Dear Pledge Pyramid backers, supporters, all,

It's been three weeks since the night of the Planetary Pledge Pyramid game show. We've had some time to rest and recover, and wanted to send out an update to wish you all a Happy New Year, and to thank you all very much for your support in 2009.

We were really disappointed with the results of the official Copenhagen Climate Conference, so even though our own discussion and decision-making process was quite chaotic, we were pleased that at least the Planetary Pledge Pyramid had a specific and achievable outcome! This January, we will be working with Camilo to get those 2500 trees planted in the Amazon - which we're sure is going to be a lot of fun. We will send out updates about the project as it progresses.

In the meantime, we are trying to gather as much feedback as possible. The Planetary Pledge Pyramid was an experiment in large-scale discussion and decision-making, a prototype for how people can get together and figure out what they can do with their combined resources and ideas. We would like to ask for your help one more time - in helping us improve the way we do this next time.

We would be very grateful if you could fill in this quick survey about the project and your experience of it.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas that don't fit into that form, please do email us: info@thepeoplespeak.org.uk or leave comments here and we'll make sure we act on your feedback!

Thanks,

Saul

for The People Speak

Dear backers, Internet voters and everyone who came and submitted ideas.

We have a winning project, and with your $3000 hitting the funding target at the last minute, it's going to happen!

Camilo Arreaza, Kai and Freya from Bogata, Colombia, Geneva, Switzerland and Copenhagen Denmark have committed to building a tree nursery for 2500 trees near to Yopal in the oriental flat lands over the Amazon forests!

It was a bit of a chaotic night, with technical problems and lots of improvisation, but everyone was thrilled with the outcome. As soon as we had finished, we realised that we were still $600 short! Camillo quickly got onto the net, phoned a Colombian radio station, and people ran around asking people in the climate forum for a whip round - and in the final hour - with a final few injections of cash - we made it to $3000!

Congratulations everyone who was involved, and thanks for taking part...

Camillo has promised that if anyone wants to come and visit the nursery, he will be happy to show them around, and will post updates to let you all know how the project goes.

We will also send some updates once the dust has settled.

Cheers!

Saul

For The People Speak

Dearest backers, proposers, spectators, all,

Tonight is the big night - the end of COP15, and the climax of all the discussions, brainstorming and decision-making you have all been involved in over the last month.

While, of course, we are still hopeful that a positive last minute resolution can be reached at the Bella Center, we went to the HQ of good-COP15, where we used their media time machine to make a somewhat premature announcement about the wild success of tonight's show compared to the 'official' COP15 outcome.

We will be sending you all a link to the streaming / voting system later today at approximately 5pm GMT - 1 hour before the show - so stand by for that announcement. If you are a Vote Sponsor and you want to send invitations to your friends - tell them to be online and ready to get an email with the magic link and password at that time. If we do not hear from you, we will give your vote to a member of the audience at the Climate Forum.

We are very hopeful that by the end of the show, we will have raised the extra cash we need for the $3000 pledge to be successful, as we are expecting a healthy number of people to come tonight for the live performance in Copenhagen. Having all of your support, ideas and hard-earned cash in the pot already is a great incentive for more people to be involved.

A final note about tonight: we are here to prototype a new form of decision-making, where people with ideas, passion, energy and collective financial muscle can get together and decide to take action together. Whatever happens, whatever gets decided on, and how you choose to use this opportunity is up to you and everyone involved.

Thanks again for coming this far with us - good luck, and we will see you at the Climate Forum at 6pm GMT!

Speak soon.

The People Speak

PS: Zsolti, our expert visualiser, who will be visualising your ideas live tonight has done a few more (rather apocalyptic) previews of what some of your ideas might look like:
This is what it might look like to Ban All Leaf Blowers (non-facebook link). Jeni Paay's popular idea!
And this sinister vision is what Zsolt thinks Nick Spencer's idea to reuse deactivated nuclear weapons as a source for power might end up looking like. (non facebook link).

Greetings all from freezing Copenhagen!

Despite plunging temperatures and the first snowfall of the year, things have been really hotting up on the streets of Copenhagen as the political negotiations in the Bella Centre in Copenhagen seem to be stalling.

Yesterday we ran a public discussion around the Talkaoke table in Copenhagen City Hall Square where activists, school children, tourists, demonstrators, and climate conference delegates joined in the conversation. We heard from two dutch activists who told us about police brutality and the frustration of the people's assembly demonstration not being allowed near the conference, and from a seasoned activist and campaigner who had attended the last 4 UN climate conferences, and who was far more optimistic than we had expected, having spent the day as an accredited journalist inside the Bella Centre. Unfortunately the police (who 'protected' us as the demonstration passed the square), declined to join in the discussion...

Thankfully, plenty of you wonderful people have been joining in with the Pledge Pyramid! We are getting within striking distance of our $3000 target now - with only a day or so to go - and tomorrow we'll be back in the Climate Forum venue, running Talkaoke all day to hear more ideas from people at the forum who have been thinking, talking and working hard on tackling climate change from below for the last two weeks.

Speaking of which, Mikey has been drawing a map of the ideas you've come up with so far - to help give a sense of the kinds of discussions we might be having tomorrow, from 6-8pm GMT!

Thanks to all of you who gave us feedback on the web stream - we are going to work hard to improve the system for the show tomorrow - and we will soon be mailing you all a special link where you can access the voting terminal and the live web stream.

So - more soon, and thanks again for all your support! Although the politicians may fail to reach a consensus, we're feeling confident that your ideas and cash can make a difference - however small.

