lettsgroup

Fires Raging, Disorder Spreading, Greta Rules

2nd Jun 20202nd Jun 2020 by lettsgroup

Admit it, we’ve all been a little fixated by the recent uptick in social unrest. We’ve had a few flavours to chose from this time around, whether it’s the US protests, the Hong Kong riots or the lockdown rebellions. I guess we enjoy a dose of chaos and confusion, an almost biblical rewind to fire and brimstone.

Given the extreme levels of inequality blown wide open by the Corona crisis and the somewhat ideological leaders currently reigning in Covid flattened countries, you might be asking yourself if civil disorder is a new norm in the making, you know, like Zoom video calls.

But there’s something else chewing away at this. There’s something echoing around my head a bit like a Jean-Michel Jarre concert. Something pulling at my conscience and bugging my brain only this time it’s not Cummings-and-goings. It’s something even more sinister.

For a number of years climate scientists have been warning us of the consequences of unchecked global warming. The cost of climate change. And Greta keeps telling us that we’ve got to listen to these scientists. Not just because they actually know they’re shit but because Greta’s had it with politicians offering her consulting gigs to go solve the Cummings affair, er climate crunch when she just wants to get back to hanging out with her friends and flunking school to go to the beach instead of dropping out to save the planet. (She promises to hit the beach in a non Cummingsy trash the lockdown rules kind of a way).

Environmental scientists have been warning us for a long time that continued global warming will lead to extreme Stormzy, flooding and drought – check. They’ve stated that the continued destruction of key habitats, like rain forests, in the name of industrial farming will increase the risk of desease and wildlife loss – check. And the combination of the two will lead to mass migration, social upheaval and more extreme politics – check disorder in the US, Hong Kong, Syria, Michigan and our very own one man protest at Barnard Castle.

So, in the name of Greta and every darned climate scientist on the planet, we should not only invent a vaccine for Corona but also spend some cash on a wake up pill the size of Donnie’s Trumpian ego to get us ALL to smell the friggin coffee and realise that there is a way out of chaos and confusion and pandemic after pandemic followed by Noah like flooding conditions, hurricanes every five minutes and droughts the length of the second Cummings.

The way to avoid America and China and the rest of us going to war, with Kim Yong Ding Dong chipping in, but not in a teeing up at Mar-a-Lago kind of way, the way to stop the planet going up in fire and SpaceX’s share price going up to Mars is to rewild the friggin planet and keep those pesky bat’s and pangolins and Dom’s locked up as far away as possible in some hidden, protected, untouched rain forest so the virus stays with them. And while the virus sticks to them, the rewilding of our planet bit means we get to stick to where we are – or at least for a little bit longer.

This rewilding would not only be good for us, but would also be good for our little pangolin brethren. It might keep the climate scientists off our backs, keep Greta on the beach and stop us shooting up in a rocket to go piss off some other planet in the name of industrial farming on a separate universe, only to stir up their extra-terrestrials like we pissed off the bats and pangolins down here. Yep, like a bunch of suicidal, narcissistic terrestrial muppets, right at the point at which we might finally recover from Corona, we’ll go shake up a bunch of infested aliens who’ll invade us cos they have SpaceX and Zoom too. Then they’ll unleash on us the next pandemic from hell except this time around even Jacinda won’t be able to save us.

Shit, I think I’ll start rewilding my place. Oh, I already did. I guess I won’t need to migrate to New Zealand after all.

If you enjoy these posts on ‘Surviving’ all I ask is for you to support a vital Climate Change project, called DSP, by giving just £3 or just over $3 per month. To find out more CLICK THIS LINK.

Social Media Under Fire

29th May 202029th May 2020 by lettsgroup

Trump’s fired the starting gun. Removed the pin. Knifed the back. Like a long love affair kicked into the summer sun Donnie’s decided that @Jack (Dorsey…… is there any other kind of Jack?) is to become a droplet off his duck-like ass. The last feather attached to his media composting hat (… interesting visual).

Jack’s the latest in a string of jilted lovers. Used, scoffed at, trampled and spat out. Look at how it worked out for poor ol’ Kim Yong Ding Dong who is apparently still alive (er, right………). Just don’t tell his stunt doubles.

