End of Food – Paul Roberts

This is a long Video – a lecture by Paul Roberts on his End of Food book. And its eminently watch-able.

Car Pooling through Facebook

FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
I was excited to see this new facebook carpool application. Carpooling is not what you might think. People carpool to and from work together, for road trips, to see the family, and lot’s of different occasions. Carpooling is actually gaining in popularity as a way to [...]

Zim Ride

Zimride | A Carpool Community
Zimride is an easy, money saving, and dynamic ride-sharing solution. Now carpooling is fun and reliable.
Since launching in 2007, Zimride’s ride-share solutions have served over 300,000 global users. What began as an experiment in sustainability on the east and west coast has quickly evolved into the world’s leading social [...]

Malbourne – Ecocity

S2G3Ecocity < FMPlan < Future Melbourne Wiki
An eco-city reduces its ecological footprint to fit within the boundaries of one planet. In an eco-city, people and organisations adapt to a changing climate and gladly act to build a sustainable future.
As an eco-city, Melbourne has a healthy environment with a high quality of life and [...]

Social Innovation Examples

I am keen to make and publicise a list of ’social Innovation’ case studies located in Melbourne Australia.
These may be projects/ companies/ ventures/ initiatives/ and other such collectives formed for social good – with or without a profit motive.
Can you give me examples to add to my list? I have a list here which I [...]

Ross Lovegrove: The power and beauty of organic design (video) Video

more about "Ross Lovegrove: The power and beauty …", posted with vodpod

How OLD is what you buy in the freshfood section of Supermarkets?

Very old – 10 months Old!!
the organic food blog » Before it Gets to Your Fridge
article in the Sydney Morning Herald which has reported that the Sydney Postharvest Laboratory tested supermarket apples and found them to be up to 10 months old!
The test used Australia’s major supermarkets Woolworth’s and Coles; Analysis showed the Woolworths samples [...]

Farmers Markets in Victoria

Here is a good resource for Farmers Markets in Victoria.
Farmers’ Markets
The terms “farmers’ market” and “growers’ market” have only received widespread use in Australia in the last decade as a result of globalisation, so it is worth remembering that many long-established produce markets often consist of farmers and growers selling their own produce. [...]

Elements of Car Design

The Wikipedia has a good introduction to the idea of car design.

Automotive design – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The task of the design team is usually split into three main aspects: Exterior design, interior design, and color and trim design.

Social Entrepreneur of the Year – SA

Gorgeous Project.
SA innovator named Social Entrepreneur of the Year - South Africa – The Good News
South African telecommunications innovator Rael Lissoos has been named Social Entrepreneur of the Year for his project Dabba which brings cheap mobile communication technology to townships in South Africa.

Social Innovation Competition

More about banking and for the finance wallahs.
Straight Goods – Pitch your idea for financing social change – Changemaker online challenge searches for cutting-edge financing methods.
“We’re looking for new financing possibilities, such as mobile banking, program investment, social financing and peer-to-peer lending,” said Ashoka’s Changemakers Executive Director, Charlie Brown. “These methods are already [...]

Car Parking through City-Company collaboration

Motormouth: I-GO Car Sharing Partners with CTA
Last week the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) approved adding 45 parking spaces along various El lines for car sharing vehicles.

The Credit Crunch is good!

Much the same as what Umberto Eco said about why Architects in Italy went into university – in the decade post WWII. No jobs, and back to uni to study and teach. So emerged semiotics and a fascination with texts.
Gudjon’s Blog » The Credit Crunch, Good for Innovation
Instead of rushing out onto the [...]

A discussion of disruptive innovation – LINUX

It was disruptive – but for the techies I guess. I am a Mac user and well I am in the zone of extreme proprietary systems.
Is Linux still a disruptive innovation? | LinuxWorld Community
The embarassing little secret is that it never was. It would be nice to have a story of the innovative, [...]

Social Entrepreneurshp for Designers?

And I thought I was on to something new – when I propose to go full tilt into involving students in the sort of work I have been doing since 1994.
Grain News: Sami Nerenberg to teach new RISD studio: Design for Social Entrepreneurship!
The Rhode Island School of Design has asked our Sami Nerenberg to develop [...]

Designers as Entrepreneurs in Melbourne

The job market firs totally dissappeared in the 90s then came back slowly – but still the work scene for designers in Melbourne is not good. Nowhere near what you see in China and India – where you see jobs advertised in big companies – stable jobs with annual salaries. What we have is mainly [...]

LOcal Diet in the NY Times

And more social innovation actually.
A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss – NYTimes.com
Although a completely local diet is out of reach for even the most dedicated, the shift toward it is being driven by the increasingly popular view that fast food is the enemy and that local food tastes better. Depending [...]

Why be a Locavore?

Three things – succinctly.
The Good Life: Hudson Valley locavore heaven

There are so many benefits to being a locavore (one who looks first to buying locally produced food) — it helps the regional economy and the environment, the farmers who we want to help stay in business, and us, because I think the the [...]

Ways to use Social Media

I went through this list and have parked it here for further use as the Broadcast project ramps up.
50 Ways to use Social Media, listed by Objective
Chris Brogan, who continues to dazzle us with his thoughtful and helpful social media blog posts (I recommend subscribing to him) lists out “50 Ways Marketers Can [...]

Locavore experiences

And talking about what it takes to be a Locavore.
EATS Blog | Guidelive.com
“Local” is relative in a place like Dallas. I spent a couple of hours Saturday morning — a lot of it in the car — scooping up local fare.
First stop was the organic farmers market hosted twice a month at Eden’s [...]

We need a massive wave of innovation

And it starts off from quoting Gore.
WorldChanging: Al Gore, Clean Energy and A Better Nation
And we won’t get that without a massive transformation in how this country works. We need tax reform (towards green taxes), new regulations, intellectual property reform, campaign finance reform, a restoration of our lost rights and judicial reform (to [...]

Auto Centric World

How everything is now based on the assumption of a car based society.
Auto-centric “imprinting” and our consumer products – Greater Greater Washington
One reason we’re locked into an auto-oriented way of thinking about life is that our consumer economy is primarily designed for households with a car. For example, instead of corner grocery stores [...]

Template for Disruptive Innovation

I am interested in turning this into a studio practice and so am following threads on Disruptive Innovation.
The Innovator’s Solution « Web 2.0 and Management
At the website of the authors Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor you can find some ready to use ideas and templates to shape new disruptive innovation ideas:
1. A Template [...]

Black Board and Disruptive Innovation

A really good take on all that BlackBoard is trying to do and how it still falls way short of a truly students centered software.
The End in Mind » Blackboard & the Innovator’s Dilemma
Blackboard remains first and foremost a semester-based, content-delivery oriented, course management system. The software is not (at least noticeably) evolving [...]

Pedal Power Workshop

In 2005 Shreya and Matteo Martignoni came to Melbourne and worked with Mick Douglas on the Pedal Power Workshop. And Luca Abate churned out this quite awesome video of that journey.