Brand-building in the Time of Conspicuous Conservation  

Joel the Tailor was in a dilemma. It was approaching the time of the Jewish New Year and his synagogue asked him to take out a half-page ad in their annual magazine. Joel had no problem with this, the synagogue was in a poor area and struggled to make ends meet. The ads from local tradespeople helped. Some ads prominently promoted the advertiser - so his first effort was: "Be a Mensch in a suit by Joel the Tailor". Then the Rabbi advised him that the highest form of charity is when the giver is not known. That was fine, but business was slow and where did charity begin if not at the tailor-shop - after all, no customers, no ads next year. He resolved his dilemma with his ad, which read: "This space is donated by Joel the Best Tailor in the Mile End Road - anonymously". While the story, told by my late father, may well be apocryphal, it resonates with a human truth - we like to be recognised for doing good. On a larger scale, we have...

We are currently involved in three change processes. The first is with a once pace-setting company that now drags its heels; the second with an efficient organisation that is losing its relevance, finding itself out of tune with the times; the third with a leader needing a new & significant challenge. We encounter the reactionaries and radicals, the purists & pragmatists, farmers & hunters. We see fear of loss, hope of gain & the muddled middle.

The climate change debate is changing. Stage one was the no it isn't /yes it is debate, stage two was woe is us, the end of the world is nigh and now we begin to discuss and implement practical solutions.

For those who believe we have woken up too late, here is some reassuring maths from someone who woke up before almost anyone else.

Welcome to summit season on Planet Earth.  We have just concluded a new round of promises to half the rate of biodiversity loss by 2020, having spectacularly failed to do this, as promised, between 2000 and 2010.  Next is the Climate Change summit in Cancun that seeks to repair some of the damage caused by squabbling leaders last year in Copenhagen.

While we squawk, the world burns.  It’s time to listen – if those radio telescopes tuning in to the farthest reaches of the universe, tuned their sensitive ears to Planet Earth, here are some messages they would pick up.

For a few years it was giraffes.  Wherever tourists to South Africa paused you would see endless herds of wooden giraffes.  I visualised giraffe making factories in Limpopo, or Mpumalanga, only to discover that they were made by the container-load in Indonesia.

The giraffe-market now seems to be in decline – another victim of the oversupplied world