Beyond Happiness in advertising: What is a “Happy life”?

I seldom see any ads that I think are good, almost always they are mental pollution that are either sad excuses for increased consumptions or just trying to get people to forget that they can live meaningful lives. On a trip to Denmark I found ads that I would like to include in the book “Beyond Happiness” that I’m writing.

The ads show how Mandela and Gandhi could have led comfortable and “happy” lives if they had not stood up for what they believed in. Too often the easy happy life without challenges, or with simple challenges related to making money, is portrayed as the one we should strive for. Would be interesting to see how many people that would like to have a surfer life, or a quiet life with a nice house, and how many who see the life of Gandhi and Mandela as inspiration for a life they would like to live (if needed). It is an ad campaign that made me think of the movie Rang de Basanti and that should be almost as good as an ad can get. Still it might only be another contribution to the mental pollution.

PS
I have no idea if the Danish paper behind the ad lives up to the ad. One of the challenges until Babelfish really works is that non-English texts are seldom part of the broader discourse.

IT Innovation for the supply chain

An interesting example of how an IT company can look into a traditional problem and turn it into an opportunity is Verizon’s latest tool to improve supply chain management. The application in itself is not that important, but the approach is very encouraging and is a very good example of a service with significant “low carbon feedback” potential (i.e. a service that can trigger further reductions if it is implemented). See “The first global strategy for CO2 reductions with IT: A billion tonnes of CO2 reductions and beyond through transformative change” for more about “low carbon feedback”.

So the interesting thing is that not only do Verizon put a number on the savings, the kind of system that is set up will make it easier to implement further services that increase dematerialization and information that can help more low carbon solutions.

IT Innovation for the supply chain

An interesting example of how an IT company can look into a traditional problem and turn it into an opportunity is Verizon’s latest tool to improve supply chain management. The application in itself is not that important, but the approach is very encouraging and is a very good example of a service with significant “low carbon feedback” potential (i.e. a service that can trigger further reductions if it is implemented). See “The first global strategy for CO2 reductions with IT: A billion tonnes of CO2 reductions and beyond through transformative change” for more about “low carbon feedback”.





So the interesting thing is that not only do Verizon put a number on the savings, the kind of system that is set up will make it easier to implement further services that increase dematerialization and information that can help more low carbon solutions.

Booz and transformative urbanization

Visited Arlington for my first visit to the Booz & co office. The reason is that the report where we are looking into a service based focus on buildings, transportation and energy transmission for urban investments is starting to take shape and the bottom-up approach where the focus is on actual investments planned by actual companies and governments, rather than macroeconomic assessment of potentials. I think we will be able to establish concepts and approaches that can help move the discussion forward and help guide future investments. The basic assumption is very simple, move the focus from product to service.

The focus is on low carbon IT solutions, but the approach will be possible to use in other areas as well. There are some ground breaking approaches in this report and it will hopefully help to guide concrete actions that need to happen as we move towards a transformative phase.

Booz and transformative urbanization

Visited Arlington for my first visit to the Booz & co office. The reason is that the report where we are looking into a service based focus on buildings, transportation and energy transmission for urban investments is starting to take shape and the bottom-up approach where the focus is on actual investments planned by actual companies and governments, rather than macroeconomic assessment of potentials. I think we will be able to establish concepts and approaches that can help move the discussion forward and help guide future investments. The basic assumption is very simple, move the focus from product to service.

The focus is on low carbon IT solutions, but the approach will be possible to use in other areas as well. There are some ground breaking approaches in this report and it will hopefully help to guide concrete actions that need to happen as we move towards a transformative phase.