thestoryofmeaningfuluse
A Magazine Capturing the Story of Health- For People, Environment, Economy & HabitatArchive for Health
Taking the Bite out of Apple – Defining the Future Inquiry
Taking the Bite out of Apple TSOMU Series -Part 3 of 3
This 3 part series looks at 3 perspectives of the cost to people in the manufacturing of Apple Products
• Accountability for What? Constructing the 3rd Pillar – Social Sustainability
• Steve and Laurene Powell Job’ Legacy
• Defining the Future Inquiry
By Lavinia Weissman
@wecarehealth54545454545454
New York, New York
Community Solutions
“Is there some mystical reason why an innocent person becomes the target of evil? Of course not. People who talk about the karma of victims as if some hidden fact is bringing down the rain of destruction are speaking from ignorance.”
Deepak Chopra
Steve Jobs, in his life-time, had personally mastered the vision of living a life of life-long learning. He translated his vision into the design and manufacturing of products that can be adopted as the most power enablers to make this possible.
By large, as a society of people of any means, we cannot move beyond ignorance if we cloister ourselves from the world of learning. Jobs constructed a vision of the ICloud so that from anyplace, anytime with any device people can synch and learn to solve the problems they face everyday at home and for what they do for work.
Recently, Sustainability, CSR and Accountability experts have focused on the cost to humans of how Apple products are manufactured; it is an interesting direction in my mind to see that the Jobs technical legacy has constructed a technical platform that is so critical to creating a framework for the human interaction that can embed social sustainability in society and culture today.
This platform enables the publication and production of media that works in a cloud where individuals can shape their personal learning by vocation or the way they live to take that learning and solve problems with others that can be formed into community solutions of any kind. Laurene Powell Jobs, during her husbands final days, guided him to find the peace that he had not found inside himself and with others before his death by supporting him to articulate this vision.
Walter Isaacson, Job’s biographer, provided a most complete story capture of conversations with President Obama, Bill Gates (Philanthropist), and the technical leaders of Silicon Valley global companies, in just a few conversations that could create a picture of this vision for these leaders to act on, if they chose.
The story that Isaacson offers is fundamental in my mind to launching a new thought leadership in practice. I see this story line as part of a briefing for launching a learning community that focused on creating the educational framework from which people can build a system of response to heal poverty and economy of debt and lack, I don’t see how we will create the system by which to full benefit of the power of this technical platform.
Basic to forming this kind of learning community, the convening team that sorts out the launch, the invitation and to convene the community needs to an economy model and hub to support its formation and translation into local scale that mentors the participants into a form of knowledge and emotional intelligence that can translate vision into action and lasting form.
This community can become a forum or hub that represents and attracts the attention of leading educators that I have written about that include John Sexton, President of NYU and Freeman Hrabowski, President of UMBC. Sexton and Hrabowski are calling for the formation of a new educational format where portals of learning provide the architecture to the students all around the world to solve problems drawing from the best of humanities, science and technology that inspires a new experience of thought and engagement for anyone who joins in this form of learning that is sustainable.
How does this fit with Jobs Vision?
In Jobs final days of conversation with his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Jobs noted that Apple was a great company like HP, Intel, and Disney, because it was built to matter and live beyond simply a purpose of the founders developing an IPO to go public so the founders can leave and cash in. The literature shows that HP, Intel, Disney and Apple have lasted out and emerged from failure out of learning and a commitment to make a difference.
Jobs went on to say that when these companies get off course, that is the real cost. Inn my opinion the cost to humans associated with these companies. This is about a from of sustainability that respects profit and people in balance.
At present, the complexity of engagement and the state of the world economically and the perpetuation of poverty, building companies to last in this way is not sufficient to insure a health global economy for people, planet and profit. In a consumptive society, the production of products, organization of services and innovation are often developed with a regard for building the most attractive product features and benefits.
Jobs talent for doing this in a very Zen like manner resulted in meeting the needs of talent beginning with the graphic design community with the launch of the Mac and reshaping and defining a “Mac Lifestyle” by 2004, that had the Apple products represent and associate with a lifestyle of promise rather, distinguishing Mac from Windows based products that have been tools of productivity.
Facebook and Linkedin.com have entered the global market affording a market of communication that is accessible to millions of people for free, supported by the sale of apps and advertising. However, these global gathering social media complexes do not have the substantive architecture that is basic to reshaping local economies of people where the needs of the people in local community are put ahead first so they can move beyond poverty and learn within their communities to sustain.
Talking on a platform does not provide the financial resources that insure the health and success of these projects to sustain.
I believe the forthcoming generation of learning and inquiry has to expand beyond the view of business as usual from a community and local economy perspective beyond the limitations of institutional views.
Who Belongs in this Inquiry?
In the tradition of view of economic development projects have always been like Microsoft organized as a fragmented vertial channel to solve a problem, e.g. foster more innovation to create more jobs; bringing costly pharmaceutical treatment to 3rd world countries. The problem identified to solve is in some regard a task.
- The first step is to invite local communities to join in regions where there are problems associated with global companies that foster human injustice, e.g. Shell Oil in Nigeria, BP Gulf Oil Spill, Apple Human Costs to Manufacturing in China;
- Begin by convening and analyzing the most basic needs of people impacted by this harm and providing them a stable infrastructure from which they can learn , work and live is a new form of inquiry that will begin to create a new form of mastery of quality of life for people in the locales through which they live and work;
- This implies participation from the companies and governments in these locales where other distinct problems can be solved like the lack of industry or any sustainable economy, similar to what has been shaped for Rancho Petacal in Mexico by Roberto Vargas Marciel, Maher Ashram in Pune, India by Sister Lucy or the Honey Bee Network led by Anil Gupta, the first Pew Research Fellow;
- Critical to the success of these projects, funding sources need to come from all sectors of participation, philanthropic foundations and where possible contributions from the local communities of people, who build these community by building a local economy of goods and services that aligned with the culture of location.
Taking the Bite Out of Apple
Accountability experts in sustainability and corporate sustainability have been steered over the last 3 decades since the issue of the Brundtland Commission Report in 1987 to continue the norm of how investors and corporations approach markets using a vertical channel approach.
It’s ironic at this time that Steve Jobs, founder and leader of the most successful company, Apple – in his final year of life called on great leaders to outline his integral view of life drawing on Edwin Land passion for integrating humanities and science to integrate into technological development.
Spiritual Leader J. Krishnamurti who inspired Physicist David Boehm from this view as well. Boehm in his writing pointed to the value of inquiry and dialogue as the path to creating a culture that embedded the most fundamental respect for what it means to be a human being.
At this years World Economic Forum gathering global leaders and private citizens from around the world left the meeting challenged to address the growing harm of poverty and harm to people.
This opens the door to the greatest challenge accountability experts have ahead for them – shifting accountability to defining and measuring sustainable metrics that serve people and local economy.
The 1984 launch of Apple Computer was in synch with the creation of the Brundtland Commission. How ironic that Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder has left a legacy to solve the most challenging and controversial problems associated with Apple by gathering with a small group of leaders, mostly personal friends to define the opportunity that technology implies to education and the change that this implies to all our approaches to education from how we educate children in schools to higher learning to the restructuring of how adults learn life long to sustain within their communities local economy.
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Author’s Bio: Lavinia Weissman is sustainable leadership coach, health advocate, capacity builder, and publisher/editor-in-chief of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com.
For More information on Lavinia’s Coaching, Workshops and Presentations or to obtain an invitation to Monday Circle or Prayer Community Conference,
Contact Adriana Hill in the US by phone 516.204.6791 or at mydestinyjourney ampersand gmail.com.
Taking the Bite out of Apple – Steve and Laurene Powell Jobs’ Legacy
Taking the Bite out of Apple TSOMU Series -Part 2 of 3
This 3 part series looks at 3 perspectives of the cost to people in the manufacturing of Apple Products.
- Accountability for What? Constructing the 3rd Pillar – Social Sustainability
- Steve and Laurene Powell Job’ Legacy
- Defining the Future Inquiry
By Lavinia Weissman
@wecarehealth54545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454
The Wholistic View
“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in every thing. That is how the light gets in.”
