Five Ideas That Matter

Little written about or talked of, or am I missing it all, the German professors who are challenging the legality of the European bail out in the German courts.

A quintet of professors – Wilhelm Hankel, Wilhelm Nölling, Joachim Starbatty, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, and Dieter Spethmann (ex Thyssen CEO) – have just broadened their complaint over the Greek part of the bank rescue to include the new €440bn Stability Facility, which breaks EU law at every turn.

My US friends have been talking confidently about an economic upturn for about a year now, though I see plenty of wise folks also reminding the blogosphere that the recovery is largely jobless – and where there are jobs they are low paid. We have all, except Germany, created economies with little employment multiplier built in (manufacturing jobs used to support 3 jobs in the wider economy whereas a retail job won’t support 1 additional job).

So it is with new respect that American commentators are looking at how Germany has maintained a stable and prosperous economy. A very large clue lies in the actions of the good professors.

In their latest broadside the professors said the rescue fund “self evidently” violates the no-bailout clause of the Lisbon Treaty.

They have seized on comments by France’s Europe minister Pierre Lelouche, who admitted after the summit deal on May 7 that EU leaders had carried out a constitutional coup. “It is expressly forbidden in the treaties by the famous no-bailout clause. De facto, we have changed the treaty,” he said.

Transferring bank debt to sovereign debt and then adding sovereign debt to bank debt, in order that it too can become even more sovereign debt…. that is the circle we are chasing in right now.

And as everyone who has not been rushed into this knows, it really isn’t right.  I’m not qualified to say whether a few big bank failures would be better. The problem in Germany is the small savings banks seem to be most exposed, or too exposed anyway. One way or another the German citizenry is in for a savings hit.

Who, I wonder, believes we are on the road to recovery with these problems still in the system (Spain’s sovereign and property debt apparently equals Euro 2 trilllion!). Yesterday the IMF called on the European Central bank to lend more money. The IMF is normally, and famously, the cutter in chief. Who, I wonder, feels like we are re-running the worst of the 1970s and early 1980s?

Cities will be left nursing the brunt of cuts justified in many countries with that awful echo of the Thatcher Reagan years (TINA – There Is No Alternative), now that we have passed through the worst of the panic mode of recession. Governments will make policy, cities and regions will have to live with and adapt to the unemployment, closures and sometimes the despair.

I’m hoping to collect data on how cities make themselves sustainable through this period. By sustainable I mean balancing their ecological obligations with the need to function economically in the toughest decade most of us have ever seen.

I thin thsoe two elements jointly are where we need to measure progress. So here is one measure from IBM via Richard Florida’s blog:

This is an area that needs adding to the innovation literature. Innovation literature is a little overloaded these days. Going back a decade and more Michael Porter began the trend towards innovation clusters. It is quite amazing how European policy makers pounced on clusters as a strategic tool. Richard Florida’s work on creative cities has given the idea of the cluster a second wind.

And yet…. we all know that economic activity is fundamentally less place based than it was. Innovation has to be so too – it has to be more virtual and it has to break out of the confines of clusters. I’ve been writing about that over on Innovation Management. Be interested in your views.

There is growing interest anyway. The data shows car finance and car leasing as breakout terms on Google search, globally. Go to the table anyway to start exploring car leasing. I was looking to see if interest in green cars was on the increase. Zero emission cars, and zero emission autos, seem to be generating next to no searches. Eco cars get some traction. Green cars more so, but not real exuberance out there is Google searching is any indicator. Ford can take some comfort that it is in the top ten of searches for green cars. In general though interest looks lacklustre.

Rising searches

1. car finance +150%
2. leasing car +140%
3. car leasing finance +130%
4. asset finance leasing +50%
5. vehicle finance +50%
6. finance & leasing +40%
7. finance and leasing +40%
8. financial leasing +40%
9. lease finance +40%
10. leasing company +40%

Here’s a chart for car finance. End 2009 looks like a big trough. There’s a smaller trough in 2010 but interest is accelerating across those terms you see above. Always need to take account of how people mix and mangle search terms.

Of course that could equate to a lot of frustrated people!

I picked this up via Dave Cushman’s 90:10 site – great to see Dave and his team growing so fast, and staying true to an innovative view of social technologies.

This is from Gerd Leonhard. Not an area I get involved in so much – selling. But I recently signed off as a consultant to Symbian and keep mobile front of mind, having just got to an important landmark on my mobile ecosystem analysis. Part of that of course is how the ecosystem evangelizes for a core set of products, relationships and reputations.

I’ve spent most of today analyzing blog references to the terms Open Ecosystem and Open Management. They are key terms given the growing importance of the business ecosystem and the fact that an open management approach is potentially a way to build a business discipline around the ecosystem.

See what you think first of this semantic map of “open ecosystem”.

Take a look at how app and device oriented it is at the high right side where the brand names reside. Now below take a look at how it is moderated by combining text from blogs that reference open management.

Altogether less tech driven and more directly connected to business values.

Being poor at web ontology, I still believe the web creates much meaning. Every time someone posts, something changes, even if that change is greater affirmation of a belief or opinion.

Two initiatives that will make meaning more interesting to track and assess came my way this week.

The first is Nokia’s protoype instant community which I picked up on via my Facebook feeds. I guess this is going to make it more difficult to track and interpret behavior.

Nokia Instant Community is a research concept developed by NRC Helsinki in collaboration with Tampere University of Technology. Its a new, instant way for communities to socially interact when in close proximity, without the need for WLAN infrastructure or cellular or Bluetooth connections.

The second is Giovanni Rodriguez’s latest project. I’m always excited by stuff Giovanni does and I am sure this is going to give us a great focal point for business discussions. This might make meaning easier to come by. Take a look at the Clearvale blog.

Semanticweb.com points out that one casualty of the coalition cuts is the proposed/planned Institute of Web Science. Yes the UK needs budget cut-backs but cutting back on the future seems a little bit dim.

I wasn’t aware of Howard Gardner’s book Five Minds when I started working on Metatrends but they seem to be analogous to the way we are trying to track key attitudinal changes. I took this Publisher’s Weekly quote from a review on Amazon:

“Psychologist, author and Harvard professor Gardner (Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons) has put together a thought-provoking, visionary attempt to delineate the kinds of mental abilities (“minds”) that will be critical to success in a 21st century landscape of accelerating change and information overload. Gardner’s five minds-disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical-are not personality types, but ways of thinking available to anyone who invests the time and effort to cultivate them….”

Here’s the book cover. It’s just gone onto my reading list.

Really liked this: