“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both” -- L.P Jack

Gendered pronouns aside, the quote above serves as an excellent example of that certain type of inspiration that leads to novel ideas.

Selling is at the heart of any successful business.

This doesn’t happen very often, but our entire family spent much of this weekend reading and making plans; plans for getting back into the studying groove now that Spring Break is over, plans for summer vacation (can father and kids still do the annual canoe trip to Algonquin?) and for me, plans to test a second social enterprise idea. It was this idea that led to me doing some intensive reading, and while doing this reading I noticed an interesting pattern. We talk about a lot of things in the social enterprise space, but one thing we don’t talk about is selling.

Use this 7-point checklist when seeking feedback.

Our cohort of fellowship students at Toronto’s School for Social Entrepreneurs recently had the opportunity to do our second round of Dragons' Den-type pitches to teams of business leaders assembled by the school. I’m just reading the feedback now. This got me thinking about feedback in general. More specifically, it got me thinking about how to optimize the experience of seeking feedback as a new social entrepreneur.

Social innovation is a fast-paced game. An idea can easily become redundant or irrelevant if not executed quickly and extraordinarily well.

In this ever-shifting landscape, opportunities for everything from workshops to training, grants to loans, and networking events to outright competitions, simply abound. So how does one choose with which opportunities to engage? Once the wheels get rolling, how do you separate real traction from the noise? I’ve been asking myself these questions a lot lately while struggling with how to balance evolving opportunities alongside JustAccess’ ultimate vision of increasing access to justice and civic engagement through crowdfunding.