Futureorientation 3/2008

Dear reader

Dear Reader. We often think and speak of growth as a quantitative thing. In companies, we measure growth in money. In Denmark, fast growing companies – called gazelles – must have a growth rate of 20% a year for four years, or a doubling of turnover in the past four years.

Read on

Gitte Larsen: 193 Rocks

It is a chilly Monday morning in April, and the smell of the sea is in the air. The land of possibilities lies before us. Employees from Novo Nordisk Department 193 begin to arrive for a day called “193 Rocks 2008.”

Gitte Larsen: Behind the concept: Rock’n’roll cooperation

It started – like much else – with an idea. “It shouldn’t be possible, but it is,” said Thomas Geuken, research director at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, who is behind the idea and concept of rock’n’roll cooperation. The words were spoken at the last meeting in the management group in Novo Nordisk Department 193, four days before 100 employees would be rock stars for a day.

Gitte Larsen: Doing opportunities

Seeing an opportunity is a small part of making it happen. Businesses need to think about opportunities most systematically as they become more successful. Too many companies are so focused on the goal they have set for themselves that they will miss many new business opportunities on their way.

Johan Peter Paludan’s comment: Possibilities

Jan Lindhardt, the former bishop of Roskilde, recently suggested a way to modernize religion: eliminate Hell. We can view this as yet another sign of the hedonistic society, in which we enjoy without contributing. The good life mustn’t cost anything. We have gone from whip to carrot, but isn’t that too easy?

Anita Mac: Unskilled management wastes potential

Management quality greatly determines whether we are committed to our work or pull back in disappointment because we get no support or respect and have to fight for our ideas and suggestions to be taken seriously.

Bo Bresson: HR strategy is a must

It is increasingly necessary to raise the company’s HR efforts to the same competency level as product development, purchasing, production, sales, marketing and finance. It is common sense that it is more effective to keep and develop the customers you have, than to find new customers.

Marianne Toft: Self-development, Inc.

Coaching and the self-development profession offer a “feel-good” spirituality, in which it is not about considering the world critically, but about rearranging your own world.

Frank Høgholm Pedersen: Options create complexity

An enormous buffet table holds many options and, thus, a complex situation. You must choose. You cannot eat everything, so you must live with the uncertainty of not knowing if you chose wisely. Do you make the choice once and for all? Or do you choose every day?

Povl Heiberg Gad and Jacob Suhr Thomsen: When users own buildings

Citizen involvement, user involvement, user-driven innovation. Survival requires citizens and users to help design many products and services. Read about the architectural firm MUTOPIA, which is one of the first architectural firms to take users serious, and about the consequences and possibilities offered by userdriven innovation.

Jacob Suhr Thomsen og Thomas Geuken: Virtual touch

Who can you touch when you sit in front a screen, talk on your mobile phone and navigate with your GPS? The virtual world is pushing in everywhere in your life – also in ways you do not think about. Your reality is simply being changed by the Internet, new technology and computer games.

Sara Jönsson: Digital trails

You are automatically registered every time you use your VISA card and your e-mail password on the Internet. Your purchases, e-mails and surfing habits are tracked, and the information used later to communicate with you.

Jeffrey Scott Saunders: Global warming and the consumer

Concerns about climate change are here to stay. Many studies indicate most consumers believe companies have large socially responsible roles to play and that they need to take environmental issues, including climate change, into account. Read why companies can gain market share by developing, producing, and transporting their products and services in a more environmentally sustainable fashion.