It could be that Donnie wants to take the whole of Silicon Valley down with Jack just to get California to secede so he can permanently eradicate those smokin’ totin’ lefty delegates from November’s election count. Hey, where Bozzer goes Donnie can follow. Check Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

And if you’re still following me (not in the twitter kind of a way) then you’ll get that the Jack in this tale means TOTAL social media take down. Perhaps not like China where any media caution was jettisoned forever ago to the prevailing tornado of a wind. And not in the consumer way of god I’m so bored of Facebook and twitter and Linkedin gibberish and how in spams name am I supposed to possess a friggin elephant-like memory for every password I conjured up just to watch a stream of drivel from my so called friends who I pray I’ll never actually bump into but naively accumulated forever ago when it was the trendy thing to do and apparently even hotter than going to a Cold Play gig. And go figure how you delete/block/muzzle/censor them!

So Donnie’s gonna give Silicon Valley a dose of the neo-liberal cold freeze cos hey, if a Pangolin can nuke the planet, he should at the very least get a pass for downing a few techies on the West Coast. And what better way than getting them square (is that another Jack tech thing?) where it counts, right between their nuts packed with share certificates, which is Wall Street for we will sue your rear ends for publishing content we don’t like, er I mean is offensive or blatantly false or just plain anti-Donnie.

But, thinking this one through, not that Donnie hasn’t already, if some weird dude posts pics of pangolins getting mass murdered in Vietnam can we ALL sue Zuckerpunch or just Donnie? And if the social media companies become responsible for the content on their platform like publishers then presumably they’ll have to pay us citizens for our/their content which kinda screws local media who was about to get paid out by them but sounds kinda ka-ching for the rest of us.

Maybe Donnie’s onto something. Perhaps the social media company take down is actually his entire beat Joe election strategy. You see, if he gets all the social media companies to pay us for sharing the endless crap we publish on their platforms, er publishing outfits then bingo – the whole unemployment things gone. No more bailouts. No more government funded benefits. The neo-con way to fund UBI.

And who needs the hassle of joining the virtual dole queue if you could get paid for shaking your bootie on tiktok or sharin’ it ALL out pretty loud anywhere else controlled by Zucker/Jack/every-friggin-vc-in-America. Wanna dance the cookaracha that’ll get you $5, wanna like Kim’s latest lip gloss that’ll pay $1, wanna share McDonald’s promo’s that’ll earn you 1c. (MickeyD haven’t gotten to where they’ve gotten without being cheaper than Jock which btw is Scottish for Jack.)

Or, jettison your social media accounts, drown out Donnie and pray that netflix isn’t next on the list.

Who’s Leading Us Out Of The Coronavirus Mess?

26th May 202026th May 2020 by lettsgroup

It seems as though every country is currently exiting Corona lockdown in some form or another. For Europe and the US this has come in the nick of time for the annual beach binge as the end of May marks the beginning of summer.

Huge bets have been staked on exit directives holding up and people acting responsibly. ‘Social distancing has to be maintained’ is the new battle cry for 21st Century leaders and their weary law enforcers. Have they seen how packed some of these beaches have gotten? Mind you, the strategy might work, after all who wants to get too close to sweaty, dripping, half baked sun worshipers on New Jersey board walks.

Our leaders are clearly frayed and fatigued from the lockdown stage of the battle against Covid-19 but they would do well to pace themselves as the next phase of the war could prove even more challenging. First they have to successfully reopen without second waves of the pandemic and, talking about waves, they need to get football back on tap. Yep, we need footie like we dream of an ice cold Corona. And let’s face it, leaders need to find some popular(ist) stuff to help their depressed and weary citizens find joy and fun and all things Dom in the spirit of holiday entertainment (not).

But, enough of us lowly citizens. How are our poor leaders faring? I mean, why care about ourselves when we could be mostly concerned about them? Like a puppy dog excitedly chasing a toilet roll after it’s somewhat benevolent owner.

It seems that world leaders wellbeing falls into one of two camps. They’re either female, full of love and compassion and generally in the glow so doing quite well or their male, a bit petulant, slow in and perhaps a little rapido pulling out so generally red faced with frustration. What’s new?

If you were to paint a stark, simplistic picture of leadership types in modern germ warfare you would have to say that women seem to come out on top. And tippy top of the ‘Hottest Tackler of Corona 2020’ has to be New Zealand, Taiwan and Germany – all led by women.

Bottom of the rankings sit USA, Brazil, Russia and the UK all run by men. And, perhaps I should add, a certain kind of man, or is it two in the UK. One who perhaps enjoys their own company more than any other, that find the image of themselves in that mirror more compelling than Mona Lisa or Madonna or Kim just not Kim Yong Ding Dong. Leaders that need golf and shooting and photoshopped jogging pants so long as it’s all in the name of good photo opps.

