Excited to share another thoroughly rewarding adventure with the EntreCompEdu project, from the recent phase 2 with participants drawn from over 50 countries - one journey, representing UWTSD, with the multi-discipline faculty team at the International University of Malaya-Wales (IUMW). After three months of the phase 2 CPD, ten faculty members drawn from biotechnology, biology, …
Continue reading "Supporting the 1st Global Cross-Faculty EntreCompEdu Pioneers"
As you know my philosophical, phenomenological, piracy, planet and people endeavours spread out from EmergentThinkers.com into The Harmonious Entrepreneurship Society (HES) and hanfod.NL amongst other online spaces. I am proud to draw attention today to a recent HES post sharing the work some inspirational ladies who drive key entrepreneurial and sustainability work from their Celtic …
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Picture: Vishal Shah: Castles in the Sky Imagination, the engine of my creativity Ian Van Dahl’s millennium classic ‘Castles in the Sky’ conjures strong memories of my youth. Interpreting the lyrics as dreams of visionary projects or the impossible, few can deny the deep neural connections between music and imagination (Kaufman, 2000; Fries, 2009) or …
Continue reading "Embracing sandcastles: rekindling Imagination"
Last Autumn I shared the share the birth of a new society with Dr Mike Johnson and Morten Kure Kattenhøj. At hanfod.NL, we aim to build a community of phenomenological enquiry within networked learning. Despite all our positive thoughts and finger-crossing we were timed out with the continuing covid restrictions for our 2-day event and gathering …
Continue reading "hanfod.NL phenomenology goes online – June 2021"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBY4SpXRoWc Picking up on my time last month sharing how entrepreneurial value creators are uniquely poised to support the SDGs, I share the video link hot off the press. Sustainability provides limitless opportunities for value creation for learners. The SDGs provide the ideal canvass to inspire creativity, problem-solving, and action- and encourage teaching practices that …
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Whether you agree with the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill or not, RUSHED IN legislation will NOT be subject to the serious scrutiny that is required. The UK's new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will effectively make all protest illegal in the UK. This Bill not only cracks down on Non Violent …
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In line with Netflix's release of 'The Lost Pirate Kingdom' 15th March, featuring the 'Be More Pirate' Sam Conniff Allende, who recruited me at the Urban Foundry 51.6 event [21st century pirate: the rebel with a cause].... I share the 'mind behind 21c rebellion' interview... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOC7EImJ3OU My interview with Sam Conniff Allende. Social Entrepreneur. Innovator. …
As much as I denounce the commercialisation of this day, alongside many other celebrations, I do enjoy this one. In some ironic way, the pre-marked calendar date forces a break in an otherwise chaotic and fast-moving existence. Today, I take all the goodness (& rest) I can. Being present, humble about my gifts [that are …
A finale to the energetic and insightful first series of webinars to celebrate the ideas of Professor Allan Gibb hosted by the Societal Innovation and Enterprise Forum (SIEF), attention turned to the topic of stakeholder engagement and trust-based partnership working as a means of developing universities as entrepreneurial learning organisations. A key contribution of Professor …
Continue reading "SIEF webinar #4: Universities as partners for change"
Last week I was asked "why do you commit so much time and energy on talking about harmony, the SDGs, and the state of the planet, when it's all surely beyond your influence and control?" - the implication my time be best focused elsewhere... I supplied my usual impassioned answer.. scanning for the intended response. …
Continue reading "‘Adagio For Strings’ – an embodied answer to a question"
Yesterday I read a post on LinkedIn that made me roar. It is attracting much commentary – from many women like myself. Does it always have to be CEOs/founders? If the rebellion has to begin with an already seen progressive leader and go top down, how much of a workplace rebellion is it? There are many, …
Continue reading "International Women’s Day – why I ‘roar’ for my lady rebels"
It's two years to the day I blogged about my first 'call to action' VLOG! In that time, I have experimented with my students on vlogging assignments, creating various iterations, and developed criteria for adoption for wider share and application by various education stakeholders across the globe. Distinguished from the more common 'reflective design' used …
Continue reading "From pitch to published: new heights for the ‘vlog’ as an assessment device"
Yesterday I had the good fortune to lead an educator-centric multi-country webinar on three of my favorite themes: change agency, entrepreneurship, and sustainability. Invited to contribute to an EntreCompEdu café webinar series, I detailed the why, the how, and the what next for educators ‘Creating value through the Sustainable Development Goals’. Important when embarking upon …
