The Future

January 21, 2022 by albertkaufman

How to Prepare for the Future

When I have started various projects in the past I’ve usually thought of the people who would participate in them as being my peers – people my age. But eventually, we all grow old and can no longer carry on our visions and need next generations to take over. I’ve always been fascinated by organizations like SAGE in Portland, Oregon which understand this aspect of life very well.

SAGE: “We are a community of advocates who believe that each generation should improve the quality of life for the next.

Everyone is an asset, despite their age. People over fifty have energy, wisdom, and resources that are vital to the well-being of our communities. Through workshops, discussions, and leadership development, SAGE inspires and supports adults to give forward so younger and future generations thrive.”

SAGE helps facilitate all sorts of projects with a big part of what they’re about being the passing along of skills to future generations. My own projects like Farm My Yard really haven’t been built with that concept in mind. I just figured I’d do what I do – get things started and then people would pick up the idea and run with it and it would spread hither and yon over time and continue as long as needed. This is what happened with an organization I helped boost in 2003 – Freecycle.

In 2003 I came back from my 3rd Burning Man in the Nevada desert and I had really gotten interested in the gifting economy. Through the Utne Reader I learned of a small effort in Tucson, AZ that was all about using a Yahoo group to offer up one’s belongings and see who wanted them. They had grown to 1,000 members. I got busy starting a Portland version of the service and also started groups for many major cities in the U.S. and the world. One friend suggests that I did more to keep things out of the landfill than anyone alive. Freecycle’s success eventually led to a “free” section on Craig’s List and today’s very popular Buy Nothing Project which has relied on local Facebook groups for its growth and success. In this example, I have no doubt that something like this example of the gifting economy will easily outlive me. But what about things where I have been less successful in getting the project off the ground like Farm My Yard?

One way to make sure that whatever you’re doing spreads is to think about how to attract the very young to what you’re doing. That’s not always the easiest thing to consider. How can a 60-year old writer/thinker in Portland, Oregon transmit an idea to younger generations around the country and world? Well, kids love games and so perhaps through the use of gaming, there might be an opportunity to attract younger minds and hearts to the idea of urban gardening. That is what brought me into connection with X and I’m definitely interested in seeing if this might be a way to teach young people the magic of growing your own food, but perhaps also to consider learning how to spread that knowledge and interest into their lives for good.

This site full of cooking and gardening games for kids seems to fit that bill. I thought I’d try out Veggiezilla – and I can see how this might be a great way to get kids interested in growing vegetables.

The game is simple yet entertaining. That said, I’m going to have to try to find some young kids to take it for a test drive and see what they think of it! I’m going to ask folks who follow the Farm My Yard FB page to see if their kids take to it. This New Looney Tunes Veggie Patch game also looks like fun.

This one doesn’t seem to teach in a clear way as the first one above, but heck I know that different kids learn differently. In any case, these games seem like an interesting way to approach future generations that are given tablets at a young age. I’d be curious to hear your thinking below in the comments section. Do you think this is a good direction in addition to getting kids to get their hands dirty by actually digging in the dirt and planting things? My sense is that the more different kinds of information kids get the more likely they are to pick up the habit of growing food. I also think they might really need to understand these systems better in the future given the kinds of supply chain challenges we are seeing these days. Again, I’d love to hear what you think.

Thanks for reading. Here’s to a better year ahead.

Albert Kaufman

Filed Under: The Future Tagged With: children, eating, encouraging, farming, mentoring, teaching, the future, urban farming, youth

Facebook as Diary – What will your Legacy Be?

October 22, 2013 by albertkaufman 1 Comment

Your Legacy

Once upon a time, people wrote in diaries. If you wanted to learn what your grandmother was thinking, you could read her diary and learn how she met your grandfather. If the diary was kept, if it was legible, if it made it from point A into your hands! Now, fast forward to today – a time when many of us are keeping our “diaries” up to date on a daily (if not hourly) basis on Facebook and other internet sites. If we want to – the keys to our accounts could be passed along to our offspring or friends and our online identities (diaries) could be kept up for a long time, possibly forever! Anyone who wants to can pretty easily turn their online musings into a website that should last a long long time.

