Einfach-Schnell-Klar » Sustainability

Self-organisation may lead to high costs

Felix — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:25:03 +0000

Indian traffic relies heavily on self-organization. The cost of the lack of governance is high: e.g. more than 118,000 fatalities due to traffic accidents in 2008 (+40% in five years).

KM is too generic, let’s focus on KM for Sustainability

Felix — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:26:00 +0000

Eventually, I would like to combine two of my professional passions: “knowledge management” and “sustainability”. I studied environmental sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and worked six years for an environmental management consulting company, mostly on international cooperation projects focussing on sustainable development issues.

I decided to pursue my growing second passion and started as a knowledge management consultant back in 2000. I’ve been with my current employer for nearly three years working as the knowledge manager for the 600-employee business transformation consulting group of SAP consulting.

Visual Innovation

Felix — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:38:27 +0000

TED has again called my attention to an outstanding information design expert. Tom Wujec works on creative innovation (ok, do you know uncreative innovation?) and visual collaboration.
As a knowledge management consultant I perceive the visual framework for business effectiveness as a framework that doesn’t contain new elements. However, the methodology relies heavily on visualized communications and is presented in a very clear way. So, the “how to” part of it is really a “visual innovation”
The so-called “knowledge maps” are collections of sketches from presentations and events. This way of visualizing a presentation is of course different from usual meeting notes. Though, the methodology doesn’t scale. You have to rely on a skilled artist as Tom is to make full use of it. And you have to like his style of doing it.
As a citizen interested in sustainability I would of course love to see the “new previously unseen visualizations” of sustainability and the unveiling of the emerging technology of EcoViz tools.

Sustainability Sells

Felix — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:44:15 +0000

Yann Arthus-Bertrand introduces his wonderful movie Home at TED. ERP vendors won’t change the world alone. However, they play an important role in the socio-political game aiming at achieving a sustainable way of life. This change will not happen tomorrow. It took nearly 15 years between the sustainability discussion in academia – the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology where I studied was and is one of the leading institutions in the field – and the broad adoption by large companies. Hopefully we have reached a tipping point and the time has come to embrace sustainability.
I’m glad that my company SAP has embarked on this journey. The second Sustainability Report shows that SAP also works on the internal performance and expects a lot from business opportunities tied to sustainability. Another positive aspect of the new strategic direction on sustainability is the priority on “digital inclusion” and e.g. the collaboration with the microfinance organization PlanetFinance. Sustainability sells – in the software industry too.