Actics Blog

The foundation for P2P Alternatives, the world’s perhaps most prominent (thanks to the admirable efforts of Michel Bauwens) resource of information and debates on P2P systems, the information economy, new media developments and new possibilties for technology enhanced social activism now has an actics widget on their blog (a must read for anyone with these interests)

Check them out at blog.p2pfoundation.net

The Cooperative Bank’s latest ethical consumerism report shows that
‘The value of UK ethical consumerism last year exceeded the sales of ‘over-the-counter’ beer and cigarettes,

The Report, which acts as a barometer of ethical spending in the UK, shows that in 2005 UK ethical consumerism was worth £29.3 billion, for the first time overtaking the retail market for tobacco and alcohol which stood at £28.0 billion.’

The overall growth of the ethical sector was 11 per cent, with ethical food (18.1 per cent) and community related goods, like local shopping and charity (13.3 per cent) growing quickest.

find the entire report here.

I’ve been referring to ‘hipster green’ for a while now, discussed when flying can no more be excused on friends blogs, argued that acting cosmopolitan will be the mark of a clueless proletariat, pondered the future of ‘globalization’ except as a soon bygone époque and if the tipping point of ‘greenness’ often referred to by Worldchangers was not merely wishful thinking. But the doubt diminishes every hour - it is happening right now. Much faster than anybody predicted. When Seth Godin declares ‘Zero [impact] is the new black, it is as good as a new natural law. It even got it’s own new explorative action hero: No impact man making the rest of us feel like Hummer loving, obese consumerists without a clue and consciousness (the name is badly chosen if he wishes to impact ethically).

We’ll undoubtedly witness a couple of sad, some totally hysteric and a lot of utterly comic expressions of this new focus in the years to come as always when radical changes takes place. However, what interests me is where it lands. What is common sense on sustainable lifestyle in the year 2015?

Via Treehugger and Seth Godin

Update: The Grist offers a very nice overview on the green wave in business and glossy magazines.

Our sympathies goes out to Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users after this incident. Whatever totally lame excuses ‘Joey‘ and other involved may come up with we all need to take this as a ‘memento’ for opposing the sick and unrestrained behavior that sometimes appears on the web (among other places). Hope that we can help put an end to people without decency harassing and threatening others whatever the disagreement. It’s too easy to come up with theories on gender-specific psycho-pathology as the driver of such incidents, as the ‘profile’ unfortunately goes beyond sociopath, sexually deprived men. We’re looking forward to see Kathy return to her job teaching the world high class tech design. And we’re hoping for collective means and technologies to prevent too much of this in the future.

Formula 1 is a decade long passion of mine that leaves me torn between fascination and cynicism (which also surfaced in my BA thesis entitled ‘Formula 1 - Myth & Construction’). Basically the series is a strong contender for the title as the most corporate-infiltrated, environmentally taxing, not to mention costliest, ’sport’ ever…

… but why should should that prevent them from going green in terms of marketing?

The Honda F1 Team has opted for a radically different approach to sponsorship (in response to the dismal outcome of their hunt for a new title sponsor, some say). By pledging to make a concrete effort save the planet, you can get a pixel of Honda’s new globe shaped livery. Take a look for yourself: http://www.myearthdream.com/

On one hand, I can’t help but be impressed by this step in a sport whose main source of sponsorship for years has been the tobacco industry. Promoting evironmental awareness is good, right? On the other, my views correspond with the ones expressed in this article “Honda’s new F1 “Earth Car” just another polluting monster“, which expertly (and hilariously) explains exactly how hypocritical the ‘Earth Car’ is.

Oh and before I forget: I suppose I should give a formal introduction of myself: My name is Christiane Bjerglund, I study Film & Media, and I’m Actics’s new research assistant.

There’s a couple of interesting things in a recent Harvard Business Review interview with one of the most influential psychologists alive, Howard Gardner. In his coming book Five Minds for the Future, Gardner extends his famous list of seven intelligences with five cognitive minds, one of them being the ethical mind. The interview unveils a number of points on business ethics funnily resonant with what we believe and do in Actics.

