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the future of the USA – its role in the emerging global economy, October 2005
Club of Amsterdam pdf version SupportersKamer van Koophandel – Netherlands Chamber of CommerceSyntens Richard Huff Economic Counselor, U.S. Embassy The U.S. and the Emerging Global Economy “Good Globalization – Getting There from Here” Since the end of the Second World War, global economic integration has helped to bring unprecedented increases in wealth and income and has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But globalization remains controversial, and its continued progress is not assured. What are the key challenges, both for the world in general and for the U.S. in particular, that need to be addressed so that this process can continue? Hans R. Langeveld If you don’t know where you’re going – you are never lost By far the biggest advantage of the US has been the size of its economy more than anything else. In this case size is all about power. And size is of vital importance in the global economy and diplomacy. This combined and huge energy of all what the US economy stood for brought them unparalleled prosperity. But today it seems that the US must pay to keep this size (debt). Or is it that the US invests in its future today? Or can’t it afford to invest in its future because it has trouble in paying for today already? How do today’s developments already decide its future. Or has its future already been decided on? There are some choices to be made … Peter R. Luiks From world dominance to world leadership From a bare bone continent to world dominance in 200 years. How did they do it? Where, if at all, does it stop? What lessons are to be learned and what examples did the rest of the world get from the USA under the current global economic equilibrium shift to Asia. What will and has to determine the Future of the USA in the next decades and how could we all prosper globally from its past as well as current lessons in the new directions the world gets reshuffled economic wise. 16:30 Welcome by our Moderator Homme Heida, Promedia, Member of the Club of Amsterdam Round Table 16:45 Part I: Richard Huff, Economic Counselor, U.S. Embassy: The U.S. and the Emerging Global Economy Hans R. Langeveld, Managing Partner, Maes & Lunau Executive Search: If you don’t know where you’re going – you are never lost Peter R. Luiks, CEO, Asian Centre for Consulting Excellence: From world dominance to world leadership 17:45 Coffee break with drinks and snacks. 18:15 Part II: Panel with the Speakers Richard Huff Economic Counselor, U.S. Embassy Richard Huff is the Counselor for Economic Affairs at the Embassy of the United States in The Hague. Mr. Huff joined the Department of State in 1983 and has worked in U.S. Embassies in Germany, Nigeria, Israel, and Poland, as well as in several positions in Washington. Prior to joining the Department of State, Mr. Huff was a financial analyst with the bank regulatory division of the U.S. Treasury Department. Mr. Huff holds degrees from Harvard and Princeton Universities. He is married and has two daughters. www.usembassy.nl Hans Langeveld Managing Partner, Maes & Lunau Executive Search Hans focuses on national and international Information Technology, Telecom Companies, IT services Companies and other service companies. Before joining Maes & Lunau, Hans Langeveld was Managing Vice President of Korn/Ferry and held co-responsibility for the European Technology Sector. Before that, he was Senior Vice President at KPN Telecom NV with responsibility for the Business Market Division with 3,000 personnel. A large reorganisation was carried out under his leadership at this division. Also at KPN he was a management member of the Corporate Accounts Group, responsible for large contracts in the government area. Hans Langeveld served as a General Manager of a KPN Telecom NV region. He was involved in creating the AT&T/Unisource joint venture and served as a liaison to the international executive board of the Unisource Partners. Also at KPN – Telecom, he was Managing Director of a joint venture between KPN – Telecom and Getronics Holding NV, where he successfully acquired a contract for a national mobile network for the Dutch government. Langeveld is a Non-Executive Director of a Venture Capital Fund. Education: Bachelor in Economics, and Computer Sciences, Columbia University, New York. www.maeslunau.com Peter R. Luiks CEO, Asian Centre for Consulting Excellence Peter has over 25 years of on the ground success in building multi-billion-dollar enterprises in China and throughout the Far East. Peter is a global authority on Knowledge Brokering and works at the core of the world’s vast globalizational change aspects focussed on the current economic equilibrium shift to Asia. His leading networks of international experts work within High Impact Teams on earned value programmes and creating sustained market presences in new rapidly emerging markets. As one of world’s most pragmatic ‘cut the chase’ consultants he has a global reputation in business strategy and business flow architectures as well as change in integrated business alignment projects. www.acfce.th.com Homme Heida Promedia Member of the Club of Amsterdam Round Table Homme Heida is a generalist by heart, who worked as a journalist for several mass media like Algemeen Dagblad, Tros Aktua and publishing group VNU. After ten years he started his own bureau Promedia: company journalism, which slowly changed into business journalism. Now back again with larger media, he is editor-in-chief of Global Dutch, a magazine for Dutch entrepreneurs, who are active in foreign countries. Homme Heida has a continuing interest in a more philosophical approach of ‘being there’. His views on the future are very much based on new technologies. “Humans change only slowly by evolution. Technology will speed it up”, he argues. His credo is: ‘living body and soul’, which means to him a sportive challenge as well as an intellectual one. From the Amsterdam marathon till the Club of Amsterdam. www.promedia.nl
Club of Amsterdam Journal, September 2005, Issue 54
