I dont want your money

Small part of this project is to try and engage in different ways with the ‘general public’ - with people down in the local pub, by the tube station, in the corner shop and so on. Its not always easy to go upto strangers and ask them about their personal dreams and about what the word “future” means to them, but hey, I love talking to people and am up for this challenge!

Doing interviews voxpops style is only one of the many ways that I want to explore, and I decided to give it a go yesterday. But how do you go up and talk to people, given the exposure to online video channels and a general understandable discomfort about being filmed? Not to mention the omnipresent ‘chuggers’ (charity muggers), who have created a complete distrust amongst people to talk to anyone who looks like he or she wants something out of you.

Some of the lines I thought for the sign include this one:
“Hi, I am NOT A CHUGGER and I dont want your money.”

Then, thanks to twitter, Rory and I had a brainstorm, which finally led to this :
“Hi, I AM A DESIGNER. I dont want your money, JUST YOUR MIND.”

I managed to get some interesting conversations, and I will continue doing more of this over the course of the project. Hopefully this film will be be shown in the exhibition as well.

Growing Map of Optimism

I am touched by the responses of so many interested people, not only from London, but also from Scotland, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Gujarat. Guess its a sign of our times, but the idea of going against the drifts of our current landscape, revisiting ‘collapse’,  and challenging ourselves with ‘optimism’ seems to strike a chord across age and borders. I owe a big thank you to everyone who responded, passed my message around and got in touch. I have created a map of where all the interested people came from, and we are calling it the ‘Growing Map of Optimism‘, here at the Powerof8 HQ.

Unfortunately, in this phase of the project, we have to go for 8 people who are fairly local. Nonetheless, it is a growing map, as the idea would be continue developing ideas, building tools and scenarios, and reaching out and connecting to as many people as possible. In fact its a Growing Map of Possibilities, for now and the future.