Yesterday was my last day at howies.

It was my choice to leave.

It was a hard thing to do and easy thing to do.

The morale of the story is simple.

If you find something you love, you should never sell your love.

When other people own your dream, destiny is no longer in your hands.

And yes, leaving the company I helped to start is super-painful.

But pain makes for a good teacher if you listen to what it is telling you.

It teaches you what is important to you. And what is not.

So from this day forward howies will begin to appear in my rear-view mirror.

At the same time I will be sitting in my shed with Sonny (my dog) working away on the future.

Keeping me company will be the knowledge that Patagonia was not Yvon’s first company, Esprit was not Doug’s first company, and Steve Jobs got sacked from Apple.

For me those are good role models to have in the shed with you.

Luckily for howies Clare is staying. She will be the soul-keeper now.

And lastly, I just wanted to say thank you to you.

It’s been fun working for you.

My thanks.

David Hieatt

At an appropriate time, I will write a magazine article telling you all the behind the scenes bits that made me decide to leave.

I have been giving you the wrong stats.

Soup, our website guru’s, checked their server and they worked out half a million people have watched last years talks.

So this year’s aim of getting a million people isn’t so crazy.

if you would like to keep up with events, talks, gossip, stuff, you can now subscribe to a quarterly newsletter.

go to: www.dolectures.com

and there is a subscribe sidebar, just click on that.

Today we draw a name out of the hat.

The person picked out will be taking one of these seats at The Do Lectures.

We will announce the winner this afternoon.

If you want to go into the hat this afternoon, you need to become a Do lectures founding member.

It costs £50.

You have a 1-20 chance of coming on down.

Going. Going…..

e-mail:claire@thedolectures.co.uk

a simple 23 seconds video about why we should pick you to come the do lectures.

Here’s our first one.

The talks held here once a year are gathering momentum.

People came from 141 countries.

People from 4,695 cities.

When you start to add up all the figures, the talks got close to 100,000 visits. (I don’t the exact figure as I don’t know what we did on Itunes)

The talks are called The Do Lectures. (www.thedolectures.co.uk)

The aim is to get Doers from all around the world, to tell their stories.

Their stories are inspirational.

They show us the way like cat’s eyes in the road.

This year the aim is to get 1 million people to see the talks.

And yup, it’s a big aim for a small tent.

But why not.

If you would like to help The Do lectures, become a founding member.

It costs £50.

For that you’ll get:

A free Do Lectures 2009 T-shirt.

And you’ll have a 1 in 20 chance of winning a free Do Lectures ticket.

e-mail:claire@thedolectures.co.uk

“The greatest danger for most of us is not
that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we reach it”

Michelangelo

]]> http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/08/small-tent-big-aim/feed/ 0 http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/08/23-second-films-do-it/ http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/08/23-second-films-do-it/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:51:18 +0000 david http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/?p=9642 Remember, we have put aside seats for students, ngo’s for the Do lectures.

Tell us why you.

Tell us what you want to do.

If you can’t film, write a letter.

The Do Lectures is about energy, ideas, creativity, action, change.

So don’t just sit there, do something (Dick Dastardly)

For more info: Claire@thedolectures.co.uk

it could be you.

you can’t see it but that’s the river teifi.

and today is the river and food festival.

lots of great food, lots of stuff to do on the river.

and we have stocked up the shop.

it’s open till 7 tonight.

An American friend described them as a ‘cross between Burning Man, The Ted Lectures and Where The Wild Things Are’ (But you don’t get eaten alive).

Adam Lowry

Method’s ‘chief greens keeper’

Why can’t a role model come in a bottle? This is what drives Method to make the lowest impact cleaning products you can buy.

Alastair Humphreys

Adventurer and Author

Imagine going on a bike ride that lasts for 4 years. Now he wants to try something really hard.

Alice Taylor

Ch4 Education Commissioner & blogger

Play is important. Kids learn more while playing. And if kids are playing more digital games these days, then those games need to become their teachers too.

Andrew Reason

Inventor & Founder of
 Reason washing machines

Are you happy with your wash? Andrew isn’t. That’s why he is changing how washing 
machines work.

Ben Hammersley

Deputy editor of WIRED UK

Clothes that know when you’re in love, doors that know when you’re angry, phones that know when it’s raining. How knowing what we know will help us live our lives.