I was pondering this concept on a trip to the Oregon coast this past weekend. What might it be like for future generations to be able to go back in time and review what their parents and grandparents were doing – that intimate look could be so useful to a biographer, sibling, or anyone, really.

That led me to rethink a little what we post on-line. I keep finding value in sharing what I’m doing on Facebook and beyond. I think I’m now conceiving it as a way to inform people of my various projects – to get assistance, but also for a reason I had never thought of before. Have you ever been somewhere and someone approached you – a Facebook-only friend? And, it turns out that they know something about you though you might not know much about them. Or, vice versa. I have this experience frequently. This weekend at the beach, I stumbled on a group of women who were sitting around a lovely campfire on the beach. It turned out that I knew 3 of the women, and was FB friends with a few more. That instant recognition and also their general knowledge of what I’m up to in the world led to a level of welcome and appreciation that = reputation. My reputation at that moment was not “stranger” it was – “someone we know who does good things in the world”. That, in turn, led to a level of welcome/hospitality that was very helpful at that moment and pleasant.

So, the reasons to share with the world what you’re thinking seem to continue to grow. People often ask me what/why to post on social networks – here are a couple of answers to that question. Somewhat we’re all flying on blind faith that this is useful, and if I come up with more reasons why this is good practice (besides some other obvious ones – connecting you with people you want to know – finding resources that you seek – finding help with projects, etc) I will share them here. Can you think of any reasons that are interesting why a person might want to post on social networks?

Filed Under: Diary Tagged With: associates, diaries, diary, friends, the future

Portland3000

December 31, 2008 by albertkaufman Leave a Comment

This is a post I wrote on BlueOregon yesterday. The comments are interesting and worth reading.

“I’ve been walking around my neighborhood lately, and have noticed lots of spray-painted areas where sidewalks are cracked and are to be repaired. My thoughts when I see this is: are we really spending all of this money to replace something that’s just going to break (either through tree roots pushing up sidewalks, or regular wear and tear) again in the not too distant future? If we were thinking 50-100-200 years into the future – we might consider different solutions – perhaps leaning towards removing asphalt rather than replacing it. And all of the money going into turning corners into easier-to-use corners (ADA accessible), that really makes me wonder – isn’t there a cheaper way to turn what we have into something that can be biked/skate-boarded or roller-skated on and off of – like a small ramp instead of completely re-doing, and re-pouring the sidewalks seems like a good start to me. Anyway, that got me to thinking about how we might be doing things differently if we were planning for a Portland 100 or 1,000 years from now.

We all know cheap oil is going away – so that probably also means the cheap fixing of our streets is also going away. So, I’m mostly wondering out loud here, but I guess I’m posing the question and I’m curious what people think about the concept of long-range planning.

For instance: we all know that putting on chains and studded snow tires wrecks our roads. So, why didn’t the message come out loud and clear over the past 2 weeks: Please don’t drive unless it is absolutely necessary. Why wasn’t that transmitted loud and clear by every government agency with a loudspeaker/blog/radio transmitter/e-mail/TV, etc.? Instead, we heard that we should support the economy through shopping, and get to work, if possible. During the storm I wondered to myself, do we have the ability to stop if we need to? I’ll rephrase it – when it makes sense for our society to come to a stop – for our own good, for our own economic good – are we capable of doing so? My sense is that the damage done to our roads by people driving with chains and studded tires far outweighed the profits made by area retailers. And I know, local retailers are hurting, no doubt about that. I’m not trying to be insensitive here, but am trying to make a few points about how looking down the road a few years, we might do things differently.

We seem to be on a very “live for today” diet in this country. If we were looking further down the road how might we do things differently? Portland Mayor, Sam Adams wants to plant 80,000 trees in a year. If we were envisioning a future where we had to grow more of our food (I do), might we want to plant 80,000 fruit and nut trees a year, starting now? How about policies that make it really simple to grow food in your yard and sell or share that with your neighbors – how about a City Urban Ag department – helping Portland transition into a city that grows more of its own food?

What kinds of changes would you suggest as you consider Portland 100, 200 or 1,000 years from now? And, fill in your City/State here: Bend 3000? Oregon 3000?

We can do better.