Author Archives: John Horn

Amazing Sports Fusion

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It’s a well known sports fact that the Vancouver Canucks build pre-game team-based-community-winning awesomeness by playing soccer. After all, with so many players from different national and cultural backgrounds, it makes sense, I guess, for the guys to get their blood flowing and joints loosened by playing the sport that is the most accessible, celebrated and beautiful one on Earth. You know, hockey soccer football!

And then, last night, Daniel Sedin took the Vancouver Canucks’ penchant for pre-game soccer-playing to amazing new levels. Because he did this:

Is this our first glimpse of a new sport that, for lack of a better word, I will call sockey? Has Daniel Sedin found a secret weapon that he will try to exploit for months and years to come? Will kids from Vancouver and Sweden (because nowhere else knows or cares about Twin Power) incur head injuries by emulating Daniel and banging really, really, really hard pieces of hockey equipment with their heads and faces? Will Eric Hassli bust out a hockey stick as part of future goal celebrations? Was the mediocre-at-best Parker/Stone vehicle BASEketballs actually a forward-thinking, bang-on prediction about where sport is headed?

I’m not sure what will happen to our global sporting community in the coming days, months, years, and decades, but I do know that we’ve witnessed something dexterously special and, possibly, have seen through a window of sport fusion into a future of people heading hockey pucks, kicking basketballs, bicycle-spiking volleyballs, and inappropriately wielding hockey sticks on the football pitch. And such things are amazing.

Finally, whatever the context of our sporting future, Steve Nash was fusing sports into each other before anyone announcing games for TSN thought it was cool.

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Masthead photo courtesy of Dooq

The Gift of Time

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No, this isn’t a post about one of the greatest movies of 2011, In Time starring Justin Timberlake, which totally should’ve been called Justin Time starring Justin Timberlake, by the way. This post is about holiday giving.

The other day, my Superphone shared with me this video from The Project For Awesome 2011′s “How to Give Back” campaign on the YouTube:

I didn’t really get the “breasts on the homepage” comment because I’m not a regular follower of this initiative, but I very much enjoyed and appreciated the meaningful message of giving time instead of money and/or things as we give back during the holiday season.

Sure, “psychologists” and “professors” and “experts” will tell you that spending money the right way can make you happier, at least that’s an argument recently posed by the The Age’s Ross Gittins. Further, over the last month I’ve been engaged by no fewer than 20 of my Facebook friends as they crowdsource their projected holiday donations with questions like “Which charity should get my donation this Christmas?” or “What organization do you give to during the holidays?”

We know that holiday consumption and the spending that feeds it is addictive. While happiness is also addictive, I’ll argue that spending as giving is not the most efficient, rewarding or meaningful way to give back in our neighbourhoods, cities and regions. Giving time to your community makes a positive difference in these much more impactful ways:

1. Experiential Learning – you see the results of your work as it unfolds before you and supports/inspires the people who you’re helping.

2. Fiscal Responsibility – we spend more financial capital than we have while spending very little of our collective and individual social capital; giving time instead of cash addresses both of these challenges.

3. Volunteering is addictive – the biggest problem with holiday giving (whether it’s money or time) is that it only happens during the holidays; unfortunately, poverty, addiction, abuse, displacement, and many other anti-community problems happen year-round. Yes, giving time is, in many ways, harder than cutting a check; however, once you spend time on the front lines of community problem-solving and difference-making it’s much harder to stop doing it.

So there it is. Thank you for your time (during this holiday season and beyond).

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Masthead photo courtesy of Lester Public Library

99 Ways to Leverage our Humanity – Part 4

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[Editor's note: And so concludeth the experiment. This has been an incredibly inspiring community-driven team effort - thanks to everyone who has contributed to this list! The world's Occupy Movements might be dwindling, resting or might just be unreported. Many elements of the Occupy Movement have issued demands. Personally, I see many problems with demands, as they imply binary-negotiating and/or unchangeable beliefs. Personally, I see more value and possibility in ideas and collaborative brainstorming - though this is a much harder process for certain. Some other folks share a love for collaboration and they have kindly offered their ideas in world-changing list-form. So, without further ado, here is the conclusion of this superawesome series that is meant to get our community thinking about how our brilliant, passionate, inspiring, adaptive, funny, delicious, healthy, and innovative humanity can make the world a better place. Thanks for the memories, everyone!].

How can we leverage our humanity to solve the world’s problems?

