Earth Hour 2009, March 28, 8:30 – 9:30 p.m.
March 31, 2009
Did you participate in Earth Hour 2009? Last Saturday millions of people switched off their lights and electrical appliances in order to set a sign against climate change and global warming. I personally enjoyed a low-lit dinner that night. Now the Boston Globe, responsible for the great series The Big Picture, has awesome photographs from around the world documenting Earth Hour 2009. You can click on most of them to fade in and out of the darkness (Java Script must be enabled).
The man who brings the e to the G
March 28, 2009
Ever wanted to know who brings the e to Government? This is him: Jean-Jacques Didisheim, the open and dynamic head of Switzerland’s eGovernment strategy. Yesterday I had the pleasure to meet up with him for some exchange on the digitalization of social collaboration; top-down and bottom-up. Interesting it was! Click here to learn more about Switzerland’s eGovernment Strategy.
Get the sexy nerds to answer your questions
March 26, 2009
Our tour de Berlin just brought us over to Hiogi‘s knowledge workers Martin Kolbe, Christoph Daecke and ConSoulting’s Christian Soult!
What is Hiogi? The sexy nirds who claim that “Wissen ist sexy“. Find out by sending any question via SMS to 44044 (Germany only, for other spots: +49 176 888 66 000) and get an immediate answer from the Hiogi community: E.g.: “Where do I find a good Swiss Restaurant in Berlin?”
What is ConSoulting? Christian‘s PR consulting company supporting startups with their communication efforts in Germany (clients include Barcoo, Babbel, Saftfabrik and of course Hiogi!)
Gregory, Christoph, Christian and Martin
Oh you handsome devil
March 26, 2009
Quite fitting to head this blog entry with a quote from the man who put the M in Manchester. The handsome devil in question of course is our own Daniel, who celebrates his 23rd birthday today (although he still looks like 19 and probably will for a long time). Have a good one, mate! May United win the league! And the Cup! And the Champions League! And may the Magpies stay in the league! Cheers!
Who is going to win a cool Amazee T-Shirt?
March 25, 2009
Be fast and start project number 1000. If you are the first admin of this project you are not only quite cool but we will also send you an Amazee T-Shirt!
Good luck!
UPDATE: We have a winner!!!
IIIIIIIIIIIIII’ts Baaaaaaaaaasti Rolke!!!!! from the brand new and suuuper coooool Welcome Back Slow Way Down project!!! Congratulations Basti, we will contact you!
Is California setup for a brain drain?
March 25, 2009
If the stars of Silicon Valley are on the street looking for work, Robert’s forecast goes about like this:
Amazee meets Westerwelle
March 25, 2009
Guido Westerwelle manages to get a picture with Amazee’s Dania at Zanox’ contest award ceremony ;)
Sustainability marketing – but how?
March 24, 2009
On the 23rd and 24th of March Gregory and I attended a workshop about “Sustainability Marketing” in Berlin organized by the German governmental department for environment (Umweltbundesamt) and other partners, which is part of a governmental initiative called komm (N). This workshop brought together leaders from three areas: corporations, NGOs and web platforms with a focus on sustainability or strong activities in this area. About 30 people participated to achieve the following goals:
- exchange of experience. What are the success factors for sustainability marketing?
- Create ideas for new projects and cooperations
- Start a new real network for sustainability marketing in Germany.
Michael Bilharz from the Umweltbundesamt opened with the following statement: „It has never been as easy as it is now to change and improve the world.“
Feel good – almost for free. Just turn off the stand-by, buy cotton shopping bags. Of course these small efforts are important, but we should not overestimate the effect: He showed an interesting slide on the energy consumption of Germans: LOHAS had the impression that their consumption is 30% lower than that of the average German citizen. A survey showed that in reality, their consumption is identical to that of an average German. So they feel better, but they actually aren’t.
Dream goal of LOHAS are win-win situations: individual benefits with low efforts. And the maximum effect for the environment. Fact is that the CO2 emission per person year is 10 tons CO2 per person (worldwide average is 4.5). Goal mark is 2 tons per person.
BTW: LOHAS is an acronym for Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability (www.lohas.com)
So how can we get there?
We need to differentiate „peanuts“ and „big points“.
Big points are those that result in significant reductions of CO2. Some examples of big points are: have a small flat, don’t fly, don’t eat meat, and don’t have a car. The problem with big points are that most of them are quite a sacrifice and therefore not really marketable. So we have to find key points. Key points are those big points that have the potential to become trends without being seen as huge sacrifices. They have to be 1) relevant, 2) sustainable (long-term) and 3) visible. Visibility is very important. There is a normative pressure when something I do is visible for others. Examples are car-sharing, investments in reusable energy, bio-food, and energy efficient cars. Investing 10,000 Euro in wind energy would compensate my total yearly CO2 emission.
So Bilharz’ conclusion from a political point of view is: 1) Address important issues first rather than trying to follow and improve everything 2) rather invest in something sustainable than trying to change existing routines.
So is sustainability equal to CO2 emission reduction? No, but social justice can be achieved with that. That is his thesis.
Amazee has determined two main action fields where campaigns will be initiated… just these two abbreviations as a teaser: WE and CC. More to follow when the time has come :)
