What’s in a [copyright] Name?

Wilosophy in China obtains a copyright - big deal ..

.When I typed “Why should I get a copyright?” into Google. It came back with 4,670,000,000 results - yes that's 4.6 billion results!!

Of course, I didn’t read all of the results, but the generals gist was:?

“Your work is an asset. If you have an original idea or piece of creative work, no matter what others may say, it's still a potential asset and should be treated as such?– so you need to protect it from being reproduced by others.”

For us at Wilosophy, whilst it was the need to copyright our materials, it was more important in making sure that the central messaging, concepts, and IP were copyrighted to stand out as being unique. Supporting the Wilosophy ethos of individualism, to support people as unique individuals, which can help them to their self-copyright. They are ‘themselves’, they are ‘unique’, and this copyright will act as their final?stamp of confirmation.?

So, during the pandemic period when Covid vaccines were being rolled out, when lockdowns were being eased, and travel corridors started creating light at the end of the tunnel, Wilosophy’s copyright certificate arrived in the electronic post, and we were thrilled!?

Benefit to Society

There are a few definitions on the great world wide web that help understand what copyright is, but here is our favourite:

“ .. copyright is a legal right that gives the creator of a work an exclusive right to control how that work is used.??Its purpose is two-fold. Copyright encourages those with creative abilities to create works because they have a legal right to control how those works are used. Having those works created will benefit society.”

The last sentence of ‘having those works created will benefit to society’ sums up one of the reasons why I embarked on creating Wilosophy, its programs, and its audience. I truly believe that society grows and evolves when there is innovation and sparks of curiosity that challenge the status quo – I was not seeing that in an awful lot of people here in Southeast Asia. Instead, I was seeing a lot of sheep mentality and bottom-heavy organisations which had cultures of herd immunity acceptance of,

• “that’s the way it is around here”
• “Yes boss!”
• “I’ll just keep my head?down?”
• “well, it’s not part of my responsibility – I don’t get paid to make that decision.”
• “the foreigners just don’t understand how we work”

These are classic symptoms of the followership model by Dr. Robert Kelley (see below), not only feeling alienated, mis-understood, underappreciated – but not being able to “speak up & challenge”.

I wasn't just observing sheep behaviour, but the fully spectrum of Dr. Robert Kelley's passive, dependent and not uncritical thinking traits on full display everyday in the workplace - certainly not effective followership.

I was witnessing this mentality on a grand scale, leading to demotivation in pursuing career aspirations, slipping away into what seemed like hopelessness – with extreme cases being depression due to having to live up to the?China dream. While I can easily blame the leadership or lack of thereof, it really came down to management of self-mentality. The environments and cultures created meant that individuals were not finding enjoyment in their activity and, as professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said, “unable to find flow in their work activities”

I don’t want to speak too much about Wilosophy’s brand story, although if interested, you can find a link here to a 2021 interview around my reasons and decision to start Wilosophy back in 2013 when I moved to Asia.

On an even more personal note, the copyright goes right to the core of my personal values, which can be broken up into the acronym C.I.A.?

• Credibility: It’s important that I experience what I share with others. If I’ve not personally done something myself, I really don’t feel comfortable or credible to talk about it. I love giving anecdotes so that the storytelling really comes to life. Being my own personal stories, they add that layer of credibility. A copyright is like a wax-seal for our motto ‘to do is to know’, truly meaning that my experiences are my own to share with others, and if that helps and lights the way, then fantastic. If not, then it’s also ok.?
• Integrity: being able to stay true, and uphold principals and morals that I believe in; doing the right thing and following through. I hope that the copyright provides that integrity to my personal brand.
• Authenticity: Some people feel that I am raw and untamed in my passion towards the people profession, which I take that as a compliment as being authentic. What you see if what you get, shooting personal vlogs to provide a more authentic insight into what I do in creating Wilosophy.

The Better Me Program:

Having a copyright for Wilosophy, I am delighted to announce the?Wilosophy Better Me Program.?This consists a series of workshops using a trinity of tools, personally designed, to support the Self and Others, and one that can grow more widespread in the corporate sphere. This is vital in the market I operate in, which is Mainland China. Getting onto the preferred suppliers list for big Chinese companies requires vendors to have an international presence and/or some form of IP.

Wilosophy proudly now boasts both, a registered company in both Hong Kong SAR, with a local arm in Mainland China. We also possess a China-issued copyright for the Wilosophy trinity of tools, including the?MapsTell?toolkit, where Wilosophy 华哲思 is the exclusive program partner in Mainland China.

The?Better Me?program is certainly, on reflection, a metaphoric journey in itself. The creation of it has all of the learning elements of becoming a better me, the content within demonstrating all the experiences of C.I.A, the values & leadership cards, the Coach camps techniques, and so much more. For the early years, the program was fragmented and delivered piecemeal, tweaked and re-tweaked, until it has been refined into what it is today – being successfully delivered in a corporate setting, and expanding out to serve others.

Coaching and people development has always been based around word of mouth, and a critical advertising tool for a startup like ours; a testament of our credibility, authenticity and quality experience has seen us strike up long term partnerships with Masters and MBA programs at some of the top universities in Asia. Working at an organizational development and culture shift with some local SME’s and Fortune 500 companies in region.

We therefore look forward to achieving more with Wilosophy’s copyright in mainland China, and very much staying positive for the future.?

So to sign off, thank you and finally we can include the following in our material:?Copyright??2021 Wilosophy?华哲思?China. All rights reserved.