Education is not neutral

"There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom,' the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

—Richard Schaull, from the foreward for Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

This Is What Politicians Are Supposed To Do

To be fair, both parties are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Business in general. But I wish, with all my heart, that our elected officials would grow some cajones the size of Weiner's and start fighting for the American people, not the American corporation, because that's their job.

Published: Designing for the Greater Good

It's always a kick to see your work in print, and even more so when it's in print alongside a crapload of really good work from a group of really great designers. I just got my copy of Designing for the Greater Good: The Best in Cause-related Marketing and Nonprofit Design by Peleg Top and Jonathan Cleveland, which includes two of my posters.



The first is my No on 8 poster, which is also on display at New York's Center Gallery (hurry, though, the show closes on Wednesday):



The other is my Stop the Spray poster:



Author Peleg Top is generously donating $10 from the purchase of the first hundred copies of the book to Haiti relief, so I'd highly suggest grabbing a copy and sending him your receipt.

Help Empower a New Generation of Sustainable Designers

SUPER BOWL! Thanks to Pepsi's decision to spend their Super Bowl ad dollars on social change grants instead of crappy TV spots, Re-nourish is now deep in the game for a $50,000 Refresh Everything grant! But we really, really need your help for this. I know you're constantly bombarded by requests for help, for money, for time, but I am shamelessly asking for your vote. It takes just a few seconds, and it could change everything for us.

If you're a graphic designer, Re-nourish is a resource built just for you to sift through the greenwash to get to the real information about sustainable design. We believe that empowering designers to integrate sustainable design thinking into their work is the key to keeping our industry competitive in a rapidly changing economy.

If you're not a graphic designer, Re-nourish is still working on your behalf by reaching out to the creators of all the printed stuff you interact with every day, helping them make it better, safer, and more responsible.

The bulk of the money will go toward overhauling and expanding Re-nourish.com—making it more user-friendly, improving the interactive tools, adding new tools and educational resources, and so on. A good chunk will also go toward launching a couple of wider initiatives to make the supply chain all of us designers depend on more sustainable. So far this has all been a labor of love, but to really reach the growing number of working designers out there, we need you.

You can read all about our plans, and then you can vote for us—once a day, every day, through the end of February if you're so inclined.

All we gotta do is make it to the top 10 by the end of the month—and we're already well within range! So, please, take just a couple of seconds if you can spare it, and don't hesitate to leave any questions in the comments below.

The Problem with Green Marketing

The following post comes from my notes for Keeping It Real Green: How to Market Your Efforts in an Age of Greenwashing. I'm expanding this e-book (the new version is currently weighing in at 25 pages and is promising to get even longer), and I find myself still struggling with a number of both philosophical and practical questions.


Genius comedian Bill Hicks liked to call marketers the "ruiners of all things good." He wasn't far off the mark.

Marketing has always been an ethically conflicted business, and the act of green marketing requires us to face this conflict head-on. Marketing has one simple purpose: to foster the exchange of money for something of value (generally a service or product). Marketers, however, have traditionally been relegated to a discrete role within an organization's hierarchy, one that is siloed off from product development, operational logistics, and so forth. The result is that the marketer ends up investing himself not in value but in perception of value.

This difference is critical, because it cuts right to the heart of why marketing has for so long embraced the tactics of smoke and mirrors, rather than the development of true value to the consumer. Marketers simply have never been considered worth including in the value creation side of the equation—and they've been perfectly happy with that. Their job is to sell what already exists, and to do that, they must make the consumer feel a certain way about it, whether or not that feeling is based on the existence of something real.

Whether or not this is good or evil is beyond the scope of Real Green, though. My concern right now is with the implications this focus on perception over substance has for green marketing specifically. If the goal of the conventional marketer is to create a perception in the mind of the consumer—rather than match the consumer to something of real value—then the goal of the green marketer must be to create a perception of socio-environmental value in the mind of the consumer—regardless of whether that socio-environmental value truly exists in the thing being marketed.

This presents an inherent contradiction: if green means socio-environmental value, but marketing means perception over value, how can green marketing legitimately exist?

I believe it can, but I'm wondering if it hinges on changing the definition of marketing to one that moves beyond creating a mere perception in the mind of the consumer. If we accept that the marketer's job is to encourage the exchange of money for value, maybe it becomes an issue of equalizing that exchange. In other words, marketers have sacrificed measurable, demonstrable value and replaced it with smoke and mirrors—because it's a hell of a lot easier than being accountable for the crap you're marketing.

But if we refuse that allowance and instead require marketers to be able to measurably demonstrate the value of what they're marketing, all of a sudden we've created a more equitable exchange (which is what the whole thing is supposed to be anyway).

This would make green marketing a "simple" matter of marketing stuff with demonstrable socio-environmental value. To make this real, of course, businesses would have to give marketers a vested interest in operations and product/service development—so that the marketer is ultimately accountable for the thing s/he is marketing. Easier said than done of course, because nobody seems to want any accountability these days.

In the book Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences, the authors call for company-wide cultural change in order to develop products and services with real value:

"The team for creating meaningful experiences should not consist solely of any one profession but should integrate representation of the company's designers, researchers, developers, marketers, and senior executives at a minimum. The right team represents each of these functions and synchronizes their collaboration toward a shared outcome. Rather than one department or function "owning" innovation, the team owns the overall design vision and ensures that its delivery is consistently coordinated across the company...This ability to foster cross-boundary collaboration and to recognize that every major department has a role to play is critical to designing meaningful experiences because it heightens the likelihood that all customer touch points of the experience will be cohesive and consistent. Pursuing this type of collaboration also helps ensure more internal buy-in of the process and its results, typically accelerating development and increasing the intensity of everyone's participation." (Emphasis mine.)

The net effect of this cross-collaborative approach—in addition to the increased buy-in from marketers among other company players—is increased buy-in from customers as well. In other words, real value benefits more people, and more deeply, than smoke and mirrors. Unless the business sector recognizes this en masse, the green movement—and green marketing along with it—will spin its wheels.


I'd love to know what you think about all this. As I mentioned, this post is really a stream-of-consciousness lifted from my Real Green notes. It's a huge subject, but one that needs to be tackled if anything substantial is going to change in the world of business, marketing, and green. what say you?

Who Is America?

And how will we know when all our voices have been counted?
What will it look like when all our people are protected?
How will each one of us know we have done our part?
America is so much more than our borders.
We, the people.

On Exhibit: Visual Voices

If you're in New York during the next couple of months, you may want to stop by the Center Gallery at Fordham University to see the gallery's current exhibition, Visual Voices: the Freedom of Expression.



On display are posters from fifteen artists and designers, including the likes of Luba Lukova, the Guerilla Girls, and...get this...myself. It's pretty snazzy to be included with such good company.



The show has been extended through February 10th, with a closing reception on January 26th. For more details, download the announcement (PDF).

Visual Voices: The Freedom of Expression
Center Gallery, Fordham University Lincoln Center
113 West 60th Street | New York, NY 10023

Hours: Monday-Friday 10-8 | Saturday & Sunday 10-5
Through February 10th
Closing Reception: Tuesday, January 26th 5-7pm

The Fun Theory

Making an action more fun makes people more likely to do it. We seem to forget this too often.