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Image: RamCreativ Recently, a quote of unknown source was shared with me: "The mother whipped off her cape, held her hands in the air, and said 'I'm struggling this time'. The other mothers breathed a sigh of relief, ripped their capes off and said 'me too', and they knew they were not alone" 'Vulnerability' is …
Continue reading "Public displays of EV: reimagining a healthier future"
With generous support from the OECD and St Aidan’s College at Durham University the Societal Innovation and Enterprise Forum (SIEF) webinar series turned its focus to the ability of universities to become more entrepreneurial in order to respond to, cope with, and indeed potentially benefit from significant change, volatility and uncertainty. This third webinar was …
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Emergent Thinkers.com welcomes guest blogger, Alyssa Jane Clarkson With climate change concerns becoming increasingly alarming each day, more and more organisations, communities, and households have become more conscious about sustainability. In response, different technologies have also started to cater more to this need. And while technological waste is often seen as part of the problem, …
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Type image: Cliff Johnson A milestone for Emergent Thinkers.com - one hundred pieces published. It feels both special and surprising today, as I succumb to brain strain and cabin fever in my nth lockdown. 'WFH whilst homeschooling' back in play, raising stress levels somewhat. Enforced isolation more akin to an ‘institutional lock-in’ with the loudest …
International Flower of Hope: The Cornflower (credit: Birger Strahl) I’ll dispense with the new year goal-sharing this year. In times of heightened uncertainty, I share two recent mindset influencers: Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher focused on human emotions, and poet and naturalist, Diane Ackerman. Photos: Martha Nussbaum (Harvard University Press); Girl, Christopher Sardegna (Unsplash); Diane Ackerman(World …
Continue reading "Strengthening mindset for 2021: vulnerable, capable, interdependent"
2020 is the year coined as 'one to forget but all will remember' - challenge, distress, grief and pressure, alongside resilience, adaptability, compassion and dedication.As Christmas day draws nearer, I reflect on the key themes of the second round of seasons of 'Emergent Thinkers.com' - change agency, sustainability, entrepreneurship & philosophical thinking, with a portion …
Adapted image (JJ Ying) I have been asked many times, 'what do you mean by systems thinking?' A concept which influences my work, doctoral research and day-to-day thinking, my relationship with 'systems thinking' spans two decades. Its most recent emphasis in the principles of 'Harmonious Entrepreneurship', as promoted with my co-founder Professor David A. Kirby. …
The Professor & the Pirate (image designed by Vanessa Randel for HES (c) 2020) Recently, I joined up with Professor David A. Kirby to create an intergenerational change agency – the Harmonious Entrepreneurship Society. In our view, the harmony, sustainability and stability of society is seeded in such working groups. An intergenerational collaboration, we have …
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Gabrielle (Gay) Haskins has worked for forty years in the field of leadership and management development. Her key roles have been threefold: building networks (she was the first woman appointed as Director-General of the European Foundation for Management Development); leading the growth of Executive Education (at London Business School, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford …
Continue reading "The mind behind kindness and support in entrepreneurship"
Embracing its EntreCompEdu Pioneer school status, Dafen Primary showcased its growing entrepreneurial vison and competences in Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW2020 : 16-20 Nov). Their EntreCompEdu online graduation is a pleasant summer memory, but the staff at Dafen Primary School, not resting on their laurels, have leapt into action to embed their enhanced entrepreneurial principles and …
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Learning Reframed? On the October 23rd, the topic of the second Societal Innovation and Enterprise Forum (SIEF) webinar was the need for entrepreneurial learning to focus on problems and issues. Moderated by Professor Andrew Atherton, Global Director of Transnational Education, Navitas, the international panel included: • Professor Suzi Jarvis, Founding Director, UCD Innovation Academy, University …
Continue reading "SIEF webinar #2: Re-designing entrepreneurial learning around problems and issues"
kids takeover and turn the world blue Hey, hi everyone. My brother, sister and I, have taken over Emergent Thinkers today, and turned it blue. Why? Because today's a special day to promote children's rights and voice all over the world. Mum likes to write A LOT, but we think we are better at explaining what we want …
