Alef Arendsen

Today I was at a TEDx event in Amsterdam. TED is a conference held twice a year (once a year in California and once a year in Oxford) and the TEDx events are independently organized version of the main TED conferences. TED is about ‘ideas worth spreading’ and if this is the first time you’ve heard about TED, make sure to head to TED.com right after reading this blog entry and view some of the videos of the performances there.

One of the more interesting speakers today at TEDx Amsterdam (in the Tropical Institute) was Kevin Kelly. Although I’m not such a big fan of Kevin (he did found the Wired magazine, so what’s not to like about him, you might say), he did have a few good quotes to take away for us; one of them I thought was worth mentioning here, especially since I’m dealing with a lot with something slightly related these days. Kevin’s quote (paraphrased slightly):

The response to a bad should be a better idea, rather than no idea at all. So throw away the precautionary principle

In Europe, we live by the precautionary principle a lot. It states that unless undeniable proof has been given that a certain action will not result in irreversible damage to the environment, society of people, one should not pursue such action, unless the ones advocating such action can actually deliver this undeniable proof.

A good example is the discussion as of late about Carbon Capture and Storage (or CCS). CCS is a technology to capture cabron-dioxide from power plants (amongst others) and storing the carbon-dioxide under ground. This technology (in addition to pursuing other and cleaner technologies such as generating power from wind, solar and tidal sources) could help alleviate the planet from the carbon-dioxide burden. Storing carbon-dioxide under ground is always better than just emitting it into the air.

A lot of projects related to CCS are being developed right now and one of the leaders in this technology is Royal Dutch Shell. The company wants to start capturing CO2 and store it under ground in a village in the Netherlands called Barendrecht. The locals object to this idea on the premise of it not being safe enough. “I don’t want CO2 in my backyard”, is their response (small side note here: the CO2 is actually stored more than 2km under ground, not just meters below the people’s garden terrasses).

While I’m all in favor of renewable energy and I think it’s a shame the Dutch government is planning on constructing multiple new coal-fired powerplants, I think CCS is a technology we absolutely need to avoid the otherwise invetitable; climate change that will ruin the way we occupy this planet.

The precautionary principle works wonderfully in theory; if and only if you have the resources and knowledge to fully predict everything that’s going to happen in the next few hundred years and the problems you’re facing are only of minor scale. The problem we’re facing however is not of a minor scale; it’s major and if we don’t do something now, we’ll ruin our entire planet.

If we would have used the precautionary principle in the early 19th century when the steam engine ignited the industrial revolution, we would have probably never quite put it to use at such a large scale as we did. We could have never predicted or proven in any way with the resources and knowledge we had back then what industrialization would be causing. We’ve filled the air with an amount of CO2 the planet cannot cope with, or at least not without getting a serious fever.

Sometimes, if, with humanity, we face challenges that are greater than your everyday decision, then maybe, sometimes, we have let go of the precautionary principle and for once, take our chances. Note that I’m not saying we should take reckless decisions betting our entire future, rather do everything in our power to make sure nothing goes wrong and then just take our chances.

With CCS, as with many other issues related to climate change, we’ll probably never know entirely for sure how things will work out. We’ll probably never know if the carbon-dioxide we’re going to store underground is never going to come up again.

With electric vehicles, it’s somewhat the same. We know that electric cars in cleaner if we generate the power from renewable sources and the Dutch government recognizes this, by giving lots of subsidies to the sector. If however we continue to generate the power our electric cars need in a polluting manner, it’s not going to work. We also do not have the recycling capacity ready yet for all these batteries electric cars will actually produce. But sitting still and continuing our current habit of burning oil to get us from A to B is not going to be work either.

If it’s a bad idea, or if it’s not immediately clear that in all circumstances we can think of it’s going to work, we’d better come up with something better, rather than no idea at all. Because I for one know for sure that sitting still is not going to help us either.

Last week, I visited Warner Philips, one of the partners of Tendris, based out of San Francisco. Despite the excellent coffee culture (at least nowadays) in the United States, Tendris USA have their own espresso machine in their offices on 2nd Street. The machine is a Nespresso machine and after having pushed the button I had a short conversation with the office manager about the Nespresso. She absolutely hated it and on top of that was wondering how environmentally friendly the Nespresso cups were. Her reasoning was that due to all the packaging, you could better use normal (filter) coffee.

