Actics Blog

Are we at Actics right in thinking that the corporate world is becoming more and more aware of the importance of values and social responsibility? Here are some encouraging quotes I came across recently while reading through some books on business ethics:

“What we’ve learned is that the soft stuff and the hard stuff are becoming increasingly intertwined. A company’s values- what it stands for, what its people believe in- are crucial to its competitive success. Indeed, values drive the business.” (Robert D. Haas, former Chairman of Levi Strauss & Co.)

“There is a difference between a good company and a great company. A good company offers excellent products and services. A great company also offers excellent products and services but also strives to make the world a better place.” (William Clay Ford, Jr., Chairman of Ford Motor Company)

“I honestly believe that the winning companies of this century will be those who prove with their actions that they can be profitable and increase social value- companies that both do well and do good… Increasingly, shareowners, customers, partners, and employees are going to vote with their feet- rewarding those companies that fuel social change through business.” (Carly Fiorina, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard)

Just words or are we really seeing a major change in corporate behaviour? For anyone who wants to check it out and decide for him/herself, here are some links to the values efforts of the companies quoted above: Levi Strauss, Ford, and HP.

I was invited to do a 4 hour seminar with brand executives from P&G at the company´s own ‘creative workshop‘ - an ex brewery in the slums of Cincinnatti: very creative class. The topic was the ethical economy, and they loved it. They all agreed with the message and I didn’t have to convince them of anything. People in big corporations sense that the tide is turning and they want to prepare for the next phase.

And, yes, there were also the primaries…

We are looking for an enthusiastic Web Development Manager who can take charge of our next generation product offerings.

Check out the postings here.

More and more people are arguing that 2008 will be remembered as the year in which the business community really discovered sustainability. We read about these news every day, Apple begins to tackle its bad sustainability record, even WalMart pronounces sustainability to be a major concern.

A recent paper sponsored by BT and Sisco: ‘A new mindset for corporate sustainability’ (and available here) points at three major aspects of this shift in business mindsets.

* Boardroom commitment to sustainability helps build a framework for robust corporate governance.

* Investors are becoming increasingly receptive to sustainability.

* Sustainability offers a proven and legitimate framework for exploiting new avenues for innovation.

(via EthicalCorporation)

What will come out of this? Will the US recession trigger a new New Deal organized around sustainability and Green Capitalism? Will this be a way for the west to maintain its position vis-a-vis energy-intensive China? It’s a possibility.

Hurrah- Actics is exploding in China! According to Google Analytics, we’re attracting tens of thousands of visitors a month from all corners of the People’s Republic and are rapidly moving towards six-digit figures. Great news, isn’t it?

Well, not exactly. As our in-house Sherlock Holmes Henrik realized, something didn’t make sense. How could it be that Actics had so much Chinese traffic but not a single Chinese user? When you have tens of thousands of visitors you would expect at least one of them to sign up, wouldn’t you? It seemed like an insoluble mystery, but Henrik put on his deerstalker, had a quick last puff of opium, and then went out and discovered the answer: 

Actics has been copied! A Chinese site by the name of exnb has stolen our design- and as a result their traffic is now popping up in our Google Analytics reports.

Maybe we should be upset about such blatant theft. But then again: we’re not exactly alone. As I discovered in an article in the Economist, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube all have hordes of Chinese copycats. And on a funnier note, even Harry Potter hasn’t been spared. If you want to find out more about such contemporary classics as:

• ‘Harry Potter and the Waterproof Pearl’
• ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince’
• And the best one of all: ‘Harry Potter and the Chinese Overseas Students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’

then check out this hilarious piece in the NY Times.

Next move form the evil empire. Microsoft has patented extensions software that will monitor the physical state and levels of concentration of employees, through wireless sensors connected to their PCs, laptops and even mobile phones. (As if Vista wasn’t enough…)Measuring heartbeats, body temperature, movements, blood pressure and facial expressions, employers can get  continuous info on the physical state and affective attitudes of their employees, even when they’re out of the office. Getting angry at the computer or even not showing the appropriate expression of enthusiasm while reading the company values, or seeing the logo will now be noticed and recorded. Microsoft’s vice president of intellectual property, Horacio Gutierrez writes off the Orweillian potential of this project by claiming that its uses lie in alerting medical personnel to impending heart-attacks. ‘Privacy is an important priority for Microsoft’ he concludes. Yeah, and war is peace too .

here for full story

What do you do when you’re sitting around in Dubai and have a couple of minutes to spare? Exactly- you log in to Actics!

