’re not doing that; you’re not fulfilling your real destiny, which is this creative capacity that God has endowed us with, we’re letting that creative capacity sit idle. I think that’s—at probably at the deepest level that I can reach—what’s so inadequate about the traditional response to poverty.” Damian von Stauffenberg
What Kind of Company Eradicates Poverty?

My friend and business partner Mike Fairbanks just published an article on World Challenge on the question: What kind of company eradicates poverty? In it, he describes his simple but brilliant framework he calls COW-F (i think it’s the simple frameworks that are the brilliant ones because there is simplicity at the far end of any complex issue) Check it out – it’s well worth a read!
Unintended Consequences of a Growing Financial Sector…

The Kauffman Foundation study puts its finger on and articulates an effect that I think we all wittnessed over the past 10 years: How many PhD’s do you know who trained in physics or math and other sciences that ended up working in the financial sector? I know I have several friends who fit that category. The question is, what would they have done if that opportunity wasn’t there? Chances are, they’d invent something in their industry. After ten plus years of this trend, the effects, the study found, are showing: Although widespread entrepreneurial capitalism requires a significant and active financial services sector, the industry’s growing size potentially suppressed entrepreneurship as financial services and young companies compete for many of the same employees, according to the study. The financial sector, which includes lending, stock brokerage, complex securities and insurance, among many other services, derives enormous profits from collateralized debt obligations. These new products require such sophisticated engineering that the industry now focuses its recruiting on new master’s- and doctoral-level graduates of science, engineering, math and physics, and pays them starting wages that are five times or more what they would have earned had they remained in their own fields. The… Read more