altfunction: corporate responsibility. media. technology. creativity.

We're sorry to interrupt this blog...

...but altfunction may undergo a brief hiatus over the next few weeks.

I've left Forum for the Future and tomorrow start at KPMG, working in the ICE Advisory team, advising the media, technology and leisure sectors on CSR and more. Not a huge change in subject area from what I've been doing with Forum, but there will be cultural and procedural differences.

Hence the pause in transmissions. Hopefully, in a few weeks altfunction will see regular posting again (and, let's face it, in the last month I've had little time to post as it is).

Thanks for reading and I'll be back soon. In the meantime if you wish to contact me, the email is altfunctionATmacDOTcom.

News on my new book: About Time

Publisher Greenleaf have put up information on About Time, a book I've edited, featuring a galaxy of intellectual talent including Jonathon Porritt, Will Hutton, Baroness Warnock, Geoff Mulgan, Martin Rees, Ghillean Prance and Jay Griffiths, each tackling a different angle on time and sustainability in their inimatable ways:

About Time is a high-profile collection aimed at creating debate about where the values of our contemporary society are taking us. It will foster reflective thinking about different aspects of time, using the concept of time to communicate and illuminate the idea of sustainable development and question our idolatry of speed. In doing so, it aims to inspire and help decision-makers in business, government and elsewhere to appreciate the challenges of sustainable development and how they might respond, and inspire individuals to create change in their own lives.

For readers of books such as No Logo and Longitude, this book provides a thought-provoking twist, bringing together time and sustainability in a refreshing, provocative and accessible way.

No Logo and Longitude - how could you afford to miss it? It's out in July, but if you wish to reserve your copy go to About Time

same means. different ends.

The green movement has taken the view that asking business to get the world out the mess it finds itself in (climate change, for example) is like asking Herod to run a Kindergarten.

For the most part, however, the ingenuity that got us in this mess is likely to be the ingenuity that will get us out. To paraphrase Steve Hilton: if marketing can sell you aloe vera infused lavatory paper it can sell you sustainability.

Hence the real challenge is aligning business opportunities with planetary needs. Unlikely though it seems, businesses offer the best chance of finding the real solutions to issues like climate change. They don't, however, exist in a vacuum and for their own sake. They are useful tools, means. What we need to find are how to align the different ends.

altfunction?

Two keys on your keyboard: alt and fn. This blog is designed to explore the premise that business has a number of objectives, such as making products, providing services and offering a return to shareholders but can also contribute to a more sustainable future. It has, effectively, an alternative function, which I believe can often deliver its other objectives.

My angle on corporate responsibility relates to the areas in which I work most closely: new technology and the media.

To take one example, blogging has formed a new medium that enables employees, customers and critics to broadcast information (data, opinions) to the world more simply and more cheaply than ever before. This increased scrutiny on business may be seen as a driver to greater accountability and transparency, but may equally result in companies seeking to close down channels of communication, instructing employees to remove information etc. This is inevitably changing business, accountability, the media and communications.

The response from business will need to be imaginative and creative: open minded and inquisitive (not characteristics that come to all businesses).Hence altfunction.