I am currently researching and creating a Slideshow for a client on the topic of ‘Obesity’ – the same thing that Jamie Oliver rants about here and the same things that Nicholas Christakis discusses here at TED (which is a great video as her asserts the notion that Obesity is contagious and spreads through social networks!). As an aside … as I bookmark ‘obesity-related’ websites on Delicious here, I am again thinking about how much has changed since I was researching topics at Uni 20 years ago! The most graphic things I have come across (so far) are 2 videos …

I am on a Melbourne bound train and just watched another TED presentation – seems to be my favorite commuter activity these days 🙂 In this TEDcast, Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody) reinforces my belief that we are living through a revolution in the way people interact and collaborate with each other. I’d love to hear what Clay has to say about the impact that Twitterers within Iran are having right now. Like in his original TED talk, new social media is changing the media landscape and giving the man/woman/child on the street a voice to the world …

After a couple of weeks in the blogging wilderness … I’m back! And I have a whole treasure trove of stuff to write about and explore with you. I have just finished a project called Castlemaine 500. In a nutshell, it was a community behaviour change project that sought to assist 500 households to reduce their household energy consumption by 15 to 30%. Our approach was to work directly with people in workshops and in their homes, provide information and facilitate the develoment of energy action plans. We worked with partners such as builders and hardware stores and ran a …

When I heard that Dave Pollard (Authour of the “Sweet Spot”) was chatting with Dave Snowden (Mr Complexity) … a metaphor jumped to mind that brings the 2 together. Forgive the simplicity of this metaphor. Some background and context … In the real world of ‘behaviour change’ projects, project coordinators are often funded by government agencies. These agencies are usually hierarchical and therefor demand a degree of certainty … a plan thought out in advance that delivers on milestones and performance targets. It’s tax payer’s money, so you need to show (ahead of time) how you ‘think’ you might achieve …

This is a post for all the “sustainability” project managers and change-agents out there. [I have created this “How Stuff Spreads” to build on the thoughts of Mark Earls who has a blog category of the same name.] Seth Godin just posted Who vs. How Many? … it is about a story of a 14 year old kid who has attracted 45 million YouTube hits and Seth says: “How many is not nearly as valuable as “who”, why not put that into practice?” and … “Just because something is easy to measure doesn’t mean it’s important.” This story is all about …