We need to make sustainability EASY & SEXY!

Make sustainability easier

What sustainability means depends on one’s background, experience, knowledge & interest. And not everybody has the urge to really want to dig deeper into the concept of sustainability. Even myself, despite my concern and interest in saving nature and the environment. I just trust my own perception of sustainability, assuming I know what I need to know. I think of it, read about it, discuss it but never did I search for what it really means.

Until now, not so many people around me have become interested in this subject. I don’t remember since when I started to be mindful about my consumption and had my concern about topics like waste, climate change, meat industry, consumerism, probably 3 years ago or so.

Drawing public interest & raising awareness is the key

But what I am sure of is that I was not born to be environment-concerned. I was not taught in school about this. Nobody in my family cares about this. And this is not the case of any individual, this is common.

So I think it is necessary to raise awareness about sustainability as the first step in fighting climate change or living more sustainably as a whole community. The goal is to put “sustainability” into our subconscious mind, just like a normal person thinks about health, wealth, or relationship. 

Make sustainability sexier

The thing is, this is not something new. We have tons of organizations and activists who have done a lot and are dedicated to raising public interest in sustainability. 

But something is still missing. Because in fact, we are still struggling with the current way society and economy are functioning. I bet there is a statistic about that, but just using my own experience, observation, and all those natural disasters that have been happening especially in 2020, I can say we need to do more and have a better strategy to communicate and raise this topic among the general public. 

 

And so how can we make it happen? It would be the research topic for me in the next couple of days. I will share the insights I found in the next blogs.

If you’re reading until here. That’s already good progress added to this global mission/ movement. So I thank you, and stay tuned! 🙂 

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Photos from Pixabay

Saving nature is saving ourselves

I think one big reason for the current situation we are facing now – the lack of awareness & interest in saving nature – comes from the mindset of separating humans with nature. 

I firmly believe that we are nature and nature is within us. We should see nature as a part of our body and soul. In fact, we are living in nature. The one and only thing that keeps us alive is oxygen. And we cannot produce oxygen ourselves. We take it from nature. Without nature, there is no human just like without the environment there is no life. 

In daily life, we think, say, and do things to benefit ourselves. We think too much about our own satisfaction. And because we don’t consider nature to be a part of us. We create harm to nature, either consciously or unconsciously. 

Once we consider nature to be us. We won’t be so numb towards the environmental issues. We won’t place profit over sustainability. 

Instead, we can feel the pain of nature as if it’s a sickness of ourselves. It would hurt us when seeing a forest being destructed, rivers being polluted, plastics, and all kinds of trash being landfilled. 

And once we feel the pain of nature. It motivates us to change our behaviors. Just like when getting sick, you stop what you’re doing to rest, take medicines, and reflect if you did something harmful to your health. We start to consume less, recycle whenever possible, lessen the unnecessary energy use, eat environmental-friendly products. 

My favorite proverb from the Native American Cree:

“When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.”

Let’s try our best together, to make sure we would not end up like that!

Why I started this blog about sustainability

To educate me to be an expert in this field

The best learning method is to teach. So by writing down and structuring the new knowledge being observed, I believe this would maximize the study outcome and get me a deeper understanding of this subject.

To make sustainability a fun topic for people to read

By my writing, I want to convince people that sustainability should be a part of their life that enriches their living quality.

Many folks find this topic boring and unrelated, and that’s what I want to change.

I’m going to write about this potentially mundane scientific subject in a way that makes them not mundane at all.

To come up with simple and easy ideas

I want to introduce to people what they can do in daily lives to live more sustainably and in a more environmental-friendly way.

Everything should be extremely simple, easy, impactful, and not taking too much time to see the first result out of it.

2 simple principles for amazingly effective networking

Nothing highly valuable is built by just one single individual. Cooperation, teamwork, mutual support, those are so much important in entrepreneurship, and many other fields. The more people we got in our network circle, the higher the chance for great collaboration to be made.

So, how to network effectively?

Networking is a huge subject. To be good at it may require many practices and comprehension. However, the foundation of networking is communication skill. There are two principles of communication as well as networking which are so simple that people usually take it for granted.

Win-win attitude

Talk about networking, there is a tendency to network with people that somehow bring us benefit. If I have an idea, it’s logical to go find someone whose career or profession is related to my idea, try to get some help.

However, the purpose of networking is more than that.

 The purpose of networking is the exchange of information, advice, and referrals, via the informational interview process, to assist in attaining your goal. – FindLaw

So, don’t start networking by searching for people that we can benefit from but for those we can bring them value & together create the mutually beneficial relationship.

Back to the above example, if I have an idea, I should think of things like:

• Who can benefit from my idea?
• Who is trying to bring value to those (people benefiting from my idea)?

Of course, if my idea is to build an education mobile app, I must get to know IT engineer, but it’s not enough. The best option is to look for engineers enthusiastic about education.

Everyone knows something you know nothing about

I know this saying just as old as the hills. However, in real life, lots of potential professional relationships cannot be nourished just because people underestimate or prejudice others.

So, be open-minded, curious, and most importantly, be amazed by people. One good habit we can all practice is recognizing others’ strengths and good sides rather than the negative. Only with that mindset, networking will become so much easy, fun and natural.

 

What do you see in the picture above?

 

A black dot, yet there is still the enormous white space. See, bad things are so easy to notice, which makes us accidentally ignore all the rest. Open your heart and see the white space in others, and especially strangers who we have so little time to get along with. Don’t judge a book by its cover to prevent creating barriers to your potential network.

Networking is not difficult, as long as you open your heart, the skills come naturally.

An inspiring story about the above black dot 🙂 

 

Minimum Viable Product – How to start?

What is Minimum Viable Product?

Definition: Minimum Viable Product or MVP is a development technique in which a new product is introduced in the market with basic features, but enough to get the attention of the consumers. The final product is released in the market only after getting sufficient feedback from the product’s initial users. – The Economics Time

MVP can vary dramatically in design, material, size or method. MVP of a software or mobile application can be a wireframe, prototype or mock-up (differences amongst the three – here). For example, the MVP of Dropbox is just a three-minute video clip demonstrating how the system can work seamlessly for storing & sharing files.

Check out the real mock-up (MVP) for a business idea made by my team.

The purpose of MVP

MVP is the fastest way to get through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop with the minimum amount of effort. The goal of MVP is to begin the process of learning, not end it. – Eric Rises

MVP is not about perfection and superior design but to illustrate clearly enough for users (the ones who use) & customers (the ones who pay) to understand what values they can earn and give feedback on the usefulness or practicality of the product or service.

An MVP is the smallest solution that delivers & captures customer value- – Ash Maurya

Three steps to make your MVP

1. Conduct the lean canvas (business model)

Here is where you start analyzing each important sectors constructing your business like Customer Segmentation, Problem, Solution and so on.

2. Decide which style of visualization & demonstration to describe the product/ service most clearly and nicely

Don’t pay so much time & effort in this step. Keep the core of the business visible and the MVP still can shine without the polishing.

3. Present it to your early adopters (defined in the lean canvas) or/and a group of target customers.

You don’t need tons of customer to get enough valuable feedback, just a few good-and-right customers. None of the existing companies is serving every single individual in the total seven and a half billions people now on earth.