David Rosenberg

CEO of Hycrete Inc.

Is it possible to change the construction industry? Is there a better way to make concrete? David has some answers (and some patents) to say that it is possible to make it a greener industry.

Duke Stump

Principal & Chief Architect of the ‘North Star Manifesto’, a brand consulting studio

These are the times of change. New powerful ideas are being born. A shift is happening. 
And Duke will be talking about that shift.

Gabriel Branby

CEO of Gränsfors Bruks AB

Gränsfors make one the finest forged axes in the world. It has become more than just an axe. It is an icon for quality and a belief that there is another way of making things.

Geoff McFetridge

Graphic Designer/Illustrator

There are Graphic designers. And then there’s Geoff McFetridge. Probably the world’s best doodler.

Gerald Miles

Organic Farmer & GM Activist

What would you do to protest about GM crops being planted in Britain? Just sit there? Or get on your tractor and drive to London in protest.

Gregor MacLennan

Campaigner for Amazonian peoples’ rights

Over three decades of oil drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the rainforest. Now Gregor is helping the local communities to hold Chevron to account.

Jane Davidson

Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing

Can a small country like Wales lead the way in terms of sustainability? Can an entire country go organic? Why not?

Michael Pawlyn

Sustainable Architect

Can we work with nature? Use it as a blueprint? Treat it as a partner? There are huge gains to be made by learning from how the natural world works.

Patrick Holden

Director of the Soil Association

Where does our food come from? Patrick believes an identity of a nation is related to its food. And that we need to reconnect to the story behind the food we eat.

Paul Deegan

Mountaineer and Everest’s Dustman

Climbing Everest is one thing. Bringing everyone’s rubbish back down with you is quite another.

Rolf Potts

Author of ‘Vagabonding’

His zeitgeist defining book is not just how to travel the world on a shoestring, but, more importantly, the mindset you need to take with you. It is now in its 10th reprint.

Tim Birkhead

Author of ‘The Wisdom of Birds‘

Tim believes we can learn a lot from birds. Fortunately for us he will be migrating West in early September.

Tom Taylor

Post Digital Designer

He likes to think of the internet as the virtual shed at the bottom of his non-existent garden. From there he tries to delight and disrupt in equal measure.

Tony Davidson

Creative Director of Wieden+Kennedy

To make you feel something is the hardest thing to do in advertising. Tony does this better than almost anyone else.

Uffe Elbæk

Founder & former principal 
of The KaosPilots

Founder of the world famous KaosPilots school. It doesn’t want 
to be the best school in the world. It’s aim is to be the best school for 
the world.

For more info:claire@thedolectures.co.uk

If you are going to have 20 amazing speakers, it doesn’t hurt to give them an amazing location.

After all the best speakers will change how you view things.

www.dolectures.co.uk

sept 3-7th.

]]> http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/08/location-location-location/feed/ 0 http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/08/50-mins-left/ http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/08/50-mins-left/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:06:40 +0000 david http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/?p=9535 The Golden Ticket Do Lectures T-shirt offer closes at midday.

it could be you.

So if you have been thinking about it, now is the time to buy one.

One of you is going to win a Free Do Lectures Ticket.

It could be you.

It might be.

Think positive.

See you at the Do lectures.

maybe. just maybe.

so thought it would be good to build a playlist for the do lectures and then put it on spotify.

here’s my starter for ten

1, fall back down – rancid

i love pete.

he got this printed out for me, so i wouldn’t leave things to the last minute.

one copy for home. one copy for my shed. one copy in case i lost a copy.

it didn’t work.

i was up at 5am this morning to finish the scallop piece.

just in time as its going to print at 9am.

all done now. back to my holiday.

it dawned on me at dawn.

when i did the maths between 5am and 6am, the same figure kept popping up in my head.

assuming every does what they say, we have 4 tickets left for private individuals for The Do Lectures.

and the 2000 leaflets we got printed are yet to hit anyone’s doorsteps.

so if you would like one of the last ones, be quick.

email: claire@thedolectures.co.uk

we do still have some corporate tickets to sell:£2k

that’s the focus now.

here’s one for starters

valerie -amy winehouse

It’s pretty big for the farmers and the people of the town.