Content The Knowledge Economy: Is the United States loosing its competitive edge?News about the future of the USA News about the Future Next Event Science Museum LondonRecommended Book GlobalSourcingNOW Mayo Clinic Creates “Office of the Future” AgendaClub of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe The Knowledge Economy: The Knowledge Economy: Is the United States loosing its competitive edge?by Task Force on the Future of American Innovation “The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation has developed a set of benchmarks to assess the international standing of the United States in science and technology. These benchmarks in education, the science and engineering (S&E) workforce, scientific knowledge, innovation, investment and high-tech economic output reveal troubling trends across the research and development (R&D) spectrum. The United States still leads the world in research and discovery, but our advantage is rapidly eroding, and our global competitors may soon overtake us.” Introduction For more than half a century, the United States has led the world in scientific discovery and innovation. It has been a beacon, drawing the best scientists to its educational institutions, industries and laboratories from around the globe. However, in today’s rapidly evolving competitive world, the United States can no longer take its supremacy for granted. Nations from Europe to Eastern Asia are on a fast track to pass the United States in scientific excellence and technological innovation. The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation has developed a set of benchmarks to assess the international standing of the United States in science and technology. These benchmarks in education, the science and engineering (S&E) workforce, scientific knowledge, innovation, investment and high-tech economic output reveal troubling trends across the research and development (R&D) spectrum. The United States still leads the world in research and discovery, but our advantage is rapidly eroding, and our global competitors may soon overtake us. Research, education, the technical workforce, scientific discovery, innovation and economic growth are intertwined. To remain competitive on the global stage, we must ensure that each remains vigorous and healthy. That requires sustained investments and informed policies. Federal support of science and engineering research in universities and national laboratories has been key to America’s prosperity for more than half a century. A robust educational system to support and train the best U.S. scientists and engineers and to attract outstanding students from other nations is essential for producing a world-class workforce and enabling the R&D enterprise it underpins. But in recent years federal investments in the physical sciences, math and engineering have not kept pace with the demands of a knowledge economy, declining sharply as a percentage of the gross domestic product. This has placed future innovation and our economic competitiveness at risk. To help policymakers and others assess U.S. high-tech competitiveness and the health of the American science and engineering enterprise, we have identified key benchmarks in six essential areas – education, the workforce, knowledge creation and new ideas, R&D investments, the high-tech economy, and specific high-tech sectors. We conclude that although the United States still leads the world in research and discovery, our advantage is eroding rapidly as other countries commit significant resources to enhance their own innovative capabilities. The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, a coalition of high-tech companies, business organizations, scientific societies, and higher education associations, was founded in 2004 to advocate greater federal investments for basic research in the physical sciences and engineering. The group focuses specifically on the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, the Department of Defense research budget, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology labs at the Department of Commerce. Its members are: Agilent Technologies, AeA, ASTRA, American Chemical Society, American Mathematical Society, American Physical Society, Association of American Universities, Computing Research Association, Computing Technology Industry Association, Computing Systems Policy Project, Council on Competitiveness, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Materials Research Society, Microsoft, National Association of Manufacturers, NASULGC, The Science Coalition, Semiconductor Industry Association, Southeastern Universities Research Association, and Texas Instruments. News about the future of the USA Monitoring the FutureMonitoring the Future is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of American secondary school students, college students, and young adults. Each year, a total of some 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th grade students are surveyed (12th graders since 1975, and 8th and 10th graders since 1991). In addition, annual follow-up questionnaires are mailed to a sample of each graduating class for a number of years after their initial participation. The Media: More Voices, Less Credibilityby The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press Changing demographics, lifestyles, business trends and, most of all, technologies have fundamentally altered the way we get the news. No single source today is nearly as dominant as network news was in the early 1990s. News consumers can choose from an expanding menu of options — print and electronic, network and cable, digital and analog. This has led to declining audiences for many traditional news sources and has changed the nature of competition among news outlets, from a set-piece battle among a handful of rivals to an all-out scramble for survival. As the media landscape has shifted, so too have the public’s news tastes and preferences. Sitting down with the news on a set schedule has become a thing of the past for many time-pressured Americans; instead, they graze on the news throughout the day. More people are turning away from traditional news outlets, with their decorous, just-the-facts aspirations to objectivity, toward noisier hybrid formats that aggressively fuse news with opinion or entertainment, or both. Young people, in particular, are bypassing mainstream sources in favor of alternatives they find on the internet or late-night television. News about the future Psychologists find that two different thought processes can explain how we gauge our risk of disease Psychologists have gained insight into how people judge their personal health risks. The findings suggest that people aren’t horribly off the mark as long as they do not rely on media reports and stick to what’s happened to people they know. The findings challenge the assumption, says Ralph Hertwig, PhD, of the University of Basel in Switzerland, that people make huge blunders when inferring the likelihood of, say, dying of a heart attack or in a car accident. He says, “People can arrive at relatively accurate estimates as long as they rely on their personal experiences of the frequencies of such events … by thinking of how many of their relatives, friends and acquaintances died from these causes.” He continues, “However, when they start sampling from the virtual world as created by the mass media, they are more likely to arrive at distorted estimates of likelihood.” For instance, if people sample from the virtual world, they might readily conclude that many more people die due to more rare but dramatic causes such as mad-cow disease or airplane crashes, than due to more typical causes such as asthma. The authors are concerned that as “factors such as overpopulation, poverty, and global climate change pave the way for new health risks, it becomes even more important to better understand how the public perceives and judges risks.” The Coming Demographic Deficit: How Aging Populations Will Reduce Global Savingsby McKinsey Global Institute The long-term solvency of pension plans – both public and private – is a growing concern across the developed world as policy-makers wrestle with the fiscal consequences of aging, and business leaders and investors seek to understand how aging will affect global markets for goods, capital and labor. The answer to all these issues depends largely on a fundamental question that is often overlooked: How will aging affect future levels of household wealth and economic well-being? New research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) sheds light on this question, drawing its conclusions from in-depth analyses of five countries – the U.S., Japan, Germany, Italy, and the U.K.– which together account for two-thirds of global financial assets. Birth rates will fall and lifespans will continue to lengthen over the next two decades, driving up the median ages in many countries. In Japan, for example, the median age will rise from 43 to 50, and from 42 to 51 in Italy. MGI’s new report reveals that the aging of the developed world is creating a demographic deficit that could radically transform the financial wealth of households, and therefore, the capital available to businesses and government. MGI’s key finding is that over the next two decades, absent dramatic changes in saving behavior or returns earned on financial assets, growth in household financial wealth will slow by more than two-thirds, from 4.5 percent historically to 1.3 percent going forward. This slowdown will cause the level of household financial wealth to fall some 36 percent, or approximately $31 trillion, below what it would have been had the higher historical growth rates persisted. The U.S. will be by far the largest source of the global shortfall ($19 trillion) because of the U.S. dominant share of global financial wealth. Japan stands out as the second-largest source ($8 trillion) of the global shortfall, because its demographic trends are so severe. MGI projects that Japan’s household financial wealth will stop growing and enter an absolute decline over the next two decades, driving a 47 percent shortfall in wealth. Next Event: Wednesday, October 19, 16:30-19:15 the future of the USA– its role in the emerging global economy Wednesday, October 19, 2005Registration: 16:00-16:30, Conference: 16:30-19:15Where: Kamer van Koophandel Amsterdam – Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, De Ruyterkade 5, 1013 AA Amsterdam WithRichard Huss, Economic Counselor, U.S. Embassy: The future role of the United States in the global economyHans R. Langeveld, Managing Partner, Maes & Lunau Executive SearchPeter R. Luiks, CEO, Asian Centre for Consulting Excellence: From world dominance to world leadership and our Moderator Homme Heida, Promedia, Member of the Club of Amsterdam Round Table Science Museum London Science Museum London The origins of the Science Museum lie in the nineteenth-century movement to improve scientific and technical education. Prince Albert was a leading figure in this movement, and he was primarily responsible for the Great Exhibition of 1851 to promote the achievements of science and technology. The profits of the hugely successful Exhibition were used to purchase land in South Kensington to establish institutions devoted to the promotion and improvement of industrial technology. At the same time, the Government set up a Science & Art Department which established the South Kensington Museum in 1857, from which the Science Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum have developed. The objects on display in the South Kensington Museum were drawn from various sources including the Great Exhibition. Most were art objects, but the ‘science collections’, as they were known, included models, apparatus, examples of materials, books and educational resources. The collections were boosted by an international exhibition in 1876 of scientific instruments. In 1884 the Patent Museum passed on its stock of patent models to the science collections, including priceless objects such as Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ and Arkwright’s original textile machinery. The arts and science collections gradually assumed their own identities to the extent that the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum were formally separated in 1909. A new building to house the Science Museum was formally opened by King George V in 1928. The Museum continued to expand its premises and its collections. In the early 1980s, objects from the Wellcome collection were placed on permanent display. In the 1980ies a period of rapid expansion started: New interactive galleries, such as Launch Pad and Flight Lab, were opened, supplementary exhibitions were initiated and the Museum developed a busy programme of activities and events. New Galleries in 1996 included the imaginative “Secret Life of the Home” and extensive new hands-on education facilities. Online Exhibitions and InteractivesDiscover