Implementing ‘Small Act of Goodness’ concept

A Small Act of Goodness is one of the winning concepts for the OpenIDEO challenge:”How might we increase social impact with OpenIDEO over the next year?” Like it’s title, it is a small step in making people smile, trying to make their day a bit better. I’ve been more involved in the OpenIDEO community lately, and when the winning concepts for this challenged were announced on Thursday night, I was eager to find out which won! On Friday morning while at school and browsing the OpenIDEO website, I decided well, why not try this concept out at school, here at Hyper Island? It’s the perfect place to observe and see how this fun concept could be realized. And so I did… I am reblogging the post I did on the Small Act of Goodness’s Tumblr blog with some photos & text. 

- Some interesting things I noticed after posting the ‘It’s Friday, Take a smile!’ paper up, was that I saw some friends had a smiley on their desk, and I went up to one and told him “Ah, you took a smiley!” And he said “No Fia gave it to me!”. Fia is a girl in our class. She saw the papers, and decided to give a couple away to some friends! I immediately realized the impact and reaction this small act can have, it doesn’t have to be YOU that takes a smiley for yourself, but you can give someone else one, such a simple gesture that can create momentary happiness for both friends. Here I also attach e photo of the paper up at the end of the day, with all the smileys gone! I want to try this concept again on a street in Stockholm, and see how people react in a public place here. I love making people smile and put their spirits up, and this is a super fun way to do that! Congrats to Anne on this great concept! 

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asmallact:

Hi everyone!

I finally implemented this little gem of a concept at my school today, Hyper Island, which has over 150 people in our building at the moment.. So I thought it would be a pretty great place to experiment. Seeing as Hyper Island is an advertising focused school, and this is not particularly the area I wan’t to work after my education, this might look a bit strange at first over here, as it’s not an advert, or poster for an event. I thought it would be different for that reason too! 

There are usually loads of random post-it notes and funny comments lying around our studios, so I thought this would be a softer ‘notice’ lying around. I placed the ‘Take a Smile’ paper on the mirror just as you exit the toiler corridor, and next to the kitchen, so I was sure it was seen. It’s been up for a couple hours and 3 smiles have been taken, so let’s see what happens until the end of the day! 

Great idea & concept, hope to see it picked up by more people soon.

Take care, Ana Cecilia

- Profile on OpenIDEO ; - @anaceciliaboman