They have children, sometimes on purpose and mostly after a bender, which is why they can’t seem to remember where they’ve all gotten to, so they embrace us citizens as though we’re their children presumably because it’s easier than tracking down the real ones. They’re the master of the mass hug. You know like Joaquin Pheonix in Gladiator or the slightly confused kid in the horror film that accidentally squished the puppy he so lovingly held. Hopefully not the same one chasing the toilet roll.

When the macho leaders kids, er citizens, get caught misbehaving they’re naturally bounced off to boarding school or Coventry or fruit picking duties cos apparently no one else can do it. They sack ministers as fast as Astra Zeneca presells futures on vaccines, unless, of course, you’re Bozzer for Dom like Russia with Love. They take question time like a three year old takes a telling off – not particularly well.

And when it all comes crashing down – which in the end it always does and their self imposed satire comes to an end – they’ll want us to love them even more and will not understand (with a stamping foot) why we might not want them around anymore. Like that mirror in Dorian Grey; why, oh why, do we smash them away.

Mind you there might be another way. There might be an exit plan for these poor overworked neo-bunnies. There could be a way through this Corona mess. They just need to get that gender transitioning operation and come back as Jacinda Ardern.

In the meantime I’ll dream of New Zealand. More Jacinda with Love than Russia with Love.

A Net Zero Climate Change Plan for Cities

22nd May 202024th Jun 2020 by lettsgroup

Global warming is the single biggest threat we face as citizens, as public officials and as businesses – beyond even Covid-19. Indeed, Coronavirus is a symptom of climate change. So, if we want to tackle the real problem, our phased lockdown exit plans will need to include plans to tackle climate change.

At DSP we thought it would be timely to publish our net zero climate change framework for towns and cities. It is designed to be high level – a simple ten step plan and a list of methods and initiatives you might want to take into consideration as you develop a region-specific approach. It is intended to inform local leaders and their citizens while stimulating debate. It has been forged from the work we have done with municipal leaders, business managers and environmental experts in developing more holistic approaches to greener, healthier, environmentally sound cities and towns.

City leaders will need to set a clear net zero target and time frame up front. Most will be focused on achieving net zero emissions by a certain date before 2050. You will need to outline your definition of emissions so as, for example, to include or not, all greenhouse gasses including Methane, Halogens and Nitrous oxide at a minimum and not just Carbon dioxide. Further, over time, you will most likely want to stretch the target as ultimately you should be aiming for a fuller drawdown of greenhouse gases so as to get ourselves back to pre-industrial levels of warming and greenhouse gases and not a less ambitious net zeroing of 1 degree or 1.5 degrees warming above pre-industrial levels.

Cities should structure their net zero climate change plans into a distinct category of projects and actions. Larger cities may want to appoint a leader for each category and separate project teams to address each. Category leaders should report to whoever is leading the project overall in the city organisation and ideally the city leader. Measurement is vital so be clear about how you will measure the likely business case/impact for each category and initiative and set six monthly rolling targets for each prior to adoption.

10 Point Net Zero Climate Change Framework for Cities (with project categories):

1. An action plan for the people. The only way a city will be able to pull off aggressive targets such as net zero emissions by 2030 will be to get as many of their citizens as possible to change their behaviors. DSP has developed a universal 10 point climate change action plan for individuals and households which is comprehensive and practical.

2. An action plan for businesses. Alongside an action plan for your citizens you should also adopt and market an action plan for businesses. Getting businesses, small medium and large, to buy into a straight forward, universal net zero climate change plan for their business could make a big difference.

3. Energy: strategies should include approaches and targets for wind turbines, microgrids, geothermal, solar farms, rooftop solar, wave and tidal, biomass, micro wind, in-stream hydro, waste to energy and energy storage.

4. Food: to include a plant-rich diet, reduced food waste, green/clean cooking stoves and cookware, nutrient management, composting, conservation agriculture and irrigation.

5. Women and girls: women have a key role to play in the environmental movement as more often than not they influence household decisions, purchases and practices. They are generally more responsible for gardens and small holdings and they spend considerable time educating children and informing their values. They are also ultimately responsible for family planning. Educating women and girls in net zero strategies and environmental approaches should prove highly worthwhile.

6. Buildings and infrastructure: the following components are essential to your plans – net zero buildings, walkable cities, bike infrastructure, green roofs, LED lighting, heat pumps, smart glass, smart thermostats, district heating, landfill methane, insulation, retrofitting, water distribution and building automation.