more about science, scientific people and events through our collections of exhibitions and interactives. Some examples: Antenna Antenna is a world first – a constantly-updated exhibition devoted exclusively to science and technology news. It’s the place to get up to date. Energy – fuelling the future Play Energy Ninjas, test yourself with our online quizzes and find out more about the Science Museum’s newest gallery. Ingenious Ingenious is a new website with over 30,000 museum images making connections between people, innovations and ideas. Your Lifecycle Find Out More You started life as a cell, smaller than a pin-prick. This divided into two, then four, then eight – and so on. Your whole body is now made up of about a 100 million million cells: just one teaspoon of your blood contains about 25 billion red blood cells. Exploring Leonardo Learn about this fascinating scientist, inventor, and artist. Recommended Book Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Centuryby Henry Kissinger Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asks a question in the title of his book Does America Need a Foreign Policy?–but there’s really no doubt about the answer. That’s not to say it shouldn’t be asked: “The last presidential election was the third in a row in which foreign policy was not seriously discussed by the candidates,” writes Kissinger. “In the face of perhaps the most profound and widespread upheavals the world has ever seen, [the United States] has failed to develop concepts relevant to the emerging realities.” Kissinger tours the world in this book, describing how the United States should relate to various regions and countries. This is not a gripping book, but it is sober, accessible, brief, and comprehensive–and an excellent introduction to international relations and diplomacy. Kissinger has opinions on just about every topic he raises, from globalization (for it) to international courts (against them, for the most part). He supports a vigorous missile-defense system: “The United States cannot condemn its population to permanent vulnerability.” He opines on peace in the Middle East: “Israel should abandon its opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state except as part of a final status agreement.” His claims are often eye-opening: “There are few nations in the world with which the United States has less reason to quarrel or more compatible interests than Iran.” He is especially critical of domestic politics interfering with America’s international relations: “Whatever the merit of the individual legislative actions, their cumulative effect drives American foreign policy toward unilateral and seemingly bullying conduct.” The media has been a special problem in this regard, as it zips around the world in search of exciting but ephemeral stories, which are “generally presented as a morality play between good and evil having a specific outcome and rarely in terms of the long-range challenges of history.” Does America need a foreign policy? Of course it does, and Henry Kissinger has done readers a service by outlining what a good one might be. – John J. Miller GlobalSourcingNOW GlobalSourcingNOW is a FREE daily and weekly newsletter providing the latest updates on the global offshoring and outsourcing industry. GlobalSourcingNOW is hosted by Evalueserve, a leading provider of expert knowledge services. Industries such as Information Technology, Human Resource Management, Finance & Insurance, Knowledge Management, Customer Relationship Management, Biotechnology, Engineering, and Research & Development are extensively researched and covered by GlobalSourcingNOW. GlobalSourcingNOW newsletters reach over 22,000 subscribers across 40 countries. For further details on this, please refer to this link:http://www.globalsourcingnow.com Mayo Clinic Creates “Office of the Future” Mayo Clinic Creates “Office of the Future” Lose weight while you work The creator of the “Office of the Future” is quick to correct them. “This is a fully functioning office. My entire staff works here,” explains James Levine, M.D., as he walks on a moving treadmill that serves as both desk and computer platform. “The idea is to introduce an environment that will encourage activity in the workplace. Just as it’s hard to be a couch potato without a couch, it’s hard to sit all day at work without a chair or a conventional desk or cubicle. “We have meeting rooms, but for small groups we prefer the track,” says Dr. Levine. He’s referring to a two-lane walking track that circles most of the 5,000-square-foot floor. “So when my colleagues and I ‘take a meeting’ we also take a walk.” This scientifically designed office environment is the practical realization of a decade of research at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Levine, an endocrinologist, has spent his career studying how humans expend energy. His recent research findings (Science, Jan. 27, 2005) show that genomic and biological differences impact how many calories a person burns during everyday tasks. It proved the long-discussed concept of a “slow metabolism” as a factor in obesity. It also showed that people can increase their caloric “burn rates” by integrating more movement into their daily regime. Dr. Levine calls this process “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” (NEAT). The room makeover cost about $5 per square foot. The standing desks cost about $1,000 each, but the room requires no other office furnishings, and no cubicles. The result: a traditional office floor is transformed into a clean, sunny, open space with 10 Plexiglas standing computer desks, complete with variable-speed treadmills. There are no desk phones or wall phones. All employees wear mobile phones on their belts along with a Mayo-designed standometer that measures their vertical time and recognizes when they sit down. It also tells them how much more activity they need in order to meet their individual activity goals for the day. (They might need to take one more meeting.) Walls near the track are essentially magnetic white boards (instead of fabric) for posting ideas and scribbling notes during the moving meetings. Animated art projections are seen on at least three walls to reinforce the concept of activity. Employees can strap on plastic carpet skates, and slide from meeting to meeting for a change of pace. All keyboarding, phoning and thinking are done during some form of motion. Coffee and healthy snacks are available nearby, but staff must walk to get them Club of Amsterdam Agenda NEW: .Our Season Events are Wednesdays 16:30! 16:00-16:30 Registration16:30-17:45 Part I: Presentations17:45-18:15 Break: Drinks and evtl. live music18:15-19:15 Part II: Discussion Club of Amsterdam Season Events 2005/2006 .Oct 19 the future of the USA .Nov 30 the future of Software Architecture .Jan 25 the future of Futurist Tools .Mar 1 the future of Electronic Identity .Mar 29 the future of Governance .Apr 26 the future of Drugs & Pharma .May 31 the future of Reputation Management .Jun 28 the future of Journalism / Ethics in Journalism Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club
