Posts tagged cambridge

One of the things that I have been struggling with is liking myself, and being kind to myself. It’s a topic I first introduced here and I don’t feel I’ve finished exploring it yet. Then I came across this recent campaign by Dove; the video started going the rounds last week and has now racked up over 21.5 million watches (accurate at the time of writing). If you haven’t seen it, the first thing to do is take a look and take a moment to register your own reaction:

What do you think?

Seemingly there has been a mixed reaction to the campaign; the comment thread on the Dove site for the campaign makes interesting reading. There’s also a version with men instead of women:

OK – I tricked you a little with that one – it definitely made me giggle!

Behind the original version and the parody, there is actually a serious point. Research shows that young women tend to think of themselves as worse-looking than they really are, while young men tend to think of themselves as better looking than they really are (though maybe not to the extent shown in the parody).

This is not a new study; it goes all the way back to 2003 (see the Guardian link below for the full details) and actually we replicated the results in my Psychology class during my degree. That’s 10 years ago. The question is, has anything really changed since then? I’m still working out how to like myself (most days) and feel confident in me as a whole person, including all the different dimensions of me and the complexity that brings. I do find that Simon’s words still help me when I’m having a bad day – “It’s not about me, it’s about us.”

What about you?

Links:

1. Huffington Post’s Overview of the mixed reactions to the campaign: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/22/dove-real-beauty-sketches-reactions-parody-video-blog-critics_n_3130929.html

2. Heather Long’s perspective at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/20/dove-real-beauty-sketches-ad-women-perfection

3. The comment thread on the Dove site (scroll down to view): http://realbeautysketches.dove.com/

About a month ago, we posted a thought. An idea. Well, a question, really – are you good for something? There was a great piece on Radio 4 today about hacks and what they can achieve (scroll to 2 hours, 20 minutes in) and this seemed like a timely prompt for an update!

We’ve already teamed up with a web developer and a usability designer who are interested in helping to co-organise a Good for Nothing here in Cambridge and we’ll be meeting up over the next few weeks to start to make a plan of how it will work. We’re still looking for a co-organiser who specialises in Design and / or Communications. You can see the full job description and details in the previous post. If this is you, then – what are you waiting for?! Please get in touch on twitter and think about coming along to meet some of us at our social in March. If you know someone who fits the bill, please gift this information to them!

We’ve also had the first brave peeps sign up to express their interest in taking part in some hacks. Are you ready to join them? If so, sign up to this mailing list and you’ll get the latest info as and when we get it:

Are you a creator, tinkerer, or do-er of some sort? Do you like ideas and having fun? Are you well-connected in your area and do you know how to reach out to different networks? Are you ok with blagging stuff and do you like getting things done?

If so, You Can Hub needs you!

What are you on about?

We’re looking for potential co-organisers of a Cambridge group of Good for Nothing-ers – smart folk who would love to get the creative and tech communities of Cambridge collaborating for social good. Cambridge is a rich source of creative and tech types as evidenced by the sheer number of networking groups on these topics alone – which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, as you probably go to most of them! We think it’s time these groups combined forces with the social innovators and change makers of Cambridge to get stuff done. Good for Nothing brings together creatives, tech experts and social innovators to collaborate on challenges with social goals. Challenges have clear specific outcomes, such as a web interface of video that supports a specific campaign that the social innovator is working on e.g. putting together a video that communicates the idea, such as the video that was made for DoNation, or putting together materials that will attract more corporate partnership for Only Connect at Future Youth.

Good for Nothing put it like this:

Good for Nothing is a community of thinkers, do-ers, makers and tinkerers applying their skills and energy to accelerate the work of cause-led innovators and change makers; it’s about diverse groups of people collaborating together, working in new, faster, fun and better ways by supporting ideas and people that are leading the way to what a flourishing 21st century society might look like.

If you still need convincing, here’s a little movie that explains a bit more:

Right, I’m on board. Who are you looking for?

We need at least three co-organisers in total:

1. someone with strengths in coding and tech
2. someone with strengths in design and communications
3. someone with strengths in social innovation and sustainability

One of those sounds like me…What do you want me to do?

If you’re interested in getting involved and you want to know more, come along to the You Can Hub Pub Social on 12th February. It will be an opportunity to meet everyone interested and chat through the idea and next steps some more. We can’t wait to see you there!

I’m interested in the idea but I don’t want to co-organise. Let me know when you’ve got a challenge ready and I can just rock up and do my thing.

No problem! Sign up to this mailing list and you’ll get the latest info as and when we get it.

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!

