People with a clearly communicated Mission
are more likely to achieve their aim.
There is a clear correlation between having a concise mission and the successful outcome of the people focussed on achieving it. In many cases feats previously considered "impossible" are achieved in unbelievably short timelines.
We have always had a "Why?" goal (or several goals depending on who you ask) for @dwyl.
Long before we started @dwyl we had been working for charities and non-profit organisations on a variety of missions including poverty reduction, cancer research, homelessness, fair trade and education.
One of the things that became clear to us while we were working for various charities and for-profit businesses was that in most cases time was not used effectively and communication channels were poor. Even though mission statements were clear, translating those words into the day-to-day actions that most effectively achieved the mission was severely lacking in most cases.
Even though our start-here repo has been read and "starred" by many people:
(evidence that there is some clarity in our purpose)
We still feel that we are doing a poor job of communicating the Mission
to the extent that people have asked us to clarify it.2
Our objective with defining a single clear Mission for the organisation is to help everyone in the community/team understand exactly what we are trying to achieve and how much effort and perseverance it will require along the way.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_statement [6 min read]
- https://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/mission-statement [2 min read]
"advocate for the protection of children's rights, help meet their basic needs and expand their opportunities to reach their full potential". (21) ~ https://www.unicef.org/about/who/index_mission.html
"charity:water is a nonprofit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries." (16) ~ https://my.charitywater.org/about/mission
"Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy."
If you more find good examples of mission statements,
please add them!
Our App and Community should help people to discover meaningful creative work. We should proactively share all our learning and knowledge and encourage everyone else to do the same so that we can accelerate progress and build a better future together.
According to recent data, only 13% of employees (Worldwide) are engaged at work. A whopping 87% are disengaged. People who are disengaged are definitely not being effective with their time or laser focussed on any mission.
"I believe in a future, where the value of your work is not determined by the size of your paycheque, but by the amount of happiness you spread and the amount of meaning you give. I believe in a future where the point of education is not to prepare you for another useless job, but for a life well-lived. I believe in a future where an existence without poverty is not a privilege but a right we all deserve." ~ Rutger Bregman
We feel this is a huge problem because the lives of hundreds of millions of people are being wasted doing meaningless jobs. We want to help people find and focus their time on highly meaningful creative work.
We need to find people who share our mission and collaborate on work that we love.
On May 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy stood before Congress, and proposed that the US "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
President John F. Kennedy clearly defined the mission to go to the Moon. Landing on the Moon was far beyond the capability of the time. America had yet to successfully launch anything into orbit.
We choose to go to the Moon!1
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too."
~ John F. Kennedy September 12, 1962 wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon
Watch speech (video) for full effect: https://youtu.be/th5A6ZQ28pE
Less than 7 years later, on 20 July 1969,
Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing
What is often overlooked is the fact that JFK was killed in November 22, 1963 long before the space program had achieved any meaningful progress. Despite the demise of JFK, the mission to reach the Moon was still achieved. Over 400,000 people were involved in the The power of a good mission is that it transcends the leader who defined it.
SpaceX has a similarly clear mission: https://www.spacex.com/about
They too have managed feats most experts thought were impossible including many records for a privately developed liquid-fueled rocket. Booster landing and reusability is the key to affordable space travel.
"I'm trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me". Elon Musk
Even if you aren't interested in (or are against) space exploration, one thing is undeniable: the people at SpaceX are executing on their mission. SpaceX's Starlink project will bring cheap and high speed broadband internet access to the next billion people. This will be game changing to global development because people with access to information/knowledge/education can dramatically improve their own lives without north-western aid (handouts).
The point of mentioning Space exploration here
is simply to highlight what is possible
when a clear mission is combined with smart people.
"It is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” ~ Elon Musk
By comparison to launching reusable rockets,
what we are building is a lot easier!
Building web applications is definitely not "rocket surgery".
Anyone who still feels that software development is difficult, you are almost certainly over-thinking it; we have several copies of Steve Krug's "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" in the library. https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy/dp/0321657292 😉
1 Moon...? 🌔 Don't worry, @dwyl is not "pivoting" to become a "space exploration" company! We have neither the expertise nor the desire to burn our energy/time on leaving Earth when there is still so much to be done for to help people and planet! We aren't against space exploration, in fact we are delighted that it exists! We are grateful for GPS, Teflon and Velcro all of which we have the "space race" to thank for enabling or popularising! Going to the Moon is a good example of a clear mission which is both incredibly ambitious and inspiring.
Whilewe feel it's a good thing certain Billionaires are re-investing some of their wealth into space exploration (e.g: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson), because they are advancing technology in many fields as a result and inspiring anewgeneration of people into science and engineering, we wish more of the "mega rich" would re-invest their hoards of cash into poverty alleviation first instead of mega yachts to overcompensate for their insecurities.
2A member of the team recently asked "Has dwyl's name/ meaning changed?" hq/issues/519 (we are stoked that the person had the courage to ask the question, because it helped confirm our suspicion that we were not communicating our
Missioneffectively...)
We've attempted to capture ourMissionbefore: issues/116 but sadly there was a miscommunication that lead to the issue being closed without any progress, that was a unfortunate. 😕
Rather than re-open an issue that has a lot of "baggage", we are capturing our thoughts directly in this file. 🌱 There is also some insight into our mission in issues/108 as noted by @newswim in issues/116 Anyone interested in going through the old threads, go for it! 🔍#hypertransparencyMy goal here is to summarise our quest to define @dwyl'sMissionand update thestart-here/README.mdin order to clarify it fornewpeople.
