Noble winner Joseph Stiglitz in a brief conversation about what is wrong with relying on Gross Domestic Product measures to evaluate if a society is doing well. GDP is a very crude and very misleading measure does not measure the change of income of the citizens or how that income is distributed. It does not measure well being and has nothing to do with happiness.
Genuine Wealth Indicators and Genuine Progress Indicators are so much more integrated and effective measures of how well we are doing economically, environmentally and socially - stuff that is ignored by GDP measures.
Here is a link to a City of Edmonton study done on this much more comprehensive and meaningful approach to measuring success. This works was done by Mark Anielski, the author of "The Economics of Happiness." I will be inviting Mark to participate and use this information at a workshop being organized for March 17 in Edmonton as part of the Learning Our Way to the Next Alberta project spearheaded by the Alberta Teachers Association. The workshop will gather together some enterprising opinion and thought leaders from various segments of our society, ecology and economy to look beyond the Alberta Advantage to consider what ought to be the Alberta Aspirations. My personal context preference is to have Alberta striving to be the best FOR the world in a substantial and sustainable way, not merely a trite goal of being the best IN the world in some shallow consumptive competitiveness game.
I will keep you posted and provide informative links to interesting content and context on the updated Learning Our Way website that goes live next week. (H/T to Duncan Kinney for the Stiglitz video link via LinkedIn)
Friday, December 31, 2010
Creative People in Business
The magazine Fast Company has published its list of the 10 Most Creative People in Business....it is mostly American business but that is typical US narcissism. What is interesting to me is #6 on the list: Steve Burd, the CEO of Safeway. You don't usually look to a grocery store for creativity but there he is. The reasons he is on the list are encouraging.
The reason that recognition of Steve Burd interests me is that creative culture and corporate leadership is alive and well in the Alberta division of Safeway too. Bill Campbell is the Safeway head of human resources and is one of those corporate thought leaders and creativity doers in Alberta. His work with the community based Save Our Fine Arts (SOFA and #sofab on Twitter) is a great example of corporate talent seeing culture as a critical aspect of our quality of life. As an HR guy Bill know the arts and a wider deeper sense of literacy are part of the skill sets we must develop and enhance if we are to compete in the conceptual age we are entering economically.
There is more good stuff SOFA and Campbell are doing including hosting a public meeting on the role of creativity and fine arts education with Education Minister Dave Hancock in Calgary January 25. Make it one of your New Years resolutions to join with SOFA and attend this meeting to learn more about the importance of art in education.
If the the Alberta economy is to survive and thrive, we have to adapt to create creative based assets that serve a full range of human needs and wants. That imagination and innovation will be more about our brain as a natural resource and less about our brawn in extracting energy from hydrocarbons. Creative based assets are all around us and are not just about frolicking and juggling performances, as much fun as that is. It is about new technologies and techniques that do conventional economic activity better, faster, cheaper, and cleaner. That is our future and creativity is the key. There is a new book coming out that deals with this transition by Robert McGarvey called "Undressing Capitalism." I have read the manuscript and will be talking more about Bob's intriguing ideas in future posts too.
I will be blogging a lot about creativity and innovation in 2011 and the work of Creative Alberta as a lead group in helping to promote awareness, trigger some imagination and make it all more meaningful for folks through international relationship of creative districts. You will be hearing a lot more about my work with the ATA and the Learning Our Way to the Next Alberta project too, including a major event about a new partnership of high performing public education systems in the world. That includes the top 2 in the world, Finland and Alberta who are forming this partnership. More on all that next week.
In the meantime I wish all of you a Happy New Year and an interesting and creative 2011.
The reason that recognition of Steve Burd interests me is that creative culture and corporate leadership is alive and well in the Alberta division of Safeway too. Bill Campbell is the Safeway head of human resources and is one of those corporate thought leaders and creativity doers in Alberta. His work with the community based Save Our Fine Arts (SOFA and #sofab on Twitter) is a great example of corporate talent seeing culture as a critical aspect of our quality of life. As an HR guy Bill know the arts and a wider deeper sense of literacy are part of the skill sets we must develop and enhance if we are to compete in the conceptual age we are entering economically.
