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What was the most amazing social experience you had and why?
I'm doing a research project on engaging, public, social experiences and trying to understand what makes them so special. Looking for patterns here, so, no wrong answers!
Topics:
experience design innovation social
Claudia Espinosa
I am part of the global U2 fan community, and going to the tour opener or tour closer is a huge thing. Not only for the music but for the people. There are many of us that do multiple shows on a tour. I have heard of people doing 90% of the tour following the band around.
Due to the postponement, many people could not go. One person that was supposed to go was a fan named Noreen. But she had been diagnosed with cancer and passed away in late November. Because of the internet and doing multiple shows, the "diehards" of the community get to know each other pretty well, and we were crushed. Then came the realization that there is only the moment. That planning for the future is planning but there is no certainty. So someone decided they would buy a scalped ticket and a plane ticket and go. Then someone else decided to go, and then someone else, and so on.
The concert was on the same weekend as Pearl Harbor anniversary, the Honolulu marathon and a big surfing championship, so no rooms where available, anywhere. So fans that were already going opened their hotel rooms and condos to let the new people go. I decided to go about a week before the show. No ticket, no place to sleep, nothing. After 24hrs of announcing my intention I had both.
The day before the show, people started to camp out to get good spots for the show. But many of us were utterly unprepared to camp out, and it did not matter. So, that night, in the Aloha Stadium parking lot, over 2000 U2 fans from all over the world slept on pool flotation devices, blankets, cushions, anything they could find. Because it was the last show of the tour, because we lost our friend, because we needed to be together, and that show, and the experience was AMAZING. And during "Where the Streets have no name" I looked around and saw that I was surrounded by 100's of friends & cried f/ sheer joy
Bill Shackleton
Using that system we could 'see' that someone a thousand miles away was checking their online mailbox and she 'fingered' them by typing out 'hello' to him. I've never forgotten the scream of joy that she let out when he responded, asking how she was. I watched in goose-bumped fascination as I watched her make a friend who, for the first time in her life, didn't know she was disabled.
That moment changed the course of my life as I marveled at the real human-empowering benefits of technology and have since worked, in my own small way, to bend the relationship that human's have towards their tools and technologies in this direction,... and away from having people serve it, as often tends to happen.
Thanks Maria for the question ... and the pleasant swing down memory lane. :-)
b.
Camilo Cetina
Once in San Vicente, I had to visit some rural schools in order to assess whether or not they were complying with some requirements to get computers donated by a Presidential Program called "Computadores para Educar". The 1st one was in an county called Guacamayas: extremely beautiful landscape but no public utilities at all. There was only one road to access the small county... but THEY DID HAVE DIRECT-TV!!! Warner Channel was more popular than Shakira. They had a small power station which worked from 5 am to 7 pm, but if you wanted or needed some electricity afterwards, then you had to pay like 5 USD for an extra hour (please notice that here even a dollar makes a difference between a meal and no meals at all during a day). Teachers and the principal of the school were so nice.... the principal allowed me to sleep at his place and he took me around the whole county to see how peasants and children lived.
Then I had to move to another school, in another county like 2 hours from Guacamayas by car and 2 more hours by motorboat. I met people just as friendly as the people in Guacamayas but they were having so many disagreemts!. Computers were not working because school-administrators and the community did not agree to collect the money to get a voltage regulator. The astonishing thing was that they already had managed do the most difficult things: they BUILT an entire new classroom and they got new chairs and tables to put the computers in so they set up a public computer-room. But they had been stuck the last months because of a voltage regulator. I had to go almost door by door to get an extraordinary meeting and to get agreement about this last issue.
I met a 25-year old guy. He had been teaching his whole life in rural schools. Although he did not know what life was like in the cities, he seemed TRULY happy to be a math teacher for peasant's children.
Jason McKenzie
Last month he took rolls of grass bedding and trucked them to the Mall in a wheel barrow he constructed. He placed the grass down in several consecutive metered parking spots. He then paid a days worth for the spots and in turn extended the public park space.
His work is positive and thought provoking and I enjoy those experiences. Thanks Blake.
William Peterson
That days' impact has never left me, though it was long ago.
It IS difficult to find an occurrence so amazing in my life, there are so many others of importance, but that changed my life more than any other.
Wes Sonnenreich
I eventually realized that these musicians possessed a set of skills that transcended musical ability. They understood the music so well that they could focus their entire attention on trying to understand me. They would figure out what I was going to play from the most subtle nuances in my body language. Then they'd create a perfect supporting structure and even put in anticipatory flairs to assist me, just so I didn't accidentally forget where I wanted to go! They were literally playing me as if I were just another instrument. They were also doing this to each other, which is why even the simplest of songs had a vibrancy and resonance beyond what the acoustics of the room could ever hope to provide.