That’s what our intrepid reporter Neils Peter from experience design lab did. Or rather: he tried to, but then he got hit by the following message:

That’s right: Actics has been banned in the United Arab Emirates!

But why? What is it about us that is “inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates”? Eager to find some answers, I checked out the OpenNet Initiative, which is a great site on internet filtering and surveillance, and had a look at their country profile of the UAE.

As it turns out, the UAE are extremely active on the internet filtering front. To give a few examples: they block all sites in the top-level domain “.il” (no prizes for guessing what country that belongs to). They pervasively filter pornography, gambling, and sites promoting alcohol and drug use. And they also selectively filter sites that “express alternative political or religious views”. So is that what they found so objectionable about Actics: the fact that we “facilitate ideas” that are potentially “in breach of the general order”?

Whatever the case, the whole affair certainly adds a nice dose of glamour to Actics. YouTube is blocked in Iran and the BBC in Myanmar- and now we have made it into the big league, too! I’m tempted to say that it calls for a drink- but since that might get us banned by another 7 countries I should probably keep quiet.

Do women and men live by different ethical values? I suppose the stereotypical view would be that women care more about ’soft’ values like Gentleness and Empathy, while men are more concerned with ‘hard’ values like Honour and Perseverance. So is this picture supported by the data from the Actics Community?

Not exactly… Or to be more precise: not remotely. Here are the five most popular values, arranged in alphabetical order, of one of the sexes:

• Empathy, Environmentalism, Integrity, Openness, Tolerance

And here are the five most popular values, again in alphabetical order, of the other sex:

• Empathy, Environmentalism, Integrity, Strength of Character, Tolerance

It’s not exactly what you’d call wildly divergent, is it? One tiny difference- that is all the Actics data turns up. And now for a little quiz for anyone who’s interested: which way round do you think it is? Is it women who live by Strength of Character and men who live by Openness, or vice versa?

In any case, the conclusion we can draw from all of the above is clear:

Men Are from Somewhere Between Mars and Venus- and So Are Women

But I guess that’s not exactly the sort of catchy long-live-stereotypes title (besides, the capitalization gets a bit tricky) that will catapult a book to the top of the bestseller lists.

What is the most popular ethical value these days? I have to confess that when the Actics Community started, I expected to see a neck-and-neck race between about a half dozen values. And if I’d had to put my money on any single one of them, I would probably have gone for Integrity.

That much for my instincts… True: Integrity doesn’t score badly in the Actics Community, but it doesn’t get close to the winning value. This winning value in fact leaves all other values standing and sweeps the field in every category you can think of:

• 36% of male community members live by it (ahead of Integrity with 25% and Openness with 21%)
• 44% of female members live by it (ahead of Integrity with 24% and Empathy with 19%)
• And a whopping 53% of company members live by it (ahead of Integrity with 20% and Openness with 19%)

So is the situation any different when we look at countries? Not really. Right now most community members are from Denmark, the UK and the US- and only in Denmark does the winning value get something of a run for its money:

• 27% of Danish community members live by it (ahead of Integrity and Openness with 24%)
• 48% of UK members live by it (ahead of Tolerance with 17% and Integrity with 14%)
• And an astounding 56% of US members- our largest geographical group- live by it (ahead of Integrity with 21% and Openness with 17%)

So what is this all-conquering value I’ve been talking about? Well: I’d like to think that I’ve kept you on the edge of your seat until now, but you’ve probably already guessed: it’s Environmentalism.

And I wonder: is this just an Actics Community phenomenon or has Environmentalism truly become the dominant value of our times?

Hu Jintao, in his speech at the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party stresses the importance of Culture, both for national cohesion and as a development tool.He emphasies committment to spreading internet access, promoting Chinese Creative Industries and realizing a Chinese Experience Economy!

some quotes

“Culture has become a more and more important source of national
cohesion and creativity and a factor of growing significance in the
competition in overall national strength,”

“…to vigorously develop the cultural industry, launch major
projects to lead the industry as a whole, speed up the development of
cultural industry bases and clusters of cultural industries with
regional features, nurture key enterprises and strategic investors,
create a thriving cultural market and enhance the industry’s
international competitiveness”

“…to establish a national system of honors for outstanding cultural
workers”