Club of Amsterdam Journal, September 2005, Issue 53
Content IP Value 2005News about Intellectual Property News about the Future Next Event Looking Out for the Future: An Orientation for Twenty-first Century PhilanthropistsRecommended Book Eco-resort, Guludo, MozambiqueClimate Change: Risk and Vulnerability Summit for the Future 2006 AgendaClub of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe IP Value 2005 IP Value 2005by PricewaterhouseCoopers […] A great web of bilateral tax treaties between countries governs the right to tax, the allocation of income and profits, the provision of credits and in certain circumstances allows governments the right to decide among themselves how much tax will be charged. The OECD has a Committee on Fiscal Affairs under which more or less permanent working parties steer the evolution of this web and the way in which the concepts used are to be interpreted and applied. It would be very surprising if intellectual property managed to escape this broad net. It rarely does. From tax credits for research and development (R&D), through allowances for intellectual property assets and withholding taxes or VAT on royalties to capital gains taxes on disposals, the whole cycle of intellectual property creation and use is affected by our systems of taxation. The problem, as the Romans discovered with the taxation of business profits, lies in two areas: identifying the person and measuring the value. How much was actually spent on R&D? Who spent it? Who owns the intellectual property being used? Was it sold or licensed? What is it worth? These are all areas of tension between taxpayers and taxing authorities – a tension exacerbated by the inherent difficulty of measuring something that is, by definition, intangible. The Roman solutions to the same tension in business profits, until the Emperor Constantine abolished them, were imprisonment and torture. Today we use accounting and valuation. Unkind people have been known to draw unflattering parallels. The tensions today are, if anything, worse because the creation and use of intellectual property within a multinational group are generally poorly measured and difficult to track. This is the subject of the next chapter, which also highlights some of the specific tensions by reference to recent tax cases reported in various parts of the world. A responsible approach to tax on intellectual property is about three things: complying with your obligations; paying what you should without overpaying; and taking the relief that is available. The following chapters provide some insight into these areas, dealing with transfer pricing, tax valuation as it affects the transfer or use of intellectual property and R&D credits. The point about systems is that they can be understood, applied and dealt with. One of the best ways to deal with tax systems is to have a system of your own to deal with them. Call this a policy. Then the people that apply the policy – the managers, the lawyers, and the business people, do not need to know the detail of how something is taxed, the rates that apply or the minutiae of why the policy works. They can get on with their jobs. For intellectual property within a multinational group the issues can be complex but the policies can be relatively straightforward. “We deal with R&D so; marketing expenditure is treated thus; and the use of intellectual property is covered in this or that way.” Consistency of treatment reduces administration and is attractive to tax authorities, it helps make things easier to explain. Properly prepared, a good policy will link into other areas such as the legal department – “patents and trademarks are registered by this or that company which licenses their use”; and will match the commercial operations of the group – “R&D budgets are agreed by these people and the costs are charged on such and such a basis.” Exceptionally, but growing more common, policies will take disclosure requirements into account to ensure that what is reported for financial and fiscal purposes draws on the same information systems. All of this requires a degree of discipline, some foresight and a willingness to tackle what has always been recognised as a difficult area. As reporting requirements become more detailed, the additional visibility and transparency that brings to the area of intellectual property make it more likely that the effort required will be repaid in terms of managing tax audits, fewer tax adjustments or less interest and penalties. As the next chapter shows, good policies are no guarantee of an easy ride but they serve to smooth the road, reduce the cost and increase the chances of winning. In short, there is an answer to the rather daunting picture painted at the beginning of this chapter. It depends on being prepared, on recognising intellectual property for what it is – an integral part of the value chain for most businesses – and building a policy around that.For the full document: click here News about Intellectual Property Patenting Art & EntertainmentPatenting art and entertainment is where the patenting of software was twenty years ago. As the number of software patents continues to rise in Europe, the issue of the validity of such patents arises, especially given that software patent quality on both sides of the Atlantic is poor. For such patents, (non-patent) prior art will be needed for use in oppositions, lawsuit defenses, and licensing analyses, both in European and American forums. 