Fast forward to this morning. I was on the plane, having a conversation with a director for sustainable product design for Alcan, a large manufacturer of packaging products. He suggested that while the Nespresso cups do increase the amount of packaging, using them was still a lot better than using normal coffee when looking at the total lifecycle (either in an espresso machine, or when using to make filter coffee). Apparently to produce one Nespresso cup, one only needs 6 grams of coffee, whereas for a cup of coffee from an regular espresso machine, you need 10 to 12 grams of coffee. Quite a difference and exactly this difference is what makes up for the packaging in the Nespresso cups, according to the German guy from Alcan.

i signed up with MyC4 this weekend. It’s a micro financing website, run by a group of Danish people. I got a recommendation for this site from Nils de Witte, currently associated to the BID Network, an organization that deals with business’ in developing countries.

MyC4 is aiming to help eradicate poverty by 2015, in other words, supports the United Nations 2015 Millennium Development Goals and Global Compact. It’s doing so, by offering market place for micro credits, specifically in Africa. People having a business in for example Uganda can apply for a loan (say €1500). The loan will be given by a group of people that all invest somewhere between €10 and €500. The interest rate is determined by using a bidding process (as an investor you have to determine the interest rate you want). Payback is monthly, usually over a period of 12 to 24 months. So far, MyC4.com has a rate of on time payments of approximately 95% and none of the loans have defaulted yet.

I’ve just put €1000,= in various opportunities, none of which have been provisioned yet. This will happen though in the next few weeks I hope.

Previously I looked at KIVA, another marketplace for micro credits. The problem with KIVA is (last time I looked at it) that you do not receive interest from your loan. (as a European you can invest your money, but won’t get anything in return for it. Due to fiscal limitations, having interest flow back to Europe is impossible or so)

I’m a strong believe in the concept of micro financing if it’s beneficial for both sides. Philantropy is nice and all, but only goes so far. Making it economically viable will attract a much bigger group of people that will invest, increasing the chances of us achieving the Millennium Goals.

Go and have a look at MyC4.com. You do not have to start with thousands of €, a simple €50,= or €100,= will do. I’ll keep you up-to-date via this blog on my experiences.

An interesting blog on the subject seems to be P2P-Banking.com.

I was in Luxembourg last week, where I learnt about Lëtzebuergesch and visited a client. I had my hotel in Remiche, a small village about 20 to 30 minutes from Plateau Kirchberg, where the client was. This meant I had to drive back and forth every day to the office. I got a good (and overly expensive) hotel back in return, plus I could do some running along the Mosselle. I figure that would be nice, but I had forgotten that it was pretty the week in the year with the least daylight, so I had to run in the dark. Oh wel…

So, I drove back and forth to the office every day and on the third day, I had dinner in Luxembourg town so I drove back later in the evening than usual and that’s when I got stopped by the police. They told me I sped about 10 or 15 kilometers. I think I did 65 where only 50 (km/h) was allowed. Ouch… That’s when I realized I forgot to take my driver’s license with me and even worse: I had left my identity card at the office in exchange for a security batch and my passport (I always have both of them with me, just in case I have to hand in one of them for renting cars, et cetera) at the hotel! Well, guess what, they didn’t allow me to drive on and told me to arrange my original driver’s license the next day, or whenever I wanted. But I wouldn’t get my car back before I showed them my driver’s license.

Arrghh…

I chatted a little with the policemen but quickly realized there was no way I could convince them to let me take my car. So I returned to my hotel and went to sleep. I could probably catch a cab the next morning and would try to arrange something with somebody back in Holland to send a messenger over with the license or so.

The next morning, I phoned my dad and asked him kindly if he had anything to do during the day . He said he didn’t so he went to my place and picked up my driver’s license. Now the best part of it all: because a courier charges almost 50 eurocent per kilometer (and it’s about 400 kilometers one-way), it would have cost me about 400 euros to get my driver’s license there the same day. Sure thing, I could have waited until the next day, but I think the mail doesn’t do express delivery in weekends. Anyway, I didn’t have to decide what to do, because when I phoned my dad, I heard that he was already on his way to Luxembourg to bring me the license!! No, how cool is that!

