Monday, February 20, 2006

No continent left behind? Did you notice what I just noticed in that map of market size (in the posting below)? Give up? Where's Africa? Staggering... 11:39:13 PM    comment []  trackback []

More on resilience From the 'nothing new under the sun' department: Once again, our friends at WorldChanging.com got there first (to the Resilience Alliance, that is), in this case with Nicole-Anne Boyer's piece on The Panarchy Cycle. In a long and thoughtful and illustrated poster, she quotes 'path-breaking' ecologist C.S. Buzz' Hollings' From Complex Regions to Complex Worlds: During such times, uncertainty is high, control is weakened and confused, and unpredictability is great. But space is also created for reorganization and innovation. It is therefore also a time when individual cells, individual organisms or individual people have the greatest chance of influencing events. In societies, there is opportunity for exploratory experiment if the experiments are designed to have low costs of failure. The future can then be mapped by experiments that fail and succeed, rather than by long term plans. It is the time when a Gandhi or a Hitler can use events of the past to transform the future for great good or great ill. (Emphasis added) Truth. 11:30:18 PM    comment []  trackback []

Resilience Alliance The Reslience Alliance is a multidisciplinary research group that explores the dynamics of complex adaptive systems, offering research on reslience in socio-ecological systems - a basis for sustainability ('Socio-ecological' is a term we've seen often in Sweden - for example at the core of The Natural Step's work - but rarely in the US.) It's a rich and sometimes astounding site (at least for eco-geeks -- it hearkens me back to my systems ecology graduate work, and potential academic research paths left aside for the rough and tumble of applied ecology). I haven't read deeply in it yet, but I plan to, and will have more to report as I do. For now, just two of the maps on their associated blog, comparing population and market size A few things to think about, yes? 11:19:10 PM    comment []  trackback []

Green Blog or Not [Ask the Experts, Feb 20 2006] Blogging's all the rage these days. What's up with green blogging? Is blogging useful for business? How do I get started? What should I read? Gil: What a perfectly timed question! I just moderated a green bloggers panel at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco a couple weeks ago. Our panel: Nick Aster, TriplePundit; Jamais Cascio pinch-hitting for Alex Steffen, WorldChanging; Graham Hill, TreeHugger; and Siel, Green LA Girl. Eric Corey Freed, who put the event together, introduced the event this way: In recent years, the art of web-logs, or 'blogs' has risen in importance in the fields of journalism, politics and art. As sustainability reaches a 'tipping point' in our culture, several bloggers have emerged at the forefront of this movement... this distinguished panel of leading bloggers reporting on the fast changing world of environmental responsibility... will discuss current issues, trends and milestones in environment, ecology, and sustainability. These bloggers are often the first to break a story on significant developments in the environmental field. You can find coverage of the event -- from bloggers of course! -- by Green LA girl, sustainablog, TriplePundit, and IvanEnviroMan. There may be a podcast or public radio broadcast, too. (There are lots more environmental blogs, of course, more than I can list here. Start my checking the blogrolls at those sites, my blog and GreenBiz founder Joel Makower's widely read Two Steps Forward.) Are you just getting going in blogging, or looking to improve how you're doing it? Here's a quick start list from Seth Godin's beta startup, Squiddo. Useful for business? Unquestionably -- in two ways, in my experience: First, its an unprecedented way for readers to maintain a fast, up-to-date scan on topics of interest, often well ahead of traditional media (use a good RSS reader to streamline that process). Second, it's an unmatched way for bloggers to bring your customers and community a piece of your mind, in the very best sense of the term -- what you're doing, what you think and why you think that -- essential for businesses that depend on building trust in the midst of globalized, corporatized economy. People argue about corporate blogs -- see Jeneane Sessum on Why CEOs Should Blog -- and the conflict between maintaining the official line and delivering the personal voice that good blogs require. Nonetheless, there are a growing number of CEO blogs (though you'll notice that the smaller/younger companies dominate). Send your questions about environmental management issues to Experts@GreenBiz.com. And visit the Ask the Experts archive. 4:45:53 PM    comment []  trackback []

AIA targets 50+% fossil fuel reduction [Environmental Building News, via GreenClips]: The American Institute of Architects' board of directors has set a goal of halving the amount of fossil fuels needed to construct and operate buildings by 2010 and reducing that amount a further 10 percent in each of the following five years. The ambitious goal was set in one of two "High Performance Building Position Statements" approved by AIA in December 2005. Depending on they do their math, that means either 0% fossil fuel use -- one presumes they're talking about new buildings -- after six years, or a 70% reduction after six years. (0.5x0.9x0.9x0.9x0.9x0.9). Impressive in either case, and starts to get at what I've been calling "sufficient goals"-- sufficient to the challenge, and sufficient to motivate enthusiastic innovation. Here's the PDF of the AIA statements. 11:40:30 AM    comment []  trackback []