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Journal entries prior to May 2008 can be found in the old archived site here
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Journal: March, 2009
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Skoll Foundation short film on social entrepreneurship
29 March 2009
The Skoll Foundation has recently completed a short, 9-minute film about the field of social entrepreneurship. It provides a useful overview of the progress made over the past three decades. It starts with Mohammad Yunus and includes interviews with a number of social entrepreneurs and others in the field, including Sally Osberg of the Skoll Foundation, Bill Drayton of Ashoka, Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund, author David Bornstein and myself. For more information on these and other social entrepreneurs, visit www.skollfoundation.org.... more >
27 March 2009
With Jeroo Billimoria in the Sheldonian Theatre
... more >
Gerard Morgan-Grenville
Environmental Entrepreneur
25 March 2009
Many moons ago, while working for the Groundwork Foundation in the mid-1980s, I coined the term 'environmental entrepreneur' - a consumate, if somewhat quirky, example of which died on 2 March. As his obituary in The Times today reports, Gerard Morgan-Grenville, an Old Etonian, co-created the Centre for Alternative Technology in a slate quarry near Machynlleth, Mid-Wales, to demonstrate a range of alternative technologies. Sadly, I have still to make the pilgrimage, though CAT today has a staff of 150 and attracts some 65,000 visitors a year.... more >
Royal heron
Between the bars
23 March 2009
I always keep an eye out for herons as I cycle across the Thames in the morning, but today - as I came in early - I didn't see any. Then as I was walking my bike past Kensington Palace, I happened to look through the fence guarding the garden - and there was a heron, sitting hunched in the herbaceous border. Made me think that the opportunities are there, even in today's crazy world, if you know where to look for them. ... more >
50th anniversary of our move to Hill House
Tribal gathering
22 March 2009
Elaine, Gaia, Hania and I drove down to Little Rissington today to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the family's move to Hill House in 1959, on our return from Cyprus. Seventeen of us, with all the children and grandchildren present. A wonderful day in time, particularly when Tim unveiled the Hill House photograph album he had compiled - with inputs of images from all of us - for Pat.... more >
Botanical Wonders
To Kew with Elaine and Will
21 March 2009
Will
Shadows
We drove across to Kew for lunch with Will (Rosenzweig), then took a long saunter around the Gardens in glorious sun. One magnolia tree was a revelation. Spent a fair time on the Princess of Wales Greenhouse, taking photographs for Caroline to paint, possibly. A long time ago, when SustainAbility's logo was a trigram (representing the triple bottom line) and a spiral (representing life, evolution and creativity), I took pictures of spirals everywhere I went. Today there was only one. But there was a phoenix, too, in the Japanese pavilion. Then back to work on a slide presentation on the Phoenix Economy - which I plan to use at SustainAbility on Monday and then at the Skoll World Forum later in the week.
Busy Week at 2BP
The Phoenix Economy goes to the printers
20 March 2009
The Phoenix 50 image
A very busy week at 2 Bloomsbury Place, with T he Phoenix Economy finally off to the printers. Am thrilled with how much progress we have made in the last week or two. Then the week also saw a stream of visitors, a fair few of whom spent some time in the office - among them Carl Ganter of Circle of Blue, Kiva co-founder Jessica Jackley and Will Rosenzweig of Physic Ventures. We also had a farewell lunch for Smita (Sircar), who has played such a vital role over the past year, particularly recently on the report - and is now moving to South Africa with her husband. Then a visit to the British Museum with Will and Elaine to see the murals from the tomb of Nebamun and then dinner there.
WES 09
World Entrepreneurship Summit
20 March 2009
A glimpse of passion (taken by Sam)
I spoke at World Entrepreneurship Summit this morning, at Goodenough College. Organised by Rebecca Harding and the World Entrepreneur Society. Met some interesting folk, then walked back to the office for a busy day. Glorious, sunny, blue sky.
This Moment in Time
Chez the Value Web
19 March 2009
The Phoenix Economy at The Value Web
Early on Wednesday, across to the Oval for the start of a two-day event entitled 'This Moment in Time' - organised by The Value Web, who I have worked with on a number of occasions at World Economic Forum summits. They use a process developed by Gail and Matt Taylor of MG Taylor, founded in 1979. Had to leave half-way through the first day, but Sam and I went back for the concluding party on Thursday evening.
Very struck to find my photo up on the white-wall, with the message 'Still Here'. A number of the ideas I had surfaced the previous day had also made it onto the walls, including the notion that systems adapt (so the Vatican, for example, might anoint James Lovelock as Saint James of Gaia some time around 2029), that we might build God as a supercomputer with anyone able to input (prompted by a note with '42' on it in one of the break-out spaces) and, no surprise this, the Phoenix Economy.
