Filed under: Get Activist
I’m riding my bike to work. Usually in a frock and heels. It’s great.
And I just wanted to share it- the great feeling of getting the wind in your face every morning, the comradery and casual chats with other cyclists at the lights, the ‘good on yous’ from people in my apartment complex…but most of all I’ve felt a big hug from pretty much all my co-workers, my friends and my family who have gone out of their way to make sure that I’m safe- that I have lights, that I wear a helmet, that I stick to the bike paths.
We’re all in it together.
Filed under: Get Activist
At the 2009 PSFK Conference NYC, Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger shared a selection of his favorite environmentally positive, high-impact products, services, and people. Hyper Pecha Kucha style, with 60 powerful ideas helping to make the world a better place.
Filed under: Get Activist
Armed with $500 worth of beans, two women founded a non-profit group in Denver in 1989 to empower impoverished women by teaching them workplace skills and providing jobs to the chronically homeless and unemployed. Their training opportunities have expanded dramatically over the years, and their annual operating budget has grown from $6,100 to over $1.5 million.
The Women’s Bean Project is a nonprofit organization that teaches job readiness and life skills for entry-level jobs through employment in a gourmet food production business. Women come with the goal of transforming their lives and moving toward self sufficiency.
SPENCER MICHELS: Now in its 20th year, the program employs 40 women each year who have been chronically unemployed and living in poverty. They make and package products such as soup, brownie mix, jelly beans, and salsas that are available in grocery stores in 40 states and over the Internet. But it’s not the food that makes this program a complete package, says executive director Tamara Ryan.
TAMARA RYAN: We’re not trying to make the best bean soup makers of America. What we’re trying to do is create an environment where we can teach basic job readiness skills, the idea that you have to come to work every day, and on time, and manage conflict in the workplace, and dress appropriately, and take direction.
But then also we find that that alone isn’t what helps women become successful. They’re lacking basic life skills — problem-solving, goal-setting, the ability to, when your child care falls apart, to fix that and then continue to go to work.
There’s a transcript and a streaming video micro documentary from Spencer Michels from PBS here.
Filed under: Get Activist
My friend Scott Drummond has being having serendipitous book adventures quite recently. Books have come to him, found on the street, tucked into his frame of reference with notes saying: ‘please take me, please read me, please pass me on’. This has inspired a number of very invigorating conversations and interactions which I need to spend a little more time unpacking before I can still life them for you.
In the meantime I want to share a lovely example of compassion in action- Sarah Garnett’s “Benjamin Andrew Footpath Library”. Started in 2003, it now it puts books on the footpaths in the city and Manly and distributes to hostels and 15 shelters- about 1200 a week. This library wants nothing from it’s borrowers- the books are there for the taking and would seem to spread light where ever they go.
Here’s a story from their website from a fan:
I found the footpath librarywhile queueing up for dinner at JEF’s food van across the road on a wintery Tuesday night in 2007. I’d been a regular since 2004 when I was living in a shitty boarding house in Redfern with my son who’d just been released from Rozelle hospital.
A little while before I was living & working as a professional artist in a cosy mud brick studio on the outskirts of Melbourne. Things were looking up, I was starting to sell paintings, was in with a leading gallery & my health was good. I’d given up the part time teaching job that I’d done for over ten years & was determined to make my living as an artist. But that was then. In 2007 I was sneaking into my studio at night to sleep when I could. I was evicted from the studio for dossing there. In between I slept out or stayed in a shelter.
Throughout this time when I couldn’t paint I’d read & I’m grateful for the footpath library for sustaining me. Reading took my mind off my troubles & gave me a respite from the constant motion that that kind of life demands. The footpath library has been a saving grace. Apart from being down & out in Sydney I’ve been down and out in Paris and London with George Orwell, read about the homeless in Victorian London in Peter Ackroyd’s “London: A Biography”‘, discovered Proust in the Edward Eager Lodge, hung around seedy ports in the South Pacific with Conrad’s Lord Jim & reread one of my favorite books; Joyce Cary’s “The Horses Mouth” with its patron saint of destitute artists Gully Jimson. I read a book on the Lives of the Saints & felt both inspired & humbled. ” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats” gave me the background on those writers , some of whom I’d read & vowed to read again one day. I wandered through Europe in the 50’s through the eyes of Lloyd Rees & his wonderful drawings and was glad I was sober after reading a biography of Charles Bukowski. Patrick Whites “Tree Of Man” made my troubles look pretty small & I learnt a little humility from reading the life of the Australian poet John Shaw Neilson. Things have picked up since then. I’ve got a cosy little room in Glebe & am painting the grounds of the old asylum my son was a patient in . I’ve got in with another gallery & even sold some work, there’s a survey show coming up in Melbourne later in the year & I’ll take a trip down for that. I’ve got a belly full of cabbage and ham soup & you can guess where I found the recipe for that old chestnut!
* Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes
Filed under: Get Activist
In Australia, compulsory voting means that every Australian citizen (18 years or older) is required by law to enrol and vote.
Proponents of compulsory voting argue that voting is a civic duty comparable to other duties citizens perform, such as taxation, compulsory education and jury duty.
Our Electoral Commission puts the case like this:
• Opponents argue that it is an infringement of liberty to force people to vote, and that the ill informed and those with little interest in politics are forced to the polls.
• One argument against compulsory voting is that voting can be an onerous imposition on some citizens. Against this it has been stated that: ”All our voting system requires is for a voter to attend a polling booth and mark some papers as they wish, approximately once every three years. This does not seem to be an insurmountable burden to be part of a democracy”.
• Another argument is that both the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights refer to people’s rights to “freely chosen representatives”. It is then claimed that a “right” is something that a person posses and chooses to use, not something produced on demand.
• Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, states that “rights and freedoms” are subject to “duties to the community”, including the “just requirements of of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society”.
So my friends in the States, I may be preaching to the converted but: Please vote. maps.google.com/vote
UPDATE: I’m being interviewed on ABC radio tomorrow (6/11) about compulsory voting. What do you think about it? A good thing? A bad thing? What do you think Australia would be like without it?
Filed under: Get Activist
A brilliant piece of information design. A Good project
Filed under: Get Activist
The Idea Village, a non-profit created for innovators in New Orleans, is launching 504ward’s $100,000 Business Competition for entrepreneurs with ideas to retain young talent in New Orleans.
As some of you may remember, The Idea Village was Planning for Good’s first client. One of the ideas coming out of that experience was engaging national corporations and organizations in driving innovation to New Orleans. The Idea Village is now proud to report that Worldwide Partners and two teams Google employees have joined them to help launch this competition.
Check out this YouTube video for more info and please help spread the word:
Don’t forget The Idea Village mantra: “Trust Your Crazy Ideas.”
Heroism is an ideal as old as humanity. Who will be the heroes of the 21st Century? What is heroism in the digital age? These are a few of the questions that a new group of researchers are seeking to understand.
Everyday Heroism is designed to bring together the general public and scholars interested in this topic to explore what heroism is, who performs heroic acts, and why.
Heroism Survey
Asks people to help better understand what heroism is.
The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.
If you are interested in participating, please click here.
Resources:
The Banality of Heroism” Zeno Franco & Dr. Philip Zimbardo (2007). Greater Good Magazine. (2MB pdf).
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Dr. Zimbardo’s new book and website by the same title.
For Goodness’ Sake. Essay for O Magazine, Dr. Zimbardo, April 2007. (.doc)
“Is Lei Feng (雷锋) Still a Modern Hero?: A Consideration of Heroic Action in the Context of Culture” Paper. Franco, Z.E., Pamlin, D., Langdon, M., Blau, K. & Zimbardo, P. For the 4th International Conference on Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology and Psychotherapy, Guangzhou, China
Interview with Sophie Peer , Amnesty International, about human rights in China, with a special focus on the Great Firewall of China. By Stilgherrian.
Other great tips from him:
- Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China | Harvard Law School: An analysis of China’s Great Firewall which concludes that the blocking systems are becoming more refined even as they are likely more labor- and technology-intensive to maintain than cruder predecessors.
- Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents | Reporters sans frontières: Tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation.
- The Great Firewall of China: how it works, how to bypass it
Filed under: Digital Strategy, Get Activist, Get Friendly, Great Stuff, Zeitgeist
Let’s get things straight here. They live on an island in Fiji. They (spear) fish, grow fruit and veg, compost their crap and drink a muddy narcotic and play guitars under the stars. That’s what they like to do.
And they won a big shiney silver wedge of a trophy. One that declares that Tribewanted is a more innovative and impactful social networking site than Skins on E4, and hold your breath…MySpace. Yes, MySpace, the world’s biggest online network, in a social networking competition. Bloody hell – how did that happen?
The team try to explain it here:
I think its hard to see it from the inside looking out – but here are the reasons the tribe members gave when we entered . I think it happened because we’re trying something different. And its starting to work. Very simply its about using a new and exciting way of communicating to make life better. And we’re not the only ones doing it either.
Not everyone can work on a project that is about building a sustainable island paradise. But we can all take inspiration in this vigorous enlistment of a community, the cleverness of building context in the clear signposts of their distributed messaging and consistently compelling stories.
John Dodds shared the American Marketing Association new definition of marketing:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
It’s a big ask to educate our clients on the ever changing world, but if Apenisa Bogiso (Tui Mali) the Chief of Vorovoro can understand it I’m pretty sure I can help my clients get it too.
