What's #3x2x8? .... more about #CV2050

There's a lot of stuff going on in the Comox Valley. Period.

It's a place with plenty of beauty, plenty of energy, and plenty of opportunities. But frankly, with so much going on it's hard to do it all.

I'm working on a project that's related to the Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy (CVSS). My goal is to cut through some of the noise and vagueness around "sustainability." I want to make it real, tangible, and accessible. How am I going to do that? Good question. My answer: #3x2x8.

What's #3x2x8? 
#3x2x8 is the product of some conversations between David Stapley, Meaghan Cursons, and me. We wanted a simple, straightforward way to stimulate and deepen the conversation about sustainability in the Comox Valley. We also wanted something that would sustain and change over the coming months and years as all of us work towards making this place more resilient and thriving home. It looks like this.

3 = 3 questions
2 = 2 community leaders
8 = 8 pillars of sustainability

3 questions...

1. What part of the Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy excites you?
2. What will be the challenges in implementing the Sustainability Strategy in the Comox Valley?
3. In what ways do you think your [pick one point of view]
• community organization
• business 
• local government 
• neighbourhood .... can work with [pick 1-3]
  
• local government 
• neighbourhoods
• businesses
• community organization ... to help create a sustainable Comox Valley?
  

2 community leaders...
I'm doing video interviews of 16 community leaders (2 leaders x 8 pillars) and posting them to YouTube and Facebook.

How did we make our choices of who to interview? A real challenge in a community as diverse as ours, with so many folks in leadership roles. We plunged in and took a first step, inviting folks who've taken a lead in being involved one of the 8 pillars of "sustainability" in our community. Generally they're members of the CVSS working groups.

See some gaps in our leadership roster? Great! Please take our #3x2x8 template and interview the folks you think were missed. Post them to Facebook or YouTube or VIMEO – and tag them: #CV2050 #3x2x8.


Why are we using the #3x2x8 strategy?
One reason is simplicity. Our 48 responses won't cover all aspects or viewpoints on what sustainability in the Comox Valley is, or what the Comox Valley might look like in the year 2050. But they will start a conversation. And that's where you come in.

Whenever you take this #3x2x8 template and work with it, play with, challenge it, whatever – whenever you do this you're helping us extend and deepen this conversation about sustainability and the Comox Valley.

Maybe you'll use it as a conversation starter at a party. Or maybe youll ask your friends or family members over lunch or dinner. See if one of them wants to do an interview. Take your digital camera, ask the 3 questions, make a little video of your interview with a neighbour – or your son, sister, best friend, boss, or the cute girl at the grocery store. Tag it. Post it.

If you're inclined to write, do a written interview and post it on our Facebook page, or on the "do the #3x2x8 interview" page on our blog here at www.CV2050.com

It's just the beginning...
Just the start of the conversation... and action on sustainability in the Comox Valley
#3x2x8 isn't the end of the conversation about sustainability in the Comox Valley. But I'm hoping that it's a good way to get more people talking and playing with something that's important to me: making this beautiful place I call home an even better place in the decades to come.

hpm
October 26, 2009

Your opp to do the #3x2x8 interview...

3 questions for community leaders, citizens, taxpayers, neighbours, friends, family....
1. What part of the Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy excites you?
2. What will be the challenges in implementing the Sustainability Strategy in the Comox Valley?
3. In what ways do you think your [pick one point of view]
a) community organizations
b) business
c) local government
d) neighbourhood
can work with [pick 1-3]
a) local government
b) neighbourhood
c) business
d) community organization
to help create a sustainable Comox Valley?

Please use the comment form to add to our #3x2x8 conversation about #CV2050.
It's not about coming up with "the right answer."
It's about contributing to a conversation about the kinds of changes that you, me, everybody in the Comox Valley is going to be going through as we move towards a more sustainable, more prosperous, more thrivable community.

Please #tag with #CV2050!

Please #tag with #CV2050!

Tags are a great way for everyone online to keep track of events and activities. Because we want CV2050 activities and events (real-space/real-time, as well as virtual/online) to be widely accessible and to live and influence beyond real-time/real-space, we're asking everyone who is posting online (Twitter, blogs, Flickr, YouTube, VIMEO, Facebook, etc etc) to "tag" their posts with #CV2050. Adding the tag helps others to follow what's going on before, during, and after whatever any or all of us do around the intention of stimulating and deepening the "sustainability conversation" in the Comox Valley. 

Thanks!

ps. for more info on how #hashtags work...http://www.techforluddites.com/2009/02/the-twitter-hash-tag-what-is-it-and-how-do-you-use-it.html

#CV2050 Google map – Yours to annotate!

Yes, I know I said it'd be a cool thing if someone created a #CV2050 Google map that all of us who care about the Comox Valley could annotate. But it's so easy, and I'd rather be doing this than packing for my trip to Vancouver tomorrow... so here it is! A #CV2050 Google map. Ready for annotations!

