"It's like looking inside a box of miracles and being exposed to the guts of change ... If you have a vision and want to know what it takes to turn it into reality, read this book." That's what this Fast Company magazine reviewer says about David Gershon's book, Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing our World. Gershon, with moderator Andy Revkin, is a presenter in SCUP's October 20th Campus Sustainability Day 8 webcast on October 20. Purchase the book here and SCUP gets a tiny percentage at no cost to you!

David started big with the First Earth Run, an 86-day worldwide event and celebration in 1986. Runners carried a torch, encircling the globe. Beginning at the United Nations the flame passed through 62 countries. It was seen first-hand by millions and millions more on TV as it ignited a dream of global unity … .

The stories are compelling. The difficulties he faces, from silly bureaucratic hurdles to real-life emergencies, often appear to threaten and unravel each initiative. But, then David shows us how these very challenges are turned to advantage, becoming the basis for personally motivated change. It's like looking inside a box of miracles and being exposed to the guts of change, which are chaotic, happenstance, and often crushing. Yet, it is these difficult circumstances that Social Change 2.0 builds upon to generate massive, impressive results. If you have a vision and want to know what it takes to turn it into reality, read this book.

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution"

Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink, authors, respectively, of the books - Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age - are interviewed for Wired magazine. The conversation was "about motivation and media, social networking, sitcoms, and why the hell people spend their free time editing Wikipedia." Free time you ask? Well, there are people who have some, especially those (like me) who watch no television. What Shirky and Pink talk about is how that time is now "put to use" instead of "used up." 

A thought-stimulating, brief interview:

Shirky: We’re still in the very early days. So far, it’s largely young people who are exploring the alternatives, but already they are having a huge impact. We can do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, for example, using Wikipedia, to see how far we still have to go. All the articles, edits, and arguments about articles and edits represent around 100 million hours of human labor. That’s a lot of time. But remember: Americans watch about 200 billion hours of TV every year.

Pink: Amazing. All the time that people devote to Wikipedia—which that guy considered weird and wasteful—is really a tiny portion of our worldwide cognitive surplus. It’s less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the total.

Shirky: And it represents a very different and very powerful type of motivation.

Pink: Exactly. Too many people hold a very narrow view of what motivates us. They believe that the only way to get us moving is with the jab of a stick or the promise of a carrot. But if you look at over 50 years of research on motivation, or simply scrutinize your own behavior, it’s pretty clear human beings are more complicated than that.