Here are ideas 1-25. And here are ideas 26-50. And here are ideas 51-75. And here are ideas 76-99:

  1. Repair things. Or at the very least bring things that need fixing to the people who know how to fix ‘em.
  2. Number 13 is solid, yes. Just don’t forget to hug your friends, too.
  3. Share in sport with people. Playing basketball, volleyball, soccer, football, rugby, and even non-sports like baseball represent a shared experience that transcends language and culture. And it keeps us healthy, too!
  4. Have an opinion about triple-bottom-line sustainability principles. Discuss these opinions at dinner parties.
  5. Speaking of discussions/arguments, don’t confuse disagreement with dislike or disrespect. Embrace the power of healthy debate – echo chambers aren’t incredibly innovative.
  6. Trust people.
  7. If your/our current political system is so uninspiring that you cannot bring yourself to participate in it, well, fair enough. Here’s the thing, though. Apathy makes winners of the corrupt. So, if you don’t like the system of which you’re a part find the other people that share your opinion/values/ideas and work together to change it.
  8. Speaking of Number 82, please don’t confuse this with anarchy. In fact, we can leverage our humanity by ensuring that whenever we meet any self-proclaimed anarchist who is not named Tyler Durden that we impose structure on their life in some way. This is both hilarious and meaningful, as it could be the thing that stops anarchists from breaking stuff with no positive outcome in mind.
  9. Explore spirituality that is different from the stuff on which you were raised.
  10. Work hard and be nice to people
  11. Be a doer, not a sayer. Too many people say things but never follow through
  12. Push your boundaries by reading something you wouldn’t otherwise pick up – if you need to, join a good book club to empower a thirst for different types of knowledge
  13. Help other people – I firmly believe the key to happiness for the vast majority of people is to spend a sizable (though not overwhelming) chunk of your life making others happy.
  14. Live near your work; walk wherever you can; cycle or bus the rest of the time
  15. Feel comfortable with modesty – feel convinced that big/flashy/expensive isn’t often necessary/better/preferable
  16. Trust in the universal strength of your own mind and body.
  17. Try not to life too much in the past, too much in the present, or too much in the future – all are important and should try to be balanced out
  18. While there are a lot of problems in the world, there are a lot of people who are doing a lot to solve them. Appreciate what people are currently doing and stay positive while constantly striving to make things better
  19. Don’t underestimate the impact your actions – however small they may be – can have
  20. Spend time with animals.They’re good for the soul.
  21. As a conversation starter, ask people what they’d most like to occupy. The answers will undoubtedly be hilarious and thought provoking.
  22. Volunteer for something meaningful all year long, not just during the holidays.
  23. Downsize your life. People can do more with less. Even better, we can do less with less.
  24. Read this series, as it’s a pretty great map for how to make the world a better place.

So there it is. Now get out there and occupy some of these ideas!

The Britannia Homework Club

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Who are you?

We are a non-profit society that draws its students from Vancouver’s 3 poorest neighbourhoods – Strathcona, Grandview-Woodlands and the Downtown East Side.  Our mission is to support the academic, social/emotional and financial needs of youth at Britannia Secondary, struggling to graduate and achieve post-secondary success by providing free tutoring, fresh fruit and snacks, and bursaries for post-secondary education.  Each year, approximately 370 students attend Homework Club, and we have provided between $3,000 and $9,000 worth of bursaries each year.  This year, we had a shortfall in funding and appealed to a variety of sources in hopes of securing enough money to sustain us this year, and expand in the future.  We entered the Aviva Community Fund for a chance to win $150,000 and last week, found ourselves in the semi-finals.  Our plans for the money can be found on the Aviva website www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf11198 and you can learn more about our organization at www.wix.com/ksleary/homework-club

How is your organization fun?

Nutella, Nutella, Nutella!  It’s what the kids line up for, and probably one of the few ways to make homework fun!

What is your organization’s superpower?

Blasting through obstacles like homework, finances and social/emotional problems to help kids in need.

How do you use it to build community?

While we work primarily with high school aged youth, the program has broader benefits for families and communities as younger siblings and parents see the powerful benefits of school attendance and success. By strengthening families HWC also promotes effective community capacity building because strong families are the building blocks of strong communities.

Exhibition Unites Energy with Art and Motion

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[Editor's note: sometimes Kurt and I get pretty darn busy with work, life, and Kurt's lifelong plan to ensure that Johnism becomes the ideology of the next 100 years. For these reasons, we will occasionally copy and paste press releases from cool organizations and call them "blog posts" - right now is one of those times].

