Archive | June, 2012

Quarterly Review and Index

28 Jun

Our editorial streams in the quarter April-June 2012  were dominated by coverage of the UN Sustainability Summit, (Rio+20) with considerable input from ‘Groupe Intellex Associate’ Marit Hendriks in Rio de Janeiro filming for NextGen TV.

Surprise hits, however, were the editorials on the ‘digital’ economy, New Economic Models and, from the archive, a heart-felt sermon on the iniquities of call centres, ‘ Please hold during the silence’.

The Quarterly Review includes references, acknowledgement, a chronological listing and a full alphabetical index of topics and people featured  in the last 3 months.

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Rio+20: Pressing for a Restart

26 Jun

In this final editorial from the UN Sustainability Summit in Rio we consider the disappointments felt by many participants but also celebrate the digital connectivity that has taken the messages from this event to all corners of the world.

In Marit Hendrik’s compilation of voices from Rio we hear from the UN leadership, from those concerned with their own country’s leadership deficit in environmental matters and those who really understand the need to re-engage with a digitally-empowered and well-connected next generation.

Full story here with video from Marit Hendriks for NextGen TV.

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Ria: a tribute to worldly-wise women of Rio+20

22 Jun

Ria in Spanish is the feminine of Rio and it seems only appropriate for our 4th report from Rio+20 to acknowledge the work of women around the world.

On a day when London and Brussels both experienced the power of dignified but determined voices we turn our Rio+20 spotlight on Tanya, Doris and Brittany – three voices with messages that lift us out of politics, resolutions and declarations and into the real world of getting on with finding solutions to everyday environmental problems.

In the rain forests of the Amazon or remote valleys in Switzerland or from the distant shores of New Zealand we feature three great examples of digital empowerment.

Politicians and the media may think the Rio+20 sustainability text is ‘insipid’ but life goes on and the present powers will be held to account by the next generation.

Full story here with videos by Marit Hendriks for NextGenTV.

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Rio+20: The Summit of our Ambitions?

21 Jun

The rain in Rio yesterday was not enough to cool heated debates at the UN Sustainability summit.

Outraged delegates – particularly from NGOs – lined up to pour scorn on the proposed text, ‘The future we want’, that leaders are expected to affirm by tomorrow.

The gap between earnest hopes and likely outcomes at Rio+20 is wide and the prospects of shrinking it are diminished because many of the world’s most powerful voices have been away at the G20 meeting in Mexico.

But in our own exploration of voices, views and opinions we’ve encountered a full spectrum – from passionate advocacy of network capabilities to perfect puzzlement at the notion of a ‘digital deficit’ and the need to understand that ‘transformation’ will not delivered by a gradual ‘upgrade’.

Full story here.

Rio+20: the reality of Digital Engagement

20 Jun

From an aerial view of the beach in Rio de Janeiro to Argyll & Bute in the Scottish Highlands by way of Brighton & Hove (and Nick Clegg, Aung San Suu Kyi, the EU delegation led by Denmark, ‘the hairy cornflake’ and Ellen MacArthur) we bring you our second report from the UN’s Sustainability Summit and a message about ‘the problem solving capabilities of networks‘.

All that plus Paragraph 65 of the Rio+20 draft final text that world leaders are expected to affirm this week.

Full story here with additional reporting from Marit Hendriks in Rio for NextGen TV.

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Rio+20: digital realities dawning

19 Jun

As thousands of delegates throng the conference halls of the UN Rio+20 Summit and work late into the night to try and reach a sustainable consensus, voices of reason are highlighting the national and global deficits in digital infrastructure.

In this first of our reports from Rio we bring together thoughts from the European Commission, the ITU, Boston Consulting Group, BT and the guy from Aberdeenshire who just got on with it and founded Mashable.com .  Additional reporting from Marit Hendriks of NextGenTV.

Full story here

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A digital Wake Up call

17 Jun

Whoever gets around to documenting the history of digital transformation should not overlook the small and seemingly insignificant moments that make the pennies drop.

One of these hit the headlines this week.  It was not some great scientific breakthrough, some amazing innovation in clinical practice, or the discovery of new sources of energy.  Nor was it an outbreak of peace in troubled places or a rush by world leaders to sign up to new commitments at the UN Rio+20 summit.

It wasn’t even another report on people empowerment expressed in YouTube videos from conflict areas.

This week’s commotion was the sound of scales falling from the eyes of everyday folk as they realised what digital citizenship was all about.

A nine year old student used her blog to review the quality of her school meals and raise money for the children of Malawi – and it caused havoc in the minds of local government officials.

It’s another a small step in wider awareness of the economy’s digital transformation that, when history is written, should not be forgotten.

Full story here

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Getting Rio

14 Jun

As Rio+20 gets underway and the mainstream media find this gathering of world leaders creeping into the news agenda, we give some time to considering how they will find consensus around fundamental issues for future sustainability.

The leaders will not be short of advice.  Lobbyists from every quarter of the globe and every sector of society are geared up for for a field day and honing their green credentials.

As great minds attempt to focus down on key global policy issues, the question that we hope the world leaders will ask of all those earnest supplicants is ‘Why are you telling me this?‘

And, when they jet back home to more mundane matters we hope that it will be a question they keep asking wherever and whenever they hear continuing excuses for the ‘digital deficit’ that blights the infrastructure that their citizens and venture leaders need for a return to economic health.

Full story here 

(Rio+20 will be reported for Groupe Intellex and NextGenTV by Marit Hendriks)

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Please hold during the silence

6 Jun

Having recently survived a series of bruising encounters of the Call Centre kind the editor is reminded that he has been writing this stuff for far too long.

He is also moved to wonder about progress and to share with readers a short note first published in 2004.

Back then the object of this writer’s ire was a phone company and today it’s a digitally different outfit – but at least the 2004 battle gifted us the headline ‘Please hold during the silence’.

With slightly better integration between departmentalised helpers, today’s call centre designers may lack poetry in their utterances but they are as addicted as ever to ‘the long button-pushing trail a-winding. . . . ‘

From the Group Intellex archive, ‘Hang on in there’ was written during one of those silences whilst waiting for a help-desk connection – and in those moments of reflection, when nothing more could be said or tweeted or text’d or posted, it sounded like a good rule for life.

Full story here

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Transforming Public Services – new report

4 Jun

Colin Coulson-Thomas has launched his latest report – Transforming Public Services – in which he debunks top-down management moves like restructuring.

What is really needed, he says, is far better performance support for people at the coal face – and this approach is cheaper, faster and far more effective.

You can find more of Professor Coulson-Thomas’s work in the Editorial (Management) section of the main Groupe Intellex publication.

Full story here

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