Had a meeting with Dave Toycen, the president of World Vision Canada, today. He's an impassioned speaker, and incredibly knowledgable across a really broad range of development issues. He was on the ground in Port-au-Prince within 36 hours of the Haiti earthquake, and in his career has seen first hand some of the worst things that we as humans can do to each other. But I think he would also say that he's seen some of the most amazing things that we as people are capable of – people who experienced the worst atrocities imaginable, and yet who still have hope for the future, and who are still working to help others and build something.
As someone said afterward, I can't even imagine the images in his head when he talks about this stuff.
His passion re-energizes the team, and his experience and insights help every member of the team know that they're not just doing another piece of DM or digital or whatever. Everything the team does has the possibility to move and get one more person to commit to helping others.
Having that kind of weight sitting on everything we do is a responsibility, to be sure, but it also gives us bitter, sarcastic ad weasels an unusual sense of purpose, and a welcome sense of reality.