Stranova

Stranova Strategic Edge Vol. 15, published December 10, 2006. The challenge of “waging peace” in our world today is that war itself is already deeply entrenched in our society in many ways – in government, in our economies, and even in how our language is able to describe war so fully, while the concept of peace has only shallow roots and even fewer words to describe it – outside of simply as “the opposite of war”. In this episode of Stranova Strategic Edge, we explore why war is such a difficult system to supplant, and how some radical non-traditional approaches to creating new peaceful ecosystems are helping peace “break out” throughout the world, in places you might never expect.

Voices from 2020, Vol. 4, Published November 12, 2006. In our fourth installment of the “Voices from 2020” series, our guest is Duane Elgin, a visionary social scientist and evolutionary activist. In his books Voluntary Simplicity, Promise Ahead, and Awakening Earth, he showed us all paths for how individual and collective will can be harnessed to create a more sustainable future for the universe. In this episode of “Voices”, listen and learn how individuals, societies, and businesses can develop deeper and more meaningful relationships with each other, with the earth, and with the universe as a whole, and will have created a much brighter future for all by 2020.

Stranova Interview Series Vol. 26, published November 3rd, 2006. It is an interesting paradox in our business lives that we often spend our careers chasing success without taking the time to think more deeply about what it really means to us. In this episode of Stranova, you’ll hear some of the insights that Mark Thompson and “Success Built to Last” co-authors Jerry Porras and Stewart Emery learned in their interviews with over 300 successful people – as to how to cultivate a more profound understanding of success – and how to achieve it on both a personal as well as professional basis.

Stranova Strategic Edge Vol. 14, published October 18, 2006. We’ve heard so much about the latest gadgets, new business forms, and the concept of “disruptive technology”, that many of us have missed the most significant of all categories of strategic innovation: those in which customers are given the opportunity to change the way they used to do something in a profound and different way. In our latest episode, learn how and why this approach to innovation can be in fact the most transformative of all strategies -- by exploring examples from Toys ‘R Us ® to Intuit’s Turbo Tax ® to Apple’s iTunes ®.

Voices from 2020, Vol. 3, Published October 7, 2006. In this the third podcast in our “Voices from 2020” series, our intrepid time travelers FireHawk and Bill Veltrop once again visit an ideal year 2020, this time to interview Tom Atlee, who for many years has been one of this planet’s most articulate champions of our potential to turn our social and environmental challenges into positive developments for our society. Tom is a founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute. His 2003 book, The Tao of Democracy: using Co-Intelligence to Create a World that Works for All, introduced us to what it takes to tap into our capacity for wise democracy. In this interview Tom reveals how, in 2020, we have collectively begun to awaken, not only to face up to our various global challenges, but also to learn how to use the energy of global crises to fuel our conscious evolution as a people. His stories reinforced the importance of societal feedback loops as advanced by Gil Friend and Jeff Saperstein in our second Voices from

Stranova Interview Series Vol. 25, published September 25, 2006. For hundreds of years, we have built our learning systems in celebration of and in support of the “knowledge specialist” as perhaps the most valued member of our organizational teams. The problem with such specialization is that it often ignores a far more significant source of innovation, one which draws from the insight of interconnecting two or more seemingly unrelated ideas or disciplines to create a truly novel “new” one. In our episode this week, James Burke, the world-renowned author and creator of the “Connections” book and related TV series, suggests a way out of the “reductionist rut” of placing too much faith on “specialists” for critical thinking AND strategic innovation. With his Knowledge Web project – and more than a few pointed concepts on how our educational and learning systems haven’t really grown up much since the 17th century, Mr. Burke’s ideas should provide some exciting “food for thought” on how you may want to change

Stranova Strategic Edge Vol. 13, published September 17, 2006. Now, some five years after the horrific acts of terrorism on September 11, 2001, we are only just beginning to understand the full implications of the event in all aspects of our lives. In this special edition of Stranova Strategic Edge, we explore how direct consequences of 9/11 have impacted the world of business at large, with discussion of the airline, automotive, oil, publishing, and movie industries, among others. We also close with some thoughts for all of us to consider as what our legacies from this could be going forward into the future.

Voices from 2020, Vol. 2, Published September 5, 2006. In this second of the “VOICES FROM 2020” series, Bill and FireHawk interview Jeff Saperstein, who has worked extensively in both business and academia and is passionately committed to coming up with measures that help us make the shift towards wholeness, and Gil Friend, President and CEO of Natural Logic, who comes at the measurement opportunity from years of engagement and innovation in the intersection between economy, ecology and community -- on the subject of how changing the metrics we use to measure success can lead to deep transformations in business and all parts of life.

Stranova Interview Series Vol. 24, published August 28, 2006. The Internet has made it relatively easy to distribute materials such as Microsoft Word® documents, Powerpoint® presentations, graphics files, and even podcasts over the internet. Email has been one distribution means, websites have offered another, and the growth of RSS feeds to help propogate both blog content and podcasts have created yet another wave. Individual creativity distributed over the internet is growing faster than ever, it seems, but until recently the only way to legally “mark” it as something you own was limited to marking it as “Copyrighted Material”. Unfortunately, this “one size fits all approach” is often too restrictive, making it effectively illegal even to download something marked as “Copyrighted”, except for the so-called (and, to many, confusing) “fair use” provisions of the law. In this week’s episode of Stranova, “tune in” to learn how in just a few years of existence the innovative non-profit enterprise Creative

Stranova Strategic Edge Vol. 12, published August 14, 2006. Almost 6 years after the original concept of podcasting was first formally proposed, and just over one year after Apple announced iTunes would list and help promote podcasts created by just about anyone, the business of podcasting is hotter than ever. Our current reflective podcast on our own industry, offered exactly one year after Stranova’s first interview series was launched, provides insights on how this all came to be, where it’s heading, and some tips on how to make it work most effectively for you.

