Monday, October 05, 2009

Announcing Dads Change the World, a Parents' Salon, and Shareable.net

Three announcements:

1) I've started a new series over at my Mothering magazine blog: "Twenty-Five Ways for Dads to Change the World." Here's the introduction and here's the first entry, "Attend every prenatal class and doctor's appointment."

2) I'll be reading with Daddy Dialectic contributor Tomas Moniz at Book Zoo in Oakland, California, to celebrate the release of the fifteenth issue of the Independent Press Award-winning 'zine Rad Dad: November 6 at 7 pm.

3) My new employer, Shareable.net, launched (softly) last week. The basic argument of Shareable is that there is a generation coming up whose sensibilities have been shaped by peer-to-peer file swapping, social media, and open source programming, and that sharing is actually becoming necessary (and even profitable) in offline areas of life due to a combination of technological innovation and ecological crisis.

So at Shareable.net we'll be pulling together stuff like Zipcar, equally shared parenting, Kiva, Facebook, cohousing, Burning Man, etc. all under the same umbrella, in order to explore how a specific worldview (that we can generate value by sharing what we have) is being implemented by different people working in different areas of life and the economy. We're just playing with that idea, holding these things up together so that we can see what they have in common and how they can be replicated. For a better sense of Shareable's philosophy, see Janelle Orsi's essay, "Four Degrees of Sharing."

Also of possible interest to Daddy Dialectic readers: "What's your carbon Footprint?" in which I ask: Can the California Academy of Sciences help families see themselves as part of the solution? I talk with tourists about the impact of the museum's climate change exhibit.

No comments: