When the officer pulled me over, I decided immediately that I’d tell him the truth. Don’t get too excited, it was a traffic stop; my front right headlight and my left tail light are out. Routine car maintenance has not been at the top of my to-do list of late. But tonight, I required a slurpee, and when the cop stopped me, I told him so. He understood my hankering well, and let me off with a “Be careful. Enjoy your Slurpee.” I am.

Something about tiny frozen granules mixed with syrupy goodness makes the impossible seem, well, somewhat more manageable. Maybe it’s because the concoction itself seems like a miracle realized.

Before I left for the S’leven, I was in the midst of coding a vast set of nested tables and implementing the Google AJAX API on our site for the new, improved front page of the Epic Change website. I haven’t coded since grad school, so the task is a little ambitious. In truth, this is probably one of my favorite parts of being a “social entrepreneur” (sounds fancy, eh?); I’m certainly never bored. From coding to PR to accounting to fundraising to video editing, there’s literally never a dull moment. Just check out our to-do list on the three white boards I’ve now built and installed in my living room:

As a change management consultant for years, and now in my role at Epic, I’ve often wondered what from a massive list like this is the “key ingredient” to creating successful change. Tonight, I think I’ve discovered the simple truth.

Slurpees.

No, seriously, I read an article today in Fast Company about Google. The author wrote that their secret was their ability to “instill a sense of creative fearlessness”. I read another note today too written by Nirvan Mullick, an amazing guy who went to high school with me and has since founded the 1 Second Film project, about micro-collaboration, a phrase which he seems to have coined. According to Nirvan’s website, micro-collaboration is the process by which “many people to work together in lots of little ways to collectively create something bigger than we could alone.” It’s the process by which each of you has contributed to making sure that, as of March 3rd when the landlord will evict the school from its current rented premises, 170 children will have a new facility in which to continue their education.

“Creative fearlessness” yields audacious ideas and “micro-collaboration” makes them possible. When these two concepts collide, Epic Change occurs.

Welcome to the collision. Thankfully, it’s not due to my broken tail light :)