The Right Way to Flourish

Just a couple of days ago, I posted an article about the distance corporate sustainability programs have moved from reality. Today, I found this on Greenbiz. I wish I had seen it first as it would have been a great lede. > As an avid Twitter user (@bmay), I follow trends in sustainability with interest, and tune in to the daily green business chatter that pervades my timeline. Much of it is hugely valuable as a source of news. But increasingly, I find myself tuning back out of much of the discussion due to the sheer volume of meaningless jargon… Read More

Continue Reading

Today’s inspiration comes from a Boston Globe [oped piece](http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/01/09/friend-bots-are-new-friends/lTlhQ4ZF6roUUKeLB9poNO/story.html) by Alex Beam who, like I do, is bemoaning the loss of meaning of “friend” due to the insane (my word) drive for numbers on the Internet. > The Russians used to say, “Better have a hundred friends than a hundred rubles.” Now that the social media hot air balloon has inflated the currency of friendship to its present worthless state, I’m brimming with “friends.” The lowest common denominator, the Facebook friend, might be better termed an acquaintance, a pal, or just some schlemiel you may or may not have gone… Read More

Continue Reading

“The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.” Karl Kraus As part of my New Year’s work, I read the latest Sloan Management/BCG report on the status of corporate sustainability. The 2013 report is the fifth in this annual series. > The 2013 survey included more than 5,300 executive and manager respondents from 118 countries. This report is based on a smaller subsample of 1,847 respondents from commercial enterprises. To focus on business, we excluded responses from academic, consulting, governmental and nonprofit organizations. Respondent organizations are located around the… Read More

Continue Reading

Happy New Year. The new year was greeted with a monstrous blizzard and record low temperatures in New England. It will be hard over the next few weeks to write anything about global warming. My wife and I spent a delightful few weeks in India touring the southern parts. We did not visit much of the India that is rapidly industrializing and growing wealthy. We spent most of the time in small villages still living of of farming and cottage trades. I was reinforced in my beliefs that technology both giveth and taketh away, providing uniformity and economy, but dimming… Read More

Continue Reading

I will be gone until after New Year’s day. My wife and I are taking a trip to India to celebrate dear friends’ 50th wedding anniversary. It’s too far to travel just for a few days so we are also taking a tour of the southern parts of India.

Continue Reading

I don’t usually write two posts without the separation of a few days. It takes me some time to recover from the first one. But today I make an exception. Shortly after reading David Brooks’s piece, my eyes alit on the next item in the Opinion listings in the NYTimes, a [movie review](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/bruni-the-sweet-caress-of-cyberspace.html?hp&rref=opinion) by Frank Bruni, that told me much more than the plot. Bruni was writing about the film, “Her,” directed by Spike Jonze. Here is his quick summary. Joaquin Phoenix stars as a man in love with the operating system for his smartphone-esque device, a sexy Siri that… Read More

Continue Reading

One of my favorites sources for this blog, David Brooks, is back at work on the New York Times after a long hiatus to promote his latest book. His [column](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/brooks-thinking-for-the-future.html?hp&rref=opinion) today is all about the increasing need for people to adapt to the computer in their work lives if they are to prosper in the future world that he and many see coming. > We’re living in an era of mechanized intelligence, an age in which you’re probably going to find yourself in a workplace with diagnostic systems, different algorithms and computer-driven data analysis. If you want to thrive in… Read More

Continue Reading

It is said that it takes a crisis to bring out our innermost beliefs. This appears to be happened to a whole generation of young people in the US, the milllennials. They are featured in an [opinion piece](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/opinion/sunday/millennial-searchers.html?ref=opinion&_r=0) in today’s NYTimes Sunday Review by Emily Esfahani Smith and Jennifer L. Aaker. > Today’s young adults born after 1980, known as Generation Y or the millennial generation, are the most educated generation in American history and, like the baby boomers, one of the largest. Yet since the Great Recession of 2008, they have been having a hard time. They are facing… Read More

Continue Reading

This year our traditional Thanksgiving coincides with the first day of Chanukah. It is a rare event when the Julian and Hebrew calendars coincide. It will come again in 2070 or so, and then not for a very long time. Not only do the two holidays coincide, but share common roots. Both are celebrations of thanks for the gifts we have had bestowed upon us. The Jewish tradition celebrates a miracle that occurred when the ancient Temple was repatriated, and its rescuers wanted to rekindle the Eternal light. Only a day’s worth of oil remained, so a party was sent… Read More

Continue Reading

Central to flourishing is the recovery of being–what it means to be human. In many ways we are the same as other animals. We need food and shelter to survive. We have offspring to keep the species going. But the comparison soon stops, as we have language allowing us to coordinate our actions with others of our species. Language enables up to act intentionally as the result of cognitive processes greater than almost all other species. Whales and dolphins may share some of this capability with us, but it is very rare among the animals. We can invent words to… Read More

Continue Reading