I first became aware of eco-running this past spring when my urban neighborhood, Riverwest, thawed out, and a winter’s worth of litter emerged from the melting gray snow banks. Every spring the neighborhood has to deal with the garbage that the thousands of people passing through insist on leaving behind. This year, however, we were introduced to a new, simple and ingenious approach to the clean up, courtesy of local resident and endurance runner, Sam Huber – aka The Eco-Runner.

Sam incorporates scooping up litter into his running regimen and is on a mission to convert people to serving their environment by simply picking up the trash in their path. Sam’s grassroots project is getting national attention and attracting new eco-runners (or in my case, eco-walkers) every day.

Visit Eco-Runner to follow Sam’s progress and learn more about how to green your exercise routine.

Since June first, we’ve had the most rain ever recorded here in Wisconsin. Rivers and streets are overflowing, basements are flooded, and you may have read about the lake that washed away. Here in Milwaukee, the floods we’ve gotten aren’t as devastating as those in Iowa or even a little further west in our state. After suffering mostly wet basements and some mildew, local news coverage is filled with people in boots trying to salvage their soaked possessions.

But what was interesting to me was a throwaway comment one man made on the news. Standing in two feet of water in his basement, he said he was “getting rid of all the stuff he didn’t need anyway.” It made me think of something I’d read recently about a new grass-roots movement, The 100 Thing Challenge.

The premise is this: if you have too much stuff, it can weigh you down. Editing your personal living space down to 100 things will help you let go of the past and move forward. Added benefits are that you can easily find things and you will gain a sense of control over your life. And who wouldn’t want that? Whittling your stuff down to 100 items is a little hardcore, but I think we could all stand to “challenge” our things, one by one, and get rid of what we don’t need.

Of course, I’m not advocating throwing all your stuff away in the trash. Gently used possessions are always welcome at Goodwill, and for more beat up items, try offering them on Freecycle, an online collective of community-based giveaway programs. In fact, I just used Milwaukee Freecycle to give away 12 pairs of ripped jeans to a teacher who will use them for an art project.

I can imagine that many of those people cleaning their basements out may be wishing they’d purged their possessions before the flood. Clear your clutter and concentrate on more important things in your life!

Have you decorated your bike tree and cookies yet? Sung your bike carols? Anxiously waited for the Bike Month peloton to land on your rooftop? I hope so.

With gas prices climbing and environmental concerns increasing, this is a particularly good year to celebrate National Bicycle Month. Started in 1956, National Bike Month is still going strong and growing.

To celebrate, take a minute (well, two) to watch this great little video about one man’s bike commute.

Mat’s Commute from Mat Barlow on Vimeo.

NEW NATIONAL LEGISLATION
Complete Streets Bill Now in House and Senate
(05.05.08) Representative Doris Matsui (D-CA) took an important step on Thursday, May 1 for safer, better designed streets yesterday by introducing the Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2008 (HR 5951) into the U.S. House. Click here to read more.

UPCOMING EVENTS
May 16: Bike to Work Day
Not a centralized national event, so you might want to Google “Bike To Work Day 2008″ for more events in your area.

May 21: Ride of Silence
Ride of Silence will begin in North America and roll across the globe. Cyclists will take to the roads in a silent procession to honor cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roadways. Although cyclists have a legal right to share the road with motorists, the motoring public often isn’t aware of these rights, and sometimes not aware of the cyclists themselves.

FOR MORE BICYCLE AND CYCLING ADVOCACY INFO
Bikes Belong Coalition
(very nice design, excellent up-to-date content)

League of American Bicyclists
(great advocacy info and contact forms to talk to politicians about cycling rights/issues)

Bicycling Magazine’s This Just In blog

Please feel free to share links and resources that you find helpful. Happy National Bike Month!

It’s a shame our leaders can only tell us to “buy, buy, buy” during an economic downturn (slump, recession, whatever you want to call this). As the price of fuel and food climbs upward, they should be urging us to grow Victory Gardens, pitching in to sustain ourselves and reduce our dependence on industrial methods and foreign fuels. When economic recession coincides with a global climate crisis, it makes even more sense.

