Welcome to my shiny, spanking new home on the interbone! Hope you like it as much as I do. I won't go on and on, but needless to say, I'm very proud of this blog, along with the new DiversityNZ.com hub and Diversityworks Trust site.
Thanks to Dylan Bland and Simon Garner for the awesome design.
It's all part of branding and positioning myself in the crazy old market of creative and social entrepreneurship. It also cements the major shift for me away from the comedian mantle to combine the humour and entertainment with the social change work I am passionate about.
This is the address I made to a forum on the Review of Special Education. The first story is an old legend of the Sioux Nation; the continuation is my own, inspired by the first.
The Creator gathered all of Creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realisation that they create their own reality.”
Freelance journalist Karl du Fresne's recent blog post continues a theme he began in a column in The Dominion Post in February 2008, where he wrote that "a law change requiring intellectually disabled workers to be paid the legal minimum wage was a triumph of human rights ideology over common sense."
So, what's his latest blog about – the inappropriateness of an ideological and statutory change, or the incompetence of one of NZ's largest service providers to competently and progressively respond to that change? I think he is confusing the two and I'm not sure whether he's intentionally doing that – in order to try and argue the point – or not.
His argument as it stands could be like saying we shouldn't allow women to vote because some choose not to; or we shouldn't allow same-sex marriages because some will end in divorce. Based on the democratic capitalistic system we are all beholden to, the repeal of the DPEP Act was consistent with the notion of a fair and just society.
As I watch BP's oil gush into the Gulf, I can't help but feel slightly impotent. I'm not usually one to confuse my manhood with world events.
There's something paralysing about watching the reckless, ravishing waste in my living room each night. It makes me want to stride into somewhere with manly authority, sort it all out and make it stop.
But I can't and that makes me feel limp with inadequacy.
From my experience of seeding initiatives over the past 20 years, here are what I think are key to creating a solid foundation to a new entity or strategy:
On 1 May my proposal for Performing the World 2010: Can Performance Change the World? (PTW 2010) was accepted. The conference received over 200 proposals and I have been picked to be part of the diversity and passion of social change and performance from all over the world. I need to raise about $12000 for the trip to New York.
The sixth Performing the World conference will be held in New York City from Thursday, September 30 through Sunday, October 3, 2010. My presentation will be a talk and workshop punctuated by performance with Tony Lewis, aiming to demonstrate a more dynamic and constructive social paradigm and recognise diversity as more than characteristics like gender, race, disability and sexuality. Participants will leave with a new understanding of our natural synergy of similarity and difference, uniqueness and commonality that exists in all people, in all places, at all times.
Written for 3news.co.nz | 8 April 2010
One of the things I've always loved about Apple products – and the company itself – is how they rethink technology. They have the knack of continually introducing fundamentally new concepts to inspire people to change how they work, play and interact with each other.
Written for The Big Idea | 25 March 2010
It's the year 2150. Two generations have passed since a time in New Zealand history where politicians and bureaucrats tried to control the education of children and young adults by making them go to school, imposing fines if they don't, and insisting they learn certain things.
>From ICP The National Professional Body for Creative Practitioners
"Creative Practitioners Darina Garland and Claudia Barwell met with Ken and his wife Maritherese in New York in December 2009 and recorded this interview especially for ICP. This is a rare opportunity to see Ken and Maritherese interviewed together, talking about creativity, schools, The Element ( Ken’s latest book) and life in general…"
Zeitgeist creator Peter Joseph talks about myth, money and a wiser future.
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=810YM8Gcdl0"]
