jan de man

Yes Men - my kind of outfit

I stumbled upon Yes Men today. Had heard of their movie before, but never actually seen it. Definitely have to do that now.

This is friendly trouble-making at its best. Oh well, maybe not always friendly, but they do poke around in the business world in a magnificent way. 

Here is a clip with one of the Yes Men explaining their work.

 

Half of me wishes I'd done this. The other half knows I'd never have dared.

//jan

Sommarlovsentreprenörer

I DN idag. Botkyrka satsar på sommarlovsentreprenörer. Man kan naturligtvis diskutera vad som igår i det kommunala uppdraget och inte, men i stort tycker jag detta är ett lysande initiativ. Ett bra sätt att göra entreprenörskap mer konkret. Och positivt att de involverat lokala näringslivet också.

//jan

3GS unboxing - fun

Exploring opportunities in Iraq

Can't remember if I've mentioned this here earlier but I'm with a network collegue exploring a long shot idea of connecting refugees from Iraq living in Sweden with apparent business opportunities in Iraq for Swedish companies.

There is a local government that makes sense to involve. Positive meeting today. And a government agency with investment capital that talks about "the opportunity of a generation". Positive meeting a week ago.

We will see where this wants to go...

//jan

Archipelago Outpost?

As midsummer makes its way into Swedish minds I've revisited an old parked idea about creating a creative hub/outpost thing in my home town Vaxholm. What sparked it was the discovery of a specific piece of property presently up for sale. It seems to be a very suitable location for my idea.

So now I'm scrambling to get my idea down on paper, work the numbers, explore financing options and see how many in my local network that would like to be part of the initiative.

The backdrop is this: in my home town I've found that there are so many creative, wise and entrepreneurial minds around. At the moment everyone is working his/her business alone (some with employees) and without much connection to our home town. We all more or less commute to clients in the larger Stockholm area, and many like myself have offices at home. The opportunity as I see it is to draw this pool of talent together in a shared space and see what can happen. The space is built up of vision, values, ideas and - a physical space.

The trick now is to assist a uniting and inspiring vision to emerge. I have a few embryonic pieces to get the process started. The rest is conversation.

//jan

Peter Senge on sustainability

Paul Holmström pointed me to this article. Peter Senge has always been a wise thinker and in this article he is interviewed on sustainability. It is a long read so make sure you have a little time. I pulled out this bit as a flavor of what he says:

On another level, it’s [sustainability] just a bad word. It’s technically what we would call a “negative vision.” We don’t want the unsustainable, we don’t want civilization to collapse, we don’t want the human species to fail. Well, of course we don’t want that, but those images don’t move people. “Survival” is not the most inspiring vision. It motivates out of fear, but it only motivates for as long as people feel the issues are pressing on them. Soon as the fear recedes, so does the motivation.

What we’re talking about is arguably the greatest challenge to innovation that humankind has ever faced: reinventing our whole way of living. And every single example I know of where something meaningful has happened, where people have worked at something that’s taken five years, 10 years, 15 years, it’s because of people’s excitement toward something that really draws them. It’s aspirational.

//jan

Reflections on Home

I've now spent the full 1 hour and 33 minutes to see Home. If you haven't I urge you to (it was supposed to close June 14, but seems open still). It is a remarkably beautiful film with a really grim message. A message we don't seem to be taking seriously enough...

Nothing in itself in the film was new to me, I believe I have a fairly good grip on what challenges the planet and us humans face. The impact of the film has to do with the whole story coming together at once. 

Personally I'm once again struck by my relative inaction regarding this matter. Most people are probably concerned about the situation and believe they can't make a difference. I happen to think that things can be done, and that we should try. But I honestly don't think I'm trying hard enough.

I refuse to participate in a Titanic like charade; "we're sinking, might as well enjoy the ride to the bottom". I refuse not to take responsibility for coming generations - my kids, our kids.

We all have to rise above ourselves in this. And one thing comes out bloody clear. If humanity survives this mess, it'll be because we managed to change our life style pretty damn quick.

/jan

Leka företag

 

Jag har förmånen att vara ordförande i Klas Hallberg AB, min gode vän Klas bolag som är grunden för hans talar och författarbusiness. Alldeles strax skall vi ha styrelsemöte och det brukar var kul. Vi leker företag. Han ägare och VD, jag styrelseordförande. Det gäller att hålla ordning på rollerna för att det skall bli dynamik. Vi har också en annan rollfördelning att hålla reda på - samspelet mellan konstnären Klas och affärsmannen Klas. 

Allt som allt tror jag att det är Klas förmåga och vilja att leka med dessa roller och sitt företagande som gör honom så framgångsrik utan att behöva förlita sig på media och kändisskap.

För stunden diskuterar vi hur en internationell lansering kan se ut. Klas har talangen och ambitionen. Nu får vi se hur vi kan rigga en bra process.

Ta en titt på klippet för att få ett smakprov på hans innehåll och format. Inom kort finns det också ett engelskt klipp efter hand prat på TEDxStockholm nyligen.

/jan

From the archive: Perspectives on sustainability

I wrote this almost a year ago to the day. The first bit seems to be changing a little. The second has an interesting connection to my last post.

//jan

Sustainability for most today seems to be about tackling climate change. Damn, that is narrow. But arguably still an important an daunting task. 

Sustainability needs to be discussed and understood better. But not from the perspective of creating sustainable human life. That is also too narrow. Instead we should be building and protecting sustainability for ALL LIFEFORMS ON THE PLANET. Focusing on sustainability the for the whole system called our planet seems to me to be the only reasonable strategy to take care of our own egoistic needs of survival. We're interdependent on the planet. We need to look beyond our own needs to save ourselves.

World Future Council - coolest org on Earth?

This Dot Earth article caught my eye. I love the ambition of having us humans think of ourselves as interdependent on all life on Earth - and that the now living have a responsibility towards future generations. This sounds fairly obvious, but one could say we have long way to go...

So, when I in the same article found out about The World Future Council I checked their web site and discovered:

A. I've successfully avoided hearing about this organization for 5 years

B. This is a massively and ambitious and important and totally awesome initiative

C. It was founded by activist Swede Jakob von Uexküll, a man I admire very much

I'll definitely be following the work of WFC and hope they are very very successful. They have already inspired me to more strongly do what I can to move things in the directions they are advocating.

//jan