If one looks outside of Steve Jobs leadership and performance at Apple as CEO, and follow a very complete story of his life, work and his final days, I believe the picture painted if very different than what is described in the business press.
Jobs contact with people outside the context of running a company contains within it the legacy Steve left behind supported by his wife Laurene Powell Jobs, that are an interesting foundation for building a “social sustainable agenda” described in Part 1 of this series. Time will only prove if this vision can translate into community solutions aligned with Laurene Powell Jobs current vocation.
Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, was selected to by Steve and Laurene Powell Jobs to be Jobs, biographer. The book, simply titled, Steve Jobs. Completely atypical of Jobs, he and Laurene both gave full control over the book and the content to Isaacson. Jobs in his final days asked for final say on the artwork for the cover.
This book is a composite of the story of the history of Apple as Jobs and others crafted it, the products that resulted from Jobs vision, the meanderings of Silicon Valley ups and downs influenced by the MBA Venture Community and ultimately how Jobs as a visionary and innovator powerfully drove his agenda to build Apple as the strongest multinational company based headquartered in Silicon Valley.
Jobs informed Isaacson, “I think you are good at getting people to talk.” This is why Jobs selected him as his biographer. Steve and Laurene wanted the book to relay the real story that included Steve’s failing and success. They wanted the truthful story. Even Steve in his candid conversations with Isaacson saw his own personality flaws, which may have been unnecessary.
For fans of the history of Silicon Valley from a technical view, you will have to read the book that captures a rich history of all companies that sit side by side with Apple and the influence of the cast of characters from Larry Ellison of Oracle, Gil Amelio of NEC and Apple, John Scully and more. Isaacson true to form studied the man, the culture that surrounded the man and the family from which he grew and in the end helped him make peace.
The Silicon Valley and Apple Corporation that I knew emerged to be number 1 after my downsizing research in the late 80′s predicted it would be Apple, Sun or IBM.
Unlike Sun Microsystem and IBM, Jobs crafted with his products a vision of creating an Apple lifestyle, but in the final chapter of his legacy with his wife he began to create a global lifestyle through conversations with his wife Laurene and his final conversation with Bill Gates in May 2011 before his death in October.
Isaacson’s talent for asking “the why after the what,” helped me make see this new form legacy that is socially sustainable, that Laurene is now making her focus.
While the business press offered consistent final reports, e.g. Thomas Friedman, that when Obama inquired about bring back jobs to the US for IPhone and other Apple products, Jobs replied, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” Friedman was one of many that reported this based on secondary research.
Isaacson captured 40 interviews with Jobs, dating back to 1984, when Isaacson was at Time Magazine and drew from more than 115 people and interviews and secondary research for this book. This is where the story behind how Jobs meeting with Obama in Silicon Valley’s story behind the story begins to open inquiry on the legacy that Jobs crafted in the final 10 months before his death.
Hidden in this story is the non technical legacy that Jobs could see that integrated a view of humanities and science with his genius capacity to design the leading technology and thought that captured Apple’s market today.
Laurene’s Added Spark
In 2010, Laurene Powell Jobs joined the White House Council for Community Solutions. At the most recent, State of the Union Address, by President Obama, she was introduced as the founder of Emerson Collective which she has directed to focus on underserved communities to better lives and in her role with the White House Council for Community Solutions she advises the President on how to mobilize and involve each sector from a true capacity building point of view on how to concretely address specific community needs.
Fall 2010, Laurene advised her friends at the White House that include John Doerr, Venture Capitalist and then at a meeting for President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board that Obama needed to hear Steve Jobs point of view on why the US had lost its edge. With help from the Jobs son, Reed, who was attending Stanford, Laurene was able to convince Steve to join Obama in a private 45 minutes meeting in October 2010.
No Holds Barred
In his book, Isaacson reported that Jobs told Obama at their private in October 2010, that Obama had to become morbusiness friendly and make it easier for business to open factories in the US over China that he was headed for a one term Presidency. Here is was indicating a need to reduce regulation and unnecessary costs. Jobs then asserted that even bigger obstacle was the American education system as antiquated due to unionization of workers and teachers. There was a need to revamp the entire system, beginning with defining the role of the teacher and improving the status of teachers.
By the end of the meeting, Jobs offered to put together a group of 6-7 CEO’s together to converse with Obama and examine how the US government was obstructing innovation. Jobs idea was to create this as a dinner and conversation. The White House almost derailed the meeting, trying to turn it into a major event of 20 ore more CEO’s, including GE’s Jeffrey Immelt. Jobs made clear his terms and the agenda and format were recovered and given Jobs assumed control.
Over a dinner at Palo Alto’s Greek Restaurant, Evita of 12 included Carol Bartz (Yahoo), John Chambers (Cisco), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Art Levinson (Genetech), Eric Schmidt (Google) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) with Obama, Jobs and White House Staff, Valerie Jarret and John Doerr.
Isaacson writes that Jobs began the dinner conversation by stating, “Regardless of our political persuasions, I want you to know that we’re here to do whatever you ask to help our country.” While this prompted proposals and suggestions, starting with John Chambers idea for a tax proposal. Zuckerberg was heard to lean over to Obama’s aide Valerie Jarret and point out they were all there to help the President and wanted to know from him, what he needed.
John Doerr and Jobs returned the discussion to the focus and Jobs indicated that America had to educate and train more engineers. In China today 700,000 workers are need on site support from 30,000 engineers and Apple simply has no resources of that talent to hire here in the US.
This pointer caught Obama’s attention and while Jobs was in the final phase of his own journey, he pointed out if America (Obama) can train the engineers Apple would bring back manufacturing to the US.
Isaacson’s ability to interview and capture the full story is quite different than the business press reporting the short sentence. Yes it is true, at the present time, Apple cannot bring manufacturing back to the US. And yes, if America addresses its most critical problem – our educational system’s inability to produce enough engineers, Jobs committed to bring manufacturing back.
While this is a story capture of Isaacson’s book (in red) that are taken from the book. Pardon me with breaking from the tradition of footnoting with the limitations of blogging.
Isaacson has opened the door to integrating a story that values all 3 pillars of view for sustainability that can not be constructed without opening a conversation and inquiry that examines issues from the 3 perspectives that Jobs drew from his study of Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid; these persepctives are about creating a balance of view drawing from humanities, science and technology.
From my studies on dialogue and inquiry, I learned something similar from the perspective of David Boehm, Physicist. Boehm often pointed out based on his studies with spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, that he learned that building trust to innovate change and evolve culture cannot be built without building into our conversations practice that appreciate these 3 elements (humanities, science and technology).
This invites my readers to join me for next and final post. This poises the question of how we alter our view of education integrating the vision and forecast for education that Steve Jobs shared with Bill Gates before he died.
Stay tuned for Part 3 – Defining the Future Inquiry that describes this opportunity and a history of dress rehearsals that failed. Is it time to launch this as a community of practice within the UNGC?
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Author’s Bio:
Lavinia Weissman is sustainable leadership coach, health advocate, capacity builder, and publisher/editor-in-chief of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com.
For More information on Lavinia’s Coaching, Workshops and Presentations or to obtain an invitation to Monday Circle or Prayer Community Conference,
Contact Adriana Hill in the US by phone 516.204.6791 or at mydestinyjourney ampersand gmail.com.
Will 2012 be the End to Denial and Obstructing Change?
When Personal Change is not Enough
By Lavinia Weissman
@WeCareHealth4949494949494949494949
At the end of the year, I take some time for reflection. First, I identify people, who have influenced change in my own thinking. But this year, I have taken stock of people, who have drew me into a conversation that in my opinion is changing the neural landscape in which I live which has been filled with denial. This form of denial is not my own, it is the pervasive denial that is obstructing change that more and more people want for health that will impact people, environment, economy and habitat.
This trend in my thinking began when I met Peggy LaCerra on Facebook, through Joan Borysenko. Peggy is a evolutionary neuroscientist that introduced me to the idea of “neural landscape,” back in June 2010. It has taken me more than a year of time to even feel like I grasp what neural landscape is, since I wrote this post, Changing my Neural Landscape.