William Peterson
Majd Al-Shihabi
I took a month off from university studies, June 2009, after a few tough months in university. I decided to travel alone, and went to Italy, using CouchSurfing contacts to host me. I spent the first week in Rome, then on the saturday, 6 June, I took the overnight train to Milano. I arrived very early on the 7th, and my host was not due arrive until later that night. I had a very big backpack with all my belongings in it, so it was very difficult to move. I sat in front of the station, and waited for Renato to arrive. After about half an hour of waiting, an old italian man approached me and tried to talk to me. I spoke no Italian at the time, and he spoke no English. Somehow, we communicated, and he took my hand, put my backpack in the luggage deposit, took me to the metro station, we arrived in Duomo, the main Cathedral, walked around it, then moved to La Scala, the main theater, then Gallaria, where he bought some delicious breakfast for me, then we walked to Castello, looking through the museums, and at the end of the day, he took me back to the train station, where left me again and i never saw him again.
The strangest part of this is not that he picked me from the big crowd of people, or that he paid for everything, or that we communicated without speaking each other's language, but that 7 June was also my birthday!
Mark Takefman
Thanks
Imad Naffa
Robert Schueler
It was most likely my son who motivated me. To get involved, to make sure his future was as bright as bright could be.
I studied ALL the presidential candidates via their web sites...i live in iowa so i had that early advantage of getting to meet anyone running for president as they are all hungy and desperate and willing to met everyone that will help in opening up the path to the big white house at that point in their journey.
I loved the concept of having a women president. But when i came across a statement in one of the candidates websites about EMPOWERING THE PEOPLE! WOW, what would that FEEL like, BE like, MANIFEST as????? i meditated and contemplated on the subject day in and day out, spent nights dreaming about EMPOWERMENT and what that meant for MY life.
I came to the conclusion WE all OWN the key to THE WHITE HOUSE. I didn't really HAVE a physical key to the front door or back door or any door ...so i made calls to pella door company to see what it would take to put in a new door to THE WHITE HOUSE so i could physically have a KEY. While working on that issue of integrating symbolism with reality, it came to me that I AM LIVING in a white house AND the house i grew up in, which my eighty year old mom still LIVES in, was WHITE....and I HAD THE KEYS to both those homes. So, i put those two white house keys, symbolizing the key to THE WHITE HOUSE on a beaded key chain that my son had made in kindergarten.
Next, i decided to give those keys to that presidential candidate which i felt i wanted to SEE in the white house in order for EVERYONE to get to experience EMPOWERMENT, especially my son. The candidate was speaking in my local community when, after the political speech to a rather large basketball gymnasium filled crowd, i handed over THE WHITE HOUSE KEYS.
EMPOWERMENT synchronized with past future now. The most immediate intense amazing FEELING of total ALIVENESS, incredible!
ju mao
Sometimes, i choose a topic we discuss, sometimes the topic submit by others' interests.
It's give fun to talk the topic like : what is love? Or someone need help, she can speak out her concern, others can try to help her find solutions. ..
Allysson Soares
I love nature and it relaxes my body and mind, but as a artistic person I need inpiration, and what inspires me the most is people. To me there is no better place than NYC, specialy the subway, to make me feel part of the society.
Idalia Muñoz
Lucy is a Parson Russell Terrier, a very friendly little fellow that loves to run and play with any breed of dogs. Everyday she gets her share of walks. She greets every dog that she can find on her way, wagging her tail, adopting a friendly attitude.
Once, I find it odd that she started to bark to a type of Husky dog. The Husky's owner stops and pulls tight her's dog leash, it was at that moment that I did eye contact with woman and in a polite way I told her "Sorry", she didn't say any word or any facial expression just a very cold eye contact with me. I lower my eyes to see her beautiful dog and felt chills on my skin. The Husky sat in a very dominant way, it didn't bark at all, just sat there, its blue eyes fulminated against me. Then, I had realized that both master and dog assumed the same attitude towards me. What a weird experience!
Back at home, I told my husband about the weird encounter. He immediately said that this dog it was the only dog that Lucy barks at. But, that others dogs owners commented to him about the same behavior expressed by their own dogs towards the same dog with its domineering stare. Next time, look at the Husky's eyes before Lucy's sees his, then you'll understand why dogs retaliate his challenging eyes.
People behave in similar ways.
By the look (kindly or preponderant) on their eyes at first sight, is all what we need to make a social contact with others. One can perceive, instinctively the intentions of others. Is a part of our surviving instincts.
Next time you are where ever place, read peoples eyes. Some will be kind eyes, moody eyes, happy eyes, shy eyes, compassionate eyes, arrogant eyes, loving eyes, sorrowful eyes, flirting eyes, humble eyes, easy going eyes, worried eyes, inattentive eyes, affectionate eyes...
