Facilitating Innovation and change

I was asked to write something the other day about innovation and rather oddly it took me some time to realise that in fact I do know quite a lot about innovation, having studied change and development processes!

Anyway, a few conversations later I found myself thinking about the conditions that foster innovation. I've reached the conclusion that the greatest problem that we have in this day and age is our focus on efficiency and time management. Having had a few months off work now, I find myself able to think, talk, work out how to do new things and generally be a more adaptable human being, despite trying not to spend much money. Innovation is sooo much easier and so much more likely because I can apply my mind to the various things the trip me up and I have time to let them tick over while I do other things without feeling the slightest bit guilty.

I put this together with the fact that we are told as New Zealanders that our productivity is very low and yet most of the people I know are working their butts off. Maybe if we worked less we'd actually be more productive?

:-)

Credit crunches and Ecological limits

A new issue of Resurgence is out. I was particularly interested to read an article by Andrew Simms called Planet Crunch where he puts together a range of issues from the links between our attitudes to credit and money and how that links to resource use. I was also interested to read his account of the way in which oil tanker drivers were able to bring the UK to its knees because of the "just in time" nature of oil distribution through the UK. This didn't just affect people's capacity to travel - it had a major effect on food distribution to the point where Simms suggests the UK was "9 meals away from anarchy". This of course links up social unrest with food distribution and in the longer term with access to a resources that people need to live their lives. Given the fact that the world human population is growing and that food reserves are at their lowest for a long time food security is becoming something to think about for all of us - rather than only those living in poverty. As Jared Diamond put it in Collapse being rich only gives you the capacity to die last when the ecosystem on which you rely collapses.

Not a happy thought but one that might be worth pondering in terms of what action is needed as we head into a world of diminishing resources.