LOPO came about after Mark became constantly inundated with the question “What can I do?” from people reading his book, or attending talks. He realised there was a huge un-tapped army of critical thinking optimists out there, however a lot them either felt isolated within their organisations or were craving other people to bump ideas together and start actually doing something rather than just thinking or talking about it.
LOPO principles:
- We believe in an unashamed optimism of ambition about the future
- We are pragmatists. We meet to help all of us do. Mouths on legs are discouraged
- We believe in involving ourselves in projects that are ‘bigger than me’
- We believe ideas become more powerful when they are shared, not protected
- Your anecdotes are nice, but your evidence is better
- We all aim to police our own cynicism, and keep it in check
- Making mistakes is OK, but not trying is irresponsible
- LOPO is a-political. All stripes welcome as long as you’re not here to promote your stripes
Already there are offers to launch chapters in NY, Boston, Princeton and Oxford. Our test event in London is on Oct 12th – already oversubscribed but regular meetings will be in the diary soon…
On it. I Like the ‘shut up move on’ manifesto, mouths on legs indeed. Pls add me to ur mailin list. Thnx
i am always an optimist, i was captain of the chinook helicopter that crashed in nov 1986 near shetland islands and i was one of the two survivors out of 47 on board.
i have just read about your book and am going order a copy now.
i live in aberdeen, scotland and would like to start LOPO here, and would welcome on any suggestions as to how i can do that,
thanks, keep up the good work, we need lot more optimists in this world
That certainly sounds very interesting. Please do e-mail Mark at mark@optimistontour.com to discuss….
Hi Mark,
I just read your book recently, it jumped off the shelf at the library, and would love to set up a chapter of LOPO here in sunny Nelson in NZ. I was very interested in your sections about NZ Aquaculture as my wife used to work in this industry.
I also found out while reading the book that we have a mutual friend, Ian Faragher, I studied with him in Salford and played in a couple of bands with him, small world!
Anyway, loved the book, came away feeling inspired and also optimistic, well done!
Cheers,
Richard
Richard! That is a small world. I’m in a band with Ian now. And I studied at Salford too. We have LOPO in New Zealand in Wellington. I can put you in touch with them to talk about a Nelson chapter too – as they are the HQ in NZ…. Ian has my e-mail.