A chance to find out who grows the best spring onions, has the best sheep etc.

In a break with tradition, it is not raining.

But that can all change.

This is the new howies t-shirt of the week out thursday (www.howies.co.uk)

A Sneaky peak.

The is the formula for change.

Change happens when the cost of the status quo (where we are) is greater than the risk of change (where we want to be).

£2.50 from each sale will come to The Do Lectures.

www.dolectures.com

Credit: rules of thumb by alan m. weber (great book – worth a read for sure)

I blogged it.

I twittered it.

(We sent some letters too but they are yet to land on people’s doorsteps)

Then I set off down to work in the rain on my bike.

By the time my wet feet had arrived at howies, a crowd had formed.

The crowd was The Do Lectures crowd.

They had said, ‘Yup, I’m in.’

Hundreds upon hundreds of you.

(Some days just melt your heart.)

I had forgotten a simple lesson.

When people find stuff they care about, they want to be part of the change.

Indeed, the crowd that has a purpose is a powerful thing.

That’s when it becomes interesting, when it can gather some momentum.

I believe in the notion that nobody is as clever as everybody, that together we can do more than when we are all apart.

So here I am thinking to myself: Scooby Dooooo.

I am now thinking about all the speakers you know about.

The great articles you have read and thought that was amazing.

The unknown boffins, scientists and geeks that you have met that you thought had a great idea, or a different point of view.

All those inspiring books you have read that made you think differently.

Someone on TV who just blew you away.

An old teacher, a local farmer, your mum.

You are going to help us find us those remarkable Doers.

It will take us a few days to get back to everyone, but I just wanted to say thanks.

Scooby Doooooo, indeed.

David Hieatt

For more details contact: Claire@thedolectures.co.uk

And got a great reaction.

it’s your chance to be part of it, to shape it, to be in at the beginning.

Scooby Do.

If you missed the blog yesterday, contact claire@thedolectures.co.uk for details

“the Do Lectures is like a cross between Burning Man, Ted Lectures and Where The Wild Things are”

So up early doing the words I should have done last week.

Reckon this one will be a good one.

Old Pete and Aron have a lot on their shoulders.

Feel the pressure boys. And relax.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Why The Do Lectures matter?

And why becoming a member matters too?

We live in interesting times.

And we live in important times.

Most of the important business models have yet to be written.

Most of the ‘why didn’t I think of that’ answers for climate change have yet to be dreamt of.

Most of the important scientific or technological breakthroughs are just doodles on a notepad.

As well as interesting times, these are exciting times.

Necessity will make a good taskmaster. Crisis will make a good editor. Having finite resources will make us infinitely more creative with how we use them going forward.

Yup, interesting times.

And if consumers will have to change how they consume, and if business will have to change how they do business, then so will Government have to change how they govern.

Our system of having a four-year government for 100-year problems means tough decisions are rarely made. A manifesto designed to win votes isn’t the same as a manifesto designed to do what needs to be done for the safety of future generations.

And how we have treated this planet in the past will have to be different to how we treat it in the future. A tree helps produce oxygen, rain and sucks in carbon dioxide. Yet we only put a value to it once we cut it down. At the very same time as when it stops producing rain, when it stops producing oxygen and stops sucking in carbon dioxide.

Indeed these are interesting times.

We have to fill in a 3-page form to start an account with Fed Ex. Yet a badly run bank has to only fill in a 2-page form to get billions from the Government to shore up their bank.

Interesting times, indeed.

But rather than being a time to be down or despondent, this is the time for great change. And yes, there is much that needs changing. There is much to do.

But reassuringly the human mind is more creative than any computer will ever be. The answers will come from the brightest, stubborn-nest, and oddest of people.

And the thing that brings this oddball bunch together is that they are all stubborn dreamers. Brilliant enough to have the idea. Stubborn enough to make it happen.

Buckminster Fuller described the importance of vision best when he said, “ There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly”. But as well as the vision, you need that grit determination to make your idea live.

That is what The Do Lectures is here to Do. It is a platform for the Doers of the world to tell us their stories. So they can inspire the rest of us to go do something amazing too. In simple farming terms, it is just manure for the field. It is here to help grow ideas.

The Do Lectures is not a business, but it has to pay its way in the world. Appropriately a set of talks with sustainability at its heart needs to be, well, yes, sustainable.