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VANCOUVER: eatART presents an exhibition illuminating the connection between art and energy through photography, paintings, performances and art-in-motion at the Great Northern Way Campus on December 15th.

Exhibits include interactive touch sensitive sculptures, a wearable walking machine, the first walking electric vehicle, and a 50 ft electromagnetic snake.“We define energy as the exertion of vigour or power, and the vitality and intensity of expression,” said said Emily Hamilton, Curator and Co-executive Director of eatART. “Energy manifests through art through mood, emotion, movement, materials, narrative, connection with the viewer, and sources of power and light.

eatART is a volunteer-run charity organization that provides space and support artists, performers, engineers, and robotic sensationalists to gather, network and collaborate. “We give artists the opportunity to demonstrate their explorations of energy and sustainability, promote their message and to gain exposure,” added Ms. Hamilton.

The Hangar is the event space sponsored by the Great Northern Way Campus. Located in the Centre for Digital Media Arts, it echoes the narrative of this exhibition: an industrial past with an educational present.

ART WITH ENERGY

DATE: December 15th

TIME: 7 to 11pm, 6 to 11pm for Media

LOCATION: Great Northern Way Campus, The Hangar, map

ENTRY BY DONATION: All proceeds go to the eatART Foundation to support the artists.

ARTISTS:

  • Michael JP Hall – Realization
  • Vincent VanHaaff – Resonance
  • Leigh Christie – A New Industrial Utopia
  • Frederick Brummer – Dimension X
  • G?Bikes – Powering the Party
  • Raul Casillas – Entanglement
  • Jonathan Tippett – Prosthesis: The Anti Robot
  • mondo spider - The world’s first walking electric vehicle
  • Mark Illing – Clones are People Too
  • The Cooper Bros – Panoramic Photography
  • Titanoboa project – 50ft electromagnetic snake
  • Peter Holmes – Water Portraits

Website: http://artwithenergy.tumblr.com/Exhibition | www.eatART.org

©2009 eatART Foundation

 

Community Decision Making

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Last night I had a beer and a chat with a man who is is wise beyond his years. He shared with me some great ideas about decision making in organizational environments, such as charities, social enterprises, businesses, the government, the non-government, and neighbourhoods. My friend argued that there are four kinds of decisions that we make:

  1. The ones that the leader/boss makes with no input. “Alright, sailors, I burned our ships so that you will feel a great sense of commitment to this land and, most importantly, to me, Hernan Cortes, and not that jerk Governor of Cuba!”
  2. The ones that the leader/boss makes with consultative input to/from a team. “Hey, Vancouver, we’ve developed a plan to put bike lanes everywhere. Just a heads-up. Drive carefully!”
  3. The ones that the team/people make with consultative input to/from the leader. “Hey, boss. Because I’m a Millennial and I like to customize things, I created my own performance review based on my specific skills and interests – it just feels more me, you know? Would you have some time to review it before we use it to measure my awesomeness?”
  4. The ones that the team/people make with no input. “Dear CEO of our company, I just averted a potentially horrendous brand-epic-failure on Twitter by engaging the customer immediately and solving their problem right away; this involved giving them a free service/product that we make/provide.”

The idea here is that the most effective decisions for a thriving community come from the fourth point – when in possession of a strong vision, a clear set of principles, and a wicked-awesome plan, everybody in a community knows what to do and work/business/advocacy/change/governance happens as efficiently as it does strategically as it does quickly.

And then there’s the terrible state of our poor little planet and the important decisions that need to be made in order to sustain not lose half of the Earth’s population in a tsunami-nuclear-firestorm-hurricane-drought-war.

After chatting with my friend I came home and watched the video below, which was shared by my awesome sister.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of our global team making most of the decisions seems like the best solution for the many complex problems that lie before us. And, yes, I realize the incredibly/ridiculously complicated nature of doing this. And I also recognize that it’s time to try something new and ridiculous. Because the boring old stuff ain’t working.

99 Ways to Leverage Our Humanity – Part 3

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[Editor's note: I must start by saying that what unfolds below is a team effort - thanks to everyone who has contributed to this list! So, for better or worse, many parts of the world have been recently occupied - and in some places, like Vancouver, this may or may not be coming to an end. Many elements of the Occupy Movement have issued demands. Personally, I see many problems with demands, as they imply binary-negotiating and/or unchangeable beliefs. Personally, I see more value and possibility in ideas and collaborative brainstorming - though this is a much harder process for certain. Some other folks share a love for collaboration and they have kindly offered their ideas in world-changing list-form. So, without further ado, here is part three of a four-part series that is meant to get our community thinking about how our brilliant, passionate, inspiring, adaptive, funny, delicious, healthy, and innovative humanity can make the world a better place. Thanks for the memories, everyone!].