Joining Peggy LaCerra in reflections of the heart and brain
Sometime last August, when I was first contacted by James Schwinn from his outreach on Linkedin.com, something began to deepen in my understanding of a neural landscape after a few weeks of chatting in brief bits and bytes and sharing writing with James, that resulted in my writing, Can Sustainable Venture Repair the Social Fabric of the Global and Local Economy?; followed by What Do People want after OccupyWallStreet.
James pushed me my thought in such a way that it brought me to the door of a new neural landscape. This landscape began to come to life in the way I related. At the time, I did not realize the impact on me personally and how I was about to face one of the most challenging changes in my own life. It came to life for me inside very loudly and with great difficulty that I simply could no longer work the pattern of education and career that I had grown out of in the institutional world of non profits, government and commercial enterprise.
What grew inside of me was a level of rejection that was pushing me to walk away from doing anything as usual. This happened while I was in Boulder, Co. Day be day it got more difficult and in some ways horrifying and hair curling. I am a person of courage and strength. This was not a soup opera or drama , I was completely altering how I think, who I related to and more important redefining myself in many different ways that was bringing into my life many new people who fostered great respect in me.
Learning with James Schwinn
Then through James Schwinn, I met his business partner Charlie Randall. Charlie and I sat in Boulder over tea a few times and he had an impact on me that was different from most. Our conversation was very personal and quiet; grounded in a form of humility and heart that I cannot describe and maybe few could view and observe. I left these conversations accepting how difficult life was and just recognizing the painful nastiness that seemed to be growing around me and making my life difficult on a daily basis at an accelerated scale over 5 months time.
Yet, in between honoring my own pain and suffering, I continued to sort through the muck and meier of it all and start to grow a new pattern to find my way out of the other side and slowly come back to life again experiencing some faith and hope, and refusing the same form of courage and strength that got me through so much difficulty from my experiences in the past.
Exploring Life from a New View with Charlie Kendall
I have for many years now no matter how bad it gets , get up each day and follow my cues and now after a few months of upheaval, I just got up with less suffering and continue to work my life, my path and follow the rapid appearance of some new cues.
Before leaving Boulder, Co, I met Andrew Lange, N.D and I spent a lovely day with him that included meeting his life partner, Barbara, a nurse and somatic therapist.
This was an experience I could not translate rapidly. While I am still absorbing the conversation that Andrew, Barbara and I shared, Andrew is bringing to life with real time hard work, everything medically that I believe in and value that can transform health as we now know it. He is creating changes in practice that address the complexity of the environment, habitat, economy and all that is challenging people today for personal health.
More important, Andrew has shaken out a form of offering lab tests to people at significantly lower cost through his company, Save on Labs for as much as 60% saving on tests directly organized with patients.
This has moved a legislative activity into action in Rhode Island, where Internet related legislation blocked use of this site to Rhode Island citizens.
Why is this a change to my Neural Landscape?
On Friday, December 24, 2011, President Obama told Barbara Walters that he had not fostered an understanding of just how bad the American economy is with the people in this country. It has perpetuated a form of denial, which obstructs change.
The pervasive denial in this country is a neural landscape that has obstructed and made it difficult for any change agents or capacity builders like myself to do the work we intend.
Being a hero or heroine is not my idea of way to live. Ultimately, people you relate to what help you form a new neural pattern in your unconscious from which you can respond with ease and filter as intuition without “talking about it.”
The truth that I have been pushed to learn and see through all my experiences with downsizing, death and dying and illness is not the life I had planned. But while I could see this truth, I continued to work in the way American told me I had to work and with people who did not have the sincerity to create the change we need.
These past 6 months have pushed me into a very painful leap that is now calming down to foster relationships and create a neural landscape with others who are working to create the change with need out of sincerity and by fostering the right approach.
I feel gifted to know all of them and draw the inspiration I need to build The Story of Meaningful Use and all I do into a platform of change that will move millions of people from the denial we are living with her in America and other forms in other parts of the world. It will take this scale of change in our unconscious brains to weave a systemic change that will bring to life around the world the discovery of change that so many want and need.
Happy 2012 to all. I welcome your comments and want to hear from you in how I can serve what I believe in with all of you to continue to expand this new neural landscape of change.
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Author’s bio: Lavinia Weissman is an sustainable market leadership coach, journalist, and publisher of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com.
As a speaker, she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ.
As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire professional development that assures a person the opportunity to embed sustainability as a leader into the network and culture of people they work with. She has a private practice where she works with women to embrace the experience of chronic illness that challenges their livelihood and form of work.
Is Sanofi Aventitis Moving Beyond the Challenges of Pharma?
As a global health leader will Sanofi Aventis create new sustainable markets of value for health?
By Lavinia Weissman
@WeCareHealth5252525252
Original date of publication on CSRWire Talkback, June 8th, 2011
Greenbiz.com, recently published two important reports by its Chairman and Executive Editor Joel Makower. The first report is an article titled, Green Marketing is Over. Let’s Move On. And the second is a video of Joel’s presentation on the State of Green Business 2011.
After reviewing the report and video, I decided to return to my study of Sanofi Aventis and ask, “Is Sanofi Aventis moving beyond the pharma business model; and will this create new sustainable value markets for health?”
To get at some answers to these questions, I captured a “quick and dirty short list” of Makower’s observations as a framework from which to assess the current state of Sanofi Aventis.
Makower observations:
1. For the most part business is still treading water to build a sustainable economy with out any remarkable progress.
2. While business is treading water, Greenbiz Group doubled its membership, approached by companies they did not know asking to become members. Greenbiz Group now has more than 50 members; Makower sees this as an indicator of hope.
3. Green marketing is in need of makeover. Green marketing initiatives and stories focus primarily on the consumer and what the consumer can buy rather than how companies can create new markets of impact.
4. The key to building new markets is about building new markets for healthy people to live in a healthy world.
Next step: I conducted a quick updated review of Sanofi Aventis to look at their progress over 2010 and what has occurred since the April 2011 completed acquisition of Genzyme. (Links to three previous Talkback posts).
My findings in brief:
With the publication of Sanofi’s 2010 Annual Review, CEO Christopher Viehbacher announced a change to Sanofi’s mission from “to improve the health of as many of the 6.8B people walking the planet as we can” to focus on a new mission “to becoming a global health leader.”
Viehbacher has outlined three areas of strategy from which to balance its profits with sustainability by focusing attention to resources that:
1. Increasing innovation as an approach for research and development. September 2010, Sanofi signed a partnership agreement with Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s Belfer Center for clinical trial research. Sanofi has committed an investment in this collaboration of $33M to DFCI over three years. With this investment, Dana Farber gains the right to preclinical, clinical and commercial milestone payment and royalties from sales of commercial products developed by Dana Farber with Sanofi Aventis.
2. Adapting to future challenges. The company is focused on adapting to the change implied by ongoing translational research and new formats of health education to move beyond the structure of delivering OTC drugs to patients for common ailments and creating new responses to people who suffer from chronic and life threatening illness.
3. Pursuing external growth opportunities. Sanofi has set a goal to explore outside the pharmaceutical framework new forms of treatment platforms that are more affordable and accessible to patients, which opens a broader potential for them beyond the innovation of new drugs.
Sanofi has in recent months introduced a new generation of social media reporting for its Annual Reviews, Sanofi TV and links to Facebook. Within this media constellation, Sanofi offers regular updates on the company, health, professions, responsibility and what is new cross culture, country – and in English and French. Reports update followers from the perspective of all stakeholder interests in CSR, regulation, research, business and advancements for populations of people with specific health needs.
Sanofi through Chris Viehbacher’s leadership has bounded its investment in clinical trials, freeing funds to formulate new platforms of prevention, health education and the development of new, affordable products for the patient that can be easily accessed.
Is Sanofi building a new sustainable market that helps people to be healthy and live in a healthy world? Are they breaking the barrier to the idea that big companies have less success with innovation?
