Happiness is your business model

Check out this inspiring presentation by Tara Hunt with the title of Happiness is Your Business Model.

What are the conditions for human happiness? Tara cites the American Psychological Association’s list of four:

• Autonomy — in control of life
• Competence — ability to do stuff
• Relatedness — interaction with others
• Self-esteem — confidence in self

And the main barriers to achieving happiness?

• Fear
• Confusion
• Loneliness
• Lack of control
• Struggle for survival

Without further ado here then is Tara’s presentation:

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Also check out Tara's post The Axis of Misery.

New marriage, new thinking

‘Is anyone else thinking what we’re thinking?’

That’s a question we asked ourselves when we first developed the idea, back in mid-2006, of marriage based not on family law but on contract law.

Sure enough we found that a number of innovative thinkers had been seeking a new basis for marriage and parenting outside the family law system.

Among them were writers, legal scholars, academics – even a Nobel-prize winning professor!

In our slideshare slideshow, entitled New Thinking, New Marriage, we've brought together a collection of thoughts from some eminent individuals who are re-thinking marriage for the 21st century.

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Our slideshow has been online for about ten months now and in that time it has received 1,600+ hits. Got a comment or feedback you would like to share? We would love to hear from you

Innovation in partnering, parenting

Jeremy Gutsche said it right. As CEO of TrendHunter.com, a global network that tracks and anticipates innovation in areas such as pop culture, fashion, technology, art and lifestyle, Jeremy knows where to look when seeking to find innovation.

In every industry innovation starts by observing customers

You can check out Jeremy's insightful Slideshare presentation below.

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In the realms of partnering and parenting one social trend is clear: the three-decade long replacement of marriage with cohabitation. In the UK, for example:

• The number of cohabiting couples increased by two-thirds over the decade 1996-2006, and by 2031 the number will double to 3.8 million.
• Cohabiting couples and single-parent households will outnumber married couples by 2014.

But not all ‘customers’ are the same. According to the diffusion of innovations theory developed by Everett M. Rogers, consumers can be grouped according to how quickly they adopt a new product, service or idea.

Thirty years ago, couples living together outside marriage were regarded as ‘visionaries’; ten years ago, as ‘early adopters’; now, in every developed country, cohabiting couples are the ‘early majority’.

In every developed country, it is not couples married to each other but partners living together that form the fastest-growing family type.

Cohabiting couples: from non-marriage to new marriage

Once cohabitation was merely the absence of marriage; now, slowly but surely, it is becoming a search for a new marriage. The first steps across the bridge from non-marriage to new marriage is the so-called 'cohabitation contract': a legal agreement, defined by the couple, that sets out their responsibilities to one another.

In June 2007 I took a screenshot of a Google search for 'cohabitation contract'. The number of results found was 793. Just twelve months later the number has more than trebled to 2,690.

What family law has taken out of marriage – mutual commitment – a still-small but fast-growing number of couples are putting back in. In innovation terms, they are the relationship ‘innovators’. Soon the ‘early adopters’ will join them, to be followed by the ‘early majority’.

The path to WeDo Marriage

But a cohabitation contract is just the first step towards a new marriage; to complete the transition, something more is needed: the wholesale rebuilding, outside the family law system, of a marriage that meets the description so eloquently expressed below by Professor Linda J. Waite.