Meet The Unreasonables
Every year, the Unreasonable Institute gathers 25 social entrepreneurs from around the world into a house in Boulder, Colorado. For six weeks, these men and women meet with mentors and work on the business plans for their ventures, which run the gamut from increasing recycling in Mexico to cleaner burning coal for African farmers. During the last session, the participants were followed around by a camera crew, and we’ll be airing that footage here on Co.Exist. Their stories are inspiring in and of themselves, and perhaps in hearing about their struggles and successes, everyone working on a world-changing project (or thinking about starting one) can find a few lessons. This is a short preview of the upcoming season.
10 Points On The Science Of Spreading The Word
This piece is from a new PopTech Edition about harnessing social contagion for social good. Visit for more interviews, essays and videos with leading thinkers on this subject. 1. Good deeds are contagious We naturally imitate the people around us, we adopt their ideas about appropriate behavior, and we feel what they feel. Acts of charity are no exception. 2. That same experiment showed that contagious generosity spreads up to three steps through the network (from person to person to person to person), and when we added up all the extra donations that resulted at every step, we found that an extra dollar in giving yielded three extra dollars by everyone else in the network. 3. People are bombarded by information and appeals every day, especially in our newly mobile and tech-centered society, so the effect of any one appeal to do a good deed may get lost. 4. 5. 6. 7.… but don’t overdo it! 8. 9. 10. Everything we do ripples through our network.
If You Want It Done Right, Don’t Do It Yourself
Time is our most limited resource, and knowing how to maximize it is imperative. Successful people across the globe have clearly figured this out, deliberately deciding to concentrate on tasks where they are most productive, while outsourcing the tasks where they are less so. This results in higher productivity (and well-being) for everyone involved. To achieve the highest productivity and well-being for society as a whole, we must focus on honing our strongest skills instead of spreading ourselves thin by trying to do everything. Consider this little parable: Two men are alone on a deserted island. Despite the fact that the younger man has an absolute advantage in all activities, it is not in the interest of either of them to work in isolation; they both can benefit from specialization and exchange. Although it’s clearly oversimplified, the idea of the two men on the island can help to illustrate the economic theory of the law of comparative advantage.
Sección Principal
¿Qué significa organizarse para lograr el cambio comunitario?¿Por qué participar en la organización comunitaria?¿Cuáles son algunas estrategias efectivas para la organización comunitaria? En la Caja de Herramientas Comunitarias, nuestros autores hablan siempre sobre los diferentes caminos para mejorar nuestras comunidades y sobre cómo realizar todas las tareas, grandes y pequeñas, que hacen que una organización funcione y lo haga bien. A lo largo de toda la Caja de Herramientas ofrecemos sugerencias de lo que consideramos son métodos “apropiados” para enfocar el trabajo comunitario. Una de estas ideas es la organización comunitaria – la noción de que la gente puede y debe reunirse para hablar sobre lo que es importante, y después trabajar juntos para obtener el cambio en sus comunidades. Así, en las próximas páginas (y en las próximas secciones) haremos justamente esto. ¿Qué significa organizarse para lograr el cambio comunitario? Obtener un conocimiento de la comunidad. En resumen
Building Businesses That Stand For Something
Last year, Patagonia launched a “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign, encouraging people to buy their products used instead of new. Yvonne Choiunard, the founder of Patagonia, was a climber, and realized the natural resources it took to produce new products would limit the potential of his business in the long run, which relies on preserving the outdoors as a place for people to play. The company changed their materials and started building durable, longer lasting products, only encouraging sales if used pieces couldn’t be found. Aligning customers’ values with their own will prove much more important in the long run than the bottom-line sale of coats. Patagonia is just one of many companies recognizing the shift in how companies evaluate success. The world is changing at a pace and scale never experienced by humans. These challenges are too big for governments and NGOs to solve without the leadership of businesses.
This Board Game Is Designed For Activists To Practice Building Movements | Co.Exist | ideas + impact
After living in a converted dumpster for the better part of a year in 2015, Jeff Wilson had an epiphany about tiny-house living: In order to create a small space that could convince people to move out of oversized homes, it might make sense to work with a product designer, not just architects. Wilson, who was known as Professor Dumpster at the time, was an environmental sciences professor at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin who embarked on the dumpster experiment as a commentary on the sustainability benefits of living small. He left academia to launch Kasita, a startup that now has a design for a sleek, very un-dumpster-like tiny home. The design was led by a product designer. "When you live in a 33-square-foot dumpster, you don't get to have unusable space," Wilson tells Co.Exist. The new Kasita home is much larger than a dumpster—350 square feet—but nearly eight times smaller than an average American house. The human-centered design makes the tiny size livable. [Photos: Kasita]
Building Better Businesses By Closing The Happiness Gap
If two magnets are separated by too much distance, they won’t have any impact on each other. But, if something helps move them a bit closer, they will gravitate towards each other and connect. Technology can be used in a similar way. It can connect you to other people, skills, tools, and trigger new ways of thinking and working; it can create an "assisted serendipity." More than ever, products and companies help connect us to people and information. But does merely creating access have anything to do with making better lives and better economies? Because today, we have more access than ever, but unfortunately, we are still largely unhappy: 80% of people dislike what they do for a living. One way to do this is to build companies that have a structural alignment of personal interests and skills, with the mission of the company. This is where technology can help. Addressing the disengagement crisis is as much a health initiative as a work initiative.
CoworkingParis
Une page pour relier les différents espaces de CoWorking à Paris afin de faciliter le mouvement des CoWorkers et les interactions. Coworking spaces Le Lab Coworking : 2 espaces de coworking à Paris! Plus de 20 postes, 4 salles de reunion! Imprimante/photocopieuse/scan, coin cuisine, espace détente, électricité/chauffage/ménage compris. Ouverture: du lundi au vendredi de 9h à 20h30. Abonnements mensuels ou tickets à la journée. Plus d'infos, photos et contact: www.lelabcoworking.fr / hello@lelabcoworking.fr / +33.6.65.94.65.26 Espace 1 : 28 Rue du Sentier 75002 - Métros Bonne nouvelle/ Grands Boulevards (L8/9), Sentier (L3) Espace 2: 7 ter cour des petites écuries 75010 - Métros Bonne Nouvelle (L8/9), Chateau d'Eau (L4). La Cantine : un espace de Coworking, de production et de diffusion d'innovation numérique créé par SiliconSentier avec le soutien de la Région Ile-de-France, la Mairie de Paris, Orange, le pôle de compétitivité Cap Digital et la Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération Mutinerie
