The arrival of sustainable sustainability?

A little late I know, but just before the end of the year, we were fortunate enough to be a part of the Sustainable Life Media conference in Miami.  As is often the case, the event was full of interesting people extolling the virtues of more sustainable practices - from large MNC’s such as J&J through to some fantastically nimble social start-ups. But more than that, there was a real sense of change in the air. A sense that for the first time we were looking at making businesses sustainable, rather than bringing sustainability into business. In other words, for the first time I sensed that sustainability was being recognised as a key piece of DNA architecture for business, rather than some fan-fared adjunct.The ramifications of this are profound: for a start, this is what Peter Salmon from Moxie (who I had the pleasure to share a plenary session with) has labelled Sustainability 2.0. Or even 3.0. It also suggests an exciting trend that sees sustainability becoming near-impossible to focus on within the firm. That is not to say that it is absent, but rather just invisible.  Or rather, inherent. We are constantly hearing clients and colleagues citing an economic downturn as the worst possible time to embark on initiatives under the sustainability banner. But to make this criticism is to make the mistake that sustainability remains an annexe to the firm - an incidental anecdote to be told when appropriate.

This is most certainly wrong; instead, sustainability offers the best chance for firms to remain in business, as they redefine boundaries of influence and re-stock reserves of trust.This sounds absurd, but for too long, I really do not think the majority of firms have actually viewed sustainability as being linked in any way to their…..well, sustainability. And as such, it has been a nice-to-have appendage.So maybe this is now changing? Maybe Sustainability 2.0 and the crushing re-evaluation of business in the current climate marks the arrival of sustainable sustainability?  Based on the clear exodus of freshly-empowered CMOs and CEOs from large MNCs at the Miami conference, keen to demonstrate their new-found independence via boutique consulting efforts and old business cards with biro’d new titles and cell phone numbers, it seems so. Which also means sustainability could be finally becoming less about guilt, burden and ‘doing what’s right’ and much more about opportunity, energy and doing what’s exciting. Which would be very exciting indeed.G  

Webank | Are people replacing institutions?

Is the democratic and social nature of the internet changing the way we understand finance?

While in the past web-enabled innovation in the sector meant online banking and web-access to front-end customer services, there is today a growing set of organisations which remove banks and other institutions as intermediaries altogether.   Welcome to the world of peer-to-peer finance.

Business Model Designer From Sticky Note To Screen Interaction

10 Best Wordpress Plugins for Google Adsense

Google Adsense Wordpress Plugins

Listed below are 10 best Adsense plugins which help you work smarter with wordpress.

corporate venturing

Time for firms to take new view of corporate venturing, BUSINESS TIMES Business Times Malaysia 07-05-2001 THE new economy has made it necessary to see corporate venturing in a new light, according to Accenture Business Launch Center. Corporate venturing is investing and leveraging on internal and external asse Business Times...

Corporate Venturing in Denmark This paper argues that Corporate Venturing CV, i.e. activities where an existing firm actively invest in a new start-up, is a much more widespread phenomenon in Denmark than official sources claim. In addition to large CV oriented corporations such as NKT and B&O, many medium sized firms and even quite...

Boutique Consulting Firms

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Web aggregators, which provide site-centric widgets.

Pure plays, which provide portable widget containers.

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Any business has three levels of value definition - value defined by shareholders, customers and employees/partnership. Shareholder value is the primary value component no business can survive without and provides for the long term agility of an organisation. Customers provide medium term liquidity and employees the operational cash flow to ensure the continued operation of an enterprise. An enterprise architect must have a good understanding of wealth creation formula like economic value add to assess the contribution of IT to Wealth Creation

Pricing on Purpose By Ronald J. Baker

"With Pricing on Purpose, Ron Baker had made an enormous contribution to the better understanding of pricing that will be accessible to anyone who wants to learn. People are intrigued by instances of what they see as idiosyncratic pricing. Sometimes it is idiosyncratic, but oft-times it is fiendishly clever and well researched. So is this book. There are examples that at first sight seem to have nothing to do with the subject at hand, but the learning points are all made and explained in any number of interesting and memorable ways. Pricing on Purpose is a welcome and valuable addition to the learning on pricing and I recommend it to professional pricers, marketers, and anyone interested in capturing the value their business creates." —Eric G. Mitchell, President, Professional Pricing Society, www.pricingsociety.com

"Ron Baker is what I'd call a 'thought giant.' In his first two books he literally began a revolution in the accounting and legal professions. Thousands of professionals in public practice now lead far better, more rewarding lives thanks to him. Now he's broadened his impact in a huge way. Read this book, implement the ideas and you'll never look at your prices or your pricing policies in the same way again. You'll be richer in many ways because of it." —Paul Dunn, founder and CEO, ResultsNet Australia, coauthor, The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services, www.resultsnetaustralia.com

Nick, I agree. Imagine semantic analysis, recommendation tech and who knows what else added to that mix and we're just at the beginning of a very exciting era.

Having Conquered Flickr & Yahoo, "The Newsfeed" Is Now the Dominant Info-Metaphor of Our Time

The internet is really exciting. There's a whole lot of information on it - an overwhelming amount, even. Years ago we first looked at it in monochrome text, then we started looking at it through a search box on an empty white page. What's next? Is it huge War Games style multi-monitor displays? A swirling UI somewhere between Tom Cruise in Minority Report and David Bowie in Labrynth? Today we're ready to declare The Newsfeed the dominant internet metaphor of the day; the cascading waterfall of updates from your friends, with comments swirling even around those - that model is everywhere now! Today one of the biggest photo sharing websites and the biggest news and email portal in the world both fell under the spell of the Newsfeed.