The Vine

At The Vine ‘06, physician Richard Jackson spoke about the effects of neighborhood design on health and wellness.

He argued (persuasively) that communities designed to promote driving rather than walking—thereby decreasing physical activity and increasing exposure to vehicle exhaust—are contributing to adverse health effects ranging from obesity to diabetes to asthma.

And he illustrated his point with a simple but eye-opening poll.

Growing up, how many of the attendees walked to school? Over half the room raised their hands.

How many of your kids walk to school today? No more than a handful.

Dr. Jackson has recently contributed to a new policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics, The Built Environment: Designing Communities to Promote Physical Activity in Children. While the planning concepts presented won’t be new to most readers here, the larger issues involved (medical and social) serve as an important reminder.

Another Vine speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, describes it this way: “We need the right conditions for growth, in our schools, businesses, communities, and in our individual lives. If the conditions are right, people grow in synergy with the people around them and the environments they create. If they are poor, people protect themselves and their anxieties from neighbors and the world.”

As community planners and developers, we can influence quality of life through the built environment.

And if we can, we should.

Photo courtesy of Pink Sherbet

In the video below, Douglas Rushkoff talks about his soon to be released book, Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back.

It’s a fascinating perspective on community, civility and the institutions that disconnect us from one another. Influenced by corporations, we behave like corporations, not like humans.

These are, I would submit, largely unintended consequences. We don’t set out to create systems (social, financial, political or otherwise) that dehumanize us. Instead, we slide into harmful behaviors and choices by failing to think them fully through. After all, short-term decisions always seem right in the moment.

And that’s Rushkoff’s greatest contribution of all. Whether or not you agree with his prescriptions—Let all the banks fail!—he makes you think, he makes you reflect, and he makes you aware.

Thanks, Andrea, for sending this our way.

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

If you want people to listen to you. If you want people to follow you. If you want people to buy stuff from you.

Lead them.

Seth Godin’s fantastic talk from this year’s TED conference is posted below. In it, he argues that the most powerful form of marketing today is leadership.

We are tribal in nature. We yearn to connect with others who share our interests and passions. And thanks to the internet, it’s never been easier for these people to find each other. The opportunity for any marketer, then, is to identify, connect and lead a tribe. This applies whether you’re for-profit or non-profit, fighting for a political cause or selling soap.

The problem with traditional (ie, mass) marketing is that it requires you to act like the king—you’re the one in control, tossing things to the peons. (And how’s that working for you these days?) But when you’re leading a tribe, the desire is built in. Life is good didn’t invent optimism, they simply gave optimistic people a symbol to rally around.

So find a group that already has a yearning for something, but is disconnected. Give them a way to connect, a cause to commit to, and a culture that lets them know whether they’re in or out. Understand that your movement is not for everyone. Be willing to polarize.

I’ll stop there and not give away too much of the material. The full presentation is well worth watching, and just 18 minutes long.

NB: You can hear more from Seth at PCBC next month, where he’ll be the closing keynoter.

I love this story from Rockwood Music Hall in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

At a popular venue that features fantastically talented musicians performing hourly, the night’s most memorable act — for some, although certainly not all — was an acoustic guitarist who did three things.

He engaged. He told stories. And he polarized.

The writer describes the experience:

“He doesn’t go near the stage, doesn’t touch a mic. Just stands in the middle of the bar and starts playing his acoustic guitar and singing and people shut up and listen. He’s a thin guy, white t-shirt, jeans, beard, bill-bent ballcap and a wild look in his eyes. He’s making eye contact with everyone, like one by one, maintaining it. This makes some people pretty uncomfortable and some of them take off. But the group that’s left, we’re all transfixed.”

And here’s the kicker. This is where it falls apart for most of us. Because while we grasp the futility of trying to be all things to all people, we lack the courage to polarize:

“He was fine with people leaving the bar. Didn’t bug him at all. And this is the most important thing. He was polarizing. But it was so much better to have a smaller group of people who were really into the act than a large group of half-interested folks. He just put himself out there. This is me. This is what I do. Jump on or jump out of the way.”

He was fine with people leaving the bar.

Are you?