The Power of Amazement

I am not sure where David Brooks was going in his Jan 28th oped [column](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/opinion/brooks-alone-yet-not-alone.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0) about faith. He seemed to be saying that those secular folks who disparage the faithful do so because they do not understand what faith is all about. Not surprising to me because many among the faithful cannot explain what “faith” means. In spite of any vagueness, the column is worth reading just for two included quotes. The first is from one of the most human and articulate voices of modern Judaism. > Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described one experience of faith in his book “God… Read More

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Richer than Croesus

I don’t tend to read the business pages of newspapers very much, but last weekend, an [article](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/for-the-love-of-money.html?ref=opinion&_r=0) in the NYTimes caught my eye. With the headline of “For the Love of Money,” it began with: > In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted. This is more than merely greed,… Read More

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Connectedness

Only connect�…�(Howard’s End, E. M. Forster) I have been preparing for a one-day class to be given to a group of doctoral students at the Weatherhead School of Management. They have been assigned *Flourishing*. This will be the first time that this text rather then *Sustainability by Design* has been assigned. I have had to go back and revise all my materials to reflect the change in emphasis and style in *Flourishing*. The first task was to carefully remove just about all the references to sustainability and replace them with “flourishing.” If you have been reading this blog, you will… Read More

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Blah, Blah, Blah

Just a couple of days ago, I posted an article about the distance corporate sustainability programs have moved from reality. Today, I found this on Greenbiz. I wish I had seen it first as it would have been a great lede. > As an avid Twitter user (@bmay), I follow trends in sustainability with interest, and tune in to the daily green business chatter that pervades my timeline. Much of it is hugely valuable as a source of news. But increasingly, I find myself tuning back out of much of the discussion due to the sheer volume of meaningless jargon… Read More

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A Friend Indeed?

Today’s inspiration comes from a Boston Globe [oped piece](http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/01/09/friend-bots-are-new-friends/lTlhQ4ZF6roUUKeLB9poNO/story.html) by Alex Beam who, like I do, is bemoaning the loss of meaning of “friend” due to the insane (my word) drive for numbers on the Internet. > The Russians used to say, “Better have a hundred friends than a hundred rubles.” Now that the social media hot air balloon has inflated the currency of friendship to its present worthless state, I’m brimming with “friends.” The lowest common denominator, the Facebook friend, might be better termed an acquaintance, a pal, or just some schlemiel you may or may not have gone… Read More

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Living on the Other Side of the Looking Glass

“The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.” Karl Kraus As part of my New Year’s work, I read the latest Sloan Management/BCG report on the status of corporate sustainability. The 2013 report is the fifth in this annual series. > The 2013 survey included more than 5,300 executive and manager respondents from 118 countries. This report is based on a smaller subsample of 1,847 respondents from commercial enterprises. To focus on business, we excluded responses from academic, consulting, governmental and nonprofit organizations. Respondent organizations are located around the… Read More

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Happy New Year

Happy New Year. The new year was greeted with a monstrous blizzard and record low temperatures in New England. It will be hard over the next few weeks to write anything about global warming. My wife and I spent a delightful few weeks in India touring the southern parts. We did not visit much of the India that is rapidly industrializing and growing wealthy. We spent most of the time in small villages still living of of farming and cottage trades. I was reinforced in my beliefs that technology both giveth and taketh away, providing uniformity and economy, but dimming… Read More

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