Design For The Other 90%
Posted By Anita Roddick on 2007-05-30 01:55:00
Topic :Social Inventions
I'm a fan of great design wherever I find it, but even more so when clever creative minds devise brilliant contraptions that are so utilitarian they stand a real chance of changing real lives. Especially when they exude a simply beauty, and become profound examples of human ingenuity. The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York is featuring such innovative designs in a new exhibition called “Design For The Other 90%.”
The Man Burns!
Posted By Anita on 2004-10-15 02:30:44
Topic :Social Inventions
My friend Matt Wallace is always doing something out-of-the-mainstream, something experimental or adventurous, on the fringes of so-called polite society, which is probably why I like him so much. Each year he goes to the way-out festival known as Burning Man in the Nevada desert...
Social Inventions Unlimited!
Posted By Anita on 2004-10-01 03:08:26
Topic :Social Inventions
You can't leave the important stuff to corporations. Like solving the really big problems. The truly creative solutions come from the masses, particularly those who have to be clever to survive. I am fascinated with social inventions - those innovations arrived at by common sense and immediate need instead of profit motive and groupthink.
Progress Takes Progressives
Posted By Anita on 2004-08-14 04:49:36
Topic :Social Inventions
It can be easy to forget that most of the real progress in America (and indeed the world) has been fought for by people who would, by today's definition, would call themselves liberals. Sometime a decade or more ago, "liberal" became a dirty word, and liberals allowed it to happen. It's time to reclaim the word...
Time As Currency
Posted By Anita on 2004-04-08 14:08:12
Topic :Social Inventions
It's strange, isn't it, that we can imagine solutions to global poverty, just as we can imagine the greatest buildings of civilisation, but find that we can't afford them. Our imagination gives out when it comes to the simple matter of money. It seems endlessly to be the end of arguments: Ah yes, what a pity, if only we could make it pay. Luckily there are some people around who are busily trying to re-imagine money in practical ways, convinced, as John Maynard Keynes put it, that what we could create, we could afford.
Setting the World Alight
Posted By Anita on 2003-09-19 04:31:17
Topic :Social Inventions
The American composer John Cage once said, "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." This feeling underlies the work of the Institute for Social Inventions, and its continual search for new ways of solving problems in the world today. And for those who are similarly "frightened," frustrated or disillusioned by the way things are today, Setting the World Alight offers new hope, new inspiration and new practical solutions for change.
