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26/11 - A Year Later

It has become fashionable to ask, critically and in the tone of angry righteous rhetoric, about what (or how much) has changed in the last one year. Just as it was fashionable, in the wake of the attacks on this day exactly one year ago, to ask in much the same tone, as to who was responsible for the lapses that allowed such an outrageous assault to take place, and what was being done about it.

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Four suggestions I have towards better recycling:

I came across a blog on twitter asking 

How can we make doorstep recycling better in the UK?

In the comments I added four suggestions I have towards better recycling:

Information.

I think that consistency across the UK would go a long way towards improving service and increasing recycling levels.
- there could be national advertising/information campaigns with the same message.

Laziness.

The main reason most people don’t recycle is through sheer laziness. So simply I would suggest make it easier for people to recycle and harder for people to landfill. Why is it that we have to travel to recycling depots but can put landfill sacks on our doorstep? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Even having to take their landfill sack to the corner of the street would change some people’s behaviour. This could have the added benefit of improved efficiency for the refuse collection service.

Stigma.

I wonder if we had clear plastic sacks with your house number where everyone could see you throwing away recyclables – if that would change behaviour.

Economics.

I think the carrot and stick of economics really can have substantial impacts. After all, this is the main reason Daily Mail reader types are up in arms about the possibility of bin taxes.

- All of these measures may be flawed in some way or other – I would be quite happy to have these flaws pointed out to me.

Many thanks

JS350

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What is Driving Consumer Empowerment?

What is it? We should look/study it from a socio-cultural perspective rather than see it as a purely technological trend.
The best source of thinking on this topic is not coming from trendy agencies, academics from NY or Silicon Valley, but from Michael Wesch, an anthropologist who runs the Digital Ethography Unit at Kansas State University.
He is working on a number of projects that explore the impact of digital media (and YouTube in particular) on culture and behaviour.  What is driving our participatory culture? How do you explain and what encourages people to share their personal lives and views with complete strangers on YouTube?  What is driving people’s search for deeper, more meaningful connections? How are relationships changing?
For the answers, Wesch’s YouTube channel . If you can spare 50 mins. here’s a great video of the man in action which I completely recomend, it's a must of the month!.  Loads of great stories and thought-provoking content.

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Viral Videos: Rolighetsteorin.se - The fun theory (Video Inside)

As indie artists we are all working to create some kind of a viral campaign in hopes of drawing attention to our music, heres Volskwagons latest viral hit posted on the 7th of  October and already at 1.5 million hits hopefully you can draw some inspiration & ideas from the video.

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The Power of the Habitual Mind

The power of the habitual mind has four significant implications:

1. Companies must focus on customer behaviour, not attitudes or beliefs. Habits occur through the repetition of behaviour and remain stable over time. Attitudes and beliefs are transitory and difficult to translate into predictable action.
2. Training the habitual mind is different than training the executive mind. Whereas the executive mind can learn through reason and intention, the habitual mind learns through cause and effect, reward and repetition.
3. To hold on to customers, you should keep them from consciously thinking about you. Though counterintuitive, automatic repurchase means the customer’s habitual mind is in control. If the customer’s executive mind is thinking about you, it could be thinking about your competitors as well.
4. To take a customer away from a competitor, you must break the customer’s existing habits by first getting him to consciously think about the product. The stronger the existing habit, the more effort is necessary to dislodge it from an unconscious to a conscious process.

