Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Sustainability: A Persistent Model
January 29th, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
Most of us can recall being mildly interested if not outright excited when presented as children with products that were “New and Improved”. We soon discovered that these items were hardly new and hardly improved. We grew to accept that marketers prey on our natural desire for variety and change. A declaration of “New” always draw us out to take a peek.
Now, we are being asked to focus on something frightfully more critical then shiny bouncing hair or powerful sudsing action. We are being asked to consider the fate of our world.
It’s tempting to simply order a new and improved product. However, courage demands that we remember to trust established natural conventions. A seed in fertile soil grows. Water filters through natural ecosystems and resolve into fresh pools. Happy children are raised in safe environments.
Nothing new about what works
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The Triple Bottom Line
January 24th, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
People are responding to the clarion call to address a mounting global environmental crisis. In fact recent aggressive actions by certain nations and companies seeking to benefit as early adopters of “sustainable” resource paradigms have triggered a “green wash” of the public discourse.
I leverage tools and paradigms to process (scholarship) and present (artistry) information critical to taking advantage of global trends consistent with the tenets of a triple bottom line (fiscal, environmental, and social).
The Agile Way
January 24th, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
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The Business of Stories
January 21st, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
I position my consultancy at the nexus of academic and media based industries. This strategy allows me to provide solutions that leverage the integrated contributions of academics and artists. Many industries are still enamored by the quantity of data gleaned from data mining efforts. However, some companies are quickly realizing that traditional demographic indicators no longer best predict the purchasing behavior of consumers.
Qualitative analysis (storytelling) is better equipped to paint a complete and robust picture of the characteristics and behavior of increasingly diverse and fragmented populations.
Courting a Global Renaissance
January 21st, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
Renaissance: a space and time in which able men and women emerge regardless of socioeconomic status in a manner that transforms (renews) society.
The precursor for renaissance includes:
- (1) a relative collapse of social borders that allows individuals of various economic segments to interact
- (2) new cultural, artistic and intellectual expressions funded by a nouveau rich class interested in reshaping society in its own image
- (3) technological advancements that reduces the barriers of entry to otherwise protected domains.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, the spending potential of a suddenly affluent Chinese middle class, the increasing proliferation of digital technology, are some of the current factors that create a need and opportunity for a global renaissance. However, the widely divergent and voluminous nature of global trends strains one’s capacity to predict its course and characteristic.
The Power of Identity
January 20th, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
In the late 1960s, Walter Landor culminated his prodigious rise as a design consultant by pioneering a broad range of services that became known as corporate identity. Landor’s success stemmed in part from his ability to orientate men of steel and cement (industrialists) to the power of design (brand). He once said, “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.”
Presently, shifts in society and corporation are realigning how identity supports capital development. Key factors to consider include: (1) The increasing power of the individual as a brand (Oprah, Trump, Gates, Buffet) (2) digital media superseding print media as primary delivery mechanism of brands (3) alignments with diverse populations that remain free of the conflicts that may exist among these groups.
The Social Challenge
January 19th, 2008 | Author: Abel Henry
As society increases in complexity so does the role that each individual plays in society. However, the present rate of social evolution threatens to out-pace our ability to adapt, which leaves us feeling fractured and isolated. More and more, the pressure mounts to take a giant leap of faith to embrace this period of unprecedented peril and opportunity. Yet, most of us are paralyzed by the magnitude of the issues at hand. When we finally do move, we take tiny tentative steps that we second guess at every turn. How do we construct a healthy notion of ourselves when our foundational beliefs are in a severe state of flux? How do we push past simply surviving to secure a life of substance and beauty?
Rise of the River: Journey Beyond the Veil (Day 6)
August 15th, 2006 | Author: Abel Henry
There once lived a mean spirited man who in all his actions sought to implicate others in tragedies of his own making. By and by this fellow came upon a blind man standing and weeping past the rise of the river. The man requested the blind man to tell him how he came to be past the rise of the river and why did he cry so.
“Well”, spoke the blind man with a tremble in his voice. “I hear that a man from God will pass this way soon and I hear that this man will be able to heal me of my blindness. While I have been blind all my life and have gotten quite use to it, I still have not given up hope that one day I may see. Sometimes, I am certain that he will pass and so I cry with joy. Other times, I fear I may not recognize his passing and so then I weep with disappointment.” Read the rest of this entry »
Rise of the River: Journey Beyond the Veil (Day 5)
August 7th, 2006 | Author: Abel Henry
One night, a long time ago, in the future, a city official belabored by the weight of his responsibilities and uncertain about the course of his life, slipped out of the confines of the city to travel a great distance into the surrounding bush-land to search for a village wherein dwelled a woman who he heard possessed great wisdom. Upon arriving at the village and inquiring about the women’s whereabouts, he was directed past the rise of the river, which existed outside the village’s; center plaza, which was simply a clearing placed equicenter to the circular formation of the houses and fields. In turn the entire village was situated equicenter to the natural borders of hills and streams that surrounded it.
As the city official traveled towards the center of the village he was greeted hesitantly by the men, women and children of the village who had little or no contact with city dwellers. When the city official reached past the rise of the river, he was surprised to find a young woman who seemed to be about half his age sitting quietly on a plain sky blue blanket, dangling her feet into the waters below. Assuming her to be the child of the woman he sought, he approached her to ask her mother’s whereabouts.
The city official could barely conceal his surprise and disbelief when she informed him that she was the woman he had traveled such a long distance to meet. Certain that he was the subject of a joke, the city official listened carefully for the laughter of concealed taunters. But the only sound that broke the silence of the night was the air that rushed too quickly in and out of the cavity of his chest as he panted with the anxiety of revealing his innermost thoughts to a woman no older than his daughter.
Yet, he had traveled a great distance to escape the turmoil of his public and private life that occupied his every waking moment and even chased after him into the sanctuary of sleep. So the city official began to reveal the nature of his life and work as the wise woman sat with her eyes cast into the water humming softly.
The rushed and shallow breath and words of the city official formed a terse syncopation when contrasted with the slow, steady and rhythmic breath and words of the wise woman. After hours of hearing the wise woman’s insight into the matters which he came to be counseled and many which he hadn’t., the city official felt as if he had suddenly awaked to a new reality.
Yet, the form of the bearer of the counsel continued to nag him and he blurted out:
“How is it that you have come to be so wise?”
The wise woman paused before speaking to slowly swallow a stream of the warm night air and replied:
“I have searched long and far for truth.”
“But, how can this be”, sputtered the confused city official, “You are younger than me and its told that you have never traveled past the rise of the river”.
Once more the wise woman paused to vitalize her spirit with breath and replied:
“This is true. I have the appearance of youth and my feet have not traveled past those hills over yonder. Yet, you speak of matters for which you have no understanding. Do you know the real nature of time and space? Consider this, a person journeys a thousand miles for a thousand years and learns nothing, while another person scales a flight of stairs once to access the innermost secrets of the universe. It is not the distance or length of one’s journey that matters, but rather the depth of one’s observation.”
The city official was dismissed. He slipped into his fancy black chariot and zoomed into the even blacker night to travel the great distance back to his home in the city. Yet as he moved silently through the barren landscape, his eyes focused on nothing in particular, his breath echoing the beat of time long lost, he realized that the real journey had begun and ended at the feet of the young sage.