Perhaps Sanofi forging ahead of Novartis, which has accelerated its capability and success with clinical trials or GlaxoSmithKline who is addressing health and poverty in an old format of giving by returning a percentage of profit back to the country in which they do business for a total of $5.4M.
About Lavinia Weissman
Lavinia Weissman (@wecarehealth52525252494949606060) is a sustainable market capacity builder, coach and publisher/editor-in-chief of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com. As a speaker she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ. As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire a culture of change that builds healthy practices for people within healthy markets.
Talkback Readers: What do you think? Is Sanofi creating new markets for healthy people who want to live in a healthy world with sustainable value? How would you measure this? Weigh in on Talkback!
What Do People Want After #OccupyWallStreet?
Reform Wall Street or Repair the Tear in the Local Economy & Social Fabric
By Lavinia Weissman
@WeCareHealth56
On October 20th, I read Don Tapscott’s exceptional Huffington Post, Three Principles for a New Wall Street - This is Tapscott’s view on what is needed to repair the Wall Street.
No one will argue, that Don Tapscott’s Huffington was an intelligent and educated view.
This editorial, sparked by the movement of #OccupyWallStreet, is a statement of meaning and power. Yet, I found it confusing for the ordinary person without wealth, working hard to survive the mess we are living with in American and what if anything that he proposed would impact the lives of so many torn now?
Don’s opening remarks captured my attention:
“To many it feels like just that. The financial services industry is in desperate need of reform. Many bankers have behaved as secretive corporate titans serving only their own interests, and insist the devastating consequences are not their fault. They are failing to fulfill their obligations to society — in some cases, even to shareholders — and a growing number of critics view the day-to-day behavior of the financial services industry as unacceptable. If the industry doesn’t initiate reform from within then it will eventually have more extreme reform imposed from outside.”
I completed reading this article and found myself as a woman with a lot to say that I have not see written that many women I know do see.
Not many men will speak from our view of how the financial service industry has failed us.
My Synthesis of Tapscott’s Editorial
Don’s editorial it is written from a systemic overview and perspective that the solutions lie within a new formation of integrity and transparency on a global scale. Once again, a leader is pointing out the board room perspective for the big financial service companies and investment banks.
Don’s thesis is based on a financial system of a sizeable deposit mass, larger than the sum of a local community can create.
This creates a senior debt managed as a corporate asset for a core group of economic decision makers and shareholders. The focus become how to leverage returns from aggregation and spiraling consumer banking fees.
Transparency as defined in this context shapes from an issue of checks and balances and compliance reports rather than a source of measurement for how a community and its residents sustain health and thrive from creating sustainable market value that serve a consumer need identified by a social network analysis drawn from people with local voice or exemplary pulse taking capabililty
The Tear in the American Social Fabric from a Woman’s View
The very fabric of our country is torn in many places on the map.
The places on the map are actually not cities, rural areas, counties, states or a very torn apart country served by a broken finance system and politics. Occupy Wall as a movement by today, spread to 1039 local communities across 87 countries.
The tear in the fabric of this country is the millions of broken hearts of people, who no matter what they do, cannot take care of themselves as we have been taught to do and in a way that defines us as Americans. It translated into a Republican view of “the haves and have nots, “ in the late 1990’s post the failure of the Democratic Welfare Reform.
As a woman, I represent so many who have not had their voices heard in bank, law or compliance; our interests for banking and funds becomes even more fundamental.
The tear in the fabric for women is often exceptionally extreme. We are the ones that are often called on first to manage and resource a special needs or chronically ill child or challenged elder. With the rise in chronic illness to 1 our of every 2 people in this country, we are also the first derailed from the economic system that sustains us, especially when we are sole provider for ourselves or children.
As Rachel Qulter reminds us of how she finds this hope through the Myelin Repair Foundation:
We continue to be discounted in the work place as people of value.
The women, i know personally have completed graduate education with significant debt. Many after school have been challenged to obtain jobs in this economy or opted for self-employment. They become more so than men, up until now, burdened with significant challenge to support home and family.
Around 2004, I was invited as a journalist to participate in a financial service conference for an alumnae group of women at a top 10 MBA program. I was told when offered the invitation, I could not reveal the discussion in any factual way that was launched with an speaker from Catalyst, a women’s research think tank on the status of women’s capacity to lead in corporate settings.
As a skilled pulse-taker, I observed a view that there was no permission to give public audience to. All but 1 of the female leaders who spoke or sat on panels, had a child or a family member chronically ill. One woman, of significant personal resource left her job after witnessing a significant breach of ethic in a financial security firm, that is in public view.
A few women spoke about battle with life threatening illness and the cost of that and the impact on them personally and how they change. A chairwoman in banking ( a hard position to obtain) offered a mea culpa and apology for the cost of her career choice to her daughters, her exhusband and herself.
For me, it has been years of waiting, networking and praying to build a network of women friends, who know this kind of experience like me. The women from the university conference are women who primarily know personal wealth and “buy their support systems,” that most of my friends cannot.
For years I was an outsider in what I call fundamentalist spiritual support groups in economic communities of wealth, where often the teachers, the coaches and others spurned people who lived the circumstance I live has being stuck in a limiting beliefs or having brought their circumstance to their door.
Trust me when I say, no woman (and often husband) selects to give birth to an autistic children or a premature baby requiring neonatal care that can accelerate into the hundreds of thousands and bankrupt a family. No woman that I know wants to ignore her elderly parents with Alzheimer or Parkinson Disease and then has to face the question for how long? And how will I continue to support myself and cope with this?
This is now an all too common examination for women and men.
It translates into a economic, emotional and spiritual issue at the root of challenge to women working in the institutional world. I believe from the perspective of a corporate financial service global firm is unlikely to ever be addressed. Yet when the firm causes harm, watch out, what is not reported in a compliance report is the harm to people who are dealing with the financial stress of chronic and life threatening illness.
What Does this Have to Do with Financial Service Industry?
My own struggle with Tapscotts’ editorial was the cry for more regulation or self-repair by a global industry that has not impacted harm of the “tear in the fabric.”
For years, I have not seen corporation or non-profit institution or government regulation or program repair or alter this tear to impact the health of people who live at the edge of the tear in our social fabric in local communities.
There is a lot of work ahead for all of us, not just the change agents like me. Recently I received an email from a man, who has worked with me to alter my thinking, just as my spiritual support system that I draw on from women like me.
To me successful economic change reaches beyond the peer-to-peer arena that has pre-occupied much of the self-anointed leadership of the sustainability movement and has the potential to move sustainability practice into the hands of the masses – where it has always belonged.
As I welcome in more advice and shift the focus of my own work from the tradition of media and consulting to focus on repair of the social fabric through economic development, I have to thank a few remarkable people, who don’t want to be thanked for showing a new direction for me to guide my own spirit in these challenging times and construct a new view of myself and a view of my work that I can construct with others for more impact.
It requires imagination and a new style of conversation that generates change.
As my long time friend, Bill Shireman, President and CEO of the Future 500, another Huffington Poster recently stated,
If we do not see the world as magical, then we are not awake!”
My response to Bill is,
Magic invites a new form of conversation that unites the practical nature of economic and business with a value that every person you know can sustain and if in the process of working with others, that person makes a real difference, I am happy to see them thrive.”
I am now putting to pen, speech, presentation and media what is in my imagination that can spark concrete local change to infrastructure for health to build repair and a new future for our children. I welcome you to join your magic and imagination with me.
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Author’s bio: Lavinia Weissman is an sustainable market leadership coach, journalist, and publisher of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com.
As a speaker, she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ.
As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire professional development that assures a person the opportunity to embed sustainability as a leader into the network and culture of people they work with. She has a private practice where she works with women to embrace the experience of chronic illness that challenges their livelihood and form of work.
Can Sustainable Venture Repair the Social Fabric of the Global and Local Economy?
Integrating Repair of the Local Economy into Incubation Scenarios for Cleantech or any Sustainable Venture
By Lavinia Weissman
@WeCareHealth56
Boulder Co
Jochen Kleef’s editorial, “Global Clean Tech Challenge: Clean Tech and Innovation – An Issue of Scale” was published in parallel with the start of the Wall Street Protest and Obama’s appointment of Jeffrey Immelt as Job Tsar to the US.
Kleef’s focus in his editorial was on “the challenges for these clean technologies are many ranging from simply the human resistance to change or accepting new approaches, engineering as well as technical hurdles and the running of a business professionally with commercial success.”
Kleef’s perspective is from his examination of launching an incubator and technology platform in Asia and the intricacies of create investment, commercial success and examining the benefits of localization and culture (Asia versus a global approach, e..g Immelt’s EcoImagination).
What happens when you shift the focus of sustainable business venture strategy to repair of the global or local social fabric?
A little over two weeks ago, James Schwinn contacted me. James is an economic development adviser, who has a successful career in international capital markets and venture development.
Schwinn has changed the forum in which he works to take a leadership position – along with his partners, John L. Knott, Jr. and Charles Randall – that is focused the reorganization and redevelopment of its capital resources – financial, physical, natural and human – as the essential gateway to building self-sustaining economies and jobs.
The 3 partners created a chain of strategy and action that is taking root in South Carolina, starting in the Noisette Community of North Charleston. While investigating Schwinn’s success with his partners, I figured out very quickly our conversation was much more than a chat or interview. It was a foundation for a generative dialogue, which few people ever engage with.
Generative dialogue is the 4th state of inquiry and rarely begins in the first conversation where the learning forms creates a path of strategy and action. It is a competency exercised by leaders who know how to do more than inspire change.
The partners build the social network architecture based on what the community needs by creating a geometric scheme of relationships, where learning forms into patterns of activity that form strategic activity that produces results and change.
In this way, the partners of EcoBank, Network LLC insure results that build repair to a social fabric of a local community that requires a change to return to health – that repairs the environment, local economy, habitat and people’s capacity to live. Introduction to this form of thought leadership
Take 24 minutes to review this presentation, Financing Sustainability; James Schwinn, Presenter at the 2010 Gaining Ground Conference in Vancouver.
I watch this video 4 times.
It did not take me long to realize that this presentation was a context for the development of an accelerated learning lab to serve the incubation and repair of sustainable commercial ventures in a pattern of community interaction with local government and citizen forums that united a view and formed an architecture to repair the social fabric of community.
Whether this is organized in a region of Asia or the United States, there are critical activities that I have always viewed important and missing in the movement of business that describes itself as a Sustainable Venture or Corporate Social Responsible Business that I believe does not integrate responses that repair the social fabric of local community and its economy.
Why has Commercial Business and Incubation Failed to Repair Local Economy?
Commercial business and planning historically has been transactionally driven as an exercisse to manage a spread sheet. This spread sheet is used to monitor a capitlization plan with profit and loss that serves a limited group of stakeholders.
This mechanistic approach is fundamental reason that the Wall Street investment engine resulting in an extension of the 2008 financial global meltdown sand cycle continuing to this day.
How Can We Break from this Destructive Pattern?
Local to me in Boulder County, Colorado, I began a very female style of networking that has resulted in a preliminary format from which to build a partnership with the DaVinci Institute
This began in what I perceive to be a best form of women’s networking and generative dialogue. Amanda Johnson, DaVinci Council of Luminaries, my coaching client, asked to shift her relationship with me so I could partner with her and Deb Frey, V.P., DaVinci Institute. Amanda asked DaVinci’s Vice President, Deb Frey to join us.
DaVinci’s founder, Thomas Frey has followed the tradition of structure and organization of some of the most reputable consulting ventures from a futurist point of view, e.g. my colleague Jonathan Peck, President of Institute of Alternative Futures in Alexandria, Va.
Deb joined her husband Thomas a few years back to manage the firm and has been percolating on a vision to translate the assets and brilliant engagement that Thomas has guided to translate into something more meaningful for the community that is taking form around the DaVinci Institute.
Deb has come to recognize that a critical stage for making this vision real and practical is the requirement that the Institute learn to assess and serve the community need to create a fabric of innovation locally in the Boulder County area. Deb is also very aware that most thought leaders or futurists do not know how to build the capacity to translate vision into action.
Deb has invited my leadership and capacity building talent to work with her and Amanda to build this vision into practical stages of real time development.
DaVinci Institute will be the host for my November 12, 20011 program, Foundations of Portfolio work. Watch for next weeks press release with link to a registration page.
How is This all Helping Me to Change my Focus into More Productive Energy that Implies Progress?
Since arriving in Colorado and working with a few consultants in this community, it has been eating at me how deep our denial is in the US. My conversations with James Schwinn have validated my intuition.
I am certain this is true in other places, e.g. Asia, as well. In the fractured economy, commercial business is conducted on a transactional basis.
Companies as shown by the UN Global Compact performance report are continuing even as enlightened leaders of CSR and Sustainability to perpetuate that which is broken and re-enforce the systems that have are obstructing job creation, the building of healthy investments and platforms of economic development.
To build the new infrastructure, we need to repair the health of the environment, people, economy and habitat. But any form of press shows how many people are joining for protest and well intentioned “flittering,” that goes now where.
Where Does the Word Flittering Come From? And What Do We Have to Do to Stop this Pervasive Behavior?
Over coffee with a friend “Samantha Weston”, I learned a new word,“flitter.”
Sam has followed her career in bio-pharm and finance with a new passion for oil painting. She said when the paint splatters all over the place, that is called flittering.
Conditions today for me are like a map of flitter splatters; we have not gotten down to the serious work of change by assessing the needs of the people and children they love to find the resources needed from which to assure stability for themselves and who they care for.
Amanda Johnson, Deb Frey and I have pulled together our work with that view. Schwinn and his partners have had the financial and resources of scale they need to impact and step up to do the job and have the impact they can have.
This is also based on the notion of performing social network analysis that forecasts the need of people or the community formation they wish build for economic impact.
For years the transactional approach has obstructed the voice of community need after downsizing and investment harm. Schwinn captured my attention and put sparkle to my eyes when in his presentation he outlined that responsible planning and engagement plans for cycles of progress and cycles of decline.
I know no man that has put into a sentence more of what is natural to women when they care for their families or lead through cycles of change in the community where they live or the vertical commercial venture that employs them.
This was a value core to many of the men who have mentored me; but not often translated into a leadership platform in government, commercial business and the non profit sector by economic core groups of decision makers.
If you are aligned with repairing social fabric of a local community that serves the needs of people, subscribe to this blog and watch for more stories of meaningful use that serves the needs of people for generations moving forward.
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Author’s bio: Lavinia Weissman is an sustainable market leadership coach, journalist, and publisher of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com.
As a speaker, she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ.
As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire professional development that assures a person the opportunity to embed sustainability as a leader into the network and culture of people they work with.
Publisher’s Letter – Introducing TSOMU Fall Issue – 2011
Our next series of articles will focus on “accelerated change.”
9/11 – 10 years later – represents an unfortunate trend in human behavior that occurs immediately after a natural disaster or catastrophe of massive harm.
The 1st responders performed the heroic deed of rescue, recovering the dead and creating some order to the destruction.
But after this initial phase of recovery and response, one has to ask if any leader stepped up to observe, monitor and act on the outgrowth of harm to the people, economy, environment and habitat? And why was there no response to accelerate the response to this growing harm?
What happened post 9/11?
The Bush Administration, the US EPA Director and Mayor Guiliani assured the public that New York City air quality was fine. We now know that is wrong.
Over the past 10 years, a growing evidence base of medical harm that includes a variety of cancers and pulmonary/lung related diseases and more.
Response to this growing medical evidence data base has multiplied the frequency with which NY Firefighter and World Trade Center survivors are stricken with pulmonary and lung related disease or encounter cancer and die.
