Link4Change - Chris Ogle

All business people are told that they must go Networking, why is that? ... well quite simply if you don't then where are you going to go and meet other business people? Networking provides a convenient method for assembling local business people together in one place so they can get to know each other. Networking is not a place to necessarily get new business directly (although that does happen) but you will also find suppliers, useful connections (people you can refer on maybe), potential collaborators, learn new things, and probably get inspired. Talking to local businesses "networking" in its current form can still leave a lot of gaps in what we really need to develop ourselves and our business. Let me start off here by saying, what we have with our current 'Networking' models is not wrong, or bad, it's just only fulfilling a couple of our many needs at best. So what are the needs of a micro or small business? Meet new people with a diverse

Slipping behind with these posts is one thing, writing them out of sequence another... about to post 17 before 16... and so back to this post which should have been published last Thursday. When we hear the word "provide" we immediately think of providing Love, a home, security, happiness... or maybe food. But who are we providing for? Well very often we are providing for ourselves but over time we'll find ourselves providing for a family, neighbours maybe, or even the wider community. Coupled with the above in a more religious context we learn : God is saying "ask me I will provide for you." I don't want to get into a huge debate on this as it isn't the thrust of this post, however asking God for greedy, self obsessed, merchandise to satisfy our spending isn't going to be answered. The "universe" doesn't work like that either. You have to put the work in. We have to take action towards the path we want... keep focused and in t

I've slipped a bit behind with my words... This one belongs to Wednesday last week and today is Monday... aiming to have got to Friday by close of play today... but as all things... the time to complete was never the point but that the decision to write my thoughts about each word, think and reflect, was. Today's word I have known about for a few days... and to be honest I struggled with what to write until this morning some inspiration has made the task simple... maybe the universe has my timeline in hand who knows? I think that the word labour has been abused. There are lots of situations where it is used which may reflect in how it has changed over time. Today labour and work could be substituted for each other with an almost imperceptible difference in the meaning being conveyed and yet it was not always so. Labour of Love, hard labour, in labour, labour needed, the connotation being that to labour is to do something that is hard. That requires a huge effort... wh

Let me introduce this piece by stating this is not a rant! As a brief interlude to my Lent word challenge and following on from a conversation I had out networking at  +Watford Weekly Business  this morning...  Why what is happening right now should actually be celebrated and welcomed not criticised and opposed. Our society is corrupt. We know that, we knew it all along... and this corruption is rife all over the world not just in places too far away for us to get our hands really dirty (we have an army for that). The corruption is in Whitehall, in Europe and in the senate of America... it's everywhere. The reason? Money... how has it been achieved? Through focusing our attention on Black vs White, Good vs Bad, Fossil Fuel vs Clean Energy, Women vs Men, the Hav's the Have nots... It's a constant process of providing opposing views of the same challenge and then letting us (the people) do battle... we divide ourselves, voluntarily, and whilst we're squabbling? ..

This is a great word.  Of course in a religious context we can go right back to the book of Genesis to ultimate in the use of the word Create...  God creating the heaven and earth and everything else. This reminds me of the Ricky Gervais monologue when he talks about the book of Genesis, some very funny bits to this... Although in my opinion just a lovely story, I think there are some huge takeaways from the book of Genesis. If you are going to have a project make it a huge one. Make it a planet sized project. Don't play small!  It's your idea... be unique, go make it happen. God wasn't asking others about what they wanted, he was passionate about the project and just got stuck in God used his own feedback to make adjustments and improvements as necessary God found his own way. It wasn't as if there was anything to go on beforehand. This was a new concept... there was just darkness... nothing... a void... then out of just pure inspiration and innov

So today's word is Built and actually tomorrow's is create...  both of these words kind of go together... I remember from my childhood days the parable about the house built upon sand... What a wonderful message this parable gives. The concept that if you do not have a solid foundation then everything that is constructed on top of that foundation is shaky to say the least. From a religious concept I can understand the focus here is firmly on the individual. If you do not lay foundations of being a human being that extols the 'good' virtues such as love, humility, integrity, compassion, faith, hope, temperance, courage... (not a complete list) ... then there is a very good chance that things will be pretty rocky. Morality, ethics, values... have all taken a bit of a bashing of late... and as I mentioned in a previous blog it appears similar to the latter stages of the Roman Empire when society loses the sense of itself and people degenerate seemingly losing the v

Saved... A life can be saved at the hospital, at sea... and people can be saved from many traumas both self inflicted and by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who deserves to live and who might still have life and yet deserve to die is another huge topic which I won't discuss in this post. How people reconcile horrific events and the virtue of a God who if  'for real and kind' could possibly let these things happen, is for another day... I think I am going to take a different tack with this today...  Apart from the above, I use the word saved when referring to computers, backing up, or in relation to money being put away for a rainy day... although I can't say I've been particularly active in this area for some time! Saving a soul or Jesus dying to save us all from our sins or looking to be saved... for salvation maybe? I think we'll have a go at these as the others are fairly straight forward. Reverting back a couple of days to the word grac

I've been waiting for this one... This could be quite long post. I am not sure how Authority relates in a religious lent context, except perhaps the promotion of the idea that Jesus had been given the authority of God to do his bidding here on earth? ... but I am going to press on with my thoughts on the subject of authority. I guess I've never really been good with authority . I have a bit of a 'rules are there to be broken' thing about me. I guess it all started at quite a young age when I figured, who were these people making up the rules? ...and why is it they got to decide what I could or couldn't do. I even break my own rules. That's because we learn all the time and what might have made sense then, doesn't anymore. Don't get strapped into your own dogma... that's even worse! Now before we get confused... I'm not suggesting a lawless society where everyone can do as they please, but as far as authority is concerned I think our gr

Another word that has its roots very much buried in Religion... but it is a word a bit like Integrity a little difficult to pin down exactly... and so I am going to discuss a couple examples where it is used and we can explore the meaning from different perspectives. I'm also going to avoid graceful which is a different thing altogether. There by the grace of god, go I Grace as forgiveness by a superior to an inferior Grace as loving kindness to others  He has been one of the best players ever to grace the game He/She received the compliment with grace Grace is not earned...  Key to this in a religious context (not my own thoughts just discussing) is that we can not go about our business point scoring which we can then redeem for 'being in favour with god'... our debt through our sin is so great that no human being could possibly do enough good to be exonerated from the debt... and reach that place of 'job done'. So by the grace of god is to bas