For my money, there are fewer examples of great food gurus on the web than the New York Time’s Mark Bitten. His blog videos and print articles are honest, pragmatic, and friendly in design and useful to anyone who wants to make the intimidating and unusual accessible.

So many people approach cooking as an alien art when it can just as well be one of the most available pedestrian art forms on the planet. What I most appreciate about his approach and tone is that he presents everything as option and possibility for exploration and delight rather than the source of the drudgery of dogmatic compliance. In Mark’s world, every dish is beautiful and every meal balanced. You get the combination of spicy rapport, salty banter, and complex wisdom of good design, which is always simple.

Former Bogata mayor and civic innovator Enrique Penelosa continues to speak worldwide with the mantra: “Economics, urban planning, ecology are only the means. Happiness is the goal.” His approach to designing cities for happiness realizes the intersections of social and environmental justice that he instituted as mayor with countless public spaces, miles of walkable streets and huge impacts on Bogata’s carbon footprint.

What would happen, economically and civically, if the ultimate metric was the happiness of a neighborhood, city, or region? Imagine the leap in imagination beyond the anemic strategies of improvements on deficiencies. If any community wants to accelerate its trajectory toward communal happiness, perhaps all it needs to do is make it the central design principle in the future vision and present actions.

I’ve stopped counting how many times I’ve heard 60+ people in visioning conversations say something to effect of, “If we’re talking about what we want to see in 20 years, we should have people here in their twenty’s.”

Given the fact that a 70-something may live 20 years longer than a 30-something because life is not a guarantee or given, combined with the fact that the purpose of visioning is to see present possibilities more clearly, there is no excusing oneself from the freedom to vision. None.

Every community that visions into the future can consider a variety of economic growth indicators (metrics) in how they frame their vision statements. Here are just a few for consideration:

1. Number of new college-degreed & non-degreed jobs created by current organizations in each sector
2. Number of jobs created by new organizations in each sector
3. Number of new organizations coming to locate here from outside in each sector
4. Number of new organizations started from within the community in each sector
5. Number of new product and service lines offered by community organizations in each sector
6. Number of people in the community less or no longer dependent on public services and aid in each sector
7. Number of businesses performing better in each sector
8. Number of organizations with successful strategic processes in each sector
9. Number of residents with increased housing value in each sector
10. Number of students graduating to the next levels in each sector
11. Number of students starting new businesses and organizations in each sector
12. Number of employees re-skilled for new industries in each sector
13. Number of consumer dollars shifted from non-local businesses to local businesses in each sector
14. Number of businesses and organizations shifting to local suppliers in each sector
15. Number of people whose health care, education, and energy costs have decreased in each sector
16. Number of children with reading, writing, research, financial, and cultural literacies in each sector
17. Number of older citizens living longer and with few costs of living in each sector
18. Number of employers satisfied with the local pool of talent for open positions in each sector
19. Number of organizations winning grants, awards, and funding for local projects and efforts in each sector
20. Number of occupied commercial and retail spaces in each sector
21. Number of employee owned businesses that spawn new businesses in each sector

You are likely one of the people on the planet who completely take for granted continuous daily access to a toilet. If so, while we here in the States go to war over things like human rights and health care access, what percentage of people in 2010 do not have access to something as basic as a toilet?

If you guessed 40%, you’d be right. Billions of people daily have only the option to amass pollution in their communities. Now Swedish entrepreneur Anders Wilhelmson has developed a 3 cent bag that can both accommodate a single toilet use and with the aid of crystals, biodegrade into disease-free rich soil for growing gardens and farms that would otherwise lack proper fertilizers for the process. The closest innovation on the problem so far has been toilets that can be as inexpensive as $30, but this approach is both affordable and contributes to the food growing possibilities in communities around the world.

In a recent interview with The Journal, innovation strategist,  Larry Keeley, unveils the myths and mechanics of innovation, specifically addressing education innovations, if that’s not too much of an oxymoron for you. Among other examples, he suggests the elimination of grade levels.

Students enters high school, let’s say, and have to achieve so many competencies in a set number of academic areas. Students progress through them at a self-determined pathway and rate, and ultimately graduate. The benefits include a larger community of learning wasting less time in anxiety about “passing” to the next grade level, leaving the energy to learning. Keeley is a big fan of developing “a few big ideas” over “many small ideas.”

While we’re at it, let’s replace academic tests with community based projects that can demonstrate the exact same competencies and provide value to the community at the same time. Want a big idea? How about a world where the result of any students doing math, reading, geography, arts, and science results in a loaf of bread or 3×3 garden of herbs! This isn’t hard. It just takes complete disruption from the past 100 pathetic years of “education.”

According to the 3/50 Project, if half the employed in the US spent $50 at local indie businesses, it would generate over $42 Billion in local living economies - sticky money instead of slippery money. For every $100 almost $70 returns to the community. $43 stays in the community if the money is spend on a national chain or online store. 3/50 comes from the small act of picking 3 local businesses today and spending $50 there. It’s a brilliant campaign and deserves every community’s attention.

So here’s a small act inspired by a combination of dreams.

As I sit at home and prepare my shopping list for the local grocery, I can go online to my local grocery’s web page and add recipes to a “Community Recipe” page, searching on recipes from others in my community. Then when I go to the store, I find throughout the store online touch screen I can use if I forgot ingredients to a recipe I’m considering shopping for, or to browse what others have done with the ingredients I see in isles and shelves. This would drive three things: shopping efficiency for shoppers, more sales for the store, and more connections within the community. How amazing is that?

At Mount Vernon University, the staff  discovered a $4000 kit that turns cooking fry oil into biodiesel fuel to power the university’s fleet of equipment and vehicles. The unit produces almost 100 gallons of fuel every 24 hours and staff are now picking up local fry oil suppliers, reducing their delivery costs to zero, so everyone wins. It only took a few months from intention to innovation for this green-dedicated institution, a great example of how easily new projects can launch and pay back. We need to think about things at these scales, far below the radar of billion dollar industries and grants, and within the reach of any community.

Although it’s not particularly known for its autos, Hungary is taking a stab at the electric vehicle market with a futuristic new solar-electric car. Founded by auto enthusiasts and backed by local investors, the Hungarian company Antro, is working on a prototype for a modular car that is capable of splitting into two separate vehicles. With solar panels on the roof, the three passenger Antro Solo can run up to 20 km per day on solar energy alone.

This report from Inhabitat unveils the prototype innovation which are small modular cars that can be easily connected into 6 passenger cars and separated again for travel efficiency, economy, and convenience. It’s a genius concept that deserves more design attention into the future.