
Share your thoughts.
This blog provides a forum for students, instructors and others to share information and ideas about the Spring Thesis Program at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City.
Share your thoughts.
I want to use markets to reform capitalism.
Fast forward two years. In grad school two friends and I founded Citizens Market, a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower consumers with tools to shop responsibly. I'm now leading a team of volunteers to develop a crowdsourced website for responsible shopping, where information about corporate behavior is organized into scores that consumers can see while they shop.
Citizens Market will invite anyone to contribute information – i.e., a review and a rating – for any company’s performance on a certain issue, such as treatment of minorities, political lobbying or toxic emissions. Submissions will be reviewed and rated for quality by peers, so that persuasive reviews have a higher impact on the company’s final score. For each company, the website will automatically generate a “report card” of issue scores. Each company’s profile will be linked with its brands and products’ barcodes. We’ll post our algorithms and code base to ensure total transparency and encourage feedback.
+ this is a quiet revolution
+ must link “too much packaged food” to need for cooking
+ I am trying to demystify the cooking experience and reviving cooking experience
+ need to better explain how delivery system works
+ scrap book personalizes cooking experience
Ericka:
+ likes food trading idea
+ prepared food is not just a problem of suburbs
Seth:
+ front yard gardens…victory gardens
+ where is this community center to buy food or trade?
+ organic certification is only for 75% actual organic…misleading!
+ has heard of teachers trading soup
+ system ideas are about giving people around the country the idea and letting them run it
+ veggietrader.com and glazemixer.com
+ think about food waste
+ am I trying to get away from supermarket all together?
Byron and Sofia:
+ cooking makes meal more special
+ where does our food come from?
Kevin:
+ using yards for farming – sharing food
+ we should be more involved / exposed to production
+ we need education
+ website could show what people in the neighborhood are eating
+ food waste
+ good to see footprint of each food item
+ we need to start dialogue with food producers – want to see animals being killed to make meat
+ we need proper proto calls for safety
+ suburbs take what they can get
+ what is the scenario of distribution?
+ vertical growing takes advantage of land better
+ scrap book needs more direct connection to local food
Mike B:
+ organic = honest cost vs. conventional = external costs
+ as generations go by more understanding of real cost
Xiao and Roberto:
+ SPUD = local food delivery in LA
+ need education
+ supermarket will not be happy about vending cart – maybe partner with supermarket instead
+ cart will never be able to undercut the supermarket, so it needs to be more convenient in order to compete
+ use laziness to give my product advantage over supermarket
+could start w/ cheaper organic items
+ people are only going to want to go to one place for their groceries – so cart may not be able to satisfy need?
Denis:
+Delivery service already exists – there are CSAs that include multiple producers – look at Stanford social innovation review
+my market can be much wider within suburbs, does not need to be $85,000 family income. (down to 55 ?)
+food security = access to food, affordable food, reflecting culture
+the access in suburbs is there, but it is not convenient
Anna:
+not totally convinced of argument
+need to push it further
+likes idea of delivery from multiple vendors w/ small amounts of many items and some things pre-prepared