April 15th, 2009

Greenshootsblog.com was heartened to read a report on fundstrategy.co.uk of a speech by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve in the US.

In a contrast to recent doom and naysaying, Benanke said: “Recently we have seen tentative signs that the sharp decline in economic activity may be slowing, for example, in data on home sales, homebuilding, and consumer spending, including sales of new motor vehicles.”

And whilst we’re not definitively calling the bottom of the market just yet, there are some promising signs

April 8th, 2009

barometer, bellwether, bottoming, business confidence

March 23rd, 2009

Greenshootsblog.com is delighted to have a guest blog from Gordon Mclean, Planning Director at JWT NY, who gives us a welcome view into signs of positivity in the US…

Working in New York with a major bank that has both a large global footprint and a foot deep in the local US market one could say I’ve been working over the past few months in the eye of the economic storm.
I guess for this reason, amongst others, I’ve been pretty attuned to the gloom drenched headlines, depressing RSS feeds and less than chirpy tweets. The beacons of hope I’ve been drawn to are innovation, generosity and collaboration.

Innovation

With millions of jobs being lost in the US what we are seeing is something of a clearing of the old to make way for the new. The top man is committed to seeing through his ambitious technology and innovation plan. Obama conceived of many of these plans well before the current meltdown. The optimist in me, and others, sees the current economic meltdown as nothing short of a perfect storm and if necessity is the mother of invention this crisis can become the catalyst for a raft of essential innovations that will deliver a triple bill of social, environmental and economic benefits.

I recently came across a research study into the attitudes of US small business owners. I was surprised and heartened to see that over one-third regard the current economy as more opportunity that calamity. If innovation is thinking differently about something to realize an improvement then there’s plenty evidence of innovation at work in amongst small businesses in the US. Many small businesses in the US are re-evaluating their supplier relationships, rethinking their competitive strategies and reconsidering previously discarded market opportunities.

Generosity

While the major theme of recent months has been financial bankruptcy, near or in some cases actual, we’ve also borne witness to a moral bankruptcy on truly epic scale. What we’ve seen is capitalism as a green light to money making at any cost. Barry Schwartz – the author of The Paradox of Choice – spoke at the recent TED conference about a world gone mad with bureaucracy and our loss of practical wisdom . In the course of his talk he touched on the one of the key elements of Presidential Candidate Obama’s campaign appeal: he didn’t just promise prosperity, security and a restoration of America’s rightful place in the world; he appealed directly to our sense of virtue, duty and citizenship.

The new US administration is gradually re-setting our moral compass. This is both welcome and needed after too long a period where selling one’s grandmother for two pence could be excused by the pursuit of prosperity. For the most powerful man in the world to openly chastise the most powerful corporations in the world for their irresponsible, reckless and outrageous behavior is both admonishment and antidote. It’s also sending a powerful and popular signal that greed and one-upmanship is trumped by generosity and citizenship. Trendwatching recently captured this spirit as the emergence of “Generation G” .

Collaboration

If together we’re stronger then this virtuous reawakening is the very thing that’s needed for potent innovation to flourish. One of the hallmarks of this transition from greed to generosity is a simultaneous shift from competition to collaboration. The world-renowned design consultancy IDEO is currently capturing this nicely with their “Open Conversation” on Facebook . Each week they tackle one big question and open it to the floor. Both contributors and readers alike gain something from the collective brainpower and come away with new ideas, renewed vigor and a sense of great possibility that the current economy presents us with when we work with, rather than against, one another.

These are tough times but there are three good reasons to be cheerful: innovation, generosity and collaboration. The chaos of current economy is in many ways providing a powerful catalyst for much needed change. It’s also providing a cathartic release from the belief that greed is good and, in turn, a realization that generosity; moral virtue and civic duty are better. And, in the face of challenging circumstances collaboration is helping many to turn adversity into opportunity. If these three themes do nothing to lift your spirits then perhaps the latest innovation on the menu of the Turkish café in which I’m writing this will – a generously proportioned and modestly priced “Obama Sandwich”.

Nothing short of a fourth reason to be cheerful as far as I’m concerned.

Author: Gordon Mclean

Sources: TED, Trendwatching, IDEO, Facebook

March 19th, 2009

They want to believe

In a very refreshing release, Merrill Lynch today announced that investors “are at their most optimistic about the global economy since December 2005″, according a Survey of Fund Managers for this Month.

