kicking intention into action, taking names at #clfbc

Cindy & Craig, tearing it up at the 2010 Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp* 

Last Saturday, IfWeRanTheWorld completed a microaction for the organizers of the 2010 Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp - a microaction that, as it happens, speaks to one of the very challenges IWRTW looks to change.  The CLF crew didn’t want their conference to go the way of many (most?) others in that they would generate oodles & oodles of good intentions that ultimately go absolutely nowhere.

For those of you who don’t know what Boot Camp is:

Held at UC Berkeley, the Boot Camp is an intensive one-day workshop that attracts around 1,500 influential community and nonprofit leaders who are passionate about strengthening their communities and neighborhoods. The goal of Boot Camp is to give people the tools and inspiration to put their ideas for community empowerment into action. (quoted from The Bay Citizen’s great coverage of the day)

Boot Camp organizers wanted to put the teeth into that bit about ideas-into-action, and collaborated with IfWeRanTheWorld to create a surround-sound get-off-your-good-intentions-and-microact experience.  Cindy set the tone when, just after the keynote, she oriented the assembled bootycampers around the day’s action agenda:

• Cards that said “Inspired?  What are you going to do about it it?” were given to every attendee.  When the spirit moved them - in a session, in a conversation, over coffee - they should capture what action they were going to take off the back of the energy & inspiration of the day.
• They brought these cards to the TAKE ACTION WALL, on which they were posted (and later captured by the IWRTW team, who was also on hand to cajole, cackle, entice, engage)
• In our new & livid-pink “If you ran the world, what would you do?” tshirts (which proved to be so livid popular that we’ve got a few orders - reply to this post if you want to be similarly emblazoned) we attended sessions & collected microactions on the fly.

The Boot Camp team is - as I type - creating the actionplatforms, inviting folks to do them, etc.  You’ll be able to find all of this on their Boot Camp hub - it should be ready by early next week. 

Their goal is to track the progress being made over the course of the year & make this one of their read-outs in the 2011 event - as in, WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED REALLY?

We got a ton of great ideas - microactions & actionplatforms alike.  And the day was a great inspiration to all of us.  What an incredibly bright, passionate and fun assemblage of folks.  I hold my hand to my heart and bow to Paige, Mat, Susan and the rest of the bootylicious crew who helped make this year’s event a storming success - and for including us as a part of their team of superfriends.

fistbump,

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PS:  If you have a conference or meeting that you want to translate into action that is viewable over time (and you would like a saucy crew to help you make it happen) email me!

*This magnificent shot is by Jon Bauer, who says he is ‘mostly doing this stuff for fun’ but who is, you know, extraordinary & should be mostly doing this stuff period.

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