*thanks Kris Hoet and Kneale Mann
Filed under: Get Activist
My chapter for the second edition of the Age of Conversation is titled “The price of conversation is eternal vigilance” for the “My Marketing Disasters” section and is reproduced here through the powers of the very nifty wordle:
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
But back to AoC2…here are the 237 authors who have committed their time and creativity for the edition’s good cause (after all, all proceeds go to Variety, the Children’s Charity) which is planned to launch in August:
Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem
Visit www.futuremelbourne.com.au 
to participate.
In the past 20 years, Melbourne has been transformed into a creative, vibrant and liveable city. In the next 20 years, Melbourne will become a more economically, socially, environmentally and culturally sustainable city through the help of a new long-term strategy – Future Melbourne.
Future Melbourne is a bold vision for the city’s future that will affect everybody who visits, lives, invests and works in the municipality. It is due for completion in September 2008 and will replace the City of Melbourne’s existing ‘City Plan 2010’. The six aims of the strategy are to make Melbourne a city for people, a prosperous city, an eco city, a knowledge city, a bold and inspirational city and a connected city.
From the many public forums, proposals, submissions and online discussions with the community during the past year, Council now has a draft plan which is open for community consultation from Saturday, 17 May until Saturday, 14 June 2008.
In what is believed to be a world-first on this scale for local government, the draft is also now available as a wiki so that the community can comment, discuss and directly edit the Future Melbourne draft plan.
Colour me impressed
I’ve heard this term spoken so many times in the last fortnight it deserves exploring: Clay Shirky’s “cognitive surplus” theory (expanded in an article here)
So how big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project–every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in–that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it’s the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.
And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that’s 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, “Where do they find the time?” when they’re looking at things like Wikipedia don’t understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that’s finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.
Filed under: Get Activist
This week is adbusters Mental Detox Week.
Here’s how they describe it: The idea is simple: take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days.
Simple, but not at all easy. Like millions of others before you, you’ll be shocked at just how difficult – yet also how life-changing – a week spent unplugged can really be.
Mmm… sounds tough, but worth the experiment. Maybe next week…..
press people consider me an outlet to push their marketing messages. It upsets me that people in the world can look at me and only see ways that they can scavenge some limited advantage through which to push their agendas. They see my personal expression, my unadulterated opinion and they think they can use it as a host for their parasitic bullshit.
never NEVER without my permission
Filed under: Get Activist
Ever reflected how you’d do things differently if you were in charge? How you’d put your money where your mouth is on things like climate change if you were the one dishing out the taxpayer’s dollars? Would you, like the previous Government did, subsidise the polluting fossil fuel industries at 28 times the amount of renewable energies?
Now you have a chance to tell the Treasurer just how you’d like to even the ledger – using Get Up’s ’Australia’s Biscuit Budget’ tool, before he sits down to review the $9 billion of fossil fuel subsidies he’s inherited: click here
Filed under: Get Activist
We believe
it’s possible to create
a new synergy between the non profit world and a spontaneous
and radical creativity.
This year the scope of the competition has widened to include more charities (Unicef and WWF joined Amnesty, Amref, Emergency, Greenpeace and Lila) providing briefs and a bigger jury of leading designers. However Good 50×70’s focus remains the creative competition based on briefs provided by charities on seven issues which affect thousands of people around the world.
Entrants are asked to design posters (on as many briefs as they wish) and the posters selected by the jury of graphic design luminaries as the best will be given to the charities to use for potential campaigns and exhibited around the world.
Last year Good 50×70 surpassed all expectations for its debut edition and received 1659 entries from all over the globe. Exhibitions of the best posters were held at the prestigious Triennale Gallery in Milan and Istanbul Design Week before touring Italy.
Workshops at design schools and colleges were run alongside the competition to promote the value of social communication to the young creatives who will be responsible for the next generation of communication.
This shows Good 50×70’s commitment to its cause –it’s not simply a competition, it aims to produce work that really makes a difference.
The communications industry is the best in the world at grabbing people’s attention and getting them to act on what it says.
It’s time to use these skills for more pressing issues than beer and trainers.
Good 50×70 is open for entries from February the 18th, 2008. The entries close on midnight April the 20th, 2008. Click here to download the complete Call for Entries, Conditions and Rules (PDF).
Filed under: Get Activist
Kids with Cameras is a non-profit organization that teaches the art of photography to marginalized children in communities around the world. All of which was a direct result of the amazing documentary Born into Brothels.
I’m humbled by the photographs produced by children who know a life far worse than most.
Found on the design:related a community site and inspiration tool that brings together creative people from different disciplines (and parts) of the design world. Design:related serves to motivate designers to share ideas, inspire, and be inspired- there are some lovely portfolios, go check ‘em out.
