# 8 issue, December 2011
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The cover story is dedicated to the environment and looks at it from four points of view: Thinking Out of the Box Environment and.. 09 Emerging Countries • Change is No Trickle Down Effect by Parag Khanna 11 G8 Nations • In Need of Guidance by Jerome Whitington 13 Policy • The Earth is Ill by William J. Snape III 15 Taxation • Polluters Must Pay by Richard Denniss
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EditorialPromises must be fulfilled, especially if they are public. Politicians are keener on short-term projects, because immediate outcomes are more easily exchangeable as “quid pro quo” in the political arena. No matter then, if complex policies need time to adequately develop, because good planning and financial investments needed to support any serious environmental policy. Economic crises and political turmoil is the main causes of actual countries’ amnesia regarding their commitments for the “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere,” in order to prevent a dangerous interference between human behavior and the global climate is probably the reason why the “green sensibilization” process cannot ever take place from a topdown approach, as Parag Khanna seems to suggest. And the latest news from China apparently gives him a point. Public opinion is forcing the government of one of the most polluting countries to balance economic growth with environmental sustainability, and become the “green engine” of the century. In December, China published the 12th quinquennial plan on the protection of the environment. Public pressure moves country policy into action, and rule-makers force industry to redesign industrial processes with the lowest possible impact on the environment, regardless of where the business is located. The only way to avoid the incumbent risk that an improved environmental sensitivity might become distorted is with a selfish “not in my backyard” attitude.
The game of inverting the trend of the earth pollution has started and companies are playing an important role in order to offer better standards of living to workers and to people at large.
Our intention was to understand if a “cure” able to reduce or eliminate damage to environment and, at the same time, being economically sapient – does really exist. The future China seems to be a good example of a country moving in this direction.
On the other side, we have asked to an expert to explain what the inner motivation that pushes those who want to “save the world” is, and how companies can associate and adequately communicate with activists and why. Finally, Panetta and Brown clarify how waste tracking systems may be implemented without controlling people’s behavior, thus affecting their privacy.
Rosario Imperiali d'Afflitto Editor in Chief rosario@theworkstylemagazine.com
around the world for Work Style #8
Atlanta
Victoria Stilwell is one of the most respected and recognized dog trainers in the world. She’s best known for her role as the star of the Animal Planet’s TV series It’s Me or the Dog. Victoria Stilwell is a member of the US Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC).
John Joven got his start in art at an early age when his parents enrolled him in his first painting, sculpture, and character design class when he was 8 years old. He is now a graphic designer and freelance illustrator.
Richard Denniss is Executive Director of the Australian Institute. He is an economist with a particular interest in the role of regulation.
Houria Grana is the Managing Director of AIMS International Belgium. Graduated in Labor Sciences from the University of Brussels, she has also a Master degree from the same University in Air and Maritime law.
Robert Sergel is a cartoonist, designer and musician. He has a degree in Photo & Imaging from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Charlottesville Mark Rylander is a registered architect, consultant, teacher and recognized expert on sustainability. His areas of expertise include clean technology, cities, and design for indoor environmental quality. Rylander was a Director with William McDonough + Partners for over fifteen years.
Daniel Diermeier holds two appointments as a faculty member at Northwestern University. He is the IBM Professor of Regulation and Competitive Practice of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at the Kellogg School of Management.
John W. Poracky is Vice President of AIMS International and President of AIMS International US MIDWEST, has been working as an Executive Search Partner and Consultant for 22 years.
Goñi Montes was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He began working as a scientific illustrator for the Puerto Rico Sea Grant. Now he mostly does editorial illustrations. He lives with his wife Jen who’s an illustrator for Archer.
Katherine Albro Houpt is Professor Emeritus at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists and is certified as an Applied Animal Behaviorist by the Animal Behavior Society.
Genoa
Alfonso Femia and Gianluca Peluffo are co-founders of the architect agency 5+1AA, former 5+1.
Lagos
Carasoo is a critic who tells it as it is, sometimes he’s foul-mouthed, some others simply cynical. He’s Work Style movie reviewer.
Daniel Mills is Professor & RCVS Recognized Specialist in Veterinary Behavioral Medicine Animal Behavior, Cognition & Welfare.
London
Simon Anholt is an independent policy advisor who helps national, regional and city governments develop and implement strategies for enhanced economic, political and cultural engagement with other countries.
Martin Reeves is a qualified Architect and Head of Design at Maris Interiors LLP, Workplace Design Experts who are leading the way in Workplace Optimization in the United Kingdom. Before joining Maris he worked as a Project Architect at NBBJ.
Los Angeles
OJ Knighten is also known as the K9 Coach. He’s a dog trainer with over 30 years of experience. He offers programs in behavior modification, obedience, personal protection and competition dog sports.
Marco Agnelli is the Managing Director of the IEO Foundation, prior to this position he was the human resources director of the European Institute of Oncology.
Maria Cristina Cattoni is currently an intern at Gentletude Onlus. Prior to this post she worked for Ubifrance’s Mission Economique.
Gilberto Dondè is the CEO of Great Place to Work ® Institute in Italy, after 22 years at IBM, with experience in the fields of technology, marketing, management and HR development and training, has started a consultancy of Human Resources and Training.
Fabio Napoleone is the Project Leader of Work Style Talking 2012. Prior to these projects he worked as a Sports Agent for Side by Side and he was HR
Director at Simint, a company part of the Giorgio Armani Group.
Francesca Tonegutti is an architect and urban planner working as a freelancer. As a female professional in a male oriented society, she’s the reviewer for the movie I Don’t Know How She Does it.
Montreal
Richard Joly is Managing Partner at AIMS International Canada and the founder of Leaders & Co., before it Joly was a Senior Partner with Korn/Ferry International, a leading worldwide executive search firm.
New York
Carla De Ycaza is an author and Editor in Chief at Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law and a lecturer at New York University. She has has been appointed as a Delegate for the 10th Session of Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court.
Jim Nichols is Vice President Digital at Stern + Associates and President at Nichols Multimedia.
Before joining Stern + Associates he was a meteorologist at WBAL – TV/Hearst Television, NBC Universal and WTXF-TV Jillian Weiss is Professor of Law and Society at Ramapo College of New Jersey. She publishes a popular blog on the subject of Transgender Workplace Diversity and has numerous research publications on the subject of gender identity.
Thomas Joseph Doherty is a licensed psychologist who created and helps to direct the Ecopsychology in Counseling Certificate Program at the Lewis & Clark Graduate School. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ecopsychology.
Rocco Panetta is a lawyer and Managing Partner at Panetta & Associates Law Firm. From 2001 to 2008, he has served as Director of the Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data. Prior to that he held the role of Assistant to Professor Stefano Rodotà. Over the years when he has served the State, he was a representative to the European Commission and the European Council in the activities of the Group of European Guarantors.
Nicola Cirilli is Used Car and Rent a Car Marketing Director at Fiat Group Automobiles. Before being appointed this role he was the European Rental Director at New Holland Kobelco and CEO at Drive Italia.
Massimo Temporelli is a physicist,
This issue is dedicated to our friend Leonardo la Pietra, who, as of 21.12.2011, is no longer with us.
technology expert and consultant who’s currently working for BasicNet. For years he has been working as a technology consultant for many radio shows. He has recently published his new book The Code of Inventions: from Leonardo DaVinci to Steve Jobs.
Amber Andersen is currently working on a Masters in Public Health. She is in clinical practice at Point Vicente Animal Hospital in Rancho Palos Verdes. She volunteers her time for a local animal shelter and takes annual trips to aid the health of rural and underserved communities.
Michael Brown is Principal at Brown and Wilmanns Environmental. He has worked in environmental and energy management for over 25 years. He directed the Environmental Assessment Program at Patagonia.
Tim Girvin is the founder of GIRVIN | Strategic Branding, an enterprise design consulting and innovation organization. Girvin writes, speaks, blogs and designs from his offices in NYC, Seattle, and his alliance in Tokyo.
Sigtuna Mattias Adolfsson is an illustrator currently working on a children book. He has a Masters of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from HDK, School of Arts and Crafts in Gothenburg and has been a professional 3D artist since 1995 when he left school making first animations for music videos and films and was then involved in making computer games. Has also started to exhibit his work, the last one being a group exhibit in Melbourne, Australia.
Jerome Whitington is Research Fellow, Science and Technology Studies at the National University of Singapore. He studies climate change and green energy development as sites for exploring human futures. He has co-authored the paper Carbon Markets Need Urgent Oversight, published in the journal Carbon Market Europe.
Doug Cowan is an illustrator who has exhibited at the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta and the Skywalker Ranch. His work has appeared in The New York Times among others. His clients include MTV Network, CULT 260, Esquire Russia, The Deal Magazine, Lucasfilm Ltd.
Toronto
Dan Dolderman is an Environmental Psychologist at the University of
Toronto. He has helped to design environmental programs for the University of Toronto.
Walton on Thames Mark Finney is an independent media and marketing professional. He’s the director at HotHouse and the founder and Managing Director at Magic Cat Communications. Prior to this he served as a Managing Director at Iconic Media. He graduated from the University of Sussex and has a Master Degree from the University of Sheffield.
Warsaw
Jerzy Potocki is President and Managing Partner at AIMS International Poland and has over 20 years of experience in Recruitment and other HR Consulting fields at Take it /Neumann International, IDEA! Management Consulting, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, ADP.
Washington D.C.
Parag Khanna is a leading geostrategist, world traveler, and author. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute. He is author of many International best-sellers.
William J. Snape III is presently Senior Counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, and a Legal Fellow and Practitioner in Residence at the American University Law School.
Martin Jahn is the Managing Director of the Group Fleet International at Volkswagen AG. Prior to this post he was the Managing Director at Volkswagen Group Rus, Member of the Board at Skoda Auto and Vice Prime Minister for Economic Affairs at the Government of Czech Republic. Zurich
Gregoire Depeursinge is Senior Partner & Global Team Leader Industrial, Engineering & Logistics at AIMS International Switzerland. Born in 1965, he originally comes from the Automotive Industry where he has held executive positions such as CEO, Director of Procurement & Logistics, Marketing Director in various European countries.
Kaspar Haffner is the Head of PR at Ford Switzerland, where he replaced Erwin Thomann. Prior to joining Ford he worked at Ringier SA first as Head of Group Communications and then as both Head of Communication for Central and Eastern Europe and Head of the CSR Project Office.
You can focus on the climate and Kyoto, but here’s the problem: What about Stockholm? Next year is the 40th anniversary of Stockholm, which was before Kyoto and before Rio. 2012 is Rio plus 20, and it’s Kyoto plus 15... but it’s actually Stockholm plus 40. What’s my point? There has always been this hope that you would have a big meeting in Stockholm, Kyoto, Rio, and Montreal, and that you would change something, but that’s not how change happens. Change doesn’t happen by having a big meeting.
It is Stockholm plus 40, and what has happened? The answer is almost nothing. It is because of the “Let’s meet at the top level” attitude—all of the world will watch key decision makers in countries who will decide everything and then the outcome will trickle down. Yet that’s not how change happens, change happens from the bottom or from the middle, maybe a little bit of top down, a little bit of sideways and a little bit of bottom up together, but the problem with the whole climate debate has been top down, and that’s a big mistake.
The second concrete point is that you don’t have a global perception of the climate. You don’t have one perception of climate change, so how can you have one policy for it?
Right now we are at the stage where companies are urged to "do no harm," that is, not to pollute the local environment when they are involved in the extraction of oil and gas or other minerals. This is proceeding through public pressure and protest, stronger national regulations, and international lawsuits.
Parag Khanna is a leading geo-strategist, world traveler, and author. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute. He is author of the international bestseller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order and How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance.
At the same time, some companies in the Amazon rainforest are actually investing in schemes to replant trees, create eco-tourism parks, and other progressive steps. The key issue is that companies are being watched more and more so that they do not just publish "green" reports but actually do the best they can within their supply chains to improve their standards. In the coming years we need to see not only big, public, multinational companies adhering to environmental standards, but, much more, the spotlight on the state-owned enterprises from China, Malaysia and other countries. We must remember that Asia has become the primary consumer of global commodities, and rules there, are very different, and many companies are protected from international scrutiny by their governments. I don't think we will create the system first and then reduce harm. We will reduce harm in many ways and that will give rise to the new system. This means that companies will behave more sustainably, governments will act longer-term and regulate better, citizens will be wiser consumers, and the public will have more education and consciousness about the climate and environment. All of this happens in many ways, first and foremost at a national and local level, and only slowly at an international level. The "polluter pays" principle is nice in theory, but very difficult given the simple example of China. China has become a major emitter of greenhouse gasses, but much of its industry is owned by or serves multinational companies, so who should pay: the Chinese government or the American and European manufacturing companies operating there? Or should they share the costs? Or should the raw materials they use be taxed more? All of these are viable options.•
Nearly two decades of United Nations' talk about climate change have not produced much in the way of concrete results. For businesses, the status quo of endless conventions presents a real problem. Many companies with significant carbon emissions are increasingly desperate for clear guidance on coherent, transnational climate policy, whether it comes through the UN or not. 2011 has been a record-breaking year in terms of losses, providing a sense of how chaotic climate change itself may unfold. Many companies are exposed to environmental risks especially via their global supply chains. Unfortunately, public resistance in the United States is a major problem for moving forward.
Business needs clear climate policy because in a competitive system no one can act first without exposing themselves. Consulting, finance and insurance industries have all made significant strides in creating the right infrastructure for assessing regulatory and environmental risk. Institutional investors like mutual fund managers increasingly demand emissions data from the companies they invest in, but there are few comparable options for smaller firms in spite of the potential cost savings.
Of course, the dirtiest industries, especially fossil energy extraction firms, are more than willing to forestall climate policy while still ramping up new investment in discovery, infrastructure,
is Research Fellow of Science and Technology Studies at the National University of Singapore. He studies climate change and green energy development as areas for exploring human futures. He has coauthored the paper Carbon Markets Need Urgent Oversight, published in the journal Carbon Markets Need Urgent Oversight.
and technology. Carbon Tracker estimates that a serious global climate policy will require 80% of proven fossil fuel reserves to remain locked underground. Risk for non-fossil energy commerce is amplified without a clear exit from the carbon trap.
Climate change means we must unwind from this dangerous situation. Everyone around the world can look toward a future of diminished expectations. People who are already economically and politically marginalized have little choice but to face increasingly restricted options. For Americans, addressing climate change represents a loss of important and pleasurable cultural symbols. Dirty industries must also recognize the diminished futures they can expect. We need an open acknowledgement of change, acceptance of diminished futures and a process of public mourning.
The IEA estimates climate investment postponed beyond 2020 will cost 4.3 times investment now, while the fossil fuel industry received six times more subsidies than renewables in 2010. In this context, stiff national carbon taxes look increasingly attractive for providing market and climate stability.
There is no reason businesses can’t advocate for strong climate commitments with governments and even the public. Leadership on climate requires a much more subtle, committed relationship with governments, the countries they operate in, and the people they depend on and serve.•
Imagine a sick person goes to visit the doctor. The patient has had a slight fever for days, but also smokes, is overweight, never exercises, drinks too much alcohol, and rarely eats fruits or vegetables. The doctor examines the patient, prescribes a popular antibiotic and tells the patient to come back in a few weeks.
The doctor’s unwillingness to look at the root causes of the illness or to apply the best scientific evidence toward healing the patient is the type of behavior that many governments around the world are exhibiting toward climate change. As the world gathers in Durban, South Africa at the end of 2011 for the 17th conference of the parties to the Climate Change Convention, few are optimistic that transparent and binding commitments by nation-states to reduce greenhouse pollutants will occur.
Further, the world’s nation-states seem incapable of even acknowledging how severe the problem is and what must be done to rectify it.
The weight of scientific evidence now says that reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, from the current 390 parts per million (ppm) to 350ppm or less, is the safest way to avert severe human dislocation and suffering, as well as many species’ extinction. While it might be fair (though ultimately wrong) to argue about whether 350ppm is feasible, leading climate players such as the United States, China and India refuse to legally acknowledge the existence of this scientific evidence. Apparently, we don’t want to ask the tough questions, and we don’t want the real answers.
William John Snape, III is presently Senior Counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, and a Legal Fellow and Practitioner in Residence at the American University Law School.
The irony is that many governments, including that of the United States, which is still the largest per-capita greenhouse polluter, already possess the legal authority and infrastructure to attack climate change. The Clean Air Act and several other well-established statutes clearly apply to climate pollutants such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Unfortunately, the Obama administration
has been very reticent to actually apply the Clean Air Act to old coal-burning power plants or other major industrial sources. Global greenhouse emissions, meanwhile, continue to rise.
So while the mainstream media continues to give credence to the handful of hacks who still question climate change in general, the well-respected International Energy Agency bangs the ominous drum with its November 2011 report “on planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change” As the agency’s chief economist summarized, “we are going in the wrong direction.”
The solution is a bunch of smaller strategies that all necessitate true leadership from our politicians: energy conservation, regulation of big polluters, carbon pollution fees, renewable energy incentives, and assistance to the disadvantaged (such as the precarious island states that very well might become submerged). However, these things will not happen by themselves. People will need to force this reality upon their governments, much like the protesters against the Canadian-U.S. KeystoneXL tar-sands oil pipeline accomplished when they at least temporarily halted the boondoggle, due to serious climate and environmental concerns. But no one should be naïve about the massive power of the oil, gas and coal industries. These interests continue to dominate the political process, with almost every developed country leader beholden to fossil fuel corporations. This is why, months after the worst environmental disaster (so far) in American history, BP and its brethren not only continue to collect record profits in the multiple billions of dollars, but also continue to get more massively subsidized permits to drill for more oil across the globe. Until there is outrage about this discordance, we are in big trouble. As our hypothetical doctor might have said to the patient, “no worries. Go have another drink and smoke.”•
Polluters must pay. Regulations and taxation systems must be implemented to ensure compliance from companies, especially big polluters, because we don't have time to wait for them to become responsible.
The legislation in Australia will take effect in July 2012, there are a number of countries with carbon taxes in Northern Europe and then obviously the European Union has regulations and legislation on emissions. New Zealand is at the beginning of emissions tracking schemes. The reaction has been incredibly disproportioned to the impact of the actual changes. The changes have been announced, introduced starting with a very generous compensation. In fact the biggest polluters will receive 94.5% of the pollution permits they require for free, in other words they’ll only have to buy 5.5% of the pollution permits they need. Most of the public debate about the introduction of the price has been entirely confused or misleading and in reality the actual financial liability of the biggest polluters will be small.
The legislation has some modest flexibility built into it which means there are some opportunities for the government to, for example, review the amount of free permits being given away, but the timing of those reviews is years away. For the next nine years polluters in Australia will pay some but not very much as a price for their pollution.
The Australian government had already introduced a green house gas inventorying, we always had quite good emissions accounting. Only the very big polluters will have a direct liability to pay a carbon price, only polluters who generate more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas emission will be liable. And all households will have no obligation at all.
But while citizens will have no direct liability their electricity bills will rise slightly, because the company that generates their electric power will have to raise the price, so private citizens' bills will be higher. It’s important to point out that the price of petrol will not go up, because while the carbon price is being introduced on transport fuel, other taxes are being reduced at the same time.
[W australia.gov.au eea.europa.eu newzealand.govt.nz tai.org.au]
The challenge of introducing a carbon price has nothing to do with it being a threat on the macroeconomy and everything to do with its impact on big polluters. So, building solar panels and renovating buildings to make them energy-efficient is job-creating and favors economic growth. However, companies that make millions of dollars selling coal or coal fired electricity will continue to push for the lowest possible carbon price. So the problem is that in the public debate we keep confusing what’s good for the polluters with what’s good for the economy and what’s bad for the polluters with what’s bad for the economy. But the invention of the automobile was devastating for the people who made most of their money selling horses. Nobody would suggest that moving from horses to cars was bad for the economy. Many seem to think that anything that is good for energy efficiency is somehow bad for the economy when in reality such incentives are simply bad for those that profit from polluting. The companies that generate the vast proportion of greenhouse gases will only change their behavior when they’re forced to do so by regulation or required to do so via higher prices for pollution. We simply can’t wait for companies to want to protect the environment, we need to pass laws to make them. •
is Executive Director of the Australian Institute. He is an economist with a particular interest in the role of regulation. Richard has published extensively in academic journals, is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, was the co-author of the best selling Affluenza and is the co-author of An Introduction to Australian Public Policy: Theory and Practice.
Talking about a personality of activists actually creates a false dichotomy: that there are some people who are activists and some people who aren’t. And what that ends up doing, is disempowering many, many people who might care about an issue but feel that they’re not that kind of person. From the psychological perspective,
what propels people towards activism are a few things. One of them is empathy, the feeling that they are personally affected by an issue. From the empathy perspective, people who don’t feel that they are personally affected by an issue, but they might get involved in activism because of empathy for a certain story they connect with - it could be personal experience, a beautiful place that they feel attached to, for a species they love - so they get involved in issues that affect them. On the other hand if people think of themselves as
There’s a lot of diversity in activism, and especially in what is broadly known as environmentalism. Business leaders need to realize that there are different languages of environmentalism. I am distinguishing activism from advocacy here. Advocacy is working for positive change within the system as it is. Activism seeks change by questioning systems, and possibly dismantling and recreating them.
There are certain qualities that people have that predispose them toward environmental action. We can think of it as a pathway. At the beginning, certain people are more or less altruistic or pro-social than others. If you tend to be more altruistic and to think about the rights of others, you’re also more likely to be concerned about other species, natural places or threats to global environmental health, like human-influenced (and thus human-controllable) climate change. Those who develop an ecological worldview, rather than one in which humans are exempt from the laws of nature, move further along the line towards action. Another key step is whether someone senses a threat, either to themselves, or to other people, places or species. A sense of adverse consequences moves someone further along the line. People need to have a sense of responsibility, an obligation to do something, to step up and take action. And further, they need to possess
self-efficacy, a belief that they have the ability to do a sense of personal empowerment and possibility, otherwise if they feel powerless and apathetic they'll stop halfway through.
Some may become the traditional “activists” those working for deep radical change. You can also have people that undertake non-activist behaviors, such as signing petitions, and giving their support for different agendas. Others undertake private behaviors in their homes or with their families. Then you have organizational behaviors, the things that people do in their jobs.
Activists must be understood and seen as a resource by businesses and organizations rather than a threat. Forwardthinking companies should seek out activists and place them in situations where innovation is needed, where thinking “outside of the box” and getting to the roots of business processes is key. Don’t squander your activists’ energy on the “Green Team.” Unleash them on key business problems. Businesses need to be big enough to contain the energy of activists. As Rosabeth Moss Kanter says in a recent Harvard Business Review article, the best companies operate on the principle that they are not merely vehicles for making money, but also enduring instruments for accomplishing societal purposes. Articulating a broader purpose can guide strategies and actions, open new
fundamentally different from people in Africa or from animals, then that tends to breed apathy for that species or those people. One of the strong themes in psychology literature is about the importance of overcoming in-group and out-group thinking to the extent that people start to see and think and feel in terms of larger categories –we’re all humans, or we’re all part of the living community, we’re all part of the biosphere. Then the overarching perspective makes it far easier to identify with
sources for innovation, express corporate and personal values in their everyday work. These companies’ claims that they serve society become credible when leaders allocate time, talent, and resources to national or community projects without seeking immediate returns. What's more, attention placed on social needs often generates ideas that lead to innovations. •
Here are some informal categories of activists:
• Grassroots activists work on mobilizing the base and rallying the support of citizens.
• Policy activists get to the conceptual nuts and bolts of environmental issues, and research what works.
• Tech activists are interested in things like designing a better solar panel.
• Holistic activists operate from their consciousness of their inter-being with Nature (green spirituality).
• Survivalist activists acknowledge limits and peaks.
• Militaristic survivalists may adopt a bunker mentality regarding resources.
• Utopian survivalists look to create beautifully small and self-sufficient communities and businesses.
the suffering of other people and other beings. People have done a retrospective analysis of individuals in WW2, for example who rescued or became part of a resistance movement trying to rescue the Jewish people versus people who passively sat by and let things happen. And one of the biggest differences was, people with more universalistic ways of thinking – rather than seeing in WW2 as seeing the Jews as fundamentally different people, they would have a value system and a belief system that emphasized our common humanity.
Environmental activists can be viewed from a variety of different perspectives. Savvy companies can open a dialogue with activists and advocates, and take advantage of their broad range of experience in order to help boost and hone companies’ environmental platform and sustainability practices.
By JENNIFER C. LOFTUS
In today’s world, one must tap into emotions, and use them productively to help organizations succeed and to enhance working relationships. However, a fundamental problem occurs when our emotions get the better of us, preventing ourselves and our colleagues from being contributors to goal achievement. How do we best become emotional and rational employees?
Consider this recent exchange observed at a large, U.S.-based organization during a job performance conference session with a new, probationary employee;
• Jamie (supervisor): "Patty, you were asked to query our database and select appropriate candidates for sending the letter of congratulations for 'best use of a Zelbrite Company product.' I asked you this morning if that had been done and you indicated that it had not, although you've had the task assigned for three days now."
• Patty (probationary employee) (pointedly): "Actually, Jamie, I did start to work on that just after you mentioned it – I'm a responsible adult, not a child, you know. And I found it totally boring. So I quickly gave it up. It wasn't something that interested me in the least."
• Jamie: "But Patty, we were relying on you to have that data for us by this Friday when the letters need to be sent. This is an integral part of our latest marketing campaign."
• Patty: "Well, it was a lame exercise, and definitely not something that I can lend my talent and attention to."
• Dr. Blair (article co-author): "Patty, you are seriously misconstruing the nature of your role here. Have you given that any thought?"
• Patty (heatedly): "You are so rude to bring up such a vile topic!"
This conversation provides insight into both the level of job requirement misunderstanding by some new employees, and the inappropriate use of emotions at work. For organizational leaders, a key role is to identify what drives an emotion, and to channel those feelings into mutual understanding and open communication. We may have formal training in this area, or it may take us time and practice to hone those skills. One may say that Patty demonstrated rage and hate, being true to her gender. However, both men and women can experience rage and hate, but only when feeling oppressed. Those who feel they have no options express these inappropriate emotions. As managers, we must ensure our employees feel powerful and are equipped with the tools needed for success.
In our example, after the meeting, Patty had a far better understanding of the work parameters, thanks to open questioning and communication by both her supervisor and Dr. Blair. Patty was now well on her way to meeting the expectations of her employer and of the workplace.
Are there gender differences in emotional expression? Absolutely. The methods by which men and women express themselves are partly due to genetics, and also stem from different upbringings for boys and girls. Whether those childhood differences are “good” or “right” is for another article. We in the workforce must recognize the different communication styles of men and women, and allow each employee to express himself in ways that are both comfortable and productive. Bottom lining any discussion of emotions "emotions can well be expressed in the workplace, but they need to be expressed well!" There's a level of finesse that's involved to support this skill that’s either learned or innately known. •
Emotions can work for us positively or negatively in the workplace. By regulating some and taking advantage of others, employees can tap into not just greater productivity, but also healthier and more fulfilling workplace relationships.Illustration by Agata Janus, Warsaw, Poland
In Germany the employment rate of older workers (percentage of persons aged 55 to 64 in employment of the total population in the same age group) rose from 36.2% in 1992 to 57.7% in 2010 and it rose from 28.7% to 53.7% in the same period in Netherlands. In Japan and in the United States, this indicator has been over 60% in the last ten years.
Companies therefore have to handle senior workers, explains Renée Lee Rosenberg, career management counselor “the company must consider just how their skills, knowledge and experience can best be utilized for the benefit of the company. To not consider these assets is to undervalue or even denigrate a critical piece of the company’s intellectual capital and a critical organizational asset.”
To help senior workers maintain high levels of performance it is important to plan specific training initiatives, which consider the time needed to process information and also the time to practice and review in small groups in a nonjudgmental setting.
Older adults “learn best when they see the need to learn; for example, technology should be taught not as an abstract skill but in terms of how it can be applied to current work tasks and future projects. Companies can also assist older workers in the training process by integrating the new information with more familiar knowledge; encouraging buddy and peer practice sessions” states Renée.
“Among our subsidiaries, L’Oréal Canada stood out with its ‘Valorizing Intergenerational Differences’ training program, which aims to promote understanding and openness to others” reveals Rachid Bensahnoune, HRD in charge of the L’Oreal Diversities, Policies and Actions Department.
To improve the relationship between older generations and younger generations, Danone recently implemented the “Octave Program” in partnership with L’Oreal and other companies. It is the first intercompany and intergenerational training dedicated to managers, and the program aims to:
• help older generations benefit from the strengths of newer generations by adapting their management style
• help newer generations explain their needs/point of view to more experienced employees
AARP each year organizes The International Innovative Employer Award, which is a program in recognition of growing international attention to the implications of the aging workforce.
Among the winners of recent years:
• Centrica (UK) - Employees: 27,564; Percentage over 50: 14.8% - promotes an age-diverse workforce. Its flexible program allows employees to individually optimize their work-life balance.
The majority of workers take advantage of flexible work arrangements. The Centrica’s Age Awareness e-course educates employees about age diversity.
• Daikin Industries (JP) - Employees: 8,149; Percentage over 50: 24.2% - promotes opportunities for individual capacity building and personal de-
velopment from the time of hiring to retirement. The company moreover offers a variety of flexible work options for employees with caregiving responsibilities, including extended family caregiving leave.
• DB Services (D) - Employees 10,160; Percentage over 50: 45% - promotes older workers through DB Services Academy, a training camp designed to help older job applicants and the long-term unemployed re-enter the workforce. In addition, DB Services maintains an administrative business unit specially designed to employ workers who are no longer able to work in their physically demanding, original positions.
• Lam Soon Edible Oils (MY Malaysia) - Employees: 1,456; Percentage over 50: 20.1% - pursues a variety of strategies to ensure an older-age-friendly workplace. Among other best practices, older workers in each function are designated subject matter experts. Their role as facilitators and trainers has helped raise the profile of older workers and contributed to a culture shift in the organization.
To ensure continuity of family owned businesses, it is essential to manage the generational gap during the handing over of responsibilities to junior generations. “This transition should be gradual, and senior generations should leave increasingly their functions to others”, asserts Gioacchino Attanzio, general manager at AIdAF (Italian Association of Family Owned Businesses), and “the presence of a third person of trust, who observes with objectivity the process, could be better to manage it”. Examples of such successful transitions are the ones of Merloni Termosanitari (Ariston) and Ferrari (Sparkling wines).•
The employment rate of men and women aged 55 to 65 and over increased in these last years. How should companies manage the generational gap in their workforce? Here are some suggestions and examples of employers’ practices in advance of these changes.
Quality of Life plays an important role in the progress of individuals and the performance of organizations. Based on this conviction, Sodexo, the world leader in Quality of Daily Life Solutions, is the strategic partner for clients who place a premium on performance and well-being. Sharing the same passion for service, Sodexo’s 380,000 employees, in 80 countries design, manage and deliver an unrivalled range of On-site Service Solutions and Motivation Solutions that improve the Quality of Daily Life for corporations, schools, colleges, universities, health care institutions and long term care facilities worldwide. Sodexo is proud to be recognized for the 6th year running as one of the best outsourcing service providers and advisors worldwide by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals®(IAOP®).
A motivated, respected workforce results in higher productivity, loyalty, and, in many cases, greater financial gain for the company. Top leaders can harness the power of environment and purpose for the benefit of not just their employees, but also the bottom line.
When formulating any strategy, the first step is to know where you are today. A survey of your employees is an obvious starting point. Employees must be made to feel secure that their views won’t later be used against them. Another problem I have encountered is that these surveys often disappear into a black hole afterwards – no one knows the outcome or if anything will change as a result. To make employees feel that their voices are being heard and that they are valued, it is vital that they are told how the company fared in the survey and that management will be working hard to improve those areas where it under-performed.
One would assume that most employees would choose pay as the most important element of job satisfaction, but in fact it is quite far down the list. Competitive pay is essential, but workers are usually looking for more than money. If they stay with an organization for pay alone it is unlikely that they will perform at their best; absenteeism and tardiness often increase, and poor collegiate relationships are also commonplace.
It is only when the employee identifies emotionally with the organization he works for and shares their goals and values that he can be satisfied at work. In this case, pay will be less of a motivator. The employee may even come to believe that their individual financial wellbeing is dependent on the financial health of the parent organization and, therefore, will be willing to take the rough with the smooth, for the good of “the team”. The sense that “we’re all in it together” is what the great companies are good at creating.
Good internal communication helps control the rumor machine. One of my past employers, Orange UK, was fantastic at internal communications. For example, one of the key marketing programs, a customer loyalty programs called “Orange Wednesdays” was introduced to employees by a set of branded cinema curtains which were fixed to all desktop PCs overnight. Many employees place great value on benefits that help them with work-life balance. Flexibility in working practices and hours is a major motivating factor for many employees, and can be particularly important to working moms.
Unfortunately, in times of economic downturn, many companies think of training as one of those items that can be
cut to improve the bottom line. It is, after all, expensive and difficult to directly measure the financial benefit to the company. Training improves the core competencies of staff and therefore improves the quality of the work carried out by the company as a whole. In the words of Johan Stael von Holstein, founder of Icon Medialab, “if you think competence costs, try incompetence.”
GREAT PLACES TO WORK ARE FILLED WITH GREAT PEOPLE TO WORK WITH They like and support each other. I worked in such an environment at CIA International from 1990 to 2000, and many of my co-workers from those days remain good friends. The best companies encourage fun as well as hard work; after all, employees spend an awful long time at work, so they might as well enjoy it.•
There are groups for alcoholics, for drug addicts, the depressed, the handicapped, the overweight, those seeking fulfillment or those searching for enlightenment.In the last few years a new discipline to help out those fed-up with their lot has flourished. It is called Life Coaching and, for many, signing up with a life coach is the way out of a dead-end job, existence or relationship.
There are all sorts of support programs out there for those who want a helping hand. Life coaching is, in essence, a practice that helps people identify and achieve personal goals.
But life coaches are not therapists nor consultants; psychological intervention and business analysis are outside the scope of their work. There are thousands of them out there, ranging from the oneman-band operators working from home to the mega-giants like Tony Robbins, who claims you can earn gazillions like him if only you follow his life plan.
Contemporary life coaching has, indeed, become a booming business. One of the most successful in the UK is headed by Dez Vears, a 54-year-old who runs the 'Yes I Can!' company.
Dez has numerous testimonials online from satisfied customers and his philosophy is remarkable down to earth "I'd describe coaching as a conversation-based process for moving someone from where they are now to where they want, or need to be".
About 15 years ago it began to be a sign of status for successful people to have their own life-coach. But it was still viewed by many as a type of corporate therapy, someone to cry with and bemoan the pressures of being at the top.
Mark Felton, 31, is a London-born former accountant now living in the German capital of Berlin who opted for some life coaching at the Dr. Bock Coaching Academy in Berlin when he wanted to switch careers. Dr. Petra Bock has trained 60 coaches and appears regularly in major publications in Germany. Mark described
why he went for life coaching, and what happened.
He said, "I never thought I would be the sort of individual to go to others for advice. I was brought up in a family that taught self-reliance, asking others for things was seen as a sign of weakness. So it was a big, big step for me."
So is life coaching, I ask Dez back in London, the same as therapy?
"Absolutely not!" he emphasizes. "Counseling and therapy will always have their place but a therapist starts with the assumption that there is something wrong.
It focuses on looking back. Coaching is the opposite. The focus is on the future. A life-coach will begin with the assumption that the client is perfectly sane and rational but may be stuck and frustrated. Very often clients come to me and when I ask: What is it you want? They are stumped because they don’t usually ask themselves that question. And nor does anyone else. This is very often the case when people re-
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Urban Picnic's exhibition in Saffron Walden
The subject of the exhibition is urban art, titled
Featuring some award-winning photographers whose images have appeared on covers of national newspapers, in travel books, art fairs and have attracted a large number of followers over the years. The Group exhibition features works from photographers Jürgen Bürgin and Thomas Finke among others.
“We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.”
01 Photo by Thomas Finke
02 Photo by Jürgen Bürgin
Courtesy of Urban Picnic Gallery
quest career coaching, for instance. We all compile our C.V. and then ask: What is it possible for me to do next? Who would employ this person with this experience? This is completely the wrong question to ask. You must ask: What do I really want? What will make me happy? It’s very liberating. Ok, if what you really really want is to be a professional footballer and you are 49 and a bit overweight it’s going to be impossible but actually, just acknowledging that starts the creative process of looking at who you really are, not just who your C.V. tells you are. In nearly all cases you can achieve whatever you want – you just need to believe it! Oh, and you might need a life coach to help you along the way. It’s important that you have someone on the journey with you. Someone who also believes in you."
Dez said, "Of course it varies from client to client but usually six to eight structured one-to-one sessions are enough to make radical and lasting changes. The first session is used to get to know each other, establish some ground rules and get an overview of what the issues are and to put in place some achievable goals."
Coaching interventions are time-limited and focused on outcomes and results. "Some of my clients" Dez states "like to touch base every three months or so after they’ve benefitted from the structured sessions and that’s fine. I’m always eager to know how my clients are progressing. I usually have a session with my clients every 2 to 3 weeks, for three to six months with lots of e-mail support between the sessions."
THE PROCESS
Dez meets in his London-based clients but increasingly they are geographically diverse so he does a lot of work on the telephone or Skype. When he started out he was a little dubious about coaching on the phone but it works pretty well, and some people feel able to be more honest on the phone rather than face-to-face.
THE WORD TO THE HELPED Bukky Yusuf, a senior science consultant, said of Dez "his honest coaching sessions have helped me tackle years of behaviors that I have struggled to openly recognize and shed. Dez's coaching style is structured, flexible and engaging. It also includes the use of incisive questions which allows a person to look at issues from different perspectives, analyze possible options and then outline positive steps forward."
But it doesn't work for everyone. Sue Allen, 36, from West Bromwich in the midlands of the U.K., is someone for whom life coaching was not the answer. She said, "I went to one when I was laid off from my job as a kindergarten teacher.
I felt I had hit rockbottom and I needed a helping hand to get back up. I got fed up quite quickly. I found another job six months later and I don’t for one minute think the life coaching got it for me. I think it depends on who you are and what sort of character you are. I would certainly not knock it for a lot of people. It just wasn't for me."
“
Most people can’t make big changes on their own,” says Kim Goad, author, personal leadership expert and president of Ovations, a Baltimore, Maryland, US-based performance consulting firm. “They cannot push themselves. They need someone to tell them to stretch, and they need to hear it from someone other than a spouse or friend.” The final word comes from Dez: "It is absolutely vital that you work with someone who you trust completely and that results are tangible quite quickly". It’s not a regulated industry yet, so anyone could set themselves up as a life-coach. Exercise caution and never part with any money until you are completely confident in the ability and integrity of the coach.•
Hierarchical structures hamper the personal initiative and drive, and decisionmaking can be slow when issues have to be pushed upwards in the organization in order to reach a decision. Additionally, decisions are often made by those less qualified, because top leaders don’t have first-hand knowledge about what should be decided. For the past 20 to 30 years, many companies have tried to reduce the rigidity of hierarchy by cutting down on the number of management layers, empowering people on the frontlines to make decisions, and changing the management style to become more supportive of the individual initiative and focused on staff development. The speed and impact of this trend has varied from market to market, because breaking down hierarchies in organizations is influenced by traditions and similar trends in the society and the family structure.
From a European perspective it is clear that Scandinavian companies have quickly adopted this trend and created much fewer hierarchical organizations, which has been easier, because similar trends are seen in the Scandinavian school systems and within the family structures, and Scandinavian countries are characterized by having a relatively short power distance. On the contrary, you will, in general, find more hierarchical organizations in Spanish, French and Portuguese companies, because the power distance in the society is longer. Nonetheless, there are many examples of Southern European companies overcoming this hurdle, and the Best Workplaces lists are a good reference for such companies.
The emergence of advanced communication technology and the Internet have resulted in a democratization of the access to information. Some companies are taking advantage of new communication technologies to move towards a more flexible and less hierarchical structure. Salesforce.com has created a new Chatter system, which is a social media system for use within the organization. On Chatter, employees can share information and collaborate in real time with a wide range of colleagues within the organization. It is an open system, where people can choose whomever and whatever they want to follow. The system is moving the legitimacy of leadership from hierarchy to influence. The important question is not what your job title is, but how many people are following you? When Salesforce.com had a strategic offsite meeting for the top 300 leaders in the company, the CEO Marc Benioff invited also the top 25 Chatter users based on number of followers and usage. Benioff recognized the influence and value the leading Chatter users created for the company “we may have to rethink the way that we think about leadership, the definition of it. We may have to pay the chatterati as much as the SVPs, because they have as much value.”
Former CEO of Medtronic and the author of “Authentic Leadership,” Bill George asks, on the Management Innovation eXchange, whether hierarchy kills creativity. He answers the question himself, reaffirming that hierarchy
indeed kills creativity, because people don’t want to follow rules and processes when sharing and working on ideas. He suggests that today it is impossible to attract the best talents if you have a hierarchical organization. People need to be empowered, and empowerment has to go along with accountability. So, according to George, great leaders follow up consistently with people and build strong systems to foster accountability. George predicts that hierarchy will soon die together with the hierarchical companies. Hierarchical companies have, in many markets, problems with recruiting and integrating the new Generations X and Y, who in many cases have been brought up in structures much less hierarchical than what their parents have experienced during their childhood.
GORE WAS AHEAD OF HIS TIME
When Wilbert Gore in 1958 established his company W. L. Gore & Associates he knew that he had to create a different management model in order to foster the innovation that the business needed. He was heavily influenced by Douglas McGregor’s “Theory X/Theory Y” which held that rather than effective management being a “command and control” style (theory X), employees were actually ambitious, self-motivated and could exercise self-control (theory Y). He built the Gore culture around this thinking – doing away with typical organizational structure and hierarchy. 50 year later the company known for the GORE-TEX® fabric, has 9,500 associates in 30 countries. Employees at Gore are called associates and a leader is defined as anyone who has followers. Every associate has a sponsor
Everyone knows who makes the decisions, and decisions can be made fast. This is the positive spin we put on hierarchy -- but what if we viewed it differently?
We expect that power is distributed equally
, these enormous blocks of ice can be seen from two different points of view.
On one hand the iceberg communicates rigidity and sturdiness, due to its stateliness; this could be compared to the strict hierarchy often found in organizations. However, icebergs are made of ice and are destined
(not manager) to guide the associate about career issues. “Gore is a big proponent of “natural leadership” which means that leaders must have followers. If you can’t get people to follow you, then you are simply not a leader”, says Michael Burchell, who is writer about great workplaces and former associate with Gore.
The lack of a clear management structure and the strong employee engagement could of course lead to endless discussions in order to reach decisions, but the Gore associates are trained in
to melt, comparable to the existing mentality of companies -- a mentality that, according to Palle Ellemann, should be changed or rethought. Breaking down hierarchies is not so much done on an organizational level, but it is, most of all, a question of changing mentalities.
how to let the principles of the company guide the decision making process. This process removes the risk of letting personal opinions rule the discussions and facilitates a focus on what the company is (values and principles) and where it wants to go (goals, vision and mission). W. L. Gore also makes sure to keep it small to ensure the effectiveness of the unique organizational culture. There are not more than 200 people located in any Gore building at the same time.
01, 02, 03, 04, 05 These photos are taken from The Last Iceberg series, by Camille Seaman, a photographer based in California.
Breaking down hierarchies is not so much about changing the organizational chart of a company as it is a matter about changing the mentality of people. In the UK car insurance company Admiral Group, the founder Henry Engelhardt is training his managers to apply a philosophy of the reversed triangle, where managers’ key role is to service the team-members and not the other way around. Managers have to make sure that people have the best conditions to doing their job and support
are destined to melt
is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more
versus less), but as defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of life in any society, and anyone with some international experience will be aware that 'all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others'.
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them in any way possible. Long time serving manager at Admiral Group, Stuart Morgan tells that he halts whatever he is working on, when an employee approaches him with an issue. “What you are doing will never be as important as the issue that the person is bringing to you and the person is likely not to come back, if he or she is turned down”, he says.
Breaking down the hierarchy of organizations is not the same as moving to anarchy. A company needs to be organized around another structure in order to be efficient and effective. Like Bill George suggests, great leaders need to put other structures and support systems in place when turning to empowerment and the removal of traditional managerial control systems. Looking across the most successful companies that have broken down the hierarchies – like W. L. Gore, Google, TANDBERG, Microsoft, Admiral Group, etc. – it is striking to see how rigid the recruitment and onboarding practices of new employees are. These companies invest a remarkable amount of time and resources to get the right people onboard and then to ensure that the culture really gets under the skin of the new hires. Additionally, these companies are very goal-oriented, where the company goals, vision, and mission are again and again applied for any decision to be taken. So, essentially the corporate structure is guided by a very strong sense of what the common values and the culture are and where the organization is going. In between there is plenty of space for individual innovation and development supported by performance systems and training and development.•
Work Style Talking 2012 is an event designed to develop ideas, new ways of thinking and operating models to overcome the challenge of the Third Millennium. This is the employment challenge, for both large and small enterprises.
One of the results of Work Style Talking 2011 has been the Talking book, the outcome of five workshops that took place in Milan at the beginning of April 2011 with the participation of 135 worldwide professionals on the following topics: identity, emotions, architecture, environment, and organization. Drawing from real cases, the aim was to discuss the business world’s changes in order to pick out the best solutions to apply to different working environments’ dilemmas. With “Imagine the Workplace of the Future,” the first destination of our journey, we designed a new model for comparison, where managers and specialists of different areas made their experience available: interesting ideas were gathered and developed in our magazine. The discussion is still open on some real cases (see # 7 The Workplace in the Age of the Brand; Executive Efficiency through Office Space Design; The Wheel of Life; # 8 Environment and Enterprise. What they do and what they did in practice; Making Workplace Emotions Work for You; Hierarchies are Falling; Slowing Down; Shrinking the Workplace; The Noise).
By FABIO NAPOLEONEFabio Napoleone Project Leader
fabio@theworkstylemagazine.com
Micole Imperiali
Work Style Talking 2012 is the second stage of a journey that began last year with the purpose of defining the future work identity concept.
The focus moves now to employment, dealt with according to the logic of the Third Millennium but reconsidering every single element by a different, original (but not less realistic) point of view.
In evaluating various hypotheses, the time element prompted us to choose a date between late August and early September 2012, which doesn't fall during critically busy moments for most businesses.
At the end of January 2012, we will announce which city will host the Work Style Talking. We will likely choose a capital of an emerging European country or one with the prospect of economic and cultural growth, easily reached by plane from all over Europe. The background in which the event will be held will inspire participants, encouraging activities in an attractive environment.
An event which consists of:
• Two talks
• 30 real cases
• Different working groups
• Preliminary networking activities
The Talking 2012 perspective is to develop ideas, ways of thinking and operating models to overcome the challenge of the Third Millennium. This is the employment challenge, for both large and small enterprises.
The discussion will focus on:
• Law & contract
• Process
• New jobs
• Environment
• Employee branding
We want to achieve and share the following results through this event:
• to reconsider our jobs from an original point of view;
• to become inspired to build the future on a broader and more colorful basis;
Organizational Secretary micole@theworkstylemagazine.com Visit
• to gather innovative topics to be developed in the Work Style Magazine.
Talking 2012 will host people from different professional backgrounds so that even remarkable differences will inspire new visions and enriching discussions.
Those participating in meetings include:
• 20 professionals
• 40 HR managers
• Businesspeople
• Journalists
• Researchers
• Academics
• Students
• Creative people working in design
Rethinking issues in a different and original way requires having different observers. The events of Talking 2012 will be described by:
• Reporters
• Photographers
• Illustrators
• Filmmakers
• Storytellers
All participants will have an active role during the talks and the workshops’ preliminary activity.
The great achievement of this initiative is necessarily linked to the contribution that each person will bring to the table and exchange with others: creativity and pragmatism, vision and practicality, leadership and collaboration, are all key success factors in each company.
We believe that participating in Work Style Talking 2012 will be a stimulating and inspiring chance to think about solutions regarding professional fields.
By participating you will:
• Share real cases
• Gather opinions and suggestions to help solve company problems
Participation fee is 1,750.00 Euro plus transportation and accommodation expenses. •
01 Work Style Talking 2011 Architecture “The workplaces will have to be able to accommodate different lifestyles without losing their main features” By Cino Zucchi
02 Work Style Talking 2011Emotions “Emotions are information signals coming before our thoughts, and proceeding after them” By Sandra Sassaroli
03 Work Style Talking 2011 Environment “The evolution of our society and our business model is the incorporation of the environment” By Fabrice Leclerc
Every year, tens of thousands of employees of Italian companies provide their assessment on the quality of their organizations in terms of excellence of their workplace: it is on the basis of their perceptions on many factors that characterize the relationships within the work environment, that helps form the ranking of "Best Italian Workplaces.”
Rather than focusing on levels of satisfaction among employees, this time we want to focus our discussion on the comments that people make in the questionnaires. These comments are a tool available to them to report the issues that they most care about both in terms of excellence or of ideas to improve the quality of the workplace.
Following up on this, in 2011, the most “popular” themes were those related to the commitment of companies to making efforts to research the best ways to improve the relationship between work/ professional and personal/family life. This was accompanied by a request by employees of a benefit offer targeted to better care of the employee within a company both in professional terms (safety, comfortable environment, less stressful job, relaxation) and personal terms (conventions, language training for the family, studying holidays, etc.).
Another very hot topic for workers is the companies’ teamwork, the sense of helping, of being in environments where other workers are also friends; this is a declared need that is much more felt today than in the past. Perhaps it is sign of uncertainty and instability atmosphere that surrounds our society that pushes people
to be members of a group and to find, in companies where they spend the majority of their time, a cardinal place to turn to in times of need.
We welcome, in the ranking of the best companies to work for in Italy, seven new entries - Carglass®, EMC Corporation, Iprona, Jobrapido, Loacker Remedia®, NaturalLook Srl, Oxyprod - and we welcome back two companies that had already been part of this group of excellence, Decathlon Italy Srl and Fater Spa.
In the delicate situation in which the economy is finding itself today, the attention of employees towards a company’s work/life balance and benefits systems is palpable.
Nevertheless, many comments were made and they highlight how companies paid a lot of attention in preserving the jobs of their employees as much as possible, and in helping them and their families face this difficult moment in a more peaceful way.
Because, it is certain, that at this time, everyone has fears about their job. •
Please visit theworkstylemagazine.com to download the pdf file of the 35 Best Workplaces in Italy 2012.
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microsoft.com naturallook.it ni.com nissan.it oxylane.com pepsico.co.it unilever.it unieuro.it quintiles.com
shireitalia.it tetrapak.it zetaservice.com]
This past year’s “Best Italian Workplaces” survey offers some interesting insight into employees’ thoughts on the importance of professional life/personal life balance and the commitment of companies to meeting their employees’ expectations for a comfortable and balanced work environment.
I’d like my workplace to be a place where my work identity doesn’t differ from my own.
By MASSIMO TEMPORELLI
Work Style Creative Talks are monthly meetings in which different professionals share ideas and insights, from different scientific issues applicable to the corporate world.
In 1798, French physicist Charles Coulomb published an article on muscle strength and the amount of work that a man can do during an entire working day, estimating that a 70 kg person could go up to 2,923 meters above sea level, producing work (or delivering energy) equal to 2,050,000 joules = 5,56 kWh.
Years after the French physicist's experiments, three industrial revolutions and the entrance of Western countries in the post-industrial era, we still wonder what value should be given to work and how we can measure an individual’s or company’s performance and efficiency.
We want to start an experimental investigation, a series of meetings and considerations that, for the next six months, will aim to observe the working world from
physics' and natural science's points of view, to understand the new and complex work environments in which businesses, professionals and employees operate and move within every day. The method will be the same used by Coulomb and by scientific disciplines: rigor, data analysis, field measurements and, finally, formulation of hypotheses and interpretation models.
To do this, given the working world and physics and science reference models’ evolution, we will consider the most modern scientific theories such as chaos, thermodynamic systems, biodiversity or ecological niches provided by Darwinism.
Our goal is to identify similarities between some of the working world phenomena and some of the processes studied by physics and other sciences in order to exploit the latter tools, models
and solutions to understand the former ones. To do this, we will work in a multidisciplinary environment, using a variety of professionals, from university researchers to business managers, to the creative resources of different fields from architecture to design.
The first meeting of this campaign was held on December 6, 2011, in The Work Style Magazine’s editorial office. Participants tried to give a physical and metaphysical form to the “container company,” coming to the formulation of some questions that will find an answer in the upcoming issues of the magazine.•
Take part in our Work Style Creative Talks write to us: micole@theworkstylemagazine.com
Would you like to find out how science can find a solution to business problems?
The European Institute of Oncology (IEO), which is certified by the Joint Commission International, an American institution that guarantees the excellence of health facilities by measuring the quality of care processes and management, has over 1000 employees including over 700 working in clinical activities, 200 in research and 100 in administration and management.
IEO looked for a management tool that would meet many organizational needs, such as clarifying to all employees of the characteristics of their roles and what was expected of them, and incorporated the need to integrate their different professional roles (medical and non-medical).
The model selection was not random. The management and development of behavioral skills are fundamental to achieving organizational goals, and the only way to obtain effective performance in all areas is from employees who are
motivated and satisfied with their jobs. The Job Family Modeling was preferred over other models because it emphasizes behavioral skills and the staff’s knowledge/skills, which are necessary to adequately cover the various organizational roles, and because it is designed to develop, enhance and reward them in order to foster both business and individual growth. This model is particularly suited to the needs of complex and evolving organizations that are rich in diverse roles, but which mainly want employees that are committed to the company’s mission, performing with a greater degree of autonomy and discretion.
The Job Family Modeling supports the organization in developing flexible internal processes, identifies macro-groupings of business roles with a similar type of work in terms of responsibility, and not activity, and provides the tools to reach goals, through the allocation of specific levels of skill and expertise. The definition of professional families must extend beyond the allocation of individual organizational roles, since the objective is to create integration and a spirit of collab-
The Job Family model is a very good organizational system for enterprises, nonetheless it is not always of easy application in the so called "complex organizations" such as hospitals and airports. However difficult it may be, this model is efficient and applicable even in these types of organizations. Alec Ballantyne, Greater Toronto Airports Authority’s Total Rewards Manager, uses a skills-based model similar to the Job Family model, to organize nonunion staff. Roles are sorted into groups: Administrative Support, Technical Support, Engineering/Architecture Support, etc. Multiple levels within each represent progressive degrees of accountability. Explains Ballantyne “after the role group has been identified on the basis of the work it performs, it’s then slotted at a level within that role group on the basis of its accountabilities in each of the following areas: Functional Contribution, Relationship to Stakeholders, Problem Solving/Analysis, Decision Making/Autonomy and Leadership.” In this case, Professional Support has 5 levels: 1, administrator jobs; 2, senior administrators, professionals or first-level management jobs; 3, middle managers; 4, manager-level jobs, and 5, directors, the highest-level management.
oration within the company, as well as on the impact of the organization's role rather than the role an individual has to perform.
Professional families must also represent the entire structure of existing and required skills, and are defined in terms of: expected contribution to the organization's success (responsibility), behavioral skills required for performance, and the capacity and knowledge required for each role. Responsibilities are defined in terms of professional families and are shared by multiple roles.•
The project led by the IEO in collaboration with Hay Group, since the second half of 2000, has set the goal of establishing a foundation for an HR development system based on two principles: 1) the growth of HR is determined by a set of technical skills, abilities, organizational behavior and motivation; and 2) the management system must flexibly connect the rewarding system to skills development, as well as to a performance evaluation system.