2004 Top Patent Ownersby IPO 1) IBM [3.248 patents]2) Hitachi [1.939 patents]3) Matsushita Electric Industrial [1.986 patents]4) Canon [1.867 patents]5) Hewlett-Packard [1.783 patents]6) Micron Technology [1.760 patents]7) Intel [1.605 patents]8) Samsung Electronics [1.604 patents]9) Sony [1.500 patents]10) Siemens [1.477 patents] News about the future TruveoTruveo has spent the last couple years developing some new technology to find all of the best video on the web. It is ready for some beta testing. Finding all the video files on the web is only part of the challenge. For video to be searchable, it is also necessary to collect meaningful text metadata to associate with each video file. Of course, we rely on standard techniques, such as mining closed-caption transcripts and importing RSS feeds. The vast majority of video on the web, however, does not have any closed-caption or RSS metadata available. Fortunately, our visual crawlers come to the rescue. Whenever our visual crawlers find a new video on the web, they can also “visually” examine the context of the surrounding web application. In most cases, this examination reveals a bounty of rich and detailed metadata related to every video. ITERITER is the experimental step between today’s studies of plasma physics and tomorrow’s electricity-producing fusion power plants. The objective of the ITER machine is to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of fusion, with extended controlled burn and, marginally, ignition, for a duration sufficient to achieve stationary conditions on all time-scale characteristics of plasma processes and plasma-wall interactions. To do so the installation will produce 500 MW of fusion power during pulses of at least 400 seconds. The facility will also demonstrate key fusion technologies. Next Event: Wednesday, September 21, 16:30-19:15 the future of Journalism – Ethics in Journalism Wednesday, September 21, 2005Registration: 16:00-16:30, Conference: 16:30-19:15Where: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Prins Bernhardplein 200, Amsterdam [next to Amstelstation], free parking. WithKamiel J. Koelman, Associate Professor, Computer/Law Institute (CLI), Vrije Universiteit: Open source software and software patentsHans Bousie, Owner, Bousie advocaten: Intellectual property and intelligent ownershipHedda Pahlson-Moller, Managing Director, Omnisource International, Client Executive, Evalueserve: Trends in IP Offshoring and our Moderator Marc Bolick, CEO, Dmarc8 International Looking Out for the Future: An Orientation for Twenty-first Century Philanthropists Looking Out for the Future: An Orientation for Twenty-first Century PhilanthropistsBy Katherine Fulton and Andrew Blau, Global Business Network and Monitor Institute Your passion may be curing disease, reforming education, supporting artists, fighting hunger, or anything else that philanthropists support. But have you noticed that philanthropy itself is changing? The final report of our four-year initiative shows you how long-term trends are combining to create a new reality for every gift and every giver. One result is that anyone who wants to give has more choices than ever. We believe that if you understand how philanthropy is evolving and could evolve in the next generation, you will make better decisions today in support of the issues, institutions, and communities you care about most.Looking Out for the Future: An Orientation for Twenty-first Century Philanthropists is designed to help you make sense of your choices in four ways. First, we explain the new context for philanthropy, which we call “the new ecology of social benefit.” Then we show you how many different types of philanthropists (individual and institutional) are responding in imaginative ways. The new context and the emerging responses to it will combine to create the future of philanthropy, which we explore next by telling stories, looking back from the year 2025. Finally, we outline several principles to help you choose your own path into the future. For an overview of the contents of Looking Out for the Future, consult the executive summary. You can also obtain the full report Recommended Book Open Source Software Lawby Rod Dixon Provides a broad introduction to the area of software licensing in the information age. Helps professionals and students to understand the basic philosophy and key issues of open source license. Explains the legal framework that has been developed to support the increasingly popular Internet-based open source and free software community. Eco-resort, Guludo, Mozambique Eco-resort, Guludo, MozambiqueCullum and Nightingale Architects The Guludo eco-resort is located within the newly established Quirimbas National Park. The project aims to bring together high class tourist facilities and ecological concerns within a development agenda. Undertaken in consultation with the local community, a portion of the profits will be ploughed back into the village and district. The resort is arranged as a series of small-scale buildings strung out along a path in the manner of a traditional village. A central ‘hub’ consists of the main public buildings sited around an open courtyard, with a covered dining area overlooking the sea. Guests are accommodated in independent bandas arranged north and south of the ‘hub’ facing directly onto the beach. The buildings are built using largely local techniques, drawing on local skills and labour, and developed and adapted as necessary to suit the particular form and requirements of the individual buildings. A key element of the design is the use of sustainable energy sources – solar power and heating, methane gas production, compost toilets, and the buildings are designed to maximise natural ventilation and shading. It is intended that the standard of design, construction, and ecological and developmental responsibility of Guludo eco-resort will be of the highest quality. The resort should be a model for future developments and should be capable of being audited against international standards. Climate Change: Risk and Vulnerability Climate Change: Risk and VulnerabilityAustralian Greenhouse Office There is little doubt that Australia will face some degree of climate change over the next 30 to 50 years irrespective of global or local efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. The scale of that change, and the way it will be manifested in different regions is less certain, but climate models can illustrate possible effects. Applying a range of these models to Australia