7. Land use: make sure to include forest protection, new forests and tree planting, coastal wetlands, bamboo, peatlands, perennial biomass, local community land management, rewilding and afforestation. Develop community learning initiatives e.g. wildlife gardening techniques and centres of excellence like a rewilding town centre park.

8. Transport: transport is a key opportunity for any climate conscious city plan. Take a look at mass transit, high-speed rail, shipping and boats, electric vehicles, ridesharing, electric bikes, cars, aeroplanes, trucks, remote working and learning and trains. Think through natural capital approaches that could, for instance, combine incentives for good practices as well as taxes or charges for the most polluting behaviours. Education and supportive, positive economic policies are the key.

9. Materials: this is an area often overlooked but, done right, can make a significant difference to effective net zero strategies. For proven eco materials strategies look carefully at household recycling, industrial recycling, alternative eco-friendly cement, refrigeration, recycled paper, bioplastic and water saving in homes.

10. New eco innovations: there are a number of new innovations and trends that, as they mature, could make a significant difference to achieving and enhancing climate friendly action plans in the medium term. We believe the following deserve your attention: artificial foods, the ‘artificial leaf’ project, autonomous vehicles, living buildings, direct air capture, smart highways and roads, hyperloop, smart grids and building with wood.

At DSP we help organisations and individuals to become more climate friendly and adopt healthier living approaches. We offer a cost effective online app, DSP Online, to help you better understand how to become environmentally conscious with simple actionable techniques gleaned from the day to day approaches and learnings at DSP’s center of excellence in the UK southwest. Sign up to DSP Online today – CLICK HERE.

What If Coronavirus is a Dress Rehearsal for Something Way More Sinister?

19th May 202020th May 2020 by lettsgroup

Some thing’s been nagging me for a while. Kind of an itch really. And it’s been growing since before the Covid-19 nightmare. Like deja vue in reverse. That what we’re living through now is just a dress rehearsal for something much bigger. Maybe we’re experiencing the appetiser. You know, the precursor to a scintillating, jaw dropping main course – a goddamned Big Mac and fries!

What if Coronavirus is just the first step to something way more sinister? What if it’s like an early skirmish in a much deadlier war. And what if that war’s lurking just around the corner. What if Donald Trump was right and all the thousands of scientists were wrong about climate change but not in the way that we might expect. What if their predictions for climate catastrophe are actually too cautious.

What if we only have a few more years before we get hit by another global catastrophy – you know like another deadly virus or massive droughts, endless rainstorms, flooding, coastal collapse, or a combination of the above leading to huge population migrations, starvation and a devastating world war.

What if the world’s wildlife get so pissed off that they finally turn on us – lions and tigers roaming the streets of New York or London randomly attacking people. Snakes in our showers, tarantulas up our pj’s. What if aliens drop in to nuke us because they agree with the wildlife and have had it with watching us from afar while we fumble with the planet like a bunch of 3 year olds. Or what if, way, way scarier than any of the above, what if Donald Trump wins the next US election and we get another four years of his friggin twitter account.

ENOUGH!! ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!! ENOUGH I SAY!!

What if we DO SOMETHING. What if we stand up and fight back. What if I didn’t have to write this domesday crap of a climate nightmare that’s starting to make me wanna find the next cliff and nose dive it like a kestrel. What if my rantings were about our progress defeating Corona and climate change and inequality and obesity and all things neo-con, er Liberal, er fascist.

What if we all just wake up one day and decide that we’d had enough. Enough of just waiting around watching storms get worse, public health get more viruses, forests get more fires, politicians get more useless and ExxonMobil make more money. What if we act now to survive our extinction – to roll back global warming. To save the planet.

What if we decided that Donnie and Bolsonightmarearo were wrong and Jacinda and Greta were right and that the way to attack the Corona consuming every inch of our daily, increasingly Netflix driven lives, was to kill it by waging war on the real problem – the climate thing. Getting all the public money flying around to go on green, healthy, climate friendly initiatives including walkable, bike loving cities, green spaces everywhere with rewilding verges, parks and commons.

What if all national treasures, reserves and crown lands were rewilded, what if every country started a major national tree planting campaign, what if the politicians and business leaders went all in and insisted on 100% renewable energy by 2035. What if us citizens stopped eating meat before dinner and shopped on foot to local stores and walked to work and to school and got on aeroplanes way less. What if we invested more in universal healthcare systems. What if our carbon emissions starting decreasing on an annual basis, what if pollution became an old desease we eradicated like malaria, what if national pride was restored by living in the greenest, healthiest and happiest place on the planet. You know, like Disneyland or the Playboy mansion or New Zealand.

