“When Karen, a planning professor from the [Berkeley] College of Environmental Design, met with a team of students from Dr. Ashok Gadgil’s Design for Sustainable Communities course, neither knew what was brewing.

“Karen discussed how her two bedroom Berkeley home was too small for her constant stream of guests, her daughter and an aging relative.

“The team of students was researching small homes as a means to create affordable and sustainable housing.

“The result was a net zero energy backyard cottage, a new model for shared affordable housing, a Clinton Global Initiative grant and a new Berkeley startup.

• Excerpts from Tiny House Blog

“Our global society faces the challenge of moving from an industrial-growth society to a life-sustaining society. This shift is often referred to as ‘The Great Turning.’”

• Video from Blip.tv
• Source materials from WGBH Lab Sandbox, CC Mixter, Flickr Creative Commons, and Shift in Action

“Campaign video by Richard Curtis and Bill Nighy, about the Robin Hood Tax, a tiny tax on bank transactions that could raise hundreds of billions for public services and to tackle poverty and climate change at home and around the world. Add your own voice to the campaign

• Excerpts from YouTube

These are the games we played at school
Our hands raised in despair
With no exception to the rule
These times are not changing…

This boy had learned to fail
In times like these to cry seems so absurd
His own life’s crisis pales
In the shadow of this truly dying world…

Show me the love to keep us together
Open up your hearts don’t turn me away
Comfort me through this stormy weather
From where I stand, I see a broken land…

• Video from YouTube
• Lyric excerpts from FileTube

“Managing content can yield enormous rewards, but it requires a continuous improvement model….

“I know of a hugely successful website where changes are made several times a day. I know of another website that has achieved four times the industry average in lead generation because of a continuous improvement model. In fact, I can’t think of a successful website I’ve dealt with over the years that hasn’t had a continuous improvement management model….

“Properly managed, content has fabulous potential to deliver value. But too many organizations treat their website like a coalmine when they should be managing it like a goldmine. As web professionals we must continue to build the business case for the investment in a continuous improvement model. The value is unquestionably there.”

• Excerpts from Gerry McGovern

“In Rachel Botsman’s new book, What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, the general theme is that we’re shifting away from a society of hyper-consumption and equating personal self-worth with amount of material good accumulated, and instead to a world where our ability to access and exchange resources, develop a reputation, and build community and social capital takes precedence in how we choose to express who we are and what we choose to define us.

“The authors give hundreds of examples of how people are finding new ways to share and exchange value – what they call ‘collaborative consumption’ – using social lending platforms (Zopa, LendingClub, Prosper), open barter networks (ITEX, Bartercard), peer-to-peer coworking and currencies (Hub Culture), reuse networks (Freecycle), car sharing (ZipCar, GoGet), bike sharing (BIXI), swap trading (SwapTree), and peer to peer rentals for plots of land (Landshare, a room for the night (Airbnb), or any other item you could imagine (Zilok)….

“The idea is that it’s not just about creating more things anymore, but about thinking from a systems perspective and understanding how to find the balance in the relationship between business, sustainability, and consumption. Our planet can’t handle an endless supply of product creation, so the shift is underway for us to begin to design for participation, collaboration, and enabling new experiences….

• The Internet enables a new infrastructure for participation, reducing the transaction costs of matching the wants and needs of people and giving them the opportunity to coordinate. We’re finding this enables us to allocate resources and solve distribution problems more rapidly and effectively.

• By taking out the middlemen, people can begin to build trust with one other again. In the online space, this becomes transparent as reputation systems become more robust, revealing our interests, our social connections, and the trail of behaviors and actions across the Web.

• The “Tragedy of the Commons” is not a given. People are capable of sharing resources if given the tools to self-organize, coordinate, and monitor each other.

• New marketplaces are being built for people to build community, shape their personal identities, earn recognition, and participate in meaningful activity. They are finding new outlets for autonomy, control, freedom, and self-expression….