Why We Need "Socialized" Health Care

Thanks to Worldchanging's Andy Lubershane, we now have an easy-to-follow, entirely sensible argument in support of health care reform:



Now, can someone produce a similar short describing Congress' various proposals?

Flow

I finally had a chance to watch Flow, an incredible (and incredibly disturbing) documentary about the privatization of the world's water supply. More than just an anti-corporate diatribe, the film speaks to the inevitability of the looming water crisis, and what that might look like based on where the battles are being fought now. And they are battles.



Water is a $400 billion industry—the third largest behind electricity and oil. My mind kind of explodes at that statistic. We're talking about water. The slow commodification of the natural resources most fundamental to human existence should raise alarm bells in every human being. And yet, one in five Americans refuse to drink anything but purchased bottled water; even though a four-year study by the NRDC found over a third of the tested bottle brands were contaminated with synthetic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic.

Visit Food and Water Watch to learn more about water issues in the U.S.

This isn't just an "over there" issue impacting the lives of underdeveloped or developing countries: as of May 2009, over 30% of America was experiencing "abnormally dry or drought" conditions. Public water supplies are being handed over to private corporations, who are then denying entire populations access to clean water supplies—and frequently contaminating the remainder.

We can each participate in the change

One of the strengths of Flow is the movie's focus on solutions. There is a growing movement of ordinary citizens across the globe who are banding together to demand safe access to clean water. Here are just a few easy things you can do to help:

• Watch Flow, and talk about it with people you know. Information needs to spread, and you're how it happens.
• Sign the petition to add "the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family" to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This simple act will enable those struggling for safe water a powerful tool in the struggle for access.
• Delve deeper by exploring the various resources and groups working on this issue.

Roughstock Posters to be Published in "Designing for the Greater Good"

Just got the good news that two political posters I designed will be published in Peleg Top and Jonathan Cleveland's upcoming Designing for the Greater Good: The Best of Cause-Related Marketing and Nonprofit Design. I'm pretty thrilled to be included in a collection that celebrates the power graphic designers have to impact the world around us, and I'm particularly honored to be featured next to some incredible designers.





Designing for the Greater Good is scheduled to be published by Crescent Hill Books in January of 2010.

Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sustainable Cotton Project

As mentioned in a previous post, a group of about 20 or so designers and educators recently met at a Designers Accord town hall meeting in San Francisco to explore the subject of sustainable design and exchange ideas. This is the first in a short series of posts in which I'll continue the conversation with the other presenters there about how people can design messaging that drives measurable, ground-level change.

Lynda Grose and the Sustainable Cotton Project

California cotton used 5,849,172 pounds of chemicals in 2005, many of which are known to be significantly toxic to air, water, soil and people. Lynda Grose, fashion designer and associate professor at CCA, is working with the Sustainable Cotton Project to reduce the amount of chemicals used on California cotton crops. Her presentation offered an overview of the subject, but also explored some of the inherent challenges in communicating complex or unintuitive sustainability initiatives.

What exactly is cleaner cotton?

Cleaner cotton is the term used for the crop produced by farmers enrolled in SCP's BASIC program. BASIC (Biological Agricultural Systems in Cotton) is a farmer-to-farmer information-sharing program throughout California's Central Valley that "enables conventional farmers to adopt organic and other environmentally preferable (biologically-based Integrated Pest Management) farming techniques." It's been remarkably successful in its eight years of existence: according to an independent analysis, BASIC growers "spray up to 73% less of the most toxic insecticides and miticides used in cotton" compared to conventional growers in their area.

Grose points out, however, that cleaner cotton is not the same as organic cotton, which uses no synthetic pesticides. So it must not be as good, right? Wrong - and this is a perfect example of how many sustainability initiatives seem counterintuitive at first glance. There are a few reasons why Cleaner Cotton is such an important piece of the sustainable agricultural puzzle:

1. Organic cotton requires a great deal of hand labor. With California's higher minimum wage, this means that converting to an organic system can be cost prohibitive for conventional farmers. In fact, much of the organic cotton used in U.S. clothing, for example, is shipped from overseas, where the cost of labor is dramatically lower (resulting in more competitive pricing). So while overseas organic cotton may reduce pesticide and GMO use, it does nothing to support local (and badly needed) American farming economies.
2. The problem of toxic pesticides:
   To get about 3 bales of cotton per acre in California, conventional growers use an average of 2.1 pounds of chemicals.
   Cleaner cotton offers better yields than organic. "This is one of the significant factors in bringing growers into the 'cleaner cotton' program," Grose explains. While conventional California growers yield about 3 bales of cotton per acre, "organic cotton so far yields 50% of that. Since growers are paid per pound for their fiber, this represents significant economic risk...especially without a committed market." And how does cleaner cotton compare to conventional? "The yields are the same."
3. Proportionally, cleaner cotton cuts chemical use more than organic. In 2007, there were 240 acres of organic cotton grown in the state, reducing chemical use by about 500 pounds, according to the SCP. Compare that to the 2,000 acres of cleaner cotton that resulted in a reduction of about 2,000 pounds of chemicals, and you start to see why cleaner cotton makes so much sense.

Given the clear advantages of cleaner cotton, then, it should be a simple matter of switching growers from their conventional systems, right? Well, not exactly.

A system greater than the sum of its parts

We all know that changing just one component in a system is unlikely to change that system in the long term. We might see a temporary shift or hiccup, but eventually that system will self-correct and return to the status quo. So, to effect long-term sustainable change, each piece of the system needs to change together. As Grose mentioned, without a market of fiber manufacturers committed to purchasing cleaner cotton, there's no guarantee growers will be able to sell their cleaner yield. So the SCP is taking a three-pronged approach:

1. It helps conventional farmers convert their acreage to cleaner cotton crops (creating a supply).
2. It encourages businesses to purchase California-grown cleaner cotton in addition to overseas-grown organic cotton and instead of conventional cotton (building a distribution system).
3. It educates consumers about the advantages of cleaner cotton (creating a market demand).

Of course, changing the attitudes and behaviors of three different constituent groups is much harder than changing just one.

Reaching one goal through multiple stakeholders

If the Sustainable Cotton Project approached their campaign using a blanket message for all three groups, they might find themselves facing serious resistance. Each of these groups has a different set of obstacles to changing already comfortable (and often, profitable) behaviors. Looking at our farmers, for example, the challenges in getting them to switch from a conventional farming system are clear. Grose puts it in context:

"Cotton is grown in different regions. each with their different ecological stresses. Organic is a good tool in developing nations, where labor costs are cheaper. It's not an effective tool in developed nations where labor costs are high.

Asking a farmer to transition to organic cotton is like asking a western medicine doctor to transition to Chinese medicine and acupuncture: it's a fundamentally different system.

Cleaner cotton brings conventional farmers into biological systems, and over time they begin to trust them and apply them to other crops. Because it is scalable, it converts more farmers and more acres to biological systems than organic does. Cleaner cotton doesn't negate organic; each has their relevance in a given region."

