Archive | July, 2013

There’s no smoke but maybe some learning is burning?

21 Jul

learning is burning jpegThere’s muffled murmuring in the background but no loud music, no unexpected truck or post deliveries, no obvious waste or smell and, amazingly, no significant demand on the Bank of Mum & Dad, but surely there is something going on in there.

It’s clearly not a complete secret – judging by footsteps on the stairs and occasional giggles – but she’s not for telling us, leastways not yet.

Ma says she should get more air. ‘Not good to be cooped up in that room all day’.   I’d like more conversation during meals but often now she doesn’t show up and when she does join us we get evasion and ‘you wouldn’t understand’.  Does anyone really need earphones at breakfast?

It’s clearly important, this life-changing stuff but the only way we can help, it seems, is to give the space, not ask annoying questions and make sure we all have even more connectivity.

This trust, this faith we have, this uncertainty is being tested.  Even her ‘what would he know’ older brother, has no clue and has resorted to casting aspersions.  But he’s off to uni in few weeks so, blessed relief; at least we’ll not have to endure that sibling rivalry.

‘Really, you should have a word’.  ‘Why me?‘ Parental Ping-Pong, batting back and forth, is a game for reluctant players.  ‘About what?‘  ‘What if?‘

The small mysteries of the digital revolution can be happening anywhere.  How things can flip from lonely localised passion to global success, how those tiny tweaks can make a huge difference, can never be explained.

Her only guiding rule, it seems, is “Screw it – let’s do it”, or, more forcibly, “Just (F) Do It”, or as we old stagers marvelled back when Net was new, ‘ Innovation Without Permission’.   That ‘so last century’ constraint of seeking permission does not now trouble young digitally liberated minds.

So relax, rejoice in their empowerment.  The world has moved on since some of us threw away the brakes of copper-constrained wires.  There is no going back.  Sit back, enjoy the ride, and hope they make a better job of it than your own tentative last generation efforts.

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If you made any sense of this try ‘Spot the Link‘ at our main editorial website.

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From Nano-dots to Giga-blots

11 Jul

As a follow-up to our earlier note (28th June) on the questions that might be asked by the UK’s Public Accounts Committee when they consider the NAO report on broadband delivery, we’ve spotted another possible mind-mapping connection – the Federation for Small Business report on the value of local procurement.

In the minds of those who think that digital infrastructure is so complex that it can only be addressed by Mega Phone companies, the notion of locally designed and managed network initiatives might seem an unlikely concept.  Fortunately the economic experience elsewhere in Europe and the USA shows otherwise.

Our editorial, ‘ The great dot-joining debate‘, asks whether the FSB’s procurement report will be considered as an ignorable nano-dot or be a broadband Giga-blot when the PAC meets to take ‘expert’ evidence on 17th July.

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Curating for the Curious

6 Jul

flipbook screenimageIt may be a good reason for not responding to online surveys – the tick boxes never seem to match our interests – but the enigma that is Groupe Intellex can frustrate those with tidier minds.  Even our logo seeks to escape from those who would prefer to place people on tidy library shelves or in neatly filed boxes.

But if perchance you are curious and can be bothered to peer inside the portfolio of those travelling in an innovative world, then take a look at our magazine as it trawls the Groupe Intellex mind.

Here you will find most of our recent outputs, some guest contributions, odd things that need a wider audience, some twitterish comments, links to interesting innovations and serious stuff with, hopefully, a few chuckles tucked inside.   It’s not of course all our own work but Flipboard makes curating so easy that it deserves a mention in any journal dedicated to innovation.

Writing is such fun – and not just for our own amusement.  Even the most earnest of visionary endeavours, Business Plans or Strategy Statements for stakeholders can afford to be lightened and humanised with some sense of poetry.

Should I mention that if the topic appeals our rates can be very reasonable?  Thinking Allowed.

Sustainable Development and socio-efficiency

5 Jul

GI LogoIn his introduction to the July issue of Quality Times the editor draws attention to the definition of eco-efficiency by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development – “eco- efficiency is achieved by the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impact and resource intensity throughout the life-death cycle, to a level at least in line with the earth’s carrying capacity.”

The editor, Pradeep Chaturvedi,  adds that ‘similar to the concept of eco- efficiency but so far less explored in corporate sustainability is the concept of socio-efficiency, i.e., the relation between a company’s value added and its social impact.  While it can be assumed that corporate impact on environment is usually negative, this may not be true for the social impact. . . .  Both eco-efficiency and socio-efficiency promote economic sustainability of businesses in the long run’.

This neatly introduces a paper by Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas that addresses Environmental Management Challenges and Opportunities for the World Congress in Dehli on 19th/20th of July.  In the context of a world-wide digitalisation of economies, empowerment of citizens, and the disappointments of Rio+20 last year this paper aimed at corporate boardrooms could not be better timed.

The Groupe Intellex summary of Colin’s paper is available here.

 

 

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‘Global Urbanist’: the story behind this year’s Intelligent Community winner

3 Jul

Further to our ‘Shaken and Stirred‘ report (8th June – from the Intelligent Community Forum  summit in New York) the Global Urbanist has published the inside story of the winning community – Taichung.

The editorial by Robert Bell and Sylvia Albert can be found here.