I want it all; I want it now.

There are some conversations that wear a little thin. My threshold for hearing about global warming has very nearly been breached. But I guess he irritation factor is important for the idea to become integrated. Sustainability is an issue for design and designers that will only become more important as consumers increasingly demand products that make them feel better.

Whether or not consuming more of anything will make any difference to the health of the planet is moot - but that is one of the perversions of this whole debate. Buying a hybrid car will make you feel good about your choice (if not superior), but, in truth using a car at all is probably pointless if you really want to make a difference.

Living on Auckland's North Shore it is almost impossible to to practicably rely on public transport if you travel to more than one destination per day. One of the things I enjoyed about living in London was the tube. I didn't drive a private car in the entire time I was was there. There was simply no need. Aucklanders are about as addicted to private cars as we are to real estate.

Elected officials pander to that by building more motorways. I recall a visiting Australian traffic expert saying that imagining more roads will resolve traffic problems is like loosening your belt as an antidote to obesity. The reality is that visionary leaders who are prepared to make long term, strategic decisions for the future are like to be chewed up and spat out by an electorate that has become obsessed with immediate gratification and an adversarial political system that relies of polling and talk show monitoring to determine the next move.

I like this little movie (above) from the GenArt film festival in New York. Nicely done. Reminded me a little of the much vaunted The Secret (and What the Bleep before that).

Comments

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

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