4.) Enough to go round but millions still starve. Food has never been such a global issue. Some 1.5bn overweight and obese adults share the planet with 870m chronically hungry people, and governments are grappling with the same challenges: how to produce more food from less land, slash waste and reduce price volatility, while battling erratic climate patterns. December 18, 2012 at 03:06AM

We believe these 13 trends, by no means exhaustive, will help define travel and many other interconnected sectors:

Everyone wants a Chinese tourist
Ancillary fees are the new normal
Last-minute mobile hotel booking
The rise of price transparency
Travelers are hungry for food tourism
Airports as destinations
Destination branding through movies
Digital maps are one of travel’s key battlegrounds
Personal in-flight entertainment through mobile devices
Affordable design at hotels
Blurring of business and leisure travel
Cementing of the Gulf as the next great global aviation hub
Lure of the last unknown: The rise of Myanmar

Gerd adds: nice report ( and free;) January 04, 2013 at 09:53AM

4.) Enough to go round but millions still starve. Food has never been such a global issue. Some 1.5bn overweight and obese adults share the planet with 870m chronically hungry people, and governments are grappling with the same challenges: how to produce more food from less land, slash waste and reduce price volatility, while battling erratic climate patterns. December 18, 2012 at 03:06AM

It’s not only newspapers and magazines that are wrestling with this – though, of course, the announcement by Newsweek that it’s going digital-only next year shows that they’re in the frontline. (“Is Heaven real? Newsweek intends to find out”, as one ironist put it on Twitter.)
Add superfast 4G connections – which we’ll have in the UK from next year – and you may wonder if the only safe business is dry-cleaning (though even that is prey to people buying cheap replacement clothes made in China). November 21, 2012 at 07:14PM

A Wall Street Journal analysis estimates that the typical American doing everyday activities ends up having data being collected about him or her in 20 different ways (i.e. cell phone location, web searches and online purchases) — and more than half of the tools being used in this surveillance did not exist 15 years ago.

November 20, 2012 at 06:06PM

“Google is no longer organizing the world’s public information; that’s doing an increasingly fine job of organizing itself. Google is keeping the world’s secrets”

Good piece — made me think
Is this a Faustian bargain ?? November 14, 2012 at 06:49AM

The biggest misconception is that brand perfection is necessary before honesty is a valid brand strategy. Yet ask any couple that’s been married for 30 years and they’ll tell you this: being honest does not mean being perfect. In brand parlance, it simply means truthfully communicating the challenges being faced, and then putting in the legwork to address those challenges.

A few brands can be applauded for their approach to honesty, while some have considerable work to do. This month, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (a company owned by Unilever) successfully joined the socially responsible B Corporation movement, and in doing so has made its full B Impact Assessment and governing documents visible to the public. In the retail world, footwear company Timberland is mapping its progress in improving factory conditions. It’s a great example of a brand that’s not perfect, but working to make changes. October 31, 2012 at 01:46PM

Sirius, for example, pays 8 percent of its revenue to record companies and artists. Pandora pays a fraction of a cent each time a song is streamed, which last year amounted to about 54 percent of its revenue, or $149 million.
“The rate being too high dramatically depresses how much music gets played,” Mr. Westergren said in a recent interview. “It has really suffocated the industry.”

Gerd adds: the music industry loves to choke their golden geese. Pandora should pay a percentage of revenues just like any other radio service, IMHO. November 05, 2012 at 06:34PM

“Ou qualquer pessoa que queira mudar o mundo”, brinca Gerd Leonhard, um ex-músico profissional que virou empreendedor de mídia digital, CEO de startup de internet e futurista. “Nossa ideia é atingir gente interessada no futuro da mídia e que deseje desenhar, nos próximos cinco anos, o papel que o Brasil pode ter nesse novo mundo.” O tópico-chave de sua palestra será “do ego ao eco”. Leonhard explica: “Estamos nos transformando em uma nova sociedade, onde todos estão globalmente conectados. É uma ‘network-society’. E a economia também está mudando, do ego, que significa o lucro a qualquer preço, para o eco, uma economia sustentável”. October 31, 2012 at 01:19PM

“Ever wanted to thoroughly discredit someone who has wronged you? How about doing so under the banner of reputable (and hence, almost untouchable) publishing platform, through which you can alter all manner of facts concerning your enemies to fit your vengeful needs? Journalist and author Johann Hari did precisely that when making alterations to Wikipedia articles related to persons that had given him grief. Hari did all this while masquerading under the pseudonym – or sockpuppet – of David Rose”

Gerd adds: this is exactly what happened to my own “gerd Leonhard” entry. Deleted for some bizarre reason ! Only explanation I have is that I pissed someone off that has internal wiki juice October 16, 2012 at 11:29AM