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Adapted background image: Phokin, Prof David. A. Kirby & Felicity (Pirate (c) V. Randel) This week, as Global Entrepreneurship Week 2020 unfolds, a new ship ‘The Harmonious Entrepreneurship Society’ was launched. Its destination clear – a planet that is in harmony, and its course is via entrepreneurship and the principles of holistic systems thinking. For …
This week excites me. Out of the COVID drama, springs hope eternal, a new thirst and growing energy to create and innovate. This is Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world's biggest celebration of entrepreneurship. Some space set aside to celebrate and inspire. An opportunity to showcase and reflect on 'entrepreneurship' as effective means to guide, inspire, …
Continue reading "GEW2020 – the welsh dragons roaring with creative spark"
Image: Adapted Camel pic (skitterphoto) with Felicity-the Pirate (Vanessa Randel, 2020) We are subsumed by challenge and change, at micro, meso and macro level. The implications and the importance amplified by our tumultuous political, economic, and social landscape. There are transitions in world leadership, and newly mobilised and channelled energies. Voices of the disenfranchised and …
Continue reading "Addressing elitism, exclusion, prejudice, greed and despair in 2020"
This week has been packed with ‘wonder’, fortuitously coinciding with some personal contribution on the topic in the first airing of Kevin Watson’s ‘Words Matter’ podcast series. A portion, honing in on my long-term relationship with Albert Einstein’s quote “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good …
Three months into lockdown. COVID blues mixed with a cocktail of missing my Dad, health worries, increased workload, and back-to-back video calls. Broken routines. WFH whilst home-schooling three. I was fast losing purchase on day-to-day living. And then some magic dropped into my inbox. From a trusted colleague and friend. The opportunity to engage with …
Continue reading "Motivational Maps – my journey back to ‘self’"
Image Credit: Hush Naidoo Today is World Teacher's Day 2020. A perfect opportunity to pay homage to the quiet, introspective, absorbed patience of the teaching profession (Rilke, 1958). People who have, through their competence, commitment and compassion, surmounted all manner of challenges throughout the pandemic. Professionals with the power to transform individuals and society at …
Continue reading "World Teacher’s Day 2020: recognising education’s heart"
Thanks to Vanessa Randle - thinkingvisually.com for the new logo Phenomenology has become my passion since starting my doctorate. Enveloped by its underpinning philosophy, I have worked to develop my practice of phenomenological method and attitude. It's already been quite an adventure, opening up new networks, friendships, ways of seeing. I believe it will continue …
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About Felicity © 2020 Graphic created by Vanessa Randle, www.thinkingvisually.com – Click to Enlarge Excited to reveal a new ‘site banner and logo’ to celebrate Emergent Thinkers.com's 2nd birthday! There’s been quite a lot to share over these last couple of years, from vlogging to pirate voice, and entrepreneurial, sustainability and phenomenological endeavours. I have also had …
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Felicity Pirate image: Vanessa Randel www.thinkingvisually.com Today is ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’. My name is Felicity, and I’ve been a pirate for 531 days. Evocative memories of the evening I claimed this mantle firmly cemented. A potent mix of shared values, a collective consciousness of grievances, powerful stories shared by author, social entrepreneur …
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Reporting on the first 'Reimagining Our Futures' webinars organised by the Societal Innovation and Enterprise Forum (SIEF) - Friday 4th September 2020. Reimaging futures amidst and beyond Covid-19 At the start of the webinar, a collection of photos of the late Professor Allan Gibb curated by Marju Unt (Founder and CEO, Estonian Euromanagement Institute) and …
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Monday was powerfully poignant. Thoughts on purpose, presence, and the past. My youngest enjoyed her first day at nursery, presenting an unfamiliar, albeit very cute look. A loose gingham dress and formal black leather shoes. The profound impacts on the psychology of child and parent on a life milestone met, acknowledged, felt. A new phase …
Image adapted: Guille Álvarez Following this blogspace, you’ll know I work on the Erasmus+ funded ‘EntreCompEdu’ project. It is with much delight I update with phase one celebratory news, specifically the culmination of Dafen School’s entrepreneurial CPD endeavours through lockdown. An online graduation. We didn’t start out with a pandemic context in mind, but what …
Continue reading "COVID-19 fails to halt CPD: Online celebration of Welsh entrepreneurial school"