• Aided by new communication infrastructures, we are learning to find the balance between the pursuit of one’s own self-interest and the greater good.

• Excerpts from Emergent by Design

Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs ‘childish’ thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids’ big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups’ willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.

“‘Now, our inherent wisdom doesn’t have to be insiders’ knowledge. Kids already do a lot of learning from adults, and we have a lot to share. I think that adults should start learning from kids….. It shouldn’t just be a teacher at the head of the classroom telling students do this, do that. The students should teach their teachers. Learning between grown ups and kids should be reciprocal….

“‘The goal is not to turn kids into your kind of adult, but rather better adults than you have been… the way progress happens is because new generations and new eras grow and develop and become better than the previous ones. It’s the reason we’re not in the Dark Ages anymore. No matter your position of place in life, it is imperative to create opportunities for children so that we can grow up to blow you away….

“‘The world needs opportunities for new leaders and new ideas. Kids need opportunities to lead and succeed. Are you ready to make the match? Because the world’s problems shouldn’t be the human family’s heirloom.’”

• Excerpts from TED.com
• Screened at TEDxDirigo – 10/10/10

“The iconic writer reveals the shape of things to come, with 45 tips for survival and a matching glossary of the new words you’ll need to talk about your messed-up future.

“1) It’s going to get worse. No silver linings and no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop.

“2) The future isn’t going to feel futuristic. It’s simply going to feel weird and out-of-control-ish, the way it does now, because too many things are changing too quickly. The reason the future feels odd is because of its unpredictability. If the future didn’t feel weirdly unexpected, then something would be wrong….

“20) North America can easily fragment quickly as did the Eastern Bloc in 1989. Quebec will decide to quietly and quite pleasantly leave Canada. California contemplates splitting into two states, fiscal and non-fiscal. Cuba becomes a Club Med with weapons. The Hate States will form a coalition….

“38) Knowing everything will become dull. It all started out so graciously: At a dinner for six, a question arises about, say, that Japanese movie you saw in 1997 (Tampopo), or whether or not Joey Bishop is still alive (no). And before long, you know the answer to everything…

“43) Getting to work will provide vibrant and fun new challenges. Gravel roads, potholes, outhouses, overcrowded buses, short-term hired bodyguards, highwaymen, kidnapping, overnight camping in fields, snaggle-toothed crazy ladies casting spells on you, frightened villagers, organ thieves, exhibitionists and lots of healthy fresh air….

“45) We will accept the obvious truth that we brought this upon ourselves.”

• Excerpts from The Globe and Mail via /@wjdennen

Shot at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan. The main tank called the ‘Kuroshio Sea’ holds 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water and features the world’s second largest acrylic glass panel, measuring 8.2 meters by 22.5 meters with a thickness of 60 centimeters. Whale sharks and manta rays are kept amongst many other fish species in the main tank.

[Watch full screen in high definition for the full effect.]

• Excerpts from YouTube

“Creating a clean economy will not be easy. It will require sustained, consistent, and large-scale investment across many sectors, including transportation, building systems and appliances, energy generation, and of course the electric grid itself. … As a percentage of GDP, China, Germany, and even Brazil are investing at a rate three times greater than the U.S. …

“China is … making longer-term, sustained commitments that are much larger. The country is already in the process of building 16,000 miles of high-speed rail (roughly 16,000 more than the U.S.). And China is bringing together 16 state-run companies to put one million electric cars on the road within a few years. …

“As an indication of how serious China really is, the country has built the largest solar and wind production industries in the world in just a few years. …

“But it was the country’s ten-year plan that made some jaws drop. Between now and 2020, the country will invest 5 trillion yuan in the clean economy. That works out to about $75 to $100 billion per year for 10 years running (smart grid investment alone is estimated at $60 to $100 billion over the next decade). Imagine the U.S. Congress passing the equivalent of the highly controversial stimulus package 10 times over (not likely).”

• Excerpts from Harvard Business Review