the late Christmas special from 2024 (aka the one where other people say what I did last year - part 2)

OK - so I'm normally known for always hitting deadlines, and getting things done in a timely fashion, even when the odds are stacked against me.

(And although this time it's slipped a little, I don't think it matters that much.)

If you cast your minds back a mere few weeks to the middle(ish) of December last year, you'll (hopefully) recall that that's when we started to see people sharing posts on social media, and sending out newsletters, with their 'greatest hits' of the year.

I try to do similar myself every so often - but I always try and do it in a different way...

That's because I'm concerned that how everyone else seemed to be doing their own, means they were writing about what they felt was the most impactful and enjoyable things over the year - but that risks such an annual reminiscence becoming no more than a self-congratulatory ego boost..?

So I tried a different approach/experiment:

I used AI to review all of my activity on social media over the year (what I'd been posting about, what of that caught the most interest and response from people, etc), and also a repeat of my occasional adapted 360-degree feedback (the one where I ask a random selection of my contacts one seemingly simple and benign question).

The AI (CoAuthor, if you're wondering) suggested that, by the numbers and data, my most important things in 2024 were to do with:

- challenging accepted wisdom (about imposter syndrome; where the best support for social enterprises actually is; the secret truth about business plans that no-one ever tells you; and other things)

- making an impact both locally and nationally (based on recognitions I was awarded during the year from various bodies)

And I was particularly taken with how this AI summed up its profiling of my year in its final overarching report - having been accused of being many things over the course of my working life to date, it picked up on the reports of my death (the first time someone's suggested I've actually kicked the bucket!) that had being greatly exaugurated:

"To everyone working to make business better - whether you're transforming organizations from within or challenging systems from without - remember that being misunderstood is often a sign you're onto something important. Just try not to be mistaken for being dead while doing it."

https://coauthor.studio/rewind/z6WVn8

ChatGBT seemed to struggle more, when I asked it to summarise either my achievements, or highlights over the year. This is because, as it kept telling me when I asked it in different ways, "specific details about his projects and initiatives are not extensively documented in the available sources". Which suggests that I'm relatively coy about who the groups are that I work with, in comparison with other consultant-types - that's because I've always maintained that it should be my clients story to tell about themselves, I'm there to help them along the way, not use them as banners to promote myself with. (And also some of the projects I get involved in have a high degree of sensitivity for various reasons, so it's either dangerous, taboo, or otherwise improper for me to talk about them...!)

And the 'real human beings' who picked up on this 'game', and were able to offer what they were appreciative of during 2024, because of their contact with me during the year. They talked about:

• "This is a great idea to do on ourselves - and I want to thank you very publicly for all the incredible work you are doing about self-employed carers. Definitely something to celebrate!"
• "You have really helped to make our project [supporting local charities and social enterprises] a success through your overall contribution to it - your are our "go to" person for work related to CICs and trading, as we know you have much experience in these areas: after past experience of seeing groups get poor advice in these areas from other consultants and advisers has left us nervous, it's a great to now be able to feel confident that if I refer a group to you I know that they are in safe hands."
• "It's all your LinkedIn posts that I actually enjoy reading." 
• "You're able cut through all the 'noise', personalities, and BS, in any piece of work to get the job done on time and on budget".  

All of which leads me to conclude, I think, that 2024 was a year in which I managed to keep challenging truth illusions that hold people and organisations back without their realising it; continued to make a difference for individuals, communities, and ecosystems, in ways that they enjoyed and felt more confident by*; and also managed to avoid dying.

Ritual reflections like these are important - they provoke us to pause and look back; to try and find encouragements for the uncertainties ahead; draw learning to help us better navigate the next chapters; and ultimately make some more sense of this thing called 'life' (however we may be experiencing it).

My way of reflecting on this last year is probably novel, and wasn't without risk - but it hopefully helped me to be more honest, and kept me connected with other people that I'd shared it with. After all - whatever business we're in, it's all Human-to-Human in the end... 

*As Bananarama once sang: "it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it, and that's that gets results"

** For part 1 of this blog: https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-one-where-other-people-say-what-i.html 

after 20 years, it's time to go to the toilet

My business is 20 years old.

20 years! Only about 10% of enterprises that start-up get this far. 

To put this in perspective - when I started out, smartphones didn't exist! (it would be another year before the first tweet was posted; 2 years before the first iPhone was released on the world; and 3 years before Dropbox was launched. The typical best internet speed was 1Mb compared to around 900Mb today - we had to rely on using sharpened bones to scratch messages onto stones, and then hope people picked those stones up when we threw them at them).

Now, it turns out that the material associated with this particular anniversary is porcelain - something that most of us here in Britain associated with toilets.

But for me to have gotten this far, porcelain actually seems an apt simile for me:

• it has a high elasticity - to be able to keep up with all the changes in the world over the last 2 decades, the range of work I do, and types of organisations I support across all sectors, means I've had to be able to easily keep stretching myself.
• it has considerable strength and hardness - I've pushed hard on some things over the years, often to personal and professional criticism and opposition. This includes: (successfully) challenging CIC legislation; publishing a book that exposes most of the claims that people make about 'imposter syndrome' to be unproven and/or not based in any factual evidences; shining a brighter light on the 500,000+ unpaid carers who are discriminated against by all the bodies that are supposed to be supporting them because they're the only type of carer who aren't recognised in law for the sole reason that we're also self-employed; and calling out the apparent unprofessional practices of some social investors, which are damaging the wider sector; to name but a few.  
• it's translucent - I've openly published details of how I'm creating (or not) impacts of different types each year; and also been honest in my blog posts about when and where I've gotten things wrong.  
• and it has a high resistance to shock - if you've followed my blog over the years, you'll know that since becoming self-employed, my family has been made homeless twice; my father (who lives at the other end of the country) has almost died twice; I've navigated a difficult divorce; been investigated for tax fraud by HMRC three times (and cleared every time); had 'unannounced police visits' late at night; and so on. So much so, that the few people who know just how much 'shock' I've had to respond to and work through over these last 2 decades, are all amazed that I'm not only still in business, but not needed to be admitted anywhere...

So I'm actually pretty chuffed to be associated with porcelain.

But I also didn't want to miss the opportunity to try and mark this milestone - so, linking back to the toilet analogy, I've decided to twin my office toilet with a school in Uganda via https://toilettwinning.org/

25% of all human beings today don't have somewhere safe, clean, and hygienic to go to the toilet. Not only does this create all sorts of associated 'bio-hazards', it strips fellow people of their dignity. And if schools don't have toilets, then kids will find ways not to go there for those reasons, and as a result, lose the chance for education and so lose the future that they could/should have had, including the opportunity to break generational poverty.

So the next time you're paying a visit to the loo this year, please think of me and what you might be able to do to similarly 'be more porcelain'; and maybe if you might also be able find a similar excuse to twin your toilet with someone else's.