How can we leverage our humanity to solve the world’s problems?

Here are ideas 1-25. And here are ideas 26-50. And here are ideas 51-75:

  1. Hike.  Get out in nature’s bosom.  Commune with the forest spirits.  Skinny dip.  Roll in dirt.  It’s clean.  Sit.  Listen.  Yell!  Pee your name in the snow (men only, I think).  Play capture the flag.  Know Nature.  Know Its value to you personally.  Because you can’t want to protect something if you don’t even know what it is.
  2. Cycle.  You’ll see more and feel good.  Buy rain pants and suit up.  You’ll be dry under you clothes (and naked!).  Be visible.  Cyclists are the future:  fuckin non-motorized, non-electronic cyborgs on wheels.
  3. Draw.  Not for art’s sake.  For communicating.  Long before we wrote, we drew.  On cave walls and on bark and hide.  Appreciate the symbolic nature of signs and symbols, and the miracle that allows all humans to interpret them.  Ed Emberley is a prophet.
  4. Drink.  Water.  H2O.  Its ubiquity only adds to its many mysteries.
  5. Learn.  A language.  Or several.  Or even just a smattering of words.  Knowing another’s tongue is the quickest way to break the ice and will allow you to more easily understand ‘the other’.
  6. Objectify.  Be partial.  Know that your opinions are opinions and based on what you believe you know.  Do not mistake passion for rightfulness.  Choose to be emotional; do not make emotional choices.
  7. Listen.  You talk too much.  Listening allows for ideas to reveal themselves to speakers who may not even know they have such ideas.  If you can’t listen, pretend to listen, as this often has the same effect.
  8. Keep.  Imbue physical objects with meaning.  A ring, a rock, or even a house.  We are physical creatures living in a physical world, not virtual avatars.  Don’t tear down old buildings.  Believe in ghosts and spirits.
  9. Teach.  To teach is to learn well.  Whether it be abstract or practical knowledge, by teaching it you will learn it deeper, and it will become you.
  10. Smile.  In monkeys it lowers tension and creates group harmony.  We are all monkeys.  Faking is acceptable as it often leads to the real thing.  Emotions and your facial muscles are inextriclaby linked. You can fool your own brain.
  11. Don’t.  Don’t do anything.  Eke.  Survive.  Be simple.  Learn the art of inertia.  Laziness is godliness.  The planet will thank you for it.
  12. Think critically. Do not accept things for what they are and ask lots and lots of questions.
  13. Perform. Sock puppets, Shakespeare, Improv, and Musicals are great ways to tell stories as well as tackle the pesky problem of fearing public speaking.
  14. Dance with people. And, to quote a wise man named Jim, “never let the rhythm control your dancing.”
  15. It might’ve been said before but it bears repeating: learn another language. This will help when you visit other places. And it will really help you visit communities not just tourist attractions.
  16. Have heroes and role models who exist in the real world, not the hyper-sexed and overly violent fictional worlds of so much media.
  17. Send handwritten thank you cards. First, because it’s the right thing to do. Second, people love getting mail and, let’s face it, the cards are outstanding advertising for your personal brand!
  18. Be skeptical and question authority. This doesn’t mean rebelling against anything and everything; it just means that you shouldn’t take everyone at their word all the time.
  19. Strive to be a bit more of an armchair economist so that you can understand – and share knowledge about – the complex workings of the global financial system.
  20. Commit to keeping the complex complex. Sometimes simple solutions come at the erosion and sacrifice of necessarily complex and important things.
  21. Remember that the things you own end up owning you. The only logical solution here is for you to give your things away so that they can own other people.
  22. Take off/out your headphones and/or earbuds and listen to the world around you. This will expose you to funny things, interesting things, and things that will inspire you to engage members of your community in conversation.
  23. Collaborate. Like a symphony. Working together is the only way that we’re going to pull ourselves out of this mess.
  24. Find common ground with someone who has a totally different worldview than you. It’s possible. I mean, Kurt and John do it every day on this blog!
  25. Recognize that humanity’s adaptability will see us through tsunamis, earthquakes, peak oil, and the zombie apocalypse; however, there will be catastrophic collateral damage and many of us will not survive the next 100 years. Try your best to be okay with this fact and also try really, really hard to not be a weird survivalist who makes people super uncomfortable while riding the bus…

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Masthead photo courtesy of Kurt Heinrich, who is awesome.

