In September 2008, I was invited by Gay Gaddis of T3 to speak at the C200 Conference in Dallas. At the conference, Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund was presented with an award for philanthropic efforts in emerging economies. She discussed a couple of powerful personal stories of her experience with water in India and mosquito nets in Africa. Her stories are collected and published in her book, The Blue Sweater.
In February 2009, Seth Godin offered a copy of Novogratz's book to citizen reviewers and I took him up on the offer. I received a copy in March from Sasha Dichter, who works at the Acumen Fund.
If you have ever been interested in driving change in the world, you should read this book. It offers clear perspective on the realities of making a difference.
I thought a long time about what I'd say in a review of the book. But most of the lessons I took away were reflections on how Novogratz's life made me recall my own upbringing, career choices, and future outlook. Some of my high-level takeaways:
- We all have choices. It's tough to know which ones are "correct" in advance, but the key is how you respond to the emergent outcomes you encounter along the way.
- Meaningful results take time. Achieving success at scale takes a lot of hard work over years of foundational work. This lesson is absent from today's instant gratification society.
- Things change. The world is a different place today and to get value from history, you need to study strategy and adapt tactics. Simply copying behaviors won't do much for you.
For a more traditional style review, I'll point you to an excellent video by Robert Jacobs (length 12:34):
I'm ready to share my copy of the book with someone else who can learn from the story and help share the lessons therein with others. If you're interested, send me your name and address via email. I'll pass it along with the same expectation that you read it, blog about it, and pass it along as well. UPDATE: I'm sending my copy along to Chris Hall at Humana, who blogs at hallicious.com. Chris is part of Humana's Innovation Center and in a great position to drive change similar to that which Novogratz has written about.
Thanks!
