This is an absolutely phenomenal talk by Benjamin Zander on TED entitled ‘Classical music with shining eyes’ but it is about so much more than classical music. Go ahead and watch it now, it is 18 minutes that will pay for itself many times over.

I see a striking parallel between the situation of classical music trying to grow from 3% to 4% and the situation of the early adopters trying to promote sustainable sane ways of living. To paraphrase - how would you walk, how would you talk, if everyone wanted to be part of building a vibrant, verdant future and just didn’t know it yet.

I loved what he said about a leader never doubting the capacity of the people they are leading. If you don’t think of yourself as a leader then you should, for that is the role that all who care about this planet are being called to play. It is not about telling other people what to do or how to live their lives, it is about saying “I see a better way of living and will pursue it with vigor, who is coming with me?”. It is about taking the first steps alone, risking public failure and daring to dream.

The challenges of our time are numerous and terrifying. We have a gaping void in our society where bold leadership is required and the only thing which can save us is a mass movement of people initiating change. Not following, initiating - thousands and thousands of people stepping up and making things happen. Individuals creating the space for our society to grow into.

Here’s a suggestion - think of something quite achievable, aim just a little higher and give it a go. If it works out aim higher and dream larger, if it falls through then dust yourself off and try again.

Take a lesson from the lady who vowed to never say anything that couldn’t stand as her last words uttered - it is far better to fail while striving to be great than to succeed while striving to be small. Give yourself a vision to grow into.

By far the point I loved most about this video is the question - “Who am I being that my companions eyes are not shining?”. This makes my heart sing on so many levels.

It reminds me of the old teaching - your spirit creates your thoughts, your thoughts create your words, your words create your actions, your actions create your world. And how the reverse is also true so the words we say influence the thoughts we hold.

It reminds me of the power of intention - instead of focusing on the people around us and trying to create joy within them we should focus inside and nurture the light within ourselves. Fan that flame until it overflows and others are enlivened not by what we do but who we are.

It reminds me of community - what would our lives look like, what would they feel like if everyone we knew was filling themselves with as much light and joy as possible?

How would you walk, how would you talk if everyone yearned for that and just didn’t know it yet?

It has never been easier for people to act together online so the number of campaigns are proliferating but a lot of them are the same - fill in your details and click send, see a thank you page and hopefully feel like you’ve contributed to something bigger than yourself.

Two recent campaigns stand out however, the first is www.send-a-whale.com - a greenpeace campaign to save the whales. This is without a doubt one of the best online campaigns I have seen. It starts off with a standard petition form but after that the fun begins. You can design your own origami whale, not only choosing it’s colour and shape but also tattoos, bling, hats, eyes and smile - you can give it a name and a message to say as it swims in the virtual pod from Australia to Japan. All the whales in the pod swim together and you can scroll along checking out all the other whales people have created.

Oh yeah, then you can put your whale on your facebook profile and invite your friends to make their own whale. If you ever get curious you can go back to the website, type in your email address and up pops your whale so you can see how the little fella is doing. This was much more than an online petition for a cause you believe in but forget about 5 minutes later, this was pure engagement and fun.

The other campaign was from Avaaz calling for China to hold meaningful talks with the Dalia Lama. Not only was the campaign extremely positive with a very clear message of extending a hand of friendship to the chinese people, it took this to a whole new level by showing the chain of people who had signed the petition on google earth. Some with photos, some with just names, but people dotted all over the globe in one big virtual handshake.

Both these campaigns had one thing in common - they connected the participants into a global community founded on a sense of shared humanity and desire for a better world. Rather than feeling isolated and insignificant after participating I felt part of something much bigger, a global village that has the potential to bring about lasting change. Regardless of the outcome from these two campaigns there is one thing I am sure of - the people of this planet are waking up, joining together and creating a whole new world.

www.wherethehellismatt.com

Change is happening in our society but it is painfully slow - our politicians play it safe, our businesses are far to often focused on the short term and the general population is more concerned with rugby and reality tv than the future their children will inherit.

So how do we increase the rate of change in our society?

One idea I am exploring is to focus on a specific campaign that is related to the fundamental issues of our times but is easily achievable and accessible to the majority of the population. By engaging as many people as possible in this campaign the aim is to increase our capability to tackle the next one, by taking small easy steps we can build our strength to take the large challenging ones.