To that end, we sell tickets for the event so the rest of the world can see them the talks for free. Our aim this year is for a million people to see the talks. To me, that is a lot of ‘mind manure’ being spread around the world.

So does the Do Lectures matter? I believe they do. And maybe they matter more in these interesting times than any other time.

I believe that ‘mind manure’ sure needs spreading around.

So my last question today is would you become a member of The Do Lectures?

Memberships costs £50. You will receive 4 newsletters a year. Have the inside track on choosing speakers and be able to make suggestions too. Have first refusal on future tickets. Receive a Do Lectures 2009 T-shirt that has a chance of coming with a golden ticket to this years Do lectures.

But the biggest thing of all is just to feel part of it. To feel like you are doing something to make this happen. To become a doer too.

So if this is crowd funding in its truest form, we need the crowd to put their hands up and say ‘I’m in.’ ‘I think The Do Lectures matter. Here’s my £50.’

A simple email to Claire@thedolectures.co.uk will be enough to start this off.

David Hieatt

The Speaker list is now up on the dolectures site which is here.

We have just got the little leaflet arrived.

And we are sending lots of stuff out to the press.

16 tickets left to sell for private individuals.

14 tickets left for companies.

Given we didn’t have the final list of speakers till last week, I am pleased with ticket sales.

But some hard work yet to be done.

Around two years ago I lost my i-pod.

I am sure glad I didn’t rush out to buy a new one (as good as they are) cos it just appeared from nowhere yesterday.

When I lost it, it was cutting edge.

Now it has come back as retro.

A little recharge and it worked like new.

Launching a new business is often tricky.

They tend to have difficult childhoods.

So this is where we are with teepay.com

We have printed 1500 shirts. We have sold close to 600. That gives us a sell through rate of near 40%. We were conservative in our plans for it. We said it would  sell around 3,500 shirts in the first year. Most of that, of course, would come in the summer months. I think 80% of its sales will come during the summer.

The T-shirts are doing well, much better than I thought, in the shops. Like really well.

But the sales on teepay.com haven’t taken off.

Of course it doesn’t help when you launch with a website that couldn’t take orders.

And we did have some technical issues over the weekend, which was a pain.

We have fixed them now.

So my question is this, why are the T-shirts selling amazingly well in the shops but not so good on the net?

any thoughts?

Am I missing something really simple?

in fact, no one had much luck.

even though we tested it all day friday, it decided to not play ball on saturday and sunday.

technology has its sense of humour.

so sorry about that but it is working.

all the staff picks are in stock.

if you order today, we can send your order out today.

(i like the naughty panda tee)

part of that process is twitter. and that is interesting.

how it is used now will be different to how it is used in the future.

but bringing all the bits that you are interested in together, and at the same time as you put information in, it learns more about you.

so it brings you less but more relevant stuff.

www.twine.com is an example of the start of this.

it’s got a big dryer that gives off a lot of heat.

then there’s the apple macs that give some heat out too.

so a hot day can get pretty hot.

so the answer is to increase airflow.

these old cardboard tubes which I sawed in half, did the trick.

the lights were on late in charlotte street, w1.

it’s still not up but we ain’t far now.

fingers crossed, it will will be sometime today.

if all goes well with the testing tomorrow

little by little we climb the mountain

That will feel like teepay is in business then.

last week was a good week.

we are now just 4 speakers away from having them all confirmed. (well done claire m)

we have migrated the website to a better, faster server and it will be back online soon. (thanks soup)

a leaflet will go to print on friday to help sell the rest of the tickets. (thanks westdale)

we sold another two tickets yesterday.

lots to do.

but lots done.

right now, the brightest, the best leaders, the best thinkers, the most driven don’t go into politics. so my question is this: would we get a better calibre MP and therefore better government if we paid them more?

fingers crossed.

i am hoping jon will do a video to talk you through the changes and why we are doing them (morning jon) and what we hope they will achieve.

well, that’s why we bought that mino flip.

last night the farmer was working late to cut the field.

It will feed his cows all through winter.

So even at the height of summer he is preparing for the depth of winter.

at the moment it is a bit like having a shop with no door.

you can buy staff picks from the howies t-shirt section.

lots of work being done behind the scenes.