Stranova Interview Series Vol. 23, published August 7, 2006. In this episode of Stranova’s interview series, we take you to the year 2020, in a time where business has been transformed in radical ways, leaders in all walks of life operate on a more systemic level than ever before, and even the whole concept of leadership has been raised to an entirely new level. In this “preview” of our new podcast series “Voices from 2020”, learn how the many choices we are making new could lead to a transformational “brave new world” of business – and organizational life – in less than two decades.

Stranova Vol. 22, published July 31, 2006. Since 1962 when Buckminster Fuller first went public with the idea of a Geoscope, many have been fascinated with his vision for a “giant, 200-foot diameter, miniature earth” that would provide an “electronic” visual representation of everything from weather to the various ways we human beings impact our “Spaceship Earth” on a daily basis. Listen to this week’s interview to learn how, thanks to a creative re-visioning of his concept and the application of the latest digital visualization technologies, Fuller’s Geoscope will be coming to life soon in ways far more powerful than his own original conception.

Stranova Strategic Edge Vol. 11, published July 17, 2006. Up until very recent times, the high fashion industry sold its goods exclusively through a network of small company-owned stores and high-end resellers such as Neiman-Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Increased sales were created principally by adding more product lines, which tended to increase as much expense and inventory issues as anything else. With the growth and rapid maturation of internet selling has come a unique opportunity, however, to expand high fashion retail sales both through an entirely new class of online resellers as well as innovative “boutique” web storefronts for the resellers themselves. Listen and learn how 2006 looks to be the “breakout year” for this new class of high fashion salesmanship.

Stranova Vol. 21, published June 27, 2006. While most of us in the so-called developed countries rest on our laurels, regions such as India, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Ireland, and Israel, among others, are surprising us with unexpected rapid economic growth. They’ve learned to leverage the power of communications in the information age, rapid learning often supported by a joint public/private partnership within the countries, and strong business relationships with the rest of the world. Our current episode explains a bit about how all this has come to pass, along with some interesting predictions of what other countries may be emerging soon that will join this list as some of the fastest-growing and technology-savvy in the world.

Stranova Strategic Edge, Vol. 10, Published June 19, 2006. The problem of identity theft, where criminals and hackers gain access to your personal credit information and grossly abuse it, is growing rapidly, to the point that an estimated 10 million Americans have been victimized by this in some way. This episode of Stranova Strategic Edge points to some of the “whys” behind this as well as what kinds of businesses are emerging – and thriving – because of this growing “information age” crime.

Stranova Vol. 20, published June 5, 2006. One of the most profound strategic innovations in business in the last quarter century has been the invention and deployment of microfinancing organizations, such as Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank. In our current installment of Stranova, we talk with entrepreneur Betsy Brill about her plan to implement such a venture in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the challenges in making her vision a reality, and the powerful transformation of the entire business – and human – ecosystems in that country that they could make possible.

Stranova Strategic Edge, Vol. 9, Published May 22, 2006. The recent dramatic rise in global oil prices, with echoes of a similar crisis some 25 years ago, brings with it an important opportunity to understand why we get into these situations, as well as to consider some new approaches to at least mitigating the problem for the near-term. Adding to the dilemma is that the overall world oil supply is slowly, but surely, being literally “tapped out”, and significant actions must be taken soon, or our children’s children, at the least, will be dealing with an enormous problem for civilization as a whole. This episode explores how business and government are already responding, and suggests some new categories of solutions and opportunities emerging in this sector.

Stranova Vol. 19, published May 8, 2006. Our guest this week is Craig Neal, Co-Founder of the Heartland Circle. Even more important than mentoring in helping one develop as a future leader is the opportunity for intense interactive learning experiences with other experienced leaders. With the goal of working simultaneously on both personal and professional development on a deep level, the Heartland Circle has met this challenge by creating a business with the aim of helping leaders develop their own long-term vision and find ways to put that “vision into action”, through a core process of interaction with highly-experienced ‘Thought Leaders’ via a combination of in-person, teleconference, and online experiences. Listen and learn why one or more of these opportunities might help jump-start your own leadership development, and how to get involved no matter where you live in the world.

Stranova Strategic Edge, Vol. 8, Published April 24, 2006. For most of the modern era, business innovation has been a closely-guarded trust, conducted by an elite group of innovators within the corporation. In the past thirty years, we’ve seen this expand to include cross-company product or service development teams, incorporating individuals from sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and service as active participants in the design process. Even that, however, is a fairly narrow focus, and in the past few years a major trend has evolved where customers are now actively engaged not just in providing feedback on product strategy – but also contributing both to the strategy and to the actual design elements themselves. This week’s episode illustrates how this trend has come about, provides real-world examples of how it works from industries as diverse as video games, healthcare, and the automotive industries, and suggests what you can do to turn your customers (and others in your business universe)

Stranova Vol. 18, published April 10, 2006. Our guest this week is Steve Benitez, founder and CEO of Bo’s Coffee Club, the first ever Philippine specialty coffee shop chain. In this episode, you’ll hear how it isn’t always as simple as you’d think to transfer a successful business idea from the U.S. to an entirely different world, and the challenges this inventive entrepreneur faced in making his “passion for coffee” a success in his homeland. Listen and learn why this gifted innovator was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s 2004 “Entrepreneur of the Year” in the Philippines, and how what he discovered might make a difference in how you approach your startup.