But manufacturers and consumers are driven by different obstacles (often price, perceptions of quality, and others). So, the SCP communicates its umbrella message—"cleaner cotton is better than conventional"—to each group using different subtexts and communication channels:

• Growers
  "Farmers listen to farmers," says Grose. Farmer-to-farmer information sharing programs appeal to the close-knit community and trust issues found among growers, and on-site farm tours allow growers to see cleaner cotton in action.
• Manufacturers
  Farm tours also engage manufacturers, switching the mindset from numbers on paper to real-world results. SCP also reaches out to companies at trade shows and company headquarters, providing "very visual presentations" in language that appeals to their particular motivations.
• Consumers
  Finally, SCP has created an online presence to educate the general public about the advantages of purchasing items made with cleaner cotton. The group also uses traditional publicity campaigns to drive awareness.
  

By respecting the concerns of each of their target groups and selecting appropriate communications channels, the Sustainable Cotton Project reaches more people, and has a greater lasting impact than if they either used a single communications campaign, only reached out to one group at a time, or positioned cleaner cotton to compete with other accepted farming systems. In fact, Grose is quick to point out that cooperation has been key to the group's success: "we position cleaner cotton to complement, not compete, with organic cotton, since the goals are the same: non-GM (genetic modification), family farmers, reduction in chemicals, etc." Treating each group as a valuable component in the whole system has resulted in a highly effective campaign.

Simplifying otherwise complex messages has its pitfalls

It's not all fluffy sweaters and fuzzy mittens, of course. The SCP still faces some challenges given the complexities of the industry. During her town hall presentation, Grose described one of the fallouts of such an effective communications campaign: simple messages are easier for people to grasp, but then you risk oversimplifying the issues to the detriment of your ultimate goal. In the mid-late '90s, for example, the group ran a campaign using the all-American t-shirt as its symbol:

"We took data on chemicals sprayed from all cotton states at that time, and the average yield of fiber per acre, and average amount of cotton in a typical t-shirt, then we did the math...and 1/3 pound [of argicultural chemicals] used for every t-shirt is what it came to at that time in the U.S. It was so effective a message that a host of companies picked it up without doing the math on the cotton they were using...so the data is no longer accurate, yet it is still used by some because it is a simple message."

Unfortunately, there may not be an easy solution to this problem of complex messaging. "Brands love to communicate in sound bites," reminds Grose, which means it's up to those crafting the sound bites to think harder about where they might end up, and how they might be used. Which leads us, often, to looking at the issue from different angles - both from the points of view of each stakeholder group, and from those we haven't traditionally considered.

When asked about the challenges and opportunities involved in reaching different groups with seemingly different interests, Grose responded: "They see cleaner cotton as part of an overall cotton strategy which includes organic and cleaner cotton. It's a significant shift from thinking about the product, to thinking about the cotton business." And that shift in our overall perception of any given "problem" is what will ultimately lead to better, more sustainable solutions in every sector.


Related Posts:
Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sharing Good Ideas

Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sharing Good Ideas

Collaboration is one of the fundamental pieces of a functional design industry. It also happens to be one of the fundamental pieces of sustainable progress. In order to take positive, measurable steps forward, designers need to come together to identify relevant problems, brainstorm new ideas, and troubleshoot potential solutions. And that's what some of us did last week at Lunar, the hosts of a Designers Accord town hall meeting here in San Francisco.

A huge nod goes to Vanessa and the Lunar crew for creating a really successful, open atmosphere for idea sharing. Five of us spent 5-10 minutes each presenting a different idea to the group of about 20 fellow designers and educators. No specific theme, just idea sharing.

I spent my time mostly asking questions, of course. As I told the group, I'm currently helping a couple of different groups develop certification standards for graphic designers and their projects. I've been tapped by Eric Benson of re-nourish and Yvette Perullo of Rethink Design to provide input on a responsible design protocol. The protocol is a three-tiered certification system (partially modeled on the LEED system), intended to provide designers and clients with a rigorous framework for evaluating print design projects. We're also working on a studio-level version, which is where most of my work is being done. Simultaneously, I'm providing similar recommendations to the San Francisco Green Business Program for their design studio guidelines.

Developing these guidelines poses a significant challenge on many levels, and I'll be discussing those in another post soon enough. But last week's presentation, and the ensuing discussion, allowed me to get valuable input from other working designers, which will only strengthen the final recommendations. Folks raised questions, challenged my assumptions, and provided great ideas for improvement. Most of all, I was surprised by how generally open to certification they were. Perhaps it was the knowledge that such a program was being developed with genuine consideration for the limitations and challenges it will face.

There were some really cool ideas passed around by the other four presenters, too. Throughout this week, I'm going to post about each of them, so be sure to tune in (or subscribe to the email feed).

More Adventures in Direct Mail: SF Bike Coalition

Earlier in the week, I dissected the failings of a snail mail campaign that was sent to me by a local arts nonprofit. On that same day, I received another mailing, this time from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who couldn't have taken a more different approach. There was nothing particularly fancy about the envelope's presentation or contents, but it was clear that the group had invested a good deal of energy making this single mailing as effective as possible. Here's how I knew that:

• Bigger envelope means more bang for the buck.
  Although it was a standard 9" x 12" manila envelope, I knew there had to be something juicy inside to warrant such a large mailer. That thing was getting opened out of pure curiosity.
• One message, many materials.
  Turns out the mailing was intended to get my business on board with San Francisco's "Bike to Work Day." Small plugs for the SF Bike Coalition were cleverly scattered throughout the materials (including a copy of the group's newsletter), but they were all directly tied to the issue at hand: Bike to Work Day (the newsletter, for example, contained a Q&A about the event, among other BTWD features). Picking one message and reinforcing it throughout the mailing kept me from getting distracted, detached or confused.
• Appealing to your audience:
  "It is a known fact that employees who arrive at their workplace by bike are alert and productive and are generally healthier employees. Their employers reduce health insurance premiums and avoid costly employee benefit expenses like parking..."
  Overcome objections in advance.
  One of the best aspects of this mailing was the use of social marketing techniques (more on that later). From the opening of the introductory letter to the content of the newsletter, it was clear the Coalition had thought long and hard about what might prevent recipients from acting on their call for participation, and heading these objections off at the pass. The messaging was framed to address common employer concerns, including costs and employee productivity, which made it really easy to be won over.
• Provide the right incentives.
  Finally, the Coalition included a ton of materials to help its audience act on its request for participation in BTWD. Don't know the best way to implement the program among your employees? Follow the enclosed checklist. Unsure of which routes to take, or how hilly the streets are? Check out the enclosed San Francisco Bike Map. Need a way to get the word out to your employees? Post the enclosed BTWD poster. Looking for a fun team project? Take the enclosed Team Bike Challenge. Concerned about safety or getting stranded without a car? No worries, just check out the enclosed pamphlet explaining the San Francisco Emergency Ride Home program. And of course, if you want more info about the event or the Coalition itself, read the enclosed newsletter. Thinking ahead has allowed the Coalition to provide the answer to every potential question in advance, making it incredibly easy to participate.
  

