Category Archives: Nation-building 101

The reason for nation-building

The reason I am building a nation, rather than a business, isn’t because businesses (or profits) are bad. Every organization must be able to support itself financially to be able to serve. It’s a dinstinction I’ve made (and many leaders make, whether they call it a “nation” or not) to remind myself that I don’t want this to be about my growth and my success.

The people must be at the center of any nation. It must exist to provide them with new opportunities, new insights, better ways of doing things, a better life…otherwise, why leave the place they came from? It’s simply not worth the energy or (in some cases), the risk.

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Nation-Building Tuesday: Can you build more than one nation at a time?

It’s Nation-Building Tuesday!

Time to grab your giant map and tiny plastic men

Being the Leader of the Free World of a nation-building company has its privileges. For one, I get to declare Tuesdays for nation-building. Even if it’s just a small portion of my day, every Tuesday I sit down with my trusty pen and free-write about two things.

First, I ask myself one question that has to do with my long-term vision for this nation. Every week the question is different, but this week it’s this: If I had unlimited resources, what would I, as the founder, be doing for this nation?

Second, I ask myself one question that has to do with my short-term vision. This week, the question is: In the context of my nation, what do I believe needs to change in the people’s thoughts, behaviors, and habits in order for them to thrive?

Your directive for today is to free-write on these two questions. There is no word or time limit. Just begin, and see where it takes you.

Troubleshooting: If you find yourself feeling resistant, set a timer for 5, 10, or 15 minutes; quit when it goes off. If you’re enthusiastic and ready for more, make a list of specific next steps you could take to make your vision happen. If action steps make you cringe, make a list of ideas and possibilities that could pave the way for the future.

Let’s work on your nation

This week, I got a great question from Christianne Squires. (She is a passionate leader, building a nation around developing the spiritual life.) If you have or are considering building more than one nation that serves more than one set of people, you might be facing this same dilemma.

“Do you think it’s possible to build two nations?

I have been intently called to the work I do at Still Forming, which has everything to do with an individual person’s spiritual formation and life with God. I have one-on-one sessions, plus courses and books in the works for them.

But there’s another audience I keep having intuitions about serving: people in a position of service and ministry like me, who are perhaps feeling lonely, burnt out, or confused. Loneliness and self-protection is such an occupational hazard for people in ministry. They don’t have places they can go to let down and be transparent about their struggles.

I keep having glimpses of a different online nation I could build that creates a safe haven and sanctuary of trust, confidentiality, and support among a tribe of ministers to find air and strength and clarified vision for the work they do and why they do it.

Two very different audiences! Do you think serving both audiences at the same time in different venues would be too much for one person? Does each person need to commit to just one nation to build?”

- Christianne Squires

This is such a great question. My answer: it really depends on who you are as a leader and what you know you can handle.

If you are captivated by new ideas, without a strong history of following through on multiple projects at once, let this idea sit for several weeks. If you’ve done this and the idea is still burning strong, consider taking action. But ask yourself: Am I excited about growing and maintaining this nation, even if the newness wears off and it starts feeling just about the same as this one…especially when I have two nations to grow and maintain?

If you are a deliberate decision-maker, and you’ve given this deep thought and find it necessary to the long-term vision of your nation, consider the best time to start building this nation. Populating your nation is one of the most time-consuming phases of nation-building, but that stage of growth won’t be intense forever. How many people does your current nation need for you to feel comfortable scaling back your population efforts? Set a goal and a plan to reach that number, and then begin building your new nation once you’ve reached it.

If you enjoy having lots of things going on at once, and you tend to finish most of them, by all means, go ahead and get started. You’ll find a way…you always do. But consider tightening up the methods you use to populate your nation — focus on the population-growing activities that get you the best results, and let anything else take a backseat.

If you are an all-or-nothing person and excel at focusing on one thing at a time (to the detriment of your other projects), consider choosing one nation to build and sticking with it. Switching back and forth is just going to leave you frustrated and possibly overwhelmed. If both of these nations are important to you, is there a way to combine them into one (or at least make them seem like they’re one nation, in your own mind)?

I’d love to hear about your nation’s victories, especially if you’ve found something that works for you as you’re building two nations at once. If you have any questions or would like me to talk more about something I brought up today, just leave a comment or send me an email. If you’d like to participate in Nation-Building Tuesdays and receive the week’s directive in your inbox every Tuesday before the sun comes up on the western hemisphere, sign up here (all hemispheres welcome, though time zones will vary :) ).


Happy Nation-Building Tuesday to you!

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B is for belief: Stating it is harder than you think

We’re always asking people what they believe about what they do. It’s a sickness we have. The part where they squirm around in incoherence? That’s just a bonus.