This great piece in the Guardian talks about all the things we’re finding at You Can Bike Too:

• how incredibly flexible the bike is when it comes to catering for all kinds of abilities in fact, we have found that our bikes are great for people who just aren’t that confident about cycling
• trikes work really well for those whose balance makes using a traditional bike difficult
• riders with disabilities and able bodied cyclists can and often do ride together at club and coaching sessions

It’s great to see our supporter Ian Tierney quoted in the article too! Without Wheels for All Cycling Projects, we wouldn’t have come this far. Don’t forget you can come and try these bikes for yourselves! There are two options:

– Weekend family sessions for mums and dads to cycle with their kids – see here for full details

– Week-day adult sessions for any individuals who wants to give cycling a go – see here for full details

We look forward to seeing you there! And we’re pleased to report that so far, these sessions have been rain-free – though it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

We think it’s great that the paralympics are having such a positive effect and getting more people interested in cycling. How have the paralympics influenced your view of the world? What did you learn?

Last month, Mel and I attended #ccbbq2012 – The Creating Cambridge Big Summer BBQ, an event founded with the aim of bringing together the many different networking groups in Cambridge for more cross-pollination (and guess what, it rained!). Mel and I usually find that if you get us together in a space where there is also ginger beer or cider, we end up talking about changing the world. And this night was no exception.

It’s funny how an event with so many people wearing name badges taking over a beer garden can change the feel of the space, and what we found was that it actually made it easier to start conversations with complete strangers. And this is how we started a conversation with two people who weren’t even wearing name badges, and were just there for a leisurely Friday evening pint.

We joined a table with Dai and Mike, two researchers who are interested in sustainability. Since the beginning of You Can, we have talked about ideas of making sure that we are sustainable, and tried to explore what this means:

– projects that start with us but also build to have a sense of momentum that gives them a life beyond You Can

– working patterns that mean we have time for self care; pacing ourselves

– being aware of the potential impact of our work and trying to promote others’ awareness of their impact on their environment

To be honest it was pretty hard to find a way to put this into words. That’s where Dai and Mike come in. As soon as we started chatting with them, it turned that they are researching sustainability – not in the conventional environmental sense, but in three areas:

• Economic
• Environmental
• Social

Economic sustainability – Most people can get their head around this, given the amount of time in the media dedicated to banking decisions and so on…Making sure that we’re finding a way to make money that is sustainable in the long term… trying to avoid things like the recent economic crisis.

Environmental sustainability – what most people think of as sustainability. Reducing our use of environmental resources, reducing our impact, carbon quotas and footprints, solar power and composting toilets.

Social sustainability – heard this term before? I didn’t think so.

We’re only just trying to get our heads around this. But how I understand it is this:

There are an awful lot of people in this country, in the world. And a lot of them are doing a job where they’re told what to do. There are people who have paid work. And there are people who are “living off the state” – receiving support in their income because they’re not able to do paid work. What if all of these people were actually motivated by doing what they wanted to do? What if they were all able to pace themselves in their work, so that they reduced the risk of burnout and were able to manage their own stress? What if they really understand their strengths and skills and could adapt their offer to bring value – economically, environmentally, and socially?

Then I saw this video from Chris Guillebeau, and I think the actions in it speak to all of these issues:

Thirteen minutes of your time – but well spent! This video speaks to the three types of sustainability as follows:

• Economic – a “real” (hard cash) investment in the people who came to the conference.
• Environmental – encouragement to those people to think about the impact of the investment made by each of them (although I’m not sure how all the plane fares to the conference factor in here!)
• Social – not just a hard cash investment, but a “belief” element – investing in the people that came and encouraging them to “pass it on”

I’m still working on a definition of social sustainability. But for me, it’s about knowing myself, knowing my skills, and working out how to bring them to the world in ways that are both paid and unpaid, and in a way that promotes a connection between me and others. Creating social value.

What about you?

Have a go at cycling with your friends

What better way to get some quality time with your friends than jumping on a bike together.    As you might already know, it is possible to hire our bikes from Milton Country Park most days. (Just make sure you book ahead by calling 01223 420 060) But what about those people that are new to cycling or who may need an extra hand getting started? From September we will have times on many Tuesdays where there are instructors on hand for help and support. So come along and give these amazing bikes a try with a friend!

Be Inspired – Enjoy Cycling Together

Have all of these Olympics and now Paralympics given you the cycling fever? The catch phrase of these events were ‘Inspire a Generation’, so we want to do our part. From now until the end of December on the last Sunday of every month we will have instructors available to introduce you and your families to our adaptive bikes of all sizes and shapes. Then, you can have a go at cycling together. What better way to spend a Sunday morning together with your family?