These last two techniques are, as I mentioned, a significant component of social marketing (not to be confused with social media marketing, which relies on web 2.0 tools like Twitter or YouTube to spread a message). Social marketing is an incredibly effective way to encourage positive behavior change in individuals within a group context. It's a little broad to get too detailed here but the SF Bike Coalition, knowingly or not, has adopted several of its most successful principles:

1. They knew their behavior goal (employer participation in Bike to Work Day).
2. They knew their audience (employers with specific concerns about how BTWD would effect their employees health and productivity).
3. They addressed potential barriers for action (not enough information, too dangerous, too costly).
   
4. They included incentives to reinforce the behavior they were looking for (maps, team challenges, emergency rides home, posters).

Now, if they follow up with a phone call asking me if I participated, then they'll really be on point (after all, you need to measure if your campaign worked to know whether it's worth the investment). I only had two real issues with this mailing, and I have to admit they're not minor:

1. They failed to vet their mailing list (although I'm a San Francisco business, I'm not an employer), leading to a lot of wasted paper.
2. They included a lot of paperwork, much of which may get tossed.

That said, it's a relief to get a direct mail piece so thoughtfully directed to its audience. By taking all of the above into account during the design and writing stages, the group has vastly increased the likelihood of a positive response rate. The next time you send something to your constituents, I hope you'll consider these points, too.

Playing for Change

This is one of the coolest projects I've seen so far.

"Four years ago while walking down the street in Santa Monica, CA the voice of Roger Ridley singing "Stand By me" was heard from a block away. His voice, soul and passion set us on a course around the world to add other musicians to his performance. This song transformed Playing For Change from a small group of individuals to a global movement for peace and understanding. This track features over 35 musicians collaborating from all over the world. They may have never met in person, but in this case, the music does the talking."

Sounds great, and the music they produced was pretty great, too. Too bad they're more concerned with selling stuff than providing useful information about the project. Not sure why this is rubbing me the wrong way - oh yeah, because they had a great site going, with a clear message that explained themselves, their project, and those involved. Now the original site is a friggin' t-shirt store, and if you want any details at all you have to dig. This isn't rocket science, folks: give the people what they want. All seems well again; perhaps a site redesign snafu of some sort?

Visit Playing for Change. Or, if that link gets wonky again, the videos are also available on YouTube.

The Tools of Self-Government

This looks fascinating:



Us Now is a documentary film exploring how social media tools are changing the way we handle information, and how that might impact how we govern ourselves. The concept is both timely, and a necessary one to explore given the current state of global affairs. I love exploratory stuff like this.

The Good Consumer

[via Bonfire of the Brands]

CompostModern is this weekend

For those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area, don't forget about AIGA's CompostModern conference coming up this weekend. I'm looking forward to hearing the likes of Joel Makower, Nathan Shedroff, Eames Demetrios and others discuss sustainable design solutions. I am, however, a little worried.



Perhaps I'm too cynical for my own good, because I find myself worrying that it's going to be yet another green design pep rally. There is certainly real value in waxing poetic about be the change, but I'm getting antsy for some really grassroots impact in this industry. I get worried that the freelancers and indie studios across the country—the ones who can't or won't afford an AIGA membership, or whose local municipalities don't even have a public recycling initiative—are being left out of the conversation.

CompostModern may be different, though. First of all, it's cheap. That's important because there are already far too many overpriced, corporate-driven, trade showesque sustainability conferences out there. We need to make the barrier for entry into this green design conversation much lower if it's going to spread. Students, for example, can't drop $1k+ on some business conference just to be exposed to the movers and shakers (there shouldn't even really be any movers and shakers in a movement like this, but that's probably far too much to ask). And students are the ones who need to carry the torch.

Second, it's bringing in speakers from outside the design world, too. That's important because we designers often get to thinking that we're either more powerful than we are, or not powerful at all. Bridging the gap between design and business—developing more integrated systems and industries in this country—is pretty much the only thing that's going to allow sustainable design to infect mainstream culture.

I've seen some of these folks speak on the subject of sustainable design before. Dawn Danby of Autodesk, for example, and John Bielenberg of Project M. As someone who's already pretty well entrenched in the concepts to be discussed, I wonder how deep these speakers will really go. Or are we going to be wowed by the latest big-budgeted design "innovation" once more? Will there be clear, specific next steps offered to the audience, or will we be left to pat each other on the shoulder just for showing up? And who, exactly, will be attending?

And these, at the end of it all, are the people I really want to hear from. The audience. What will we take away? What will we do afterwards? What will change? I have a few ideas, but for those you'll need to stay tuned.

No on 8: The Musical

Too bad the original No on 8 campaign wasn't this well choreographed...

Thanksgiving

Fifty People, One Question:


Fifty People, One Question: New York from Crush & Lovely on Vimeo.

[via SwissMiss]

The Hypocrisy of Prop 8

Some very nicely designed posters from Mark Luethi, for the Stop Prop 8 campaign, that cut right to the heart of this issue:







Each poster can be downloaded and distributed by clicking on the images above (or check out the whole flickr stream). I strongly encourage you to do so, and to attend any of the many rallies coming up.

Proud Overnight

America can breathe a sigh of relief this morning, but still it feels like there's so much work to do. If I see one change over the coming years, I hope it's in our schools. I hope our schools start teaching how to think critically again.

Nov. 4, 2008: This Is It, Folks

Please, please vote. This is a different kind of election, and it needs to be loud. I mean really loud. In addition to casting your ballot, here are some more ways to engage:


Behind the Candidates:




Polling Place Photo Project:

Vote No on Prop 8

I am a huge proponent of equality under the law (except for corporations), and California's upcoming election is an important one. In a couple of weeks, Californians will be able to vote down proposition 8, which changes the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and woman only.

While I understand that a certain portion of the population are morally opposed to gay marriage (me, not so much), I simply don't agree that it's okay to write inequality into the law. I see this as a civil rights issue, plain and simple. The problem is that Prop 8 has some pretty big-money backers, and they've taken some pretty underhanded approaches to pushing Prop 8 on the people, including claiming that by not redefining marriage, it will somehow mean California schools will start teaching kids to be gay. It's a pretty big reach, but anything goes in politics these days. So sad.

Anyway, I went ahead and created a flyer you can download and distribute—hang it in your store front, give it out at rallies, wheat paste it across your town (whatever you do, make sure it's legal).

(New) Instructions for Download:
1. Click once on the image below to open it in a new window.
2. Right-click (or option-click) on the new image.
3. Select "Save Image As" and choose your folder.
4. Select "Save."



The image above is a small, low-res version. For the full 8.5 x 11 image, click on the thumbnail above.

Rights and Permissions!
You may reproduce, distribute and display this poster anywhere and everywhere. You may not sell it, or alter it in anyway. If you distribute it, I'd love to see photos of your event or action.

Miranda July for Barack Obama

Just a great little fundraising site.

How do you choose whom to help? Sometimes, you just pick someone.

Living in San Francisco, I routinely step over sleeping bodies in the street, shake my head when spare changed, and generally go about my business surrounded by the needy. To some degree, I think, we all do this. We pick and choose our causes, because there are so many damn causes. So many people who need real, desperate, help.

Every now and then, though, I break my own "just say no or be overwhelmed" rule. I do pro bono work to balance my evil marketing side. The other day I bought a $5 BART ticket for a guy trying to get someplace. I called 911 several months ago when I watched an elderly woman pass out at a bus station (turned out her heart was slowly stopping, it was kind of scary). But I rarely—I mean almost never—bother to champion fundraising causes on my blog. It's one of my "just say no or be overwhelmed" rules.