And then again, what if we don’t. What if we do nothing and we have another five years of Corona 1.0 and Corona 2.0 and Donnie and Bozzer and heat and rain and fire and bedlem. What if we do nothing and the planet swallows us up and spits us out like a bug in a Big Mac. Or what if China and America decide that nuclear war is easier than tackling climate chaos and more fun than the endless twitter back and forth. What if Xi Ping Pong and Donnie end up being the last men standing – you know like a same sex Adam and Eve. What if these were like our least few years on this earth – like EVER.

You choose and God help you.

I’m emigrating to New Zealand.

10 Steps to Make Your Business Climate Friendly & Achieve Net Zero

15th May 202020th May 2020 by lettsgroup

As companies reopen with new Covid-19 regulations, nearly all will be making some fundamental changes to how they do business given the new landscape and changing consumer sentiment. Things are going to be quite different. Further, all businesses have a requirement to achieve Net Zero – i.e. your overall business activities need to be carbon neutral.

Employees and customers not only require higher standards of public hygiene but they will also be turning to businesses that are environmentally conscious. Being an environmentally responsible business, with environmentally sound practices, products and services will become the new norm. Try and get ahead of it.

We have created a simple action plan to help businesses adopt some simple steps to getting climate ready and to achieve NetZero.

Here are our 10 Steps to Make Your Business Climate Friendly:

Switch to renewable energy in your office, factories, vehicle fleets and tools. There are a growing number of green energy suppliers so finding the right one for your needs is quite easy. Also, electric vehicles and tools are becoming much more pervasive.
Hire on-site employees who live within a cycle commute – the rest could work from home. Help keep pollution down and fully embrace the new ways of working. Now that you have had a few months to put in place successful home working routines and processes during the Coronavirus lockdown it’s time to lock those benefits in.
Minimise waste and recycle everything you can. The Zero Waste movement is starting to pick up some steam – try and adopt what is practical in an office setting. Become a single use plastics free business.
Lease an eco-office, warehouse or factory with a zero carbon footprint. At a minimum make sure your office is as well insulated as possible for the winter and allows as much sunlight, for natural warming, during the late spring and summer. That way you will use less energy heating your offices.
Train employees in DSP’s 10 steps to Help Solve the Climate Change Crisis.
Rewild your green areas. Plant trees, shrubs and wild grasses – the combination of the three provides the basic habitats for wildlife and insects. Place benches in nature to support employee wellbeing.
Train your company leaders in the methods and approaches to developing environmentally conscious behaviours, practises and products.
Source eco materials and local supplies wherever possible from environmentally conscious suppliers.
Organise team meetings and away days at eco-friendly hotels and venues. Try to set up outdoor meeting spaces and actively support outdoor meetings when employees, suppliers or customers are at your offices.
Measure the improvements and accomplishments you are achieving on the road to becoming fully climate friendly on a 6 monthly basis and communicate your progress to employees and customers.

Building an environmentally conscious organisation is an exciting process and one which will prove highly satisfying for you and your organisation. Done right, it will also add considerable value to your products or services as well as your brand. Include all your stakeholders in the journey – it could prove quite empowering and motivational.

Imagine a Post Coronavirus World led by Big Tech

13th May 202025th Jun 2020 by lettsgroup

The poster boy of Covid-19 lockdown, governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, has had an epiphany about how to reimagine New York post Coronavirus. A new post pandemic vision for economic and social reconstruction that we should all pay attention to.

His epiphany (not Tiphany – go read the Sun for that) is, though, less new green deal and more new big tech (side) deal so it looks like the only green stuff floating around New York’s gonna be the greenbacks heading for Bill Gates.

You see, what Corona has taught Cuomo is that human contact is a bit passe and robots are the new cool. After all, how many driverless cars caught the virus? And how many bats and pangolins have you seen infecting Amazon’s little robots stacking boxes in the warehouse?

In a flashdrive of digi-genius Andy’s decided that teacherless schools, nurseries and colleges alongside doctorless hospitals, pharmacistless pharmacies (try saying that after a few drinks) and general peopleless everything (check Amazon) is the way to go. His endless drive to win Governor of the Planet 2020 means he’s gonna do everything possible to hit the ultimate Corona target of zero infections, hospitalizations and deaths by taking the human part right out of the equation.

The government of New York’s takeaway (proving they too can do it better than any restaurant) is that the way to hit this target is to keep EVERYONE at home for ever and to invest in twitter cos they just announced that their workers can work from home ‘for ever’ which means they must also have discovered a vaccine against death.

