We had the wonderful Amisha in for Lunch and Learn today to hear about her latest project Think Act Vote

"Politics isn’t just something that happens in the houses of parliament and voting doesn’t just happen every four years. Every day we make choices that shape our world.

Think Act Vote is a campaign to inspire us to think positively about our future and the votes we cast, today, tomorrow and forever ." 

It’s a ‘Rock the Vote‘ for personal agency, politics with a small ‘p’ if you like, focusing on the future we choose (and can create) through the daily decisions we make.

It’s a timely and powerful idea and it fits well with our own thinking around selling the sizzle.

There is a lot of righteous (and rightful) indignation out there – directed at the the ruling classes, the masters of the universe, the chief executives and politicians responsible for the recession, Broken Britain and all the rest. This has been successfully tapped into by the Tea Party movement stateside and it has been argued that the recent backlash against climate science is a further symptom of our distrust in ‘experts’ following the global recession.

There is frustration about our lack of choice, our lack of control and the lack of a meaningful response from our leaders – the ‘they just don’t get it mentality’. But we do have choice and control in how we choose to spend our money (and how we choose to make it) and through how we choose to spend our time and what we lend our voice to.

There is huge demand (and opportunity) for engagement and it’s being catered for through ethical brands, through the trend towards local and handmade, through choosing unique experiences over  conspicuous consumption and through the ability to share an cocreate through social media.

Perhaps ‘big’ Politics is broken but while we’re waiting for the system to respond there’s the chance to rebuild a more direct, devolved, everyday democracy from the fragments.

A democracy where your vote is about guerilla gardening one evening, choosing to slow travel to Spain for your holidays and drinking a glass of fairtrade wine at a Swishing party with friends. The companies, movements and individuals we love are already doing it. Who said politics is boring?

And doesn’t it sound a lot more fun than a braying Prime Minister’s Questions, a sneering Paxman and a frothing Humphreys in the morning?

Vote here by describing the future you choose.(Amisha will be making a book out of the entries and delivering it by hand to the Prime Minister after the election.)  

And here by buying your very own, very ethical and very sexy Think Act Vote t-shirt.