Image: Sarah Trummer I'm used to falling down rabbit holes in my doctoral research, and do so quite deliberately, enjoying and valuing the adventure. The process satisfies 'wonder' through access to the new, the forgotten, the unnoticed or uncharted. Challenging thinking and cultivating insight, it can produce or trigger deliciously rich memorabilia [data] and new …
Continue reading "I spy with my little eye…something to do with ‘being’"
Image: Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787) National Trust, The Public Catalogue Foundation It is 'National Book Lovers Day', deliciously coinciding with my wonderful in-depth conversation with Kevin Watson of 'My Own Coach Ltd'. Recently, Kevin had invited his network to engage in his upcoming podcast series 'Words Matter'. An invitation for a one-to-one to discuss quotes, poems …
Continue reading "In celebration of ‘Pathic Writing’: a personal journey"
Professor David A. Kirby, Holder of The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion, is one of the UK's founding fathers of Entrepreneurship Education (EE). His interest in EE started in the early 1980s at the University of Wales. He was appointed to the UK's first Chair in Entrepreneurship at the University of Durham in 1989. Before …
Continue reading "The mind behind entrepreneurial mindset education"
Adapted image by Clint Adair Fresh from the close of UWTSD's Nexus+ 2020 I’m just too stimulated to not commit a few ‘in the moment’ reflections to screen. It was an absolute privilege and joy to present with entrepreneur/pirate/pioneer Educator, Paul Ranson, to share work on entrepreneurial inspired online peer support and development on behalf …
If the isolation of Covid-19 has highlighted one thing, it’s that human connection is important to and for all of us. Manifesting in many different ways or channels, it has also encouraged many of us to open our attention more fully to the people around us, and to review and refocus energies on the connections …
Continue reading "Shifting Old Paradigms: a virtual conversation"
Through a COVID-19-context lens, it is possible to glimpse the formation of a new economic order. While for some COVID was a 'known unknown' and referred by some as a black elephant (Kemp, 2020), the pandemic has been the Neoliberal's Black Swan (Taleb, 2008), an object lesson in complexity. A difficult situation has unfolded, and …
Continue reading "A COVID-19 driven paradigm shift: ‘disrupting Porter’s Forces’"
Art Credit: 'Nyntastic', Gail Troth, 2006 Dr Kelly Smith, currently based at the Birmingham Business School, is an influential enterprise and entrepreneurship educator with a strong portfolio of graduate venture creation. Here I spend time with one of the key architects of Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Educator networks in the UK. Contributing to education research and …
Continue reading "The mind behind curious & reflective entrepreneurship"
Photo: Pawel Szvmanski 12 weeks into lock-down I succumb to an anxiety brain fog. I dialled my 4th emergency service, IT. Irritable, an acute sense of slow thinking and processing, not feeling myself, I admitted to having forgotten a standard access code used over twenty times a day! An exceptionally tasking week on all fronts …
Continue reading "Too many tabs open – education & work design"
Following 'Judge it! A book by its cover' last October, I embraced another invitation to work with the Faculty of Communications, Arts & Media (FCAM) at the International University of Malaya-Wales. This time, my task was to review, reflect and feedback on an extensive collection of digital campaigns about various social issues, to shortlist a …
Continue reading "Digitally Expressed: Winning Social Campaigns"
I am experiencing data overload. The constant state of being plugged in, tuned in, updated. There is a heavily disorientating aspect to the Age of Distraction, as penned by Richard Wurman in ‘Information Anxiety’ and revisited in Nicholas Carr’s ‘cri de couer’ ‘The Shallows’. My tension, fully embodied (Francis, 2018), requiring unbundling beyond this blog-space. …
An education with nature: Lao Tong and I in 2005, Thailand It's my birthday so I'll re-share if I want to ;-). Just watched 'Disney Nature's Elephants'... The development of critical thinking, creativity and complex problem-solving are long standing goals of education. Recently I’ve been exploring the potential of Biomimicry to support critical and creative …
Continue reading "Education, Biomimicry and becoming better beings"
In an update this week for 'EntreCompEdu', the multi-country project aimed at strengthening teacher competences for entrepreneurial learning, I reported on the magnificent commitment of our teachers and support staff to our learners and families through our global crises. "Covid-19 has hit education hard, pushing the ‘brick and mortar’ school into uncharted territory. Placing unprecedented …
An interview with Dr Simon Brown. From security hologram innovation, pioneering education research and practice, to high impact roles shaping the academic, graduate and business enterprise landscape, Dr Simon Brown is a leading figure in enterprise and entrepreneurship business incubation and education in the UK. You have a multi-sector background Simon, which includes the study …
Continue reading "The mind behind pragmatic and innovative entrepreneurship"
