Gil Friend

Back in action, finally. In my acupuncturist's profound words, "back pain sucks rocks." Praise be to rest, chiropractic, homeopathy, acupuncture, and good old western MRIs.

Return to blogging will be slow and measured, since focus right now needs to stay on rolling out our Corporate Social/Environmental Report and Strategic Supply Chain Partnership offerings.

But there'll still be time for links & comments, one hopes...
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I am reading a new Forrester report:  Managing Business Velocity at the Edge.  Here are some highlights in regards to weblogs (Forrester's research is worth owning if you have the budget):

General Electric recently touted it 'corporate cockpit' of key business metrics -- viewable by only 45 executives across the company.  But a $125 billion company with 300,000 employees can scarcely turn on a dime with that degree of information hoarding.

Employees are the early warning systems of business change.... Weblogs capture and cultivate knowledge, opinion, news about customers, technology, and markets.

Teams:  Encourage Weblogs of evolving ideas.  To harness internal expertise, firms should encourage employees to link their ideas to external supporting evidence using weblogs.  For example, an engineering team at Motorola can bolster internal R&D thinking with outside expertise -- like Glenn Fleishman's Weblog on 802.11b standard for personal wireless technology.

The person-to-person connections enabled by IM, shared workspaces, and weblogging confound published system-based communication paths -- like approval processes, lead routing, and technical problem escalation.  The result is a behavior change at every level.  Executives must accept that the best information may pop-up in the virtual hallway.

Recommended vendors:  Groove, Jabber, and UserLand

States rights? What are those?

Remember when Republicans used to be in favor of states rights vs the overweening powrer of the federal government? Dream on.

AP:
The Bush administration sided Wednesday with auto manufacturers in opposing a California requirement that a percentage of passenger vehicles sold in the state achieve zero emissions, meaning reliance on all-electric cars.
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Doc provides a quote from a presentation by Jay Berman at a JP Morgan conference.  One thing about the Internet is that as the walls to information access come down (as we route around the news establishment): we are now quickly able to see the underlying corruption in the system.  We get original sources like this from JP Morgan, which would have traditionally been only heard by a select group of monied individuals who are investing in the media industry.  We get original reporting of Supreme court cases and conferences that we can't attend ourselves.  Things are presented as is without the usual dumbing down we see in big media stories.  Or, if an opion is presented, it is the actual gut reaction of the person who was there (with any personal bias known to the reader of the weblog) that would normally be toned down in any normal news story. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
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NY Times: "Former President Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his 'untiring effort' to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts and to advance democracy and human rights." BBC report. [Scripting News]

I can't think of another president who's done so much OUT of office.
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Organized market leverage once again makes a difference

A True Fish Story. It is encouraging to note a major success story regarding marine life: the striking if still incomplete recovery of North Atlantic swordfish. [New York Times: Opinion]
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Agribusiness goes organic

The organic food industry is growing at 20% per year for several -- off a small base, to be sure, about 1% of the US market, but in the face of a soft economy, that ain't hay... so to speak. (Similar pattern of rapid growth on small base in the worldwide wind energy industry.)

Consumers seem more motivated by health concerns than environmental ones, but it's all cash in the bank for the large agribusiness companies moving strongly into the market. Which in turn poses a big challenge for long time sustainable ag diehards -- the thrill of victory or the agony of co-optation and dilution?

Related story, "Buying food local is better than global," (in print but not on web site): "Hang around some of the elite chefs and farmers on the cutting edge of Nrothern California and before long they're talking about 'food miles' and 'food sheds' -- that is the notion that food grown closest to where one lives is best."
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The Forgotten Domestic Crisis. The nation's health care system is at the brink of collapse. War or no war, politicians will not be able to avoid it much longer. By Marcia Angell. [New York Times: Opinion]

What's wrong with this picture?

- Premiums rising at 13 percent per year (25 percent in some areas of the country).

- Coverage shrinking as more employers cap their contributions to health insurance plans and workers can't pay their rapidly expanding share.

- More people are losing what limited coverage they had -- nearly 1.5 million in 2001.

- The US per capita health care spending is twice what Europe pays.

"As John Breaux of Louisiana, long one of the most conservative Senate Democrats, recently told the press, 'The system is collapsing around us.'"

"If it weren't for the steady beat of war drums, health care would be front and center in this fall's political debate. And war or no war, politicians will not be able to avoid it much longer."

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Why are these organic farmers opting out?

More on organic farming trends:
Small Organic Farmers Pull Up Stakes. A curious thing happened on the way to a national organic standard: the small farmer, once at the heart of the organic movement, got left behind. By Samuel Fromartz. [New York Times: Opinion]
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John Gruber: "Bad marketing is one thing. Bald-faced lying is another." [Scripting News]

You'd think folks at a big successful company would know better, especially in this day and age...
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Banks Say Tackle Climate Change or Face the Consequences
[Edie News, via greenbiz.com]:
Natural disasters driven by climate change could wreak havoc across the world‰s stock markets and financial sectors, annually costing US$150 billion in the next 10 years, says a group of nearly 300 financial organizations.

The financial industry needs to take the effects on business into account, and has an obligation to contribute to a solution using their investment and business expertise, says CFO of global re-insurer Swiss Re.

