Love is important, damn it!

A few months ago, a lonely graffitter wrote on a wall in Sao Paulo: Love is important, damn it!

It turned out it became a viral urban intervention movement. Various artists and citizens joined the idea and we could see the love burst everywhere in the city.

When photographer Fábio Candeias tried to register the collective feeling, though, he captured a lot more.

Picture taken at Consolação Avenue.
Source: InternetCidade

Earth Hour

Your action can trigger many others

On March 28th, swich off the lights at 8:30 p.m. for 1 hour

Maybe host your neighbours and friends for a conversation about global warming.

More: http://www.earthhour.org

Chalk messages as one walks

Photographer and environmentalist Anna Hilllman walks on Edingburg's streets holding a piece of chalk.

As she observes the sites, she leaves messages which question, suggest or simply point out something about the immediate environment. They end up bringing distracted walkers back from their monkey-mind-like thoughts and waking them up for the present, the only time that actually exists.

Can you hear the birds singing?

Sustainability Online Games

I'm doing a research for a sustainable business online training I'm designing for the bank's employees and came across some interesting free online courses.

The Vinyl game represents a PVC manufacturer. The player should decide on what industrial plants to invest and what sustainability measures to adopt, while managing the cash flow and suffering stakeholders' pressures. I recommend it.

The McDonald's game doesn't allow as many options, but it has at least two merits: promote a more systemic view of the food chain and bring up the power of democracy and decentralised criticism. There's basically no way one can do well!

Diffusion of Innovations

Have you ever felt your organisation doesn't see some obvious trends?

Do you think changes take a lot longer than they could / should?


Everett M. Rogers, pioneer of Diffusion of Innovations theory, author of the second-most-cited book in the social sciences, concluded in 1962:

adopters of any new innovation or idea can be categorized as

innovators - 2.5%
early adopters - 13.5%
early majority - 34%
late majority - 34%
laggards - 16%


Good news is: by the time you conquer 1/3 of the early majority it's virtually impossible to stop the wave of change.

Meaning, collaboration and wishes for 2009

In the last couple of days I spent a few hours completely hooked onto the internet, learning more about Professor Michael Wesch's work around education, meaning and collaboration. As an anthropologist and teacher, he realised school and learning were not the same thing (watch the video "vision of students today" for some insight). So he created spaces where his students could be protagonists, building valuable knowledge about subjects they cared about, also using digital tools.

One of his projects is exactly studying the anthropology behind You Tube. Take a look in two popular samples:





As this is my last post in 2009, I'd like to use some of the messages expressed in these videos and uncountable others. Although we often act differently, it seems to me there are some feelings and wishes that we, as humanity, tend to share

contagious GOODNESS

less prohibition

colourblind fairness

more creativity

less criminalization

less war

CONSCIOUSNESS

better future

LOVE

more connections

less authority

TRUTH

collaboration

more engagement

the value of (bio)diversity

various peoples, being able to bring along their uniqueness for an unity

one world, our home


May we be our true wishes in 2009!
Carpe Diem!!!

Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence.


Yesterday, I joined Bicicletada, a group of people passionate about cycling, who ride in São Paulo and in other cities for pleasure and as a means of transportation, with no one leader. As they ride, they question why bikers don’t have the same rights as drivers to come and go, once taking certain streets and roads can be dangerous or even prohibited, even though everybody knows cyclers use a lot less space and don’t emit greenhouse gases.

In this context, the idea was to go from São Paulo to Santos by bike, so we could swim in the ocean after the effort of accomplishing the 80km journey. The plan attracted about 200 cyclers and started early in the morning.

Unfortunately, the police didn’t allow us to pass the 41st km, claiming they were concerned about the group’s safety and that the tunnels are not prepared to receive walkers and bikers.

As negotiation continued, my frustration gave way to the satisfaction of being part of a civil disobedience movement. Everybody from the group kept talking, bringing up the arguments, always with respect and determined not to cause any violence. The police was as peaceful and patient.

We ended up needing to come back to São Paulo without swimming in Santos’ sea. But the media, the company that takes care of the road and even the police seemed to have understood and even agreed with the importance of the discussion.

r
Leaving from São Paulo


My friends and I


Stopped by the police for the first time