for the range of global emissions scenarios generated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its Third Assessment Report, CSIRO has identified a number of possible outcomes: an increase in annual national average temperatures of between 0.4° and 2.0°C by 2030 and of between 1.0° and 6.0°C by 2070 — with significantly larger changes in some regions by each date;more heatwaves and fewer frosts;possibly more frequent El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events — resulting in a more pronounced cycle of prolonged drought and heavy rains;possible reductions in average rainfall and run–off in Southern and much of Eastern Australia with rainfall increases across much of the Tropical North — as much as a further 20 per cent reduction in rainfall in Southwest Australia, and up to a 20 per cent reduction in run–off in the Murray Darling Basin by 2030;more severe wind speeds in cyclones, associated with storm surges being progressively amplified by rising sea levels;an increase in severe weather events — including storms and high bushfire propensity days; and a change in ocean currents,possibly affecting our coastal waters, towards the end of this period. Of these possible results, the most likely are for temperature change (including heatwaves and reductions in frosts), sea level rises and increases in cyclonic wind intensity. This does not mean that the results of the models for other possible dimensions of change — rainfall, run–off, non–cyclonic severe weather events — should be disregarded, as they still provide a useful basis on which to test the sensitivity of different systems — natural and human — to the possible scale of change. They should not, however, be regarded as forecasts but rather as indications of possible directions and scale of change. The wisest approach is to use these projections as ‘thought experiments’ to assess the additional risk — the potential exposure to hazards to life, biodiversity, or economic interests — that changes on this scale could pose. The period through to 2030, and to a lesser extent 2050, is the one that is most relevant today for decisions about adaptation strategies. This is because most decisions that could be affected by climate risks involve assets and business systems whose economic life falls within or near this time horizon. Summit for the Future 2006 Summit for the Future 2006Club of AmsterdamMay 3-5, 2006 What is the Summit for the Future 2006?The Club of Amsterdam presents its second, global “Summit for the Future 2006” bringing together Thought Leaders to discuss significant, global challenges and opportunities. This year we focus on the subject of risk and the role of risk in innovation and global growth. Why risk?Without risk taking there is no progress, no growth and no prosperity. The Summit is an opportunity for participants to stand back and reflect upon the role of risk in enterprise and society, on how the global spectrum of risk is changing and to acquire new tools and thinking with which to harness risk as a force for growth in the future. Club of Amsterdam Agenda NEW: .Our Season Events are Wednesdays 16:30! 16:00-16:30 Registration16:30-17:45 Part I: Presentations17:45-18:15 Break: Drinks and evtl. live music18:15-19:15 Part II: Discussion Club of Amsterdam Season Events 2005/2006 .Sept 21 the future of Ideas – Intellectual Property .Oct 19 the future of the USA .Nov 30 the future of Software Architecture .Jan 25 the future of Futurist Tools .Mar 1 the future of Electronic Identity .Mar 29 the future of Governance .Apr 26 the future ofDrugs & Pharma .May 31 the future of Reputation Management .Jun 28 the future of Journalism – Ethics in Journalism Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club
the future of Ideas – Intellectual Property, September 2005
Club of Amsterdam pdf version SupporterPricewaterhouseCoopers Kamiel J. Koelman: Open source software and software patents The open source method of software development is becoming widespread. Recently, a proposal for a European regulation of software patents was rejected. Koelman will discuss the legal implications of these developments. Hans Bousie: Intellectual property and intelligent ownership Intellectual property is all about property so it seems. In the entertainment industry for instance, companies consider music their property. Their emphasis is on them owning the products and owning the creators. Whether this is an intellectual way of behaving is questioned by Hans Bousie. Regardless of whether the balance between ownership and exploitation leans towards one side or the other, the creative industry is bound to suffer. Hedda Pahlson-Moller: Trends in IP Offshoring A recent study by Evalueserve highlights the fact that there will be an increasing unmet demand in IP requirements in Europe over the next five years, hampering innovation and pushing up costs for European companies. This shortfall can be met, in part, by outsourcing IP services to third parties in low-cost locations, such as India, in three different models: 1. Third-party vendors providing services directly to companies in Europe, 2. European law firms outsourcing work to the same vendors or 3. European companies setting up own IP units in India. Currently, offshore capabilities include patent searches, drafting and background research; litigation and final filing are still carried out onshore in Europe. Cost savings possible from outsourcing this work are substantial. However, there are varying degrees of risk and reward for each model that should be considered before entering in an offshore relationship. Short presentation by Brian Hoolahan File-Reg International provide and online system to prove who was the first to create and/or are the legal owners/developers of a particular work since they registered the ‘intellectual property’ at a certain moment in time. 16:30 Welcome by our Moderator Marc Bolick, CEO, Dmarc8 International 16:45 Part I: Kamiel J. Koelman, Associate Professor, Computer/Law Institute (CLI), Vrije Universiteit: Open source software and software patents Hans Bousie, Owner, Bousie advocaten: Intellectual property and intelligent ownership Hedda Pahlson-Moller, Managing Director – Omnisource International; Client Executive – Evalueserve: Trends in IP Offshoring Short presentation by Brian Hoolahan, CEO, File-Reg International 17:45 Coffee break with