There is more good stuff SOFA and Campbell are doing including hosting a public meeting on the role of creativity and fine arts education with Education Minister Dave Hancock in Calgary January 25. Make it one of your New Years resolutions to join with SOFA and attend this meeting to learn more about the importance of art in education.
If the the Alberta economy is to survive and thrive, we have to adapt to create creative based assets that serve a full range of human needs and wants. That imagination and innovation will be more about our brain as a natural resource and less about our brawn in extracting energy from hydrocarbons. Creative based assets are all around us and are not just about frolicking and juggling performances, as much fun as that is. It is about new technologies and techniques that do conventional economic activity better, faster, cheaper, and cleaner. That is our future and creativity is the key. There is a new book coming out that deals with this transition by Robert McGarvey called "Undressing Capitalism." I have read the manuscript and will be talking more about Bob's intriguing ideas in future posts too.
I will be blogging a lot about creativity and innovation in 2011 and the work of Creative Alberta as a lead group in helping to promote awareness, trigger some imagination and make it all more meaningful for folks through international relationship of creative districts. You will be hearing a lot more about my work with the ATA and the Learning Our Way to the Next Alberta project too, including a major event about a new partnership of high performing public education systems in the world. That includes the top 2 in the world, Finland and Alberta who are forming this partnership. More on all that next week.
In the meantime I wish all of you a Happy New Year and an interesting and creative 2011.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Are You Into New Years Resolutions?
If so watch this video and reflect on what resolutions make sense for you as an individual agent of change in the larger context of the planet.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150347710280581
What will you resolve to do more of, less of, and be better at in the coming year? After all we are all in this together and alone.
H/T to Esme Comfort for the link
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150347710280581
What will you resolve to do more of, less of, and be better at in the coming year? After all we are all in this together and alone.
H/T to Esme Comfort for the link
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Why is Alberta Into Energy Sector Subsidies at $90 Oil?
This editorial in the Edmonton Journal today is a must read for every taxpaying, resource owning Albertan who prides themselves in paying their own way in the world.
I harp on the need for Albertans to start realizing we own the oil sands and the rest of the natural resources in our province. We also have to take personal responsibility to ensure they are developed in an environmentally responsible way. Further we need to ensure that we optimize the rents and revenues we receive from the economic development of those resources. The overarching principle is that the economy is there to serve the needs of the society, not the other way around. The society and economy together have to work in harmony within the realities of ecological limits and conservation, preservation, protection and reclamation have to be core and active values of we the owners of the resources.
The politically motivated fiscal conservatives in Alberta are too often attracted to short term economic results that perpetuate old and outdated models of wealth creation. They are too quick to give away our resources to subsidize sunset industries like some 19th century victim of colonialism. The result is we have revenue problems in the governing of the province induced but narrow, shallow and short-sighted thinking to buy votes and fritter away the resource birthrights of future generations.
Albertans are better than that but we have become complacent and compliant in our duties as owners and stewards of our natural resources. It is hard to know who to trust in all the rhetoric and histrionics of power and positioning politics these days. That is no excuse to not engage and become informed active citizens who take responsibility for the well being of themselves and their families as well being involved as the greater good of their community and province. There are many reasons we have a budget deficit right now. A a big factor is we do not pay our way for the very necessary public programs a civilized, caring and compassionate society should provide. One of the reasons is we are giving our resources away and providing irresponsible subsidies that are only short term economic inducements and entice us to keep making the same mistakes.