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Justify / Condemn, the Alchemy of Rage and Shame (Rodolfo Scarfalloto)

Judgment is removed by first removing it from the closet. In other words, we simply recognise it in its many hidden forms:

1. To judge something is not synonymous with declaring that it is “bad.” Judgment is the act of placing different value on things: greater/lesser, good/bad, right/wrong, desirable/undesirable, positive/negative, innocent/guilty, smart/stupid. To pretend that we do one and not th eother is to be very much in the closet about judgment. Every time we consciously say “this is good,” we are unconsciously declaring that the opposite is bad. If I say “good morning” I simultaneously create a “bad morning” somewhere in my mind, so that I can have a point of reference for a “good morning.” This is not meant to belittle either of them. We honour our experience of a “good morning” and a “bad morning.” We created both of them, by God!
2. Judgment has both a cognitive component, (“…In my opinion, General Custer made a poor decision…”), and it has an emotional component, (“…Green snot! How gross!…”). The cognitive an d emotional components of judgment are inseparable, though one may be more obvious than the other. Regardless of how detached we appear to be in our opinions, they are always accompanied by a subtle emotional charge.
3. Anger is negative judgment with a strong emotional component. When we are angry at someone, we are saying, “What you did was bad, and I want you to feel guilty about it.” Other labels for anger are blame and outrage (at having been victimised). The expression genuine anger is beneficial and therapeutic. But since the expression is so threatening  for so many individuals, we try to beautify it by denying that anger has within it elements of judgment, blaming, and guilt-pushing. As a result, anger becomes a bit easier to express, but is not experienced in fullness. Experiencing it in fullness means we recognise the judgment, the blaming, the feeling of having been victimised, and the desire to make the other person feel guilty. In recognising the anger in fullness, its energy is released in fullness, and is free to change into passion.
4. Rage is a form of anger which warrants special attention. It is helpful to think of rage as having two facets, “in-rage” and “out-rage.” Out-rage is the outer expression of rage. It is rage directed at someone or something out there. The capacity to experience outrage necessitates that rage already be present within, prior to the occurrence of outer stimulus. Rage held within self (in-rage) develops as a result of the suppression of the genuine self, and is therefore, associated with shame. In fact, rage and shame are but two expressions of the same primal emotion. In the case of rage the emotion is projected out, and in the case of shame, it is directed at self. This in-rage contains an enormous  amount of emotional energy. We desperately want to free that energy, but are terrified of expressing it in fullness because it is inseparable from shame. So we draw ourselves to people and situations which will justify and legitimise the expression of the in-dwelling rage as “outrage.” The expression of justifiable outrage releases an enormous amount of emotional energy and is, therefore, invigorating; we feel powerful, heroic, and maybe even virtuous. This does not mean that the expression of outrage should be censored or edited. Moral outrage at injustice, hypocrisy, and treachery deserves to be genuinely voiced. However, the process repeats itself again and again until we feel deeply enough into the rage to feel the truth of it. “My God, the rage was already within me, united with the shame…” In this moment of pure recognition, the justification for the expression of rage is no longer needed, because it is no longer being condemned. The energy that was bound up as in-dwelling rage becomes free-flowing passion: a passion that is so complete within itself that it does not need an enemy to push against to give it power and momentum.
   In other words, the transmutation of rage into pure passion simply happens when the rage is felt in fullness. Rage is felt in fullness hen we are aware that is synonymous with shame. This is the point of total responsibility. If the responsibility is not total, we will not feel the unity of rage and shame, and the rage will not be contacted in fullness; it is simply projected outward over and over again. Or it is repeatedly internalised as shame. This is not to be judged as stupid or wrong. Total responsibility, which allows for the full experience of rage/shame, cannot be rushed or faked. It has its own timing, like a baby in the womb. When that responsibility is ready to emerge, no force can stop it because it does not hold itself in opposition to anything.
5. There is a hidden motive for pretending that anger can exist separately from judgment. It allows us to use the words “anger” and “judgment” as tools for control and manipulation. For example, if I’m having an argument with someone, I can thoroughly tell them everything that I don’t like about them, and justify my words by saying, “I’m just expressing my genuine anger,” which is, by mutual agreement, a healthy thing to do. However, when the other person tries to do the same, I can (if I’m very clever) point out that they are judging, blaming, playing the victim and pushing guilt. Was I just expressing my genuine anger? Yes, and so was the other person. Was the other person judging, blaming, playing the victim and pushing guilt? Yes, and so was I! By pretending that anger is a separate entity from judgment/blaming/victim/guilt-pushing, I can justify one and condemn the other; I claim one for myself and project the other on my opponent. In essence, I’m saying, “I am doing this thing, and you are doing that thing,” while concealing from myself that we are doing the exact same thing.
6. We think that we’re judging because the other person is doing something which goes against our conscience. This can very well be true. But closer examination usually reveals that our judgment/anger stems from an underlying resentment that the other person is doing something that we secretly want to do. “I’m angry because you are a con-artist…,” may be more accurately stated as, “I’m angry because I can’t get away with doing the things you do.”
7. One of the most subtle forms of judgment is the one that says, “Non-judgment is better than judgment.” This is the last one to fall away before we “shift” from duality to into singularity. As we approach this point, we are greeted by the threatening realisation that judgment and non-judgment have equal value.

