Behaviour change

If you haven’t yet heard of augmented reality (AR), you will very soon. It’s a way of presenting digital information onto the physical world. Google is expected to launch a set of AR glasses later this year. Apple is also rumoured to be investing in the technology.

I have written about ‘Shape-shifting for the future’ in recent blogs. By ‘shape-shifting’, I mean the need for society to engage in major social and economic framework change by redefining the ‘recognised and accepted’ roles of the various sectors - public, private, third. This is at the heart of transforming our society to meet some of the many macro-scale challenges we face.

Reasons to be cheerful? For me it’s the big one - the prospect of positive behaviour change at scale is on the horizon for 2012. Why now? Because the many pressures facing our society such as austerity and resource constraint will continue to intensify throughout this year and bring into ever sharper focus that behaviour change is sustainability in action.

For anyone who missed Tomorrow's Company Conference today on 'Learning from Nature: Tomorrow's Natural Business': lots of super presentations and food for thought.

Fifteen years ago, when working for Unilever on the ground-breaking Marine Stewardship Council initiative the buzzword was ‘sustainability’. The corporate world was a different place then – it was early days, corporates where getting their heads around corporate responsibility and its link to sustainability – some more than others. Sitting opposite Head Buyers for leading retailers I remember one individual saying to me - ‘…if you could just get me sustainability Amanda – that would be great.’

One summer day, Milton Erickson walked into a farmyard about five o’clock with the aim of selling some books to pay his way through college. In the yard, the farmer told him he didn’t read anything. He didn’t need to read anything and he was far too busy feeding his hogs.

Today’s lead story in The Times (January 24, 2011) says the Big Society is in crisis and that negative publicity is harming the UK government.

It’s not in crisis.  Let’s be clear what Big Society is – government reform, community empowerment and millions of people engaged in social action through their day-to-day decisions.

The government is adept at the first. There are dozens of examples of government reform that is localizing decision-making. The problem is that the thinking around the other two elements needs to evolve. There are three actions that the government can take to help Big Society live.