And what twitter has taught them is that everyone in New York should now work, shop, exercise, eat, prey and make love – yep, you guessed it, at home. Period. Until death do us part. After all, there’s a nifty little Microsoft, Google or Facebook for everything else.

Wanna go to a park? Zoom up your local friggin park warden. Wanna visit the museum? Hit up Google Arts and Culture. Wanna date? May as well do the whole thing online until there’s a robot for that. Want privacy? How very 90’s of you. And wanna do some gardening? Come on! There’s astro turf for that.

Cuomo’s new big tech wheeze will work right up until the day that he wakes up, smells the coffee and realises that the good ol days of the Coronavirus might have been a walk in the virtual park compared to a cyber virus that crashes a delivery drone up his ass, turns Bezos’ robots into a bunch of smart little organised droids who want a tonne more money for taking over humankind and has robo cops out robbing every bank in New York at the click of a Tesla chopper.

So Andy, next time you wanna reinvent your planet, maybe let Dave-boy-Attenborough bend your ear away from Schmidt-I-promise-I’m-not-a-plant-sent-by-Google-or-is-it-Alphabet-now and play it safe. Stick with rewilding Central Park. Just make sure to keep the bat’s and pangolins at bay.

When a Plan Means – a Plan!

11th May 202013th May 2020 by lettsgroup

There used to be a time when a plan meant exactly that – a Plan. Mind you, it’s not very often that we expect such lowly things of politicians. After all, you could reason that if you want a friggin plan then go elect a project manager or planning manager (God forbid) not a lawmaker or PR luvvie or Donald Trump.

The problem, politicians might argue, is not their planning skills which are clearly as visible as the Corona itself – the problem is Coronavirus. You see, if Covid (the barbarian) hadn’t come along and spoilt their party/credibility/skill-at-pretending-to-be-at-work/ability-not-to-give-a-damn-about-anyone-else none of us would have had to experience the so called planning skills in the elusive chase for an exit to lockdown.

But, you see, every plan has a flaw. Germany’s flaw was opening up a little too gingerly in the name of Mercedes and Benz only to see their R rate bounce back as quickly as a little sports car goes nought to sixty. China’s flaw is a city on the border with Russia that keeps flaring up with the Corona like a kid with measles. So where’s Trumps Wall when you need one? Americas flaw in the Donnie plan is that no one seems to pay the slightest bit of attention to it or him or twitter any longer – not even him or he’d learn to spell at least. And who said the wild west was lost? Even South Korea’s much lauded planning was thrown wide open by a few dudes partying their socks off and swapping saliva like betting slips at a live market cock fight in Seouls slinky night spots. And, last but by no means least, it seems the UK’s flashing flaw in the plan is, well, Bozzer.

You see, while we were probably all a little astounded at the opaque nature of most leaders lockdown exit plans it seems that the UK set a new record for coming up with the planets most anticipated, most pre-trumpeted plan ever that, like the best of the best magic tricks, once revealed proved as solid as thin air and as present as a rabbit exiting the hat. The greatest PR trick of all was sold to the great British public – presenting a PR coup of a plan that had absolutely no plan whatsoever. Its kinda genius really.

It would be the equivalent of Churchill announcing that after many months of enduring the WW2 blitz and rationing and lights off at night we could all of a sudden go out a bit more to exercise so long as we stay alert, which would presumably be a motivational training tip to keep us exercising at a faster rate for fear of German invaders pouncing from behind park benches. That way we would stay warmer and require less heating while we stay at home, to save lives, to figure out how to invent the NHS! Cos apparently the best time to build a start-up is in the middle of a crisis.

But, Winnie would then tell us, no worries, because after this blitz dodging phase we should hopefully be OK and so at some other point we might think about venturing back out onto those Normandy beaches to meet up with some other soldiers so long as it’s one at a time and we’re careful who we bring back on the boats unless of course they’re French because apparently they’re great lovers and they cook really well. Both handy traits after you’ve been ravaged by the visible enemy in a murky blue suit and enjoyed quite a few lonely weeks on the Dunkirk beaches.

And after we somehow miraculously win the war thanks to absolutely no planning whatsoever but some really great cigar toting TV appearances (from Winnie) we will probably be able to open everything up again including the hospitality sector because we’ll have to be as hospitable as possible to thank all those people from all those other countries for beating back the marauding, non invisible Nazi folk. Because they will have had a plan (to win the war) (we hope) and so will be much more likely to find us with a map than the other way around. Plus, why wouldn’t they all want to travel to the populist, er popular UK for the weather, beaches and pubs. Well, at least the pubs.