The IEO has expressed a fundamental requirement to support the cultural and operational integration between different people, prioritizing this even before the different organizational areas.
In view of this, we have chosen two addresses: 1. Strongly emphasize all that
If you want to retain talent within your organization and make the most of the skills your people offer, you need to help that talent develop. The Job family modeling, also known as “career pathing,” could be your answer.
"unites" people in terms of responsibility, authority to each individual's development path, rather than relying on what "divides”.
2. Consider the IEO’s fundamental success factor: the centrality of the patients and what should be done to meet their complex needs.
IEO identified four types of roles:
1) Realization: Roles that need to perform tasks with the highest
accuracy and quality;
2) Welcome, information: Roles that have to manage the key check-in and communication processes with the patient;
3) Assistance, support, development: Roles that need to reach targets set in medium-high complexity contexts and ensure development and innovation;
4) Coordination: Roles that other people need to coordinate and contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of internal processes.
In light of this, four professional families were identified: Executives, Customer Service Specialists, Professionals, and Professional Coordinators.
The analysis and definition of the model was highly participatory and, therefore, one of the few cases in Italy which saw Trade Unions taking an active role in all phases of
the project. This, precisely, has enabled the transformation and implementation of a management model that is typically "business related". The result is in itself a great success and an absolute novelty in the world of labor relations in health—and perhaps beyond.
As of June 1, 2002, the date on which the model and associated supplementary contract were implemented, employees have been notified of their placement in the professional families, and an indication of their role and contract level. As a consequence, everyone is aware of their potential career paths, as well as the requirements for contract level advancement and for the recognition of professional accomplishment. In 2002, Hay and IEO worked on internally
communicating the model, with the aid of a special brochure distributed to all relevant staff in order to inform all people involved of the rules and possibilities.
From a business point of view, the model allows the institute to develop or reinforce the work culture so that it is more in line with business needs; further clarify organizational structure; and define the motivation to guide and develop individual performance and retain the best staff.
During the stages of initial application, this project resulted in the reclassification of approximately 12% of the company’s population, and saw, with the onset of the new performance evaluation processes for the year 2003, its full realization in the IEO.
As the financier J.P. Morgan famously observed, “A man always buys something for two reasons: a good reason and the real reason”. Skilled and unskilled immigrant workers, students, academics, and high net worth individuals and their advisors tend for obvious reasons to focus on the ‘good reasons’ for choosing their new domicile, but, as analysts have increasingly come to recognize, the ‘real reasons’ – what are sometimes misleadingly referred to as ‘soft factors’ – are often the determining factors in the equation.
From the viewpoint of the world’s increasingly mobile professional population, the image and reputation of a destination country is one of the ‘real reasons’ why one place is preferred over another.
If the country is successful in attracting significant numbers of immigrants, especially if they are prominent, highly skilled or particularly wealthy, this will play a part in altering the image of the country itself. This effect is very similar to what in the commercial sector is known as ‘co-branding’: the combination of the incoming residents’ own image, the image of their country of origin, and the image of their new country of choice, will bring about changes to the image of each.
In the busy and crowded global marketplace, most people don’t have time to learn about what other places or their populations are really like. We make do with summaries for the vast majority of people and places and only start to expand and refine these impressions when for some reason we acquire
a particular interest in them. When you haven’t got time to read a book, you judge it by its cover. These clichés and stereotypes fundamentally affect our behavior towards other places and their people and products. So all responsible governments need to measure and monitor the world’s perception of their nation, and to develop a strategy for managing it.
The countries are judged by what they do, not by what they say, as they have always been; yet the notion that a country can simply advertise its way into a better reputation has proved to be a pernicious and surprisingly resilient one. The message is clear: if a country is serious about enhancing its international image, it should concentrate on the ‘product’ rather than chase after the chimera of ‘branding’. There
Canada Occupying the top spot on the Country Brand Index, Canada boasts a world-renown brand and represents, for nearly 26,000 of those surveyed (and likely many more), an ideal work-life balance.
Michele McKenzie, president and CEO of the Canadian Tourism Commission, attributes Canada’s second year in the number one place to the fact that “our country actively and consistently manages its country brand to constantly improve performance.”
Germany Jochen Wolter, the press attaché of the Consulate GeneralUnited Nations views Germany as, quite simply, “a nice country to live in!” Wolter credits the nation’s business appeal, and its spot at number eight on the brand index, to three factors : 1) a stable economy, 2) efficient infrastructure, and 3) its developed education system. Germany, weighing in at eighth place on the Country Brand Index, maintains an economy comparably stable to other nations’ in Western Europe. “We came out of the financial crisis much better than many people expected,” says Wolter.
The country’s reputation as an efficient, organized place is, he says, a deserved one, and a benefit to workers and businesses “organized, this is always what we hear about Germany."
Switzerland According to Caroline Blaser of the Switzerland Trade and Investment promotion, Consulate General, who helps North American companies plan or maintain operations in Switzerland, top reasons for choosing Switzerland are outlines as follows “high quality of life; geographically located in the heart of Europe; a diverse,
multi-lingual and highly educated workforce; excellent infrastructure and easy access to public transportation; business-friendly and liberal labor laws; globally competitive, and politically stable.”
Denmark Merete Juhl, director of Invest in Denmark, a part of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that assists foreign companies, sees links between the country’s branding and its appeal to foreign workers and companies. Denmark is particularly interested in bringing over Cleantech companies. Explains Juhl, “we focus our branding efforts
A powerful, positive national image makes it relatively cheap and easy to attract immigrants, tourists, investors, talent, and positive media coverage, and to export products, services, ideas and culture. A weak or negative image usually means spending more to achieve less.
are no shortcuts. Only a consistent, coordinated and unbroken stream of useful, noticeable, world-class, and, above all, relevant ideas, products and policies can, gradually, enhance the reputation of the country that produces them.
Of course, sectoral promotion is a different matter, and much confusion is created by the conflation of sectoral promotion with national image. The confusion isn’t helped by the fact that people who are responsible for marketing places as investment, study or tourism destinations often describe their work as ‘branding’. However, the distinction is really quite clear: when you’re selling a product or service (such as holidays, investment opportunities, exported goods or even – at a stretch – culture) then of course advertising and marketing are legitimate and necessary. Your competitors are doing it,
and consumers accept it: the underlying message (“Buy this, it’s good”) is fundamentally honest and straightforward. Nation ‘branding’, on the other hand, has nothing to sell, and the underlying message (“Please change your mind about my country”) is government propaganda, which investors and most other people rightly ignore. Nations are not a fizzy drinks or running shoes, and nations need to earn their reputations, slowly and patiently, through their policies, their investments, their innovations, their people, their culture, their companies, their tourism, and, above all, their contribution to humanity. •
Comparing country branding campaigns The central creative concept of the Chile’s campaign is "Chile is good for you" according to the executive director of the Fundación Imagen de Chile, Juan Gabriel Valdes. It's a substantially traditional campaign showing the advantages of the country both landscape and products wise. On the other hand, the strategy adopted by Finland is a brave and against-the-tide campaign, that, playing with words, pushes the public to rummage in their memory and confront stereotypes. 01, 02, 03, 04 Courtesy of Fundación Imagen de Chile. 01 Courtesy of Visit Finland
(Sample: 26.000 people in 26 countries, Source: Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index, 2011©)
States
Kingdom
on strongholds where we know that Denmark has something unique to offer. Those are Life Science, Cleantech and Information and Communications Technology (ICT). For instance, Denmark is a global Cleantech hotspot, where sustainable development goes hand in hand with increasing consumption and economic growth. Additionally, our government has a very ambitious plan of being completely independent of fossil fuels by 2050.”
Japan According to Masaki Fujihara, Director of Business Development for the Japan External
Trade Organization (JETRO) in New York, “the rapid reconstruction in the areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami and the fast recovery of damaged supply chains shows Japan's high capability of maintaining established infrastructure.” Other qualities include innovation, which is often exemplified through technology advances. “Japanese SMEs launch innovative products into the market. Japan has the highest expenditure on R&D as a percentage of the GDP among the advanced nations.” Another coveted quality –loyalty – is also prized.
Australia Lea Seaton, the media relations manager for Australia’s national tourism organization, explains that Australia has a long-term growth plan, which is intended to double Australia’s overnight tourism expenditure.
“Within this we have key strategies focusing on individual key markets such as China,” explains Seaton.
“We are working on a similar plan for India, which is expected to be unveiled next year. The markets are selected according to their expected contribution, in terms of tourism value and visitor numbers, to the overall 2020 Plan.”
Zealand
Communication Best Work Style
By LUCA BRUNONI
The journey towards Best Work Style 2012 began at last year's Work Style Talking in Milan, where 150 professionals from a wide range of fields discussed working identity and changes in the workplace.
WS Talking helped us define a concept of “Best Work Style” based upon five carefully balanced criteria: identity, emotion, architecture, environment, and organization. In particular, it encouraged us to stress that employees value highly an environment where their personal identity is respected, and can be expressed.
The Best Work Style Award was born out of our belief that excellence and commitment to positive values deserve recognition.
We are pleased to announce 2012’s ten Best Work Style companies (selected from a large number of international candidates), as well as the two winners for the categories Large and Medium/ Small categories.
“We consider our stockholders to be planet earth” says Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, “and that leads to a different way of looking at business.”
Patagonia’s mission is to build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis; for this purpose, it makes sure to hire collaborators that share the same values and beliefs.
Out of “900 applications for every open position”, Chouinard says, the company looks for people who demonstrate commitment to its cause and that inspire confidence. “We hire very independent and self motivated people, and then leave them alone; as long as they get the job done, they can go surfing in the middle of the day.”
From an emotional point of view, the belief in a larger purpose than product quality is fundamental; employees are aware of their contribution in develop-
ing a sustainable business model. As a result, employees’ identity and company identity are brought closer together. This awareness is also the glue linking people in a company that values personal identity highly “all the people that are working here” says Chouinard “are extremely individualistic … we cannot have a top down management system, everything must be done with consensus.”
Thanks to its focus on people, Patagonia has grown in harmony with its core values. “If you are a big corporation” says Chouinard, “and you want to start having open offices and a ‘let my people go surfing policy’, you can’t do it overnight … it has to start with who you hire.”
MEDIUM/SMALL WINNER: RE-BAG Re-Bag supplies businesses with re-usable bags, packaging and accessories
ConTe.it
• Italy, Rome
• Insurance
• 500 employees
• Launched in 2008
Ecotraining
• South Africa, Nelspruit
• Sustainable tourism and training
• 33 employees
• Founded in 1993
Elica
• Italy, Fabriano
• Kitchen hoods designer and manufacturer
• 2.300 employees
• Founded in 1970
Ericsson AG
• Switzerland, Bern
• Supplier for network operators and service providers
• 150 employees
• Founded in 1964
Frøs Herreds Sparekasse
• Denmark, Rødding
• Financial services
• 133 employees
• Founded in 1872 Management Centre Türkiye
• Turkey, Istanbul
• Consultancy
• 34 employees
• Founded in 1992
Patagonia
• United States, Ventura (California)
• Outdoor clothing and gear
• 1,300 employees
• Founded in 1973
Pini Associati
• Switzerland, Lugano
• Engineering
• 95 employees
• Founded in 1950
Re-bag
• Denmark, Copenhagen
• Re-usable shopping bags and pack
• 20 employees
• Founded in 1998
Société Ricard
• France, Marseille
• Wines and spirits
• 300 employees
• Founded in 1932
Criteria Identity. A BWS Company is sensible to its employees’ need to preserve their identity, and of the way it dialogues with the outer company/brand identity. Emotion. The employees of a BWSC work in a positive environment, feel that they are important and that they have room for development, and are encouraged to build boundaries between work and private life. Architecture. A BWSC structures its workplace focusing on the creation of an excellent atmosphere, and takes into account how space relates with hierarchy, emotion and identity. Environment. A BWSC takes environmental issues to heart and gives them the highest priority, both by creating and supporting initiatives and by adopting green policies at all levels of business. Organization. A BWSC is not afraid to break new grounds in order to strike a balance between productivity and respecting the needs of the employees.
made from alternative materials. The company’s model is being environmentally friendly, and through their products they hope to help their clients make a step in the same direction. “Our identity and brand image is the direct result of our concept” says Mette Vinding, Re-bag’s CSR and Marketing Manager. “Our employees feel a connection with both our products and the spirit behind them.”
Re-bag’s working environment fosters the familiar atmosphere that can be the strength of a small company with few employees “we wanted a space that was comfortable, warm, and had a raw simplicity connecting it to our Scandinavian roots. Everybody feels encouraged to share their opinion and their good ideas.”
The theme of re-using is reflected in Re-bag’s workplace as well, where dis-
Patagonia grew out of a small company that made tools for climbers. Alpinism remains at the heart of a worldwide business that still makes clothes for climbing – as well as for skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, paddling and trail running. These are all silent sports. Their mission is “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
01 Fitting products (Photo T. Davis®, Patagonia 2011)
02 A vivid memory from the past (Courtesy of Patagonia)
The company was established in 1998 in Copenhagen. Since then, the company has expanded and Re-bag® now has agents in several countries selling bags and other accessories to leading brands. Re-bag combines environmental awareness, low cost and high marketing effect by providing re-usable shopping bags at very reasonable prices (often lower than a good quality paper bag).
03 Showing products
04 Kitchen area (Courtesy of Re-Bag)
carded wood found behind a sawmill was used to build the walls around a kitchen. “The idea it communicates is that things can have a second life and that you can be proud of them and their history.” As Re-bag’s business grows, so does its ambition to make a difference on an environmental level “Re-bag has obtained certificates from Climate Care, FairTrade, PSV (Plastica Seconda Vitae) and it, is negotiating for the EU Ecolabel, and is developing an “Environmental assessment model” in collaboration with the Danish Science Council.”
Next year, Work Style Magazine will organize the second edition of the Best Work Style Award. We wish to sincerely thank all past and future participants for helping us along our journey. •
Internal Communication Teleconference
By NIGEL PHILLIPSInternational travel used to be one of the best perks in certain jobs. Flying (particularly on a business class ticket) was fun, relaxing and almost romantic. In leaner times, companies are increasingly downgrading even their most senior employees to economy class, and airlines have found inventive ways to turn international travel into a misery.
Teleconferencing once meant using telephones to communicate in business settings, but the internet has increased options and many teleconferencing systems now allow instant communication as well as the sharing of ideas on virtual boards.
Human Productivity Lab and Brockman & Company regularly produce the "InterCompany Telepresence & Video Conferencing Handbook", the latest edition of which estimated that currently businesses conduct seven times more meetings in face-to-face scenarios, than using telepresence services.
There are several reasons for this, including a strong cultural belief that nothing cements strong working relationships like meeting in the flesh, but also some considerable technical and operational hurdles.
The point of video conferencing is to reduce company costs and increase productivity, but setting up networks can be hard work.
Security is a big issue and the policies of the least secure participants will tend to become the security policy for all, so network integration becomes increasingly fraught and huge attention needs to be paid to interfacing technologies, so as not to compromise network integrity.
One blue-chip company, as part of an internal "culture adjustment" program, sent their sales team hotel soaps and complimentary peanuts to make up for the small losses they would incur, but also literature highlighting the benefits of video conferencing: less time in security queues at airports and more time spent with the family and working effi-
ciently. What if you can't afford this kind of outlay? Telepresence suites are available, like the tie-up between Cisco and AT&T at Grosvenor House and the Marriott Hotel in London. They offer a professional "pay as you go" service. The good news, however, is that the future of telepresence systems, like the future of so much technology, is in the area of 'apps'.
Rod Bailey, CEO of ExecutiveSurf, tells an interesting anecdote "we worked for one client and carried out the first screen, including an English test, over the phone. It turns out when we spoke English we were actually talking to someone else. When it came to the Skype interview and the inevitable English question, we saw his hand move to the mouse and all connection was lost. We got hold of him ten days later and he had found another role, but Skype had saved us the plane fare from Spain to London."
The MIT Media Lab has worked out how to use a Microsoft Kinect device to detect depth and make Skype conferencing more interactive and useful. Teleconferencers can blur out the screen, except for the speaker, which is helpful if you're not in an office, but at home or in a coffee shop. You can even freezeframe yourself if you want to appear on screen, but go to buy a coffee.
Bailey agrees new developments will move teleconferencing on in leaps and bounds and that the figure of seven to one in terms of meetings may well be reversed when it comes to international business. Skype has just joined with Panasonic to put Skype on Panasonic's 2010 VIERA CAST-enabled HDTVs and provide crisp video calls, TV-to-TV or PC-to-TV. These new televisions have a
built-in USB hub, so a webcam can be plugged in, with a special microphone system that easily picks up sound from couch distance. As the iPad tries to become the ubiquitous tool for those in business, its camera must provide potential options for relatively simple, highend, inter-company teleconferencing.
V2.0
One of the first such apps is Idea Flight, developed by publisher Condé Nast, which enables a presenter to run a presentation from an iPad, with up to 14 other iPads, following it through the same wifi network (three via Bluetooth). It is not yet big enough for large conferences, but it, or something similar, will inevitably be scaled up very soon.
The Idea Flight app is free for the "passengers" and costs the presenter only a few Euros. It has a smart feature which integrates with LinkedIn profiles, so attendees can all exchange their professional details, without the need to hand over business cards.
Telecom’s company, Polycom, has just launched an enterprise grade HD video application for the iPad, the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Surendra Arora, VP of mobility, says "we have fulfilled our promise of extending to the enterprise. Unlike our competitors, what's truly impressive about our offering is the HD capability."
Polycom's offering has VPN client compatibility, keeping conference conversations behind closed firewalls, which is probably more reassuring than the security Skype currently has to offer.
Research in Motion (RIM), is also keen to get in on the act and has just released a beta version of its new BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing application. It integrates with BlackBerry OS and RIM
accenture.com adobe.com apple.com att.com blackberry.com britishairways.com brockmann.com cisco.com eyejot.com fuzemeeting.com
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handheld users can easily invite other BlackBerry users to a teleconference and add new information to conference calendars. RIM is expected to announce a video-conferencing application for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet soon. The mobile video collaboration is becoming mainstream for diagnostics and analysis and that Verizon expects the healthcare industry to be a major adopter, along with education, financial, and creative fields.
Verizon is looking to make inroads into such industries with its Fuze Meetings, which complements existing conferencing solutions, extending video conferencing capabilities beyond the boardroom, to anyone with a smartphone. Essentially, making video calls is quite easy and is getting cheaper. You just need a web camera and a headset for free videoconferencing, through services like Skype, or Yugma, which caters for up to ten participants; VBuzzer, which offers free video conferencing on invitation and Ekiga (previously GnomeMeeting), an open source Linux native application.
Other free services include Tokbox, for up to six participants, Eyejot, which has a strong video email function, SightSpeed, a free PC-based call and single party video conferencing tool, and iChat, for Mac users, which comes with Leopard. For larger companies looking to source paid video conferencing,
there is also increasing choice, including the WebEx Meeting Center, which is free for 14 days and provides chat and file sharing services for up to ten, and includes Outlook integration. AT&T Connect is intended for corporations and has completely scaleable IP software architectures for voice and video, at a fixed price for unlimited use. It is partly hosted, partly on site.
Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional is a powerful audio and video conferencing file sharing and whiteboard solution, with several pay-per-use plans.
As the cost of commuting increases and telecommuting (working from home) becomes a more attractive proposition, teleconferencing becomes a valuable aid to employer and employee. The key to working from home is communication and, as the cost of teleconferencing equipment has dropped, teleconferencing can be an effective way for telecommuters to keep in touch with their office; plus, actually seeing colleagues may help those who feel their physical absence puts them at a disadvantage.
In the current recession, there are not too many practices that provide tangible environmental benefits, ease the pressure on employees and save companies money. Effective televisual collaborations are here to stay, in bad times and in good. They are improving on a weekly basis – the salesman is not dead, he's probably just working in his lounge, and his ability to manage his televisual presence will become just as important as his ability to hustle face-to-face.•
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Industrial and office waste come in many forms, and companies must comply with multiple laws and regulations to dispose of it legally. Because waste comes also in the form of electrical and electronic equipment, the issue does not relate only to the environment, but also to protecting companies’ data.
The management and removal of office and corporate waste is a critical issue, and one which begs discussion as businesses struggle to transform into environmentally friendly operations. Certain regulations apply specifically to European companies seeking to handle their waste efficiently and in accordance with the law. Handling, management and disposal of industrial and office waste is a crucial is-
sue in the EU. There are, indeed, several legal provisions that aim at ensuring that the waste produced by businesses is treated in an efficient, safe and environmental friendly way.
As far as the waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) concerns, the EU is taking measures to prevent its generation and to promote the reuse, recy-
Two different points of view for waste management
1) A more legal approach
2) A more best practice and advice oriented approach
cling and other forms of recovery in order to reduce the quantity of such waste to be eliminated, while also improving the environmental performance of economic operators involved in its management. For this reason, producers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) must apply the best available waste treatment, recovery and recycling techniques, including the removal of fluids and selective treatment. Moreover, for each new type of EEE, producers must provide, within one
It is vital to share information and best practices in CSR. Companies must communicate effectively and truly care about the way they dispose of waste. Aveda is a personal care products company, part of the global brand Estée Lauder.
Where Does Waste Come From?
Aveda’s approach to managing waste is to look at waste not just in the physical sense of waste, but seeing it as anything that doesn’t provide value to the consumer with whom they do business. Aveda customers are primarily salons which sell them to consumers. In terms of operations they started thinking, “How can we organize ourselves such that we’re not producing waste in the first place?” Producing waste, Aveda realized, meant the company wasn’t producing the product that customers want. Thinking about waste as anything that the customer ends up paying for but doesn’t really
get is a great way to think through problems of how to eliminate or prevent waste in the first place. For example, making shampoo requires cleaning tanks, which generate waste water. But waste also comes from packaging. Aveda rethought the company's way of being supplied with raw material, so as to avoid enormous amounts of waste resulting from packaging.
They decided to have ingredients delivered in a tank car, rather than individual bulk packages. Also for much smaller ingredients, they try to have them delivered in reusable pails and drums, so that they can return these to the ingredients supplier, which can refill them and send the pails and drums back to Aveda. In this way, packaging is reduced as are the amounts of materials that require improvement in terms of their quality management. Via the design system, manufacturing
system and better forecasting, Aveda has fewer products left unsold.
Many companies around the world have an environmental management system and are ISO14001 certified. Aveda, because of the nature of its products, is covered by very specific legal requirements on how they track their waste, how they store it onsite, how they ship it, the type of shipping they use, whether it’s to be recycled, incinerated for energy recovery or buried in a landfill. Aveda tries to avoid sending any kind of waste, whether hazardous or non-hazardous, to a landfill. The vast majority of the waste they send
out is recycled or sent to a facility where waste will be incinerated and energy recovered. They work with a licensed facility and licensed transporters, who they audit. The so-called invisible waste, which is ordinary trash, is sent to an energy recovery facility. Aveda puts in place a comprehensive effort, and for those parts that are regulated, they have an internal system to ensure that they understand what the legal requirements are and that they meet those requirements through using licensed facilities; they audit these facilities to ensure that they are complying.
A good company that wants to stay good has to have a system in place - it doesn’t work very well otherwise. A company needs to have a person in the company responsible for managing waste who is knowledgeable, trained and receives constant, ongoing education on MICHAEL BROWN
year after it is placed on the market, information on its reuse and treatment. Finally, by August 13, 2005, producers must have provided for the financing of the collection, at least from the collection point, of the treatment, recovery and environmental sound disposal of WEEE, while Member States must have determined the fines applicable to any breach of the Directives’ provisions.
These Directives, however, focus solely on the environmental risks related to the disposal of WEEE, while the potentially damaging effects on the protection of personal data stored in “used equipment” have not been considered in the impact assessment, although it would have been advisable to carry out such an evaluation, with the development of best available techniques for privacy, data protection
and security in this area. The same happened with regards to the “Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste electrical and electronic equipment”, adopted by the Commission on December 3, 2008.
European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) raised the problem and on April 14, 2010 issued an opinion on the above mentioned proposal. “The unlawful access to or disclosure of personal information, sometimes consisting of special categories of data, revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, tradeunion membership, and data concerning health or sex life, are indeed capable of affecting the privacy and dignity of the persons to whom the information relates,” the EDPS said.
A possible solution to that problem could be, according to the EDPS, the inclusion into the proposal, of specific provisions: a) stating that the Directive on WEEE applies without prejudice to its relevant regulation; b) prohibiting the marketing of used devices which have not previously undergone appropriate security measures; c) regarding the principle of “privacy by design” and of “security by design", privacy and data protection should be integrated into the design of electrical and electronic equipment “by default”.
In this way, privacy risks would be brought to the attention of data controllers that dispose of EEE containing personal data after using them in discharging the respective tasks, with particular regards to industrial, business, professional and/or institutional ones. •
both rules and good practices. This means that they need to attend conferences and talk to peers from other companies, as it is not possible to just sit in an office and do the job without talking to people. Companies are coming up with many ideas for waste management, so it is necessary to share and listen.
Bad companies need to recognize that they can’t just send off waste to a landfill and not perform a followup. Moreover, they just can’t sit and stay because they’ve never had an inspection – sooner or later they’ll be inspected, and, if you’re a bad company, you’ll be identified. Rather than have that happen, it is better to react and understand, first and foremost, what sort of waste the company is generating, by putting in place a system that counts what it is that is being created and ends up as waste, going somewhere other than the product or service.
As jobs have continued to dry up in recent years based upon the financial and economic turbulence of our times, many individuals (the majority of whom are illegal immigrants) have found themselves supplementing their income, or even doing full-time illegal work, being paid “under the table” by a surprising large number of legitimate companies.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, 1.8 billion people are thought to be part of what is described as an “informal workforce,” consisting of mostly blue-collar jobs. It is estimated that the size of the “informal workforce” is anywhere from 13-15% in developed nations such as the U.S. and as high as 21-30% in developing nations according to the International Monetary Fund. (Undocumented workers hold 12 million to 15 million jobs in the U.S.). It is believed to have expanded 5.6% per year since the early 1990s, and it is thought that the total size of the underground economy is about 8.8% of the gross domestic product.
In the U.S. alone, colleges, fast food restaurants, hospitals, childcare, construction, agriculture, food processing, staffing services, manufacturers, retail establishments, and fine-dining establishments have all been found to have engaged in this illegal practice. The carrot for the employer is not having to deal with paying additional payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, or worker’s compensation insurance. According to Shiri Zuravicky, a client services immigration manager in New York City, “the costs that a company could end up paying for immigration services to legally employ these indi-
viduals can be daunting. The company involvement in the immigration process can also become very time-consuming. Whereas the employer may expect to hire an immigration lawyer who will prepare the necessary paperwork, the majority of these ‘blue-collar’ positions require a test of the U.S. labor market to ensure that there aren’t currently U.S workers who are willing and available to do these jobs. The above reasons can certainly be a deterrent to doing things the right way.”
For other employers, the recent economic meltdown has forced some small and mid-sized companies to pay their employees “under the table” simply because they cannot afford the taxes and health and disability insurance costs. “Employers have chosen to use new immigrants over native-born workers and have continued to displace large numbers of blue-collar workers and young adults without college degrees,” said Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. “
One of the advantages of hiring, particularly young, undocumented immigrants, is the fact that employers do not have to pay health benefits or basic payroll taxes.”
On the employee side, the individual doesn’t have to pay federal and state income and social security taxes. Other employees will take “under the table” payments because that’s the only work they can get at the moment. Some argue that U.S. citizens don’t even want many of the illegal jobs because they pay poorly and offer little opportunity for advancement, or the unemployment and welfare benefits appear to pay more, thus serving as better options.
From nations where the rule of law is superior to countries where the rule of law is shattered, individuals will always
By MATTHEW SEMINARA
Illegal immigrants often benefit businesses by filling low-wage jobs that are difficult to fill with American workers. But illegal immigrants can add to the costs of U.S. social programs. On balance, has the U.S. economy benefited more than it has been harmed by its current population of undocumented workers?*
96% It has benefited more than it has been harmed
4% It has been harmed more than it has benefited
do what they feel necessary to help their families survive. As the global financial crisis continues, many employers and employees will do what they can to weather the storm. What the government must do is crack down on those businesses that hire and pay employees “under the table,” and companies that exploit vulnerable immigrants working to feed their families need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Tax-withholding employers currently enjoy too vast a network of benefits.
