Spark Joy ✨ September

During the month of September, I shared a series of posts around Marie Kondo's philosophy of Sparking Joy, with my own special twist on sparking joy, collaboratively.

Besides celebrating my parents (even as my father has passed away), I used the opportunity to reflect and be grateful for some of the community collaborations I have been intentional about in the past, and the new partnerships I'm currently engaged with, that help build imagine the future ecosystems for me and mines.

Preamble: It has been a surreal & busy last 6 weeks, having the opportunity to live what I had imagined was a “future” aspiration, a decade ago, as an avid user of social media and early digital professional to sign on from a Florida Gators .edu account.

From day one, I didn’t hold back in sharing thanks with my personal board of advisors, here. I have been immensely appreciative to work with an impressive group of hardworking change-makers leveraging technology as an enabler, merging physical, digital, and metaphysical worlds in building community.

My amazing Global Partnerships and Global Accelerator teams’ updates soon, a precursor here.

Being an advocate for collaborative success, a recently announced and surprising collaboration with one of my father’s favorite brands Ray-Bans and Facebook; gives me a window into what augmented reality, virtual reality, luxury tech, wearable tech, and seeing into the future of experiential learning at work and play may look like.

My proximity to this has me reflecting intentionally and albeit projecting more boldly on what the next decade may look like for engagement, storytelling, community building (locally and globally), knowledge share, and more compelling to some, privacy, data, and community ethics. Exciting times ahead…

Image: Facebook

To the meat of today’s matter, on my personal toolkit for the future: an incredibly exciting future-proof tool I’m taking with, is the keen sense of sparking joy, collaboratively. When engaging with clients the tidiness & decluttering guru Marie Kondo asks a simple and relevant question “When you touch (or engage with) this item or that (activity usually in my case), does it spark joy?” 

Image: Netflix

Besides being relevant for old clothing items or often neglected office supplies (seen in her Netflix shows), this framework is pretty relevant for relationships, partnerships, and collaborative projects in life.

My mantra of actively pursuing #CollaborativeSuccess has led me to partner with, invest in, and collaborate with a plethora of actors, young and old, tech-savvy and tech-averse, social impact, community leaders, investors, and promising politicians. With a variance of success and failures that temper our life’s journey aptly.

I’m delighted that community sparks joy for me, and collaboration with one of my long-time avengers in Accra’s brand Lift. also sparks joy. I’m grateful for empowering new voices and my podcasting colleagues Adrian and Pato ( KukuZa amplifiers) within the Africa Podfest ecosystem, spark joy.

Lift. x Eliu Gift x Gamor

Lastly, my childhood home, now the Eliu Gift innovation hub openly and consistently sparks my greatest joy, deliberately shedding away the endless list of others (connections and collaborations) that I happily fold, thank and pack away for good. Medaase.

Image: Eliu Gift Hub courtesy @Urithi Labs

As I celebrate the September birthdays of my closest loved ones this month, especially my parents; yup my mother and father, Emma Gamor Snr. (of blessed memory) born on September 17th and 19th respectively, I wish for you and your family’s joy to be endlessly sparked through each celebrated touchstone moment.

Be well, be safe, be loved.

p.s.

Kindly wish Rev. Muriel aka my momma Esi, a wonderful birthday on her Facebook page, I don’t take our bond (we color coordinate unintentionally, even when I successfully surprise her) and our yearly ritual of aligning on goals and a mantra for the year: flow for granted. More on this ahead of 2022.

Rev. Muriel x Gamor image credit: @Sylvester Darku, Team Black Image