I'm breaking that rule. Lori Hall Steele needs help, and so does her son, Jack. You may have read about Jack in the Washington Post, where Lori wrote about his reaction to watching Bambi:

"'When I'm 4,' Jack asks, 'will you still look after me?'

Will I? Of course, of course, of course. I stroke his blond curls and tell him he'll always be my baby. But it's as if he senses some disclaimer from the universe.

'Mommy?' he asks. 'Will you still look after me when I'm a grown-up?'"

[read the entire—short—piece, then come back. Just read it, really.]

When Lori wrote this piece almost three years before it was published, she was healthy and she made the only promise moms can make to a small child who asks such questions. And now, three years later, Lori is on a ventilator, paralyzed, battling both ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and Lyme disease. And while she and her family struggle to cope with the mother's brutally degenerative illnesses, they also face immediate foreclosure on their home. Oh, and over $50,000 in medical bills (and counting) that her insurance company refused to pay.

And this is where my "just say no" rule gets broken. It's hard to describe just how deeply destructive a chronic degenerative condition can be. I know this part of Lori's story, to such a milder degree, firsthand. What I can't imagine is how magnified all of it must be when the system set up to care for you turns its back on you, and you in turn are left powerless to care for your own loved ones, and promise them their safety and security. Hundreds of writers, bloggers, and friends have been similarly moved, and have begun an all-out fundraising push to help Lori keep her home and cover her medical expenses.

Please consider joining this push, and donate just a little bit of cash to the fund: the cost of a pizza, a six-pack, a night out on the town, whatever you would have tipped your bartender, whatever. We all have our own "just say no or be overwhelmed" rule: I hope you'll consider breaking yours for Lori and her family.

• Donate via PayPal (note: this is, unfortunately not a nonprofit deduction)
  
• Save Lori's House (you can also donate via this page, or send a check instead)
  
• Article in Grand Traverse Herald on Lori
• Lori's article about her son, Jack
  

Green Jobs Now

Solving two problems with one solution? Well, that certainly makes sense:



Check out Green Jobs Now to learn more about how we can solve our environmental issues and lift people out of poverty at the same time.

Getting Heavy About Lightening Up

We are on the cusp of a serious mental shift in the way we handle our relationship with our physical environment. In many ways, our collective behavior has mimicked Elizabeth Kübler Ross' five stages of grief:

1. Denial and Isolation: The environment is not in danger, and we are not at fault.
   
2. Anger: Stop blaming us for the slow destruction of the environment!
   
3. Bargaining: If we start buying green products, can we please forget this whole mess?
   
4. Depression: The world's about to collapse—why bother changing?
   
5. Acceptance

I've deliberately left acceptance blank, because I don't quite know what that would look like. I'd like to think that we are on the cusp of finally coming to terms with the inevitable, acknowledging reality in a way we have thus far been loathe to do. I'd like to think that acceptance means acknowledging that we don't have all the answers; that some of the solutions we try will inevitably cause other problems altogether; that we nevertheless must keep trying new solutions. More than that, though, I'd like to think that acceptance means allowing ourselves to simply think about our situation in fundamentally different ways than we are used to.

If we could allow ourselves to acknowledge the failures and limitations of our current economic, political, production, and distribution systems, we might discover that the answers lie both within these systems and without. This might then allow us to experience the changes we need to make without breaking us. Bending, sure, but maybe we don't have to break.

A Complete Photographic Mindf&%@

Imagine a camera that doesn't passively take pictures, but instead creates something that isn't actually there. The Image Fulgurator surreptitiously projects an image onto a photographic subject when tripped by a nearby camera flash or other light. The photographer, the subject, and any passersby are completely unaware of the projected image - until the image is processed. It's a fascinating, creepy and ingenious device created by Julius von Bismark - and though he provides footage of the Image Fulgurator in action, it's hard to believe this thing really works as described:

"...An exposed and developed roll of slide film is loaded into the camera and behind it, a flash. When the flash goes off, the image is projected from the film via the lens onto the object...the Fulgurator looks like a conventional reflex camera. As soon as the built-in sensor registers a flash somewhere nearby, the flash projection is triggered. Hence the projection can be synchronized to the exact moment of exposure of all other cameras in its immediate vicinity. Via a screen (ground glass), it is possible to focus the projection and to position it on the targeted object."

Von Bismark created the Image Fulgurator as an exploration into the photographic reproduction of reality, and his examples focus on politically-charged subjects like Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag. It's an experiment that seems to owe heavily to the Situationists, and it does beg a few philosophical questions. Although creating a public intervention, the Image Fulgurator interacts on a more personal level, as it makes itself known only after the event - and only to the camera's owner at that. In von Bismark's examples, the projected images draw connections from past to present, across international borders, and between actor and acted-upon. The fact that the device is clearly reminiscent of a gun is not lost, either.

Curituba: Making DIfferent Urban Design Decisions

One of my favorite shows, Frontline, has an exceptional story on one of my favorite examples of sustainable urban planning, Curitiba, Brazil:

"Far from an idyllic utopia, Curitiba faces the same problems that metropolises around the world do, including overcrowding, poverty, pollution and limited public funding. What's different about Curitiba is that its planners have come up with some creative and inexpensive ways to go about solving universal problems for cities. They've invested in an extensive bus system that operates for less than a tenth of what a subway costs to operate; developed recycling programs that clean up the environment and also address poverty; attracted new industry while expanding green spaces; and used preserved historical areas to revitalize neighborhoods and grow tourism. Curitiba has a radical approach to city planning, unique not only within Brazil but also globally. I traveled to Curitiba to discover what other cities might learn from this model and to see whether this experiment in urban design will last." [Read the full story]

Public Policy Belongs to the Public

From Pro Bono Junkie's Blog:

"The rise in nonprofits should be a canary in the coal mine for society, telling us that we need to have the courage to demand better public policy to ensure the sustainability of our way of life.

Our local, state and federal governments are not effectively meeting the needs of society. Fortunately, we are a country of entrepreneurial and compassionate people who see the walls of the mine collapsing and are willing to throw themselves against the wall to prevent its fall." [Full post]

The Girl Effect

How to Create a DIY Art Gallery

The Budget Gallery is a "temporary art show in co-opted public spaces" that are curated, promoted and executed with the intention of making fine art accessible to the general public. Stay Free/Anti-Advertising Agency man Steve Lambert has now created a wiki for staging your own DIY Budget Gallery.

Now hop to it!

Carrotmob: Harnessing Consumer Power so Everybody Wins

What happens when hundreds of people agree to give a single business their business in exchange for an environmental commitment? Watch and find out:

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

This really is the perfect example of how the strength of individuals can benefit business and the environment. It bridges the typically hostile gap between activists and Big Corpo. It appeals to the everyday shopper. It has the potential to make real change. And they've even got a business plan (okay, not yet). If you're an angel investor looking for the next perfect project, this might be it.

Tell Your Neighbors About the Spray!

I'm going to ask that you indulge my "politics" as I get loud for a bit - I'm just really not okay with getting sprayed with chemicals!