After he arrived in Luxembourg, he dropped me off at the police where I learnt that I had to wait another 4 hours (apparently they told me I could only pick up my car at 9 in the evening), so my dad drove home and I followed 4 hours later.

Next week I’m definitely going to pick up one of those new driver’s license. Since 2006, the Holland introduced a new driver’s license that the size of credit card, so nicely fits in my wallet. Until now, it was a piece of paper that you had to fold. Since I have a really tiny wallet that only holds credit cards and a little amount of bills (no coins or other little places I can store stuff in), I really never took my driver’s license with me and that’s why I forgot it. That should be over once I have the new license.

And err…. thanks dad!!

By the way, instead of 400 euros, this little mistake cost me 100 euros (petrol for my dads car).

I had never noticed before, but when I took the latest issue of Harvest Business Review, three leaflets feel out, all of then heavily promoting the magazine and subscriptions to it. I’ll post some details later on, as I left all of the three leaflets home before taking a flight and I don’t remember anything of what’s printed on them. What did strike me though, the tone of the leaflets in nothing resembled the letters I got from the Economist, after having canceled my subscription (or rather, forgotten to renew it). They were way too commercial for me and almost caused me the throw the magazine away. Again, I can’t give you the details right now–I’ll get you those later.

Two things that made up for the way too commercial leaflets. First, the humor in one of the articles, combined with a little arrogance was great–especially because I started laughing in such a way that it caused a good conversation to start between the guy in the aisle seat and me. The second (which I had never noticed until now) was the fact that you don’t have to pay in advance for a subscription. I always buy the magazine in the store (as opposed to the Economist, which used to be in my mailbox every Friday–until I forgot to send in my renewal which I still haven’t done . I’m still doubting whether or not I should subscribe…

“Nobody knows if we’ll ever receive a message from extraterrestrial life, but if we do, one-third of the world’s population would probably worship the remote intelligences, one-third would probably want to conquer them, and the final third (the readers of this magazine), would want to do some extraterrestrial market research and sell them something.”

^{Paul Saffo, Six Rules for Effective Forecasting, HBR July/August 2007}

p.s. by the way, there was a great article on IT strategy and SOA in the July/August issue. Often nothing too technical, but nonetheless a pretty interesting read.

I generally don’t do links very often, but this I did wanted to share. I’m almost part of it, but it’s fun to see how and if the ‘young’ generation can be reached using traditional marketing techniques and if not, what does interest them.

I think Europe is still far beyond here. What I get from people is that here in Holland for instance, people (and specifically people between 15 and 24) are certainly watching TV for more than 1 to 2 hours a week. Of course people here are much more in doors than in the Bay Area (the panelists for from the Bay Area). We’re certainly not seeing that many people using PVRs here, but it’s probably inevitable, as well as the drop in time people are watching TVs.

Interesting stuff!

I had a subscription to The Economist for two years that recently expired. I got several reminders about this, but was too busy to renew it and forgot about it. All of a sudden, the issues stopped coming and I thought, “oh well, let’s just leave it at that, I’ll survive without it and if I want to read it, I’ll just buy it in the store”.

After a month or so, a letter came in, that mentioned the following:

Your subscription to The Economist expired several weeks ago and we don’t want to lose you.

Such a good start of this letter! They had already won me back. It sounds really honest, they’re not trying to sell me anything here they can’t give me. They know they provide value, so they don’t go and shout it out aloud in the first part of the letter. The letter then continues…

For a small outlay, and a substantial saving on the cover price price – you can continue to benefit from analysis and opinion on the latest international issues.

Again, spot on (except for the error in the sentence–unless my English is totally screwed up, there’s one mention of the word price too much). They do not exaggerate the value of their offering, in fact they do not even include any such thing as ‘great’, ‘good’ or ‘fantastic’. This is how I like it. Next sentence…

Whether you read the whole newspaper every week, or just those articles of specific interest to you, The Economist gives you invaluable insight across a wide array of topics, from business and politics to the ARts and science.

Okay, they’re getting more confident and are gradually building things up. Now their offering is characterized as being invaluable. The one who wrote this letter clearly knows he’s got enough credit to get away with this. On we go…

A one-year subscription will save you 63% on the cover price. Renewing for longer will save you even more. The enclosed renewal form shows just how much.

