You can learn about so many things on the internet, but how much more powerful would it be if you could also DO after you learned stuff? From innovative modular designs and David Lynch’s thoughts on meditation, to a crowd-sourced photo essay that we want you to submit to, here are things for you to learn and DO from this past week.
Let’s Learn First:
Using The Noun Project’s Iconic Design Tools for Social Change
Catapult Design first tapped into The Noun Project‘s global symbolic language through a project that investigated rural India’s water access and use.
A DO Suggestion? Contribute to The Noun Project’s growing global language by uploading your own icons.
A City Education: Learning What Idealism Looks Like in Action
This week, educator and activist Jose Vilson told us he hopes to create slivers of hope in his students wherever and whenever possible. When Eron Jenkins joined City Year Orlando and began his year service in July, his goal was to help every student he was teaching at Maynard Evans High School. Now, he’s questioning if he’s still able to do it.
A DO Suggestion? Join Jason Bateman in helping City Year provide more students with more corps members next year.
Nonprofit or For-Profit? Here’s How I Decided to Go For-Profit
Wearable Collection‘s founder Adam Baruchowitz explains that because nonprofits have as many costs as regular businesses, they’re not necessarily donating more to worthy causes than his social enterprise is.
A DO Suggestion? Be a part of social enterprise and impact funding at Crowdfunder. If you live in New York, request a Wearable Collections donation bin for your building.
Why Kids Make the Best Fundraisers, and Where Adults Can Take a Cue
Here are five things you can learn from kids this season to help you fundraise even more successfully.
A DO Suggestion? Follow Piggybackr‘s founder on GOOD.is and team up with other fundraisers on the site.
Stronger Together: A Photo Essay of Communities United
GOOD and Focus Features have partnered to share inspiring images of communities coming together to make change.
A DO Suggestion? Send us your examples of communities taking action by January 2nd and we’ll add our favorites to the post above on January 3rd.
Innovative Product Placement Makes This Music Video a Vehicle for Good
Carolyn Malachi bends the “product placement” model with her latest music video and makes “Free Your Mind” a vehicle for good.
A DO Suggestion? View the “Free Your Mind” music video or download the song so that one hour of class time will be donated to students in East Africa, courtesy of The School Fund’s corporate sponsors.
‘Django Unchained’: Quentin Tarantino’s Misappropriation of the N-Word
In 2012, it’s surprising that a film drops the N-word over 100 times in just under three hours.
A DO Suggestion? Don’t see ‘Django Unchained’.
Intermission: Anti-Islamic Pastor Quieted by a Beatles-Singing Crowd
Sometimes the best way to combat hate speech is by exercising your own freedom of speech.
A DO Suggestion? Help Muslim Americans active in the legal system put an end to racial and religious profiling.
The Best in Photography: 25 Amazing Things That Happened in Photo This Year
Here’s our look back at what happened this year in photography, broken down into projects by pioneering photographers, the burgeoning field of phoneography, events, and new cameras.
A DO Suggestion? Compile your best phoneography into a virtual gallery and post them on instaprints.com. Share your galleries with us in the link above.
Best of 2012: The Top Ten Sustainable Modular Products
This week, we introduced the GOOD community to a foldable bike helmet, felt carpet tiles, and a washing machine that fits in a pocket. Now, artist and designer Donald Rattner tells us what he thinks are the top ten sustainable modular projects.
A DO Suggestion? Find the objects in your apartment that could be more modular and sustainable. Write a letter to the manufacturers and encourage them to change their designs.
Digging Deeper: Creativity and My First Meditation
Internet strategist and CivicActions’ co-founder Aaron Pava told us he meditates to deal with his daily technology overload. Now, David Lynch explains why he’s never missed a meditation in forty years and how essential it is to his creativity.
A DO Suggestion? Set aside 10-20 minutes of your day for quiet time. Find a meditation center in your local neighborhood or download an application on your smart phone and see if it works for you.
GOOD Video: Outward Bound Takes Learning into the Wild
Imagine trusting your survival to a group of strangers. Could you do it? This is what students at the experiential education school Outward Bound face when they begin a course.
A DO Suggestion? Plan a week-long camping trip with friends.
Please, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood: Architecture and Communication
Architizer hosts the world’s definitive architectural awards program. In this post, they round up the best architecture and communication projects.
A DO Suggestion? Participate in Architizer’s StreetFest Competition with design, management, and construction of temporary outdoor spaces that produce new ways for collective gathering and city engagement.
These are several ways in which our world can end. Some ways require our involvement; some do not. And one is inevitable.
A DO Suggestion? Tell us how you spent your day on 12/21 in the above article’s comment section.
Saving the World in the Present Tense
The challenges of the 21st century are different. They are grown-up challenges, requiring us to think and act not according to a battle plan for future victory, but rather in terms of sustainable, always-on, steady-state present.
A DO Suggestion? Read Douglas Rushkoff’s upcoming book Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (Penguin/Current, March 2013).
Now, Let’s DO the DOs:
Re-Imagine the Gift: Give Your Time
Taking your time to find the right gift? How about giving time itself. Since the holiday season is a time for togetherness and generosity, give your time through the Imperative Time Bank.
Send Words of Support to Sandy Hook Families
On Evergram, through audio, video, or a note, send your support to the families that lost their children at Sandy Hook Elementary. Donations also appreciated.
Bring Back Word Up Community Bookshop
Word Up Community Bookshop has lost its home and needs YOUR help to bring it back to Washington Heights.
Come Together to Help Build a Slow Design Knowledge Platform
Slow Design studies our natural time cycles and promotes longer cycles of human behavior and sustainability. The Slow Design Knowledge Index will serve as both catalyst and resource for new projects, academic programs, local Slow dialogues and workshops, and the use of social media to bolster Slow activism around the globe.
Everyone Should Make a Painting
Learn some self-patience.
DIY: Make an Ornament out of Recycled Goods
Old lightbulbs and scratched CDs can be put to great use this holiday season; make your own ornaments!
Sign a Pact With Your Community and Local Representatives To Improve Your Town
In Uganda, Zambia, Bolivia, India and Bangladesh, local politicians pledged to meet a series of commitments to local improvements – better healthcare, better bus services, building new schools. It worked, and the politicians got reelected. Now, try making a pact in your community.
Top illustration by Jessica De Jesus