When you grow even a small portion of your own food, you reap manifold benefits. You get the satisfaction of reducing your dependence on others for your most basic needs. Vegetables are absolutely the best thing you can eat, and when you grow your own they are cheaper, fresher and tastier. You get to control what fertilizer is used (or not) to grow them, and no petroleum is required to truck them to your kitchen. You get to slow down a bit and maybe connect with your neighbor to swap surplus tomatoes or borrow a shovel. Best of all, you get to be out in the fresh air, using your muscles with a real purpose and not just completing sets of reps. It’s the perfect solution: get in shape while improving your diet.

Michael Pollan makes the point more completely in his essay, Why Bother?:

It is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labor that, having replaced physical labor with fossil fuel, we now have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape [i.e., driving ourselves to the gym].

I say we take his advice. Let’s skip the health club this summer and work out in our back yards instead.

(Photo: Flickr - Dr. Hemmert)

A recent story out of the UK caught my eye earlier this month – six Maasai tribesmen flew into London to run in the London Marathon. They weren’t just doing it for fun – they were raising funds for clean water resources in their Tanzanian village.

The story itself was fascinating. Wearing their native garb, jewelry and shoes made from car tires, most finished the marathon in under five hours and the group raised over £60,000 (approx. $127,000 USD) for their village.

I was equally impressed, however, by how well the organizers used minimal technology for maximum effect.

The Maasai Marathon site is bare bones, allowing visitors to get more information about the cause, learn more about the runners and donate online to help the Maasai reach their goal. The organizers created an effective offline campaign to generate interest and drive traffic to the site. Without bells and whistles and excessive social media tools, the site is a tool for visitors to get the information they need to make an educated decision about supporting the Maasai’s effort.

As a web designer, it’s always tempting to experiment with the newest and shiniest tools and technology to create a “wow” online experience. However, sometimes simplicity is far more effective than maximum interactivity. In this case, the simple online site a) was more in keeping with the tribesmen themselves (who don’t own computers) and b) kept the focus on the Maasai and what they hoped to accomplish.

The Maasai campaign reminded me how more is not always better. It’s critical to define your goals clearly and choose your tools carefully to reach that goal. If the goal is simple, always consider a simple solution. Great editing skills are every bit as important as flashy solutions.

p.s. If you’re intrigued by the Maasai’s story, you might want to check out the chief’s diary of his week in the UK.

With the press coverage environmental issues are getting these days, we may think of “green” issues as something new — another shiny object the press will pick up and discard at will. The official “environmental movement,” however, has been around for over 40 years now.

Earth Day, as a concept, was first introduced at a Seattle convention in 1969 by Wisconsin’s own Senator Gaylord Nelson, a passionate environmentalist and activist, frustrated with the government’s lack of interest in/attention to environmental issues.

He thought he had found a way to bring the environment into the political limelight when he had persuaded President John F. Kennedy to make a nationwide conservation tour in 1963. Although President Kennedy traveled through Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, and California speaking about the need to conserve natural resources the effort received little media attention. Senator Nelson realized he needed another mechanism for promoting environmental concern and asked himself “how are we going to get the nation to wake up and pay attention to the most important challenge the human species faces on the planet?”

While reading an article on anti-Vietnam War teach-ins that were organized on college campuses across the nation to protest that War, the thought occurred to him: Why not have a nationwide teach-in on the environment? Upon returning to Washington, Nelson raised the funds to get Earth Day started. He wrote letters to all 50 governors and the mayors of major cities asking them to issue Earth Day Proclamations. He sent an Earth Day article to all college newspapers explaining the event and one to Scholastic Magazine, which went to most high schools and grade schools. (Source)

The first Earth Day was then held, with great success, on April 22, 1970. In Senator Nelson’s own words:

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.

– excerpted from How The First Earth Day Came About – Senator Gaylord Nelson

As a lot of people are remarking today, every day should be Earth Day. Until it is, however, this particular holiday is simply a good reminder for all of us to think about our relationship with and responsibility to the world around us.

(Many thanks to Flickr user, *L*u*z*a*, for the use of her photo.)

We spend a tremendous amount of time in business talking about global sustainability issues — like what practices do our firms put in place to save trees and use less oil? Unfortunately, I fear that most sustainability discussions are little more than lip service; more marketing hype than anything.

We worry, too — what about the sustainability of our own neighborhoods, our schools, our future work force, our health care services?

At Hanson Dodge Creative we’re trying to bring sustainability discussions closer to home and, as a business, get involved.