1. The ethical mind is about fundamentally deciding which kind of person or organization you wish to be. It’s a reflected and pro-active way of engaging with your surroundings that pays of with consistency and resilience.
2. Different to ‘the respectful mind’, the ethical mind acts proactively instead of merely respecting authorities and rules. A clear pendant to pro-activity instead of compliance in CSR.
3. Gardner calls for period evaluation by people both inside and outside the organization. Give us feedback!

But Gardner’s story of a former Harvard president lying to get a weekly day off for reflecting as an example of ethical virtue is quite a bit off.

Since the end of the cold war system, slavery along with organized crime has been on the rise. There is an unprecedented supply of potential slaves in the substantial share of the world’s population that live in absolute poverty ($ 1 a day or less), in Africa and, increasingly, the most destitute parts of the former Soviet Union. In fact slaves have never been as cheap as they are today. While slavery is a long established practice- as old as human civilization- the price of slaves is estimated to have varied around $ 10.000- 40.000 (in current prices) over the last 3.500 years or so. Today the average price of a human life has collapsed to a historic low of $ 100.

The economic weight of slave labour is small in absolute terms. (American pre-civil war cotton was primarily a slave-made good, the proportion of today’s global cotton harvest touched by slaves may be 1 or 2 per cent at most.) But the practice is so widespread at the bottom of today’s global commodity chains that it is difficult to find products that have not been made by slaves to at least some extent:

‘In Brazil, for example, slaves cut down forests and burn the wood into charcoal to be used to make steel. The European Union imports nearly a million tonnes of Brazilian steel each year to produce everything from cars to buildings to toys. Slavery is in fruit bowls and fridges too. There are documented cases of slaves being used to harvest or produce coffee, sugar, beef, tomatoes, lettuce, apples and other fruit. The list goes on: shrimp and other fish products are suspect, as are cocoa, steel, gold, tin, diamonds, jewellery and bangles, tantalum (used in mobile phones and laptops), shoes, sporting goods, clothing, fireworks, rice, bricks.’

From Kavin Bales of free the slaves, by way of financial times (premium content, alas!)

Even though is has been welll documented that Socially Responsible Investment funds tend to outperform ordinary funds, both in long and in the short run, only one in ten Swedish private investors chose these funds. The reason is that the banks do not market them. They have funds of their own tha generally have no particular SRI profile.

from Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish..)

The Uk has seen a wave of internet-enabled consumer activism lately. High street banks, although cheap by international standards, have been particularly vunerable. They have faced a mass revolt where over a million customers have downloaded forms from activbist websites to reclaim the some 4.5 billion pounds that banks charge in punitive overdraft fees each year. Utilities and roads are next in line. These mass revolts are not only an outcome of the new possibilities for social activism that information tehcnologiy provides. Argueably they also stem forma an emerging popular consiousness, a moral economy if you will, that states that things like money transfers (essentially a communications medium), roads, energy and utilites should be free, or close to free, and that it is unethical to make money out of these necessities, as this means taxing the necessary infrastructure of contemporary life. Given that so many companies make money form precisley this (what is a succesful brand, if not a way of taxing social interaction?) this spells hard times for the business model of contemporary informational capitalism

original post at P2Pfoundation.

We had a blast last night. We coded frenetically until last minute, gave a proud presentation, got lots of nice and supportive words from the guests and in talks by partners, customers and friends and partied all night with the team and the hangarounds. We’ll definitely do this again when we get the chance. See for yourselves:

Startup style: twenty minutes to launch at our Starbucks office and still things to improve and solve

Nicolai a bit more untroubled about the event about to start than Simon and Andrea our event manager

OK, we’re ready for your presentation of this ‘Actics’ Mr. Peitersen

Nicolai in the upper room giving his presentation

a short break for our nice guests before…

…more presentations by our friends from Biomega, ClownFish Marketing and…

… Niels from Experience Design Lab

Jens surrounded by beautiful women

… and Adam, our sociologist in residence in dandy position

Henrik in action

A relieved and proud team

Don’t mess with our accountant Michael

When we’d dried out the gallery, we went on to crash a MTV party on Leicester Square starting out bling-style with Champagne (Thanks Thomas, right) looking over the London skyline

The bubbles starting to take effect. Here’s it’s Niels and Søren our chairman almost as tipsy as the photographer…

Some of us survived until this morning - I don’t know about any casualties yet.

What a night!