Googled: it's a long, long post...
Yes, another project with 'good' ambitions; to 'change' the world, or create a step change in peoples attitude and action. Often a project will give space for reflection, and most often it results in a series of ideas, some old, some new. One of Google's current projects is the 10 to the power of 100, based on many ideas contributing to a manifesto for change. 10tothe100 is a competition project being run by Google, submit your ideas before 20 October, 2008. Project10tothe100.com
It reminds me of the various editions of the Whole Earth catalogue, initiated by all round inspiration, Mr Bucky Fuller, and published (rather a short time before I entered this world) in 1969:
A rather worn copy, of the increasingly rare 'Whole Earth Catalogue'.
Pages have the layout of a typical catalogue of products of the era (think about warming up your Gestetner machine!). The frontispiece informs the reader, "The Whole Earth Catalogue functions as an evaluation and access device. With it, the user should know what is worth getting and where and how to do the getting."
Under the title, "Purpose", the text goes on to say, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far remotely done power and glory--as via government, big business, formal education, church--has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilema and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing--power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOGUE."
I wonder how Bucky would change his approach if he was blogging himself, and advising the people at the Google project (above). The above paragraph could be talking about the current scope of the Internet. Never before have we had so much capacity to change the world, so many tools within easy reach. To what degree does the power still remain in the word, getting traction on new ideas is still the challenge to engineering social behaviour change.
I wonder if Patrick Leavens was able to push forward this idea. It still offers an interesting and potentially viable alternative to the Internet experience, Internews/Internet. Shame that now google has to engage people with a competition that crowns an individual winner, rather than expecting that they'll enter out of good will for change...
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