Emily Pilloton

The lecture by Emily Pilloton on design was very inspiring. This lecture was different from other designers because she looks at design in a whole different perspective. Her goal is to design objects and things that have a purpose for people and to make their lives better and easier. She focuses this to the areas in the world who need improved design the most, and in areas where this design will be used and will last, such as in South Africa. In South Africa, Pilloton designed a water transport barrel that can be used to carry up to 200 pounds of water.This is significant because for families who live far from their source of water, they can efficiently move what is probably more than double the amount of water and make less trips. This device was designed to be rolled, rather than carried; a much more efficient way to carry the water. She and others in the middle of Project H Design right now, which is the group that is helping to make these new types of designs such as the water transporter, are working indifferent settings and working with people constantly to come up with new designs specifically for them. She said that they do not have an office because of this very reason- that they need to be working with the people in their settings, such as parks, schools, etc.. Another example of this is the bag that turns into a hammock for the homeless to sleep in and carry around. This was actually inspired by someone who said her life would have been much better if she only had a hammock to sleep in. This is another thing that Pilloton emphasized in her lecture, that it is important to work for the people, and not just design something because of its structure, but for who needs it and what it is being used for.

Road Show

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Group 2 Ideas

1. Have a Colab table in Schine so that the Red House and Colab can interact with the students and give them a better idea of what these things are

2. Put flyers in the bookstore bags about Colab and the Red House events/information/anything relevant

3. Publicize the bus (because not everyone has cars) in the DO

4. Have a weekly column in the DO about scheduled events at the Red House

5. Incorporate not just SU students but students from the surrounding colleges

6. Have some Red House events at Syracuse for the students and faculty

7. The Red House could advertise more around school

8. Have Colab representatives spread out throughout campus to get the word of what Colab is to the student body

9. Have a few Red House events here on main campus to get the attention of the student body and attract them to downtown

10. Spread information to RA's in dorms so they can pass information to people living on their floor so that the information source is not just coming from Schine

11. Advertise in each of the specific colleges so that say a Whitman Major could get the information relayed to them if they were interested not just VPA

12. Put an advertisement next to the Box Office because that would be a likely place to be interested !!!!

For bands...I don't know many lower key bands, but PushPlay is pretty cool and they're from my area in Long Island..I think they have more younger fans as of now though but thats all I know of.

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Lakshmi Pratury on Letter Writing

This talk was about letter writing and the impact it had on Lakshmi Pratury. When her father died, she realized how much she appreciated the letters he used to write to her. Once he passed, she had no one else writing those letters, and felt no other connections to people to the extent she did with her father. These letters were more than just notes to her, they were the legacy of her fathers life written down by himself. He wrote a notebook of everything about Lakshmi, the good, the bad, and suggestions for improvement in areas. She mentions how this is the age of technology and email, but does not understand why no one wants to wrote anyone letters anymore. This shows how important and touching those letters were to her and how much they meant. Since that was her fathers legacy, she wants to leave an important one for her own son as well, and she said she will be doing that by collecting autographed books and cd's. She also plans to publish her own book, combining the thoughts of her own and of her father to give to her son. Leaving someone a legacy that is meaningful is more important than any financial means, she says.

Allison Hunt (gets a new hip)

This TEDtalk was interesting because Allison Hunt, who is from Canada, was commenting on the democratic government that the United States has and how she felt hindered by the government in Canada. Everyone is always debating wether free universal health care would be be better, but after listening to what Hunt had to go through in order to receive necessary treatment may change peoples minds. With free health care, she was able to get MRI's and scans and see as many doctors as she needed, with the flip side of having to wait long periods of time. She had to wait ten months to see a specialized doctor, and once it was determined that she needed a new hip, she had to wait eighteen more months. That is an extremely long amount of time to wait for a new hip when you are in a lot of pain. Because of this, she realized she had to get around the system, and get in front of the line that she was forced to wait on, even though she was clearly in a lot of pain. So, she may have gotten free health care, but what she had to sacrifice in return was her time and pain, which are two things much more valuable than money to me. Even though she eventually got the hip replacement, she still made note of how the pain she had to endure for that amount of time did not seem worth it just to save some money.

JK Rowling: The Fringe Benefits of Failure

I found the commencement speech by JK Rowling at Harvard University to be one of the most interesting speeches I've listened to. I can't say that I am always interested in listening to someone speak for a long period of time, but this kept my attention and got me thinking exactly about what she was saying. The two points she made were about failure and imagination. The point about picking yourself up from failure and how failure is valuable is something worth keeping in mind all the time. She made her points clear and interesting by telling the story of how she failed terribly at one point in her life, but then was able to start from "rock bottom". I also liked how she did not just tell her life story, but also made sure to comment on how she valued her life compared to what she has seen others go through. While trying to pick up her life at one point she encountered people with extremely rough lives, and was sure to mention how she kept that in mind all the time, how lucky she was even though she felt like she had failed, and how if you have any means to pick your life back up you have to try to the best of your abilities.

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