Tom Zeller, a Huffington Post reporter, on 9/9/2011 reported on how this struggle for help for these victims is just beginning to take form 10 years after the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Zeller interviewed John Feal, a retired Ground Zero disabled worker who sustained an injury at the site, offered his perspective post injury that took half his foot;
“I don’t need a doctor or a scientist or 12 years of college and a Ph.D and an MBA — no offense to them — but I don’t need anybody to tell me that 9/11 didn’t cause or did cause cancer,”
Feal’s own struggle to win compensation for his injury prompted him to establish the nonprofit FealGood Foundation to help 9/11 responders cope with the physical, mental and financial fallout of that day. He said he’s getting more and more requests for help from cancer sufferers.
How 9/11 prompted my thought leadership and journalism
After 9/11, I stopped watching mainstream news. I tired from what I perceived to be unproductive forms of protest, denial and debate.
It was clear to me that the mainstream media audience needed a new form of journalism and post event response that was going to repair or prevent future harm from events like 9/11, Katrina, Haitian Earthquake, tsunamis, hurricane and earthquakes.
Like many other citizens, I concluded that events like these were accelerating because of the denial of the politicians, government officials and commercial business around the world.
The tangible evidence of this acceleration was evident to any American with the new-formed reality that 1 out of 2 Americans now live with a chronic illness sparked or complicated by environmental and chemical toxins.
Based on this observation, I shaped a question from which to grow my investigation and learning:
What does it mean to pay attention and stop denial?
I turned my attention more aggressively to identifying communities of people in business and the public sector that dared to form innovative responses to sustain a future for our children.
Many groups have formed with a mission to discover what it takes to turn the societal impacts of what we do when we go to work, reside in local communities and sustain the health of our family economically.
Each group is building a quality of life that assures us the best health possible, whether we are living, working or dying; and by joining with a learning community, over time each group creates its own “story of meaningful use.”
Sustaining TSOMU Proof of Concept
This past summer, drawing on dialogue with my personal advice network that includes Trina Hoefling and Bernie Kelly, I developed a monetization model to sustain thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com and its companion page on Facebook.
The model as a business model moves beyond the concept of virtual collaboration to defining partnerships linked to the magazine for public and private educational communities that are shaping through dialogue, inquiry and stories of meaningful use, concrete stories of meaningful use.
What is unique about these communities is that they incubate ideas, build a deliberate and organic discovery process to shape activities of applied learning that impact the health of the environment, economy, people, and habitat
The editorial direction and format for these public and private communities will growing into a live educational journal. The community can report on their learning and the discovery of outcomes and metrics that have shaped out of hard work and investment with the intention for meaningful impact and response to harm from the perspective of the Earth Charter Precautionary Principle.
TSOMU public community access will offer current reports on how these learning communities take shape and archive these communities’ stories of meaningful use (applied learning).
The private communities integrate and contract with me and other associates in TSOMU’s professional community to capture the story of action research learning labs that are structured to accelerate applied learning through the building of trust. This happens in an incubated learning environment that invites accelerated learning through the use of investment and shared resources.
An Innovative Market Ready Publishing Format
For the past 3 years, I have carried out the hard work of proof of concept for this new monetization model for producing a web-based magazine on the web of sustainable value.
For each learning community that TSOMU serves, we will capture the story that brings a project to life through advocacy and inquiry. Trust building is basic to this concept of applied learning.
Over the next year, parallel to shaping the performance of this publishing venture, I will work with representation from all our stakeholders to set up and put to use a performance and accountability system to measure how this magazine contributes to sustainable value of all the communities we serve, public and private.
Our goal is to attract community participation (public and private) and design a form of communication and reporting that is not excessive or confusing to support our readers and clients to do the work that measures tangible impact and outcome.
Why is this of Value Now?
This 10 year performance review found the membership of the UN Global Compact had failed to build the performance model that embedded sustainability through global companies beyond the walls of corporate headquarters into subsidiaries and the supply chain.
This review followed a report from George Kell, Executive Director of the UNGC, on the impact of UNGC’s 6,000 members over 130 countries.
This performance review of the UNGC’s work over the past 10 years parallel’s the lack of response to the growing harm that has taken form as a result of 9/11.
This assures the intelligence and heart of why the publication of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com is so timely. The articles featured in this next cycle of publishing include contributions and editorial from
Jochen Kleef, Chairman EcoPoints Asia
Bernie Kelly, Principal, Intelog Health
I hope as our reader, that as you select and read articles that are relevant to you and you will join the dialogue for accelerated change and applied learning that this magazine serves.
Take a minute to add your thoughts (comments) to what you think of our agenda and help to build our community of accelerated change to embed sustainability.
Best,
Lavinia Weissman
Can Sustainability Sustain?
A New Wave and Format for Stakeholder Engagement
By Lavinia Weissman
Boston MA
Last week, I attended the web-located press room briefing by George Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. George presented an overview of the UNGC’s 2010 Annual Review. What I heard did not surprise me.
The conclusion in my opinion was not new news. Of the 6,000 Global Compact members surveyed, there is not sufficient global adoption of sustainable measures. The 6,000 UNGC members represent less than 8% of 80,000 companies that need to embed sustainability.
The additional summary points were not new news.
- CEO awareness is high. Execution and implementation is low;
- Beyond the corporate headquarter of the UNGC multinational members adoption is low in subsidiaries and the small to mid-size enterprises that comprise the “supply chain;”
- The excuse for low adoption continues to be insufficient resources for implementation.
From my perspective this analysis perpetuates “embedded sustainability” as a practice of risk management or compliance and not innovation.
Yet the global citizen voice reflected by its leaders and ordinary people are asking for the “discovery” of “embedded sustainability” as a response to problems inherent to how economic decision makers from all sectors have led us into the resulting harm of global warming and poverty and the resulting harm impact on rising incidence of disease, unemployment and declining conditions of habitat and local economy.
What I have learned….
Inadequate resources imply not enough money and more importantly, not enough educated people to perform the jobs of sustainability. My downsizing research across numerous Fortune 2000 companies consistently showed that when corporate leaders downsized, they were also unwilling to support the retooling and education of a workforce with out of date skills.
In a downsized culture, motivation becomes a practice of survival and protecting one’s job. It is only when a catastrophe occurs, e.g. the BP Oil Spill that the economic decision makers release resources to repair harm and then offer the public a view of the company will now adhere to compliance and regulation.
The culture of response to a “catastrophe” becomes a culture of accountability in response to liability and wrong-doing. The leadership drivers are shaped top-down and across a hierarchy of organization where people are told what to do and when they cannot do it, they blame the organization for lack of training and skill.
In contrast, virtual team and innovation research showed that when creativity and imagination are fostered extraordinary results are discovered through the learning of sound science and applying that science through the adoption of tools (technology) that invites high performance of teams and people across networks of expertise that learn to cooperate in service of building outcomes for sustainable value.
In a culture of innovation, high-performance brings investment rather than proof of concept because no matter the landscape of diversity (culture and expertise), the people anywhere within the network shaping sustainable value are aligned on building capacity for the purpose of producing sustainable value.
Within the picture is a dilemma…
Traditionally investors and economic decision makers want to hedge their bets and invest in something that has been historically proven sustainable value. Yet the need to learn sustainable value is a response to a burst in society that has led to economic upheaval from how investors of any kind and motive (business, philanthropy and government).
To deliver sustainable value, investors have to learn a leadership value for recruiting and facilitating an organization of people that recognize failure is part of the cycle of building successful sustainable value and organize investments that prompt societal responses to what we have to address for global climate warming, poverty, disease, water and energy in a incubator of learning where there is less overall risk to one investor and the discovery of great impact for a even a network of competitors.
For example, on the numerous occasions of investigating the projected harm of non-ionizing radiation, I have wondered what would happen if the companies that rely on non-ionizing radiation for defense, telecommunications and medical equipment would invest in an organization to investigate forms of reducing risk of impact on the “growing proof” that non-ionizing radiation is resulting in a rise in cancers, e.g. Leukemia and brain tumors?
Instead over the last two decades or more, we have seen a heated debate in the press between the scientific community, regulators and commercial lobbying groups.
What is interesting to me if I look at the perspective of what it will take to engage stakeholders in a world of early adoption is most likely to occur if a system of accelerated action research is organized into a collaboration that is strategic, purposeful and engaged by deliberate design.
