Over at Faris’ blog here, he writes about a company that brought loads of people together and gave them something to do as a part of their branding . Watch for yourself. Faris writes … “The key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do. I think this is probably the key to unlocking the awesome, and the biggest win for any kind of brand related action. We are social creatures – I’m sure you all agree – but we need reasons to be social. I suspect this is why we have sports …

Now here’s an entertaining little video called Future Cities from the World Science Festival. Here’s the description of the video … “We stand at a crossroads. Cities must change radically to achieve long-term sustainability. Energy, food and water sources, transportation systems and basic infrastructure, must all adapt to emerging pressures from climate change, dwindling resources and growing urban populations. Mitchell Joachim is an architect and urban designer as well as a partner in Terreform, a New York–based organization for philanthropic architecture and ecological design. His design of a compact, stackable “city car,” developed with the MIT Smart Cities Group, won …

Hat Tip to Mark Earls over at Herd for this one … Anyone in the ‘sustainability’ field knows the ‘Use Less’ mantra when it comes to stuff we purchase and throw away. It’s important. Enter Christian Erickson, Chad Hancock and Greg Wurm (aka Zeus Jones). In January 2009, Zues Jones won the Minneapolis regional PhizzPop competition. As a result of winning, they moved on to the national final at SXSW in Austin to compete against the winners of the other regional competitions. The core concept of these regional comps was: a 3-person team conceives, designs and presents a solution to …

Created at Wordle.net Viv McWaters and I chatted with Gil Brenson-Lazan about the role of facilitators in disaster recovery. Gil has 35 years experience in this area and a background in social psychology. He is a co-founder of the Global Facilitators Service Corps (GFSC). You can download the podcast over here at Winkipod. Gil Brenson-Lazan Cheers Geoff

I rarely write long blog posts, but something has happened in my home Shire in 2008 that I must share with you! It relates to sustainability … community capacity … government and NGO partnerships … and a project team willing to allow direction and activities to emerge over time. It’s an exciting story with even greater possibilities for the future. This story also relates to the lessons our team learned in staging the Castlemaine 500 project. Last weekend I had the privilege of co-facilitating a sustainable transport workshop with participants in the Surf Coast Shire’s Casuarina project. In 2008, an …