It continues: “For the first time in more than three years, investors do not predict lower global economic growth over the next 12 months. Renewed optimism about China’s economy lies at the heart of this revival. Just two months ago, a net 70 percent of respondents thought China’s economy would worsen in the year ahead. That figure fell to a net 1 percent this month.”

Their spokesperson said that this was evidence that investors “want to believe in an economic recovery”.  Now that’s the greenshootsblog.com spirit!

March 16th, 2009

As analysts compete with the media to try to outdo one another on the pessimism, Greenshootsblog was fascinated and slightly pleased to read of an alternative to their opinions. The Economist reports on the rise of what it calls ‘internal prediction markets’; basically a way to harness (and even reward) the views and expectations of employees.

With so many miserable predictions out there, perhaps this could be a good tool for larger companies to find their own signs of recovery? Because, despite scepticism from some quarters, it reports that, “many pilot projects run so far have shown that junior staff can often be surprisingly good forecasters”.

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13184829

February 27th, 2009

One industry to see the positives of the recession is one close to my heart – film.  Figures published from the Cinema Advertising Association indicated that cinema admissions had in fact increased by 1.1% in 2008.  As an industry measure it would appear that those who believed the cinema experience to be dying may have perhaps cried wolf a little too soon.  Whilst people may be increasingly tentative in their attitudes towards parting with large sums of cash on cars and holidays right now; the idea of luxury is one central to our society so questions of what can be judged to be affordable treats arise.  Film in all shapes and forms seems poised to take advantage of this shift in customer behaviour.  The positive impact of this is two-fold for both consumer and industry.

For the consumer, recent research published from psychologists at the University of San Francisco indicates that choosing an experience based purchase over a possession based one is likely to make you happier.  You just have to look at the increasing popularity of experiences like Secret Cinema for exciting new ways to experience film.  The social impact of this may in fact roll over into the film industry itself.  The prevalence of genres such as chick-flicks is likely to remain popular; great for advertisers – you only have to look at the Sex and the City film positioning in 2008 and the tie-in opportunities.  However (and not to overly bog myself down in the mire that is high vs. low cinema) the cultural questions that have been thrown up may have an interesting impact on the subject/format (ad infinitum) of film itself.  And unlike the depression of the last century, British cinema is actually in great shape to take advantage of this.  Beyond national cinema, 2009 is shaping up to be a great film for both blockbuster and arthouse – roll on Watchmen for me.  I await the results of the next few years with interest….

February 19th, 2009

I have been asked a number of times to write something for this blog. Not because my offerings are particularly deep, but simply because I have been promising to make a contribution since the idea of the Green Shoots Blog was first discussed but have failed to deliver. There is a reason for this. Despite the fact I absolutely agree that it is high time somebody (the press) attempted to write something positive about what is going on in the world and despite spending the last couple of weekends trying to find something uplifting, there is so little to grab hold of. I see the army is sending gaff prone Prince Harry on an equality course and Jeremy Clarkson has apologised for his comments about Gordon Brown’s ability to see things clearly. Maybe this should raise a smile but all I can take from this is that the country has gone beyond political correctness to a new era of “gagging just in case”. What else is there? The gaff prone bankers have been made to apologise to a committee of self-righteous MPs and have shown some degree of remorse – although I am not sure they showed signs of accepting any blame. There where some green shoots in England’s performance against Wales at the weekend – although they lost and did not slow down Wales’ march towards a second Grand Slam. Come on the Irish. But none of this really does the job, so I decided to do what I always do when I need information and can’t be bothered to dig it up for myself – ask Google.  And I found something there – there is a website called the Good News Network which offers a little bit of a lift but third on Google’s top ten is a 6 year old article from BBC.com which tells us that research in Australia has found that masturbation can reduce the risk of prostate cancer. So there you have it, even the great Google can only offer some light relief from the gloom but I suppose with so many merchant bankers having too much time on their hands, any news is good news, even if it is a bit old.

Author: Matthew Brown

BBC, Good News Network

February 17th, 2009

According to the Britsh Retail Consortium there was an unexpected increase in retail sales in January. Retail sales rose by 1.1% in January compared to the same time last year.

The increase was largely attributed to the high level of discounts and sales in January.

Author: Louise Isaacs

Source: BBC News

February 6th, 2009

I saw a friend of mine who is an investment banker who had his best month ever in January.  He has set up a private investment bank with a Swiss bank and says that because all of the major banks are in paralysis at the moment, he is phoning up key clients who haven’t heard from their normal investment bankers for months.  The result is that what business there is seems to be coming to him!  And when I say big, he’s made his budget to June in the first month of the year.

JH