That’s why, as of yesterday, Hanson Dodge Creative stands proudly as one of the first businesses in Milwaukee to become a founding member of Common Ground, a powerful new force for community change in Southeastern Wisconsin. Common Ground is founded on the principles that: 1) if we don’t engage, change can’t happen, and 2) if we unite to demand change in our community, anything is possible.

Over 2,300 people from over 60 regional churches, non-profits and other organizations — representing the wonderful and diverse ethnic and faith groups that are Southeastern Wisconsin — came together yesterday at Milwaukee’s Midwest Airlines Center to launch the founding of Common Ground. Together we will work to tackle issues like job creation, health care for underserved populations, central city crime and skyrocketing unemployment, among other issues.

(more…)

I am fascinated with bike messengers. They are the digital age equivalent of the Pony Express, navigating our treacherous streets with great speed and grace to deliver our stuff on time.

As designers, we can’t help but be inspired by the unique culture of bike messengers, visual and otherwise. Part athlete, part urban soldier, these riders personify the rebel zeitgeist that inspires brands and trends. Where they go, others follow, and that’s a lesson for brands. From the fixie craze to fashion trends like the messenger bag, bike messengers influence and inspire. Everything about them just screams “cool.”

In honor of these riders, I’ve assembled a few handpicked examples of mess culture from around the web: (mess = “messenger”).

The New York Bike Messenger Association website is the hub of New York’s messenger society. You’ll see that they don’t stop riding when they’re not delivering. They’re racing, playing bike polo, and riding to raise funds for fallen comrades. Don’t miss the wealth of content in their links section.

Moving a little closer to home, this article from OnMilwaukee.com honors Milwaukee’s sole bike-only messenger service, Breakaway Bicycle Couriers. When the weather shut down the post office, Breakaway riders toughed it out, delivering packages through the snow and ice – on road bikes.

And finally, the Mecca of mess, messmedia.org. What this site lacks in design, it makes up for in content. If it has anything to do with bike messengers, it’s on this site.

Sadly, I noticed much real estate on messenger sites devoted to memorials and fundraisers for messengers who have been killed or injured by motorists. Hopefully, that statement alone will inspire more people to give them the a little extra space.

This caught my eye over the weekend – first, because I think it’s a great idea. Second, because it involves Trek, our very own client.

David C. Joyce, president of Ripon College [WI], wants to make a deal with new students this fall: Leave the car at home for the first year and get a free Trek mountain bike. To keep.

The college has purchased 200 Trek bikes to give to a portion of the roughly 300 first-year students that will arrive in the fall. After students sign a honor code, saying that they will not bring a car to campus that year, they get a bike, a helmet, and a bike lock, altogether worth about $400. The program is supported by college donors, trustees, and alumni, and the college got discounts on the equipment from Master Lock and the Trek Bicycle Corporation, which is based 60 miles south of Ripon.

Read the full story here.

I live right next to a big park, and I’m constantly amazed at the fact that it’s almost always empty. It’s the kind of place I would have spent much of my time as a kid. Of course, when I was a kid (here we go) we didn’t have MySpace, World of Warcraft or cell phones with internet access. Our version of World of Warcraft was hitting each other with sticks.

I won’t say those were better days, but I do believe we’re losing touch with the physical world. This article from The Guardian confirms that. It says that the number of people participating in outdoor activities has fallen precipitously since the 1980’s. The culprit? Videophilia, a preference for indoor media activities. Translation: MySpace, Facebook, RuneScape, texting, Nintendo DS, PSP, PS3, Wii, instant messaging, first person shooters, email, MP3 players and smart phones, to name a few. Who has time to go outside?

We need to make time.

The Guardian article goes on to say that by staying inside, we’re putting the environment at risk. People become environmentalists because they love the outdoors. You can’t fall in love with the outdoors if you’ve never been there.

But the environment is not the only thing to suffer as a result of our decreasingly active lives. According to our friends at the President’s Challenge, two-thirds of Americans are obese or overweight. Coincidence?

I humbly suggest that we all try a new game. It’s massively multiplayer (6+ billion users), high-rez and rendered in stunning 3D with immersive sound. It’s free to play and you don’t need any technology. It’s called the real world. Log out and give it a try! Unplug the kids and bring them along too. Throw a ball, ride a bike, chase each other around the park, play disc golf. If you’re short on ideas, visit the President’s Challenge website for some inspiration.

And don’t forget to take some pictures for your MySpace page.