Quite simply, the chance to earn money, illegal or not, is the motivation for the individuals. If the employee were to ask her employer to start paying her social security taxes and to also pay her salary on the books rather than “under the table,” she could easily be replaced by someone else. The employee can certainly seek legal recourse, but the employer would summarily deny any knowledge of her working to escape any legal liability. Then, there are those collecting unemployment benefits, while simultaneously working “under the table,” so-called “double dippers”. Here the employee is paid unemployment benefits along with food stamps and Medicaid, and still earning his pay “under the table.” For example, this individual may be required to pay his ex-wife child support, but due to the fact he is paid “under the table”
The economy in recent years has certainly not flourished, leading many workers to rely on "under the table" jobs to increase their income. The economic crisis and rise in unemployment has resulted in many people, the majority of whom are illegal immigrants, supplementing their income through illegal work.
and there is no record of his income, his ex-wife doesn’t receive anything. Even though the ex-wife and child are lawabiding citizens, they are ultimately left to suffer.
The law in the U.S. is clear that no foreign national may accept employment in the U.S. unless they have been authorized to do so. Some foreign nationals may have employment authorization, as legal permanent residents, asylees or refugees, or by way of applying as a derivative on a spouse’s employment base of petition. Other foreign nationals need to apply for employment or family sponsorship through a U.S. relative. Many foreign nationals in the U.S. who entered illegally, overstayed visas, or those who have engaged in fraudulent activity to enter the U.S., have absolutely no authority to work in the U.S. This, however, rarely stops prospective employees from attempting to gain employment in the U.S. Shiri Zuravicky says that, “some illegal workers figure that since they haven’t been caught yet, they might as well continue to illegally earn money for their families. What they may not realize, especially if they entered legally, but illegally overstayed on an expired visa, is that the government scrutinizes this very carefully. If and when an individual applies for a visa again, down the road, chances are once a mistake like this has been made, future visa requests to the U.S. will be denied.”
Most recently, the Obama administration put the onus on employers to police their employees and turn over all employee records to the federal government. Under federal law, employers are obligated to ensure their employees are eligible to work in the U.S. The result has been that thousands of undocumented workers have been pushed out of their jobs by federal and state government audits, and companies have merely paid civil penalties while very easily replacing the undocumented workers. The federal audits have been conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a unit of the Department of Homeland Se-
curity in the U.S. ICE is the second largest law enforcement organization in the U.S., topped only by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As of August 6, 2011, ICE reports that 2,393 companies were being audited, the largest number in a single fiscal year. Employers must verify that an individual they plan to hire or continue to employ in the U.S. is authorized to work in the U.S.
If a company is caught paying any employee “under the table,” some illegal workers are arrested, but more often than not, they are quietly let go. It simply catapults the employee deeper and deeper underground, perhaps to even more unscrupulous employers. This does nothing to help solve or discourage the problem. An additional argument in support of solving the issue of illegal immigrants in the workforce is finding a way to legalize low-wage undocumented workers. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that illegal immigration makes a “significant” contribution to U.S. economic growth by providing a flexible workforce. In his April 30, 2009 testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security, he said “there is little doubt that unauthorized, that is, illegal, immigration has made a significant contribution
to the growth of our economy. Between 2000 and 2007, for example, it accounted for more than a sixth of the increase in our total civilian labor force. The illegal part of the civilian labor force diminished last year as the economy slowed, though illegal immigrants still comprised an estimated 5% of our total civilian labor force. Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our workforce, often a safety valve when demand is pressing, and among the first to be discharged when the economy falters. Some evidence suggests that unskilled illegal immigrants (almost all from Latin America) marginally suppress wage levels of native-born Americans without a high school diploma, and impose significant costs on some state and local governments. However, the estimated wage suppression and fiscal cots are relatively small, and economists generally view the overall economy benefit of this workforce as significantly outweighing the costs.” According to Shiri Zuravicky, “the Administration has suggested that some actions may be taken to help reduce existing barriers in certain immigration processes in support of promoting acceleration of entrepreneurialism. These efforts are much more focused on professional occupations though, and for now, are speculative at best.”•
Vasilis Traxanas looks like a Sioux Native American chief, his hair held back in a ponytail and his eyes like blades that run through you in a blink, but he’s actually one of the most notable architects in the Attic and Peloponnese areas.
I meet Vasilis in the mountains between Stromi and Panourgias, near the edge of the woods, after having travelled for a full day on airplane, subway, train and by car. This place smells of “out of this world”; Athens is 200km south of this place; the air is crisp and the sun shapes that magic light that outlines Greece.
Vasilis, how did you end up living on these mountains, in the woods, and with all the great things nature has to offer?
vt I studied architecture at the University of Athens. I wasn’t even a graduate when I already had my first client: the Ideal Cinema, the second movie theater in the capital. As soon as the works were finished, the cinema burnt down. It was a dramatic event. Then I was commissioned to rebuild it. This was the beginning of my life as an architect.
Not a bad start! Great luck or also talent? vt Both. I was lucky, but also had innovative ideas and I was also driven by great will of doing things. I designed a lot back in those days. I was always working. I did a huge amount of restaurants, especially in the Peloponnese, and some other works in Athens and in the cities nearby. My studio, Theròs, was getting bigger and bigger every year, the workload was increasing and I wasn’t able to follow all commissions by myself. I needed new blood, young and talented architects that I would hire and that then would become partners. In 2002, I won the tender for building the Olympic Village in Athens. It was a huge undertaking. I was at the top of my career; nevertheless, that was the moment that permanently marked my life: I was never paid for a consistent part of the entire project. I lost a million Euros.
Was it the Alpha and the Omega? vt Not yet. The following period was difficult, the economic damage I had and the frustration undermined the bottomline of my life and of my profession. At the time I lived in a residential area of Athens and my studio was in the central area of the capital. I would spend so much time stuck in traffic; I would leave the house early in the morning and I would get back late at night. The street and tiredness, together with very little motivation and wanting to continue, threw me in a very deep crisis. My life entered that state of mind that us Greeks call “Thelma.”
This is an engaging story. How did you get out of “Thelma?”
vt I kept working on minor projects, but with no interest. I lived in a sort of passive state; I felt like a robot while my marriage was going to the dogs. I couldn’t stand living in the city anymore. Being an architect had become boring and as soon as I could I’d escape to the mountains to walk alone in the woods or to ski. Every day I was more conscious about who I was and what I wanted out of life; I started to react. Deep down I felt something new was going to happen. I didn’t know where to go yet, I was just trying to be present. One day in 2004 I met Maria; she was a hostess at Olympic Airways. We fell in love. Some time after that, working on a project in the Peloponnese, a client told me about a possible loan that the European Union would give for projects on the territory. That was the unaware inspirer for my dream.
Did you have a dream?
vt My dream was nature, the woods, the mountains, the snow. I had been go-
Silence can be so deep that you are able to hear its sound.
01 Vasilis
02 The landscapes and mountains around the Katafygio
03 Vasilis and Maria
04 Vasilis and Maria on the period BMW that Vasilis restored
05-06 Interior details of the Katafygio Cafeteria
07 Vasilis and Maria’s home that is located a couple of kilometers away from the Katafygio Cafeteria
08 The Katafygio or Cafeteria
09 Interior environment at Katafygio
10 Some of the cats that Vasilis feeds every morning in his courtyard.
ing to Stromi, a village in the woods between Athens and Thessaloniki, situated at 1200 meters above sea level, for years. In these places nature is strong; you can meet bears, wolves, foxes. There are also semi-wild horses that run free on these mountains. This was my dream.
vt It has been the quickest and firmest purchase of my life. Maria and I would come here every weekend and one day while driving we saw a sign that said “for sale”; there was a phone number. I called with no hesitation, I negotiated and bought the land without even getting out of the car. I owned a part of land, I didn’t know what to do with it yet. I felt euphoric, satisfied and happy.
I had defeated “Thelma,” I felt as if my life had started running again. The year after Maria and I got married.
It really was love at first sight. How much did you pay for this land?
vt 15,000 Euros. A ridiculous amount, today it would cost me at least three times that money. Another year went by before I really understood what I wanted to do with it. At the beginning, we, together with my sons Alexandros and Stamatis, thought about making it an area for winter sports, but then we developed itineraries for trekking and biking.
When did you start building the mountain hut?
vt Work started in January 2006 and, 11 months after, the refuge was completed. We all worked very hard, day and night, Saturdays and Sundays included. It was an exceptional experience.
How much did the construction, furniture and equipment cost?
vt At the end of the day we needed
800,000 Euros, 120,000 Euros of which came from the European Union. Besides walls, furniture, plumbing, electric and heating systems, we also bought a snowmobile, a dozen snowbikes, mountain bikes and other equipment.
Did you have all the money or did you ask for a loan?
vt I scraped off all of my savings. I don’t have much left, but I have no debts and I can sleep peacefully.
Your refuge is a cafeteria built in a very personal style. How does it work?
vt Clients come all year round, particularly during weekends, during summer months or in winter to ski. The cafeteria is open every day. There are no ski tows; I accompany skiers at altitude with snowmobiles. There are many kilometers of single-track for those who love mountain bikes or wonderful walks for those who like trekking. There’s no
To be honest I dreaded going to work.
Marc Chivers11 is a 48-year-old boat builder from England who used to work as a Training Education and Workforce Development manager for the NHS and at age 45 decided that his life was not quite what he wanted and decided to capsize it and start a new career in boat building.
What were the main reasons that pushed you to make this big change?
mc My marriage collapsing provided me with the opportunity to take stock of my life. I had always loved boats and had a yearning to learn wooden boat building. Why boat making?
mc The strange thing is that the more time I spend around wooden boats
the more I love them. For the last year I have been working for Butler and Company who build and restore wooden boats down in Old Mill Creek in Dartmouth, Devon. For the first time in my life I enjoy going to work. The pay is poor but the guys I work with are brilliant. My new partner and I have simplified our life, for the last year we have been living in a white panel van I have converted into a motor home. We love our van even when outside it was minus eight and snowing.
What sort of investment did you make for this shift?
mc I met the financial cost of the course by using some of my share of the equity from the sale of the house when I got divorced. The other investment I have made which is probably more challenging is time and an awful lot of patience.
time to be bored and those who visit us most of the times come back. You become friends and it is difficult to forget these sweet and wild places.
How can customers find you? What sort of communication do you offer?
vt First and foremost internet, through our website. We are also included in various touristic and naturalistic websites and many customers reach us through word of mouth. At present we are trying to improve with new ways of communication to let people know us better.
What were the main difficulties you encountered when you settled here?
vt The climate is the first hurdle. Winters are rigid, it snows a lot and we are almost isolated. We need to take care of everything: repairing a pipe that breaks, cleaning the road, repairing machinery, being electricity-savvy, taking care of the woods and preventing fires in the summer. Even buying food can result in a difficult task. At first the locals would look at us with a certain curiosity they wouldn’t try to be in our way, but weren’t exactly helpful either. Eventually many friends disappeared on us, luckily not all of them, but perhaps it was just a bitter discovery: friends are precious because they are only a few.
Did the economic crisis that is currently gnawing Greece change your habits?
vt We are all affected by the crisis, perhaps less here than in Athens where all the major economic activities are cen-
tered and life costs much more. We try to save where we can, through little things: avoid keeping the lights on when is not necessary and lower the heating when it is possible; we pick wood in the forest instead of buying it. In other words, we avoid wasting money. Also experience has taught us to save on purchases. Substantially I believe we should do more to improve the service to the customer. I am not afraid of the economic crisis; I am afraid of the lack of ideas and will.
Do you earn more money now or when you were an architect in Athens?
Vasilis looks at me and smiles. This architect with the complexion of a Sioux sachem has learned to talk without using words, it is as if he was telling me that earnings don’t come only from money and that, in the end, life is one. Maria, his wife, smiles too and answers in his place “I keep the money and he trusts me.” •
Tom Savage13 is a 32-year-old Brit who worked as a research analyst at UBS. With his friend Alasdair founded a marine conservation voluntary project, before going on to open S&H an executive search firm that recruits in the environmental and sustainability fields.
What were the main reasons that pushed you to make this big change?
ts I wanted to go and do something where I could see the difference I was making, and where I could help people who were underserved in the market. So, you were one of the lucky ones
to do what they love as a job?
ts By working with local communities and also mapping what was there, we could start to conserve some of what we felt were the most precious ecosystems that existed, and also some of the ecosystems that were most under threat. So that was the rationale for going to those kinds of places and working specifically on coral reefs in less-developed countries. What sort of investment did you make?
ts I used the last few thousand pounds of my student loan, and I also asked my father for a loan of about two thousand pounds. So we started out with very little capital. We did everything we could. I think overall it was an investment of six or seven thousand pounds that we started with, so it wasn’t really a huge sum of money.
Jackie Cawthra12 is the CEO and Creative Director of Belen Echandia, a London-based handbag and accessories luxury brand that she founded in 2004.
From law to handbag design: How did that happen?
jc After my three years of university I stayed in Madrid and while I was there, I fell in love with some handbag shops. I went in and talked to them, asking if I could sell their bags in England, but they were all reluctant saying “Yeah, maybe, we’ll see what happens.” In about a year I got a call from this company in Madrid,
saying “Do you still want to sell our handbags in England?" In August 2002, I flew to Madrid to talk to these people and selected a few styles from their catalogue along with materials, and then we basically had our first collection.
What were the main reasons that made you go for it?
jc I think what happened was a pivotal moment for me: I had this idea and I had realized it was possible and I decided to try it.
How much did you invest in this new project?
jc I invested two thousand pounds in my company, that’s all. That’s all I’ve ever invested in my company, apart from the fact that I’ve invested my time, but in terms of a monetary investment, I spent two thousand pounds and grew it.
I wouldn’t say banks are 100% evil, but I felt that there was a lot more good to be done.
I’m someone who always finishes what I start, so I didn’t want to just give it up.
“Transgender” is a relatively new umbrella term referring to many different types of gender variance, and is a more common term now in the U.S. than the older term “transsexual,” which was often used to refer to one who lives as a member of the opposite sex on a full-time basis, or desires and plans to do so.
In 2009, Christina, 26, a competent and efficient computer software expert at a mid-sized computer company in New York City, came to speak with Fiona, her human resources manager, about a sensitive personal issue. Fiona was quite surprised, especially since she did not know Christina. Rather, she knew this person as David. David explained to her that he had known since he was young that he was different, that his sense of gender did not comport with the masculinity and maleness that he was told he should experience, and that his peers around him experienced. Over time, he came to realize that he was, or, more accurately from David’s point of view, that she was a transsexual person. Having established himself in a career, and having spent several years working with a psychotherapist specializing in gender identity issues, he was now ready to take further steps and to transition to living as a woman. Fiona took this in stride, given her commitment to diversity leadership and desire to make her company an employer of choice. She also knew that the law in New York City prohibited employment discrimination based on “gender identity,” the legal term referring to one’s sense of identification as male or female, whether or not congruent with one’s birth sex. But she wondered what steps she should now take, what her confidentiality duties were, and when and how this would be broached to other managers, co-workers and customers. Some of the other employees, based on her experience, might not take this well. And what were the requirements in terms of name and gender changes on company and government documentation, restroom accommodations, and the health benefits provided by the company? She had no idea what to expect.
“Transgender” is a relatively new umbrella term referring to many different types of gender variance, and it is a more common term now in the U.S. than the older term “transsexual,” often used to refer to one who lives as a member of the opposite sex on a fulltime basis, or desires and plans to do so. While most jurisdictions in the U.S. are covered by laws prohibiting discrimination against transgender or transsexual people based on their gender identity, these laws are fairly new and rarely enforced, and employers’ obligations are often unclear.
Most large companies deal with these issues fairly well, likely because they have professional HR and legal staff with the time, budget and flexibility to take appropriate steps. With smaller employers, however, lacking HR and legal guidance, and often focused on local and regional business, employees undergoing gender transition in the workplace can be subject to the vagaries of regional prejudice, unprotected by busy and unprepared managers, and may endure great harassment on the job.
A recent study of the problem, entitled “Injustice At Every Turn,” underwritten by two U.S. NGOs, surveyed over 6,400 study participants from across the U.S. It found that survey respondents experienced unemployment at twice the rate of the general population, with rates for transgender people of color up to four times the national unemployment rate. There was also near universal harassment on the job, with 90% of those surveyed reporting that they had expe-
rienced harassment or mistreatment on the job, or were required to take actions to avoid it. There was also considerable loss of jobs and careers, with 47% saying they had experienced an adverse job outcome, such as being fired, not hired or denied a promotion because of being transgender/gender non-conforming, and 26% of respondents saying that they had lost a job due to being transgender or gender non-conforming.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization in the United States, has created a Corporate Equality Index, which measures how well companies address the needs and concerns of this group of employees. My experience at these and other reputable companies shows that most employers, managers and co-workers respond compassionately and supportively, although often the issue is new to them and they have questions or concerns about how to address the issues.
First and foremost, most employers will ensure that their non-discrimination policies include gender identity, which provides a great deal of comfort for transgender employees. In addition, good HR managers will meet with the employee to discuss their needs, plans and concerns, as well as meeting separately with the employee’s managers to ensure that they have the knowledge and information they need. Many companies provide healthcare benefits that are transgenderinclusive. While restroom usage is often the most difficult point for people to figure out, most employers work this out amicably. One of the most impor-
One area that is particularly tricky is communication with clients and customers.
In my work with one international company, we created a carefully vetted email list of customers who frequently interacted with the manager, who was transitioning from female to male:
I am writing to advise you that after long and careful consideration and consultation with health professionals, I am transitioning my gender from female to male, and I will be using the name of Clark. With the strong support of my employer, I assure you that the quality of our work relationship will not be affected in any way. I
realize that this may raise some questions, and I would be happy to speak with you to discuss any questions you may have about this change.
The email was sent immediately after the meeting with Clark’s direct reports, and was followed by meetings with co-workers, including the receptionist. In this way, we did not have the problem of co-workers wondering who “Clark” was, or customers calling for “Hannah” and finding out from the receptionist that “Hannah” was now “Clark.” Our expectations were that approximately 10% of the customers would have questions or concerns about this change.
tant elements of support is the careful planning of a meeting with co-workers to advise of the upcoming gender transition, to provide guidance on company non-harassment policies, to explain what changes they should expect to see at work, and to advise them as to behavioral norms and the types of questions and comments that are inappropriate.
In the case of Christina, the HR manager mentioned that she was particularly concerned about one co-worker, and I took careful note. We explained to the colleagues of Christina the concept of gender transition, and told them that Christina would be transitioning from male to female. At this, the gentleman we had discussed earlier jumped up, clearly a bit rattled, and said “my respect must be earned! I cannot be ordered to give it!”
There was an uncomfortable silence in the room, as I strove to determine how best to get across to this employee and turn disaster into success. Looking at the man’s face as he stood there, rather bravely, I thought, I could see that he was a difficult customer, but was more likely endowed with an excess of honesty rather than a desire to discriminate or harass. I calmly suggested that perhaps I had used the wrong words, but that we might be in agreement on the fundamental idea. “If I asked that you not disrespect Christina, would that be something you could honor?” He thought for a moment, nodded and said “yes, I can do that,” and sat down, as we all breathed a collective sigh. He turned out to be a strong supporter of Christina. •
Animals, wherever they find themselves, have incredibly interesting inner lives.
And like their two-footed friends (or sometimes enemies) animals can have relationships, communicate, and be damaged by traumas.
Ms. Smith's cat had started to urinate outside the litter box. After ruling out all medical possibilities, we started looking at the "psychology" of her cat and the litter box. We determined that the owner had recently changed the litter.
Ms. Smith's cat did not easily adapt to change. Her "psychology" required consistency in litter box habits. It goes without saying that pets, or, more generally, animals, have a soul; this means that they can be affected by traumas, just like humans. When we talk about pet psychologists, we could often be left wondering whether such a profession really exists. The answer is both yes and no, meaning that, more than a psychologist, one can serve as an animal behaviorist or a pet trainer.
HOW TO SIT ON THE ARMCHAIR “Animal behaviorism is considered a specialty. Although the term ‘pet psychologist’ may be more fun, it is a real career and a growing field”, says Amber Andersen, a veterinarian at Point Vicente Animal Hospital and a Certified Veterinary Journalist. She continues, “If you want to be a respected professional who works primarily with mental health rather than physical health challenges, it is a good idea to get traditional training in Veterinary Science and as a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist.”
She explains,
“a career in pet psychology is a wonderful choice for someone who loves animals and has the drive to get the education and training necessary to do great work. Training for veterinarians is eight-plus years, while training for Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist also requires undergraduate training and an additional advanced degree.” Daniel Mills, European & RCVS Recognized Specialist in Veterinary Behavioral Medicine at Lincoln University, would likely concur “the best way to get into this subject is to undertake a good life sciences degree and then to specialize afterwards.” He warns “It is a very specialised area and I would urge people to be careful about simply attending short courses, as without a solid grounding in the underlying principles, there is the real danger that someone could get seriously hurt.” You are working with animals, after all. The risk of being hurt is always a possibility. Katherine Houpt, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, says “A clinical behaviorist is a professionally trained individual, a veterinarian and/ or a PhD who diagnoses and treats behavior problems of animals, usually pets, but also exotic and zoo animals.” All of those who work in the U.S. are certified by the Animal Behavior Society, rather than by the Psychological Association.
THAT IS THE QUESTION Houpt acknowledges the role of pet trainers, claiming “It is difficult to find a college that offers courses in this specific field”, and continues, “although there are plenty of animal behavior courses, they are not focused on dogs or on behavior problems.” Trainers are those who do not necessarily have a higher level education in the field, but those who can be certified by such groups as the Association of
Pet Dog Trainers. “One can obtain training in behavior counseling from a number of groups or obtain a degree on-line, also there are many seminars and short courses offered for people who are not free to pursue a degree” she says. There’s a difference between behaviorists and trainers, the difference being that the first knows the theory and the latter doesn’t. One can be a dog trainer and never deal with serious behavior problems like aggression and separation anxiety, or, one can be a dog trainer who is interested in helping with these problems. Victoria Stilwell, dog trainer and TV host of the show “It’s Me or the Dog”, believes that being a trainer today has changed. “It is more than having a dog learn how to sit and stay, and teaching a puppy how to toilet. I do the work of a behaviorist, the only work I don’t and can’t do is prescribe or recommend medication. If I feel a dog needs medication, I’ll send them to a veterinarian.” Starting out about 20 years ago, when there weren’t many courses and only a few veterinary behaviorists, she learned about the profession through mentors, people who were doing it at the time, and she also volunteered at shelters. She later became certified in the U.S. by the Animal Behavior and Training Associates. The certification process is the real deal, she says, “there are oral and written tests to pass.”
This profession, just like any other, has its own advantages and disadvantag-
es. OJ Knighten, also known as the K9 Coach, admits that “the advantage is the gratification you get.” On the same wavelength is Victoria, who states that the biggest disadvantage is the long training process “it took a long time to be out there and know what I was doing.” The risks exist first and foremost in getting hurt. A secondary risk is in getting sued, if one is working with a dog who becomes aggressive and hurts someone, it is the behaviorist’s responsibility. Daniel claims that the bigger risk is to get too emotionally involved with a case, which can cause a person to “let their professional standards slip as a result. The job of behaviorists is to try to reconcile conflicts of interest arising between owners and their pets, not to fight for one side over the other; in this way,” he says, “we must act as honest arbiters.” However the opportunities are abundant, since it is a field in which there is a lot yet to be learned. “It’s important one enters with a hunger for learning,” asserts Mills.
“When I was training, I would have about four consultations a day, go to people’s homes and each consultation was about one hour, 30 minutes, and that was for any kind of requirements –from ‘I want you to house-train my puppy’, to ’I want you to teach my dog how to come, sit and stay’, to all other situations, like socialization problems, anxiety and aggression issues. And that was for all breeds and all ages,” says Stilwell. While training, she became tired of seeing dogs being abandoned or euthanized for behavioral issues, of seeing trainers give bad advice or teaching people how to be dominant with their dogs and make them submit. “That’s such a gross way of teaching a dog, and it is also a weak
way of doing it,”she says. She wanted to reach a broader audience, so she pitched a show idea to a TV network, which loved it and the show started to run. “For my show, it is about 12 to 14 hours a day. We’re with the family most of the day; the actual training time with dogs is three hours spread out during the day to make sure the dog doesn’t get too tired or too bored,” she explains.
This job is rewarding “the most rewarding part is saving animals' lives,” remarks Andersen. She explains how the major cause of pets ending up in shelters is behavioral, because the owners can’t understand their psychology. “Knowing you helped a family with their pets’ behavior is very rewarding.” Stilwell agrees and says that they enter a situation where there’s family disharmony and they try to sort the situation out, and understand why a dog is behaving in a certain way and understand their language. After all, it is all about understanding, communication and confidence. “When you see a desperate situation turn around for the better, that’s the best part of it,” she concludes.
Mills’ advice is to “go for it”, but he recommends that you “make sure you are doing it for the right reason; sometimes you have to make tough decisions in the interests of everyone concerned.” Stilwell says, “what I found is that at the end of the day, you are not just training their dog, you become a family psychologist, because families will tell you all of their
problems. So someone who wants to undertake this career better be compassionate, understanding, having a good listening ear and be able to come up with practical solutions. And also be able to acknowledge to what extent they can help, and be able to refer them to the right professional.” Humans are not good teachers; we demand before we teach. We tend to humanize dogs, asking them to act like us, but that’s just not possible. “Our primary job is to educate the people. Most of the time we want the dog to behave, but often we don’t realize that we humans are the first ones who must change with dogs; when you work with a patient, you become the counselor of everything, you have to be able to communicate to the humans, because otherwise the information will never get to the dog,” says Knighten.
Finally, the job is varied, satisfying and rewarding, and it allows people to explore, to research and learn new things. Good trainers have to be at the top of their game, but don’t expect to go in for the big bucks “income is low compared to other advanced degrees,” says Andersen. Houpt claims that “it is difficult to make a living doing this job, even for a veterinary behaviorist, people are willing to pay anything if their dog is being hit by a car, but not if the dog is aggressive and risks to be put down.” •
CEOs and board members routinely list reputation as one of the company’s most valuable assets. Yet, every month a new reputational disaster makes the headlines, destroying shareholder value and trust with customers and other stakeholders. In every single case, observers have pointed out specific mistakes made by senior management, and have offered advice on how to avoid similar disasters. However, the frequency and severity of these incidents point to a fundamental mismatch between risks and corporate capabilities. In other words, while reputational risks have risen significantly, reputation management capabilities have not kept up. But an increase in risk without a matching improvement in prevention and preparation capabilities will lead to more and more severe incidents.
The consequence is a sustained and significant erosion of trust. The PR firm Edelman’s 2011 Trustbarometer shows that trust in businesses in the U.S. is now approaching levels of trust found in Russia. The data for the rest of Europe are not much better. Only some of the other BRIC countries (China and Brazil) show slightly increased trust. Moreover, NGOs are now trusted more than companies in almost every country, even China.
Business leaders and corporate boards are starting to take notice but are unsure of what to do. Many companies still view stewardship of the company’s reputation as a narrow issue best left to the PR department. Other companies still believe that building a strong reputation is easy and only requires common sense; it is merely a natural consequence of doing right by customers,
employees and business partners. These approaches are flawed. Good business practices are important, even necessary, but they are not sufficient for successful reputation management. A company’s reputation needs to be actively managed by the business leaders, led by the CEO as the steward of the corporate reputation. The reason for this is that challenges to a company’s reputation typically arise out of a specific business decision, but reputational risk awareness is not part of the decision process.
