Do you care about the earth?

At the dinner table the father asks his children, “Who cares about the earth?” The son and the daughter announce in unison, “I do!” The father says, “What are you doing about it?” They quickly respond, “Recycling.”

The father inquires, “Do you care about the earth the way you care about other things?” At which point they begin to discuss the things they care about, the family, Blackberry the family dog, and they discovered the list was relatively short.

He persists with questions like the following, “Do you really care about the earth?”, “What is the earth?”, “Is it the magma you love?”, and finally he proposes, “I believe people say they care about the earth but really they don’t.”

The following morning as they leave for their respective daytime destinations, the father asks again, “Do you care about the earth?”
They answer in unison, “No.” As they enter their car and take their respective seats the son pauses and suggests the following from the rear, “It’s really about being grateful. If you’re grateful, then you will do something. The earth can’t care about you so how can you care about the earth. It’s not the same.”

“That's brilliant”, the father says as he reflects on how grateful he is to have children. He also realizes that he didn’t take time to acknowledge his daughter for being who she is and the father makes a point of rectifying this later the same day.

(The father makes a mental note about how the earth may in fact 'care about us'.)

Subprojects from Meeting April 28, 2009

It seems the ideas discussed during the meeting can be viewed as two distinct projects that can be complementary:
1. Creating a sustainable mentorship program between writers/artists and children to encourage the development of writing/drawing skills as an essential foundation of literacy and self-expression.
2. Using the opportunity presented by the Harbor Front resources and number of children flow-through to support writing and artistic skills.

The first project has a strategic outlook. It aims at creating a replicable model for peering writers (authors, journalists, bloggers) and artists with children over time in multiple sessions focused on developing the children’s ability to write/draw and providing them with a practical understanding of the spectrum of professional occupations and applications related to these skills.

This project requires the following critical success factors:
• A pool of writers/artists committed to the program
• A pool of interested teachers and students (children & youth)
• An approved safe environment for the interaction of children and mentors
• A light and efficient administrative support to plan and manage the program logistics
• A program design that creates incentives for parents, teachers and students to participate wholeheartedly in the program activities
• A performance index to measure success of the program

Pool of writers/artists: Initial exploration of interest seems to indicate that the Writers Guild and other organizations (Robin: please list in more detail) are interested in supporting and participating in such program. It is necessary to articulate the scope of commitments required from participating authors/artists over a defined span of time and to estimate the actual number of those willing to commit. This would define the size of pool available and determine the scope of the pilot programs implementation.

Pool of interested teachers and students: Similarly, it would be useful to quantify the support for this program among teachers, students and parents beyond individual expressions of interest. This can only be done if an outline of the program describing expected contributions, commitments and outcomes is available to that audience to base their decisions upon.

Approved safe environment: Repeated interaction between writers/artists and children in a calm non-distracting ambiance requires a safe and trusted environment as a venue. There was consensus that schools are the best venue for the activities of the program and hence partnership with schools is a critical component. Again, based on an outline of the program it would be useful to obtain the commitment (or at least written expression of interest) of 1-2 schools for a pilot implementation.

Light and efficient program administration: In order to keep the program administration as light and efficient as possible, use of existing resources and infrastructure should be maximized. Coordination with the Literacy Program and stakeholders would be an essential step in that direction. The availability of subject matter expertise (Liz and collaborators) along with approval and support of Literacy Program may also enable the recruitment of corporate sponsorships.

Program Incentives: The program needs to be designed in such a way that it is genuinely attractive to students and teachers, while providing parents with predictable schedules and expectations. It must also include incentives catering to the interests of participating writers.

Performance measures: as with any such program it is essential to be able to measure the success achieved through the program’s activities. A benchmark needs to be established at the onset of the pilot and agreement reached about a set of tangible measures and outcomes.

