Posts tagged creating

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!

It’s the New Year. Phew! We’re now a couple of weeks into this first month of 2013 and after the initial rush of Happy New Year’s, some of the Christmas sparkle has started to fade. January – one long post-Christmas hangover, but seemingly not, at least, the home of the most depressing day of the year.

New Year is the traditional time for setting resolutions. Maybe you prefer to set intentions, or goals. But I’m betting you already know what your impossible is. You know, that dream, the one that seems so intangible, so far off, and yet so inherently attractive to you, you know in your gut or your heart that you have to realise it, if you could only let yourself.

“If you could only let yourself.” Because often when we allow ourselves to think of these  dreams, when they sneak and filter their way into our conscious, what is our usual reaction? We shut them away, file them away… “that’s impossible!” “I’ll never be able to change my career / live in a treehouse / find a way to combine my passion with earning a living.” Cynicism, skepticism, the inner critic, “Reality” – whatever you want to call it, it pops up to make sure we shelve those dreams for another day.

I looked up Cynicism in the thesaurus. I found Sentimentality. I looked up Cynical in the thesaurus, and I found Naive. These words conjure up a sense of being disconnected from reality, daydreaming, not to be taken seriously. My inner critic started to have a field day. I needed to find some different words…

I moved on. I looked up Skepticism in the thesaurus. And now I found Believing, Devotion, Undoubting. And I realised that I often suspend my disbelief – whenever I watch a film. And it’s so easy! So these are words that I choose for 2013. Believing, Devotion, Undoubting. What is more real than knowing what I’m aiming for, and how I can share it and let others in, and believing in it? Let this year be a year of possibilities… and the action steps that accompany them.

If you’d like to get started setting your intentions or goals for 2013, here are some great resources:

1. Try a “Year in Review” of 2012 using this great post from Jenn Lee
2. There’s an alternative, more left-brain approach to reviewing and planning in this extensive post from The Art of Non-Conformity’s Chris Guillebeau
3. If you like to be walked and talked through the steps, try this New Year’s Ritual from Andrea Scher of Superhero Journal

If you want to invest in your dreams this year, check out Andrea Scher’s Mondo Beyondo class – it’s all about dreaming big! Maybe see you over there…

What’s your impossible for 2013? How will you give yourself permission to suspend your disbelief? And what is your first smallest step to turning your impossible into possible? Please share in the comments below!

My thank you letter to you

When was the last time you wrote a hand written letter to someone? The last time you wrote a love letter? Truly thanked someone for the role that they have played in your life? This week we present you with a challenge. In fact, one of our favourite bloggers, Scott Dinsmore over at Live Your Legend presents you with a challenge. He calls it, ‘The Gratitude Challenge’. It’s Thanksgiving over in America, and while not everyone in the world celebrates it, the idea of thanking people couldn’t fit better with You Can’s core belief that surrounding yourself with incredible, supportive people makes living life your way a heck of a lot easier.

So, are you in? 

How many hand written notes of thanks can you write in one week?

Head on over to the Live Your Legend blog, check out the TED video he recommends on hand written letters, join in their discussion, and be inspired by how many notes others are writing by looking at the comments. And do tell us what you are up to and how many notes you have challenged yourself to write this week by commenting below.

Me? I will write 5 notes this week, plus the one to all of you above.

My thank you letter to you

When was the last time you wrote a hand written letter to someone? The last time you wrote a love letter? Truly thanked someone for the role that they have played in your life? This week we present you with a challenge. In fact, one of our favourite bloggers, Scott Dinsmore over at Live Your Legend presents you with a challenge. He calls it, ‘The Gratitude Challenge’. It’s Thanksgiving over in America, and while not everyone in the world celebrates it, the idea of thanking people couldn’t fit better with You Can’s core belief that surrounding yourself with incredible, supportive people makes living life your way a heck of a lot easier.

So, are you in? 

How many hand written notes of thanks can you write in one week?

Head on over to the Live Your Legend blog, check out the TED video he recommends on hand written letters, join in their discussion, and be inspired by how many notes others are writing by looking at the comments. And do tell us what you are up to and how many notes you have challenged yourself to write this week by commenting below.

Me? I will write 5 notes this week, plus the one to all of you above.

Small firm from Teesside, UK, creates fuel from water and air… sounds too good to be true?

Air Fuel Synthesis, based in Stockton on Tees, was featured on the BBC website last week because it has found a way to convert carbon dioxide and water into a hydrocarbon fuel. And the process is carbon neutral. And they’ve already used the fuel to run a small motorised scooter. Pretty amazing huh? There are still tests to be done to check the energy efficiency of the process and to seewhat happens when production is scaled up. But we think it’s pretty amazing that they got this far.

They made the front page on the Independent and the Material World programme on Radio 4 will be re-broadcast today at 9pm. Makes you think doesn’t it… is it really impossible to create a future where we’re not dependent on fossil fuels?

So… what’s your impossible? And isn’t it about time you got started on it?

Nothing can measure someone’s potential. It’s impossible to tell what people are capable of once they catch fire

Carole Dweck

I can’t express the emotion that this video evokes in me. The name Gen Why says it all. We are a generation that questions the world. That asks why things have to be the way they are. As the video says, “it is foolish to assume that my generation is apathetic and lathargic.”

Read further down Gen Why’s Story page and you will see that they started from a discussion over coffee (like us! Though it was tea…) about generational theory, where every four generations a ‘hero generation’ is born. Is that us? Is that what we are doing now? With all the negative press that the young ones get these days, is it the younger generation who are in fact inspiring the ones before…saying it doesn’t have to be this way?

“But I can change the world and I refuse to believe that I am a part of the lost generation.”

Sentences are impossible: Raw. Passion. Commitment. Determination. Sacrifices.

Discuss…

… and see more of the amazing Mickey Smith here. #feelthelove

“We are going to make an invisible bike helmet.”

Think about the reaction in the room when someone first said this out loud. What do you think this was?

– “Sure, go for it!”

– “Hey, where do I make my investment?”

– “Sign me up for your first product launch!”

Somehow, I don’t think this was the first reaction…

Take a look at this movie, which I found over on Brene Brown’s blog, Ordinary Courage:

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, watching this story unfold before my eyes, and having my breath taken away at the end. The courage and determination of these women is exemplary and inspirational all at the same time.

“Easy, only took us seven years!”

“We’ve been good at raising venture capital. Ten million dollars”

“Once a man wanted to tell a story about female managers. Get a rooster, and there will be order!”

“If people say it’s impossible, then we have to prove them wrong”

“Creating an invisible bicycle helmet, people said it was impossible. If we can do that, we can do anything”

These are all incredible statements, in their own way, and spoken with such assurance and humility. How would you motivate yourself to achieve “the impossible”?

When was the last time someone told you, “that’s impossible!”? What did you do?

I can’t wait until my breath is taken away like this again! If you have any similarly inspiring stories of the impossible becoming possible, please post them here.