Göteborg's Sustainability Jam

I've been postponing this post, not because I didn't want to write it, but because I wanted to be very thorough and read up a lot before writing it. To that you add that I got a job, and the possibilities of posting about Göteborg's Sustainability Jam were going down the drain. So... this is as thorough as it gets. Sorry about that... but better some than none.

So: The 28th to the 30th of October just passed there was a multi-location event called a Sustainability Jam. It is basically an open innovation lab where people could enroll and participate with other motivated strangers brainstorming and proposing ideas around Sustainability, focusing on the given topic of Playgrounds. Göteborg had such an event, with at least other 6 locations.

You can read extensively about the event held in Göteborg at their blog, that was created simultaneously by dedicated collaborators. It has some posts in Swedish, but it manages to maintain a good "Swenglish" (Swedish-English) that allows for outsiders understanding. In that blog you find the videos, comments and thoughts that where popping up during the event:

http://sustainabilityjamgoteborg.wordpress.com/

Participants mingling in the first get-to-know-eachother dynamic. Photo by Emmy Jonsson, taken from the Sustainability Jam Göteborg Blog

But the overall purpose of a group of volunteering enthusiast to freely put down their weekend to meet others in order to do fun, but yet exhausting, work is to produce an outcome. What would that be? Propose some sort of working prototype on an idea that they managed to push forward with 48 hours of snappy teamwork and decision making. That outcome has all been posted up for safe keeping and public delight into the Global Sustainability Jam webpage.

Unfortunately I have not had time to go into all the projects, just peeked into a few... but they look very promising. My fear is that in these times of over-saturated communication, these type of initiative get buried into oblivion. That would be a true shame. They are interesting ideas, put front for people to think on and hopefully further develop. Some groups had it in them to say, "Sure, I have time now to dedicate to this further.", some didn't. I personally do hope that the majority of these well intended projects can keep their momentum up and running. Thus taking the step further from thinking and talking about sustainability, to the proposing (done on that hectic weekend) to finally doing something.

At least, gathering people and proposing solutions is doing. Or?