By Hesseltje S. van Goor
Last monday, July 6th, the UK-based National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) organised RebootBritain, a public event where social entrepreneurs, activists, policy-makers and social thinkers had a chance to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing Britain today. As part of this discussion, organisers invited participants to make their own idea of what would help to reboot Britain ... in Lego blocks.
Why? The idea is that building with the hands prompts different ways of thinking ... ideas emerge ... the process gives a voice to the regular delegates at this grand event with big-name speakers ... and everyone is drawn to view each others' interesting, clever, pretty models.
The exercise produced a collection of fun images for sparking dialogue and action:
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| Create digital knitting for others to unravel |
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| Push the balance towards community and collaboration, not personal leadership |
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| Creative minimalism |
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| Don't be scared to take a risk and take your idea on a journey |
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| Looking at problems and solutions from new angles |
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| Building bridges across social divides |
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| Shout about it! |
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| Looking back and moving forward (how to learn from the past to make the future we need) |
Additional resources, if you're interested:
* The original flickr photo set for this collection of Lego images
* A resource website for those who want to learn more about David Gauntlett's premise that "making is connecting"
* Resources and articles directly from this year's RebootBritain conference, available on the NESTA website.
David - hats off to you! What a wonderful initiative and to have engaged everyone through the LEGO Serious Play process must have been very powerful.
Posted by: denise meyerson on 16 Jul 09
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