The Edmonton Journal editorial is right. A responsible government would stop unnecessary subsidies to sunset industries like deep drilling convention oil and gas. That is marketplace interference of the worst kind. It only holds us back from facing reality. It stops us from facing the need to adapt to new and emerging wealth creating possibilities. It stifles our thinking and diverts attention from the more vital task of finding new ways to be resourceful and resilient - and responsible in designing and learning our way forward to the next Alberta.
I harp on the need for Albertans to start realizing we own the oil sands and the rest of the natural resources in our province. We also have to take personal responsibility to ensure they are developed in an environmentally responsible way. Further we need to ensure that we optimize the rents and revenues we receive from the economic development of those resources. The overarching principle is that the economy is there to serve the needs of the society, not the other way around. The society and economy together have to work in harmony within the realities of ecological limits and conservation, preservation, protection and reclamation have to be core and active values of we the owners of the resources.
The politically motivated fiscal conservatives in Alberta are too often attracted to short term economic results that perpetuate old and outdated models of wealth creation. They are too quick to give away our resources to subsidize sunset industries like some 19th century victim of colonialism. The result is we have revenue problems in the governing of the province induced but narrow, shallow and short-sighted thinking to buy votes and fritter away the resource birthrights of future generations.
Albertans are better than that but we have become complacent and compliant in our duties as owners and stewards of our natural resources. It is hard to know who to trust in all the rhetoric and histrionics of power and positioning politics these days. That is no excuse to not engage and become informed active citizens who take responsibility for the well being of themselves and their families as well being involved as the greater good of their community and province. There are many reasons we have a budget deficit right now. A a big factor is we do not pay our way for the very necessary public programs a civilized, caring and compassionate society should provide. One of the reasons is we are giving our resources away and providing irresponsible subsidies that are only short term economic inducements and entice us to keep making the same mistakes.
The Edmonton Journal editorial is right. A responsible government would stop unnecessary subsidies to sunset industries like deep drilling convention oil and gas. That is marketplace interference of the worst kind. It only holds us back from facing reality. It stops us from facing the need to adapt to new and emerging wealth creating possibilities. It stifles our thinking and diverts attention from the more vital task of finding new ways to be resourceful and resilient - and responsible in designing and learning our way forward to the next Alberta.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Reflections on Public Education in the Next Alberta
I do some work with the Alberta Teachers Association and the Alberta School Trustees Association. I am considered a friendly critic by both institutions. Last year I was invited by four Calgary based ATA locals to provide input into some strategic planning they were doing about public education in the context of the changing community that is Calgary.
Here is a video on some of my thoughts last spring...I say they ring even truer today with the election of Mayor Nenshi as a positive sign of emergent possibilities for that great city.
There is a lot of work to do to rethink the role and relationship of public education to the larger social agenda in Alberta. Minister Dave Hancock's efforts in Inspiring Education and Inspiring Action on Education set a framework and present an invitation for that to happen. Lets make sure we re-imagine and rekindle the passion and purpose of our public education system to align with the emerging possibilities that is the Next Alberta. Lots of potential and possibilities lay before us. All we have to do is take up the challenges and get going on co-creating the future as progressive and forward thinking Albertans.
I will be posting extensively on this and other issues about the Changing Landscape in Alberta and the next iteration of the Learning Our Way project of Informed Transformation of our province.
Here is a video on some of my thoughts last spring...I say they ring even truer today with the election of Mayor Nenshi as a positive sign of emergent possibilities for that great city.
There is a lot of work to do to rethink the role and relationship of public education to the larger social agenda in Alberta. Minister Dave Hancock's efforts in Inspiring Education and Inspiring Action on Education set a framework and present an invitation for that to happen. Lets make sure we re-imagine and rekindle the passion and purpose of our public education system to align with the emerging possibilities that is the Next Alberta. Lots of potential and possibilities lay before us. All we have to do is take up the challenges and get going on co-creating the future as progressive and forward thinking Albertans.
I will be posting extensively on this and other issues about the Changing Landscape in Alberta and the next iteration of the Learning Our Way project of Informed Transformation of our province.
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