Biomimicry in design

Greengaged at the Design Council brings together designers, thinkers, doers and makers for a week of talks and interactive events. I'll be speaking there with colleagues Michael Pawlyn from Exploration Architecture, Julian Vincent, Melissa Sterry and others for a day on 'Biomimicry in Design'. Email the link at the start of the article to register for this free event.

In November, Melissa, Johnn Grant and I will be speaking at Salford University on biomimicry and eco-logical design for business and social change.

Next week, at the Do Lectures, Michael Pawlyn will be joined by Tim Birkhead (the Wisdom of Birds) and 20 other top speakers for four days of theb best talks anywhere. Half a dozen tickets are left...

Do Lectures Founding Partners

We're in the process of recruiting our last half dozen Founding Partners for the Do Lectures. In return for £5k investment, corporate Founding Partners get to come to the lectures, get me and David Hieatt consulting / presenting for a day at an event of their choice, and get first refusal on ideas that come next.

If you're in the mood for supporting Do by becoming a corporate partner, get in touch right away. It would be great to talk Do.

Join the Do Lectures

The Do Lectures are around 6 weeks away. The speakers are preparing their talks, and ticket holders readying for inspiration. We're offering a crowd-sourcing membership of the Do Lectures this year to raise money for the talks and help reach 1 million people next year. Here's why in words penned by Do founder and co-pilot David Hieatt

Why The Do Lectures matter?

And why becoming a member matters too?

We live in interesting times.

And we live in important times.

Most of the important business models have yet to be written.

Most of the ‘why didn’t I think of that’ answers for climate change have yet to be dreamt of.

Most of the important scientific or technological breakthroughs are just doodles on a notepad.

As well as interesting times, these are exciting times.

Necessity will make a good taskmaster. Crisis will make a good editor. Having finite resources will make us infinitely more creative with how we use them going forward.

Yup, interesting times.

And if consumers will have to change how they consume, and if business will have to change how they do business, then so will Government have to change how they govern.

Our system of having a four-year government for 100-year problems means tough decisions are rarely made. A manifesto designed to win votes isn’t the same as a manifesto designed to do what needs to be done for the safety of future generations.

And how we have treated this planet in the past will have to be different to how we treat it in the future. A tree helps produce oxygen, rain and sucks in carbon dioxide. Yet we only put a value to it once we cut it down. At the very same time as when it stops producing rain, when it stops producing oxygen and stops sucking in carbon dioxide.

Indeed these are interesting times.

We have to fill in a 3-page form to start an account with Fed Ex. Yet a badly run bank has to only fill in a 2-page form to get billions from the Government to shore up their bank.

Interesting times, indeed.

But rather than being a time to be down or despondent, this is the time for great change. And yes, there is much that needs changing. There is much to do.

But reassuringly the human mind is more creative than any computer will ever be. The answers will come from the brightest, stubborn-nest, and oddest of people.

And the thing that brings this oddball bunch together is that they are all stubborn dreamers. Brilliant enough to have the idea. Stubborn enough to make it happen.

Buckminster Fuller described the importance of vision best when he said, “ There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly”. But as well as the vision, you need that grit determination to make your idea live.

That is what The Do Lectures is here to Do. It is a platform for the Doers of the world to tell us their stories. So they can inspire the rest of us to go do something amazing too. In simple farming terms, it is just manure for the field. It is here to help grow ideas.

The Do Lectures is not a business, but it has to pay its way in the world. Appropriately a set of talks with sustainability at its heart needs to be, well, yes, sustainable.

To that end, we sell tickets for the event so the rest of the world can see them the talks for free. Our aim this year is for a million people to see the talks. To me, that is a lot of ‘mind manure’ being spread around the world.

So does the Do Lectures matter? I believe they do. And maybe they matter more in these interesting times than any other time.

I believe that ‘mind manure’ sure needs spreading around.

So my last question today is would you become a member of The Do Lectures?

Memberships costs £50. You will receive 4 newsletters a year. Have the inside track on choosing speakers and be able to make suggestions too. Have first refusal on future tickets. Receive a Do Lectures 2009 T-shirt that has a chance of coming with a golden ticket to this years Do lectures.

But the biggest thing of all is just to feel part of it. To feel like you are doing something to make this happen. To become a doer too.

So if this is crowd funding in its truest form, we need the crowd to put their hands up and say ‘I’m in.’ ‘I think The Do Lectures matter. Here’s my £50.’

A simple email to Claire@thedolectures.co.uk will be enough to start this off

To Do list for speakers

David Hieatt drew up this great list to remind the speakers at the Do Lectures what works. It's a good list for anyone wanting to engage an audience, with the exception of the one about sticking around, which works best if you're in a tent with wonderful people in west Wales.

A speakers Do List

1, Do tell your story. It will inspire others more than you will ever know.

2, Do inspire yourself too. Don’t do the talk you always do. Leave your comfort zone.

3, Do tell us of your struggles as well as your successes. Failure is often a better teacher than success.

4, Don’t read it. You know your story off by heart, so let it come from the heart. You will touch more people that way.

5, Do tell us your dreams, your passions, what you stand for, your crazy new idea or your brave new thinking. We need to know what drives you.

6, Do entertain. We cover some serious subjects but that doesn’t mean we have to be serious. Entertainment is good. People learn a lot while laughing.

7, Do disagree. Debate is important. You don’t have to agree with other speakers.

8, Don’t steal other speakers time. It’s a 25 minute talk.

9, Do give the best talk that you have ever done. (Eek)

10, Do stick around. The talks, the food, the beer, the music, the fire-side conversations, and just the pure magic of the Fforest location all go to make The Do lectures just a little bit special.

www.thedolectures.co.uk

Notes from Kaos Pilot flight control

This lovely paragraph was written by Kaos Pilot adviser Hanne Vibeke-Holst and forwarded to me by Do Collective colleague Em Metcalf. Kaos Pilots were founded and run by Uffe Elbæk and have developed into an outstanding education intiative to develop skills for real change. Uffe is joining us in Cardigan for the Do Lectures to share his story with us, and around a million others over the next year. Here are Hanne's words

You can see them in your mind’s eye; the young, bright-eyed pilots, who take off – the one after the other – in order to carry out their mission. They fly through the night, crossing borders and territories, filled with the courage and will powerthat comes from knowing that what they are doing is right. Undaunted, they plough through the clouds; without fear, they dodge enemy fire; without hesitation, they continue towards their goal like the true heroes of history, who know that the future is what you dream of today. They know that someone must undertake to navigate through chaos, that someone must dare to loose their foothold for a shortwhile, that someone must fly through the clouds to get a bird’s-eyeview of the world, in order not to sink into earth-bound resignation.They know that without daring and ambition, it will never be possible to find new solutions to old problems. Risky flights are needed to turn chaos into order – and order into chaos, when necessary. And I, where am I in all this, as I am not the one sitting with my hand on the control column in the small, exposed cockpit? I sit in the Tower, like a flying instructor who makes sure that the young pilots take off successfully. I give directions; I study the sun and the stars. I incite and I ground. I am there, a voice in the ear, when the aircraft nose dives and an emergency landing is the only possibility left; but I am also there when the wheels hit the runway, and yet another victory can be celebrated. I am there with my cool head and my warm heart. Because I cannot imagine a more meaningful place to be, now that darkness threatens to swallow us up, no matter where on this Earth we live.