Does anyone know any financial engineers and Wall Street wunderkinds we could play a card like this on?

Slideshow

I am a true believer in the power of reflection. Artifacts light up dim neural pathways, keeping them front of mind. Enjoy the pictures. If you were in the room, take a moment to reflect on what was going on at the time.

jay

The project: a deck of Akoha cards for teens to give them the tools to spread heroism.

If you don’t know about Akoha, you should. Austin Hill and team in Montreal, Quebec, have come up with an amazing way to spread love throughout the world. The premise is that you get a deck of cards that includes a whole bunch of missions:

These missions include various acts of kindness such as:

Give Someone a Book

Send a Drink to a Couple in Love

Give Someone a Surprise Gift

All of these, we agreed, fit in a general definition of everyday heroic acts: taking action to improve the lives of others. Heroic acts, we agreed, need to have the elements of: risk/sacrifice, taking action, done for others without wanting something in return, extraordinary, makes a positive impact on at least one other person’s life, and should be defined by someone other than the hero (the hero shouldn’t call him or herself a hero).

So, we thought that creating a deck that is more suited to teenagers would be a good way to encourage the idea of everyday heroism in schools. The latter part of the day was spent brainstorming what kinds of cards could be suitable for teens, encourage everyday heroism and be fun and engaging (i.e. “not lame”). The cards we will be working on tomorrow are:

1. Describe a hero and the reasons why to someone (we thought this would encourage teens to really think about what makes a hero as well as give them the ability to spread this exercise to other teens)
2. Talk to an adult about something you are passionate about (risk)
3. Volunteer your time (sacrifice, done for someone else without direct payment)
4. Text a compliment to 10 people (taking action, done for someone else without direct payment, positive impact on another person’s life)
5. Support a friend’s decision (done for someone else, makes a direct positive impact on someone’s life)
6. Eliminate a negative word from your vocabulary (sacrifice, positive impact)
7. Stand up to a bully (risk, positive impact, taking action)
8. Give someone a deck of Hero Cards (taking action, direct impact, done for someone else)
9. Don’t complain for one whole day (positive impact)
10. Organize a group to complete one of the missions (encouraging collaboration, taking action, positive impact, done for someone else, sacrifice)
11. If you see an injustice, speak out (I really liked the pro-active nature of this one. Becoming more aware. Very risky. Extraordinary.)
12. Help a neighbor (sacrifice, positive impact, done for someone else, taking action)
13. Ask for help on someone else’s behalf (sacrifice, positive impact, done for someone else, taking action)
14. See a need, fill a need (once again, looking out for action to be taken)
15. Raise $50 (minimum) for charity with friends (sacrifice, positive impact, done for someone else, taking action)
16. Send me on a mission (the teen gives the card to a friend or an adult in their lives who decides what they should do on their mission)
17. Help a friend study (sacrifice, positive impact, done for someone else, taking action)
18. Give someone bacon (I know, this is silly, but we think it will help entertain and spread some laughter. It will also impact positively on the spread of the game.)
19. Call out someone’s derogatory language or gossiping (very risky, positive impact, done for someone else, taking action, extraordinary)
20. Make someone feel awesome (positive impact, done for someone else, taking action)
21. Start a community initiative to: ____________ i.e. recycle, save the whales, plant trees, etc. (sacrifice, positive impact, done for someone else, taking action, extraordinary)

We think these capture a range of missions that go from small, simple acts of kindness all the way to really extraordinary heroic acts; bring in the idea of philanthropy, community, positive behavior, collaboration, justice and altruism; and are age-appropriate and relevant without trying too hard (we avoided anything that said ‘Facebook’ or another popular SN). Some of the cards are more precise to give a good idea of what to do and some leave the mission open to interpretation to foster creativity.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how these cards come out tomorrow.

Many of the programs that I’ve observed thusfar are amazing, but are more suitable to kids who are pre-disposed to heroism. These are the same kids that have that fire in their bellies to want to change the world already. I know, too well, that these kids are in the minority. They aren’t necessarily the ones I want to reach (although I definitely want them to be rewarded for that fire).

In fact, as Dr. Zimbardo points out in his studies, it isn’t only heroic teenagers who are in the minority - heroic people of all ages are in the minority. I drew out this diagram for Marina to show her what I meant by this:

Everyone else has the POTENTIAL to be heroes, but, for whatever reason, aren’t incited to practice heroism everyday. Of course, this larger group will act heroically when called upon, like in times of disaster or crisis, but, as Dr. Zimbardo highlights, the wrong conditions can also push this larger group to act like villains, such as in the case of the Rwanda genocides or in the Stanford Prison Experiments.

The goal of HeroCamp is to promote the idea of the ‘banality of heroism‘ - the idea that heroes are normal people, not people who totally sacrifice themselves for others, but speak out and act out when they see injustice, put their time and effort into making the world a better place and truly care about their fellow human beings. Thus, when situations arise that encourage evil, they will recognize them and call them out.

If I was to take that pie-chart and show my goal for HeroCamp, it would be that the sliver that represents Heroes grows to the majority of the population:

Of course, I would like to see the pie ALL BLUE, but I’ll settle for a majority for now.

I thought this one is appropriate because, although we all care deeply about education (liberals and conservatives), we tend to approach the solution to the current woes in education VERY differently. No Child Left Behind, for instance, which was inspired by a conservative focus on solutions to fixing the education system (”run schools like businesses”).

The FIVE pillars of moral reasoning are:

1. Harm/Care (liberal)
2. Fairness/Reciprocity (liberal)
3. Ingroup/Loyalty (conservative)
4. Authority/Respect (conservative)
5. Purity/Sanctity (conservative)

He also discusses using incentives to encourage collaboration and giving in the video.

Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis is also worth a read.

You can see the talk here at the TED website.

See this at TED here.

Watch it at the TED site here.