Latest posts
Back to School
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I spent the last week at the Arizona State University, hosted by the School of Sustainability. It was refreshing to spend a week just thinking big and long-term with like-minded people who don’t do “little”. Practitioners tend...
Robespierre, Don’t Kill the Black Swan but the Sacred Cows
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Travelling across France and Italy is revealing of the nature of the cancer: Europe is afraid of a globalizing world that does neither dominate nor understand anymore, and seeks refuge in a comfortable past. Everything is OK if we shout down from the...
What’s the meaning of Easter?
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‘Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit’. This is the quote from the Gospel (St John 12:24) Dostoevsky chose for the incipit of The...
Profumo, la Seconda Resistenza italiana (the second Italian resistance)
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The Resistance, the popular armed movement for the liberation from Nazi-Fascism, is the founding myth of the Italian Republic. Almost all Italian political leaders after WW2 had been partisans or supported the resistance although they lived abroad as...
We need a good story don’t we?
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After 6 years of daily news on declining economic performance and even gloomier forecasts of the future do we wonder why people are fed up and disillusioned, demonstrating in the streets of European capitals? Without hope of keeping falling material...
What can we learn from the Basques? Anti-austerity is possible!
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Aliens which have online media as the only source of info must assume that Southern Europe is doomed: sovereign debt, economic stagnation, rocketing unemployment, high taxes combined with generalized tax evasion. No light at the end the tunnel but on...
Has the Arab Spring reached the European shores yet?
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Sef is a Tunisian 22 years old finishing his university degree in engineering and developing a third enterprise at the same time. He loves Arab poetry, believes in God but can stand Islamists. His family is not from the Tunisian elite. He’s jus...
Brussels wake up or shut up!
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Create and Hoxton Apprentice shut down. Jemie Oliver’s Fiften is in trouble. These are not just restaurants serving good quality food but social enterprises that train homeless and young ex-offenders to get in the job market. Social enterprises...
Thanks Benedict
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Dear Holy Father, I was not shocked by the your resignation. On the contrary, I found the choice a sign of strong leadership. I admire that you publicly admitted that it’s time for you to pass on the baton because you are not able to fulfill yo...
Portugal: An Inspiration for Innovators
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I was in Lisbon this week for the launch of MEIS, the project mapping social enterprises and innovation in Portugal. This is the most comprehensive research I know combining a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews to profile the needs of tho...
Who’s Afraid of the 21st Century?
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Internet is the 21st century revolution and networks its social product. In history, every technological advancement has always brought dividends to society and caused bloody changes as well. Printing nurtured the Renaissance and enabled the Reform t...
If Success Breeds Complacency Does Failure Trigger Innovation?
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On my flight to Toronto a line of Don Tapscott ‘success breeds complacency’ keeps banging in my mind. It’s not alone but interweaves with the image of Keanu Reeves dying on Saint Andrew’s cross shape in the final scene of Matr...
Ghengis Khan is back (2): Karl Richter, a true social entrepreneur
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In point 3 of my previous entry I forgot to mention a third person I have been working for the last 2 years and plan to scale up collaboration: Karl Richter. Finally his efforts have been rewarded and the Index for impact investing he developed with...
Genghis Khan is back: 2013 new year resolutions
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After a long break in the Caribbean I’m back with even more resolve and determination than what you witnessed last year. I intend to shake the foundations of our lovely sleepwalking Europe and help to lay new foundations for a society ready to...
Failed attempt to innovate in the Italian nonprofit sector
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For my international readers interested in last week attempt to innovate nonprofit sector in Italy introducing the possibility of profit redistribution to third party investors check here. The attempt lasted literally a day (check here) and followed...
News dall’Italia? No, Berlusconi e’ sempre e soltanto l’unica news
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Da una lontana isola nei Caraibi ho seguito con interesse la prima ‘breaking news’ che viene dall’Italia ma che non ha nulla a che vedere con Berlusconi. Constato pero’ che dopo qualche giorno e grandi manovre su tutti i front...
What’s happening in France: ‘Bobo Social’ or Nouvelle Vague for social economy?
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When I was in Paris last week I caught up with Nicolas Hazard, head of the Comptoir de l’innovation (office of Innovation) of Groupe SOS, the large consortium of social enterprises in the France and pioneer in a new way of leading and innovatin...
Hi, I’m an Open Elitist
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When Thierry told me that we are similar but he believes that society changes when every individual participates in the process while I believe that society needs a change in the elite to trigger transformation in the whole, I had my revelation on th...
What’s the role of citizens in the recovery of Europe?
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Today is grey, wet and my mood mirrors it. Running and working are the only remedies. I will spend the WE drafting my feedback to the new book on the recovery in Europe by Prof Schwab – founder and president of the World Economic Forum. I got a...
The Limits to Civil Society: In Conversation with Jeremy Heimans
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You might have noticed my protracted silence since September. Apologies. I didn’t feel comfortable writing. My mind was somehow clogged. I’ve been through a sort of professional crisis, but today while a glorious, unexpected sun is cree...