The Alchemy of Opposites

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I was told off by a stranger for disciplining my child... no wonder we're in danger of producing a generation of brats | Mail Online

via mailonsunday.co.uk

So bloody true!

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Seats are not for feet

All the signage in the world won't stop people putting their feet up. Redesigning the environment would be more appropriate:
- Install simple, cheap feet rests.
- Better wearing seat material.
- Seats that aren't 90 degrees upright - what about seats that recline?

   

Click here to download:

Seats_are_not_for_feet.zip (724 KB)

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Will all you chronic WTFers kindly STFU? Kthxbai

Seriously, it can get tiresome, and at times downright annoying, when every second or third tweet has a WTF and/or an STFU in it. Tweeple should realize that such messages inject negative energy that vitiates the 'tweetosphere', for want of a better word. And this is equally applicable outside the tweetosphere as well, in the real world. Which is why nobody enjoys the company of curmudgeons.

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Unacceptable Behaviour

On Tuesday, two people were added to the group I'm in for a corporate video class.  The other three members of the group decided they don't like one of the two.  The guy they don't like may come off as a "know-it-all" or something.  Today, one girl in the group was a few minutes late.  The unliked fellow said, "you're late."  I'm not sure how he meant this because I wasn't in the room, but when he came into the room where I was, and the "late" girl was, she flipped out on him.  Whatever; conflicts happen.  He was trying to explain something, and she just wouldn't listen.  She was yelling.  He went back to the other room.

After a while, our professor had us all in one room.  The girl stated that she didn't want the fellow in our group.  The professor didn't want conflict.  The fellow asked what he could possibly have done wrong in two days.  Apparently he's been trying to control the group.  The other group members started saying stuff against this guy too.  The poor guy was pinned in a corner -THE WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD.  NO ONE should EVER have to experience this.  The professor said we're getting new groups next week.

We go into the other room to watch our finished projects on a big screen.  Before the professor comes in, conflict happens again.  The girl is screaming at the fellow.  The fellow is obviously getting flustered.  I hope he has friends that can offer him some support on this.  I like all of these people; they're good people.  But I don't know where she comes off thinking she can treat someone like that.  She was treating him like a f**king rat; completely degrading and belittling him.

Anyway, I haven't been able to stop thinking about that all day.  I feel so bad for this fellow.  I wish I would have intervened, but these people like me, and it's hard for me to get people to like me.  I think I just didn't want to mess that up.

I requested this fellow's friendship on Facebook.  I'm hoping he'll accept so I can send him an apology.

I feel terrible.

At one time, after not being in a shitty situation like this one in a while, I read an Andy Warhol quote: "I think everybody should like everybody."  At that one time, I thought, "this doesn't make sense.  It's not possible or realistic."  But after this experience, I'm remembering why I once would have agreed with Mr Warhol (and I agree once again).  Most people don't like others because they think the other dislikes them anyway.  At least publicly, everybody should like everybody.

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