James Samuel

My ears pricked up when I heard that heads of state and the financial elite are acknowledging that we are in …the “age of damage”, where “social media creates a world of radical transparency”. 
The suggestion by the founder of the WEF summit, Prof Klaus Schwab that: “Capitalism in its current form no longer fits the world around us,” shows the depth of change which social media has brought to our world.

Trading through a Facebook group, is so simple and natural, and after all it’s where the crowd is. After only a few weeks, membership of the “Waiheke Trading” Facebook is up to 660 members, and the Waiheke community are embracing it with alacrity.

Are we in a period of increasing unpredictability, the present being a taste of things to come? Does this chaos provide an opportunity to be part of shaping the future, being a co-creator of the desired and plausible future?

Here’s the Prezi I created to guide the five hour Social Media session with Otago Polytechnic’s heads of department. I’m posting it here as a resource for the people who attended that event, as there are a number of videos and links we didn’t have time to explore fully on the day. View this on [...]

I discovered this tool yesterday, while looking for a timeline of the evolution of social media technology. I decided to create my own timeline of how I’ve used social media, since embracing email back in 1985.

There has been a distinct increase in dialogue around energy in the last year, and I hear a growing acceptance of the idea that we live on a finite planet and will either reduce the amount of energy we demand from this planet, or hit some version of a brick wall when that demand cannot be met. Maybe we’re there already, we’re just not hitting the wall at a speed and therefore we’re not recognising it.

In New Zealand we have so many opportunities for redesigning our world in a positive manner, and embracing the uncertainty of these times we live in. Be gentle with yourself and each other, do your own research and seek out ways you can become part of the solution. The possibilities for the future are endless, and it’s up to each and every one of us to find where we can or feel moved to contribute, and play our part in singing a brighter and healthier future into existence.

Software is being developed to facilitate vegetable box schemes, offering practical community benefits where ever it is used, and being software it can be used everywhere. The idea is to make is easy to coordinate the collection (gathering) of local food, and then the redistribution of it, in a consistent and predicatable manner. It will create opportunities to entrepreneurial types to quickly begin a local business that benefits eaters (all of us) and growers alike.

The strength of Egypt’s youth-led revolutionary movement has been “the fact that it represented every political strain, every segment and class in Egyptian society. If 21st century revolutionaries want their revolution to turn the world, they will make their inclusive diversity into the greatest strength of their emergent democracy.

The buzz in the TelstraClear events stadium was palpable from the minute we arrived for the ACDA Regional Communities Summit. First the enthusiastic ushers directed people to the table where we were requested to offer a single word, to describe our response to the theme of the day: “Act locally, work regionally, work together.”