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New Home, New Year

We recently hosted 'A Village Gathers' at our new home on Hunter St.

By Emma Elsworthy / Village News / March 2016

We recently hosted ‘A Village Gathers’ at our new home on Hunter St. To celebrate summer and a new year, we gathered friends of the Village in our new home to share some useful things we’ve learned.

We each spoke about useful ideas from around the world. Here’s a summary of what we shared.

Useful innovation

We’re constantly looking to the world’s best problem solvers for inspiration.

Manoj Bhargava5-hour Energy to change the world through useful innovation. His team is solving the big issues facing the world’s desperately poor; access to energy and clean water. The team has created Free ElectricityLimitless Energy which uses string made from Graphene to bring heat from the depths of the earth to the surface for clean, cheap and limitless power.

Using business as a force for good

Conscious Capitalism is about using business as a force for good. Profit becomes the result of business, not the purpose of it. Building a ‘conscious’ business starts with creating a purpose, or a ‘why’, that’s about more than making money. The entire company is then aligned around this. An example: Clothing company Patagonia exists to save the planet. The Conscious Capitalism framework is detailed in this book by the CEO of Whole Foods.

Non-traditional working hours

Unusual working hours are useful - for the individual, the organisation and the environment. Sweden recently moved to 6-hour working days in a bid to encourage a better work/life balance. In 2008, 24,000 government workers in Ohio moved to a 4 day, 40 hour working week to benefit energy usage, absenteeism and overall productivity. Software company Basecamp routinely adopt a short week during the summer months, leading to a happier, healthier and more productive staff.

Podcasts to help you grow

Podcasts are a great way to learn without taking time out of your day. They’re easy to listen to whilst driving, exercising or cooking. Here are some of our favourites:

• Stuff you should know99% Invisible. A design podcast about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about. Find out why the little green traffic light man is one few East Germany symbols which remain today. • How to do everything Back to Work. An all-too-real talk show focusing on career tools and constraints. Whether ‘email’ is a tool or an obstacle in our work day was recently up for debate.

Bite-sized useful tapas

Alongside the useful talks, we had some bite-sized ‘useful tapas’ in the room for guests to learn useful things while they hang out.