So, for those of you who live in California and want to spread the word, please help yourself to this poster. Download a PDF of either version by clicking on the image. Then take it your local copy shop and start passing them out to friends, neighbors and especially local businesses.





The petition continues to grow, with over 22,000 people refusing to be sprayed. Let's keep it growing!

California Plans to Use Citizens as Guinea Pigs: Why Every U.S. Resident Should Care

Beginning this summer, airplanes will fly 500-800 feet over California, spraying hundreds of thousands of California residents with an untested pesticide called CheckMate. This will start one night in June, and will happen again three nights a month for nine whole months. None of us will know which nights our towns are being sprayed, and none of us will be able to stop it. Your children will wake up the following morning, head to the park, breathe in the air, play on the jungle gym, and you will have no idea if their little hands are coated in the CheckMate pesticide. You might even be walking home from the BART station one evening, and hear that low-flying plane hum over you as it drops its load.



This ain't no horror story - it's actually going to happen. The State's Department of Food and Agriculture is initiating the largest aerial pesticide spray in the history of the United States because it's afraid the light brown apple moth will take over our plants.

• Never mind that the evidence suggests that this moth has been with us for decades causing no harm whatsoever (and has, in fact, been controlled by natural predators).
• Never mind that scientists across the globe have dealt with this moth before, and advised California that widespread spraying will do no good.
• Never mind that the State's previous spraying last year resulted in well over 600 reported ill health effects.
• Never mind that a man named Stewart Resnick, an agribusiness man whose farming company happens to own the manufacturer of CheckMate (the pesticide to be sprayed on us) has made generous political contributions to our State's officials.
• And never, ever mind that 19,000 citizens and counting have said out loud that they do not want to be sprayed.
  

And why should anyone who lives outside of California care? One simple reason: we are the nation's guinea pigs. The USDA recently announced plans to survey all 50 U.S. states to see if the light brown apple moth can be found anywhere else. If they do, you can bet that state officials where you live will look to California as an example for how to deal with it. Even though California's approach won't work.

So what can we do? Do we sit back and inhale the fumes? Do we let agribusiness dump pesticides literally on our heads? Close our eyes and hope we don't get sick? This is not a joke, and this is not the State's choice to make for us.

Join the tens of thousands of other residents who refuse to be sprayed! You don't have to become an activist, and you don't have to give up your valuable time. Just pick and choose from the following easy steps, and make your voice heard.

1. Sign the petition to stop the spray.
2. Learn the facts about their plans.
3. Write an email to Gov. Schwarzenegger, who currently supports the spray.
4. Write an email to Sen. Migden, who's filed legislation to delay the spray.
5. Send an email to everyone you know telling them about the spray (or linking to this blog post).
6. Write a letter to your legislators voicing your opinion.
7. Attend the meetings on 4/15 and 4/16 to add your voice.
8. Flyer your block, neighborhood or town to inform your community.
9. Send out a MySpace, FaceBook or other social networking bulletin about this.
10. Blog about the spray, or simply link to this post.
    

Get loud. Get angry. This is your air, and your body. Don't let them f--- with it.

The Accidental Politics of Graphic Design

"'What does it mean,' he asked the other day, after sifting through his work, 'to live a meaningful life?'"

"...His portfolio would soon start filling up with routine projects: the cover of the department's phone directory, photo manipulations showing what freeways would look like with new carpool lanes. Then, in the 1980s, pedestrians started getting killed on California interstates with alarming regularity."

From "The Artist Behind the Iconic 'Running Immigrants' Image," LA Times.

Headline Hilarity, or Giving the Vag the Respect It Deserves

The SF Chron is often accused of being a rag, and headlines like this one don't help dispel such a reputation. The play on words shown below is, while hilarious, a little too much personal info for my taste. Nothing's funnier than a nice play on words, but please mind the images you conjure up!



I also feel the need to point out that such a headline seems to reinforce the lack of respect given this particular body part. The headline manages to completely ignore the actual point of the article: Eve Ensler's visit to the Bay Area in support of V-Day, a campaign to stop violence against women. The sad truth, too, is that a headline about an anti-violence campaign is likely to draw in far fewer readers than the cheap joke that ran.

Bill McKibben on Slowing Global Warming and Moving Toward a Sustainable Economy

Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and other books, and one of the earliest reporters on global warming, spoke about the movement to slow global warming the other night in an on-stage interview. I found it odd that the conversation wasn't more in-depth considering the audience (imagine a roomful of rich, white San Francisco liberals - kind of preaching to the choir, hmm?), there were a number of points worth mentioning. I'm just going to quicky sketch out some of these below.



The Challenge of Making the Complex Simple
One of the most difficult aspects of communicating about global warming - and sustainability in general - is that it's such a complex, intertwining subject. Everything feeds into everything else, is connected to everything else in more ways than one, impacts and is impacted by everything else. In a world increasingly desperate for easy answers - just push this button - we're faced with laying bare complex issues and attempting to navigate toward not-so-intuitive answers.

Add to that the fact that this isn't exactly a sexy issue and we're faced with quite the uphill battle. As McKibben said, it's a bit like "going to the doctor and being told you have high cholesterol and have to cut the fat out of your diet." No one wants to do it, and those who do are "rewarded" with not being sick. Logically that may be a big, juicy carrot but at the end of the day we're still stuck munching carrots instead of french fries.

The Challenge of a Brand New Movement
The environmental movement has experienced a lot of changes over the decades, and now that the science is finally in (yes, it is), it's been somewhat vindicated. But this shift means that the movement now needs to go beyond merely proving that global warming exists and, instead, tackle the solution. The solution, of course, is massive economic change. I say "of course" as though this is obvious, and it is to those who have done any deeper reading on the subject outside of, say, USA Today. But McKibben points out that the environmental movement, while solid at education etc., isn't necessarily well-equipped to deal with changing the world's economic system.



It seems to me that the movement itself is a little too insular for that. Once derided for its moral overtones and scolding approach, I'm not sure it's really capable of stepping outside that sense of morality. Changing the global economic structure - regulation of the corporate world, public investment in R&D, global manufacturing and transport, you name it - requires the buy-in of so many differing entities that using a moral imperative to drive this change would seem implausible. But maybe that's exactly what we need - a global recognition, from inside the economic paradigm, that our current global economy is simply not meeting the social responsibilities long promised by unchecked markets.

And what of those markets? When McKibben was asked, "How do you minimize growth [McKibben's approach to stopping global warming] without replacing capitalism?" he replied by stressing the need for more focus on local economies. The idea is that a network of strong local economies provides a safety net of sorts for a stronger global economy. "How can I make it bigger?" is the wrong question, says McKibben. We're craving that smaller, local, community connection that the bulk of us [city-dwellers] have essentially missed out on as urbanization and technology has run rampant. But I'm getting on a tangent.

The Challenge of India and China
Although the U.S. is the primary global consumer, this may well change sooner than we realize (or will be ready for). Developing countries have, for the first time in perhaps the world's history, huge leverage in the growth of their own economies. To power the vast populations of China and India, cheap energy is needed. Right now, cheap energy means coal, which is simply too dirty. If these countries rely on coal - as they are currently doing - we'll be powerless to stop global warming. McKibben points to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen in 2009 as an key potential turning point. He's of the mind that the only way to succeed in combating global warming is to convince China and India to abandon coal. Good luck with that.

