Little Sun Interview with movement entrepreneur Jeremy Heimans, founder of Purpose.com Project Jane Margolies Home page of Purpose, a new organization that consults on the formation of movements and helps spur of few of its own.His mother wanted him to grow up to be a doctor, a lawyer or an architect, Jeremy Heimans says with a laugh. Instead, the Australian native became what he calls a “movement entrepreneur,” an expert in using the internet to build social movements around pressing issues. He launched GetUp.org, a grassroots organizing force in his homeland that has more members than all the country’s political parties combined, and he co-founded Avaaz.org, a global online pressure group (avaaz means voice in languages from Hindi to Farsi to Bosnian). His latest venture is Purpose, a New York–based consultancy on movement formation and development that has a not-for-profit arm that launches its own campaigns; one of them, AllOut.org, promotes LGBT rights worldwide and recently helped quash a bill in Uganda that would have made being gay punishable by death.
GetUp! Action for Australia Who We Are | X PRIZE Foundation Who We Are XPRIZE is an innovation engine. A facilitator of exponential change. A catalyst for the benefit of humanity. We believe in the power of competition. That it’s part of our DNA. We believe that you get what you incentivize. We believe that challenges must be audacious, but achievable, tied to measurable goals. We believe that solutions can come from anyone, anywhere and that some of the greatest minds of our time remain untapped, ready to be engaged and unleashed on a world that is in desperate need of help. Radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. Call us crazy, but we believe. Maybe it’s because we’ve already facilitated oil recovery cleanup at triple the standard rate. Maybe it’s the hundreds of teams who have signed on to revolutionize healthcare by creating an affordable, portable, wireless medical device, based on the Star Trek tricorder. Or maybe it’s because we’ve seen our beliefs become reality. We believe in making the impossible possible.
Jesus Was a Rape Baby – Sarah McDavitt Woods According to The Gospel of Mary and other early church documents, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was most likely betrothed to Jesus’ earthly father Joseph at the age of 12, though she possibly was as old as 14. The Catholic Church and Evangelical churches typically teach she was no older than 15 when she became the Mother of God. As a betrothed virgin girl, the responsibility for Mary’s care had transferred from her father to adult widower Joseph, who had legal rights over her. It is highly unlikely Jesus was conceived as the result of a youthful romance. The men who wrote the Bible claimed Mary submitted obediently when she became the Mother of God. In the Biblical narrative, Mary was coerced into submission and obedience by the Angel Gabriel. Donald Trump Christians argue Mary was not raped because God did not physically sexual assault Mary. Mary was not an exception. Trump Christian “pro-life” activists consistently support cutting funding for services for women and children.
Stefan Stern: Behind corporate walls, the masters of the universe weep - Commentators, Opinion It is almost as though he is adopting the stance first advocated by the Barclays boss, Bob Diamond, a few months ago (and prior to the chancellor’s proposed banking reforms announced last night). Reflecting on the great financial crisis of the past three years Diamond observed: “There was a period of remorse and apology; that period needs to be over.” It was time, in other words, to get back to business as usual. Hayward seems to agree. But wait a minute. I must have missed it. We seem to be stuck. These kinds of stories are as yet completely under-reported and under-analysed. On three separate occasions in the past few months I have been told about startling moments of truth within the walls of some mighty global corporations. At an elite management consultancy an informal discussion about career goals degenerated into the sort of group confession masters of the universe are simply not supposed to make. A similar story was told by a partner in a major financial services firm.
The Better Block | betterblock.org provides news and information on Better Block projects occurring around the world. Airbnb: The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2012 "There's someone in my apartment . . . right now." Joe Gebbia sounds like he's reading a line from a horror film. It's October, and Gebbia is in New York to speak at a design conference. In that same living room back in 2007, Gebbia cofounded Airbnb, the digital accommodations marketplace that people use to rent out their homes or spare rooms (or igloos, castles, or private islands) like a hotel. Horror is one word that captures the initial reactions of the 15 A-list investors who passed on the pitch a few years ago. The roots of Airbnb's success lie in its cofounders' backgrounds at Rhode Island School of Design. But design has proved crucial in helping Airbnb prevail. Somehow the plan worked. Gebbia's and Chesky's training pushes them to seek right-brained solutions to every problem. They crafted a very untechy solution. Airbnb now offers its hosts free professional photography services from more than 2,000 freelancers who have visited 13,000 listings across six continents.
How the homeless create homes The number of people facing housing insecurity, already on the rise, began to climb more steeply as a result of the Great Recession. This upward trend will likely be exacerbated if President Trump’s proposed cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and housing subsidies are enacted, which will force even more to make a choice between food on the table and a roof above their heads. To those who are safely housed, a homeless person is apt to inspire feelings ranging from fear and disgust to pity and guilt. Such negative responses are rooted in longstanding myths about “hobos,” “Bowery bums,” and “bag ladies.” Above all, they are not like us. In my new book, “Extreme Domesticity: A View from the Margins,” I examine ethnographies, journalistic accounts and memoirs that have been written about homeless people and communities. Homemakers once, they are homemakers still: however challenging, their efforts to satisfy basic domestic needs resemble those of people everywhere. Changing the narrative
untitled In the second quarter, the satellite analysts had spotted a surge in traffic to Wal-Mart stores during the month of June, which was 4 percent ahead of the same month a year ago. That, they speculated, was driven by an aggressive Wal-Mart price rollback marketing campaign that brought a lot more customers into the stores that month. Because they could see that traffic showing up in the parking lots, the satellite analysts came up with a much different projection for the company’s quarterly earnings in the second quarter than the UBS team did using traditional methods. UBS predicts that Wal-Mart’s second quarter sales will be up from the first quarter, but down a percent against the same period a year ago. Takes Out the Guess Work With a satellite picture, “you don't have to guess based on what a manager is saying from a store or the opinion of a research analyst,” said Tom Diamond, co-founder of Remote Sensing Metrics. In its report, UBS laid out both predictions side by side.
Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution Circular Economy - UK, USA, Europe, Asia & South America - The Ellen MacArthur Foundation How to make systems thinking sexy When Elizabeth Thompson, executive director of the BFC, asked me, "is the Challenge too niche?" my reply was: Damn right it's niche - and a good thing, too. No other public design competition that I know comes even close to being this demanding for applicants, nor so thoroughly managed. The Challenge is a long way from the business as usual of mainstream design and its frothy competitions. By "business as usual" I mean the kind of business that is bewitched by what Dr Chris Seeley calls, in The Fool and the Great Turning "the three impossible fantasies": the fantasy of limitless growth; the fantasy that actions can be taken that don't have consequences; and the fantasy that human beings are separate from, and above, the natural world. These fantasies are not unique to design. It’s madness - and all over the world people are waking up to the fact that it’s madness. Don't get me wrong. All this is welcome, and impressive. Outside the business-as-usual tent, gradualism is on the retreat.