The second project is tactical in nature, but presents interesting opportunities to complement and promote the first project. Several ideas were discussed, but the one that seemed most feasible was framed similarly to a Literacy Summer Camp. It was agreed that:
• We needed a better understanding of the structure and programming of such camps.
• Asking writers and artists about programming ideas within the constraints of the Harbor Front context might yield innovative solutions.
This second project offers the possibility of events that can be designed around promoting the program, acknowledging achievements of the best participants, and attracting further support and replication by others.

Action items:
• Summarize outcomes of meeting and action items [Nabil]
• Draft program outline (framework, objectives, resources, methods, outcomes) [Liz]
• Approach Literacy Program to explore approval and support [Liz]
• List all contacted organizations and quantify as far as possible their support for the program [Robin]

Butoh

The Neighbourhood Parade Project

For those of you who don't know, this is a taste of the Kensington Parade that takes place every year. This is the inspiration for the Neighbourhood Diaries opening parade. I haven't told Harbourfront yet, but I envision 20-30 people from each Toronto neighbourhood that's willing, perhaps the Toronto Island community with the Shadowland Theatre, Dufferin Grove, Trinity Bellwods, Parkdale, Riverdale, Cabbagetown, The Annex - I think that totals about 200. We need a volunteer project leader for this and a sponsor for material costs.

DAY ONE: Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The first Neighbourhood Diaries Workshop is on Wednesday, March 18 2009 - 6:30 to 8:30pm. 15 young hopefuls, approximately 10 years of age and 15 writers/mentors at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Strategic Innovation Lab on the 6th floor. (Thank you to Lenore Richards, a supporter and friend.) Juice and cookies are free. My hope is simply to enable an enjoyable and fruitful experience, observe and learn. My wife has offered to assemble the children and now I need to find the writers.

Marc Sullivan, designer extraordinaire, has offered to participate. I hope to begin developing the 'face' of Neighbourhood Diaries with he, Carolyn White and with the ever-vigilant Gillian Lind to keep my honest. Marc has offered up this great example of visualization as a possibility - very interesting.

Patrick Keenan sent this suggestion over as a result of my dissatisfaction with the the way technology tries to deal with dialogue. Unfortunately it is called DEBATEGRAPH. Very interesting though. I continue to try to imagine how the active community will be aware of itself.

Thanks to the input of others I have begun to reflect on the obvious, writing is essential to plays, songwriting, puppet shows, Shakespeare, newspapers, animations, documentaries, television, as well as books. Is my face red? Each of these can be a different dimension of Neighbourhood Diaries. While I know for a fact that some of the children are quite content to write for writing sake, they will all be quite engaged by each or any of these forms. My first thought is, to isolate each vehicle and find someone to champion the project type if there is a interest. that said, it is clear to me that there are other organizations that already have initiatives that mentor children and I would be interested in any of these if you know of them. For example, Robin Sokolowski at the Canadian Playwright association has done great work with children for several years now.

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Sean Cullen?

Is there something wrong with our math?

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Watch this video at the Rocky Mountain News. Clearly, this was more than a business idea (and no apologies are necessary).

It seems to me all of us have put too much emphasis on financial and physical capital. Where did our attention to social capital go? In the words of Robert Putnam "By 'social capital', I mean features of social life--networks, norms, and trust--that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives." Somewhere along the line we lost sight of the first piece of the capital in the equation.

social capital + (financial capital + physical capital) = value

The financial crisis has become a social crisis because the latter is distinct and contingent on the former. I'm not proposing socialism, I am just suggesting that social capital is worthy of being part of the real value equation. Economists would like to interpret jobs as a measure of 'the social', when if fact 'the social' should be some kind of measure of the job. For example, I would like to think that writing is an important social act, first and foremost.

So if the numbers don't make a business, if I can't get a bigger car, if the newspaper doesn't get enough advertisers because of an economic downturn, if inflation makes premium education inaccessible, if you can't pay me..., then the idea is by definition "of too little value", it fails and another good thing comes to an end.