Whether you’re writing a book, creating a film, or making a product that’s going to solve the world’s problems, knowing what you believe about it makes everything clearer. You know what to write about on your blog. You know how to talk about your work the next time someone asks you, “What do you do?” You can make decisions with a quickness, because you know exactly what’s going to take you in the right direction.

For this film, the original idea was to ask people what they believed, and then cut them off after 10 seconds. Then five. Then two. But we thought that might turn into a bad version of MTV’s “Boiling Points” (never heard of it? Lucky you.). We decided we’re not into getting punched in the face.

So instead, we turned the camera on ourselves. And this is what we found.

Leave a comment

As per usual, we’ll be actively responding to comments all day today. Ask questions, charge us with blasphemy (nicely), or send us virtual toast. But what I’d really like to know is, what does your nation believe and stand for?

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A is for A Small Nation

Happy Independence Day to our fellow states-dwellers! What better way to show our own nation-building pride than by releasing our latest site upgrade and our brand new, first-ever collaborative series cleverly entitled “Nation-Building from A to Z.” (At least we didn’t say “from A to Zebra.” We do have standards.)

Why you should read this series obsessively over the next few months:

  • Learn how to say what you believe in 10 seconds or less.
  • Explore how people are really experiencing your nation.
  • Learn how to conduct a national census.
  • Dissect our biggest (and costliest) mistakes.
  • Learn how to rally your people around a cause.
  • Discover how to create a prosperous nation that successfully supports the cause it represents and the people it serves.

And at least 19 and a half other foundational concepts that you need to know as the founder of your nation.

A is for A Small Nation

Before we jump into these concepts, we need to add a definition to the word “nation”. As the founders of our nation, we feel licensed to do this. Webster old pal, please forgive us.

Nation (n.): An organized, communal pursuit of an idea or cause that the people of the nation are committed to and willing to shed blood for. Not to be used interchangably with “business”,“tribe”, or “true fans” (concepts which can be used to support a nation, but not replace it or supercede it).

Do you have a nation? Do you want to build (or re-build) your nation? If you do, we made this series for you.

Meet the nation-builders

Our common pursuit is in rallying people together for a passionate cause that is worth fighting for. Any time that happens, in big or in small ways, we get a little teary-eyed. Meet the folks who are willing to shed blood for this nation. And in turn, for you and yours. (By the way, not every nation-builder is pictured here…just the human ones who collaborated on the series and are willing to wear costumes.)

Sarah J. Bray, Leader of the Free World and lover of toast. Writing is her thing, and she serves as the strategic “bus” that runs over the ideas and sees which ones survive.

Julianne Carson, High Commissioner. She came up with the ideas for each piece and gave creative direction as well as hands-on collaboration. She’s the brainstorm “bubble” and dreams the impossible dreams.

Jeff Dear, Ambassador Savant. He is the photographer and philosopher for this series, asking the “why” questions and giving deep thought to everything he touches.

Jen Whitaker, Working Apprentice. She assisted with costumes, logistics, and comic relief. Also about a thousand other things that would have gone rogue without her.

Happy 4th, everyone! After we finish our watermelon, we’ll be prepping for our next part in the series: B is for Belief: Why just believing in your nation’s mission isn’t enough.

Leave a comment

We love conversation and community. Things that we especially love: good questions, banter, and anything that mentions toast or ways to make toast. Our comment policy is that we actively respond for 24 hours after we publish a post, and we may drop by now and again after that.

We also like prompts to get the conversation rolling. We’re curious – What nation are you building, or do you dream of building?

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Taking inventory of your natural resources

Every day this week, we’ve been discovering who Treacy is and what her daily work and personal life looks like. I’m glad she trusts this process — it’s probably difficult to step back and let us dig around when she’s chomping at the bit to get some ideas on paper. It would be for me, at least. But until you understand the people building something and their motivations behind it, it’s difficult to build a thing that’s going to last.

People who are in a strategic field often feel a lot of pressure to deliver value right away. I got to meet one of my design heroes, Liz Danzico, over the summer, and just eating dinner with her changed the way I think about design and problem-solving. I would jump in with this huge problem I was trying to solve (effective distance collaboration, say) and I would spout out all of my ideas on how to make it better. She would listen. She would ask questions. She would ask more questions. Finally, she would say the most brilliant thing that took me back about a million notches to the core of the problem. Instead of skipping to the end and applying solutions that have worked in the past, she started with the beginning. The very beginning.

That’s what we’re doing with Treacy this week. Julianne and Cali are more of a natural at this than I am. But today, I finally got to eek in a bit of strategy. A tiny bit, but it made me happy.