Socializing with others, all depends on the eye's expressions.
Maikel Andelbeek 10+
When we arrived, we noticed a crowd of people standing at the airport at 4 am. It turns out everyone came to welcome us, even though they all had to get up for work at 7 am. We then proceeded to having the most wonderful 2 weeks of my life there with those people. The amazing part was that they accepted us in their homes and treated us as brothers and sisters. this felt great, on a personal level.
It made such an impression on me that even now I still think about those people as my brothers and sisters.
keith campbell
Alvaro Cevallos
It was summer and we had 3 months of vacation before the next semester started and with a friend we decided to do some traveling to Hiroshima, but in order to save to some money and get some great experiences we decided to do some hitchhiking from Kobe to Hiroshima, which is around a 5 hour travel. Hitchhiking is unusual in Japan, but because of the Japanese culture, people will always help you if you are in need. A lady with a 6 year old child too us two, me and my friend Maria all the way to Hiroshima. Her name was ..., she had never taken someone doing hitchhiking, but was truly excited about it, she told us that she felt inside a movie. Even though we where not fluent in the Japanese language, she did not mind explaining the most she could things we were not able to get a grasp on. We were really amazed to she how happy she felt to help a pair of Ecuadorian strangers, and how we never felt form her a sense of need of special retribution. Still before getting to our final destination we stop at ramen place, according to her the best ramen in the area, and invite her dinner, which she was really great-full.
Also I went to some traveling in China, with my friend Gustavo, we had to take a train form Xi'an to Shanghai, but unfortunately, we had to take the "hard seat" class on a 24 hour train! It was kind of amusing to see how real Chinese people travel, I sensed that because we were the only foreigner on the train wagon. In China we had a great language barrier, because we spoke no Mandarin, but even so people in China are all about, make you fell part of the group. While in the train a man in front of me offered me sesame cookies, even though I was only able to say thank you. I felt like they embraced me as one of them and not as and outsider, it was truly amazing
Pradhan Thandra
As Corporate leaders/employees we tend to go out to NGOs, Streets etc to do charity, It's sad that we don't see the ones in need around. I got an opportunity to train the Security gaurds in our office. It was a need and I stepped up to do it. These individuals were not great communicators or had no basic Telephone Etiquette and it was a joy to share knowledge ..
Ahmad Jawed Samsor
The program started in winter 2004 and I had a big list prepared before the classes have started. Almost 250 students registered for 7 different courses (math, chemistry, physics and English language). Each class lasted one hour everyday, six days a week. However, It was very cold during the winter and school was off but have never seen absence of student that could cause cancellation of a single class.
The start time was 8:30 am everyday and I only had one hour for lunch and prayer. I become known in to everyone however I only spent few months of my life in the village. The thing out of my imagination was a disabled student walking for 30 minutes in (-1 to -15 degree Celsius) to attend a math class and later I noticed that people are coming from far to get most out of the opportunity.
After the completion of program, next year when the students took the entry test to the University, 80% of them got admission to the university in their preferred field of studies (Engineering, Science, Medical, Pharmacy etc).
Now I am doing my masters in U.S but when I was there, the people call me "teacher" and I feel very happy interacting with my students and having a conversation with them.
I hope this helps your research.
Thanks
Ahmad Jawed Samsor
Idalia Muñoz
I thank you for the opportunity you gave us in learning about your personal experience, helping students in Afghanistan.
You have a spirit of compassion and empathy. We need more humans with this type of vision, a speciality so scarce and indispensable in this troubled world.
"Que florezcan rosas sobre su camino"
Tim Colgan 50+
What do you think it would take to get help to Afghanistan to become more humanitarian oriented (such as yours) vs. military-based?
In your opinion, is the US military there serving any useful purpose or should it leave?
Robert Schueler
One of my most memorable social moments came to me during the last day of our (the great peace march ) walk across america in 1986...we were having a rally across from the white house with notable speakers (Carl Sagen at the time) when spontaneously a semi-large group of marchers connected into a circle connecting in such amazing love...a group memory of the past nine months, connecting as one...then the immediate sensation of separation when WE all knew it was over and the time to dis-connect and separate and go our own unique ways...WE all broke into the most intense hysterical crying for a couple of minutes before breaking up the tight close intense hugging circle....it was so complete, so intense, so everything...the closest thing i have experienced of what i would refer to as a group orgasm....it was the closet feeling to what each and every cell in my body must go through with each and every division of dna. As that day approaches the 25th anniversary, I have had many many many amazing social experiences that have intuitively blown me away to new worlds, but that moment in Lafayette Park was that first step into utopia.
