Week 2: Social Innovation and Sustainability
On the first day of our week-long introduction to Social Innovation and Sustainability, the Knowmads got down to some good ‘ole experiential learning. Coming from a vast demographic, we explored our personal experiences and thoughts about some very broad ideas. Headquarters began buzzing with ideas, emotions, questions, frustrations, exclamations, and much, much more. We got the ideas out of our brains and into the circle where I sat facilitating, scribbling, and webbing our thoughts out on a giant dry-erase mind map.
Questions we asked ourselves:
How do you live sustainably? What would happen if Knowmads attempted to operate in a completely sustainable manner for one week? How do we affect others with our decisions? How do we contribute to social problem solving? How do we use resources efficiently? Who is responsible? Why is recycled paper cheaper? How can we stay authentic and realistic? How can we provide the basic needs for others? How can we take small steps to make big impact?
Jord Hilstra of the council also joined us on the session. To close this post, I leave you with Jord’s thoughts on the subject which he later shared in writing with the group.
“Like most people, I believe in a continuously changing world. I believe that the key to a better place is business.
Governments work too slowly, but business adapts much faster to new situations and opportunities.
Of course there’s a lot of criticism towards modern ‘capitalism’, decision power, and the distribution of wealth and resources. What I see now and what I think that needs to be done is a return to Smiths basic capitalism.
This means that there is a closer connection between consumer & producer, transparency, and freedom of choice for the consumer (stakeholders over stockholders).
For example, this would mean more local products and/or seasonable vegetables. It’s ridiculous to import vegetables from Africa or wine from Chili. Next to that, it’s essential to raise global awareness. (this is rising) In order to get there I think we need to raise individual awareness on all levels.
For me Knowmads is a platform to do that. To get to the new human being, as Trotsky would have argued.”
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