Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
"Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership" and "Frame of Reference - Coming together" are conversational style shows with local, national, and global experts about issues that affect all of us in some way. I’m, at heart, a “theatre person”. I was drawn to theatre in Junior High School and studied it long enough to get a Master of Fine Arts in Stage Direction. It’s the one thing that I’m REALLY passionate about it because as Shakespeare noted, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”. Think about the universality of that line for just a moment. Think about the types of “theatre” that play out around us every day in today’s world. The dramatic, the comedic, the absurd, the existential, the gorilla theatre (it’s a thing, look it up) that is pumped into our Smart Phones, TV’s, Radios, and PC’s every minute of every day.
Think about the tremendous forces that “play” upon us - trying to first discover, then channel, feed, nurture, and finally harvest our will power and biases in order to move forward the agendas of leaders we will likely never meet. Think of all these forces (behind the scenes of course) and how they use the basic tools of theatre to work their “magic” on the course of humanity. Emotionally charged content matched to carefully measured and controlled presentations.
With that in mind (and to hopefully counter the more insidious agendas), I bring you the Frame of Reference "Family" of podcasts, where the voices of our local and global leadership can share their passion for why and how they are leaders in their community and in many cases, the world. Real players with real roles in a world of real problems. No special effects, no hidden agenda, just the facts and anecdotes that make a leader.
And at the risk of sounding trite, I sincerely thank my wife Ann and my two children Elisabeth and Josiah for continually teaching me what leadership SHOULD look like.
Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
The Miracle of Micro-Finance
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This the last of a 4 part series of an interview with Tom Eggert. This is where we get to talk about an organization that is near and dear to his heart as it is one that he founded after having retired from his full time job as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Following the Haitian earthquake in January, 2010, Tom, with the help of his students at UW Madison, worked to raise money to help individuals in Haiti recover from the devastating impacts of the earthquake. Instead of donating the money to a non-profit, they formed Wisconsin Microfinance to explore the role that access to capital could play in improving the quality of life of desperately poor individuals. These small loans are managed by a partner in Haiti, with funding from the US. The program was designed using principles developed by Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. The Haitian program has been immensely successful. Over 800 individuals are on the waiting list for future loans. The program has subsequently expanded into the Philippines after Typhoon Yolanda which destroyed large parts of the country. Lessons learned from Haiti were incorporated into program development in the Philippines.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
