Why Dirt and Risk Are Good

Within a single generation, our attitude towards children has gone from “go out and don’t come back until it’s dark” to gated children’s playgrounds, chauffeur driven play-dates and a list of officially decreed ‘dangers’ facing children. We have shifted from slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails to iPods, mobile phones and playstations in less than fifty years. You think I’m kidding? There is a DVD compilation of the best of Sesame Street (1969-1974) featuring a warning stating that the DVD is “For adult viewing only”. Why? Because it contains scenes now considered inappropriate for children. We are living in what is undoubtedly the safest time for children in recorded history, yet we protect our kids from germs, grazed knees and broken bones like never before. But what about ‘stranger danger’? Warwick Cairns, a researcher in the UK has calculated that one would have to leave a young child on a pavement for 600,000 years before it became statistically probable that the child would be abducted by a stranger.

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Social and Environmental Responsibility

It's discussed everywhere these days - Social Responsibility/Environmental responsibility; and its many applications - corporate responsibility, sustainable future, work-life balance, environmental development, investigative analysis, our future, 50 year plan, corporate social responsibility... CHANGE We all recognise it's needed, but: How is it going to affect your bottom line if you don't do it...

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Alain de Botton on Status Anxiety

Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety, first published in 2004, remains a thought-provoking and helpful text as I continue to think about happiness (and its absence.) De Botton, "a philosopher of everyday life," seeks in this book to acknowledge the intensity of status anxiety in contemporary Western society, to explore its causes, and to suggest some means of relief. He begins with a brief set of definitions and a concise statement of his thesis:

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The Next Marketing Challenge: Selling to 'Simplifiers'

Watch out for a new brand of consumer in 2008: the middle-aged Simplifier. She finds herself surrounded by too much stuff acquired. She is increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that it was all worth the effort. Out will go luxury purchases, conspicuous consumption, and a trophy culture. Tomorrow's consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff: fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home. The economic boom of the 1990s fuelled consumption and

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