To be fair, I googled "comox valley google maps" and found a great map already annotated for volunteer groups. A good place to start. Volunteer organizations are the heart of our communities. If we're going to have a resilient, thriving community in the Comox Valley in 2050, we'll probably owe some of that reality to the folks working and playing and enriching life through the organizations on this map. Thanks to whoever put together the original volunteer map!


But a thriving, sustainable community is more than volunteer organizations...
We also want to know things that only you can share. What's your favourite place, and why? What are the critical salmon streams? Where's a good place for a picnic? What's your favourite place to walk or cycle or spend time with friends?

We don't want to create a gold rush mentality about special private places, but we do want to give some texture and cultural depth (that means things like attaching family and community stories to places) to geographic locations. Sometimes it's just enough to put a heart as an annotation (♥ or <3 works).

Show us the love you feel for this place.

Tell us what you're concerned about.

Tell us a story about how you'd like to see some change (maybe you want to see a brownfield site – that's land use talk for: industrial lands – rehabilitated, or a vacant lot turned into a park or playground or maybe a community centre or even a commercial centre; go for it!).

Sustainability comes in many flavours. #CV2050 is about stimulating a rich, colourful banquet of voices in conversation about what the Comox Valley is going to look like in 2050, and how it's going to get there.

Want to play? ;-)


hpm

View #CV2050 in a larger map

What exactly is this thing, #CV2050?

It all started with a little chat in the garden...
Right now #CV2050 is the brainchild of three people – David Stapley, Meaghan Cursons, and Hans Peter Meyer. We sat down one evening in the summer of 2009 to mull over things like "sustainability,"

the "Comox Valley" (the place we've been calling home for quite a few years).

David is newly involved with the 2009 Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy on a professional basis. Meaghan and Hans are long-time participants and observers of "things sustainability" in the Comox Valley and elsewhere. Meaghan's made a huge impact in this region through her long-time involvement in IslandMusicFest, among many, many other things. Hans – that's me – I used to work with the Communities Institute of BC, and I've been writing about "sustainability" stuff since the mid-90s. David has been doing "community development" work with youth, non-profit/NGOs, and local government for about 15 years in the region. We've got some history, lots of personal investment in our communities, and lots of passion about this place.

Needless to say, our little chat quickly grew past the CVSS process to wondering: OK, so we get a sustainability strategy. Then what?

Our dream... an animated conversation that leads to action!
Did I say we're a pretty passionate trio? Did I already mention that we love the Comox Valley?

We know that we're not alone here. So, although we like (very, very much) that local government is sponsoring the CVSS, we also think that this is not enough. We think that the "sustainability conversation" needs to get way past what's happening through CVSS. We're not armchair sustainabilitistas. We want to see "stuff happen" in real-time/real-space, not just policy/planning space.

Our dream with CV2050 is that it picks up and stimulates the local sustainability conversation. This needs to be more than a policy-related, local government strategic planning convo. Whatever "sustainability" means to anyone of us here in the Comox Valley, it does mean change. It does mean action. At many levels. Talking about it is a step towards making positive change happen more quickly.

So here's the idea: leverage available resources for max impact... 

We're just 3 independent citizens. We'll use whatever resources we've got to stimulate the convo. Thanks to the CVSS process, there's a little bit of cash to pay for sparking the first efforts: the 3x2x8 project (I'll be posting on that soon...). The bulk of our resources right now, however, are our volunteer time and or passion about this place.

What we can do with our resources is catch and support the buzz about the sustainability convo here in the Comox Valley. We hope that others – people like you, and others who care about life in the Comox Valley – will find ways to pick it up, make it real in your real-time convos with family, friends, co-workers, etc. Our focus is on using "social media" – videos on YouTube and VIMEO, Facebook, Twitter posts, and this blog, for example. We know this has its limits. Some will say that it's only young people who use this stuff. Well, I'm not "young" any more. My mother's using some of these tools. And more and more of us over 50 and over 70 are learning how to do the "social media thing."

What we do know is that using social media is a very efficient way for new ideas and new conversations to circulate. They are also very effective ways for a lot of people to jump into and out of the convo. We encourage you to follow our postings. Comment on them. Use them as a template.

Want to play?
Pick up a camera or a recorder or keyboard. Create your own posts (and please, please, please tag everything #CV2050 – this helps keep track of the convo on the internet).

One of the projects we don't have time for right now is an annotated Google Map of the Comox Valley. If I have time I'll create a "CV2050" map and post a link here. I'm hoping someone (or a bunch of someones) does the Google Maps thing and starts to annotate the "special places" of this landscape. [Note: I could't wait folks. The CV2050 Google map, ready for annotating is here!]

So that's it. CV2050. 3 passionate citizens of the Comox Valley, wanting to stimulate and deepen the conversation about sustainability in our community and region.

Want to play?

hpm

Related articles

• Development Issues: June 2009 - First Thoughts on: Social Media, Virtual Community, and Real-time/Real-space Conversation (development-issues.com)
• Thrivability, Sustainability, Comox Valley = #CV2050 = Lottsa fun! (hanspetermeyer.com)