CHLOE6

“Creating a better future
Requires creativity in the present.”
― Matthew Goldfinger

To be honest I have no idea who Matthew Goldfinger is (he’s not even realy googleable if you can believe it!), but his quote stands true!

At TFFT, we often wear many hats: teacher, sister, fundraiser, tour guide, diaper changer, monitoring and evaluation consultant…you just never know what your day might consist of!  One of my newest hats is called the “Idea Manager.”  The concept of this Idea Manager is to encourage and help create an innovative, supportive, collaborative work environment. Sound pretty exciting?  I thought so too, which is how I ended up wearing this hat!  The name “Idea Manager” is really a bit misleading, as it is my job to encourage new ideas, not manage them, but sadly the name “Idea Queen” was voted down…multiple times (I don’t know why).

While this new initiative involves many strategies, the one we are tackling right now is creating a PHYSICAL environment that is encouraging of innovation, support, and collaboration.  This goes back to my shopping trips in the US, where I actually spent a fair amount of time buying office supplies that will make our work time more efficient.  In Tanzania, there are mountains, plains, lions, and banana trees.  In America, there are office supply stores, Targets, and Ikeas. There are Sharpies in America.

So after shopping carts were filled…suitcases were filled… and now we have…

supplies

Suction cups, sharpies, dry erase markers, wall calendars, whiteboards, blackboards, shelves, binder clips, and a whole lot more!  The past week was about putting in all together (which, if you’ve ever bought an Ikea product, you know that is no small feat).  It is still a work in progress, but we have made great strides in our new office and can’t wait to show it off!

office

tree

quote

2014-03-04T15:57:20+00:00