Ed Dowding

A rather lovely looking place called Old Hall Community which is looking for residents and volunteers, and a sustainability centre based at Llanfyllin Workhouse.

A few interesting things in citizen reporting and community action:

• Help Me Investigate is a place where you can collaborate with other people to investigate things.
• Who’s Lobbying answers questions for anyone who’s ever wondered  or suspected what meetings UK ministers are having with who.
• Spot.us does community funded reporting, kind of like an indegogo for investigative journalism. Which is sequentially related to Qluso which is an online app that allows news editors to bid for exclusive stories from freelance journalists.
• Press complaints commission data made accessible. Naturally the good old Daily Mail lead the way. Inaccuracy and privacy are the most frequent triggers for a complaint.

The Good Samaritan paradox via the Politics of Wellbeing. The video in part 2 is particularly good.

If you’re feeling like you’re doing your bit to make things better, be humbled by Sandra Antonovic who the 10:10 campaign have named their Top Human of the Previous 365 Days. After much deliberation and chocolate biscuits, the committee comprising Franny and Lizzie were unanimous in their decision and issued the following statement: “Frankly we don’t believe that Sandra can be just the one person, as it is impossible to comprehend how anyone could have pulled off this lot in one year:

• Started 10:10 campaigns in 24 countries from Russia to Greece.
• Organised 5,000 schools to plant 50,000 trees.
• Signed up cities including Zagreb, Krapina, Nicosia and Pula (eg the town of Krapina in Croatia is modernising their street lighting and the City of Pula in Croatia are turning on/off city lights 15 minutes later/earlier each day and providing citizens with free coloured garbage bags to increase recycling levels).
• Produced the first 10:10 checklists in braille.
• Persuaded a board game manufacturer to produce a 10:10 board game.
• Persuaded a regional TV company to produce the pilot of a 10:10 TV show which will feature 10 families competing to cut their emissions.”

1. MAKE IT RELEVANT. Identify a broad social trend that aligns with your core competencies and the values of your culture.
2. MAKE IT STICK. With that trend, identify your customer and find something that they really need and can become integrated into their lifestyle.
3. MAKE IT WASY TO ADOPT. Enhance an existing behvaiour rather than try to change human behaviour.
4. MAKE IT MEMORABLE. Make your solution special, differentiated and the key selling features easy to understand.
5. MAKE IT THE BEST IT CAN BE. Don’t ship unless customers love it and they can tell you why they would pay for it.
6. MAKE IT EASY TO FIND. Change the rules of distribution. Take your product to where your customers are rather than where products are traditionally sold.
7. MAKE IT EASY TO SHARE. Never forget that your customers are your sales force. Never forget the power of buzz.
8. MAKE IT GREEN. Ensure you are a brand with a social conscience. Your effort and conviction here ensures a deeper emotional connection and a reason for someone to advocate for the relationship and the brand.
9. MAKE IT FUN. Give both your culture and your product personality. Brighten their life and make it glow. If they are pleased to see you every day, both your customers are employees will be loyal advocates of your brand and the mission you are on.
10. MAKE IT PROFITABLE. Test all assumptions over and over again. God conservative on sales and high on expenses, and create a business model what you believe with conviction will work and get everyone to buy in and feel ownership in that model. Together you will win.

    Source: http://boomboombrands.com/ten-steps-to-big-ideas-that-win/

If only…

As news of the nation’s collectively held delusion spread, the economy ground to a halt, with dumbfounded citizens everywhere walking out on their jobs as they contemplated the little green drawings of buildings and dead white men they once used to measure their adequacy and importance as human beings.

Care of The Onion

A question from The Blended Lifestyle

if we move away from a materialistic life, what is the name for the kind of life we enter into? I don’t like ‘de-materialised’ (so what is it then?), ‘simple’ (it’s not simple), or ‘spiritual’ (problematic term). So I am missing a word. Do you have any ideas?

There’s huge power in a name. I think I’ve written about the power of the “space race” before, and it’s obvious that words like “frankenfoods” and “credit crunch” can both act as a convenient shorthand, but also shape the debate. Names that allow us to aspire to greatness tap in to that which is the very best in humanity. Who wouldn’t want to agree with “Yes, we can!”?

Orwell has a defining essay on this topic: Politics and the English Language

Anyway, I spent a few hours in the garden yesterday, and had time to ponder this. So here’s the answer I posted:

Sustainable: quite obvious and somewhat tainted by the idea that it might imply “less” and therefore “less good”.

Transition: meh.. great for towns and to talk of the process, but says little about the quality of the goal.

Ascetic: technically more accurate (‘This is to be understood not as an eschewal of the enjoyment of life but a recognition that spiritual and religious goals are impeded by such indulgence’), but again hints at emaciated preachers beating themselves with sticks beneath a cold hose.

Gardeners: careful cultivation, working harmoniously with natural systems, long term thinking… this has a lot to appeal; and also is going to be an accurate description for most who choose this route.

Extraordinary: literal, and makes it sound more appealing. Hearing envious talk of “your extraordinary life” is something which can’t help but stir humble pride.

Sophisticated: from sophos (wisdom). to refine, make more complex, make more worldly-wise and less naive.

Philosopher: lover of wisdom (and all the things above). The philosophic life… has a nice ring, possibly too pretentious. Also the people best suited to determine the direction of a nation, according to Plato.  (Have you ever noticed how people who develop hierarchies find themselves at the top? Including myself in this example, thinking that ‘gardeners’ sounds apposite, whilst out gardening…)

A share of £75,000 is now up for grabs for London’s green-fingered community groups. The cash is available as part of the Capital Growth scheme, supported by the Mayor of London and managed by London Food Link, which encourages Londoners to grow their own food in under-used areas of the capital.

People can apply online for sums between £200 and £1500 to turn underused land into a vegetable patch. It is even possible to use grow bags on a concreted piece of ground to ‘grow your- own’. Under the scheme Londoners receive both financial and practical support to produce food, such as access to training and expert advice.