In my studies of how that occurs that can lead to multicultural adoption, I have witnessed and studies for sometime the behavior, culture and outcomes delivered by 3 capacity building organizations unique to specific issues of sustainability:
- ChemSec.org from the get go gave exceptional performance in service of its mission to build a world free of chemical harm. Chemical Sec had a unique beginning in that the initial investors were through an investment fund created by other non-profits.
ChemSec engages corporate stakeholders in the exploration of substitutes for harmful chemicals and serves a bridge of advocacy for the citizen voice that has suffered harm from chemicals that needs to be substituted now.
ChemSec is an European organization that has been invited to present in the US and become a hub of learning for a , Stanford doctoral candidate in the Green Chemistry network established through an alliance between faculty at University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University.
- EDF.org was founded in 1967 in the United States at a point in time, when non profits environmental groups refused any association with corporations out of what was defined a clear conflict of interest.
EDF’s mission is to find market-based solutions based on sound science built from unlikely partnerships and non-partisan policy. EDF’s best practice fellowship program resulted in 51 MBA students generated for EDF’s corporate partners, “$350 million in net operating savings over the projects’ lifetimes. 400,000 metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions. More than 650 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.“
- MyelinRepair.org – As recently reported in the New York Times by David Bornstein: While the US Food and Drug Administration approved 21 drugs for use in 2008, in the same year 800,000 medical research papers were published exploring the cure for disease.
In contrast, the Myelin Repair collaboration out of a combined investment of $80M formed for MS research by Scott Johnson, Founder and President
1. Identification of over 150 novel potential targets;
2. Development of 24 new research tools for broad application to other neurological disease
3. Filing two US patents and applied for 16 more;
4. Publication of 50 peer review articles;
5. The launch of broader collaboration with pharma companies;
6. Extending this research base for benefit to 70 other disease categories.
What do these organizations share in common?
None of these 3 NGO’s are lost in the “muck and myre” of protest and conflict. They are focused on purpose that as uniting principle through which people can form an agenda and guide themselves to learn to innovate change.
Perhaps one of the most costly uses of donations and grants has been to fuel conflict and protest. As Jochen Kleef, founder and CEO of Ecopoint.Asia recently reflected to me in an email,
“The thought this brought to my mind is, where would we be today if Greenpeace would have engaged with the establishment and stakeholders rather than confronting them. I am not questioning Greenpeace’s achievements or the results they have achieved, but I think there could have been so much more coming out of the last 30 years…”
About the time of formation of the 1987 Brundtland Commission,
Greenpeace shifted its focus from the peace movement and antinuclear protest to building this engagement of conflict. This enabled a pattern that the US continues to be locked into today,
1. Many NGO’s see it their role to protest “corporate greed;
2. The scientific community in most instances refuses to engage with corporations or accept financial support for fear that this can be perceived as conflict of interest;
3. As a result , this pushes an expectation that change can only happen if government authors policies and regulation; hence pushing the notion that risk management and compliance is what leads change to protect the environment and people.
Moving Beyond this Trap…
None of the 3 organizations I described previously are trapped by that system of thought.
Today, Greenpeace is a global NGO headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands with offices in over 40 countries and 2.8Mno donors and foundations providing grants.
So while leading NGO Think tanks around the world point out challenges to building resources to shift adoption of sustainability across subsidiaries of multinationals and small and medium size enterprise; one has to wonder with the lost jobs, inability of so many to gain the right education to be employed and the impact of global warming and toxic exposures on a growing geography of people facing poverty complicated with chronic illness.
What would have happen if Greenpeace had shifted its focus from the peace movement and antinuclear protest to building engagement with corporations to adopt sustainable practices instead of perpetuating and reshaping the protest and campaign methodology of anti-war to the environment?
Would Marc Gunther be reporting as he did last week that the cost of natural disasters in 2010 grew to $130B?
Would the economic powers struggling with the global recession continue to avoid the real focus for economic development by investing in the education of its people who are unemployed or becoming of age to join the workforce and create a sustainable method of employment to replace the dying system of full employment based on one life-time job?
Will leaders of the sustainability movement regroup themselves to sustain sustainability by acting on science as we know it today?
Is this form of innovation the best practice to return balance to our global ecology?
Ultimately to sustain sustainability and be effective in creating a global system of health for the environment, economy, people and habitat —-politicians, business and NGO leaders can learn from ChemSec, EDF and Myelin Repair Foundation the most important lesson on how to align purpose to accelerate cooperation and collaboration that will result in embedding sustainability into all aspects of the global economy.
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Authors bio:
Lavinia Weissman is an sustainable market leadership coach, journalist, and publisher of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com. As a speaker she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ. As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire professional development that assures a person the opportunity to embed sustainability as a leader into the network and culture of people they work with.
WEResearch Note – #pharma – Beyond Business as Usual!
A Research Summary
by Lavinia Weissman
(graphic: from Vertex Pharmaceuticals collection)
Sanofi Aventis announced the completion of its acquisition of Genzyme, April ll, 2011. Now is it business as usual for this progressive global pharmaceutical company?
This raises the question what is “business as usual,” for pharma? The answer is simple: “There is no such thing as business as usual for #pharma.”
I began reporting on the changing space of #pharma after the Babson Life Science Conference in 2010, where Matthew Emmens, CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in his keynote described his vision for the future #pharma
” Emmens recognizes that treatment for the majority of ailments, e.g. acid reflux, has and will continue to grow over the counter. Therefore, the future is about creating a biopharm industry that is responsive to challenging disease that will address the 150 different types of cancer and growing number of systemic ailments. The challenge will be to fund this innovation and research and organize an investment formula that is dedicated to this new emerging market. “
Scott Johnson, CEO and capacity building, Myelin Repair Foundation has proactively since 2004 initiated discovery of an accelerated methodology that leaps beyond what Johnson describes as the Valley of Death.
Any person diagnosed with a chronic or life threatening illness faces this valley emotionally and physically upon diagnosis. This person lives in the context of questions:
- Will there be a cure for me before I have to face total disability or impending death?
- Can I sustain the cost of treatment to assure a quality of life out of which I can sustain myself and live?”
Johnson developed with his colleagues, an accelerated research collaboration , the describe as ARC. This model was put to use and built capacity for acceleration by a group of researchers drawn from 4 academic institutions to combine their agenda in search of a cure. Johnson with the Myelin Repair Foundation raised matching funds of $40 M and this matched the$40M of combined funding the academic research institutions had. Drawing from resources from 4 medical schools, the community organized an agenda to leap beyond the “valley of death” where so many patients with MS get lost.
Myelin Repair Foundation in contrast to the FDA
Social innovation expert, David Bornstein recently compared the results generated by the FDA in 2008 to what has been reported by MRF
In his NYTimes Editorial, Bornstein reported that Food and Drug Administration approved 21 drugs for use in 2008, in the same year 800,000 medical research papers were published exploring the cure for disease. In contrast, the collaboration formed for MS research by Scott Johnson led to these results:
- identification of over 150 novel potential targets;
- development of 24 new research tools for broad application to other neurological disease;
- filing two US patents and applied for 16 more;
- publication of 50 peer review articles;
- the launch of broader collaboration with pharma companies;
- extending this research base for benefit to 70 other disease categories.”
Reporting on the pharmaceutical industry is growing complex, especially as more and more companies step their toes into examining the ethic of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The complexity ties to growing questions about how to oversee patient involvement in clinical trials for the progression of research, treatment and cure.
When does the patient become a guinea pig and when does the growing differences in approach to clinical trials internationally become an obstacle to the potential cure or treatment of disease? and when is quality of life more important than treatment?
There is a growing recognition of the implications of the quadruple bottom line (4bl) and its implications to health for people, environment, ethic and planet and its implications of how any company approaches any initiative for health and treatment.
