GoodGNUs

During the final weeks of FACT’s Climate for Change exhibition, our Small Steps to Sustainability workshops have moved from Gallery 1 (as an after-hours social café “combining beer, conversation, and the jagged interface between technology, networks, and ’saving the world’”), to the[FACT]blog (no beer there, I’m afraid).

This means that I’ll be posting there with the final topics, but also summing up previous workshops’ discussions. Please contact me if you want to remind me of something we covered, or that I said that I’d follow up.

Posts will be appearing under C4C Featured Blogs on the[FACT]blog,or you can get directly to them by author, or by the SmallSteps tag.

Info is gradually being updated on the GoodGNUs #SmallSteps page, too. As to the next steps, there’s something in the pipeline, but it’s a fair way off being announced yet. Why not subscribe to the GoodGNUs’ feed to keep updated?

Yesterday’s PRADSA showcase event wrapped up two years of research. A look at PRActical Design for Social Action from both the practitioners’ and the researchers’ side (not that they are necessarily two separate camps).
The conclusion of all this? It’s the people. Every time. Every case brought out people who as facilitators, negotiators, directors or whatever, brought about changes in community by being able to mediate between community, authority, and technology.
It’s great that individual action is shown to be so important in an age of collective shrugging and turning away from big problems [1] - but that’s a heavy burden to shoulder for anyone wanting change, of course - get up and be the change. With a call to action should come a little help, and some pointers so - what do you think activists should do to get others on board?

[1] Or turning to face them with #smallsteps, of course.

FACT Gallery’s Climate for Change exhibition runs from 13 March - 31 May, 2009, and explores “how humans can be invested in the change needed to sustain civilization and examining the multiple crises affecting the world: ecological, financial, food, housing. Is society itself becoming unsustainable?”

The idea is to involve local communities, projects, people, and make links, and I’m trying to bring some of the themes of sustainability - particularly where it links up with technology - together in a series of 11 café events.

Small Steps to Sustainability poses the question “Can technology save the world?”, and looks for answers - in the face of crisis - in a more connected world

One step at a time

Each week (on the non-alliterative “Sustainability Wednesday”, at 6pm) we’ll meet in Gallery 1 with beer or coffee. A four minute presentation (in the 20:20 style) introduces the 11 themes, and the rest of the hour is open discussion around that weeks theme.

It’s called Small Steps… as it’s about both small steps we can take to sustainability, and about stepping through the themes to see how all of these things link up in different ways.

What I’d like to do is bring in local groups, individuals, and businesses, involved with social enterprise, sustainability, and the themes mentioned each week, to contribute. Particularly those already a part of Climate for Change.

Social Media

I’ll put up more detail on the workshop (including the slides) next week. At this stage I want to gauge interest in joining in: I’m sure other people have far more ideas to share than I do, so please get involved. Either e-mail me, or talk about it on Twitter (or Identi.ca) - please tag your posts #smallsteps.