Obligatory reflective year-end blog post

I've had a hard time writing on my blog recently.  There are two main reasons that I can think of for this.  First, much of my recent exploration has been internal, contemplative in nature vs. meeting random strangers in random places.  I'm not sure that's as interesting to others.  Secondly, the truth about good writing is that the actually writing only accounts for about 10% of the quality.  The quality of the ideas and the mental process to refine them is the bulk of what's required.  My brain has been consumed in the last month by "work" (loosely defined).  Again, since the purpose of this blog is not to spend hours expounding on the precise definition of "innovation" or translating a mission into a strategy and integrating that into an organizational culture.....see I can feel your eyes glazing over already.....there's been nothing else of adequate quality of thought to pen.  Here's an attempt to create a window into that scary world, bring some of these ideas on "how to change the world" that are percolating internally out into the discourse.
Social change has always seemed fuzzy and ambiguous to me.  I recognize that it happens and is important, but my own interest has always been on the system--the underlying apparatus of levers that create the environment and situations.  I buy the economist idea that people largely behave in predictable ways, so if you know how you want them to behave, just create the right incentives and circumstances.  Social change seems to focus on changing people.  Silly strategy.

Holidays and Hollydays

December 16th is an important day in Bangladesh.  It's "Victory Day," when the war with Pakistan in 1971 ended and Bangladesh truly born.  Today Bangladesh turns 40.  What does that mean, Aunt Connie, should we be having a tacky hat party?  Buying silver?
BRAC's story begins around this same time.  Prior to the Liberation War, there was a devastating cyclone in "East Pakistan," to which the Pakistani government was largely unresponsive.  Fazle Abed organized a small group to lead relief efforts in a particularly remote island that no one was reaching.  The money left over from this organization was redirected once victory was declared, and millions of refugees flooded back in, to build lives from scratch in their newborn country.  This was the humble beginning of BRAC.  I spoke with one of the initial team members at the board meeting last week, and she said, "We had no idea that BRAC would one day be what it is today.  Back then we were just doing what we thought had to get done at the moment."
I found this really inspiring.  To my knowledge, Fazle Abed never said, "I want to build the largest development organization in the world.  One that employs tens of thousands of people, reaches millions, and spans the world."  And yet, here we are, with people like me tasked with detecting and fixing the small ways in which we are victims of our own success.  It's a testament to the power of commitment and action.  A bottoms up approach can build skyscrapers.  Even if you plan creatively, you're still limited to some sense in what you believe is possible.  So perhaps sometimes, or to some extent all the time, leaving some things to chance may be an important part of allowing success to happen.

We lost Jalal

Jalal was one of those people that you felt close to quickly.  I met him at a dinner bringing together people that had lived in Boston.  He arrived very late, but with the type of easy, almost impish smile that made it easy to welcome him into the conversation quickly, and forget within minutes that you’d spent the previous hour wondering where he was.  I didn’t realize right away that he was just visiting from Boston, or had recently been married.  It’s not that he was quiet, but when he spoke it was about the present, light-hearted, even mundane.  Not about the book he was editing, or the other impressive things he worked on.  It was about whether he could join the football games in Banani, the Dhaka party scene, and other normal people topics.

So I was surprised a month or two later when I read an article in Huffington post by Jalal. It was fantastic and got all sorts of wheels turning in my head.  I emailed him back with some reactions, and we got into a follow-up email debate/dialog.  I wasn’t surprised to then see him meeting in North End with my publisher, discussing a book project  of his own.  But always the warmth with which he greeted me was so sincere, his excitement about making plans to make fun things happen so palpable, that it was contagious, and led me to plan things like a semi-“disastrous” music night at North End.  It was one of those where everyone cancels at the last second, including my guitarist!  Luckily Jalal and I were SMSing.  He came late, but with a guitar in hand, and despite hemming and hawing about how rusty his skills were, he turned out to be a great guitarist and decent singer.  I was the one screwing things up; professing to know songs and then realizing mid-way through that really I only knew the chorus.  Or at least a line or two from it.  Asif bhai showed up at one point, and the three of us had a good time trying to harmonize, even if it was a little painful for the other customers.  Jalal was unfazed; he just said it was a learning experience and we’d have to try again.   Maybe practice a bit before then.

From ran to random

Dhaka—people love it, people hate it, but we all agree on one thing: you will never get bored here.  You can count on being surprised, usually several times a day.

As winter season sets in, the days have cooled.  I wear long sleeves all year, but now I can feel like it’s the weather vs. the social conventions that motivate me.  People have pulled out their camo earmuffs already (I’m not quite at that stage yet).  It’s also dried out, which makes it very pleasant for running, minus the dust and smoke from “camp” fires that sometimes results in BB (black boogers).

I walked out the door this morning for my run around 7AM.   I head up to Gulshan Lake Park (where the lake has been dry all year during a series of improvement initiatives) and do a few laps.  There are a lot of people out but traffic is really light on Friday mornings.  No sign of Mr. Khalid, the elderly gentleman who lived in my old building, who does several laps with his cane and loves to hear me say that I went to Harvard, or Andrew, a British colleague of mine who, like Richard Cash, first began working here when it was part of Pakistan!  Beauty before age, at least today!