Sanofi Aventis has come to recognize that this context may in fact imply a process of learning and inquiry that implies shifting their corporate strategy beyond the tradition of how pharmaceuticals go about business as usual. In 2009, CEO Chris Veihbacher announced Sanofi’s clear commitment to improve the health of as many of the 6.8B people walking the planet. With the publication of its 2010 report, a value was expressed to deepen this mission by describing itself as a global health care leader.
In coming to this conclusion, Sanofi has asserted an ethic to contain as part of their strategy and development model to appreciate today’s human economic challenges and factoring in societal issues of cost of health care and treatment, chronic illness pandemics, e.g. Diabetes, and access to medical care in its priority from a global view.
Sanofi Aventis continues to be a company to watch and learn from. It is a company that has adopted transparency, so please do not look to Sanofi for perfection and answers to copy. Sanofi has added to its agenda the difficult question of how to balance profit and sustainability. It is a systemic approach that moves beyond the traps of green marketing described this week by Joel Makower, “Green Marketing Is Over. Let’s Move On.”
Sanofi Aventis is acknowledge what I first heard described by Matthew Emmens, when he said pharma was moving beyond the marketing of generis to face the reality of responding to the activism and demand from communities of people living with chronic and life threatening illness.
The new health care leader will be paying heed to what the Myelin Repair Foundation response to the valley of death. Pharma companies will be regroup into consumer goods, wellness products and services, treatment and cure innovation and much more.
Sanofi Aventis, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline are all early stage members of the UN Global Compact will continue to be companies to watch that are helping to author a new leadership and market place in support of health. In this context,
I believe we will be reading more about the annual cost of living with a chronic or life threatening illness.
I believe, we will be reading less about what pharmacy offers you or what generic drug is available for the least cost.
In the not to distant future, I believe we will be reading more about how treatment, procedures, equipment is organized for ease of access and how the expense will be covered by patient and health coverage (insurance, government and assistance programs, and medical savings accounts) and what that implies to the supply chain, consumer product distribution and retail.
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Authors bio:
Lavinia Weissman is an sustainable market leadership coach, journalist, and publisher of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com. As a speaker she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ. As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire professional development that assures a person the opportunity to embed sustainability as a leader into the network and culture of people they work with.
What About the Patient?
Can sustainability practices bring about better patient care? – Post 3
By Lavinia Weissman
@WeCareHealth52525252
original date of publication in CSRWireTalkback 08 December 2010
The final thought on the potential Sanofi Aventis and Genzyme M&A – and what this could mean for sustainability practices in #biopharm. Click here for Post I and Post II.
The Sanofi Aventis bid of $69 per share for Genzyme expires on December 10, 2010. Genzyme responded to this bid, claiming a share value of perceived $89.
Part of the Genzyme valuation was based on projected sales for Campath, a drug that has just cleared five years of clinical trials with multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.
By November 22, 2010, Genzyme had begun internal discussion about structuring a ”contingent value right” (CVR), based on future benchmarks, as a possible gesture indicating they may accept less than $89 per share. Filing of a CVR insures shareholders can receive benefit from future achieved sales and regulatory targets that exceed expectations at the time of a merger.
Fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan could easily mark out an explanation of why nine Wall Street financial analysis of sales projections for Campath were inaccurate. These nine analysis also included predictions by Sanofi’s of $700M and Genzyme’s of $3.5B in annual sales in the range of $350M and $1M offered by other analysts. I perceived one critical loophole in this analysis, which is pivotal to authoring a sustainable merger acquisition strategy:
Has Sanofi or Genzyme consulted with MS patients regarding their needs?
According to the World Health Organization, there are over 2.5M people globally diagnosed with MS. The United States population is the largest country population, now estimated at 1.5M patients. Every hour someone is diagnosed with MS.
MS symptoms occur as result of symptoms to a patient’s myelin sheath. When the myelin sheath is attacked by autoimmune disorders, the patients central nervous system is compromised and the patients nervous system stops communicating clear signals. Autoimmune disorders can be activated by al toxins or genetic defects due to the same. MS patients then find themselves living with pain, muscle spasms, speech impairment, bladder control problems and increased susceptibility to allergens.
The rapid increase in frequency of occurrence of this disease is related in part to increased number of cases and an improved capability in diagnosing the disease, which was first diagnosed 150 years ago. It is not clear how many cases in the past year were undiagnosed. There is no cure for MS; drug treatments focus on treatment of the symptoms and can result in the development of more symptoms or potential harm to circulation, kidney and liver functioning and more.
There is no drug to cure or prevent this illness. It is estimated it would take a $1B+ investment to find a cure. In the past the growth economy claimed it was hard enough for high-mid cap firms to raise those kind of funds without a 60X rate of return. In the emerging eco-growth economy, it is not possible for one biopharm company to raise this kind of investment.
What are patient views of experience with MS and what kind of unmet need now exists for these patients?
Emmy award winner, Montel Williams is one of the most well-known MS patients to date that has articulated the situation and need of his co-patients.
Williams was diagnosed with MS over 10 years ago, when someone threatened to make this information public. In response to this threat, Williams (a talk show host and actor) arranged to be interviewed by Dr. Mehmet Oz on the Oprah Show to make his diagnosis and experience public.
Montel has made known the challenges of depression and suicidal tendencies that patients may experience as a result of learning to come to grips with two major threats:
- the potential of losing ones ability to be independent and a breadwinner;
- the fear that you meet every morning that you may wake up and not be able to walk.
Since this first appearance on Oprah, Montel has dedicated a significant amount of time to advocate for MS patients. He also educates patients about new treatments involving alternative medicine and use of medical devices. As a former Naval Intelligence Officer, he advocates and visits with veterans who suffer from MS and other injuries and illnesses that result in the need for myelin repair.
Montel established a foundation to raise money for MS medical research. He recognized as a result of his experience how critical it has become to raise money for more holistic research, which is the only way research will be conducted for prevention and cure.
What is the agenda for myelin repair?
Scott Johnson, an Ernst and Young Awarded Entrepreneur was diagnosed at age 20 with MS. In 2002, using his skills as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and business person, Scott established the Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF).
By 2004, through Scott’s leadership, MRF established as a goal to license the first myelin repair therapeutic target for commercial development within five years. To achieve this, Scott authored the Accelerated Collaborative Research™ (ARC) methodology. By constructing a collaboration with four principle investigators, MRF and team have:
- identified over 150 novel potential targets;
- developed 24 new research tools for broad application to other neurological disease;
- filed two US patents and applied for 16 more;
- published 50 peer review articles;
- begun broad collaboration with pharma companies;
- extended this research base for benefit to 70 other disease categories.
Has Sanofi Aventis or Genzyme talked to MRF?
When I began investigating the practice of sustainability and its relevance to pharma, I was moved to do so after listening to a speech by Matthew Emmens, CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, about his perceived future for pharma in today’s economy. Emmens has established a mission for Vertex to “seek treatment for a profound change in serious disease.”
The index to the Vertex website draws a pattern of strategy, action and methods on how every stakeholder tied to this company works toward that mission.
It would appear if the basis for acceptance of any Sanofi Aventis bid for Genzyme depends on an understanding of the what the implications of the drug Campath to the MS market, that it is incumbent on both companies to form a working group and open the conversation to a much wider group of stakeholders. This form of stakeholder engagement may represent a new format because of the complexity of issues entailed in creating profound change in serious disease.
The stakeholder map and landscape is far more complex than an industry-based view of supply chain, consumers and distributors in a product-based market. The stakeholders include patients, medical research think tanks, drug companies, clinicians who treat patient of all kinds, insurance companies, benefit administrators, human resource employees, disability experts and more.
This certainly could result in authoring a collaborative, intelligent and quality sustainability business practice for pharma.
Readers: What do you think – can this potential merger lead to greater sustainability in the biopharm industry, and help patients?
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Authors bio:
Lavinia Weissman is an sustainable market leadership coach, journalist, and publisher of thestoryofmeaningfuluse.com. As a speaker she describes the new emerging patterns of markets shaped by sustainable market leaders and the social networks they work with and employ. As a coach, Lavinia works with all her clients to inspire professional development that assures a person the opportunity to embed sustainability as a leader into the network and culture of people they work with.
