About me/us: About me/us: I have a lucky habit of connecting with smart, ethical, new-paradigm artists, entertainers, writers, activists (primarily focused on nonviolence, interfaith and cross-party or independent political reform), financial planning experts and accountants, non-profit managers and grant writers, people with various specialty trades and skills, social media and marketing innovators, mediators, facilitators, negotiators, and gifted counsellors. The easiest thing I can do for anyone is to connect them to knowledge, people and things that help them accelerate their goals or reduce their obstacles, and I am willing to do it as a free gift (no obligation to do anything, any time, ever) or in excangege for items easily parted with, contacts, books, food, alcohol, 420 green fuel, or make an offer and state your needs and we'll haggle. Consumerism is uncreative, barter is fun. Try it!
Most of my business-minded friends are willing to mix cash/trade, reciprocte social capital or skill-sharing, or greatly reduce the typical fee charged by equivalent specialists. If the work is for a noble purpose, many will volunteer their time and knowledge on a gift economy or purely social capital basis. Some will employ a profit-sharing model or even open-source their creative works to seed collaborative experiments. Terms are negotiated individually, or with an impartial mediator or third party participant. If you're focused full-time on projects that advance sustainability, nonviolent intervention, restorative justice, prison reform, educational innovation, ADD or autism-friendly school and work environments, local resources for the needy, intergenerational, interfaith and interracial collaborations, authentic art, music or event planning, or trans-partisan and indepenent grassroots politics, ask about nonprofit, skill and resource-sharing, generating serendipity, and social capital exchange opportunities.
What's possible is always greater than what's plannable, especially when planning is ruled by narrow financial goals and concerns rather than multi-dimensional and creative valuation of human and material resources. We see possibility where others say "you can't", and will help you unlock your own vision and purpose beyond a financial transaction, and we can focus better on your real needs than more expensive consultants. We all specialize in rapid updating of plans and re-assessment of available time, energy and resources, which makes us ADD-friendly for those whose disability makes standard business culture toxic, suitable for creative and contingency-based work, quick jobs on short notice, and field work with people who don't respond well to business-speak. We go where typical companies won't, for prices typycal companies would scoff at. Our gain, since we are using a networked social capital model that makes the work better, more efficient, available on unusual terms, and much, much more fun for all involved.
If you're anywhere in the Seattle-Bellingham area or can get to Everett, WA, I'm easy to track down and interact with, and can pull together a focus team within days if not hours. Try friending me on Facebook and dropping me a message:
Michael Lockhart (grailsnail@gmail.com)
phone 360-691-9352 text 425-530-2075
* I may not resond by email, please use phone or Facebook
if your needs are time-sensitive and you want to discuss terms on short notice! *
Meta-consulting, tutoring and coaching, specializing in ADD, spiritual and creative brain differences, highly sensitive or culturally allergic people, marginalized status and non-traditional subcultures.
Connections to the Seattle area nonviolence, interfaith and cross-party dialogue and facilitation community, local musicians and artists, geeky specialists and high-quality nerds of all kinds. If you want a team made up of a financial planner, counselor-mediator, and marketing prodigy (for example), let me know what you're attempting to do, make an offer and see what's possible.
My ex-wife needs graphic design work, creates original crochet wearables and can teach crochet, has an Australian accent that people love (good for receptionist work), and is shy to sell herself, needs to work with good people and hasn't had enough work that involves her strongest skills.
Several projects would benefit from funding, both for-profit and non-profit, ask if you are interested in investing or philanthropy involving small, innovative groups rather than scaled hierarchical entities.
Allen McCutcheon: Fragments of TimeAllen is a collector of old, unique and valuable items rescued from waste status, repaired, upcycled and placed in good care. Discover what the past has to offer the future, perhaps as a present!
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Music: So far, just this snippet done with a Supernova II subtractive synthesizer. Collaborations planned, stay tuned.
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I'm using methods from the marketing, management and investing worlds that happen to work very well with social capital and other alternatives to standard financial vehicles. In shifting, down-economy conditions and likely into any future recovery periods, any social network that values people beyond their estimated work capacity and financial strength will do fantastically well, especially if it is diverse and multicultural in a global free market. Neglecting underestimated value and relying only on what is genearally recognized as valuable is a major boo-boo in investing circles, yet our economic and education system encourage uniformity, conformism and narrow materialism and fail to teach the power of investing time and energy in people. Disability and age discrimination also produce a large number of people with advanced skillsets, the humility to learn new ways of getting things done, and a thwarted desire to contribute to meaningful work, who aren't wanted by the corporate system. Our gain!
In a shifting, decentralizing worldwide market driven by younger and older buyers, mega-corporations and investing networks are forced to invest in the two demographic groups that have no security in the old system and a great deal of passion and creativity to offer a new economy. The young and aging, mutually suspicious of and locked out of corporate pyramids and more reliant on family and friends, both take seriously the risks of betting on a single career path or degree in what may end up an obsolete field. Those in the middle, as secure in their jobs as anyone can be, may suffer the costs of abusive, stress-intoxicated management. Without humane management that recognizes the value of a person's time, customer service will be as stressful for customers as it is for employees, workers will continue to be squeezed out for complaining about conditions or failing to smile correctly, and workplace shootings will escalate -- further discouraging shoppers. This gives a distinct advantage to smaller, private companies that treat human beings, both buyers and producers, as human beings. A giant company run on the authorian model will lack the flexibility to prevent hostility from trickling up and customers from trickling out, especially as people learn to create their own products and trade them without the Federal Reserve as middleman.
Education reform: collaborative, ADD-friendly and democratic classrooms, mobile homeschool and field trip networks, John Holt, Montessori, homeschool networks, community schools, unschooling and mobile schools funded by donations using donated equipment (now a better option, since it cuts out textbook and building costs, replacing them with Wikipedia, YouTube, TedTalks, and nature or a smaller living room style environment).
Economics: Mutual debt forgiveness swap chains, absentee investing and its impact on corporate ethics and job losses, Biblical and Quranic prohibition of usury and the blasphemy of "In God We Trust", humane management and investing paradigms, low-cost social capital approaches to organization and marketing, social media and the role of authenticity and integrity in reaching valuable branching niche markets, the spiritual role of marketing in unifying and defining subcultural values and identity, avoiding debt while advancing a for-profit or non-profit enterprise, skill-sharing, and the need for games and multimedia economics teaching.
Spirituality: Interfaith dialogue, widespread ignorance about Islamic and Arabic culture in the US, trans-spiritual agnosticism and the advantages of being unlabeled while freely using prophetic and symbolic language from multiple traditions, ritual vs. dogma and the importance of people who partake of multiple ritual forms and speak across dogmas, the role of money and debt in monotheism and Golden Rule-based spirituality, 60's psychedelic and psychological spirituality and Millennial authenticity and friendship-based ethics, music and artistic integrity (religious and secular alike agreeing Hollywood has distorted their values and culture). If God is love and everyone loves love, why doesn't the dollar bill say "In Love We Trust"? The viral marketing and activist power of money carrying messages.
Creator: Everything here Copyright 2011 by Michael C. Lockhart |