green social culture

I’m heading to London in less than a week to check out SenseCamp UK (June 7-9 at HUB Westminster)! The MakeSense London HotSpot has been quite busy with preparations, and they have quite a bit in store: talks, workshops, and even a UK-wide HotSpot Kickstart program.

London is going to be a really exciting SenseCamp for me and a great opportunity to learn more about what is happening in the UK, since I always hear that they are far ahead of us on social entrepreneurship. If I had to pick a focus, it would be to learn about new social innovations and the social business models behind them.

There are a few seats left, but they’re selling out fast - get your tickets here!

I’m also happy to help out the ‘social team’ during the event, and this is the short intro i was asked to provide for the blog:

“Six years ago, I picked up Muhammad Yunus’ book on this idea of ‘social business’ and I still find this concept ingenious. To me, Social Entrepreneurship offers the most daring concepts and most exciting answers to the challenges that face us in the 21st century.

I got involved in MakeSense because it is a fun community of social innovation and entrepreneurship enthusiasts, I enjoyed the hold-up format, and I thought that establishing a HotSpot in Berlin would be very valuable to our social entrepreneurship landscape. Plus, it’s just awesome to arrive in another city and connect with relevant people through MakeSense and/or at a SenseDrink!

It’s great to try out new event formats to contribute to the Berlin community and making SenseCamps happen is an awesome experience. SenseCamp is the MakeSense awesomeness compressed into a three-day weekend - an experimental ‘unconference’ that focuses on (inter)action instead of too much lecturing! And being involved in the organization even gave me the chance to meet Yunus in Wiesbaden!”

So, see you next week in London?

nice appearance by the always-amazing naomi klein on bill moyers. 30 min worth watching. i love her analysis of most climate activist messages that target the individual (‘you can do something about it by changing your behavior’) and often neglect the necessity for collective action. this point is the reason i finally became a fan of annie leonard’s story of stuff series when she presented the story of change, and what i love about occupy movement: the realization that we need to break out of the individualistic thinking that keeps us competing against each other rather than working together. we’re all in the same boat and should start acting more like it.

i’m mostly contemplating her point that part of the reason why public opinion on the subject of climate change has been so shaky is the discrepancy between saying ‘this is a huge, armageddon-style problem’ but suggesting that the solutions only have a very minor impact on our lives (‘changing light bulbs’) and do not demand big sacrifices from anyone. maybe it’s because ‘being radical’ has been put in such a bad public light, and the public debate tends to frame climate activists as radical - while it’s actually the other way round, as mckibben so rightly points out: the true radicals are those who are fundamentally changing the composition of the atmosphere.

i’m no historian, but i do tend to agree with her (as i usually do..) that this is the greatest problem we’ve ever faced as humanity. it’s what makes this the most interesting issue to work on and be a part of.

by the way, also just in: 350.org is calling climate activists around the world to join the global power shift kick-off in istanbul from 10-17 june 2013. i’m hoping i can join, and look forward to meet climate activists from around the world!

i may have posted this video a while back, if you’re short on time you can check out the trailer. the green movement needs more influencers! transforming into a sustainable future will also need a shift in the culture that surrounds us, it needs to become part of that which produces meaning among our society.

on october 7, the influencer conference is coming to berlin (fb event). the conference took place for the first time in new york last year and “seeks to identify, understand and support influencer culture globally.” this year, it is also happening in berlin and london and i’m very happy to be part of this conference, since it looks like it’s exactly down my alley! the overarching theme for berlin is ‘reaching new audiences’ and the sessions are called: changing to green, making contributions and rebranding the arts. the ‘new by deconstruction’ workshop also looks exciting.

the conference venue is in west berlin, smack down in the ‘city’ - where you can really feel the difference to east berlin. the place is called ‘bikini berlin’ and it’s directly at breitscheidplatz where we did the silent climate parade last weekend.

looking forward to engaging conversations with inspiring people next week!

sounds like a great movie. if you know anybody/any place in berlin showing this, please tell me. reminds me of attac’s jenseits des wachstums conference, which i would have loved to attend- but they plan to put the video documentation online soon.