“Inspire the Planet” Sticker
Thank you all for your contributions to this discussion. I’m certainly glad to know that we have so many folks who care about this group! As you’ve probably noticed, we have lots of opinions about what should be on the sticker. We’ve even spent significant time meeting to figure out what we should do. I have been a little stuck in the discussion, wondering what would be an effective solution.
This weekend, I heard a story that really spoke to me. It is a story I’ve heard before, but this time I heard it anew, given what has been going on in this discussion. I’d like to share it all with you…
One day, a man walked by a building where three men were cutting stones. He went up to the first, seemingly unhappy man, and asked “What are you doing?” The stone cutter replied, saying “breaking rocks.”
The man walked up to the next stone cutter, who seemed to be enjoying his job more than the first. He asked, “What are you doing?” The second stone cutter smiled, saying “earning a living.”
Finally the man came to the third stone cutter, who was singing and dancing while cutting his stone. As before, the man asked “What are you doing?” The stone cutter joyfully responded, saying building a cathedral!”
For the three stone cutters, it wasn’t the content (cutting stone) of what they were doing that had them excited. What determined their level of excitement was the context (building a cathedral, etc.) behind their activities.
As I heard the story, I realized that we have not clearly and succinctly defined a context for OpenGoddard activities. Think about our projects: redoing Goddard’s Wikipedia page, organizing happy hours, mapping the conversations at Goddard… What’s the common context behind our activities? Are we breaking rocks or are we building a cathedral?
The bumper sticker is an opportunity to proclaim a powerful context for our group! The sticker serves to remind us why we do what we do AND is an expression of what we’re up to for the rest of the world!
Therefore, this sticker is going to use the “Inspire the Planet” message. What better way to keep ourselves energized, than to give ourselves something truly amazing to work towards? This is the final version:
6 comments
It’s Bold. It’s bigger than OG. It’s Perfect.
I am with Neerav: It’s Perfect! And, when can I get one!
I like this one much better. One suggestion. Instead of having the circles in the lower corners, how about putting a bit of the Earth in one corner and maybe another planet in the other (I vote for Mars)? We’ve got stars in the background for astronomy, but NASA also does lots of Earth and planetary science.
Gerry - we expect to have these available by Yuri’s Night (April 4th).
Aki - The circles are intentionally there to connect folks with the OpenGoddard website design. I’ve actually been thinking about doing another round of stickers that would replace the “space science” background with something that is “earth science” themed (or perhaps “exploration” themed?). It just seemed a little too complicated for this round!
I like it.
It is a sticker, no denying that. It bears no resemblance to the one many of us spent months thinking and talking about, both at Tuesday lunches and online, and little resemblance to the prototypes our members took time to create for us last month. It has no connection to the carefully thought out campaign we had planned originally*, one many of us were prepared to invest significant time and energy in to make happen.
It is a sticker though. A few will be printed and circulated next month, fewer still will find their way onto bumpers of local residents, and nary a soul will have any idea what it means when they see one on the Parkway.
That said, we aimed to make a sticker and a few of us made one. It seems to have at least a couple fans. Mission accomplished?
* http://opengoddard.com/discuss/next-opengoddard-project/
http://opengoddard.com/discuss/we-mission-success/
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