What struck me here was that they’re mentioning the smallest saving you can get. Are you renewing for two or even three years, you’re saving a lot more, yet they do not mention how much specifically, they just mention the smallest saving. Interesting…

And you’ll continue to get every Economist article back to March 1997 on www.economist.com. Plus our in-depth country and industry special reports, to help make the world’s workings that bit clearer.

Making the world’s working that bit clearer. Not crystal clear or entirely clear, but just that bit clearer.

The letter ends with the following:

If you change your mind at any time, you can simply cancel your subscription and get a full refund on the remaining issues.

To renew now, please visit www.economist.com/renew/emea, call our hotline on +44 (0)114 220 2404 or complete and return your form in the envelope provided.

Renewing now will bring you the big picture for as little as EUR 1.67 a week.

I think this is an excellent letter. I’m wondering if this letter is specifically designed for Europe, or the Netherlands, or if they’re using this letter all over the world. I can’t help but think there are people at the Economist thinking about the culture in a specific region and designing different letters for different regions.

In any case, if you’d like to sell me something, please do it in a respectful manner and read the above letter to increase your chances of success!

p.s. do I need to tell you that I filled out the renewal form? I do still have to post it though and that’s where it went wrong last time, so we’ll see if The Economist will continue to have me as a customer after all.

No Plan, No Capital, No Model… No Problem…

Interessante panel discussie onder leiding van Guy Kawasaki. De main trend van de discussie is het feit dat VCs het niet waard zijn. Okay, dat is de boel wel een beetje over een kam scheren, maar het komt er wel een beetje op neer. Belangrijkste wordt gezegd door Karen Northrup (Corefino) en James Hong (HotorNot). 1) VC-geld regelen betekent all-all-nothing en 2) VC moeten iets bieden wat je zonder hun niet kan krijgen.

Interessant voor elke ondernemer, hoewel veel een beetje eenzijdig is: panel discussie

I just finished my fresh-made Thai chicken curry and Tom Yan Kaeng (soup, also with chicken) after I got myself all of the necessary ingredients except for the galanga. I was reading the Economist while eating my Thai curry and after I finished the piece on the steel market (with a Brazil company and Tata from India fighting over Anglo-Dutch Corus, another steel firm) I went on to read an article on click fraud followed by Yahoo’s Brad Garlinghouse and his Peanut Butter Manifesto.

Then I flipped the page and saw Mena Trott. Mena is the president and public face of Six Apart, the company that created Movable Type, Typepad and Vox. I saw Mena a while ago when her TED speech came online. The following is a quote from the article:

Many ordinary people are scared of blogging because they feel that they have nothing to say, says Ms Trott. So her message is that “mundane is interesting; it’s okay to talk about your sandwich”. To a handful of people in the world if may mean a lot.

Okay, so there I am, I’ve blogged about me, sitting on my couch, on a lazy Sunday afternoon (errr, evening in the meantime) and telling you all that I just finished my Thai curry and will probably do a little work tonight after I’m done cleaning the kitchen.

Let’s do a small experiment: anybody that thinks this is even remotely interesting, please comment on this entry. In the meantime, I’m continuing with more interesting articles in the Economist… Ahh, that’s a relieve, the next article is about the current state of affairs at Wall Street.

Update (December 5th): okay, this story ran for a week or so and the popularity index has risen to 28% (relative to the most post that is). We’ll see what happens in the coming time…

Update (December 11th): 39% and still rising Maybe I should raise the stakes: I’ll quit my blog when it’s most popular article on the blog

Back in August last year, I had an entry about Freakonomics, a book by Steven D. Levitt.

Near the end I said the next book I was about to read was Good to Great, by Jim Collins and I promised you that I’d update you once I finished the book. Well, I have to apoligize for breaking that promise, because I did finish the book, but didn’t blog about it.

I’m not going to do an entire review here, because there are plenty of raving reviews out there. One thing I can say is that it really helped me shaping my business and although it’s not a really easy read (it’s kind of boring actually), the conclusions Jim and his team draw are really inspiring.

I have also just finished Barbarians at the Gate about the (in)famous take-over of RJR Nabisco by KKR in the late-eighties. It’s a fantastic book that covers the take-over really well and feels like a fiction thriller, but is in fact based on a real story. Especially with all the discussions around hedge funds lately, it’s an interesting read, especially if you (like me) are not really into these kinds of things but still want to keep up-to-date.