Upstarta.biz

Voting with your wallet for the world you want

arjen — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:21:22 +0000

Anna Lappé said this nicely with

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”

Of course this affects various aspects: whether you spend that money at all for a specific purpose, where you spend it (with whom), and how much.

In Upstarta terms, any choice (action or inaction) has consequences, and thus you own the consequences as much as the choice, they don’t “just happen”. Often the consequences are quite predictable, and if they’re not in line with where you want your company to go, that choice would be the wrong one. So for an Upstarta, Anna’s choice actually applies to any decision, not just those directly costing money.

Many companies don’t consider these things, but it doesn’t cost much extra effort and the secondary effects are worthwhile as well as the “feel good factor” for yourself and your company. It’s not something you would actively use in marketing (that’s uncool), but others will notice and the proactive stance will score you credit and that’s likely to attract extra business of the kind you want. So it can seriously ease your client acquisition process and thus in fact save money and effort there.

There’s More to Happiness Than GDP & There’s a New Report to Prove It

arjen — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:41:12 +0000

http://www.care2.com/causes/theres-more-to-happiness-than-gdp-theres-a-new-report-to-prove-it.html

There is a critical need to move beyond GDP as the primary measurement of societal success and the near cultish goal of nations large and small.

Employers ask job seekers for Facebook passwords

arjen — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 02:19:19 +0000

Employers ask job seekers for Facebook passwords (The Age) This seems completely unnecessarily and inappropriate to me. I don’t buy the “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t have a problem with this” attitude. Do you hand over the keys to your house, show your mobile messages, open your mail, listen to your telephone conversations or voice mail, allow a videocam anywhere in your house? What’s the difference? What do you think?

Slow Advertising – pureland

arjen — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:53:30 +0000

http://pureland.blogspot.com/2011/12/slow-advertising-if-you-were-to-pluck.html

How sake brewing is advertised in a Japanese village.

Bless the toolmakers – Snarkmarket

arjen — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:47:12 +0000

http://snarkmarket.com/2011/7320

“Bless the toolmakers… but I’m worried that everybody wants to be one.” writes Robert Sloan.” Interesting thoughts about exploring the liberal arts (actually being involved in using the tools) and I think there are valid lessons for other realms too. Not all tools need to scale, and never forget about who uses your tools.

Living Beyond Limits – Amy Purdy TEDx

arjen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:21:37 +0000

An inspirational lesson of how something that is often seen as a limitation actually becomes an enabler, triggering imagination and exploration of new avenues. This talk by Amy Purdy is from TEDxOrangeCoast. TEDx was created in the spirit of TED‘s mission, “ideas worth spreading.”

Amy Purdy talks about the power of imagination. She explains how our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by the choices we make. Imagination allows us to break down borders, to move beyond our circumstances, to create and constantly progress. Amy Purdy has been through hardships that most of us will never face — or can even fathom. But what makes her story so incredible is not that fact that she lived a “normal” childhood and spent her high school years as a passionate artist and snowboarder, then traumatically lost both her legs at age 19, but how she has persevered, taking implausible challenges and rising above them. Today, Amy is an athlete; currently the top ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world. Amy also spends a good amount of time helping others; specifically those with physical challenges get involved with snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding and other action sports through the organization she co-founded Adaptive Action Sports. Challenging herself while making a positive impact on the world is a true testament to Amy’s spirit.

Libraries: Where It All Went Wrong – Nat Torkington

arjen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:55:22 +0000

http://nathan.torkington.com/blog/2011/11/23/libraries-where-it-all-went-wrong/

“It was my pleasure to address the National and State Librarians of Australasia on the eve of their strategic planning meeting in Auckland at the start of November this year. I have been involved in libraries for a few years now, and am always humbled by the expertise, hard work, and dedication that librarians of all stripes have. Yet it’s no revelation that libraries aren’t the great sources of knowledge and information on the web that they were in the pre-Internet days. I wanted to push on that and challenge the National and State librarians to think better about the Internet.”

Surgeon Uses 3D Printer To Make Models Of Bone – plus Open Source Software use

arjen — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:22:35 +0000

http://singularityhub.com/2011/11/15/surgeon-uses-3d-printer-to-make-models-of-bone-%E2%80%93-and-saves-hospital-bookoo-bucks/

Using readily available cheap hardware and free/open software tools for commercial CT equipment, this surgeon came up with a quick and affordable solution to prep for helping his client. Company now created to help other surgeons do the same. Of course they could do it themselves with time&effort, but convenience is a good thing to sell.

The Myth of Shareholder Capitalism – Harvard Business Review

arjen — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 02:04:56 +0000

http://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism/ar/1

[...] in an important 2007 article in the Journal of Business Ethics, 31 of 34 directors surveyed (each of whom served on an average of six Fortune 200 boards) said they’d cut down a mature forest or release a dangerous, unregulated toxin into the environment in order to increase profits. Whatever they could legally do to maximize shareholder wealth, they believed it was their duty to do. Why are directors so convinced of their obligation that they’d make decisions with such damaging results?

Start-ups and Safety Nets

arjen — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:52:31 +0000

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/11/10/start-ups-and-safety-nets/

The countries with significantly higher start-up rates than the USA are those with stronger, more comprehensive, and more centralised social safety nets, along with correspondingly higher taxation. It pays off.