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The Butterfly and the Fist

Date: Jul 30, 2008 | Author: Santiago B. | Categories: Non Profit

A while ago I had the chance to attend a gathering organized by Toty Flores from the MTD-La Matanza at Cooperativa La Juanita. One of the speakers was a young Rabbi called Alejandro Avruj, who I had never heard before. He gave a very insightful speech, about our role as citizens to make Argentina a better place to live, where he focused on not asking God for help but instead rolling up our sleeves and get to work to make a change.

What I want to share with you here is a small story from the Talmud that he told to close his speech. I want to share it for the beauty of its prose as much as the deep, powerful relevance of its message.

The story tells that a long, long time ago in a small town there were two wise rabbis. The followers of every one of them fought for which of them was wiser. One child finally had an idea: He would catch a butterfly, take it to the other rabbi and ask: “Is the butterfly in my hand dead or alive?”. If the Rabbi replied: “Alive”, before opening his hand he would tight his fist squashing it, then show it was dead. If he replied “dead”, he would simply open his hand and let it go flying.

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Bye Bye Pareto: The new “20/60/20 rule”

Date: Jul 25, 2008 | Author: Santiago B. | Categories: Entrepreneurship

Most of you who studied Economics or other social sciences are likely familiar with the “Pareto Rule” or “80/20 Rule”.

The rule was invented when an Italian economist of the 19th Century called Vilfredo Pareto noted, while analyzing the distribution of Income in Italy, that 80% belonged to the richest 20% of the population. The rule was then extended as the “Pareto Rule” to any situation where 80% of the effect can be traced to 20% of the causes and is used in many different fields

All this introduction serves as background to a breakfast I attended a week ago, organized by the Ashoka Support Network. There we attended a presentation by an amazing social entrepreneur called Alberto Croce from Fundación SES.

I could talk a lot about Alberto, but in this post I want to focus on one single aspect of his speech. He mentioned that when someone is trying to promote a social change in a group of people. 20% are very open to it and embrace it easily. Another 20% is completely resistant, no matter how much effort we put. But the secret is in the 60% in between, that does not jump in easily, but can be attracted with the right approach and effort.

What is the catch? That tempted by the Easy 20%, we tend to concentrate our efforts there, not where we can really make a difference.

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Football, the true Digital Game!

Date: Jul 24, 2008 | Author: Santiago B. | Categories: Entertainment


Those who know me well, know that one of my biggest passions is Football… Yes, that is not a typo for Futbol (Soccer). I mean American Football. This blog would not be a true reflection of who I am without some space devoted to that.

All of you reading this outside of the USA must be thinking: “Ugh! That boring game that lasts three hours and stops for commercials all the time?!”. Well, I want to make a bet here: Without knowing anything about you, if you like business, economics or finance, the day you give Football a chance you will never leave it.

And, believe it or not, the reason why it is so captivating is precisely because it stops so much. Let’s see…

Futbol (Soccer) is an Analog game. It is continuous. Even when the ball goes out the field, the clock does not stop and what players are doing is not significantly affected. The game flows…

Football is Digital! It is a long succession of confrontations, with a begging and an end, as if they were zeros and ones.

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My personal definition of “Entrepreneur”

Date: Jul 24, 2008 | Author: Santiago B. | Categories: Entrepreneurship

Sometimes I am asked about my personal definition of “Entrepreneur”. There are lots of them around there but what I like the most is to say that an entrepreneur is a person that sees the same as everybody else, in contrast to the rest, decides to do something about it.

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Why another blog…

Date: Jul 23, 2008 | Author: Santiago B. | Categories: Entrepreneurship

OK. Here I go. After hesitating for a long long time, I am starting the millionth blog on the internet.

As you may expect, the main subject will be Entrepreneurship, but I plan to write about many different subjects as well. The common ground shall not be Entrepreneurship itself, but Risk.

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