Marking Collective Success
In spite of all the challenges that lie ahead of us, McKibben was careful to point out that as a society, we are actually making great strides towards effective change. He cited not just the mainstream adoption of the subject, but also the increasing number of creative solutions that are cropping up both locally and abroad. In an effort to harness this momentum and maximize it, he's started 350.org,* which asks you and I to put our heads together to come up with new solutions. As he writes on the organization's website:

"What we need most right now are your ideas for how to take the number 350 and drive it home: in art, in music, in political demonstrations, in any other way you can imagine. We will connect actions all around the world and make them add up to more than the sum of their parts–but we don’t have all the ideas and all the inspiration. We need yours."

And that really is what it all boils down to: each and every one of us needs to make a simple decision. Will I work towards change, or will I continue with more of the same? No need to read more into it than that—as a single human being, you don't have to solve the world's problems nor remove yourself from the life you love. But as a group of individuals working towards change, the momentum becomes unstoppable.


*350 parts per million is the maximum safe level of carbon dioxide we can have in the atmosphere. It's McKibben's benchmark for a halt to global warming.

Pro Bono Possibilities

Can you imagine giving away 50% of your products for free? Even though Roughstock donates both cash and services to qualified organizations at the rate of about 10% of our billed revenue, apparently we pale in comparison to design kings Pentagram. According to The Taproot Foundation's recent newsletter, Pentagram "reports that 50% of their clients are nonprofits who they serve pro bono." That's half their client base!

Of course, they have the heavy-duty resources to dedicate to such projects. You can also look at it as an investment in public relations and branding. Nevertheless, that's a huge commitment that speaks volumes about the company.

San Francisco Green Business Resources

When I decided to get certified by the city of San Francisco as a Green Business, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would I have to invest in expensive changes, or sacrifice business productivity for the sake of environmental savings? It turns out that the process was fairly straightforward and the required changes and commitments were easy to implement. Not only that, but the program's coordinators were always ready with resources and ideas.

If you're a San Francisco business owner who's interested in making operational improvements to reduce your environmental impact, you're in luck. The city has some fantastic programs and resources to guide you through the process. The list that follows is segregated into appropriate categories to help you find what you need, fast.


Certification Programs

San Francisco Green Business Program
Aimed at helping companies further their commitment to the environment, this multi-agency program certifies businesses and provides help along the way.

Grants, Loans and Tax Credits

San Francisco Mini-Grants
SF Department of the Environment gives away free money for environmental business projects (quick turnaround grants from $1,000 to $10,000) on a first-come-first-served basis.

San Francisco City Grant Programs
While not environment-specific, San Francisco offers plenty of free money for businesses looking to expand operations, implement new programs, or simply grow.

San Francisco City Loan Programs
While not free money, loans can help get your business where it needs to go.

San Francisco Enterprise Zone Tax Credit
This program offers tax breaks to employers operating within designated Enterprise Zones, and/or hiring from Enterprise Zones.

Participatory Programs

SF Approved Green Purchasing Program
An extensive collection of resources for implementing your own sustainable purchasing policy (you might also want to read my article, "How to Find Green Vendors")

San Francisco Commuter Checks
Looking for a way to provide additional benefits to keep your employees happy while serving the environment? These tax-free public transportation vouchers help encourage employees to reduce car use.

Sunset Scavenger Business Recycling and Composting
It's free to recycle and compost your waste in SF! This site provides all the info you need to start reducing your landfill waste. Your compost even helps grow local wine! This program is especially great for restaurants that produce high levels of food waste.

Neighborhood Revitalization Programs
San Francisco operates revitalization programs in many neighborhoods, working with local businesses to provide opportunities, business support and funding.

Tips, Guidelines, and Additional Resources

SFPUC's Environmental Resource Guides for Businesses
A collection of prevention tips and guidelines for various industries.

Small Business, Green Business
The SF Small Business Commission's list of green business resources and a few additional programs.

The above links should give you plenty of food for thought. As you can see there are tons of resources at your disposal, and most are easy to act on. I hope you'll join me and the hundreds of other local businesses who've decided to incorporate sustainability into our bottom line! And in the interest of pooling our collective intelligence, I'd love to hear your own success stories, challenges, or other resources you've found helpful.

Sustainability Is Like Teenage Sex

From Joel Makower's opening comments at Compostmodern, as reported by GDUSA:

"Sustainability is like teenage sex. Everybody says they're doing it but no one really is. And those who are doing it aren't doing it very well."

Drunk Driving Campaign

Nice environmental installation from Jupiter Drawing Room for Arrive Alive South Africa. These appeared in nightclub restroom stalls:



[Via Osocio]

How Word Choice Influences Behavior: The Hotel Towel Example

If you ever need to influence people's behavior, you might consider Dr. Robert Cialdini's approach. Cialdini has conducted numerous studies exploring how different types of messaging impacts the public's actual behavior. One such study focuses on those cards in your hotel bathrrom urgng you to reuse your towels. As it turns out, how those cards are worded makes a big difference in whether or not guests pay attention:

"In this series of experiments, Dr. Cialdini and his colleagues created four cards asking guests to reuse their towels. Three cards contained a pro-environment message, while the fourth informed guests that the majority of hotel guests reuse towels when asked. In rooms with the fourth card, towels were reused 34 percent more frequently." [from the Inside Influence Report [note: link broken, try the home page, emphasis added]

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this research:

1. Word choice matters...a lot;
2. People are more likely to act (or not act) based on what they think others are doing (or not doing);
3. It is possible to realize dramatic behavior change with very low investment.
   

So the next time you're trying to get someone to do something, think carefully about how you deliver your message.

Great Resource! Information Design for Advocates and Activists

If you think charts and graphs are sexy like I do, download this booklet immediately. And if you think charts and graphs are evil necessities that you must use in the execution of your social justice campaign, public messaging plan, marketing strategy or whatever you need to call it, download this booklet immediately.


Click above image to download the PDF booklet.

"Visualizing Information: An Introduction to Information Design is a booklet...designed to introduce advocacy organizations to basic principles and techniques of information design. It’s full of examples of interesting design from groups around the world in a variety of media and forms. It has tips, excercises, and even recommended Free Software packages to help polish up your graphics."

For only 25 free pages of text and graphics, this little publication packs a wallop. It's good to see something along the lines of Edward Tufte become a bit more approachable and digestible. Big ups to John Emerson and his contributors for sharing their skills.

Social Justice is a Numbers Game

If it weren't for teachers, this country would be seriously screwed.

"Radical Math Teachers are educators who work to integrate issues of economic and social justice into our math classes, and we seek to inspire and support other educators to do the same.

We believe that math literacy is a civil right, and that our nation's failure to provide students, especially low-income youth of color, with a high-quality math education, is a terrible injustice...

We encourage our students to ask the question: 'What are the problems that my community is facing, and how can I use math to understand and help solve them?'"

[via Social Design Notes]

iPod Ransom Note Proves There Are Chinks in the Armor

Think Apple controls the world? You might have reason to believe so, given the ubiquity of the iPod and those little white earbuds. But you'd be wrong.