The issue I chose was a nationwide campaign to say NO to plastic bags (www.noplasticbags.org.nz) - now I know what you’re thinking, isn’t that worrying about the cinder on the carpet when the house is on fire? It would be if it was an end in itself but it isn’t, it is a means to an end. A campaign against plastic bag has many things going for it;

Achievable : there are many national and international precedents, the trend away from plastic is clearly established

Accessible : everyone in the country uses plastic bags on a daily basis and it is an excellent opportunity to create public dialogue around sustainability issues

Fixed end point : the campaign to reduce emissions will go on for decades, plastic bags have a clear exit point when we can move on to the next campaign.

Win-Win : plastic bags are running on pure inertia and everybody wins when we get rid of them.

Photogenic : there are many compelling images that this campaign can use to engage the public.

The other idea I am exploring is how we can get a large amount of people to contribute small amounts of time to power the campaign. To take some of the models from social networking, open source software and online collaboration (wikipedia etc.) and apply them to a specific campaign for social change. So the heart of the campaign is a social network at noplasticbags.ning.com which is open to anyone who is interested and is very much an exploration in online collaboration that will be evolving over time.

I think the combination of these two ideas (small easy steps to build strength and many people contributing small amounts of time) have the potential to turn all this ’sustainability stuff’ into a truly mass movement. What do you think?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s ludicrous these guys were arrested (go on sign the petition, you know you want to) but the Tokyo Two?? It’s not like they’re being accused of blowing up a pub.

I have a theory, Greenpeace have infiltrated the Japanese Police Force and conspired to throw the book at the activists. After all any publicity is good publicity and persecuting people for doing the right thing is nearly as galvanizing to the public as slaughtering majestic animals. I’m sure there is a mastermind living in a forest some where planning the whole thing. With a laptop. If the Japanese parliament announces legislation proposing capital punishment for petty larceny then you will have confirmation that the mastermind’s reach is indeed great.

One thing is for sure the funniest thing has to be the comments on youtube - this should really be a soap opera.

It’s been a few weeks in the making (hence the recent lack of posts) but I’ve finally finished a first draft of the www.noplasticbags.org.nz website.

The plan is to use the ning campaign centre as a focal point to organise a nationwide campaign to restrict plastic bag usage.

Any feedback is welcome.

Most classes, curricula, and schools are currently organized around disciplines… Problems do not fall into disciplines… Nevertheless, those that identify a problem generally try to solve it by manipulating the variables
with which their discipline is familiar.

This is something I can relate to a lot, coming from a background of programming computers I definitely approach a whole host of non computer related problems as if they were pieces of software. It’s always a constant challenge to approach existing problems from a different perspective

Reality consists of sets of interacting problems—messes. Students are seldom taught or learn how to deal with messes. Instead, they are given exercises to “solve.”

The biggest difference I have found between academic learning and the real world is in school and university the questions were given to me - in the real world I have to find the question first. Getting the question right is the hard part because if you ask the wrong question then you can never get the right answer.

Almost all of the prevailing social problems in our society consist of trying to do the wrong things better.

Talk about an epitaph of our times.

The authors advocate leading children rather than managing them, how many of today’s corporate leaders treat their employees as if they were school children?

To manage others is to direct them in the pursuit of objectives using means which the manager
selects. To lead others is to guide them in the pursuit of objectives by the use of means the followers
as well as the leader select.

To minimize chances of being held responsible for errors of commission - where errors of omission are not recorded—the best strategy is to do nothing. This is the source of the conservatism and risk aversion that permeates the current educational system and society.

Given the freedom to fail without censure, students will often challenge themselves to work hardest on their weaknesses.

I know many people (and count myself among them) who have had to work hard on giving themselves the freedom to fail. The permission to actually feel good about having a go and doing their best, to feel really good about it not just paying lip service to the ideal. It’s still so far away.

For the first time I actually have a glimmer of hope that their will be a half decent education system by the time I have kids of schoolable age. It’s interesting that the authors credit technology as giving power to the movement for challenging the status quo - when there is less overhead in the transmission of ideas it’s easier for the best ones to bubble to the surface

On the causes of climate change

It is beyond my powers of description to tell you what a world of nine billion people in net food deficit would look like… It makes all previous human crises; wars, acts of genocide, famines, plagues look like side shows in the circus of human suffering

In Relation to the media

The problem begins with the media and the media is censored as heavily as the media was censored in the Sovet Union… It is not censored by the state … It is censored by money

On the Stern Report

This isn’t an economic issue, this is a moral issue… The real costs are measured in human lives and ecosystems: immeasurable

On Solutions

This really is a matter of the people versus the oil companies. There are a lot more of us than there are of them but they have a great deal of power, particularly over the politcal process.

When was the last time you stopped to think about the environment?

Everyone I’ve spoken to had heaps of fun and the looks on the faces of the people walking by was priceless - congratulations to Nick and the crew at intersect for pulling it together.