The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid

A very well written book by Mohsin Hamid that put the readers in many different places (physical and mental) by following one person’s journey. A journey from the global entrepreneur without history or values to a reflecting person that do not want to live in a capitalist world where everything that is solid melts into air...

"it is not always possible to restore one's boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by relationship: try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as the autonomous beings we previously imagined ourselves to be. Something of the outside is now within us"

By using the current cracks in the global village Mohsin Hamid captures something urgent (the way the west have dealt with the "Arab world" after 9-11), but also a much bigger issue regarding identity and the western systems inability to provide significant gratifications beyond the material.

Jeanette Winterson - the stone gods

A good summer book. With its classic approach it almost feels like the perfect bedtime story for children in the 21st century. The fact that the challenges we face are not a matter of technology or economy, but ethics, is well captured when she in a few sentences describe many of the "visions" that mainstream thinkers propose today:

"the West will race ahead - we are the new clean green machine, and the developing worlds will stay the way we wanted it to stay - raw materials and cheap labour"

"take a Buy-me-Buy-me world and turn it into a Rent-me-Rent-me world. I rent the apartment and the furniture in it. Carbon-rationing means that all of my household appliances - fridge, washing machine, etc. - must be state-of-the-art or, rather, sate-of-the-tech, which changes roughly every six months.... Consumerism looks ugly, these days. Renting is genius: we still pay, but we don't own."

For many CEOs and politicians this book could be a helpful reminder that behind all the rhetoric we face some very interesting challenges. Instead of only thinking about the most immediate challenges and needs we should also discuss the kind of society we need. Many who will waste their time reading “The necessary revolution” by Peter Sage looking for any new ideas would be better of reading this book… (more about The necessary revolution in a separate blog).

The idea of a silicon life form taking over after our carbon based is a thought that I think many of us encountered in Asimov's different stories, a few of my favorites can be found in X stands for Unknown. A sign of the rimes that "Spike" (the "Robo sapiens") in the stone gods is the character that provide some hope?

Invitation to Sustainable Innovation 08

Here is an invitation to “sustainable innovation 08” in Sweden Malmö. Please see the webpage for further information. I’m on the jury/advisory board.

The conference could be very interesting (it all depends on the participants), as the timing is very good I have high expectations.

Hopefully we will ideas that mix pragmatic approaches with visionary goals for a sustainable 21st century development.

Invitation to Sustainable Innovation 08

Here is an invitation to “sustainable innovation 08” in Sweden Malmö. Please see the webpage for further information. I’m on the jury/advisory board.

The conference could be very interesting (it all depends on the participants), as the timing is very good I have high expectations.

Hopefully we will ideas that mix pragmatic approaches with visionary goals for a sustainable 21st century development.

Too fast for prizes

I “sort of” got a ”Social Capitalist Award” by a Swedish Newspaper (Veckans Affärer, no English webpage) together with Lars Kristoferson and Lasse Gustavsson (x-CEO and current CEO of WWF Sweden). I “Sort of” got it, because I only got to know it when I saw the diploma in WWFs car when I came to Almedalen… I know that some people think I’m constantly moving, not even knowing that I got a prize might be a sign that they are right ;).

The motivation that the jury provided was that WWF Sweden’s focus on export of sustainable solutions and work in new constellations have been successful. Not sure why I was mentioned though. Lars and I discussed it and shaped the framework for a new kind of climate work over the last three years, but it was not until Stefan Henningsson (now the head of the climate work in Sweden) and Barbara Evaeus (in charge of climate communication) started to work that something actually happened here in Sweden. From an entrepreneur perspective Arne Forstenberg and Jakob Rutqvist who was instrumental in getting GlobalFOCUS and the whole climate innovation of the ground (before WWF Sweden got a climate team in place) might be even more interesting.

The really innovative work for me is obviously the work that is not visible in media. The results can be seen in places like China and India, delivered by networks looking beyond incremental results. Some of it I have already described briefly in this Blog, more will come soon and the rest of 2008 will be really fun.