HUMANITY 4.0 ARTICLES: The Origins of Spreading Good Examples

The Origins of Spreading Good Examples

We have had landmark projects and light-tower examples of spreading good practice - examples on how to make a difference since the early Fifties!

Many key personalities in building knowledge bases for creating better societies have been involved and met around Future Studies.

First and foremost worth mentioning are the "Good-News-Bulletins" from the 50ies, The Dolphin Solutions (Delphin-Lösungen) in 1993 and the Catalogue of Hope (Katalog der Hoffnung) initiated by Robert Jungk, later assisted by Walter Spielmann.

In the early Seventies, the Norwegian Kjell Dahle founded the Ideas Bank. Around the same time, James Wellesley-Wesley, Robert Jungk and Anthony Judge were involved with Mankind 2000, printing the first edition of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential in 1976. This is an on-going and on-line collection of not just problems, but also of human potentials, actions, options, strategies for solving them. Do not miss: http://uia.org

In 1980, Jakob von Uexkuell founded the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), and published "Project of Hope" in 1990. In 1985, Nicholas Albery founded the Institute for Social Inventions, which created the Database of Social Inventions and published 'The Book of Visions: an Encyclopaediea of Social Innovations' in 1992.

In the same year, adventurer Christopher Bubbles travelled up the American East Coast for 2,500 miles in a makeshift recycling raft, advocating a positive future and spreading positive news within a 'Positive News Network' using playful means such as audio tape cycles. On the other side of the Atlantic, Shauna Crockett Burrows started Positive News Publ. Ltd. UK in 1993, and works with Jane Taylor doing print versions in various languages.

In 1995, Heiner Benking started the 'Seeds of Change' collection in the Viewsletter for the Club of Budapest. In 1998, JOY aka Joerg Lohmann founded Positive Nett-Works and embarked on the future-raft adventure. Since the World Exposition expo2000 in Germany, the crew has been collecting 'messages in the bottle' with peoples' hopes, dreams and visions for the future, has united youth, politicians and surprise guests in 'treasure mapping', collecting, discussing and presenting positive projects in the public and various media.

Now, here's PNYV!

Much positive ideas, many solutions are known, but they have to go beyond the individual knowing and applying them, have to be spread to others who share and distribute in order to have more and more people apply, learn from them and improve on the way, in an endless circle of hope and good practice.

So - enjoy it, and if the spirit of positive change turns you on - get involved!

Eric Schneider,

with gratitude to Heiner Benking for the deep insight into important threads of our common history of positive thinking and pragmatic alternatives.

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