Megan and Ryan are OOTO...

...To say 'our values' suggests that values are something that we have, either things we carry around, or defining attributes like a person's height or weight. Instead of something we have, it is more considerate to think of values as guiding word tools that are part of the language of our time and place and are available for all to use. Care should be taken to avoid a possessive attitude that makes a claim that we own values."

The Gulf Coast Community Design Center on values.

Or in other words...put away your thesaurus, stop trying to define yourself into oblivion, and just keep moving forward. Let the uncertain realm of experience, rather then the ideal realm of analytics define values for you. "Let values shape practice and practice shape values." Or, let PieLab exist in the community and let the community exist in PieLab.Noted.

Perhaps this is what it's really about.

BikeLab is a small group of dedicated volunteers working in Greensboro Alabama to provide refurbished bicycles to Hale County residents who lack transportation. Our goal is to recycle as much as possible, waste as little as possible, and reach as many people in need as possible. BikeLab typifies how education, community building, environmental consciousness, and physical well-being can all come together through a single means, bikes.

Today I met Jerry. Jerry lives fifteen miles outside of town. He ventures into Greensboro to do business and visit his cousins. This was Jerry's fifth visit to PieLab. He drinks his first cup of coffee with cream, and his second cup black.

Last night I met David. David teaches English at Greensboro East. He plays the guitar and lives in Newbern.

Yesterday I met Judith. Judith is left-handed. She enjoyed the spinach, walnut quiche. Judith would like to volunteer somewhere in town.

On Tuesday I met Meador. Meador owns a farm on Hwy 80. His business card is quite nice. I think that might be thermography...?

Last week I remembered that all of this isn't about us or for us. It's about every single person who walks in our door. I'll remind myself daily.

I wonder who we're effecting, if we're building 'the right' relationships, if our actions are advantageous, if we're exploring enough ideas, etc. I don't particularly enjoy blogging, and therefore I don't necessarily find it lucrative to discuss too much of this rumination in such a forum. Yet, I feel it important to share with others who may read this weblog some noteworthy items I've come across while reading through some old sketchbooks that I find to be quite relevant (and timely) in their relation to PieLab and forthcoming initiatives here in Hale Co. Bear in mind the following notes/ideas are collaborative and were conceived many months ago, prior to the influx of several young individuals to Alabama, at a time long before the idea of owning a pie shop on Greensboro's Main Street was even conceived.

--PieLab is a multi-faceted fresh approach focused on building community, and boosting the morale of these communities in a way that is sustaining, self-perpetual and fun. PieLab is not business as usual, but rather a new way of thinking about business as a catalyst for positive social change.

--PieLab is a negative energy inverter fueled by pie.

--Founded on the idea that simple gestures, like giving away free pie, can create joy, PieLab aims to bring communities together and help stimulate local business economies.

--PieLab is delicious, hopeful, contagious, tasty, goopy goodness.

--There is an infinitely renewable source of young adults that want to do good things.

--Thinking Wrong is a creative philosophy to break the standard, calcified connections that currently drive business development and communication.

--PieLab is a design engine that enters a community and works in that community. PieLab is part of community, community is part of PieLab.

--PieLab should sustain itself through the products and services that are incubated and sold in-store and online.

--PieLab should support lasting change and growth in Hale County as a way of building job opportunities and business for local residents.

--Projects should (1) address a pressing social need within the community (2) can be implemented within the community (3) deliver positive results that can be measured.

--At it's core, design is about problem solving. But it's also about problem identifying. Instead of creating a need for things, designers should focus on responding to the things we do need.

Ideas are only ideas until action is taken. Action is being taken. It is essential that we all keep talking, keep questioning, keep ideating and remain self-aware and self-critical as we move ahead with this wonderful, albeit unpredictable, endeavor. Huge steps have been made in the right direction. Let's keep going. xoxo

1. Pork Rinds and BRed Mad Dog for the birthday boy.
2. Banana cream, peanut-butter, chocolate, and whipped cream pie from Amanda.
3. High-Life and Michelob all around.
4. The most intense/epic several rounds of tourettes, ever.
5. A fun game of Kings.
6. Bed.
7... A tough morning.