And like that would have been the exact best way to lose WW2 it looks like this latest lack of an exit plan might prove to be the exact best way to lose to Corona. Mind you, at least we’ll all get to stay in and watch the football season restart assuming we can still afford the Sky TV box or they figure out that nationalising the premier league is the plan to beat all plans.

Maybe I’ll just escape to France.

Why are CEO’s No Longer Trusted?

6th May 20206th May 2020 by lettsgroup

I read a survey recently which stated that since the Coronavirus crisis hit, CEO’s trust ratings have plummeted. Mind you, have you met Dave from Tesco? Yet, terrifyingly enough, just a few months ago the same survey revealed that companies were more trusted than politicians (kind of a low bar) and the media (kinda no bar).

It seems that Coronavirus exposes people to a special little nano virus that not only attacks our lungs but also forces us to reveal who we really are. More warts than all. Politicians, of course, become total f***whits, while the media reminds us of the meaning of vanity (I mean who in friggs name stays on air from home all red faced and bleary eyed while self isolating with the Corona) and, it seems, CEO’s are all about optimising….., well, really just one thing – their bank balance.

Sadly neoliberalism created this convenient scam which makes it legit for EVERY CEO to be focused on one thing and one thing only – making them the money. Yep, neoliberal for ‘SHOW ME THE MONEEEEEYYY!!’. Placing the passion for great products, customer service and inventions on the scrap heap named Wall Street – all too easily bus chucked in the name of Warren stiffin Buffett. And think about it, do you really want to be Warren? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean his cash which is handy for Bill and Melinda, I mean him? Think about it.

Maybe it no longer needs to be that way. Maybe Corona won’t just kill all of us, more importantly it will kill neoliberalism. It’ll nuke the greedy ass CEO. Make a Dodo of Warren. Still wanna be Warren?

And maybe then we’ll be clear to start again, to find a post capitalist model where every CEO follows a new path, a better path, you know, where they become Jacinda Ardern. And more than that maybe the new new CEO will be a fusion of Jacinda, Trevor Noah and James-I’ll-drive-you-anywhere-so-long-as-you-crack-out-some-nice-ass-tune-Corden all mixed up with a smidgen of Charlie Chaplin. Empathy and ethics combined with humour and slap stick. With more slap than stick and no slap and tickle cos that’d be more like Harvey boy Weinstein and look how it worked out for him.

Maybe the new CEO school should teach leaders that so long as they always put people first then profits will follow. No longer profits first in the vain hope that people might follow. And putting people first means making them laugh, or cry, or just talk. You know like Oprah did. Where CEO’s leave the finances to finance people, the data science to data scientists, leave the engineering to engineers, the marketing to marketers, the backhanders to politicians and just focus on the people. Actually, even more than that, by treating customers and employees as ACTUAL people. And treating them like people means treating them like a close friend, a bestie (just not in the Harvey Weinstein kinda way).

Where it’s the done thing to treat colleagues as actual, real life friends. Where you get your advice from Joey or Rachel instead of McKinsey or Bain and where not everything is in the name of business but where it’s about the mates (again, just not in a Harvey Weinstein kinda way). Where the new business hipsters are about making the friends to make money and I don’t mean a new season of Friends though that would be nice too.

Imagine if reopening post Covid-19 lockdown meant fewer employees dragged into shitty offices, wharehouses, factories or foosball halls (thanks Google). Where the office politics gets kicked into touch. Where Jerry Maguire was right all along and fewer customers with deeper relationships really is the best way forward. Where the new company bubble means we get to generate a bit less less money while becoming lots more successful.

Where we get to spend more time enjoying empathy, ethics, humour and the sheer dream of one day finally hitting the pub again. Where every day on the job is fun and fruitful, emotional and valuable, loving and luxurious. Just like a day on the set of Baywatch. Where all of a sudden everyone’s your friend and they visit you all the time, you know, to make sure they also get on the set of Baywatch. Where it’s like grabbing a drink with your best buddies, not drinking the cool aid but swigging real alcohol and speaking it like it is. Yep, where every day’s another Guinness ad.

So, as we reopen, think about replacing the word customer or employee with ‘friend’. Ditch the customer toilet signs or customer loyalty programmes cos its anyones bathroom and friend loyalty. It’s the friends cafe and friend parking. Where the only new office layout you’ll need to research is the set of ‘Friends’. Where its couches and weird leather chairs and kitchens and cafes and terraces. Where you show up every day just for the laughs. Where customer ratings soar cos they’re from friends like they were last time around, just more legit this time. Where you get to write a new script every day. Where people show up cos they want to. Where Chandler finally feels truly at home.

