Design for generosity

There are no experts. We all have a piece of the puzzle, so managing ways to bring these pieces together is a worthy task.

Part of the good design for governance on Bowen Island jag.




Entire Pop!Cast here

Good governance tool?

Teaming up with Peter Rawsthorne today. Discussion boards abound, and they take on their own character. But this character isn't necessarily useful for governance and policy development. We're looking to engage in a participative good gov prototype for Bowen Island. What tool/s to use? Ivar has suggested www.redmine.org but there may be a more visually satisfying platform. Or maybe a series of platforms.

We imagine clouds of tagged content, with identifiable participants. For instance, for assisting a positive, sustainable hitchhiking culture on island, a good aim might be to
1) Create a cloud of post links and wiki pages tagged with bowen hitchhiking culture
2) Be able to pull out optimal content, with minimal noise for use in policy development.

We are less and less interested in the broadcast of expert opinion in social or other media. The primacy of expert artifacts gives way to the primacy of developmental process. We need social media enabled as a process for community use. Bowen has a lot of potential for this type of activity - politicized people with time. The question is, how?[added: Peter R will post on this too]



- image by Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid.com

Roads are not just for monsters any more

Helping a young student with her essay tonight - contrasting Hitler and FDR's infrastructure building. The US built a lot of roads in the 30s. Staring at all those roads eventually stimulated a monstrous demand for cars, presumably to get the hell away from where people were at the time.

That good things will or should happen to the Big Three automakers is hard to imagine, or even wish for. You have to think that the psyche of Americans and Canadians is being gouged by this recession, and will reform in a new way. And maybe after that we won't have such an appetite for monstrous cars.

Sustainability at last

Today, we find ourselves in a perilous economic situation. We don't want to suffer, and we don't want those around us to suffer.

You could predict this, but it still comes as a new experience: just as the helix of industrial expansion and my own consumer habits unravel before my eyes, I begin to appreciate the food in front of me, the warmth of the fire, and suddenly recognize the polite gesture by a person across from me who's in obvious pain.

Since we were in primary school we've known that our ways of making & getting have accelerated the world towards an ecological precipice. This is the opportunity we've been waiting for, the opportunity to express our human potential.

Podcasting

This is something I did for MonkeyMedia.net. An interview with Vance Carlton from Einstein Noah's.

I LOVE the musical theme my nephew wrote for Monkey. Ian leads the band Jake Jasmine, ( check out their single, "Still" - superb) is scoring a movie, is finishing a music degree and still had time to give it. Awesome.

The interview's good, though my voice... ah well. It's just a slice of life, nothing glossy. The tools are simple today, and hopefully don't make us fall into the trap thinking we're "broadcasters." Nothing replaces deep thinking and real collaboration.

Finished the Ecobitz book!

Yes friends, the Ecobitz book of 72 cartoons is complete, and now: see what to do with it.

The Chicago Tribune reports an 8% rise in McdDonalds consumption over the past month; maybe I should approach them and see if they'll wrap the burgers in our cartoons.

The kind of antidote the world needs?