99 Ways to Leverage our Humanity – Part 2

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[Editor's note: I must start by saying that what unfolds below is a team effort - thanks to everyone who has contributed to this list! So, for better or worse, many parts of the world have been recently occupied - and in some places, like Vancouver, this may or may not be coming to an end. Many elements of the Occupy Movement have issued demands. Personally, I see many problems with demands, as they imply binary-negotiating and/or unchangeable beliefs. Personally, I see more value and possibility in ideas and collaborative brainstorming - though this is a much harder process for certain. Some other folks share a love for collaboration and they have kindly offered their ideas in world-changing list-form. So, without further ado, here is part two of a four-part series that is meant to get our community thinking about how our brilliant, passionate, inspiring, adaptive, funny, delicious, healthy, and innovative humanity can make the world a better place. Thanks for the memories, everyone!].

How can we leverage our humanity to solve the world’s problems?

Here are ideas 1-25. And here are ideas 26-50:

  1. Find photos from the nineteenth century. Strive to emulate the facial hair styles found in the photos. It is hard to take yourself too seriously with a silly looking beard or mustache and the world would likely be a better place if we all took our ourselves less seriously.
  2. Find your passion. And help others find theirs, too.
  3. Volunteer at something. It could totally sync with your interests and talent and get you the experience you need to start a career, or it could be a task, trade or activity that makes a difference and/or brings you pure joy.
  4. Strive to eat foods that are inspired by other cultures and contain locally harvested ingredients.
  5. Go camping. And take an urbanite with you so that they can see the stars!
  6. Honour your grandparents. Ask them to talk about their lives. Listen with pure love.
  7. Practice compassion. You may not be able to take on all causes, but you can send your support in spirit. Leverage those warm fuzzies, draw from the marrow of your own sorrows, and send loving understanding out to all who struggle.
  8. Forgive someone. Feel that painful weight you’ve held in your chest for years? Let it go.
  9. Come to your senses, and no, I don’t mean your common sense. Savour delicious morsels, pause to listen to cello players peeling out beauty in the subway, lift your face up to the sun.
  10. Another way to leverage your humanity is to make out more often. Grab your lover and take luscious long moments to reconnect. Simple pleasures will fuel you in the good fight.
  11. Do whatever you can to empower women, especially in the developing world. Honestly, doing what we can to be in possession of more female leaders will make the world a better place.
  12. Speaking of #31, to the senior citizens (about 78% of our readership) out there, leverage your epic knowledge of life, the universe and everything and tell it to one, or several, young person/people.
  13. Speaking of #37, which spoke of #31, to the young people (about 4% of our readership) out there, write down our elders’ life lessons. Ideally, digitize them on the Internets.
  14. Google “Slow Food.” When you begin to think about the taste and texture of what you consume, you also start to think about the quality of your food and where it comes from — it’s amazing what we realize when we slow things down.
  15. Watch a TED talk once a week. Start with this one.
  16. If you have children or you want to have children, consider what poet Kahlil Gibran wrote: “ You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the earrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”
  17. Laughter feels so good. Find the “funny” in as many things as you can. People are more likely to listen if they think you don’t take yourself too seriously.
  18. Take the opportunity to gain a basic understand of how the law works; of how your body works, of how your car works and how your computer works. And the teach your children. It’s nice to be able to fix even the most basic of problems, yourself.
  19. Personally, I think this is one of the most important things you can possibly do to change the world: tell the people you love, like, and care about how you feel about them. Today. This week. This year. Text, email, call or set up a coffee date. It’s hard at first but if we close ourselves off to the words that heal others, we risk hurting ourselves.
  20. Start a book club and hand over your reading time to someone else — you never know where inspiration is going to come from.
  21. Continue to give to charities but consider whether the non-profits you support encourage the people on the other end to climb up and out of poverty and prosper. Kiva is a great organization to start with as well as charity:water.
  22. Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Also, let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.
  23. Get involved in mentoring; inspire someone who is coming up in the world and also soak up wisdom and experience from people who have been where you want to go and done what you’re planning to do.
  24. Listen actively and carefully. Showing that your absorbing someone else’s story is a immensely rewarding experience both for yourself and for the one telling the story.
  25. Have children. The world recently reached 8 billion and we have a population crisis. Yet, having a child can be the ultimate affirmation that another life will make your world better.

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Masthead photo courtesy of Kurt Heinrich, who is awesome.