Linda Hesthag Ellwein 50+
I work with communities in conflict, such as ranchers, environmentalists and other interested publics in the American West. There'd been so many death threats to federal land managers in one Idaho town, they had to travel in pairs or not at all. I was asked to facilitate this group of polarized individuals who wore Birkenstocks, cowboy boots and government badges and engage them in finding solutions that they could all agree upon. After a process of genuine listening and dialogue on all sides of the issues to find common ground over many weeks, the most shut down, defended rancher who always had his arms folded firmly across his chest and an angry look across his face asked, "Is it time for the group hug now?" He meant it. It was the journey, not compromise, that led us to that place. That was the first of many such experiences over the next ten years.
Thomas van Waeyenberge
rallying the kids and their parents around a common goal, focused to win a prize
and actually getting to the point of implementation
sharing that common victory, which resulted in some very simple, yet visible and "livable" changes on the school playgrounds made everybody's lives so much more fun
Robert-David Steele-Vivas
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2003/11/the-tao-of-democracy-using-co-intelligence-to-create-a-world-that-works-for-all/
but meeting him face to face was transformative. Tom is the one absolutely authentic person I know, and his wisdom and his focus on collective intelligence broke me free from the government secret intelligence paradigm, and added me to the larger collective public intelligence workforce.
More recently he has written and posted:
Evolutionary Activism by Tom Atlee
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/01/coming-soon-evolutionary-activism-by-tom-atlee/
Tom Atlee Proposes distributed-intelligence, crowd-sourcing participatory think tank for popular common-sense policies, unhindered by party affiliations and ideology
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/tom-atlee-proposes-distributed-intelligence-crowd-sourcing-participatory-think-tank-for-popular-common-sense-policies-unhindered-by-party-affiliations-and-ideology/
In the terms of your question, what Tom taught me was that no amount of stove-piped book reading, however broad, can substitute for face to face conversations with a diversity of participants.
Ray Richards
Everyone was extremely friendly and could not do enough for us. Later we were asked for money to buy food by our host. They were not a wealthy village so this seemed OK. The village was Muslim (a minority in Bali) and it was our first taste of being woken up at night for prayers. As as a result it was all very different and without doubt one of my best experiences whilst travelling.
In the morning our host took us north to our next port of call. We were just about to say thank you by way of a few Rupiah when he asked for money. We were very upset to be asked for money and explained this to him. We also explained that we were just about to offer him a 'thank you'. He seemed upset to be told this. We gave him the Rupiah anyway and parted company.
Twenty years later I'm still not sure what to make of this experience and whether or not we were right to feel aggrieved at being asked for money.
Am I glad we took the decision to stay in a village in the middle of nowhere with strangers? Absolutely! Would I want my kids to make the same decision? Probably
David Phillips
Just living in the weeks following the initial global publicity around a DC sex scandal to which I was related, then almost two years later after the release of a documentary film in which I appeared. As someone who had fought for many years to just "fit in" and not "stand out," I was suddenly given a mantle of celebrity that went everywhere with me--around DC, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Houston. In exchange for unflinching honesty about a dark time in my past, I was lauded by total strangers and thanked for standing up to oppressive forces and being open with my truth. And it came without stalkers or papparazzi! I often said that I wished everyone could have the same experience of being recognized and appreciated unexpectedly and so often.
Raheel Lakhani
Another one is online. I have made great friend from India as we both are staunch believers of Pak-India friendship because of the shared history of both nations. Amazing person. We have worked on e-projects as well.
Peg Rousar-Thompson
Social experience: I showed up to help after Hurricane Katrina. The help became secondary to the people I met, our interactions, my glimpse of the human spirit at its best.
Why: requires a bit more thought. Maybe because we were stripped of all life's bullshit. The playing field had been leveled, so to speak. There was no comparing of social position or better-paying jobs. That basic commonality we look for in social situations was destroyed - our only common ground was our humanity and this enormous sense of loss. The only thing that truly mattered was how you were going to RESPOND right here, right now.
And yet we remained individuals. As I remember names and faces, all were unique - and remain vividly so today. A positive experience DID grow from this horrendous event - and I classify it as "amazing" because it changed me, changed the way I see people, and I'll carry it with me to my grave.
Benson Engelbert 500+
This Valentine's, the TEDxJakarta team held a rather 'accidental' Free Hugs campaign. It's not an entirely new concept, but it was a crazy amazing time and social experience.
Read the story here: tedx.posterous.com/hugcampaign-on-valentines-day
It was so amazing because we pulled off something people thought impossible in a relatively conservative country. In the process we shared warmth, compassion and a bit of idealism. We connected not only with our team members but also with strangers through the simple act of hugging them.
ju mao
MUKTA GOKHALE