Last year, millions of people watched the promo about how Christmas can be different if we Love All, Spend Less, Give More, and Worship Fully. This year the same producers made a new promo to carry on the call to conspire this Christmas:
Advent Conspiracy is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by substituting compassion for consumption.
Apparently, at Old Navy, it does. Just some photos of the madness spotted at the end of November, as people run through the store tossing colourful sweaters and children’s clothing in search of the right size. Have fun, everyone. Maybe online shopping’s a nice option in these cases!
Photos taken on iPhone during attempt to exit the chaos without making a purchase.
Give from the Heart! Have a minute? Visit givefromtheheart.info to watch the video.
As most of the world knows, Bill Gates stepped down from daily operations at Microsoft to focus on the Gates Foundation about a year ago.
Gates is working hard on major global issues of Education and Healthcare. Instead of spreading money over many, many causes, he focuses on these key factors and is a huge believer in education. On healthcare, he believes that by 2025 people will not have to die from Malaria, which is currently a leading cause of death in the developing world.
The philosophy is simple: it’s all about ridding the world of inequality. This is something we can all do, on different scales.
How does Bill Gates make such a substantial impact? Besides his huge financial wealth (plus the 31 Billion donated by Warren Buffet), he consults scientists when deciding where to invest, and hopes that in the long-run some of his investment will pay off as successful vaccines and cures, for example.
Mashable posted a detailed article called Bill Gates’ Plan for Fixing the World that summarizes what Gates is trying to do, his advice, and some of his thoughts on the financial crisis.
Gates gave an interesting TED Talk recently relating to these issues, which you can watch below [direct link]:
Getting out of the subway, after a long day of class and work leaving me half asleep, a man approaches me in the darkness of the city street.
Walking slowly, hunched over, the older man quietly asks me, “Please, do you have a dollar?” Stopped in my quest of rushing home to sleep, I immediately thought what could be in my wallet.
“I just got beat up. A dollar to get something to eat,” he added faintly as I reached into my pocket. Dim streetlights revealed to me that the frail man’s head and face had bloodstains.
“Where do you want to go to eat, Tim Hortons?” I asked, pointing down the street. I grabbed the toonie that remained in my wallet and said, “here’s 2”. The man accepted the coin and quietly said thank you.
He paused and asked, “what’s – what’s your name?”. I answered, he looked at me and put his bandaged hand out to touch mine for a brief moment. Then he said, “thank you…” and walked away, limping slowly into the cold dark night.
I stood there thinking. Yes, he received what he asked for from me – but he needs so much more.
On the bus half an hour before, I had just posted a Facebook status complaining that $100 cash left my wallet that day on various things (transit passes, food, etc). This gentleman asked for the littlest amount possible, really – one dollar. Compared to the 100 times that I spent that day, and the double of that I spent on an iced tea minutes before.
Starting to walk to my residence building, I reminded myself hat this sad situation isn’t the only one, either. There are many more homeless people, individuals suffering abuse, and countless others in very unfortunate situations not just downtown Toronto but all over the world. There are needs like this amongst us – people right now outside feeling the need to be reached out to, to be helped, to be given a dollar for coffee, to have a conversation. Causes you to think how inferior and selfish your lousy, everyday complaints are, and how much the world needs your help.
What can we learn from designers? That’s what author Warren Berger asks in Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World.
This question, I would say, is very interesting to everyday people or the general population, as well as to myself as a design student. Berger explains the book started with him trying to personally answer the basic question, “What is design?”
I’d been writing about it on and off for years, for magazines like Wired, and it was always interesting to me that the term was used in so many different ways. As I started collecting definitions, I stumbled upon an intriguing yet anonymous quote: “Design is the glimmer in God’s eye.” That word “glimmer” resonated with me. It’s a word associated with “potential” and “possibility.” – Warren Berger
Berger explains that we can learn a lot from designers about how to face up to problems, look at them with a fresh eye and an open mind, and begin to solve them in a step-by-step manner.
Designers jobs are to bring about positive change
The part I find most interesting, what stands out the most, is his comment that “a designer’s job is to bring about positive change.” Progress happens by design, Berger states. I completely agree with these statements and this philosophy is the reason I have chosen to major in design.
While I haven’t yet read this book, it’s considered to be “a breed apart from all of the many design thinking books hitting the shelves, and worth a further look“.
Featured in the book is designer Bruce Mau, who has designed everything from textiles to museums. What I find amazing about Mau is that his philosophy is to always look for bigger challenges – despite already having had clients like Frank Gehry, MTV and Coca Cola, he continues to pursue this big question: “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”
Warren Berger, author of Glimmer, explains how design thinking can be applied to many of our personal, business, and social challenges in the video below:
Clearly, design is more than good looks. This book and message is designed to help everyone realize this, instead of only designers. There is a lot to be learned by all of us from these individuals, amongst many other great design thinkers.
“Design is the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes.” – Bruce Mau
“Progress happens by design”- Warren Berger
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
