Interested in the presentations of the speakers on the Sogeti Summit in Venice?
You can dowload them here:
Menno van Doorn, Setting the stage: download here
Joseph Pine, “Authenticity” : download here
Martin Lindstrom “Buyology” : see this interview
Emily Green “Anywhere Company” : download here
Michael Braungart “Cradle to Cradle:” : download here
Carlota Perez “Technology, Globalization and the environment” : download here
They are called Sunchips for an obvious reason. Because their production is powered by the manufacturer’s own solar energy park. It is a product that makes one happy, because they seem to have a Be Good policy on all fronts.
For the marketers who wish to place the buyer of Sunchips in a category: they are called ‘enlightened consumers’. People who wish to make a contribution to a better planet and are doing so step by step. You have to abandon your hesitancy about leaving the empty packet in the woods, but perhaps you will lose your caution after seeing this film.
Emily Green gave some hands-on advice for in her Q&A session at the VINT Symposium. Companies should (a) mess around with new stuff and (b) do an Anywhere Audit. She called the balancing act between privacy and transparency ‘a new art form’. And some service providers are simply ‘dumb’.
Emily Green, Q&A at VINT Symposium from Sogeti VINT on Vimeo.
Ask the participants in a symposium for input and you will end with 350 cards about what Don’t Be Evil means in their opinion. With approximately 700 participants in the hall, the conclusion may be drawn that the call for input truly worked. It produced many post-its with pink statements on Evil and green ones on Live. Turn them over, place them next to one another, bundle them together and have a good look at them. At the end you have a Top-10 of people from trade & industry and the government who give their view on the direction organization ought to take in the 21st century. The Top-10 list is reproduced below.
Continue reading
Herman Wijffels (Dutch economist and Christian Democrat politician) referred to Don’t Be Evil as an adequate analysis of the multiple crisis in which we currently find ourselves. This crisis is financial, ecological, social and institutional. ‘Don’t Be Evil describes the things that will be truly important in the near future.’
According to Wijffels, the paradigm changes that will occur within each of these domains, as predicted in the new VINT publication entitled Don’t Be Evil, can best be translated into personal actions. In everything we do – as an individual, entrepreneur, politician, civil servant – we should ask ourselves: What will be the effect of this on other people and on the earth itself? If, after all these deliberations, we come to the conclusion: Don’t Be Evil, then a great leap forward will have been made. But he calls this a ‘bottom limit’. Really doing good can be taken a step further.
Role of technology
Wijffels: ‘The publication rightly devotes much attention to the role of technology. In my view, the paradigm change in that domain concerns the transition from scale enlargement – which we realized by means of technology in the 20th century – to scale reduction – which is the leading mainspring of technology in this century.’
See the whole Don’t Be Evil speech of Herman Wijffels (in Dutch) at the VINT symposium.
Herman Wijffels over Don’t Be Evil from Sogeti VINT on Vimeo.
I am in Karlstad (Germany) at the World Summit covering the effects of the media on young children. The sexualization of young people is a hot topic here. Many panel sessions deal with ‘media literacy’ – in other words, ensuring the generation of awareness concerning the effects of the media on young children. All young girls want to be pop-stars and have Britney Spears as a role model. You may wonder if that is so bad. In my days, the boys wanted to be Alice Cooper or one of the Rolling Stones, but not everyone developed an obsession with snakes or rushed out to buy a syringe. However, studies have shown that anorexia and low self-esteem are indeed related to the media.
In the presentation by Jean Kilbourne, called ‘So sexy so soon’, lingerie Barbie dolls were displayed along with a pole-dance variant. These were followed by a great many adverts in which small children assume adult poses. Magazines for children include Playboy adverts in which you can order a nice T-shirt. Kilbourne has been following this trend for a long time, and what she now emphasizes most is that things are rapidly getting worse. I myself have no children, therefore no case of anorexia or someone with low self-esteem in my home. But imagine that what Kilbourne is saying is correct. (And here I remember the ‘persuasive technologies’ we talked about at the symposium.) Imagine that we are going n the wrong direction. Can we do anything about it? All kinds of action groups are feverishly trying to work up public interest. But the public is obliged to defend itself otherwise they will be regarded as paranoid, or perhaps be seen as over-fixated women (women’s rights, there you go again). Can and should we get more control of the media? ‘Who is in charge?’ A member of parliament for Saudi Arabia (of all places!) suggested that the United Nations should intervene.
Herman Wijffels (centre) accepts the first edition of Don’t Be Evil. On the left, Michiel Boreel, CTO Sogeti Group, on the right, Menno van Doorn, director of VINT (Institute for the Exploration of New Technology). In his speech, Wijffels emphasized the importance of the innovation agenda that is described in the publication.