Very much liked Gail Taylor. Among other things, we discussed Hari Seldon, the psychohistorian in Asimov's Foundation series, and worked to collapse a 30,000 years of civilizational collapse into just 1,000 years. Struck by the fact that the Canterbury Court business cenbtre, where the event was held, used to be a radar factory. At its best, what we are doing is evolving a new form of radar for our societies and economies. Came away hugely energised.
First Tuesday
Greentech in the British Library
17 March 2009
 ... more >
Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs out of road
Reminding me of Frank Herbert and Dune City
17 March 2009
Today's Financial Times carries a story on the decision of the Hearst Corporation to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, which I built ties of affection with while spending time over decades with family in the Seattle area. ... more >
Spawn
Reconnecting with the base
15 March 2009
Spawn 2
Up early and as we walked I said to Elaine that this felt like spawn weather. Sound of woodpeckers singing and hammering away in the trees. Brilliant green cascades of parakeets. Sly jackdaws. A biplane soaring over the deer, radio-controlled. Then we found great clumps of frog spawn, though someone - or something - had been fishing some out, since there were long skeins of eggs streaked across a log near the bank, drying out. I sluiced them all back into the water. A powerful sense of connection to what got me started in this space way back in the 1950s. Meanwhile my Uncle Paul says that all the frogs this year in his area of Cumbria are male.... more >
Image Source
11 March 2009
Arm wrestling on the roof
Another kiss on the stairs
Started the day with Sam at Image Source, meeting Duncan Grossart - and then speaking to his team. Next, back to Bloomsbury Place - where the magnolia continues to inch into bloom - for a succession of six meetings. My mood of depression is beginning to lift, which is no doubt a boon to the world. Cycled home, which helped, too. Moon last night seemed to be full, though could equally have been this evening. Walking back into Barnes last night, very late, after my trip to Oxford, a flowering blackcurrant was in full perfume. Delicious.... more >
Amsterdam Declaration on Transparency & Reporting
A first for GRI
11 March 2009
The text of the Amsterdam Declaration on Transparency & Reporting, the first issued by the Global Reporting Initiative, as described in the previous blog entry, can be found at http://www.globalreporting.org/CurrentPriorities/AmsterdamDeclaration/. I confess I'm rather pleased with the result of our efforts.... more >
The Lab
NESTA's latest brainchild
10 March 2009
Spent much of the morning at a NESTA summit on innovation in the public service sector, launching The Lab. All going quite well until Gordon Brown and entourage crashed into the proceedings. In the context of what Team Obama are aiming to do in the USA, the Brownian offerings seemed lacklustre. I left. Then went across to Oxford to speak at the Said Business School. Supper with Pamela (Hartigan) and Geoff (Lye), then home. The ruffian count on the train was uncomfortably high, but I buried myself in the latest issue of Fast Company, which spotlights the Fast Company 50 innovative companies. Five of them also appear in our Phoenix 50, which will be announced at the Said Business School during the Skoll World Forum at the end of the month.... more >
Transparent Days in Amsterdam
Board session for Global Reporting Initiative
07 March 2009
Nelmara Arbex and Ignasi Carreras
BlackBerry (and similar) moment
Declarative group 2
Back late yesterday from a couple of days in Amsterdam, with the Board of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), chaired by (Judge) Mervyn King of South Africa. Bumped into several people I knew while arriving in and walking around the city, including Hein Sas and then Franklin van Beuningen of GreenPartners. (Little sleep in the hotel on the second night, when the street outside the Eden Rembrandt Square Hotel seemed to be full of screamers and shouters from nightfall to dawn. When I asked the receptionist whether this was normal, he said yes. Steer clear of this hotel if you can, ask for a room at the back or on the top floor or wear noise-canceling headphones to sleep.) Still, the wonderful GRI team proved to be fatigue-canceling. Indeed, the two days were a forceful reminder--if reminder were needed--of just how important transparency and reporting can be. We ended by drafting a fairly energetic Declaration that will hopefully see the light of day. ... more >
Our own local ghostbike
Cycle of death
03 March 2009
Ghost bike, Holborn
Having tried to cycle home this evening, I was turned back by high winds and sluicing rain. So walked to Holborn Tube - and then saw for the first time the ghost bike in Southampton Row, where a girl cyclist was killed soon after we moved to Bloomsbury Place. A couple of our team saw the ghastly aftermath. The ghostbikes movement strikes me as a wonderfully imaginative, moving response to a largely unseen catastrophe on wheels.... more >
Darling Buds of March
The sap rises, a slight spring in my step
01 March 2009
Achilles sprouts horns... more >
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