Today, we took inventory of Treacy’s natural resources. This does two things: first, it helps us see all the parts that we could put together in various ways to create a new business model. Second, it helps us get outside of the usual solutions that we automatically turn to by showing us possibilities that we might not have known existed.

For example, if we see that Treacy has access to a camera person, that greatly expands the possibilities for her content strategy. If we see that she has connections in a particular community that we haven’t considered, we can do some reconnaissance work in that community to see what problems are there to be solved and what marketing opportunities exist.

We’ve come up with eight categories that these natural resources fall into:

  • Money
  • Time & Man-Hours
  • Motivation & Enjoyment
  • Talent & Skills
  • Knowledge & Experience
  • Beliefs & Ideals
  • Relationships & Connections
  • Tangible Assets & Physical Goods

I’ve created a worksheet that gives more detailed explanations on each of these categories and some possibilities to get you started. Download it here.

Happy weekend, everyone! And happy nation-building!

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Building a nation from scratch

Today marks the first official day for our collaboration with Treacy Mize, a lifestyle photographer who we’ll be working with over the next quarter to build a digital nation. Not only is it our first day working with her specifically, it’s also the first time we’ve ever opened up this process to the participation of a live audience. In one way, it’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. In another, I’m scared out of my mind.

Not about the nation-building — I know we can do that. More about the parts we can’t control. What happens when you put raw, unpolished work out into the world? Will it have room to grow into its fully realized self? Is it necessary to protect your ideas until they move out of babyhood, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood? We’ll find out.

The evil Sarah on my shoulder keeps whispering doubts in my ears about the whole live documentation process. It keeps telling me that half the time, I can’t even explain my ideas to myself. It has a point. And this time, it’s not just my ideas. It’s the blood, sweat, and tears of five (or six…or seven…) people who are coming together to build something greater than themselves. Err…ourselves. Committing to doing that publicly brings a whole new element to it.

Here goes.

A Meeting of the Minds

We decided to have our first meeting via Google Hangouts for one simple reason: the five of us cover all four U.S. time zones, and it’s been more stable than Skype for us. I recorded it all with ScreenFlow for Mac — or at least I thought I did. When I looked back at the footage, all I got was a black screen with my really loud voice and sporadic cursor flying everywhere. Let this be a lesson to you non-techy people — even geeks suck sometimes. We just get fascinated by it and keep banging the keyboard until it works.

But alas, this time it didn’t work. And I so wanted to show you Kenneth’s cats.

In our former lives as web designers and developers at S.Joy Studios, our first client meeting would always be a question-asking, strategizing lovefest where we showed off all the big words we knew. I would wear my trendiest “I’m a designer” outfit, and both we and our clients would leave completely impressed with ourselves and everything we knew. We’d come back energized and confident that we had what it took to reach the ever-worshipful bottom line.

But nation-building isn’t about the bottom line. Money is always a part of it (a nation can’t be effectively supported long-term by impoverished founders), but it has to be founded on something deeper. So today we tried a different approach.

Instead of coming at this project with our strategic guns a-blazing, we just talked. About ourselves, our favorite Christmas present (one of mine was a coloring book), and for a long time about Kenneth’s cats and a pig named Martha (not you, Martha…a different Martha; you are nothing like a pig, though we would love you even if you were). It was kind of awkward for me, actually. I’m much more comfortable being Leader of the Free World than I am being plain old Sarah. At least in that context.

Starting from zero

Even with the unstrategicness of our first meeting, we did get to ask Treacy a few questions about where her work has been lately, and where she thinks it’s going. We didn’t actually get to part two of that question…I don’t think any of us know. Treacy is one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met when it comes to her work, but the interesting thing about this project is that we’re starting completely from scratch. We don’t even know what we’re building yet.

What we do know is that we’re taking her gifts, her unique qualities, her experience, her natural resources, and we’re building an entirely new foundation and structure for her work. We’re looking at what it means to be a photographer and a creator in 2012, when your work has the potential to impact people in an area way beyond your backyard. And we are re-imagining what it would look like to build a digital nation around that. Something that will provide for both its founder and its people in a way that will make a new kind of impact on the world (or at least a section of the world).

Tomorrow, we’re going to start the conversation around what this could look like. We’re going to talk about her hopes, her fears, what has and hasn’t worked for her in the past. We’re going into it with a completely open mind, not thinking strategically…just observing and learning about who Treacy is and what drives her. I have no idea how long this part is going to take. But I have a hunch that it will be good. Hard, maybe. But good.

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"You can choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know."
– William Wilberforce