Take a look at this amazing video with Kseniya Simonova, the 24 year-old winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent.  

Kseniya does some pretty amazing visual storytelling with an unusal art form - sand drawing.

Amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it.

Is it up to our children to lead the campaign against the abuse of alcohol?

“Don’t get drunk because you hurt people and do stupid things.”

 “You are really scaring me – I don’t like you drinking too much.”

  “Please stop drinking. I want you to be here when I’m older.”

  “If you care about us, you’ll stop drinking.”

 These are the words of primary age children in two West Lothian primary schools.

Thinktastic is using the voices of children in one area of West Lothian to influence community behaviour. Discussing the issue of excessive alcohol with children is a sobering experience. They speak of the impact of drunkenness on their lives – parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, brothers, sisters and groups that hang around street corners or play parks are all conspirators.

 It is a perspective on alcohol rarely heard but the most powerful indictment I‘ve ever come across.

It’s time to put an end to the acceptability of drunkenness as a behavioural norm. Instead let’s see it as it for what it is – a sign of weakness and low self esteem and viewed by children as abhorrent.

Scotland had much to sing about last month, when researchers at Touch Bionics in Livingston unveiled the world’s first bionic fingers, ProDigits they’re called, allowing partial amputees to return to a level of independence they’ve not known before.

A revolutionary invention.

There are 1.2 million partial amputees in the world. This new invention can change so many lives. The Spanish pianist Maria Antonia Iglesias, who lost all the fingers on her right hand and subsequently her concert career, benefited from one of these prototypes in 2008. She says her life now is “like a dream”.

There’s a conversation we need to start having with the young people of Scotland of how this nation – so often tied to its past glories – is still a hub for the scientific progress and innovation. Let’s give our young people aspirations and the drive to believe that Scotland can be their place, a place for a better future.

The Sunday Times recently ran a feature on Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, an enthusiastic and visionary man who, since taking over, raised the College’s rate of A and B grades from 69% to 92%.

So what has he been up to? He wants to put an end to factory schools and believes happiness is at the core of the educational experience. To that effect Wellington College’s curriculum now equips students to nurture happiness themselves by teaching pupils on how to prioritise, how to put things in to perspective, advising them on diet and exercise and some positive thinking techniques. Oval tables were brought into the classroom to promote dialogue and engagement between students and teachers.

One of our nation’s most accessible and creative thinkers, Julian Baggini, has been appointed philosopher-in-residence ; Tony Buzan, the celebrated author of mind-mapping, brought on board as thinker-in-residence.

Seldon believes intelligence is a bit like plasticine – different students will develop their own particular intellectual strand, rather than what’s being fed top-down to them, if given the chance. His motto: “It’s better to be a happy crofter than an unhappy merchant banker”.

Radical I say.

Well folks, much has been written and said about what could have been and what did not happen. So I won’t add to that.

Let’s just say that politicians could sometimes do with listening to really simple ideas that get each and every one of us changing for the better.

The guys at thefuntheory.com have managed to get a whole neighbourhood excited about recycling, thus giving a little hand to this old tired Planet of ours:

How simple is that?

Have a very merry Christmas and don’t forget to do your recycling!

I was recently speaking to second year pupils in Scotland about their hometown.

I asked the students what they thought when someone mentioned the words local authority.

A chirpy soul in the back row replied ‘No ball games’.

Mural guerilla artist Banksy smells a rat

 Language has a powerful impact. Local authorities should be putting positive messages out there, so as to actually connect with residents.

How radical a thought is that? Take the word no out of the picture, and see how much respect you can build with your community.

I smile with delight every time I get an email from the enlightened bunch at trendwatching.com.

They portray the fascinating nature of people and consumerism, and have a soft spot for collaborative, people-led change. I like them. A lot.

Their latest report claims that the thing to watch for 2010 is the global understanding – if not a sense of urgency – about issues of sustainability in every sense of the word.

What does this mean? It means corporate responsibility engrained in business practice. As they put it:
‘This may mean displaying greater transparency and honesty, or having conversations as opposed to one-way advertising, or championing collaboration instead of an us-them mentality. Or, it could be intrinsically about generosity versus greed, or being a bit edgy and daring as opposed to safe and bland’.
 
This is precisely what Thinktastic works at with its clients – creating new and dynamic communications, drawing on the resourcefulness of staff at all levels and developing collaboration between business and customer.

Our motto is less spending on traditional advertising and more investment in people.

And we’ve been busy with such ideas recently.

We revamped the University of Leeds web presence, making the most of the people who inhabit the university by investing in social networks and promoting student-to-student relations. We’ve sprinkled some sparkle over British Gas by focusing on creating the brightest and most inspiring work environment, new exciting pathways for personal development and celebrating staff’s achievements in social responsibility.

So set a sustainability goal for your organisation in 2010. Get in touch with me on mike@thinktastic.co.uk to discuss how I can help you with that.

A lot more than one could initially think of.

Thinktastic ran an event to narrow the gap between students of top schools and poor performance schools. Fee paying St George’s School for Girls and state-school Craigroyston Community High School were our partners in crime.

We asked some of the kids and their headteachers to swap seats and the results were incredible. Not as lethargic as they’re thought of, what these kids really wanted to talk about was the challenges they faced and the negative press teenagers get.

And it worked. Stephen Jardine (of STV fame), gave up his Edinburgh Evening News column for the young people to populate. They did it with aplomb, debunking some of the myths about youth culture and setting out their positive ideas.

We’ve been working with the schools for the last three years and it’s been great. We’ve even won a Business in the Community Award for it.

What has this project taught us?

That young people will articulate their ideas with clarity and imagination if we allow them to and – do you know what? They are less prejudiced about people on the other side of the economic divide than most adults – they will readily share experiences and work together.

Is this the answer to tackling the economic divide?

This weekend I got chatting to John Marshall, a member of the Scottish national football squad (we were both speaking at an event). This is no ordinary player, and it is unlikely you’ll have heard of him through Sky Sports Live.

In fact, until recently John was a homeless alcoholic but thanks to the incredible folk at the Homeless World Cup he has represented Scotland in the 2009 championship, which took place in Italy. Not only that, being part of the team has inspired John to carve a new life – he moved to a flat and is now enrolled in a sports coaching programme at a local college. The street football network inspired him to change his own life.

The Homeless World Cup (HWC) is a great example of lateral thinking by social entrepreneur Mel Young.

Having founded the Scottish Big Issue, Mel hit upon the idea at a conference on street newspapers. Himself and Harald Schmied, his Austrian peer, were looking for ways to bring homeless people from different countries together and quickly stumbled upon the universal language of football. The rest is history.

Lewis Hamilton supports the Homeless World Cup

The latest data from the foundation shows the positive impact the event has on its participants. After the Cape Town event in 2006 35% of players went back home to secure regular employment; 92% stated they had a new motivation for life and about 40% chose to pursue further education.

What could business learn from the Homeless World Cup? That people are an incredible resource.

Give people a chance and a sense of purpose and they’ll deliver incredible results.

I never get tired of watching this video from the guys at thefuntheory.com

Why are these steps which double as a piano so popular?

Because something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better.

Obesity is on the rise (Scotland is second only to the USA in the scale of its problem). What we need is big ideas to shift those attitudes and behaviours that are quite literally killing our citizens.

We know exercise makes us feel better yet our tendency is to avoid it all costs. I am not even talking about the body pumping, burst a blood vessel, sweat buckets variety of exercise – but rather a simple walk to the shops, the occasional jog, a swing of the hips, a stretch to the ceiling or even a walk up the escalator.

Our body craves action yet how many of us persistently deny it of this most basic of desires?