Saul

for The People Speak

Dear pledgers, friends, all - we are currently testing our web stream from Talkaoke, trying to make sure that you're all going to be able to see and hear what's going on this coming Friday!

To test the stream, please visit http://justin.tv/thepeoplestream

Let us know if the stream is working for you! (skype:saulalbert / message twitter @thepeopletweet / email info@thepeoplespeak.org.uk).

Please let us know before Friday if you're having any problems with it.

Cheers,

Saul.

So we've met all kinds of of people in Copenhagen, with different ideas about how to achieve the same thing - global action on Climate Change. Last night we went to a demonstration calling for richer countries to shoulder a greater burden in making the change, and found that they'd printed some special signs for us!
If only they'd missed out the 'Act Now' bit, they'd have been perfect ;)

Zsolt has been continuing to turn your ideas into images in preparation for the big day on the 18th. Here's what he thinks it would look like to make this idea about promoting locally sourced and grown organic food (click here for the non-facebook link) into a reality.

We have a full day of Talkaoke this Wednesday 16th, where we'll be webcasting live in preparation for the show on the 18th. Make sure you're online at some point between 12 noon and 9pm Copenhagen time (CET) if you'd like to test your stream. We will be tweeting and sending out an email to our mailing list when we go live.

Speak soon!

Mikey
for The People Speak.

The People Speak advance party have arrived safely in Copenhagen, and while we've been preparing for tomorrow's Talkaoke public debate in the city centre, our instant visualisation wizard Zsolti Balogh (who will be making people's ideas into images during the big game-show on the 18th) has been hard at work exploring what two ideas from the pledge pyramid might look like.

One of these ideas is a very popular theme, the other is a bit of an outlier. Check Zsolti's images below and guess which is which! :)

Interestingly, if you search for these ideas on facebook or on the non-facebook site you'll notice that people comment and debate more on unpopular ideas than on popular ones.

But we'll need both debate and votes, not to mention double the amount of pledges if we're going to get this game fully funded in the next 7 days - so if you haven't done it yet, explore the ideas ( on facebook or on the non-facebook site), vote on your favourites and 'share' them - it's a great way to let your friends know about the game.

If you've got an idea you'd like us to feature, and you'd be willing to do a short video interview about it (either in London, Copenhagen, or online) , please let us know.

Climate scientist and budding Talkaoke host Olivia Errey popped into the studio to talk to us about her Planetary Pledge Pyramid idea...

You can vote on her idea on facebook, or on the non-facebook site.

If you've got an idea to feature, and want to send us a video - get in touch!

Dear pyramid schemers,

Just a quick update for those of you who would like to get involved in a little pre-game debate: on the 11th December (this Friday) and the following Wednesday 16th December, we will be hosting two public debates in Copenhagen City Hall Square!
The People Speak team will soon be boarding the 18 hour ferry to Denmark from Harwich, schlepping our primary 'tool of mass discussion' the Talkaoke table. It's a round table, shaped like a doughnut, where anyone can sit in the middle and become a Talk-show host.

On the 11th December, the show will be hosted in Danish by our fantastic Talkaoke-DK (aka pølse snak) team host Pernille Kølbæk (pictured above) and cameraperson Mette Kærgaard Hansen, joined by special guest host Erik Pold.

We are going to try and test our live stream on this day, so if any of you speak Danish, or just fancy listening to some - follow us @thepeopletweet and we'll let you know when we go live.

Then on the 16th December, Talkaoke's inventor and hostmaster Mikey Weinkove will be taking control of the hole for a whole day of public debate and discussion in English. We hear there are some other interesting things going on that day too, so we might be making use of the Talkaoke table's wheels and taking the show out on the road.

Please do join us if you're in Copenhagen for an opportunity to discuss some of the best, worst and funniest ideas in the pledge pyramid so far. For those of you at home, this will be an opportunity to test the stream and get ready for the big game!

Speak soon,

Saul
(for The People Speak)

We attended The Wave demonstration yesterday along with 49,999 other people dressed in blue who marched through central London to try and convince our politicians to take the Copenhagen Talks seriously. It was a typically wet, cold, miserable English winter day, which made it even more amazing to see so many people out on the streets.

It inspired us to try, in the next 11 days, to get every single one of them to pledge their ideas and cash to the pledge Pyramid. Half a million dollars would certainly get us started!

But even with the more modest budget we have available at the moment, and the $3000-$8000 we hope to raise by the 18th, there have been some cracking ideas for projects that are achievable, sustainable, and could make a real difference.

For example, Liz Lowe from San Jose California, who works for a green investment firm got in touch and explained her idea for microfinancing, which we loved. Basically, she's suggesting that we put our money into a microfinance fund that would support green businesses and initiatives in developing economies. Her insight is that the best solution to local environmental issues are addressed by local people - and this would be a way of supporting a huge diversity of ideas on an ongoing basis.

You can read more and vote for the idea either here on Facebook here, or on the Uservoice site.

There are some other brilliant ideas already in the pyramid - so please do explore and vote for your favorites.

Finally, we'd like to thank everyone in the first tier of the pyramid who has backed ideas, voted, and pledged their cash to get the ball rolling. It's also been great to receive your comments and ideas about how to get the message across to more people.

We now have 11 days to get another 250 people into the game. If each of you manages to rope in just 5 friends in the next 10 days, we'll do it easily, and there will be a lot more to play with on the big night!

More updates and ideas soon,

The People Speak

(photo below by H M Cotterill, Some rights reserved)