Our Impossible Prompts from yesterday’s social

Yesterday we had our first social of 2013. Following on from our amazing conversations at our last Check It Out Team meeting about what the word “Impossible” means (thoughts to follow in a later post) we decided to start the year by setting ourselves an “impossible” – or at least exploring the idea! We had some prompts to help us (and some “Time for Review” inspired by our previous blog post).

We found that people have lots of different dreams and hopes and our conversation came around to the question “why?”

Why do you want to do that?

 

It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do.

People felt that things seemed much more impossible if they weren’t sure why they wanted to do them. And sometimes they knew the reason, but they didn’t feel very interested in it.

This reminded me of a conversation I had last year with a UX designer, who said he was “bored of making apps full of kittens to sell cat food.” The “Why” here is clear – to sell cat food. But this “Why” was clearly not of interest to the person I was talking to.

Enter Good for Nothing. This fabulous crew bring together all sorts of creatives including techies, designers, illustrators and projects that are working towards social aims (or as they put it, “thinkers, do-ers, makers and tinkerers”). The social aims include sustainable food, smart energy, community, youth… and more. Something for everyone! Check out their video:

Good for Nothing started in London, and there are now other versions hatching across the UK. Nothing in Cambridge yet though… so time for a crucial question. What do you think of a Good for Nothing in Cambridge? Would you join us to form a crew? Would you be a thinker, do-er, maker or tinkerer? Would you be a cause-led innovator or change-maker? Let us know in the comments below, or tell us over on Twitter.

**UPDATE** If you are interested please come to our social in February: http://youcanfeb2013-eorg.eventbrite.com/

If you’d like to read more about the importance of Why, see this TED talk from Simon Sinek on the Golden Circle:

Let us know what you think!