Successful reputation management is difficult. It requires a high level of strategic sophistication and mental agility that sometimes runs counter to day-today business decisions. A company’s reputation is shaped not just by its direct business partners, customers, and suppliers, but also by external constituencies. Frequently, constituencies that have lain dormant for many years can suddenly spring into action, particularly in the case of reputational crises. Companies need to have processes to identify such risks.
A company’s reputation consists of what others are saying about the company, and not just its business partners and customers. It is essentially public. This necessitates the ability to assume external actors’ perspectives and viewpoints, especially when they are critical or even hostile towards the company. This requires a strategic rather than defensive approach by business leaders.
A strategic approach requires the emotional fortitude to treat reputational difficulties as understandable and even
predictable challenges that one should expect in today’s business environment. As a result, companies should handle reputational crises like any other major business challenge: based on principled leadership and supported by sophisticated processes and capabilities that are integrated with the company’s business strategy and culture.•
“It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.*” That popular phrase, coined by American political strategist and wordsmith Dr. Frank Luntz, should be the motto for any leader. Your public reputation is fickle, dangerous and controllable – and once it’s gone, it most likely isn’t coming back. So how do you fix a bad business reputation? Simple: Don’t ever let it slip away.
By JIM NICHOLSManaging
Trust is not something easy to gain. Trust levels are dramatically decreasing all over the world. Yet many companies still see reputation as an asset best left to PR departments or agencies and strongly believe that building a strong reputation is easy. These approaches need to be rethought.
By practicing painting in tandem with photography throughout his career
Saul Leiter altered photography with his exquisite vision.
One characteristic of his style is the use of reflections
For example, he captures the reflections of a wall’s surface and of some bystanders in a window alltogether in one composition. This unexpected marriage reveals an unexpected image. In this way, a simple detail becomes a powerful visual effect.
The American car company GM was forced to face some ugly facts in 2008 and 2009. The behemoth organization had languished for years by building automobiles that were out of touch with consumers, plagued with cost-cutting quality issues and deemed inferior by American buyers when compared to imported cars. GM has attempted a tremendous turnaround in the last year and a half, producing quality vehicles with features that drivers demand. Their quality and efficiency ratings are now comparable to, if not better than, the average imported automobile. The company has found its
footing, but is still having a tough time turning around. Why? Because consumers can’t shake the memories of stalling cars, ugly features and a difficult buying process. Many aren’t giving the company a second chance.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
Where did GM go wrong? Many claim it simply lost touch with its customers, who were loudly complaining about GM’s ills.
WHAT DOES REPUTATION MEAN?
It depends on what your customers, employees or audiences feel is important. For some, it relates to price, features and convenience. For others it
may be prestige, size or luxury. But there are two baseline elements of reputation that bridge all audiences: ethics and quality
QUALITY CAN BE KEY Quality is a core philosophy that can have a substantial impact on your reputation. Nobody likes to feel as though they’ve been taken advantage of. When you provide a low-quality product or service, chances are your customers won’t think highly of you. If you’ve failed in term of quality, the only recourse is to fix the situation with the damaged party. This could mean offering a refund, an apology, or both, very quickly and sincerely.
THE SCARY 2.0
Thanks to the explosion of mobile devices and social media, speed is often the most significant factor in protecting your reputation. In a poll conducted by my firm, Stern + Associates, marketing, and digital strategy firm, 46% of individuals would rather write a bad online review or post a negative tweet than contact an employee in a store where they had a bad experience. Almost half of the respondents would rather trash your reputation rather than bring the problem up in person. These online reviews and tweets can haunt many businesses well after the customer’s anger has subsided. •
Reputation is not what you say, it’s what people hear*
One of the major challenges our economy had to face in the past years is the big crisis that has it the whole world. Fear has struck, many lost their jobs, now it's time to rise again rethinking completely the economical system.
One of the major consequences of the economic crisis is our need to rethink the way we do economics. This particular moment in history can be seen as an opportunity to begin drastic change in terms of conceiving the organizational system of firms of whom the system demands flexibility. This flexibility can be analyzed from different points of view. One way of conceiving the flexibility required of companies to cope with the crisis is the ability to go from a full-time concept of employment to a part-time one, a choice applicable to small-and medium-sized enterprises as well as large ones. Is this a real trend or just a remotely feasible hypothesis? French philosopher André Gorz said “work less, work all,” a principle that trade unions across Europe used in the 1980s to demand the reduction of working hours per week.
Nevertheless, history is history and times have changed. Houria Grana, Managing Director of AIMS International Belgium, says that “although this is a great effect phrase, it is not realistic, nor in line with the society in which we live.” The transition from a full-time concept of employment to a part-time one could be an advantage for companies only at first glance, because it would allow for example to reduce the excess staff while safeguarding the most qualified professionals. “However this would mean a large gap in terms of competitiveness for managerial figures, whereas it is an activity that already requires much effort, even outside of working hours,” explains Grégoire Depeursinge, Senior Partner of AIMS International Switzerland.
“Not to mention the fall of motivation that would cause to employees” - says
John W. Poracky, Managing Partner of AIMS International U.S. - Midwest. As a matter of fact, it would be impractical for both businesses and employees, as in most cases part-time employment within a company means having a limited role, while “the purpose of many companies such as AIMS International is to give the best both to its customers and its employees, and this occurs when they are satisfied with their position and optimistic about their future job opportunities.”
For a company switching to a parttime concept of employment would also mean, as Richard Joly, President of AIMS International Canada explains, to hire new staff for greater productivity and, therefore, to invest more in training activities and support activities for employees. “If you invest in your employees, it’s clear that you want to keep them tight. This of course depends on the business field. In the manufacturing sector, for example, there is a need for greater presence, so that being a parttime commitment could be seen as a positive factor. But in a strong economy does not work that way.”
What would be then the right interpretation for the flexibility required on the part of companies? As Mr. Joly points
By MICOLE IMPERIALI
“
out, flexibility also depends on the employee’s needs. You can see more and more the tendency to organize work schedules according to the employee’s personal needs, such as working outside the traditional office, and this is a great opportunity. For example, the financial field doesn’t require physical presence to ensure continued productivity. “The fact is that you can give your best even while working from home,” Mr. Poracky adds. “We consider that organizing working times in this way is an advantage; for example, in the case of families where both parents work. Having the responsibility to take care of children can make this option a real need.”
“I think it's an excellent solution for those who have key roles within the company” Jerzy Potocki Managing Partner of AIMS International Poland admits. “The possibility to use technology at any time helps productivity a lot, although it can also be considered as a risk.” The important thing is being able to perform the tasks that have the greatest impact, reducing those that bring little value to the business. “Our work is measured by results, not by working hours,” he concludes.
There are many ways for a company to show the flexibility and to gain people’s commitment and motivation during the recession,” says Ms. Grana.
AIMS International works actively in about 50 countries across all continents and operates in over 90 offices with more than 350 consultants. As a partnership of owner-managed executive search firms, AIMS International provides a wide array of customized solutions in Retained Executive Search and in Talent Management
AIMS International Belgium
AIMS International Switzerland
Jerzy Potocki Managing Partner AIMS International Poland
John W. Poracky Managing Partner AIMS International U.S. Midwest
Richard Joly Managing Partner AIMS International Canada
• Nurture relationships to forge new connections and strengthen long-standing relationships, both inside and outside of the company.
• Focus on productivity by providing advice and programs that can directly increase the effectiveness of employees and managers and prepare them for the end of the recession.
• Talent and performance management to secure existing talent and invest in them, to ensure competitiveness.
• Ongoing training and development to consider low-cost options such as work shadowing and developing coaching and mentoring programs using existing talent to train developing talent.
• Increase employee innovation to accelerate innovation in product and service areas in order to compete. One way to do this is to implement specific actions to improve group’s ability to work with mission-critical business teams. This way firms can help identify barriers to innovation.
• Increase workforce flexibility to consider offering more paid time off as an incentive to increase employee motivation in these difficult times. To reduce expenses that don't add value.
• Link your HR metrics to the bottom line; the HR department must learn how to convert traditional metrics such as turnover rate or time-to-fill into Euro impact.
• Keep communicating to be honest with employees. Letting them know how they're doing will allow them to
understand the true financial picture. Often employees are willing to make cuts and changes when they understand the facts. There are no winners if the business goes down.
When you are in difficult times, like those which have in recent years hit the world economy, you always ask yourself if a period of crisis can lead to something positive. "I have seen many companies, Mr. Potocki notices, "that have reduced costs and teams keeping to provide the same excellent results to its customers. Many of them were run in a not-so-optimal way before the crisis. Several companies have changed their employees and executives for cheaper ones, still getting very good people on board.”
But what the economy would perhaps need to move towards is a more longterm view of the relationship between employees and corporations, one in which the needs of both parties are better taken into consideration. “Unfortunately, many people react to the crisis by implementing more emergency measures to obtain short-term productivity gains instead of looking for ways to reduce employee turnover and increase satisfaction at work. It is my belief that long-term success requires an employeremployee relationship where both are equal partners and take into account the other’s necessities” says Mr. Depeursinge.•
The cartoon on the two following pages is by Robert Sergel, a cartoonist currently residing in Cambridge, MA, USA. He graduated from college in 2005, and his work has appeared in publications such as New York Press, Noo Journal, Zine Arcade, Free Comics NYC and in The Wellesley Townsman, among others. Comics aside, Robert plays in a band called The Channels. Robert has freely interpreted the stories of managers Ian Worden, Didier Naveaux, Todd Recknagel, Jerzy Wasilewski, Michal Prazynski and Daniel Gosselin, all recruited by AIMS International.
The story is invented and references to reality are purely imagined. The moral of the story is that even if sometimes we find ourselves stuck without knowing what to do next, we don't have to give up, but, instead, take advantage of all the opportunities that life gives us. And at that point, we'll find our way.
This year, the triennial Prix Emile Hermès
called Heat, re-heat, me-heat is focused on the support of progress and a more eco-friendly, peoplefriendly society.
The key issue of the Prix is to raise public awareness of energy consumption issues.
The jury selects the winners from 1,460 projects received from 63 countries. A selection was made based on a wide range of categories, in particular: innovative heating devices, mobile heating, cooking systems, carpets and textiles, braziers, shelters, hand or feet-warmers and composters.
An interactive, dynamic exhibition will be available online at [W prixemilehermes.com]
The winners for the three prizes were announced on October 18, 2011.
The1prize (50,000 Euros) went to Arnaud Le Cat, Esther Bacot and Luther Quenum (France, Unqui Designers collective) for Shelved Cooking, a low-energy cooktop.
The2prize (25,000 Euros) went to Daniel Abendroth and Andreas Meinhardt (Germany) for the H-Agent, an automatic, mobile heating device designed to capture and store excess heat, redistributing it in cooler areas.
The3prize (15,000 Euros) went to Jarl Fernaeus (Sweden) for the Ecoje stove, designed to reduce the consumption of renewable solid fuel and limit deforestation and pollution in emerging countries.
Because of the very high standard of all the projects submitted this year, the jury decided to award a Special Mention to Mohsen Saleh and Seyed Abdolnasser Taghavi (Iran/Italy) for their Light Farm, an architectural module using high-density photovoltaic technology capable of generating 40 % of a household’s electricity needs.
Chloe (1982) is the Principal Consultant and Team Leader responsible for managing the aerospace division of Antal International in China. She is actually the person who opened the division. Chloe recruits aerospace professionals majorly for aerospace manufacturing companies such as Airbus and Boeing, but also with suppliers like United Technology Corporations, Rolls Royce, GE, Honeywell, all manufacturers of aerospace components.
She studied at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Management of Information Systems. She then moved to Australia to do her Masters degree of Commerce in Human Resources at the University of New South Wales. Moving to Australia was not easy for Chloe as she confesses, “I think when I first came to Australia, I got this 'culture shock' because I didn’t speak English well enough at that moment.” However she cherishes that experience saying “it’s very interesting because I never had that exposure before and you start getting acquainted with foreign people and they have different habits.” Her education career is very interesting, the most
interesting part is that it was accidental since she had originally applied for another major while pursuing her Masters degree, but because she had a delay with her visa papers the course she wanted to attend had already started, so she asked to switch to a different major. She started going to class and loved it and that brought her where she is now. She is in a good place in her life, saying “I didn’t know that I’d be so happy and, time passed, and I realized this is the job I can really enjoy myself.”
She adds “somehow, you can use your profession to help others. That’s something that makes me feel joyful.” Chloe always wants to learn new things “I’m someone who likes to make new friends, like to travel around the world, also I’m interested in learning all different types of languages.”
She speaks Chinese, English, Spanish and French and is looking to improve her language skills further. She lives her life according to rules
and values, and her motto is "lead a simple life. Every day is new." Chloe is young, unmarried, and in a committed relationship with a Spanish man from Valencia. She likes culture-related activities such as visiting museums, art galleries, and the theater. She says, “I recently watched Richard III, the one who Kevin Spacey played inside, in China, in Beijing and it’s very interesting. I find it’s like a BBC TV series.” Chloe likes sports that can be done alone, such as jogging, swimming, walking and especially snowboarding. She became interested in snowboarding thanks to a French friend who introduced her; she likes the challenge and often snowboards in the mountains near the Beijing suburbs. Chloe doesn’t know where she sees herself in 10 years from now, but after extensive discussion with friends and family she came to the conclusion that she has two ways to go, as she explains “so either if I stay
in this industry – I’m a team leader, so I can still move up. I can manage, I can continuously grow my team and reach the highest levels in a company,” and adds “or drop the career and try something different. There’s still some adventuring element in my blood. I’m always curious to learn something outside of my industry and consider having my own business.”•
When she first joined Antal, Chloe's manager worked in the automotive sector. At the time, Chloe didn't know much about cars or the industry, but her boss opened the door for her, and Chloe developed an expertise in the auto sector.
Ismet (1977) is a marketing manager at Jotun Boya. Born in Norway to Turkish parents, he spent his childhood in Norway, and later moved to Turkey where he attended high school and university. After university he decided to move back to Norway to start a career, but fell in love with a Turkish girl and decided to move to Istanbul. Norway and Turkey are certainly very different: Norway is a small country and Istanbul has the population of almost three times that of Norway. The shift for Ismet was huge, he says “Turkey is a very hot country. There is always very much action here. And people express their feelings very, very easily. When you look into Norway, Norway’s a bit more calm, and people are not as extroverted as they are in Turkey.” Ismet also talks about Turkey as a country that is often hit by a crisis, whether it be economic or otherwise, and this has helped Turkish people learn to adapt to new circumstances very quickly, whereas in Norway things seem unchangeable.
“Turkey is very much a fast moving and fast-changing country compared to Norway,
actually.” Ismet studied to become an environmental engineer, with the idea of practicing the profession in Turkey where the market was still very much open, compared to Norway, but while studying he realized he liked the business part more than the engineering part. So when he graduated, he decided to do a postgrad course in what he loved: marketing and communications.
As a marketing manager with communication-related hobbies, Ismet's life is dominated, 24-hours-a-day, by work. But Ismet loves every minute of it, as he says “when you look at marketing and communications, it’s kind of pop-culture engineering. You’re actually shaping the future and shaping what people are looking for in the
future,” and, he adds “when I see the shift in behaviors, and shift in the thoughts of people...on a mass scale, I really love it, as I love art, advertising is a form of art.” Ismet likes contemporary art; he’s always chasing after new, young and talented artists no one knows of; he often visits galleries and does it as often as he has the chance to such places as Barcelona, London, Paris, and Berlin.
Ismet is also a storyteller: he likes to be at the top of the game, always knowing new things that he doesn’t keep to himself but enjoys sharing with others, he explains “I like new stories that people are fascinated about. I like to inspire them; I like to tell them new stories. That’s my thing.” Dilek, Ismet’s wife, also works in advertising, so Ismet’s life is very much centered in the
communication world. Being very busy, they like to spend time doing what they love, as he says “I see people who have plenty of time but they are not happy with the things they’re doing.” He continues, “do what you really like to do and if you are doing the right thing, the things that you’re passionate about, success will come, happiness will be there, everything will be there. But when you’re waking up in the morning and thinking that you’re doing something wrong – then if you don’t want to go to that place you’re about to go, don’t go.” •
"What you really need to do if you want to be happy in the country you are living in, is to understand how people are thinking and responding to things, how they are responding to jokes even, so that’s why
I always try very much to understand people – ever since I was a child."
Tired of two jobs that weren't for him, James decided to take on a new challenge and started carving ice. He is now an ice sculptor who owns his own company, IceArt, and his life is immersed in nature.
James Cussen (1979), is owner and a sculptor of IceArt. Born in the U.K., he lived in Saudi Arabia until the age of 7, moved to the U.K. and then, at the age of 12, moved permanently to Cape Town in South Africa. He considers himself a South African, saying that South Africa is always portrayed in the wrong way in other countries, and that South Africa is actually a very welcoming country. It is a country of many challenges as well as opportunities, he says, a country where one who has dreams can make them come true.
James describes himself as creative and optimistic, unlike his wife, who is a realist. He always sees the glass half-full, and says “I see opportunities where others can’t.” James worked at Porsche in Dubai, he explains “I was working in the
marketing department for the Porsche Cayenne, then I was laid off because the company was shutting down, so I went to work in oil rigs all around Asia: places like India, Malaysia and Brunei.” He hated the job and the time spent on platforms, so he decided to move back to South Africa where he started working in the telecommunications industry. Eventually, James realized he didn’t like that job either. It was then that he remembered the beautiful ice sculptures he saw in Dubai...“Eureka!”
As the type of person who always gives it a go. Relying on his artistic background and adventurous spirit, he decided to go for it. He ordered a mould from Australia and started the business. “At first”, he says, “it’s all about practice, practice, practice.” The advantage is that ice carving is easier than wood or stone carving; you could finish a sculpture in a hour. That timeframe gave him the chance to practice a lot and learn through the “hands-on” experience. The mould he had ordered from Australia was very poorly built, so that, when business started getting better, he began to produce his own ice mould.
James’ primary passion, however, is nature. He goes hiking in the mountains with his two Ridgebacks (also known as African Lion Hounds, they are dogs bred mainly for hunting). He also enjoys climbing, and has taken on several mountains in the surroundings of Cape Town
and South Africa.
James thinks that dreams are the reason to live, and that they have to be chased, however hard it might be. He says, “you could win the lottery, but you can’t waste time waiting for the day when you’ll finally guess the right numbers; you have to put yourself out there and play the game.” His current dream is going to live in nature, leaving the city behind. He confesses, “in five or ten years’ time, I’ll be owning a farm, growing my own food and be at peace spending time in the environment I like the most.”•
The Blues Brothers01
Zappa Electric Don Quixote by Neil Slaven (1996) iPod EasyJet
The Circus Hotel, Berlin, Germany
Auberge Provençale d'Antibes, Antibe, France
The Dinner Game by Francis Veber02
Project Human Being by Antonio Meneghetti
Tumi Vapor travel carry-on05
Swiss Airlines
Vignamaggio in Chianti, Italy
La Speranzina in Sirmione, Garda Lake, Italy
Scarface
Shantaram by Gregory D. Roberts Decoltè di Louboutin04
American Beauty
A trip to a romantic place
Sailing across Aeolian Islands and Tyrrhenian Sea “Buongoverno” by La Frasca wine cellar, Cetona (SI), Italy
Spa weekend at Terme di Bormio, Italy
Sailing in Caribbean Gulfi, Reseca, 2007, Italy
Turkish Airlines, brilliant business class.
Hotel Melià, Cabos San Lucas, Mexico
Maria Mata Mouro, in Salvador da Bahia in the Pelourinho area. They serve typical Bahia cuisine, it’s a delight!
Barcelona Chair di Mies Van der Rohe
Redang Island in Malaysia, a true paradise on Earth!
Vintage Tounina03
Plainsong by Kent Haruf Audi A3 Just happy that the plane lands safely Le Germain, Toronto
Feast of the Seven Fishes, Christmas Eve dinner Jack Russell Terrier, Dickens
Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, with my good friends in a beautiful house overlooking the ocean
Hahn SLH Estate Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands 2007
The fact is, Kate can't remember the last time she had an uninterrupted night's sleep, on top of which, her to-do list is in a state of never-ending expansion.
She sometimes arrives at work inadvertently accessorized with bits of her children's breakfast to the horror of her workaholic, child-phobic junior colleague Momo (Olivia Munn)but keeps mum about her family life around her male co-workers.
After years of diligent toil, Kate scores a key victory at work when her proposal for a new investment fund gets an enthusiastic reception from the firm's head honcho in New York, Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan).
Tonegutti Take a career woman, well-dressed, on her heels waving between school's parties, business meetings, and a husband.
This is a movie that involves all of us women who work. Not only because we know perfectly well that we must jump through hoops to be there and do better than our male colleagues, but most of all because the protagonist is not able to get emotionally involved with the most handsome, not to mention, most important and crucial client for her career. Hurray for our double lives as women.
Review by Carasoo I understood that when my cousin worked on Christmas, it was in order to finish a project with her colleague... and not on her colleague. I realize just now that my friend Gianni is lucky: he bends over backwards at work and he also cooks, since Anna works until late. Hey, here's what I've truly learned. That harpy, the Head of the Purchase Department who my friend Alessandro wasn't able to seduce could become a parent, and this would do good to all of us, but most of all to her!
“I Don’t Know How She Does It” is a production by The Weinstein Company.
01 Presentation time!
02 Working full time, doing the shopping and organizing a birthday for your children is not an easy task
03 Kate Reddy (Sarah J. Parker) finds some time for intimacy with her husband Richard Reddy (Greg Kinnear)
04 Movie poster 05 On location with director Douglas McGrath
Characters
[W howshedoesitmovie.com]
Modern personnel service means addressing the individual needs of every employee and every client. And that’s what we do best. You, too, can benefit from our expertise as one of Germany’s top employers.
• Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything John Izzo
• Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men's Success Thomas Joiner
Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value Michael Beer and others
• Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders John Coleman, Daniel Gulati, W. Oliver Segovia and Bill George
• Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective Vedi Hadiz
2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals Paul Falcone
The Future of Value: How Sustainability Creates Value Through Competitive Differentiatio Eric Lowitt
• Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation, and High Performance David Sibbet
• StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution Marcus Buckingham
• Reviving Work Ethic : A Leader's Guide to Ending Entitlement and Restoring Pride in the Emerging Workforce Eric Chester
• What Really Works Paul Batz and Tim Schmidt
• Executive Coaching: A Psychodynamic Approach Catherine Sandler
A Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams Yael Zofi
Anthony Bradley and Mark McDonald are respectively group vice president, Gartner Research, and group vice president and Gartner Fellow, Gartner Executive Programs. Before joining Gartner Bradley led several SOA and Web 2.0 projects with Booz Allen Hamilton in the IT Innovations Group. He assisted the U.S. Army to transform its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability to enable net-centric warfare. Prior to Gartner, McDonald was a partner at Accenture, where he was responsible for the Center for Process Excellence and methodology.
[W gartner.com/thesocialorganization]
Deepak Malhotra is a Professor in the Negotiations, Organizations and Markets Unit at the Harvard Business School. He teaches Negotiation in the MBA program, and in a wide variety of executive programs including the Owner/President Management Program (OPM), Changing the Game and Families in Business. Deepak has won numerous awards for his teaching, including the Faculty Award by Harvard Business School's MBA Class of 2011.
[W pine.hbs.edu]
Dianna Booher is an American author, consultant, and keynote speaker on the topic of business communication. Booher is the chief executive of Booher Consultants, a Texas-based consultancy that gives companies advice on communication and productivity. Dianna has received the highest awards in the professional speaking industry, including induction into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame®. She is a member of the prestigious Speakers Roundtable. [W booher.com]
The Social Organization By Anthony Bradley and Mark McDonald
Harvard Business Review Press pp 256 $35
UK
I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else's Maze
By Deepak Malhotra
Berrett-Koehler Publishers pp 120 $19.95
Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think and Act Like a Leader
by Dianna Booher
Berrett-Koehler Publishers pp 216 $15.95
Based on research garnered from their evaluation of over 400 companies, authors Bradley and McDonald explain the benefits, perils, and practical application of social media in business. Outlining core disciplines, the authors guide readers through social-media strategy, providing clear examples and practicable advice that have led to identifiable, proven benefits.
Unfortunately, some leaders out there are still relegating social media to marketing, saying “Oh that’s just Facebook and Twitter,” when it’s really not. In the past year major organizations looking beyond marketing to all their business functions, to apply social media to mass collaboration.
twsm What are some misconceptions about the use of social media in the workplace?
ab People believe that Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube, all of these spontaneously erupt, and all you have to do is enable the technology. But that’s not true, you have to have a well defined, well scoped, meaningful purpose that people will join and actually contribute to. That’s a major best practice in determining strategy.
twsm What are some international companies that execute social media strategy well?
ab The Guardian, Boots, Ducati, HSBC, Adidas, VisitSweden (Swedish government’s tourist arm). Of the 400 or so organizations we looked at, about 25% - 30% were European based com-
panies. North America was the majority but Europe was right behind, the rest were relatively minor Asian and South American companies.
twsm What has been the most surprising recent development in social media?
ab One of the things that has changed rapidly in the past six months to a year is, there used to be a tremendous number of organizations either in, what we describe in the book as “fear” or “folly.” Meaning businesspeople say social media is for kids or are hesitant to take it on. But now, we’ve seen senior leadership take an interest in social media like never before. There is a significant rate of change in senior leadership’s belief that social media has significant business applicability across business functions. It’s a very good surprise.
The bad surprise is that there’s still a large segment still relegating it to marketing and not thinking of it as more strategic business. There’s still a very, very high failure rate of social media primarily because its hard to find a good
purpose. You can’t just put a platform out there; nothing happens. twsm Do you have an example of a company benefiting from an enlightened social media strategy?
ab We’ve seen some organizations gain incredible benefits. One international organization shifted their customer support from call center to community support, which basically means customers helping themselves solve problems. The company would monitor issues posted in this environment, what
percentage were resolved, and how quickly. They found customers were helping with the vast majority – almost 80% of the issues raised in this environment were answered successfully. Cost per issue went from almost $8 to $0.80. That is an order of magnitude; that is significant. And, customer satisfaction improved as well. We’ve seen a significant trend in this movement toward community-centered customer support.
twsm What is one of the most innovative findings of “The Social Organization”?
ab A major one is that the main value, the primary value, is mass collaboration: potentially huge numbers of people working together around a common cause to deliver tremendous results. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t build Facebook, we built Facebook – 800 million of us. Without us, his creation would be another website. What it’s really about is assembling communities of people around a common cause, to actually get work done. Communities of your customers helping solve problems, or getting the most utility or enjoyment out of your product.•
Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything
[Berrett-Koehler P., pp 192, $16.95]
Expertly told and research-based, Izzo’s compelling argument contends that any
business challenge can be solved if each of us were to look to ourselves as the agent of change, rather than looking to others.
Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men's Success [Palgrave Macmillan, pp 272, $27]
An expert in men’s health, clinical psychologist Dr. Joiner explores the effects that a pursuit of power and money can have on a man’s social and mental health; perhaps most significantly, he also offers solutions and advice.
Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value
[Harvard Business Review Press, pp 272, $29.95]
The authors reveal the stories of CEOs who are making it their priority to
Using a modern fable, Harvard Business School professor Malhotra reveals the ways companies, managers and workers often get trapped in a workplace maze that stifles creativity and productivity.