Now that really would be a new norm. That might even be worth breaking out of lockdown loonies, donning the hazmat suit, getting back on a train and actually showing up to work for.

Where do I sign up?

A Miracle Cure for the Climate Change Crisis

4th May 20204th May 2020 by lettsgroup

This weekend I had one of those sleepless, tossing and turning kinda nights. You know, the one where your mind spins like a Corona press conference while your body sweat shop’s like an Amazon warehouse. Then, suddenly, as if by magic I awoke to a place of peace and calm and magical light bulbs. That place where your deepest insights surface and everything suddenly seems to make karmic sense. Where colours are brighter, sounds are intensified and smells are, well, orgasmic right to the point where you sadly came to realise that you’re not tripping with the Kardashians but instead lying on an old pair of socks. I wasn’t in heaven or hell or even Nigella Lawson’s kitchen, I was being struck by that proverbial light bulb moment.

You see, it had suddenly hit me that the most prophetic crisis of our life time, the one that makes Corona look like a nat on a flea on a Mexican bottled beer, had found its miracle cure. The climate change crisis had discovered it’s Viagra, it’s hydroxychloroquine, it’s Trumpian antidote without needing to figure out how to turn his ceaseless twitter thing off. Cos the climate crisis has discovered its very own cure and its called Covid-19. Yes, Coronavirus, may be a pain up the human butt, but it could also prove to be the ultimate cure for our planet. Nature’s way of rebalancing itself. You know, just like Dave boy Attenborough or Tonto or my meditation instructor told me so.

And can you blame nature? Well, 3 odd million people probably can echoed by a horrifying amount of deceased, but perhaps it’s nature’s ultimate wake up call screaming out ‘Christ alive if we have to wait for the UN to come up with a coherent plan to solve global warming you won’t need Nigella’s dream convection heated cook top to boil the water, you’ll just dunk the pasta in the sea. And forget farting to get the hot tub going, our global warming will have it to the point where losing the mother in law takes on a whole new in-tub dimension’.

You see, the planet couldn’t wait any longer for us mortals to come up with a plan to save it or for Bozzer to host a conference in Glasgow so it invented its very own miracle cure. And, to be honest, you couldn’t have figured out a more perfect way to solve this climate thingy than Covid. It’s like it was purpose built for it. You know, better designed than an iPhone. More purpose built than a Bovis home. Or better fitting than Pamela Anderson’s bikini.

You see, experts have told us that the four highest-impact things an individual can do to tackle climate change are eat a plant-based diet (sorry MickeyD), avoid air travel (sorry I’m-really-Rich-Branson), live car-free (sorry everyone), and have fewer children (sorry MickeyD again). Coronavirus miraculously tackles all four simultaneously. The plant based diet thingy mostly because we’ll all be so broke that we’ll only be able to afford to eat the grass off our lawn. The having kids thing cos no one wants to have sex in lockdown and after that who in the world would want to have sex ever again just to risk having kids around for the next lockdown – sorry to say it again but have you met my teenagers? And for the answer to the air travel and being car-free part go back to the plant-based diet bit. BTW it really will mean car-free (not care-free) – i.e. bye bye Formula 1 or go karting dependent on how old you are. Unless, of course, your Lewis Hamilton in which case your gonna be depressed as shit either way cos your little enough to do both.

But Corona, the miracle cure for the climate crisis, doesn’t just stop there. Oh no, its got us all so shit scared of bat’s and pangolins and any other friggin wild virus carrying creature and we’re so super friggin terrified of forests that we’ll never go anywhere near one again which deals with the whole habitat destruction thingy. And as if that wasn’t enough, it looks like all the predators on the planet are gonna rise up and eat us as thanks to Corona they’ll have figured out that they’ve got us on the run and that we’re not quite as smarty pants and dominating as we conned them into thinking we were. And, as if we needed another nail in our human coffin, they’ll hone in on the fact that we must be an even lower form of sub species given the morons we’ve chosen as leaders to get us through this Corona crisis. So they’ll hoover up enough of us to permanently deal with the over-population and car and travel things and pretty much any other human created climate hell in a basket invention we came up with over the last 100 years. At least those of us that survive might get to keep this planet.

I think when I die, which by the look of things could be pretty soon, I’ll return as a bat.