Solutions could include commercial banks fully pricing risks from climate change in loan agreements, and giving incentives to schemes that encourage energy efficiency or cleaner fuels. Asset managers should also request information on carbon emissions from the companies in which they invest.
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Joni Mitchell: "It's tragic what MTV has done to the world." [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
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allafrica.com: What the world agreed on at the Johannesburg summit.
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The Science and Politics of Super Rice. Reversing its once-enthusiastic embrace of genetic experiments, China has imposed restrictions on many domestic varieties of genetically modified crops. By Joseph Kahn. [New York Times: Science]
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"We have thrown ourselves on the mercy of a conscience too clear
to be reliable."

John Perry Barlow: "THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC IS DEAD. HAIL THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. OR ELSE.

My old pal Mitch Kapor said years ago that what I needed was a "hyperbolectomy." Were such a procedure to exist, this would probably be a good time to get one, since I suddenly find myself incapable of discussing the present state of the American Experiment without veering off into Very Large Statements.

With that admonition in mind, I hope that you will continue to read this rant, adjusting it to your own reality settings. This is just how bad it looks to me. From my perspective, this is not hyperbolic at all."

Well worth reading, whether you agree with it or not.
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Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Paul Wellstone, an outspoken liberal Democrat locked in a re-election battle considered key to control of the Senate, was killed in a plane crash today in northern Minnesota along with his wife, daughter and five others." [Scripting News]

From Michael Lerner: "Paul Wellstone was one of most principled and decent people to ever enter American politics. He was one of the very few elected officlals who remained true to his principles and who was not corrupted by the need to appeal to the rich and the powerful.

"And he retained a fundamental humanity and modesty that few have
been able to sustain in public life."
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Draft for an Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto

Rather surprising posting from the Mother Jones discussion boards...

WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Left -- the moral blindness that refuses to recognize that free markets, individual liberty, and experimental science have made the West a fundamentally better place than any culture in which jihad, 'honor killings', and female genital mutilation are daily practices approved by a stultifying religion.

WE ARE MEMBERS OF A CIVILIZATION, and we hold that civilization to be worth defending. We have not sought war, but we will fight it to the end. We will fight for our civilization in our thoughts, in our words, and in our deeds.
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Doc Searles reports:

Complexity, Trust and Terror is a thought provoking piece by Langdon Winner in Netfuture. A sample: "Just as sixth-century Romans abandoned their city when the aqueducts were cut, Americans seem to be abandoning essential parts of the democratic civic culture that developed during the past two centuries. This appalling turn of events is certainly evident in the material features of public buildings and grounds. A visit to Washington, D.C., shows the place transformed by ever-present ugly cement barriers, recurring security searches and ubiquitous surveillance cameras. The city has been redefined as capital of Homeland, a strange new country where once-cherished freedoms of thought, expression and movement are regarded as luxuries too dangerous to afford."
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Netfuture turns out to be a great discovery in its own right, a non-profit "dedicated to pursuing a science of nature rather than of mechanisms assumed to lie behind nature. This is a qualitative science, contextual and holistic in spirit, and ethically informed in immediate practice rather than in afterthought. The Nature Institute also promotes humane uses of technology rather than mechanical uses of humans."

Which seems to address square on the challenge that has always lurked in the industrial ecology metaphor: are we going to remake industry in the model of nature (the hope), or remake nature in the model of industry (the risk)?
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Is your life ruled by time?  

Today, my view of time is different. Time is much different when you are managing a company. It's less important how you spend an hour here or there. What is more important is making sure that the days, weeks, and months spent working are going in the right direction. That is the wasted time I worry about.  I guess I am still ruled by time but without the direct tyranny of the watch but more of the calendar.
[John Robb's Radio Weblog]
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Lies, damned lies and ongoing dread

And the Quote of the Day Award goes to the ever-on-point Jon Carroll:
It's like, hello, the war is over here. Worldwide Islamic fundamentalist uprising. Saddam Hussein: not an Islamic fundamentalist. I really think Dick Cheney needs to learn to use Google.

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Ha'aretz: During the PLC discussion before the vote, some Palestinian legislators expressed their doubts about the new cabinet. "I don't think this Cabinet can lead the Palestinians out of the crisis," said legislator Ziad Abu Amr. An angry Arafat tried to silence him, shouting: "You are not allowed to talk about the members of the executive committee, you are not allowed."

The voice of "the sole legitimate voice of the Palestinian people"?

Debka reports several of the new ministers suggest ever closer Arafat/Iraq ties...

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World Briefing: The Environment.
[New York Times: Science]

WARMER OCEANS KILL REEFS: Coral reefs, vital ocean habitats, suffered the worst damage from warming waters this year since a record episode in 1998.

TWIN THREATS TO KYOTO TREATY European Union officials and environmentalists criticized two developments at talks in New Delhi aimed at curbing global warming. One was a retreat by Russia from its announced plans to speedily ratify the Kyoto protocol, the first to require cuts in heat-trapping gases. Russia's delegate said the details needed more study. The other issue was a draft declaration from negotiators halfway through the 10-day conference that appeared to reflect the views of the Bush administration, which rejected the pact last year. Without American participation, ratification by Russia is essential for the treaty to have legal force.
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A New View of Our Universe: Only One of Many. Some cosmologists believe universes are sprouting from one another in an endless geometric progression. Others see a multiverse of island universes. By Dennis Overbye. [New York Times: Science]

Is the universe all that is the case? Or are there worlds beyond our own? Many cosmologists these days contemplate a so-called multiverse of an endless series of big bangs blooming from one another, creating universes without limit, but they are not alone. A variety of modern theories predict a plethora of universes.

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