#projectpotential

I had a conversation with my friend Siddhi a few days back in which we both lamented the fact that our entire lives as quote-on-quote social entrepreneurs had started to become a performance for those who somehow have the power, money, and status to validate our dreams.  We have to learn to tell stories that people will be awed by or that we know will get particular reactions. In the process, it’s easy to lose track of what the real story or reality is.  What is it that we really want?  What do our communities want?  What do we need?  

Right now, I’m working on my third initiative in the last four years, and this time, I refuse to get disconnected from myself or from my community.  This open book is about reclaiming my own story and journey more than anything else.  This time, I refuse to be a masquerading purveyor of stories entrapped in a rat race towards status and funds.  

The thing is, the world I want to live in functions on a different logic -- one based on meaningful relationships and co-creation, not on competition between people. One of the main problems with competition is that in order for someone to win, everyone else has to lose. As a result, winners become those of status, while losers naturally are those of low status.  These notions get woven into social norms, invisible, yet omnipresent, like gravity, weighing down on all of the value judgments we make of others.  These seemingly simple underlying assumptions cast a long shadow, as they justify the continuing of an education system based on the idea that all people fight and compete in their convergence toward one “right” answer, one “right” way of being.  

In contrast, this open book and its underlying experience is based on a different set of assumptions -- that all human beings are unique and have something to contribute to the world if they are simply given a chance. A chance means tolerance towards difference, not scathing value judgments by others; a chance means an open platform for hearing and sharing new ideas, not a machine-like box, with fixed rules; a chance means a chance to fail without fear.   

With this idea in mind, we are building a university - a space for higher learning and research. However, we don’t know exactly what we’ll build, because, well, that depends on what our members see as necessary in accordance with their own beings, the community, and the environment.  The idea of this open book is to document how this community emerges -- the individual journeys and transformations; the structures, co-creation, and conflicts at the group level; and the larger changes in the group’s shared thinking and assumptions.  You can think of it like recording the ebbs, flows, colors, and shapes formed in a lava lamp over time.  

   Last year 18 per cent of Market Rasen’s high street was vacant. To decrease this rate a group of volunteers, now known as MR BIG (Market Rasen Big Improvement Group), joined forces to generate ideas for ways in which these empty high street shops could be utilised.

   Over the past eight months MR BIG has transformed the high street into a hive of activity hosting themed monthly markets and transforming two of the vacant shops, as well as, introducing an arts and crafts festival. But there’s more to be done.

    Project Potential – a series of events which aim to fill the vacant premises of Market Rasen; the idea being that someone, or something, pops up in one of the vacant shops for a duration of two days, recognises the business potential and chooses to permanently trade from that shop. It is hoped each event would have its own theme, such as music or theatre, attracting dynamic audiences and not only benefiting Market Rasen’s high street but also new and existing businesses; the predominant long-term benefit being that Market Rasen has the potential to achieve a 0 per cent vacancy rate.

    But in order for Project Potential to be successful ideas are needed! So, if you were given an empty space for the duration of two days what would you do? And remember, think BIG!

Tweet ideas to: - @Project_Po or @KayPx