There's No Geography To Passion

I am so honored that Ernesto Sirolli himself left a comment on one of my blog entries.

I loved how he challenges Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class (which I intend to write more about this week) and states simply that "there is no geography to passion".

I then ran into this amazing transcript of a speech that is a good introduction to his book, Ripples from the Zambezi: Passion, Entrepreneurship, and the Rebirth of Local Economies, a must-read if you care at all about regional economic development or entrepreneurship or seeing dreams flourish. The recounting of his experience of top-down economic development in Africa is simply amazing. This is one of those stories that just pulls you in -- time just stopped while I was reading it and I've already read the book.

And then he shifts 180 degrees after Zambia - let's say it wasn't a stunning success story - and talks briefly of what did work in an economically depressed community in Australia and what's working now in many communities using enterprise facilitation.

I won't give the story plot itself away - read the transcript - but here are a few snippets:

And I came up with the most radical thing. I could not find anything as radical as what I've done.

I decided that I would go in a community without bringing any ideas, any resources, and I would become available in that community to one person who has a dream -- a dream for self-improvement, a dream for independence, a dream to be able to feed her family. And the only thing I would do when I found this passionate individual -- I would become available to that person, one to one, for as long as it takes, for free and in total confidentiality, to help that person go from this dream to create a sustainable livelihood. And it will take me whatever time -- three months, four months, five months -- for this one person...

Right now, in your community, this very minute, there is somebody who is scribbling figures on a kitchen table. If we would learn how to help that person in your village, in your community, to go from this dream to start something which is sustainable for herself, for himself, for the family, we would start a revolution.