Resistance to change doesn't seem to be the main problem in modern workplaces. Instead, the true problem is that we don't always see that change is necessary or even useful -- this happens because many don't take the time to analyze what they do and how they do it.
twsm In “I Moved Your Cheese,” you advise us mice to question the maze. Many workers, and their managers, don’t realize that they’re trapped in such a maze. What are some questions managers can ask themselves? dm In many cases, resistance to change is not the real problem. Often it is that we don't even realize change is necessary or useful. The problem, then, is the unwillingness to examine why and how we do what we do. This is true in organizations who will periodically revisit key performance metrics, but fail to revisit basic assumptions about the appropriateness of their mission or strategy; it is true of employees who will occasionally reexamine their career trajectory, but will not bother to reexamine their career choice; and it is true of people who can tell you
exactly what they are trying to achieve at work or in their relationships, but may not have given much thought to whether achieving it will really make them a happier person. In light of this, managers should be working to create environments in which the culture and incentive system promotes asking fundamental questions: Are we focusing on the correct goals? Is our approach the best one, or simply the most common, the safest, or the most firmly established one? What are some widely accepted assumptions about our organization, our customers, or our industry and what would happen if
we threw out these assumptions? Are our employees happy? How might we experiment with new approaches to solve old problems?
twsm What are some international companies that you feel have mastered freethinking and innovation? dm I hesitate to nominate specific names, but one place you find people most enthusiastically challenging longstanding assumptions and approaches is among entrepreneurs. On the one hand, this is not surprising: entrepreneurs succeed by finding new ways of creating value in society. But what is truly inspiring about working in the start-up environment is that spirit of questioning, and of "seeing the old in new ways," seems to seep into every aspect of work. These folks are not simply innovating in the area of business models or technology, they seem to want to innovate across the board: in organizational structure, work-life balance, compensation schemes, etc. It is unfortunate that this type of culture does not often "scale," as companies grow larger.•
[Stanford University Press, pp 264, $22.95 USD]
Author Hadiz explores how the localization of power transforms communities and countries. Focusing on a comparison between Indonesia and Thailand and the Philippines, he examines the role of power in an increasingly globalized world.
accomplish financial goals along with impactful social good as well. The authors argue that these leaders have found that these two aspirations are mutually reinforcing.
John Coleman, Daniel Gulati, W. Oliver Segovia
Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders
[Harvard Business Review Press, pp 288, $25.95]
Harvard Business School grads chronicle the inspiring successes
and failures of fellow Harvard MBAs, focusing on a variety of unique business experiences and personal quests occurring the world over.
2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals
[Amacom, pp 224, $11.95]
A follow-up to Falcone’s bestseller, 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews, outlines important performance goals, categorized by those core competencies – such as time management and attendance – most often utilized in the appraisal process.
The
[Jossey-Bass / Wiley, pp 272 , $32.95]
The Future of Value reveals what it takes for companies to grow and outperform the competition in today's growth-constrained, sustainability conscious world, explaining in detail how leaders can use sustainability to enhance business performance.
Some people have it, and some people don’t… yet. Author Dianna Booher skillfully offers tested tips and strategies for creating personal presence. She focuses on the importance of visual appearance, speech, actions, and communication skills.
Many living in the modern era think that presence can't yet be that influential, but they can't be more wrong. Personal presence is important, and will determine how those around you view you and your capabilities.
twsm You advocate viewing personal presence in 4 parts: How you look, talk, think, and act. What are some top tips for each category?
db Some people seem surprised to discover how much clothing counts toward the assessment of their personal competence. But think of your reaction to service repair
people—those who come to your door in uniform versus those who show up in their scruffies to work on your plumbing. Anyone who has traveled extensively on an airline or stayed at a quality hotel can tell you the difference in the service they receive when they travel in expensive-looking attire versus casual clothes. In addition to vocal energy, watch your word choices, diction, and grammar. Avoid stumbling off into jargon-filled descriptions of past jobs and responsibilities. Don’t let careless diction drag you down and create stereotypical thinking about your capabilities. Stay with standard word usage rather than coin your own words. Be careful about commonly mispronounced and misused words. As you practice interviewing, give a friend or colleague permission to point out such without hurting your feelings. To speak clearly and fluidly, practice answers to the most common questions that every
interviewer asks—and particularly those that will be unique to your situation. The perception of presence is not only about the company you keep but the words you speak. People with presence rarely rush to judgment—of people, situations, data. They make it a practice to listen first, to observe, to collect and assess information. People with a strong presence stay alert, take in information, and think before they speak. Those who lack presence are short on the intake, quick to speak their mind, and often regret their output. The tagline “mover and shaker” comes from a metaphor—a very visual component of a personality trait or habit. Not only do these people move through many networks, work a lot of relationships, and shake their share of hands, they literally take the lead in approaching people. When newcomers enter a room, people with presence approach them confidently, introduce themselves, act as host, make introductions, and connect them to others in the group. They approach and give attention to others.•
Look at our online book selection: theworkstylemagazine.com
Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation, and High Performance
[Wiley, pp 312, $29.95]
Author Sibbet builds on Visual
Teams by showing users how to knit together best practices described in his first bestselling book, Visual Meetings, and turn them into strategies that work across the whole arc of a team's work life.
Marcus Buckingham StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution [Thomas Nelson, pp 240, $22.99] StandOut is more than affirming; it’s prescriptive. In today’s world, people
are demanding customization and total individualization of content delivery on virtually everything. Most strengths assessments pull you apart and describe your style; they make you feel good about yourself. However, just like prod-
uct customization is among the most critical means for achieving true value, StandOut provides you the information to take your work to the next level based on the algorithm of you.
$24.95]
Chester offers five strategies for doing just that: find your style, develop trust, value, tact and timing, tell stories, and cast a vision. He also identifies the seven Work Ethic Markers that are most important in a successful employee. Drawing parallels from lessons taught universally to children (smile and play nice, be prompt, look your best, do your best, obey the rules, tell the truth, say "please" and "thank you"), the markers are: positive attitude, reliability, professionalism, initiative, respect, integrity, and gratitude.
What Really Works [Beaver’s Pond Press, pp 184 , $20.00]
Batz and Schmidt identify the seven
areas that employers and employees need to recognize and devote time to in order to be successful and satisfied in business and at home. What Really Works is a collection of contemporary wisdom that will help readers blend the Seven Fs in order to lead rewarding and satisfying lives with their families, coworkers, bosses, and employees.
Visit our online store: workstyleshop.com Order the book Talking
Executive
[Open University Press, pp 168, $45.00]
Catherine Sandler explains our resistance to change: the defensive tactics we have developed to protect ourselves against anxiety. She also offers advice to coaches on how to help their clients work through anxiety and embrace change. Sandler’s insights are illustrated by lively examples drawn from her practice, typifying the kinds of difficulties she commonly finds among her clients.
The main subject of the book is a look at the future identity of work. The general theme has been developed by 135 professionals coming from different sectors (psychology, architecture, identity and privacy, organization and environment) who have actively contributed to it. The result has been divided into four sections: photography (5 photographers’ interpretations), the drafts (of the participants and of the 5 illustrators), the texts (of 5 storytellers and of the Talk moderators) and 5 filmmakers’ interpretations included in the related
DVD. In the book you will find also the description of the locations that hosted the various workshops, a presentation of our partners, the illustration of the T-shirt project as well as some statistical data. The collaborators and the people who took part in the event come from 23 countries throughout the US, Europe and Asia. The staff made of the best international professionals, the easy-to-read journalistic style and the clear straightforward topics make this book a very good way to get some clues on how the business world is going to change.
A Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams
[Amacom, pp 272, $27.95]
Virtual teams are reshaping the way we do business. Among the many benefits are many challenges. Zofi offers concrete answers and proven best practices. Drawing on her 20-plus years experience in teamwork and extensive interviews with virtual team leaders and members, she provides a virtual roadmap for every team manager struggling to navigate this complex new business fixture and force.
Attached to the book you will find a DVD (trailer of the pre-Talk works, trailer of the authorial videos, 5 authorial videos, 5 Talks backstage, 5 Talks soundtracks). See above for some images included in the book. Below two screenshots from the video of Esam Al-Dabagh. Above, an illustration by Goñi Montes.
“Talking” is a book that reveals how work changes. It is the outcome of discussions on 5 topics: identity, emotions, architecture, environment and organization.
Before the next episode of “How to Train your Dragon” (the animated Dreamworks 2010 blockbuster, a global fantasy about warriors living between the sky and the fjords) arrives, you can learn something about “the Viking” landscape living the “savage” beauty of Bergen.
Despite the various interpretations and translations of the word “hospitality”–such as those that appear in many runic stones founded throughout Scandinavia–the kind of hospitality that welcomes visitors here is as warm and friendly as you can expect from people who live by the mountain and by the sea.
And Bergen is indeed between the amazing natural crown of the Seven Mountains and the incredible stage of the Norwegian coastline
(the largest in Europe, 20,000 kilometers long). So you can pass from the sea to the top of Mount Floyen and the Funicular, starting from the very
center of the city (at the Fish Market) on a journey that opens the heart and the eyes to the stages of Nature. Whether you like to trek, hike, ski or just observe the surroundings, the climb is worth the time you spend on it. Together with seabirds, salmon and fishing (which, incidentally, you can experience for free) Bergen offers big pieces of history and culture.
The city echoes with the vibrations of classical compositions such as “Peer Gynt” (by Bergener, Edward Grieg), and recalls the melancholic situations described by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami in his “Norwegian Wood,” already a classic of contemporary literature. If you love to dig up memories of the past, the Hanseatic Wharf is waiting for you to bear witness to the glorious participation of Bergen in the Hanseatic League, the economic and commercial alliance of
The one hundred cities where to work in the next decade is a project by Work Style Company
Illustration by Eelco Van den Berg
Text by Elena Sassi.
trading cities (and mostly their merchant guilds) that dominated Northern Europe from the late Middle Ages to the early modern times. A part of the body and soul of European civilization has reached us in Bergen.
Ask for previous guides: Turin, São Paulo, Kuala Lumpur, Denver, Ekaterinburg, Marseille. Lagos, Thessaloniki.
It could have been another kind of story. It could have been like Hiroshima, or Nagasaki. It is precisely the city that replaced the first choice of the United States as an atomic bomb target at the end of World War II – as an intellectual center of Japan, Kyoto had a population "better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon."
So, the city that hosted the Emperor’s house until 1869 stands still, waiting for visitors and pilgrims to view its larger than life temples and shrines, and trees and rocks.
Sixteen-hundred Buddhist temples, 400 Shinto shrines and 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites make Kyoto the perfect storehouse of Japanese culture and traditions.
Blending an original mix of old
monuments and young generations (university students come to the city in thousands), Kyoto is the ideal ground to discover Japan’s roots and, at the same time, to experience the vibrant energies that light up its most contemporary life.
You can feel almost inadequate, facing a modern civilization perfectly carved in every detail, as though there is too much wisdom at every corner. You can enjoy peace, and silence (of the contemplative kind) under the weeping cherry trees, astonishing in springtime in Shinen Garden, following the Philosopher’s Path and making your own leap of faith.
But Kyoto is ready to give its visitors the whole set of Japanese ‘musts’, making a short-term visit as comfort-
able as a long-term one, offering the unique taste of its cuisine and culture, from Manga reading (the International Museum functions as a library with free access to comic books) together with Zen meditation, sutra’s handwriting, geishas' beauty and traditional bathhouses, and the Japanese version of Hollywood with a complete scene of Samurai movies (for fans, a visit to Uzumasa Movie Village is definitely compulsory).
Even a movie can help one remember that this is the land where honor, courage, extreme loyalty, and sacrifice are words that resounded through history, leaving their spell on us.
The July 2011 shootings shook the Norwegians and the Norwegian government, forcing them to analyze both their cultural attitudes and their approach to business. Despite occasional internal threats and a eventually limited supply of energy, the country and its business leaders continue to embrace a liberal philosophy.
Norwegians were forced to take a good, long look at themselves and the unique society they have created after one of their own was able to plan and carry out a mass murder of students with shocking ease last summer. Months later, they are more certain than ever that their oil-rich, socially-just world is worth fighting for. Even by the standards of Norway’s famously flat and understated corporate culture, Kantega – an IT solutions company with offices in Oslo and Trondheim – is an exception. Started in 2003 as a 40-member, 100% employee-owned business, its staff number has swelled to 85, and most have taken up the option to buy into the business after three years with the firm. Those who have left have sold their shares back the company – as their contract obliges them to do – ensuring that only those working for the firm have a direct vested interest in it. Notably, we’re not talking about oil, fish, timber, minerals or any other of the
Population 4,691,849 inhabitants
Norwegian Mainland is 432 km at its widest point, and only 2 km at its narrowest
Norway has an indigenous Sami population as well as five national minorities
10% of the houses were built before 1920 29% were built after 1981
founding blocks of Norway’s enviable, but perhaps ultimately unsustainable, prosperity. We’re talking about a company that develops tailor-made computer software systems for banks and public services.
We’re also talking about modern, architecturally-groomed offices and a calm and confident working environment. The company’s ninth year of operation will be like the previous eight, providing a healthy end-of-year dividend for its staffcum-owners on top of their monthly salary. Last year’s company takings were the best of the lot, with revenues of 76 million Norwegian krone (NOK), up from 17.9mn in 2003, and after-tax profits of 8.4mn NOK.
If you’re reading this from anywhere within the debt-blighted European Union, then the words of Frode Standal, co-founder and chief technical officer of Kantega, will jar “I see myself as very lucky to be born in Norway,” he says. “There’s always room for improvement but we have a general trust that money is spent quite wisely. We have a good welfare and health system and free education. That’s partly possible because businesses pay
their taxes and both men and women work. And of course we have oil.”
It would be superficial, of course, to describe Norway as an El Dorado. Its newspaper headlines are still dominated by the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, whose murder of 77 people in an orchestrated attack in central Oslo and at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya in July 2011 shook the country’s society to its famously liberal foundations. Immigration issues are also widely discussed, especially after a recent spate of late-night rapes within the capital, believed to have been carried out by migrants.
One in four Oslo residents is now thought to have been born outside Norway, a significant demographic shift for a city of only 610,000 residents and untilnow largely homogeneous people. But the country’s vital statistics tell a different story. Unemployment is only 3.2% and Norway has the second highest GDP per capita in Europe (after Luxembourg), with Eurostat reporting that the country’s earning capacity per individual in 2010 was 179% above the average among the 27 EU member states. Also outstripped in the 2010 wealth stakes were the US
By THRASY PETROPOULOS(149%) and Japan (107%).
Twice – in 1972 and 1994 – Norwegians voted by referendum over whether they should join the EU, with a marginal victory on both occasions for the ‘no’ vote. How relieved the yes-voters must be now.
The upshot is a country that sees itself as both part of and separate from Europe. Its currency is expensive, often prohibitively, for just about everyone who wishes to visit or to buy Norwegian products. At the same time, however, it relies heavily on exports to the European Union and beyond, with oil and gas representing 45% of export revenue.
And, of course, Norwegians are no different than anyone else in preferring not to spend money if they can avoid it. Yet Standal stresses that there is a commitment to quality that allows many homegrown companies to succeed over cheaper foreign competitors.
In Kantega’s case, foreign competition is referred to as “off shoring” – the taking advantage of substantially cheaper IT solutions from rivals in India, Pakistan, and China.
“It remains to be seen whether it will con-
Kantega is a Norwegian consulting, technology services and application outsourcing company.
Using agile and iterative software development methods, they design and develop user-friendly, secure software with high reliability.
Kantega is an employee-owned company with a corporate culture based on equality and solidarity and has more than 80 employees in Oslo and Trondheim. Their consultants have on average 10 years consulting experience and 4 years of university education.
01 Dynamism at Kantega
02 Employee working at Kantega
03 F. Standal is the co-founder and chief technical officer of Kantega
The managers' photos were taken for Work Style by photographer Martin Skulstad. Martin was born in 1976 in Norway. He is a photographer living and working in Oslo. He studied at Central St. Martins in London, the School of Visual Arts in New York. Since he graduated in 2001 he has been working as a freelance photographer.
tinue or not because there is a trend that businesses are trying to save money,” he notes. “But it is very difficult for a company in India to understand the real needs of a local authority in Norway. Quality has always been very important and people have been willing to pay for it. And I believe that in the public sector [which employs almost a third of the workforce], it will probably take an even longer time before they go towards off shoring – both for political reasons and the fact that domain knowledge is so specialized.”
Specialized knowledge, it seems, is one of the keys. It is one thing to have the resources to create wealth and quite another to produce a system that allows for one of highest levels of citizen contentment in the world. Forbes ranked Norway third (next to Denmark and Finland) in its 2010 Happiest Countries list. Little matter, apparently, that Oslo often appears in similar ‘Most Expensive Cities’ lists. Despite enduring long winter months of darkness and cold, Norwegians like their system and will go to great lengths to preserve it. And why wouldn’t they? Graduates can expect a salary of around 400,000 NOK (50,000 Euros) a year in the right job, ac-
By Jannik Krohn Falck Great Place to Work@ Institute Norge, Country Manager
Some 140 companies entered the Great Place to Work competition for 2011, split between the various categories, and what was noteworthy was that the satisfaction level was high – very high for the smaller companies where communication is better. What’s more, in Paris last May there was a sorting of the best 100 workplaces in Europe. There were 1,600 companies considered for both categories and eight of the top 100 had offices in Norway. The financial downturn hasn’t struck very hard here, so optimism is fairly high compared to neighboring countries, although there has been a slight shift in the last few months in terms of exports.
JANNIK KROHN FALCKmuch on the same level as possible as other workers. There is no culture of difference. Being rich and showing off money just isn’t allowed. Of course you know who the boss is, but in other ways you are the same. There is an iconic picture from a few years ago of the Norwegian king sitting on a train going up to the mountains to go skiing. The prime minister walks to work, with as little security as possible.
Great team of Great Place to Work® Institute Norge.
04 Jannik Krohn Falck is administrative
05 Brainstorming between Lars-Erik Horde, Anne Johnsrud, Ingrid Mørk and Jannik Krohn Falck.
And of course our national resources are often discussed because we know we won’t be able to rely on oil and gas forever. You have to innovate. We need to focus more on getting people with the right knowledge and competence for the right jobs. If you look at the labor market now, perhaps we don’t have enough people with the right knowledge.
Take information technology, for example, which has developed from a fairly immature industry to a very mature industry. Most high-knowledge workers have a high salary so people aren’t really competing on a salary level. It is about what work and projects are more interesting. People don’t really move for better benefits, so companies are increasingly focusing on how they can differentiate themselves from others to succeed and keep their talent.
In one way we have a very open, flat structure. You expect to be able to talk to the CEO of all but perhaps the largest organizations on a first-name basis. The top executives try to be as
Over 250 employees 01 FINN.no 02 Reitangruppen 03 Steria 04 Accenture 05 Canon 06 Cisco 07 McDonald's 08 Statnett 09 Bertel O Steen 10 Statoil Fuel & Retail 50-250 employees 01 SAS Institute 02 Microsoft 03 Webstep 04 Kantega 05 Miles 06 Optimum 07 Affecto 08 Abbott 09 SKAGEN Fondene 10 UNIT4 R&D Great Place to Work® Institute Norge Middelthunsgate 27 PO 5492 Majorstuen 0305 Oslo T +47 922 12 747 [W greatplacetowork.no]
[W abbott.no accenture.no affecto.no bos.no canon.no cisco.com finn.no flytoget.no kantega.no mcdonalds.no microsoft.no miles.no optimum.no reitangruppen.no sas.com skagenfondene.no statnett.no statoilfuelretail.com steria.no unit4agresso.no webstep.no]
cording to Jannik Krohn Falck, the administrative director of Norway’s Great Place to Work Institute. Maternity leave lasts 46 weeks with full pay, or 52 weeks on 80% pay, and men are legally entitled to a part of it. The retirement age, 67, is on the high side by European standards but pensions are generous and secure. And in many companies there is a commitment to pastoral care. •
The danger, of course, is complacency. With such generous state perks, and salaries appearing to cover costs, surely the only benefit left for a company to offer its staff is job security?
Well, try passing that argument by the average human resources manager. The flip-side to a 3.2% jobless rate, they will tell you, is that it can be hell to hold on to good staff. If something’s not quite right – the relationship between management and colleagues, working hours, or just the office location – then there’s every chance a disgruntled employee will move on. Consider the following statement from one company employee
“we’re a wealthy state – and affected by it both positively and negatively – because people take it for granted. Girls and guys take it for granted that, combined, you get maternity and paternity leave for a whole year; we don’t think it’s special because we don’t understand that we’re one of the few countries in the world with such a system. So you have to find other things that are important – a sense of pride, good colleagues, a modern working environment. When you go to a party you want to be proud, not ashamed, of where you work.”
The company in question is Flytoget, which operates Oslo’s airport express train service and is located on the 13th floor of a building found deep within the city’s central train station, and the words are from Kari Skybak, the human resources director since 2005.
With all due apologies to airport express train operators around the world, a modern working environment and high social standing at a party aren’t what come to mind when you picture the typical rail company. And yet Flytoget is now a regularly found at the top of the list of leading companies as judged by Norway’s GreatPlace to Work Institute. In fact, in 2008
they came top of the pile for workplaces with more than 250 employees. From close up, it isn’t hard to understand why. Considerable thought and expense have been put into creating a modern, bright and sociable office space that encourages all Flytoget employees – from drivers and ticket inspectors to top management – to eat and spend time together.
“In fact, we were in different offices in 2008 with different departments for different sections of the company, and we moved here one and a half years ago,” explains Skybak. “We were trying to build a strong culture and we thought that the next step to develop this was for us all to be together: drivers, hosts on board, technicians, sales staff, administration… to meet in the elevator or by the coffee machine, and to eat together.”
Even within the older, more dispersed setup, Flytoget scored highly when judged by the answers of its staff on matters of trust and openness with management, despite the strict safety concerns of a rail operator that necessitate a need-toknow relationship in many areas.
Such concerns, however, constitute finetuning. It goes without saying that, long
Flytoget, the Airport Express Train offers the best means of transportation to and from Oslo Airport by emphasizing security, punctuality and service. All of this through a unique identity, the most effective solutions and enthusiastic staff. At the same time, the company will actively orientate new business areas and the Norwegian train market.
06 Flytoget Airport Express office dynamics
07 Flytoget Airport Express employee
08 Last call for boarding this Flytoget Airport Express train
09 Kary Skybak, human resources director of Flytoget Airport Express
before issues of elevator chitchat and whether or not the espresso machine stocks decaf, is the fundamental concern of whether the company makes money. And here, perhaps more than anywhere else, lies the most important factor in judging how a company like Flytoget reflects the business practices of the country: It is both state-owned and run as a private enterprise.
“We are state-owned but with no government support,” explains Skybak. “On the contrary, because we are 100% commercial we pay all our costs – even 70 million Norwegian krone a year towards the infrastructure – and 70% of our profit goes back to the state. With another government we might be sold. You can see the development of the railroad industry in Europe, there is a lot of privatization.”
Transporting 5.5 million passengers a year and with a 35% market share of transport from the airport – the highest of any airport in the world – such confidence is justified. And then, almost as an afterthought, Skybak delivers the sentence that separates Norway from so much of debt-ridden Europe “if we were in debt, the government wouldn’t bail us
out, they would expect us to reduce our costs. They just wouldn’t accept red numbers.” •
But then, Norway isn’t like the rest of Europe. The discovery of large deposits of oil and natural gas in the late 1960s changed everything. And though the country isn’t alone in having oil, it has handled its wealth in a unique way. Øyvind Maarud, human resources manager of Statoil Fuel & Retail, couldn’t be clearer in explaining it “a large extent of our national identity these days is built around the oil industry. That’s what people outside this country know us for, that we have been able to use the oil as a basis for creating a welfare society that is unprecedented around the world. Within Norway it stands for solidity… that we can rely on it for a while longer and we can take care of future generations. It has brought us into the modern world somehow.”
A portion of the country’s petroleum revenues goes directly into a pension fund
that only invests abroad. By the end of 2010, the Oil Fund, as it is commonly known, had swelled to an eye-watering 375 billion Euros – yes, billion – more than the entire public debt of bailout-of Greece. Statoil charts that success, having become (as 67%-government-owned Statoil ASA) the largest company in the Nordic region by revenue and profit. Statoil Fuel and Retail, a “downstream” offshoot of the mother-company, was founded as a listed company in May 2010. It already has 2,300 petrol stations across Scandinavia, Poland and the Baltic States and operated profits of more than 1.6 billion NOK (190mn Euros) in 2010. Impressive figures, but it begs the question: What happens when the oil runs dry?
“There’s no doubt that over the last 30 to 40 years of our oil adventure, we have perhaps got too used to and have begun taking it for granted. It has been discussed widely in the media for the last couple of years because we are now in what is called peak oil. It’s getting harder and harder to pump it out of the oceans, so you need to invest more and more in order to do so. Last year, they said it would
Statoil's biggest activities are located in Norway with corporate functions both in Stavanger and Oslo. They are the largest operator on the Norwegian continental shelf, and a license holder in numerous oil and gas fields. Their onshore facilities in Norway are active within such areas as gas treatment, crude oil reception, refinement and methanol production. Statoil also has the technical responsibility for the world’s most extensive subsea pipeline system for the transport of gas.
10 Maarud, administrative director at Statoil.
11 Statoil employee on the field
last only 20 to 30 more years but in recent months they have discovered a few large oil fields that are quite promising so we can extend that period by another 10 to 20 years.
“And as long as there is transportation in the world, we see it as our purpose to supply the fuel of the future. We’re the only oil company in Norway supplying biofuel. It’s bigger in Sweden and elsewhere for the moment, but here we are pioneers in supplying E85, which is 85% bioethanol.” Money is money, of course, but where does this leave the country’s fossil fuel footprint?
Well, the country’s electricity needs are entirely covered by hydroelectric power plants. But that simply means that the Norwegian government is forced to turn to buying carbon credits and fund reforestation projects abroad to satisfy its Kyoto Protocol commitments in offsetting its petroleum exports.
“I think that is why, as a country, we try to compensate in some way,” says Maarud candidly. “The government has tried to be visible in other arenas, such as peace negotiations.” The fact that a Norwegian state body – and not the Royal Swed-
ish Academy –chooses the yearly Nobel Peace prize winner is a matter of great pride in Oslo. But Norwegian troops have been active in Afghanistan, Libya, and Kosovo. •
Closer to home, Norway is, of course, still coming to terms with the events of July 22, 2011, when its residents were terrorized by Breivik’s bomb blast in central Oslo and mass shooting on Utøya. Most shockingly, 55 of the 69 people gunned down on Utøya were teenagers. Worth recalling from that fateful day was the assumption that the attacker had Islamic connections.
Ironically, there are those who are now relieved it was a “blond Norwegian guy who did it” as Falck, of Norway’s Great Place to Work Institute, puts it. “It was a time for everyone to look at Norwegian society and consider whether it has been a success or not,” Falck explained. “In one way Norway has been fairly restrictive in whom it lets in, but in other ways
the country has been way too open, naive even.”
And yet, Norwegians rallied to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s call that, above all else, the mass murders demonstrated that the country’s liberal values are worth fighting for. Rather than acting as an Islamic fundamentalist, Breivik – who had managed to create hugely powerful bombs as well as amass an armory and join local shooting clubs with worrying ease – was motivated by a hatred of Muslims.
Notably, there are those who talk with conviction of the benefits of a multicultural society, particularly as immigration enters its second and third generation.
Take Reitangruppen, the massive Norwegian wholesaler and retail franchiser that boasts the ubiquitous Rema 1000 supermarket and 7-Eleven chains and has a thumb in the lucrative energy and real estate pie. “Of the approximately 90 franchises of our 7-Eleven stores, more than 50 are owned by people with non-Norwegian backgrounds,” says Solfrid Flateby, Reitangruppen’s communications director.
“We think that’s exciting. It brings some-
Reitangruppen is a wholesaler and retail franchiser.
Reitangruppen's values and culture is maintained in all business areas: Real Estate, Energy and Fuel, Grocery and Service Trade. It operates quickly and efficiently and wants its employees to get the focus on its creative desire and passion for the work they do. Franchising and partnerships are fundamental to their business model and philosophy.
12 Solfrid Flateby communications director
13 Employee concentrated at his workstation
14 Informal meeting
15 Customer service
16 Employee working comfortably from his office
thing new to the business, regardless of background because it only ever comes down to what competence that person has and what values they have and are willing to adopt.”
And why wouldn’t it? The franchise formula has been good to Reitangruppen, which this year ranked second in Norway’s Best Workplaces list. Since the company’s founder Odd Reitan opened his first grocery store in 1972, the company's store portfolio has swelled to 2,850 in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Latvia – all of them run on a franchise basis.