A little girl who recently received an iPod purchased at a local Wal*Mart got a ransom note, instead:

"Reclaim your mind from the media's shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage, go to your nearest Apple store."

This little act of rebellion seems to be taking shopdropping (a.k.a. droplifting) to a new level. Whereas shopdropping involves sneaking customized "merchandise" (usually, some form of art) onto store shelves to make a statement about consumerism and value, this incident actually replaces an item outright (otherwise known as theft).

So, just what is the value of awakening one's loving-kindness (along with the ransom note was Pema Chodron's Awakening Loving-Kindness, a Buddhist self-help book)? Is it worth exchanging for an iPod? Is there a lesson to be learned here other than "it's bad to make someone buy a philosophical text when they thought they were buying electronics"?

Of course there is: the supply chain cannot be trusted. Someone, somewhere, switched out the iPod with a diatribe against capitalism; so what did they do with the iPod?

[news story via Boing Boing]

Does the Media Elect Our Leaders, Or Do We?

Who determines whether a presidential candidate is electable or not? According to a short but bittersweet article from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), the answer turns out to be the media outlets that cover the campaigns. FAIR uses USA Today as an example, citing a recent article in which John Edwards apparently does not exist in the presidential campaigns. The problem, FAIR argues, is that Edwards is the only Democratic candidate who consistently holds his own against the two supposed front-runners, Clinton and Obama:

"Missing from USA Today's polling about electability was John Edwards--even though aside from Clinton and Obama, Edwards is the only Democratic candidate who consistently polls in double digits. And when other polls have included Edwards in questions about electability, Edwards generally does better than the other two, sometimes by wide margins. In a CNN survey of December 6–9, Edwards beat Romney by 11 points more than Clinton and 9 points more than Obama. He beat Huckabee by 15 points more than Clinton and 10 points more than Obama. Clinton lost to McCain in this polling by 2 points while Obama and McCain were tied, but Edwards beat him by 6. There's not as much of a difference with Giuliani, but Edwards still did 3 points better than Clinton and 2 points better than Obama."

Whatever your political leanings, it should frighten and disturb you that your choices are being narrowed before you even know about them. Edwards is a viable Democratic candidate (to my mind, he happens to be the only one who doesn't sound like he's constantly blowing smoke up America's collective ass), but you'd never know it to watch the news or read a major metropolitan newspaper.

Sad, that. America deserves better; we should demand better.

Donating to charity? Make sure they're legit...

If you're considering donating to charity—whether anonymously, in your own name, or as a gift in another's name—you may want to make sure they're legitimate first.

The American Institute of Philanthropy's Charity Watch rates hundreds of charities, so give them a visit before donating to make sure your money is going where it's supposed to.

Orwell and Fascism Come to America

At the risk of sounding like a screaming conspiracy theorist...

Held at the New York Public Library, Here We Go Again: Orwell Comes to America was a recent conference focusing on propaganda in today's America—right here, right now—and how it hogties our public freedoms.

I tried to view the webcasts, in which some great academic minds debate what might be the most important issues of our contemporary society, but I couldn't get the video to work properly (I'm on a Mac, and I believe they use Windows Media Player or whatnot). Maybe you'll have better luck.

Another riveting lecture (no, seriously), is Naomi Wolf's discussion of American fascism and our current administration's echoes of previous dictatorships. It's quite well-reasoned and frighteningly enlightening. Instead of watching the latest episode of Lost or 24, watch this:

Are Cries Over "Eco-Fatigue" a Big Yawn?

Ahem. I just received the following email from the company that inspired my post below:

"We hope you enjoyed the very special trend briefing we sent you yesterday. If you didn't, then please pour yourself a strong cup of coffee and take another close look. It's a SPOOF. Fake. Not to be taken at face value. Even most of the sites we referred to are, well, ours—and entirely fictitious.

We thought it would be fun, just for once, to mock overzealous marketers, crass consumerism and—above all—ourselves. :-) So please don't ditch your pet, stay in ugly hotels, pollute the earth, paint your walls turquoise or start marketing to unborn babies, OK?..."

So, take my criticism of the trendwatching.com report referenced below with a large grain of salt. Dammit.



Sustainable innovation is really rolling now, and the naysayers are already crying foul. A particularly short-sighted trendwatching.com report describes consumers' growing impatience with green marketing as a cry for "authenticity."



Trend watchers, style dictators and pop culture aficionados all insist that sustainability is nothing more than a passing fad, and as such can and should be summarily dismissed. By falling into the sustainability trap, these critics complain, companies "bend over and take the fun out of robust, honest products."

This is where trendwatching.com (and the consumers they supposedly mirror), show a remarkable and unforgivable short-sightedness. Who says that sustainable products can't be "robust" and "honest," and hell, even sexy? Since when did "robust" and "honest" come to mean destructive? When companies charge a lot of money for their "insights" into consumerism, it behooves them to dig a little deeper and ask the less obvious questions.

What the trendwatching.com report fails to really identify is the underlying cause of "eco-fatigue." Consumers aren't sick of having eco-options at all; in fact, every day they're buying more "green" products and asking (no, demanding) more from their vendors. What consumers are fed up with is disingenuous marketing tactics that attempt to paint every new product and service with a greener paintbrush. They're also sick of being treated as though being informed is somehow a bad thing (which is itself a side-effect of the Bush Administration's insistence that we all just sit down and shut up).

One of the most telling lines in the report describes the eco-fatigued as being "treated like unruly infants by Al Gore and his ilk." The irony of such a knee-jerk, inaccurate depiction of this market segment just highlights the laziness of the writers/researchers. Have they really been listening to what Gore and "his ilk" are actually saying? I think, rather, they've been putting their hands over their ears, squinching their eyes real tight, and singing "Mary had a little lamb" so as not to actually have to listen to a viewpoint that might make them really think. People, it's okay to think.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with wanting to buy stuff, or have fun. Sure, there are pious, preaching "greenies" trying to shake their finger at the big, wasting consumerists. But who really gives a shit? The idea is to build consumer interest so that business must take notice. Because business and government (which are pretty much the same thing in this country), will never act in the best interest of the people unless the people demand it.

And so we talk to the people. Gore tries to light a fire, to educate. The beauty of our freedom here is that we're constitutionally granted the right to pursue happiness. But that doesn't mean we're granted the right to ignore the consequences. Because we can play head-in-the-sand all we want, but mother nature's going to catch up with us eventually.

If the eco-fatigued, those in favor of bald-faced consumerism, really want to keep consuming without thought, than more power to them. But those folks better remember that if we want to consume without limits, we all need to find a way to keep us in the stuff. Because stuff will run out, unless we start making sustainable stuff. So shut up already about green products being somehow less fun. 'Cause it ain't gonna be too much fun when your favorite nightclub starts charging $24 for a beer because the brewery is facing a shortage of hops and water.

After all, I want my beer to be cheap and delicious as much as the next girl. And if sustainability is the only way to ensure that it stays that way, quit yer whining and get sustainable. Let's try to have our beer and drink it, too.


Further Reading:
Fads, Frames and the Environment
Businesses Prep for Green Fad to Fade