I read a great piece in this month's Wired following their interview with eye-wateringly purrty supermodel, Lily Cole.
Did you know that the average Londoner knows just one neighbour? I, an average jane, London resident did not. But model and actress Lily Cole did. She says - "I travel a lot and I'm always surprised by the strong sense of community in some countries. We've lost something fundamentally human and we don't even realise it." I have to say, I couldn't agree more with the alluring ginger lass. I do think that major social shifts in our society have caused us all to morph into what I now dub 'Battery Humans', thanks to the British alternative indie folk band Stornoway. They wrote -
Where are we goin' this fine morning,
What are we doin' this fine day
We're doin' the same as every morning
We're stayin' inside on this fine morning
Stayin' inside on this fine day
We'll stare at a screen, like ev'ry morning
I'm a pretty outgoing, friendly gal. The fact that I am Irish certainly bodes well for me to this affect. But in the two years i've been living here, I can't help but notice how hard it can actually be to meet new people if you're not willing to really put yourself out there. I find that the majority of people in this city are so busy keeping up with their own daily grind, the grind that involves more than just their obligation to there professional life but to their virtual life too...
During a trip to the Thai-Burmese border in 2010, Lily came up with an idea: a social network built around giving. "Social media is popular because it feeds into our desire to be connected," she says. "I want to transport that into real life, with real value."
Cole's social network, Impossible, has been designed for users to meet and essentially help each other out. Users post requests (say, "I need a haircut"), and anyone in their local network can offer to help. The emphasis is on giving, rather than bartering. "Giving triggers social cohesion," says the 24 year old modelpreneur. "It's also the basis for an economy not based on money. Impossible will facilitate that via social media."
Impossible is currently in beta and it is still self-funded. But with advisers like Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and economist Hazel Henderson, the pudding has every chance of being full of proof. Lily admitted in her interview with Wired, that Impossible is a "utopian idea", but she's clearly dead-set on making it reality.
I do hope she's right. I don't want to be a battery human... I was born to be free range.
B