Gone are the days where Rema 1000 stores offered just 1,000 selected products sold at discounted prices, but the franchising discount model is still at the heart of the operation. Reitangruppen is also the fifth biggest business in Norway, and far and away the country's most successful grocery outlet.
“The key to our success has been not to believe in big. We believe in small,” says Flateby.
And understanding consumer trends, presumably. “Norwegians often complain about things being expensive – like food – but if you present how much an aver-
age Norwegian spends on groceries, it is a lot less than elsewhere in Europe, around 11%. And still people want it to be cheaper,” says Flateby.
“We are not known to Europeans as a discount chain because we don’t look like it. Lidl tried to get into the market here at the end of the 1990s and everybody thought they would put pressure on the Norwegian grocery kings, and we ended up buying Lidl in 2001. They weren’t succeeding. They had red numbers every year because they didn’t understand the Norwegian consumer who wants both low prices and high quality. Consumers here are quite modern, eating a lot of fresh fish. One of our biggest products groups this year is sushi. At the other end of the scale, we had this very successful campaign last year: dinner for the family for less than 100 NOK. It was meat and fish and vegetables, really great food. It was very popular.” Even though the franchisees have virtual sole responsibility for running their outlets, the mother company offers guidelines (not to mention 6,000-product shopping list to stock up from) – all for a 3% total margin for Reitangruppen. On average, each Rema 1000 franchisee
made 1.9 million NOK (243,000 Euros) profit after costs last year.
Above profits and salaries, however, Flateby emphasizes that the key to having a successful store is having a happy store. Again the country’s keywords spill out “a flat corporate structure and regular conversations between employee and employer.”
“Mostly we’re talking about happiness,” she says. “If you are happy towards a customer they will spend more. Ask an employee if you smile at a customer and they smile back at you, how does that make you feel? You have to like the culture, and the philosophy and the values. It’s not for everybody. If you think it’s all right to get a sale even though you have to lie and cheat a bit, then you don’t fit in.”
You get the feeling she might as well be talking about the country. •
Corey Arnold is a photographer from Portland, Oregon. His photographic chronicles of the commercial fishing lifestyle in Alaska and worldwide have been exhibited in leading galleries throughout the world. Fish-Work is the title of an ongoing life project documenting his journey as a commercial fisherman in Alaska and his travels exploring fishing cultures in Norway and beyond. Corey says “I have a love-hate relationship with commercial fishing. The work is often grueling and mundane, sometimes dangerous and soul-crushingly repetitive. But inversely, there is beauty and freedom in the act of manual labor, surrounded by a vast and remote sea wilderness. For a fisherman, the reward is often found in the amazing stories of triumph, disaster, and pride that are brought home to the civilized world. I’ve chosen to tell my story in photographs.”
17, 18, 19, 20 Photos by Corey Arnold
In a world whose population is rocketing, cities often have to deal with their age and come to terms with high-paced societies. But what if the answer is actually “slow down?”
It was on Monday, October 31, 2011, and the news announced quite a number: the world's population reached 7 billion. Besides the game of forecasting the continuous and exponential pace of this growth (which analysts claim will bring us to 9 billion by 2050), the real news is that this new baby born belongs to the new “urban species.”
The Slow City Movement was started in 1999 in Italy, when the mayors of Greve-in-Chianti, Orvieto, Bra, and Positano met to define the attributes that might define a Slow City. But “slowing down” can’t just be the result of such a zealous organization! A movement has much more to do with the free decision to change personal and collective behaviors ending with the transformation of the city architecture - and in fact, from London to Sidney, the Italian experience has already suggested other kinds of approaches, much softer and achievable. So improving quality of life raises another kind of question: are these changes (in a city’s quality of life) dependent on utopian visions that architects and master-planners should interpret and translate? Or is it more relevant to small tangible things, such as ordinary housekeeping activities and necessities?
Do they need a “white sheet” to be introduced in the urban context or, instead, the retrofitting of certain kind of towns (like historical centers)? Or is it something that involves full commitment of public administrations, architects, private companies and citizens?
As frequently happens, the answer is
somewhere in the middle, where architecture and daily policymaking are tested. The quality of the buildings we’re living and working in has become an increasingly popular matter of discussion and attention.
RETROFITTING MELBOURNE’S COMMERCIAL BUILDING Melbourne, for example, has embarked on an innovative financing effort for commercial building retrofits.
Scott Bocskay, chief executive of the Sustainable Melbourne Fund, which administers environmental upgrade financial support on behalf of the city, argues that “building owners and occupiers can now access an innovative financial mechanism that enables them to unlock greater savings and improve competitiveness. The development of the environmental upgrade charge has created a new marketplace, underpinned by a new asset class.” Slowing down means taking time to enjoy the environment that we are committed to protect and preserve.
ENVIRONMENT:
Next summer will see another step forward, with a new report born from the partnership between C40 and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), in order to provide a common reporting platform among global cities for climate changerelated data. The first such report, in
01 Diango Hernández was born in 1970. Hernandez "digs" on his own experience and relations, in that he intertwines and constantly links to broader reflections on social and politics. The "living rooms" that Hernandez refers to are the theater of fragments of the cosmopolitan life of the artist, but they are also the places where all Cubans build their daily lives - often in the literal sense: reusing pieces of furniture, appliances and packaging.
Tired Stop by Diango Hernández, courtesy of Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of Trento and Rovereto
[W 2011.nycbigapps.com boeing.com cdproject.net cittaslow.org cnr.it live.c40cities.org senseable.mit.edu squattercity.blogspot.com sustainablemelbournefund.com.au urban-age.net]
which 42 of 58 C40 Cities publicly disclosed their greenhouse gas emissions and climate risk data using a consistent platform, was released at the C40 Mayors Summit in São Paulo earlier this year.
Driven by a vision of the city as a social and physical artifact “that, for all its inequalities, has a great deal to offer,” according to Deyan Sudjic, the Urban Age Program focuses on vital themes for any metropolitan area, including security, climate change, density, globalization, and resilience. And yet, people come from a long period of negative storytelling about life in cities.
C40 Network City to City Knowledge
“Mayors can’t just talk about goals for the year 2050,” New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg says “Cities are where you deliver services.” Named chairman last year of the
Two examples in recent U.S. history convey the point: When major producers of fiber optics, LEEDs, and other glass component of advanced economic sectors sought to expand their volumes, they decided to expand to Toledo, Ohio. This old industry city was more favorable for establishing factories, compared with high-tech cities such as Seattle, because it has a history as a major manufacturing center for traditional industrial glass products, and a knowledgeable workforce that could be trusted with the new types of glass production. When Boeing, the aircraft company, decided to enter the global knowledge economy it did not even consider New York City as a location
C40 network, Mayor Bloomberg sees cities as focal points in the struggle against global warming and climate change. Urban areas are now home to half the world’s population, consume half the world’s energy, and, according to some measures, account for as much as some 75 % of global CO2 emissions.
Fortunately, because of their legislative power to regulate buildings, density, energy use and transportation, cities and their mayors can be pacesetters in climate change mitigation.
And because cities are discovering that the greener they are, the better their quality of life and the greater their competitive advantage, they have, by necessity, become innovative and reality-based drivers of environmental policy and action.
Mike Whelan was born in Edinburgh and moved to London at age 16. He has always been influenced by technical drawing. The catalyst for his Ad-Site project was the increase in new construction work taking place in London. Walk past one of these building sites and you'll be greeted with 'artists' impressions' of modern utopias, which promise an elevated social existence by living, working, or even just visiting one of these locations. But there is a radical distinction between utopian vision and the social reality which attends the upheavals of regenerationand which remains out of public view. Mike wanted to deconstruct these projections of pristine living and suggest towards the unseen on the social infrastructure that gentrification entails.
02, 03, 04, 05
for its new headquarters; it chose Chicago, today a major knowledge economy hub, in good part based on its long industrial past. These economic and industrial evolutions, and, moreover, notes Ricky Burdett “the form of this new wave of urban construction and the shape of our cities, will have profound impacts on the ecological balance of the planet and the human conditions of people.”
In his book “Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World”, Robert Neuwirth describes his experiences living in squatter communities in Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul and Mumbai. “In French, people who are particularly effective and self-motivated are known
as ’debrouillards.’ Former French colonies have sculpted this word to their economic reality: people doing business on their own, without registering or paying taxes, are part of ’l’economie de la debrouillardise’, or, sweetened for street use, ’System D’.”
In much of the developing world, System D is growing faster than any other part of the economy. If System D were an independent nation united under a single political structure (call it the “United Street Sellers Republic”, or perhaps, “Bazaaristan”) it would be the second largest economy in the world. System D turns out to be entrenched in the West, too. Ancient Rome was a System D city; so was London from the 1300 to the 1800.
Carlo Ratti (director of the MIT SENSEable City Lab) and Anthony Townsend (who holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from MIT) shed light on the huge potential of a social bottom-up approach.
“Most of the physical stuff in cities was built by everyday people. City building was highly democratized, decentralized, free-flowing and adaptive, just like its social and economic life—a rich tapestry of communal architecture whose design achievements were the result of collective effort rather than celebrity starchitects’.” This organic growth of classical cities holds several lessons for future smart cities.
Many “smart home” projects have failed over the past few decades precisely because designers made the wrong assumptions about how people want to integrate technology into their daily lives, and so they did not build a capacity to adapt to unforeseen situations.
Second, top-down visions ignore the enormous innovative potential of grassroots efforts. We have all witnessed how the decentralization of design transformed the internet into a fascinating milieu for social interaction. By providing finished solutions rather than new raw materials for building the physical and social fabric of smarter cities, topdown designs rob themselves of any capability for innovation.
If we compare the bounty of ideas that have come from city-sponsored app contests such as New York City’s BigApps challenge, with the vague promises for how high-definition videoconferencing will be used in New Songdo City, it is clear that the biggest innovations will come from the bottom.
Bottom-up approaches are also leveraging cities’ sociability to change patterns of activity.
Here is where mayors, architects, planners and technologists might play their most effective role in shaping truly smart cities: by marshalling and integrating the great engineering resources of top-down approaches with the innovation of grassroots initiatives. •
The cities seem to have worked out how to improve the interaction between urban regeneration, economic development and social renewal in order to achieve more comprehensive development. In accordance with the evolving definition of clusters the most mature experiences of creative cities show us two types of creative clusters.
The first are the “cultural clusters,” which are created around activities such as fine arts, music, cinema, architecture and design, and the initiation of which is encouraged and planned by local administration.
The second is the “cluster of events,” the development of which stems from the organization of great events or different kinds of recreational
and cultural manifestations.
In the start–up, public support for the cultural cluster serves to lend credibility to the project, and allows visibility at the international level. In this case, territorial policies must be devoted to creating the social and economic conditions to develop an urban environment that attracts actors interested in the cultural arena. The Ciudad of Valencia, the Baltic of Newcastle, and the Albert Docks and the Tate of Liverpool are some examples which, together with the City of Art, represent extensive cultural districts.
On the other hand, the clusters of events include the Expos (Zaragoza, Lisbon) the Venice Biennale, the European Capital of Culture (Genoa, Istanbul) and the Olympic Games.
In 2009, at the Marrakech Symposium, Eduardo Marandola Jr.(researcher at the Population Studies Center of the University of Campinas) presented a study on “Mobility and vulnerability: rethinking the populationenvironment relationship in metropolitan spaces”, focusing on the commuters’ daily migrations to the metropolis of São Paulo.
Super-concentration in metropolitan areas also brings with it an almost insoluble paradox: the number of places keeps up with the numbers of people who can potentially access them, but the more people there are, the less accessible the places become, since accessibility cannot keep pace with.
The main reason for mobility as a factor in the formation of large industrial cities was commuting between home and work, and mass transportation became directly associated with the growing size of metropolitan areas. But with the flexibility of the labor market and the reality of social insecurity, work ceased to be a basic reference around which family life was organized.
a
In the case of J.R. Bas, the story is told with images rather than with words, although words frequently appear as part of the images, hearkening back to the substantive reality of the viewer’s world, on a latitude and longitude that is identifiable and actually reachable. All the rest of it – the words, the cartoon clouds, the horizons in the air and the guys drawn on the beach and the mountains and the trees and the boats – all of this is the invention of the storyteller, J.R. Bas.
Bas’ playfulness is everywhere in these images: drawn-in landscape elements (clouds, horizons, boats) are added where they are needed to properly expand your imagination.
Cartoonish simulacra show up to keep the photographed characters company, or serve as their shadows or alter egos.
The pictures themselves live on pages embellished with mountains and trees, and text drawn in pencil and crayon.
01 Marina. I love growing up in wisdom and honesty
02 Exauicea. I would like to be president
03 Dirck. I love soccer
The challenges that women in African societies have faced have always been enormous, but things might be changing as more and more women in Africa stand up for their and their communities' rights.
In 2011 the Nobel Prize was assigned to three women, two from Liberia and one from Yemen.
Women in Africa have traditionally faced enormous challenges in the workplace, including gender inequalities, economic disparities, lack of political representation, lack of access to healthcare and education, an increased risk of HIV/AIDS, and lack of access to resources. The continent has also experienced a significant increase in civil wars and internal armed conflict. The disproportionate impact of conflict in Africa on women, particularly of sexual and gender-based violence, has led to an increase in women’s participation as agents of positive change on the continent.
It is fitting, then, that the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen for their “nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated in its announcement that “we cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.” The selection of these three women activists highlights the ongoing struggle for women’s rights and gender equality, as well as the contribution of women to peace-building processes both globally and specifically in African and the Arab world.
The winners of the 2011 Prize included President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and pro-democracy campaigner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen. President Sirleaf is the first woman to be elected president in Africa. Sirleaf has led the country in a
transition from conflict to peace, improving gender equity in Liberia. Fellow Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee is the head of the Women for Peace movement and has been praised for uniting Christian and Muslim women against Liberia’s warlords. Tawakkol Karman is a leading voice in Yemen’s populist revolt who inspired many women to mobilize. Karman called the award “a victory for our revolution, for our methods, for our struggle, for all Yemeni youth, and all the youth in the Arab world – in Tunisia, in Egypt, everywhere.”
Although African women have become more visible in the international sphere regarding issues of peace and conflict, there are still many obstacles and challenges to women’s involvement in the decision-making process on the ground in Africa. According to Tracy Dexter, independent consultant on women, peace and security in Burundi, “women have undoubtedly contributed enormously in the public sphere. Opportunities are slowly increasing for women in Africa but threats remain. The resistance to gender equality and to the public roles of certain women is extreme, deadening to the spirit, and potentially fatal. Beyond courage, the physical energy and precious time away from family (almost all women in the public sphere are married, and have several children) that it takes to persevere is enormous. Nonetheless, so much of women’s work is humanizing and thus absolutely essential, as is the work of Ellen, Leymah and Tawakkul and life-giving as is the work of Maathai Wangari (the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Kenya who died last month).”
In its 110-year history, the Nobel Peace Prize has only been awarded to 12 other women, including Maathai, Mother Teresa, and American philanthropist Jane Addams. The number of African nominees and laureates has also increased since the 1950s.
Women in Africa have become more empowered and encouraged to enter the workplace both on the continent and internationally. African women are in-
creasingly gaining acknowledgement for their tireless work, especially in the international community. Rosette MuzigoMorrison is an expert providing support for the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Libya, and has worked on the ground in Africa for international law institutions such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone “I am surrounded by powerful African women -- judges, ambassadors, Fatou Bensouda the ICC Deputy Prosecutor -- I could write you a book about their work and steep ascent to high places.”
Women have traditionally provided the backbone of the rural economy in Africa, including caring for the children, the sick and elderly, as well as farming and trading. Additionally, women farmers usually worker longer hours than men and perform physically strenuous tasks which could be improved with funding for proper equipment. According to a BBC interview with African writer and director Tsitsi Dangarembga, “women are carrying out multiple roles as breadwinners, wives and mothers… It is very difficult for groups formed by African women to obtain the funds they need, whether from their own countries or abroad.” Both international and African women working in Africa face economic and social challenges. Traditionally, women have been excluded from many economically viable positions within society. Women also face the challenges of organization and unity, and a lack of allocation of resources available through development projects and structural adjustment policies.
Olivia Bueno of the International Refugee Rights Initiative highlights the challenges she has faced in her work as an international woman working in Africa “certainly there are many of the same issues for women in Africa as in the US in the work world: the difficulty of balancing work and life priorities, discrimination, exploitation by male colleagues. It is interesting that the not-for-profit sector is really male-dominated in Africa, un-
like in the US, where it tends to be femaledominated, but I think that that has to do with earning patterns (in African economies the not-for-profit sector tends to be relatively high-paying, whereas in the US it is relatively low-paying). In a social context in which there is greater emphasis on childbearing and family, it is obviously even harder for women to break out of traditional roles and prioritize their careers.”
Nigerian activist Toyin Ajao, who is currently a Fellow at King’s College London and the African Leadership Centre, highlights what she takes from the experience of the Nobel Peace Prize winners in terms of women in the workplace in Africa “though working in some countries as a woman is not as tough as others, all are tough anyway. Most often as a woman in a demanding or leadership job, you have to work twice as hard to make a difference. What I take from this is that those women like Ellen JohnsonSirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman are the story of inspiration that ‘women can do it’ and that more strives will be made to put policies and laws in place for women’s inclusion in all works of life. There have been women in the past that have been so invincible. There are more that will make an impact even after Johnson-Sirleaf, Gbowee and Karman. There are many out there that we may never hear their names but they will forever be a part of the change, the difference and the impact.”
In an interview Ajao states “my aspiration is to be one of the builders of a world of equality, a world where diversity is respected and values for peoples’ lives are paramount – a world where religion and culture are not used as weapons of dispute and destructions, where leaders serve and not steal, where everyone does not pretend to love one another but does so straight from the heart.” Ajao followed up “I believe so much in what I said because even when the road is tough, you know you can’t stop because those inspirational women like Funmi Olonisakin, the late Wangari Maathai, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkul Karman never quit.” •
As difficult as it can be to get a permit to live and work on South African soil, the experience can be rewarding. In a country where Apartheid left an impact, there’s somehow still a willingness to move on.
The Home Affairs officer comes back to the counter and withers you with a look. You just know. She is going to open her mouth and say “where is your police clearance?’’ or ‘’the letter from your employer is out of date.’’ You just know that three hours after handing over that numbered ticket that had shriveled in your hand, you are about to be sent away again. Applying for a work permit in South Africa would try the patience of a saint.
In one of the world’s most unequal societies, battles with the Department of Home Affairs are the great leveler. South Africans, be they rich, poor, black or white get their identification cards through Home Affairs - eventually. Foreigners, be they European CEOs or low-skilled migrants from Zimbabwe, go there to apply for permission to remain in the country. Everyone has a Home Affairs story because the department is said to have a backlog of 750,000 applications.
“I am married to a South African woman and we have two children so you would think I would be a straightforward case,’’ said 41-year-old Swedish chef Henrik Jonsson who runs the kitchens at a restaurant in Johannesburg’s School of Tourism and Hospitality. “I submitted my application for a work visa extension in June, in good time before my first fiveyear permit expired. In August, I was told there was no record of my paperwork. They now expect me to apply again with police clearance certificates from every country I have lived in since the age of 18. For me that means the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Dubai and Greece. It is crazy.’’
Mr. Jonsson believes the company he works for will allow him to continue being employed during his Home Affairs paper chase, even though he is now
technically “illegal’’. However, he adds “not all the people in the human resources department are sympathetic to my difficulties, which is stressful.’’
Nevertheless, he and others have praise for the country’s working environment. “South Africa is one of the most tolerant countries in the world in terms of religion. Everyone just gets on with their thing. There is far more mutual respect than in the Middle East and Europe. “Racially, however, there are things you have to get used to. When I worked in California, there was diversity in the workforce but there were not expectations linked to race. Here you have to get used to the cultures of different black tribes –Xhosa, Venda, Zulu, they all have their differences – and it helps to study the cultures and traditions a little,’’ says Mr. Jonsson whose 33-year-old wife, Danielle, is a South African of Chinese origin.
“Apartheid has also left its mark. I sense that with black people of my age there is
something like a sense of entitlement: I suffered so I have a right to a Mercedes. But you do not feel that from younger black South Africans. They are more likely to take the view that they have been given an opportunity and want to make the most of it,’’ said Jonsson.
Ayanda Bam, 24, is a mixed-race South African currently making the most of his life as an employee of a Johannesburg company, ECI Africa, that implements development projects for international donors. “I grew up in different countries and my first job was in Washington D.C. There is a big difference in the work culture here,’’ says the economic development consultant.
Mr. Bam describes the United States work environment he has known as efficient, streamlined and driven but also “much less friendly and more concerned with professional than with human development than in South Africa’’.
After 18 months back in his native country, he sometimes gets frustrated at the slow pace in his office but appreciates other features of the work environment. “People are more laid back so efficiency levels are lower. If you work more than 40 hours a week in South Africa, you’re in overtime. In the US, no one counts their hours,’’ says Mr. Bam whose colleagues are from all over the world – especially Africa – and who reports to South Africans.
“In the States, everything is about time management and if you are working in a team, you will do your work on time, conscious that someone else is waiting for it before they can do theirs. In the US, if someone is 15 minutes late for an appointment you can probably assume they are not coming but that is not the case here.’’
Mr. Bam, who is the son of a diplomat
father and medical doctor mother, says he has not finished his traveling. “Being here has been like a homecoming to me but I do miss European culture and certain conveniences, like being able to walk to the supermarket, go to a bank at the weekend and other lifestyle details. Those are the things that are drawing me away again,’’ says Mr. Bam who plans to continue his education in Britain in 2012.
German architect, Anja Green, 33, misses little from Berlin where she held her last job. A resident of Cape Town since February, she has traded a salary (that was a third higher) for a professional and personal adventure that is enriching in other ways.
“You have all sorts of pre-conceived ideas about Africa and you quickly have to revise them when you come here,’’ she says.
“The main points about working in South Africa are not what I had expected at all: Standards are high, the work is more creative and it is often carried out more quickly. In Germany you have to get a permit for everything before you start. It slows everything down. Here there are
fewer permits to apply for. That speeds up projects and gives you creative breathing space.’’
Ms. Green, who moved to South Africa with her journalist boyfriend, says the key to being happy in the South African work environment is to communicate with people. “On site, people are shy. They may not have met a woman architect before. It is very important to strike up a conversation. At the beginning, being German, I did not understand everything that was being said. But people were very patient with me, and took the time to explain.’’
“In return I have tried to share my professional experience. I was an apprentice carpenter for a time in Germany. One day I showed a South African site worker a little trick. He was initially stunned to see it come from me, a woman. But now, whenever he sees me on site, he calls me over to show me he is still using it,’’ says Ms. Green whose small company, Thomas Leach Architects, has just completed work on a 200-seat restaurant in the upmarket V&A Waterfront shopping area of
Cape Town’s harbor. Ms. Green and Mr. Jonsson both admit that they were reticent to move to South Africa because of its notorious crime rate. South Africa has one of the highest recorded murder and rape rates in the world – 50 murders a day.
However, what is rarely explained is that the crime is concentrated in poor townships. South African society is extremely fragmented and middle class areas have much lower rates of crime.
Ms. Green says nothing bad has happened to her or her boyfriend since they arrived in South Africa. Mr. Jonsson and his family, including two daughters aged 5 and 8, have had no crime experiences either. “We live in a walled, secure estate, with guards,’’ he says. “The children can run around and we can walk to the shops. Outside our area we are, of course, a bit careful. You have to be a little more conscious of potential dangers and observant of what is going on around you than elsewhere. Locking the car doors when you drive and not wearing jewelry are matters of common sense.’’ •
Respecting the environment is increasingly becoming a priority for both manufacturers and customers, and it is a major trend that makes a significant impact on purchasing criteria and consumer preferences. Customers are demanding more efficient, eco-friendly and economical vehicles without renouncing style, technology and the pleasure of driving.
We are witnessing a rising demand for compact cars complete with technological and high-quality features that, up until today, have been a prerogative of cars belonging to higher segments.
The automotive industry has been investing resources for many years, and undertakes to reduce the environmental impact of its products by setting targets more and more ambitious.
It can stem only from combining traditional and alternative technologies, the effectiveness of which also depends on the context in which they are placed and on the market's ability to accept them.
Fiat is therefore committed to:
• Improving efficiency and reducing the emissions of its petrol and diesel engines
• Developing use of alternative fuels (methane, LPG, bio-fuels)
• Actively involving customers in reducing emissions when they use the vehicles
A new generation of petrol engines is born with the MultiAir technology conceived, developed and patented by Fiat Powertrain Technologies. This marks clear progress in the fields of savings and
respect for the environment, able to guarantee lower fuel consumption and 10% less CO2 emissions, while at the same time increasing maximum power 10%. Fiat has been the European leader in the field of methane-powered vehicles for more than ten years.
Methane, the cleanest fuel available today and the only true alternative to petrol and diesel:
• Guarantees minimum toxic emissions, from particulate to aromatic compounds such as benzene
• Also reduces the emissions most critical for air quality to a minimum
• Reduces CO2 emissions 23% compared to petrol operation
• Has a potential as a renewable source through bio-methane
The offer of dual fuel supply made by the Fiat group makes it possible to combine the ease of petrol refueling with the advantages of methane to provide a comfortable solution also in those areas where methane filling stations are harder to find. In this way methane does not represent an unavoidable restriction for the customer, but instead an opportunity to reduce costs and CO2 emissions.
The eco:Drive program was created for this reason. Its purpose is to educate drivers in adopting a more respon-
sible, efficient and eco-friendly driving style. Through eco:Drive, the car and PC communicate through the USB port of the Fiat Blue&Me system. While driving, eco:Drive collects information on the driver's behavior and on the efficiency of the vehicle. The data are transferred to the PC using a normal flash drive, to then be processed by the system that condenses them in the eco: Index, the environmental quality of driving behavior indicator.
eco:Drive Fleet helps Fleet Managers and drivers to improve fuel consumption and reduce CO2 emissions. It is an instrument that helps to reach business and social responsibility objectives and can cut fuel costs by up to 15%. •
Downsizing and alternative drive systems constitute an increasingly large topic of public discussion. Companies are more frequently opting for environmentally friendly vehicles for their fleets.
By MARTIN JAHNWith an increased demand to produce greener products, the willingness to be good, and an urgent need for customers to adapt to road regulations, Ford is debuting a new series of cars that cut down on CO2 emissions without reducing the pleasure of driving.
Ford has just launched the new Transit van with new engines and new power trains, reaching the Euro stage 5 regulations, meaning increased performance and a decrease of emissions.
THE C-MAX C-max is a multipurpose vehicle. You can have it with sliding doors; it offers you a lot of room and great driving experience. It’s fun to drive. You can have it as a plug-in hybrid or a full hybrid. Cmax has two engines—an electric engine and a petrol engine and batteries. The car will automatically choose the most fuel-efficient way to drive.
Another option is the Focus Electric, which will be launched in Europe next year, consisting of a fully battery electric vehicle that can be plugged in at night and used to drive to work in the morning, all on electric, this means the vehicle is emission-free.
The third development Ford is really working on at the moment is what is called downsizing, meaning taking the existing combustion engine and making it more and more efficient. In other words, cars will use less fuel and take more performance out of every drop. Early next year, we will launch the Ford Focus with three-cylinders, one-liter engine, which will have the performance of a normal four-cylinder, 1.4-litre engine, but which will use less fuel and have less CO2 emissions. This is a new engine we have constructed and engineered; it's an absolutely new development.
Many companies know their fleet should not emit more than 160 or 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer. There's awareness of that topic and Ford tries to meet the requirements of fleet customers by delivering them cars which fill those requirements.
