Started as a group project in summer 09, Soita Mummolle is now the one-(wo)man social and research effort of graphic designer and researcher Stefania Passera (MA Graphic Design Aalto University School of Art and Design/ Decode Research Group). So yes, Stefania is one of us “Act Differently Promoters”, but this doesn’t change the fact that the campaign is clearly an attempt to act differently!

Some of the research quetions behind the project are:

“Can a private citizen spread a good idea for society and eventually start a movement?”

“What are the small, easy, daily actions that we all can do (such as calling our elderly relatives) and have a positive impact?”

“How social media can support a more dialogic communication, in opposition to a unidirectional one?”

“How communication can be different to push people to have a different behavior?”

So, if you are searching for more opportunities for acting diferently, stay tuned on Soita Mummolle blog this summer, because there are going to be plenty of occasions to participate in flash mobs and design interventions for a good cause!

A very inspiring talk by Seth Godin:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html

The black community mobilized a boycott of the bus system which lasted for 381 days and resulted in the ending of segregation on Montgomery’s buses.

The boycott also brought national attention to the civil rights cause and to a young minister, Rev. Martin Luther King, who was appointed as spokesperson for the Bus Boycott and taught nonviolence to all participants. At the same time, other protests sprouted throughout the south and the country. They took form as sit-ins, eat-ins, swim-ins, and similar causes. Thousands of courageous people joined the “protest” to demand equal rights for everybody.

This, all started from a bus seat. And the refusal of a woman of accepting a wrong and degrading status quo.

Instead we could overturn the whole thing and recognize that our needs are actually small, and basic. We should make an attempt to use just the minimum amount of what we need, avoiding being greedy or simply careless. Personally, I get happiness and satisfaction everytime I manage to live in a minimalistic and humble way.

This perspective, in my opinion valid in many fields, is especially valid when we think about environment and resources. There are just so many daily actions that we can do to minimize our consummistic impact. We actually need less of what we think.

I recently had an experience that taught me something and inspired me to start to act differently. For the last ten days in my building water was cut off daily from 8 to 15, due to some pipes renovation. It meant filling up bottles and buckets to have water resources available during the day. Using containers actually helps to quantify the amount of water you use, while taps are implicitly pushing you to let things run and flow indefinitely. The fact that I had to survive with just a certain amount of water made me think what was the minimum amount of water needed for certain tasks.

Now the pipes are ok and I have running water again. But I started washing my teeth using just a cup of water. And I try to close the taps in each possible moment while showering or washing my hands. I also collect the water used to shower in a bucket, to reuse it to flush.

Yes, my life is a bit slower and “complicated” (but where am I supposed to run to, anyway?). And probably I am not really having a positive impact on the planet. Still, I get the inner reward from being more aware of how little I need: having the feeling that after all I am simple and I don’t need much to live well is a very good medicine against everyday’s complexity, stress and induced artificial needs. Less is more.



In front of our coffee cups, some ideas that I particularly liked – because they imply experimentation and change – came out. They are mainly ideas about how to teach, rather than what to teach. So it’s about how to act and make people react. Here are five experiments in design education that I think it would be interesting to try out sometimes:

- Speed-date workshops: all the departments of the design school should have interdisciplinary 1-week workshops together, trying to experiment all the possible matches (e.g. graphic design+new media/sound design, graphic design+fashion design, graphic design+interior design, etc.). People would learn better -and in practice- how to work with others who have very a different professional and human perspective. And it would push all the students out of their “comfort zone”, toward more hybrid solutions and mediations.

- Destroy the comfort zone: when working in teams of 2-3 people, draw from a hat your role in the project. If you pick something you are notoriously good at, put the paper back in the hat and pick something else. For instance, we have a very good illustrator, a very skilled guy in layout and typography and a digital media guru. Mix their roles, so that they learn to do something new and unfamiliar. The fact that there is going to be anyway an expert in the group to ask advice from will stimulate self-learning and dialogue. The team will, in a way, self-tutor itself.

- Reiteration: kickstart the projects making the students do it in a short period of time. If you have a tight schedule, you are going to do the best you can in that time anyway. Make a presentation of the results (that have to be as finalized as possible), evaluate what is good and what can be improved. Then give some more time to reiterate the process and develop the weaker parts.
It’s better to have a real, imperfect basis on which build up a better result, rather than plan forever the perfect solution (which is never gonna be perfect and would need corrections anyway). And people can do amazing things under a tight schedule.

- Learn how to REALLY build up on others’ ideas: one problem of designers (and everybody, in general) is to fall in love with own’s ideas. We are endlessly preached that we have to be able to work in teams, and so we do, but in the end usually one idea/direction from one member is gonna prevail. We accept compromises, but they have a bitter taste sometimes. Well, this shouldn’t happen. We should teach real interaction, real dialogue.
One idea is to make students work on a project, then present it, then hand out all the working materials and files to the student to their right. Everybody will go on developing a project started by somebody else. You can change something, improve, develop, but you cannot completely destroy what has been done before. This method would also teach 1) how to develop a critical sense on artworks 2) how to see what is good, and hopefully learn how to do it as well 3) how to work with existing materials that are assigned to us and get the best out of them 4) how to get inspired by others

- Challenge the status quo: which traditionally in education is the assumption that “The teacher knows more than the students. The students learn from the teacher”. But maybe students can also create value and knowledge for each others. At least every student is really good or really interested in something: have each of them give a short lesson on that topic to the others. Maybe it’s not going to be anything new, or maybe yes. In any case, you will train communication skills and the underline the importance of having a personal opinion on certain matters.

Thanks everybody!

In this occasion, we would like especially to thank our “platinum ambassador” Kalevi “Eetu” Ekman (who introduced enthusiastically the Licence to all the visitors of Aalto Design Factory, Espoo) and our “golden agent” Michele Johnson (who has been constantly reporting to us about her “acting differently” and has been spreading the message in Belgium very actively).

In this TED Talk Derek Sivers illustrates leadership from a new point of view, and with a twist of humor:

http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

Preserve people’s amazing resources, don’t allow anymore waste of potential in soo many daily situations: time to act!

Yay!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/4254866950/in/photostream/

(Image by Dave Gray)