How to reduce energy at school – world class example
I am involved with a project management company called SEDS - Sustainable Energy Design Solution. The focus of this company is to help organisations of all types to save energy, save money and secure our future. They have a very clever four step model for doing this,...
Climate change: The biggest global-health threat of the 21st century
This is what the top flight medical journal, The Lancet, says. In the latest edition, an article entitled "Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change" makes this claim. See this article, and other similar ones here. The article is a collaboration between Lancet and...
Zappos hits $1 billion sales
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Zappos, the online shoe and accessories company. They are a "new world" company that interests me immensely. The company just hit a major milestone 10 years in business and $1billion in sales. The CEO Tony Hsieh was interviewed...
TIME magazine: The Future of Work
I think they do it every other year, and it makes a great cover. TIME magazine at the end of May 2009 was focused on the issue of 'The Future of Work'. You can read it at TIME's website, or below. The article takes the form of ten short insights. The highlights for me...
The Meaning of the 21st Century
One of the most important books I have read in the last year is James Martin's "The Meaning of the 21st Century" (Buy it at Amazon or Kalahari). The subtitle explains: The Megaproblems of the 21st Century. You can hear me talking about it on a ClassicFM book review...
Keith Coats profiled – Global trends shaping the world of work
Keith Coats, director and co-founder of TomorrowToday, is speaking in Sweden soon, at the invitation of the King. His topic is on the Global trends shaping the new world of work. Keith has been profiled on a number of websites. Check out this profile in the latest...
What on earth is going on
As you know, TomorrowToday tracks societal trends. We help our clients to understand the implications of shifts and changes in technology, demography, institutions and societal values. Every now and again, we come across people who are doing an excellent job in both...
The Myth of the Rational Buyer
What if what we understood about marketing wasn't true? This is how the article from Fast Company, The Myth of the Rational Buyer: How too much thinking can hurt your brand, begins. The author Mark Dziersk suggests that companies spend 95% of their time fussing over...
Brrr is kewl in South Africa
Thanks to my friend Bev from SimonSays Communications for this link. The Sunday Times announced it's 'Times Generation Next' cool brands survey results on 28 May 2009. 5000 tweens, teens and young adults between the ages of 8-22 were polled on their coolest brands,...
Keeping it Simple
Reading Gillian Tett's excellent book, 'Fool's Gold: How unrestrained greed corrupted a dream, shattered global markets and unleashed a catastrophe' (Little, Brown 2009 - buy it now at Amazon.co.uk or Kalahari.net) reminded me of a memorable saying of the legendary...
Is it wiser to hire people without meeting them?
I've just come across a great article from Fast Company. It's around hiring new people. And we all know that once the economy turns, and business increases, we're going to need new people.This particular article focuses on how we weight interviews in the hiring...
Graeme Codrington suggests books on Classic FM
Graeme Codrington was recently interviewed on Classic FM's "JSE Direct" show. It is a book review show, and Graeme highlighted two books he feels everyone should be reading, if they are interested in tracking key trends that will be shaping the world of work over the...
One Race CEO’s won’t Win…but need to!
Technique lags technology. Fact. The need for leaders to keep pace with technology is relentless and never-ending. It is a race that can't be won. However leaders today cannot afford to hide behind walls excusing techno-illiteracy on their part. As decision-makers...
How to cut costs and keep your employees
The million dollar question I hear you sigh as you see the subject of this blog. Let's face it, there are no easy answers, no silver bullets and certainly no one-size-fits-all approach to cutting costs and keeping a high people-morale during an economic un-boom, such...
Millenials reversing the trend
It's always difficult convincing an adult audience, that from a Generational perspective, the so-called 'Millennials' (Gen Y, Echo Boomers) are going to be more civic minded, more conservative (whilst being more aware), and focus on rebuilding the planet (amongst...
Life Training: Training that develops effective people VS effective employees will hold the fabric of your organisation together
Traditional skills programmes can’t be applied to everyone within a workforce as they more often than not are very job specific. In years gone by, one gained the skills necessary to complete ones work through on-the-job training. People Skills (Soft Skills) were not...
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – the essential role of feedback for the Leader
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” So goes the question embedded in the fanciful world of a children’s tale and a question that hauntingly stalks most of us for the remainder of our adult journey. Not that we would admit to such for over the...
Shouldn’t we all just pick another word?
I’m referring to the word ‘talent’ when I ask this question. Mostly because I’m still troubled by the complexity and lack of form the current exploration around ‘talent’ has. We still don’t know how to define it? We still don’t know how to measure it? We still don’t...
Healthy happy families
I'm a big fan of Lance Armstrong's Livestrong foundation. I received an email from them today with "10 steps to a successful family life" and thought I'd share it with you. Although this blog primarily deals with business issues, we often remark that achieving...
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle & Leaders Everywhere
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle throws a large spanner in our quest to know, understand and decipher the future. It states, "If we know the present, we can calculate the future - it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise". Seeing beyond the filters...