The U.S. Toyota's approach and commitment to more sustainable products is reflected in their fleet offerings, which include fuelefficient, low-emission hybrids and, starting in 2012, plug-in hybrids (Prius PHEV) as well as vehicles such as the Scion iQ EV, an urban, commuter battery-electric vehicle, and the Rav 4 EV, the pure electric version of the company's popular small SUV, with a real-world driving range of approximately 100 miles from a full battery charge
03 Toyota ScionIQ Courtesy of Toyota Motor Corporation
04 Volkswagen Crafter, blue motion technology
Courtesy of Volkswagen Group
On the other hand, used cars are not such a big topic for fleet customers, because Ford sells new cars. Fleet customers drive them for some years and then they replace the fleet after two, three or four years—those cars will, however, come back to the market as used cars and are bought by private citizens through the Ford network of authorized dealers.
Reusing allows us to notably reduce the amount of waste we create; cars coming from fleets get thrown back into the market, materials are often reused. After all, those cars have been used only three or four years, it would be such a waste to throw them away! •
Volkswagen Group is very well prepared concerning this matter. With the downsizing of internal combustion engines together with forced induction engines, the Group represents the pinnacle of technology.
With technology such as the start/stop system and regenerative braking, low rolling resistance
tires and an aerodynamically perfected design as standard, we're talking about values such as 4.2 liters per 100 kilometers and a CO2 value of 109 g/km for the Passat Limousine as well as those of the industry leading Golf with 3.8 liters per 100 kilometers and a CO2 value of 99g/km.
The range is also available to customers in larger vehicles over 5.0 tons. For example, with the Crafter 2.0 TDI with 161 bhp and 400 newton meters of torque. With Blue Motion technology the vehicle uses as little as 7.2 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers.•
When we think of commuting, we tend to picture an individual moving daily between a suburb and the city, a phenomenon that boomed in the mid-twentieth century and remains the norm in much of the developed world. The landscape of commuting is more diverse today, as employees and employers seek healthier, more productive mobility options.
The root meaning of the word commute means to transform. We transform our home selves into our work selves and back again. Some commuters cherish their travel between home and work. For office workers it can represent the most physically stimulating part of the
day. Some commuters enjoy the solitude commuting affords, while others enjoy time with friends, or coworkers. Increasingly, a commute expands the work day, since mobile devices provide a way to catch up on e-mail and calls.
Others dread their commute, especially rush-hour travel in cars. The stereotype of anxiety-laden hours stuck in traffic is a negative image of work as pervasive as the office cubicle. When there are no mobility options - or limited flexibility regarding work arrival and departure times - a commute can turn into a rut. When a late phone call and stalled train mean missing your daughter’s ballet recital, commuting can become the enemy.
Commuting is evolving as cities and mobility options expand. Metropolitan areas like Washington, D.C., have grown and decentralized, developing corridors and suburban centers in addition to the old center. Such centers can shorten travel times to residential areas; it is not unusual now for commutes to occur between suburban hubs. Employers consider mobility as a key part of office location strategy, knowing that a new location affects employees’ quality of life — for better or for worse.
Forward-thinking employers address commuting as part of a holistic approach to integrating work life with personal life, helping employees reduce stress
Commuting literally means “to transform.” In many ways, workers’ lives are shaped by their journeys to and from work, and their personalities are often transformed as well.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recognized the value of “a third place between work and home.” As the nature of work changes, we can expect changes to urban design and mobility that improve the quality of life as well as the quality of work. Commuting, at its best, can be a third place on wheels. Howard Schultz left Starbucks for a short period of time to start his own Il Giornale
and save time outside the workplace. Larger organizations may provide amenities at the workplace such as daycare, groceries, and on-site fitness facilities. This is seen as a productivity strategy as well, since employees do not need to leave work early to run errands. Some employers allow flexibility in workday hours to make commuting easier, depending on how much face-to-face interaction is needed at the workplace for a particular employee.
The new field of mobility management promotes multi-modal transportation options and community-wide mobility networks. In some cities, a multi-modal commute involving some combination of cars, trains, subways, bicycles and walking may now may be part a worker’s daily routine. The mobility manager considers the range of individual commuting circumstances and
participates in long-range planning for communities.
The location of home and work is not only question of lifestyle but also question of life stages. An employee raising children may relocate on the basis of schools and open space, while young, single employees enjoy the benefits of living in a city center and using mass transit. Lifestyle and life stage affect whether a commute is a sacrifice or a personal, quality-of-life decision.•
Interface is the solo exhibition of Gionata Xerra where his work brings us back to the days of Man Ray: the images come from a "lucky" mistake in his studio, where two prints overlap.
Initially, it was a random mistake, but it soon turned into an expressive language.
The exhibition was conceived by Pierluigi Bernasconi, founder and CEO of Mediamarket. Nice link between people and technology. A trip daily commute. 01, 02, 03 Photo by Gionata Xerra
By MARTIN REEVES
Companies are studying themselves and their structure meticulously and remodeling themselves and their environments as a consequence. The demand by organizations for real estate, and the way in which people use it, is being reinvented. Efficiency through optimization is a key tool to overcoming the ever-increasing cost of real estate, while being able to deliver significant performance benefits to the business.
Value and cost is being balanced with the ways in which people carry out their work. The quality of the workplace has been given a new priority, as decisions about the way organizations spend money is reviewed. They are requesting more value for their money, and demanding their work environment ‘work harder’ for them at the same time.
Maintaining balance, fostering creativity and comfort were the aim of TODA partner and designer Mark Naden who created an intimate space for both work and living that was used as an alternative office space for design work, partner/ client meetings and office/staff gatherings The TODA 55 Liberty space functions as a home, but with the ability to transform to a business space with the use of sliding screens and curtains.
Less space shouldn’t mean less functionality. Using less space can improve the dynamic in any office, as people are moved closer together, aiding communications and promoting teamwork. But there need to be other compensating factors to go with it. Spaces within the office are broken down and looked at in more detail than previously. The dilemma of a cellular or open plan is almost irrelevant, as workplaces become hybrids, combinations of alternative spaces that fit the function for the time they need to. Flexible space, un-bookable space and areas that allow the user to own it only for as long as they need to are adding value and improvement. Furniture solutions are as much part of this strategy as the interior architecture – pieces designed around how not only the business functions, but the various roles and ‘types’ of worker who uses it.
As a hub of the company’s brand, workplaces are now becoming smaller and more concentrated
Workplace strategy is no longer a tool open to only very large corporations, with firms like Bene and Jeremy Myerson at the Helen Hamlyn Centre in London adding clarity and energy to the discussion and studies. In practical terms, consultants such as Philip Ross at Cordless Group have written and produced much research attempting to look at the future demands of the workplace based around agile working, where he describes a more ‘nomadic’ worker. A ‘nomadic’ workforce is highly mobile and free to use alternative environments. This places less demand on the office as merely a quantity of area. The office starts to be seen in terms of it being a community. A landmark for the organization or a place to visit: more focused on delivery and quality, and less on general space and area. In fact, maybe the office needs to become smaller to deliver.
As companies strategize different ways to save space and limit costs, the workplace is evolving. They are not simply places to work, but spaces for employees to both work and enjoy, for clients to experience and build trust.
07
Toda offices in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York, NY. Toda is a multidisciplinary design firm. Photos feature the design of TODA's large office space in the 00's, before the shrinking. The space was design by TODA partner Mark Naden, and featured many details, like swinging doors which come out of the wall allowing the space to be used in various ways. The space was designed to be open and inviting creating a balance between staff members personal work spaces and overall public space that could be shared.
There is more and more data and precedent providing evidence that mobile working, technology-driven interiors and new types of environments within the office allow the client the freedom to articulate the office in a more meaningful way. Higher productivity, profitability and higher staff retention are the goals.
Myerson uses terms like the “Anchor”, the “Connector”, the “Navigator" and the “Gatherer” to describe function, mobility and also requirements of the organization, which in turn allow the designer to “shrink wrap” the space around the functions of the staff. The smaller office becomes a more bespoke device, a meaningful tool for the transformation of the business.
Looking at the functions and roles of the staff are the starting points to understanding the business.
Smaller offices and more optimized space adds value and benefit, not simply in the financial cost led sense, although this is a key driver to the exercise, but tangible benefits to the business are also found in terms of productivity, communication, and collaboration. These elements need to be catered for as alternate spaces within the office, adjacent and annexed to the desks. Precedents for this type of workspace are becoming more developed with firms such as CISCO, Macquarie and BT, which embrace the principles and find benefit.
The new office space can function as an agent of change and reward.
The London office of DZ Bank, designed by Maris Interiors, reduced the demand from 2 floors into 1 by co-locating workers who had never worked together before, bringing different departments and roles into closer proximity to one another. This change, which brought different spaces next to one another through the use of perforated screens, good acoustic separation and a high degree of design planning, allows the teams to work separately, while in close proximity to one another.
At DZ Bank, the flexible approach to meeting space epitomizes the movement towards flexible work environments. The main boardroom is no longer an iconic status of hierarchy and corporate positioning but fulfills its regular functions as a meeting space, along with being the fulcrum for the entire DZ Bank experience, both for visitors and staff. The environment promotes
Room Studio was designed to be easily customized and photographed in, to meet a set of diverse needs. The space sought to be both neutral and filled with personality by using a minimalist and highly detailed interior architecture approach. It aims to be a work space that allows the staff to work in both big and open spaces, as well as smaller spaces for staff working behind the scenes of a production.
07, 08 Courtesy of TODA
transparency while maintaining strong acoustic qualities, yet it can be opened to promote social events, relaxed meetings that are connected to the adjacent social area of the office, and closely intertwining the movement of clients and staff without exposing visitors to confidential information or the day-to-day activities of the staff.
Desks in the office have been recycled, as existing frames have been reused, with new worktops added, so no reduction in desk size was required, despite moving from 16,000sqft / 1,486sqm, to 11,393sqft / 1,058sqm. The previous office was planned on a different metric, allocating much more space between desks, with some organic moves and changes over the years making the problem worse. Reducing the space around the desks, joining desks and re-planning meant there was no need to offer smaller personal space. The re-
ward to the staff is not only within the design, the materials and the build, but unbookable space, vibrant, attractive furniture solutions, artwork and radically improved shared resources such as the large and inspiring pantry, which provides a combination of casual meeting space, break area, exceptional catering, full audio-visual installations and access to an exceptional penthouse roof terrace, creating a sense of status for the employees. A sense of pride is an important tool, as much as more tangible elements.
Richard Kauntze, the Chief Executive of the British Council for Offices, summarizes the new approach to office density perfectly "it is a misconception that higher office densities mean we are all packed in like sardines. The increase in density has come about because, on the whole, we are working differently and using space more effectively. The cel-
lular, inflexible offices of the 70s and early 80s have gradually been replaced by open-plan, team-orientated environments with a range of facilities from kitchens to gyms. We are a knowledgebased service economy where comfort and amenity play a significant role in workplace productivity.”
REALLY DOESN’T
So collectively, we are re-thinking our image of what the office should be, whether as a component of an organization, an extension of one’s home, and perhaps most importantly, how it responds to the activities carried out within it.
Motorola’s headquarters fit-out in 2005 was reflective of a strong workplace strategy that, in hindsight, minimized its exposure to a reduced market presence while they drastically altered their
Ynno is a consulting firm based in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Their services include strategy advice, analysis of work, selection of it, development of innovative office concepts, program management and implementation among others. Their new Creative Valley took a new approach. The idea was to maintain balance and comfort despite their small offices. They perceived the office as a home base rather than an actual office.
Courtesy of Ynno
working environment, placing 1,000 previously ‘static’ workers in a flexible environment that contained only 650 desks.
To fully work, there need to be defined compensating factors: What’s the reward? Good design strategizes to capture the client experience and the candidate experience. Unsurprisingly, innovation is a key factor. Spaces that are responsive to the organization have to be truly bespoke. Interiors that use technology strategically, rather than simply operationally, are more and more becoming the norm. The ‘Cloud’ is commonplace and has also entered our daily vocabulary. It’s no longer experimental, but rather the benchmark. This, then, is the evolution of the office, a space that is designed around the space you need for the time you need it – this ‘new office’ as a landmark, a placeholder for the organization, has
less to do with size, and more to do with representing the culture of the organization. The smaller office is coming of age.•
DZ Bank provides access to the international financial markets for its partner institutions and their customers. In order to perform these functions, it maintains branches in London, New York, Singapore and Hong Kong among others.
09 Office environment and dynamism
10 Shrinked meeting room
11 Relaxation area
Photos by Alex Kendrick Courtesy of Maris Interiors
DMH Stallard a UK law firm offers services for both businesses and individuals. The organization has asked Maris Interiors to redesign and optimize their office space, that went from a bigger location to a smaller one.
13 Series of shrinked offices
14 Simple and comfortable workstation
15 Waiting room
16 Entire office floor plan
The word “noise” is used for unwanted sounds, but generally for the unwanted perturbation to our normal activities, to a healthy life. Noises can be acoustic, which we can hear, or any other form of vibration (sounds, colors, and energy waves like radio, wifi, and electromagnetic waves). They interrupt all our life functions, which use natural vibrations to perform at the optimum level; noise progressively affects our immune system, our resistance, our performance, and our longevity.
Like air pollution, noises can be unheard and unseen; they are mostly invisible. When someone works with a computer he is not aware of the multitudes of harmful noises that surround his life, from the electromagnetic fields generated by the batteries and the screen, to radiation and wifi fields, one is plunged into a noise which is unknown by his body and his cells, thus creating interferences, and errors of DNA replications which use the same wavelengths as wifi. The best way to control the noise is not to create it in the first place. It is like energy; the most sustainable energy is the one that we do not use.
NOISE 2.0
But modern life has been infiltrated by millions of new sources of noise, which are hard to avoid. It is not uncommon that in cities one is exposed to 10 wifi systems at the same time, even at night, a time when we should absolutely get rid of all noise sources as our body is in repair. This is why people who sleep nearby a source of noise, near the sound of an elevator, cars in the street (but also invisible noises like electromagnetic fields generated by the antennae of the guy next door, electric wires which were not turned off, the TV
which remains on) feel tired when they wake up in the morning. Sleeping without noise is one of the most fundamental health habits to take on.
The car industry understands how to implement noise-cancelling technology inside a car. Each vibration has a wave frequency, each noise as well. By producing the exact opposite frequen-
cy, the two waves combine to create silence, one canceling the effect of the other. This observation has been used for millennia; the most advanced medicines, the vibrational medicines, are using these principles to cure diseases which can also be called “body noises”, because they generate unnatural/pathogenic vibrations.
Millions of employees around the globe are exposed to noise every day at work and all the risks noise can entail. While noise is most obviously a problem in industries such as manufacturing and construction, it can also be an issue in a wide range of other working environments, from call centers to schools, orchestra pits to bars.
Creating silence is part of a luxury experience; being in a quiet, protected space in a world full of noises is rare, hence the explosion of concepts that sell isolation, refuges, and escapes from the noise. The open space, (or open-door policy, which sounds nice at the beginning) loads our space with noise by design, and is therefore an example of bad design. Cutting-edge management is addressing this with new environments, spaces, and offices that are always in contact with organic elements and with Nature. It is well-known that plants and Nature in general have a natural ability to reduce the noise, and to detox our environment. When we walk in a forest, even if we hear thousands of birds, and the volume is high, these are good sounds, not negative noise. We can feel that we heal when just walking in a forest and listening to natural sounds,
breathing fresh air, free of chemical noise (pollution). Sounds of birds, sea waves, children laughing, and dolphins are often used in advanced therapies to heal or just to relax. They support our immune system and detoxification processes. New office buildings constructed near the wilderness are leading examples. Steve Jobs created the new Apple headquarters protected by a circular forest inside and outside, which will cover more than 80% of the occupied land for the project. Spanish designer business firm Selgas Cano tickles us with their racy yet low-impact federal agency. These examples are showing the way. Nestlé, Google, L’Oreal, and the millions of other companies in the world can behave the same -- it is just a matter of authentic leadership.
Noise and pathogen vibrations can also
take the form of foods. Here, we are discovering a fascinating cutting-edge skill in life, which is going to revolutionize the way we think about the food we eat. When we eat something we introduce the vibrations of the molecules which compose the food into our body. These vibrations pass into our blood and reach our organs, our cells and our genes, and affect the way they function. The emergence of the nutrigenomics science is not more than what our ancestors had already understood thousands of years ago. This is why we know that “we are what we eat”. Eating a food which does not vibrate in harmony with our genes is very harmful, as it is considered to be noise (pollution) for our body, slowing it down, creating a surplus of issues and toxins at a nuclear level. If you eat these foods, exposing yourself to this noise, you create a pollution of your whole body, which weakens your
Among the first generation of realist painters, Don Eddy is one of the few who have taken his vision and unique painting process into new subject matter and a new visual arena. For the past several years he has returned to the imagery of the urban landscape, this time using New York as his prime subject. Painted in 20-30 layers of transparent acrylic over an under-painting of three colors, Eddy’s new multipanel works are “saturated“ in palette and in subject. More complex and more
concentrated than his earlier works, the recent paintings offer the viewer much to experience and savor slowly. New York, or “the City” figures as the locus around which all revolves in several paintings. In “Evening Calls Sad Anteros,” New York is viewed from a-high, the cityscape becomes rooftops, a stormy, almost apocalyptic sky looms overhead, creating an elegiac air. Underneath the main panel is a predella of three images. In “Seasonal City II,” a four panel magnum opus, on
which the artist worked for a year, Eddy celebrates each season.
01 Evening Calls Sad Anteros
02 Seasonal City II
Paintings by Don Eddy. Courtesy of Nancy Hoffman Gallery
"Taking a picture for me is the attempt to understand something. Understand reality, which manifests itself in the form of landscape. " says photographer Olaf Otto Becker whose return trip to Iceland in the summer of 2010 and 2011 was the search for traces of the time devoted. The works of his last trips to the same place 1999-2002 resulted
in the published book Under the light of the North. This year we have Under the Nordic Light - A Journey Through Time. Temporal experience, as a stationary or constant that is mediated differently. Whether at the obvious example of social components such as the photographs of the architectural development of Iceland - which has been hit
hard by the financial crisis in recent years, little changed. Or the photographs of the Icelandic landscape, the temporal evolution must submit sometimes or elsewhere seems to escape her.
01 Dyptich Öraefajökull glacier tongue (1999-2010)
02 Canyon of Jökulsá á Bru (2010)
03 Akranes Beach (2002)
04 Háifoss waterfall in the rain (2002)
Photos by Olaf Otto Becker Courtesy of Galerie f5,6
immune system and increase your risks of getting ill. “Noise” foods include refined sugars, flours, and industrial foods in general: most of the foods that we see on TV, buy in the supermarket or eat at the office! One of the most toxic, dangerous foods is the genetically modified food which, in essence, break the healthy relationship that we have with Nature, which is found with normal, i.e, organic foods. Thousands of studies today clearly establish that genetically modified foods are not only useless (they are designed only for making more profit by some world corporations like Monsanto; in defiance of our health, longevity and quality of life in general, not to address the supply of food in the world), but are very deadly, not only to us but to our environment and all living species. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine and leading doctors all over the world have thousands of scientific studies that confirm the links between the introduction of genetically modified crops and a series of very se-
vere illnesses. Moreover it is demonstrated that genetically modified crops create a succession of toxic impacts (noises) on our environment, killing trillions of living forms each year. Guess what the majority of people working in offices eat today? These highly toxic foods! The solution of eliminating this food toxic noise is easy: get rid of them, only buy and eat organic, local foods, made with authenticity and good intentions.
Albert Einstein once said, “if the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” 70% of the bees, which are at the base of the production of all the food we eat, have died over the past 10 years due to the introduction of new, very toxic noises such as wifi and genetically modified crops -- a phenomenon caused by man called colony collapse disorder.
Noise has been introduced into our lives for lack of understanding, and, simul-
taneously, as part of a quest for profitability without bearing the cost nor the responsibility of the toxicity of these models.
This is ground zero of management and business and the industrial dream, which results in a nightmare at every level -- from performance and economy to health, it is causing our decline as a species. It is causing the decline of most species on earth, as well as the eco systems which sustain life and, in return, of course, business.
As Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, said, “there is no business to do on a dead planet.” The economy and the environment can only go hand in hand. We are responsible, each one of us, for cleaning up now and dropping the sources of the toxic noises, in the air, the water and the soil.•
The fundamental nature of the castle is linked to defense of resources. It's probably less specifically about cultural storytelling and speaks more to the protective hold, the keep, the granaries, water stores and the guard of its community and sovereignty. Castles were designed to last, and oftentimes took decades to build; entire communities were engaged in their building, and teams of surveyors, scaffolders, masons and laboring civilians were allied to the task of surmounting this statement of the surveillance and protection of the realm. Castle design strategy, as any traveling student of defensible architecture would surmise, are towers and walled barricades in the midst of the uncertainty of the time. Castles are intended to be impenetrable; they're often sited in vistas whose very approach is treacherous and forbearing. And, in crossing the landscape of the imagination of these structures, or the castles of Germany, France, Spain or Italy, you cannot only see them from afar, but they can "see" you just as well. They were designed as self-contained outposts on the frontiers of medieval society. They were collective communities that were walled up against the hordes. With the commentary on "occupy" these days, the idea of corporate-branded design defense might be all the more relevant.
There is another component, however, to the nature of castles as elements of cultural storytelling. The detailing of their structures speaks to the idiosyncrasies of their ownership, time, cul-
tural challenges, geography and historical scale. It's worth bearing in mind that the basic idea of the "castle" might reach back further in time. It becomes a hilltop campus of stone-built structures walled in the rocky ring, from thousands of years back; it becomes a 2000-year-old Roman, internally contained compound, or a small townscape surrounded by a scooped moat. Centuries later, it evolved as an architectural form into multiple-storied tall, walled and towered enclosures. They tuned to the cultures and needs that they protected. But, too, they might've told stories about the culture much in the same way flags, adornments, inscriptions and art could send out messages of the inhabitants within.
It is here that the corporate idea of brand
“From Castle to Headquarters”.
and storytelling could be linked into the spirit of not only the telling of the design of the castellum, as they were originally called in Latin, but the statement that they made in their design. Was there, for example, a symbolism in their structure? How they were laid out in the site itself? Was there a patterning that told a hidden story? Was there ornamentation that told the story of the family, the brand, within? In a way, castles were intended to strike fear into the hearts of anyone considering assailment. They were, and are, spectacular given their size, expressions of wealth and power, and the inherent ability to protect it. Considering these ideas, the nature of brand and architecture begins to take hold. Spectacle, storytelling, conceptual depth, heritage all begin to play a role.
Does the new and ever-changing world of corporate design - branded environments, buildings and showcases - really have its roots in the history of the castle keep?Critical contribution to the Work Style project:
by 5+1 AA Architects
It is not a matter of opportunities or taboos. The choice must be fundamental and strategic. A sensibility with the territory and the city makes us consider architecture as a body which creates a dialogue with the surroundings, and which can simultaneously become a place, an identity, a refuge.
For the new directional building of Fiera
To contemplate the idea of brand, and the environment that the reader might be sitting in while reading this article, there are some foundational keys to consider. First off, to environment and experience – branded architecture –what is it? Brand, the word, is actually thousands of years old, roughly 1000 years back, and was used in a manuscript to define fire.
But the real origin of the word is found further back in time, to the word roots and sounds of what is theorized as one of the melting pots of linguistic development: the Proto Indo European roots. These PIE sounds, *bran-*bren,
listic brand strategy, the idea of the thorough integration of strategic and tactical ideals reaches not only to the people who are working in these environments, but also the statements that they make to visitors. For a brand to be bigger than life, for it to make a bold statement of premise and promise, the idea of experience must be presented in an integrated manner – a whole way of "seeing and experiencing", so that the brand becomes de rigueur.
Milano, the temptation and the apparent need of research, the verticality (and so the icon) has been rejected, despite the opportunity for greed.
Emotive reflection turned the project into an “Horizontal Tower” by privileging the creation of a device that can perceive the reality, capable of constant dialogue with its condition as a geographical landmark, an urban threshold, an integral part of a whole.
That’s how we see the icons of the present: enigmatically every day. The translation of a magic realism where often a generic grey or a fashionable fuchsia rules, where intellectual cynicism or the prostitution of ideas exists.
Nowadays we don’t need icons unless they can help interpret the exceptionality of being “normal,” icons that speak about the present, about us; icons that are sincere, since the aesthetic answers to our questions are - and must also remain - moral responses.
some 5000 years back, lend the original meaning of the word to represent "burning." What does that equate to?
Over the centuries, according to the etymological history, brand word usage has evolved from burn, to fire, to firebrand, sword of fire, a branded marking, the glinting of steel to "fresh from the fire" or newly made. The actual idea of branding and a registration of ownership, the "brand mark" hails from the late 1800s, up to the early 20th century. It was American advertising executive David Ogilvy that defined "brand" as a composite of corporate message and visual experience. And in the sense of corporate culture -- fire and brand -- as well, one can assert the concept of corporate values, commitment to an aim and thematic intention; it can be called brand passion. And in the realm of ho-
The examples of the "castles" of brand are long-running, which might range from the fortresses of early 17th or 18th century empire builders, the founding corporate giants of industry. From Europe to the Americas, corporate headquarters often spoke to superlative power and statement. New York City, for example, is home to the deco-inspired headquarters of Rockefeller Center, which might be called one of the greatest brand statements to the Rockefeller family "brand" heritage. This complex, comprised of 19 buildings and 22 acres, was completely funded and designed as a visioning and corporate statement by John D. Rockefeller. As a massive, risk-taking stake in the ground, he had personally built a familial brand statement of legacy that spoke to the expansive nature of Rockefeller's founding principles, his beliefs – set in a memorial plaque – in the supreme worth of the individual, life, liberties, law, the dignity of labor and the inherent value of thrift and order, bolstered by justice and promise, and the fundamental worth of the human soul, the service of humankind. But others are more focused on a core set of built strategies to burnish the story of brand and environment. The link is direct.
In what might be defined as the quintessential straight line between brand and architecture, the principles of Oakley brand architects and strategists are holistically defined in One Icon, the headquarters of the Oakley brand. A quick site study references their messaging "it’s a place of reinforced blast walls, product torture chambers and the padded cells of mad science. Oakley’s design bunker is where inventions are conceived, developed, perfected and manufactured. In addition to the hidden catacombs of research labs and
proving grounds, the architectural design of Oakley President Colin Baden includes a 400-seat amphitheater, and absolutely no adult supervision." Studying Oakley's website innovation and design sections support the bridge between passion and industrial design, messaging and customer embracement and engagement. And, it's a cool place to work!
THE GATES FOUNDATION: DESIGNING THE BRANDED ENVIRONMENT AS A DEEPER METAPHOR OF PRINCIPLE Scott Wyatt, a self-professed student of meaning in architecture for his entire life, and one of the Managing Partners of NBBJ, one of the largest specialized architectural design firms in the world,
offers that "the best branded architecture is one that maintains the meaning and impact of the brand, but one that is both inside and outside. It's not a statement of a big skyscraper in the midst of a barren field of concrete, or a campus sited out in the middle of a grass field." He offers that the new modeling speaks "to finding roots that are meaningful to the brand, but are intertwined with the layers of deeper messages and engagement – connecting the dots of environment, behavior and life." The best brand stories, to Scott's impressions, lie in buildings like NBBJ's new Gates Foundation campus, a low sited building that sits in the middle of a populous area of Seattle, where the higher purposes of message, principle, and long-term vision create experiences of
remarkable density, which embraces connection to community, tells a story in its design, and intermingles nature, placement, advancement of its causes, and security in the importance of its missions.
Brands are stories that lend to narrative interpretations in the holistic range of built experience, touching all points of sensation. Brands, made by people for people, inherently can find their highest reflection in architecture –the brand message that encloses and holds: people!•
03 A landscaped courtyard returns part of the site back to its original wetland meadow and dark-water bog roots via native plantings, boardwalks, dark water and textured paving, photo by Timothy Hursley — 04 Informal meeting spaces at the end of each breezeway overlook downtown Seattle, photo by Timothy Hursley — 05 Ten foot unitized curtainwall modules maximize views and daylight, photo by Sean Airhart/NBBJ
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