drinks & networking 18:15 Part II: Panel with the Speakers and our Moderator Marc Bolick The panel is followed by an open discussion. Kamiel Koelman Associate Professor, Computer/Law Institute (CLI), Vrije Universiteit Kamiel J. Koelman is an associate professor at the Computer/Law Institute (CLI) of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. His main field of expertise is on the intersection of technology and the law, particularly intellectual property law. He has published numerous articles on issues such as ownership of electronic rights, multimedia licensing, online intermediary liability, open source software, hyper linking, privacy in the context of digital rights management systems, copyright law and economics, software patents, the changing position of collecting societies under anti-trust law and the protection of technological measures. Additionally, he produced reports both for European projects and the World Intellectual Property Organization. He is a member of the board of editors of the main Dutch law journals on copyright (AMI) and computer law (Computerrecht) and a regular speaker on national and international conferences. Before he joined the CLI he was employed by the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, where he received his doctor’s degree. http://cli.vu/en/index.php Hans Bousie Owner, Bousie Advocaten Bousie advocaten is a niche-firm that specializes in media- and entertainment law. It was established in 2003 by Hans Bousie and is now led by him and Sander Dikhoff. They have managed to assemble a group of 10 A-list entertainment lawyers, well trained in various specialised and/or large law firms, they now found “the” connection. The firm’s field of focus include media, motion pictures, music, book publishing, theatre, games, art and fashion. Since 2003 it has become the leading specialised firm in media and entertainment law in the Netherlands. The firm prides itself in its expertise on intellectual property law, with a strong focus on copyright law and trademark law. The firm also has a very strong base in competition law, information technology law, corporate law, and telecommunication law. http://www.bousie-advocaten.nl Hedda Pahlson-Moller Managing Director – Omnisource International; Client Executive – Evalueserve Hedda Pahlson-Moller is Managing Director of the Outsourcing/Offshoring consultancy, Omnisource International, and serves as the Benelux Client Executive for Evalueserve – a global knowledge services company providing customized, multi-lingual Business Intelligence (Business Research, Market Research, Investment Research and Data Analytics) and Intellectual Property research services to leading edge clients worldwide. Evalueserve has a team of 850+ professional researchers based in its operations centers in Gurgaon, India and Shanghai, China. Hedda has a B.A. from Brown University (USA), a Masters in Political Science from Lund University, and is completing an executive MBA program from Copenhagen Business School. As a dual Canadian/Swedish citizen, Hedda has lived around the globe and worked for the Swedish Embassy and the Japan Development Bank in Tokyo, the US Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, the Centre for Science and Environment in India and spent 4 years at Hewlett-Packard in Brussels and Grenoble. http://www.evalueserve.com Brian Hoolahan CEO, File-Reg International Brian Hoolahan is founder and CEO of File-Reg International, specializing in the online registration of Intellectual Property other then patents or trademarks. The system is used to prove the origin and time of existence of concepts, designs, R&D etc at the push of a button. Apart from the File-Reg system being used by third party companies as a ‘branded’ system by i.e. lawyers, legal advisory services for business and media, the service is also being implemented into schools of Higher Education to help combat IP theft and create awareness among students in regard to IP protection of their work. Prior to founding File-Reg Brian Hoolahan was for many years a producer for Dutch national broadcasting companies. http://www.file-reg.com Marc Bolick CEO, Dmarc8 International Marc runs Dmarc8 International, a company specializing in providing marketing and business development services to high growth, technology-based companies. Prior to Dmarc8 he co-founded MobiQuis, a company providing infotainment services to the mobile telecoms industry. Prior to this, he spent nine years at General Electric and two years at Nucletron/Delft Instruments in marketing product management positions in the medical devices sector. Marc received his MBA from Rotterdam School of Management and his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University (USA).
Club of Amsterdam Journal, August 2005, Issue 52
Content Offshoring Patent Drafting and Prosecution Services News about Intellectual Property News about the Future Next Event 15 Global ChallengesRecommended Book The Luck Project Games People Play Agenda Club of Amsterdam Open Business ClubClub of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Offshoring Patent Drafting and Prosecution Services Alok Aggarwal, co-founder, Evalueserve Hedda Pahlson-Moller, Client Executive, Evalueserve Offshoring Patent Drafting and Prosecution Services 1.1 Background Around 175,000 patent applications are filed with the European Patent Office (EPO) every year. Of these patent application filings, a significant number – almost 44 percent per year – are made by non-European states. This clearly indicates that a great deal of patenting activity is taking place in various organisations across the world, with the accelerated rate of R&D taking place in emerging countries such as India and China. Evalueserve estimates that as many as 223,000 patent applications will be filed in Europe in the year 2010. Within Europe, approximately 8,000 attorneys and agents are registered with the EPO, to prepare, file and prosecute patent applications. They are also engaged in other intellectual property work, e.g., preparing, filing and prosecuting trademark applications and copyrights, IP litigation and IP asset management. In order to meet the rising demand for intellectual property (IP) work, Evalueserve predicts that more than 2,000 additional attorneys and agents will be required in Europe by 2010, to avoid a sharp rise in costs incurred by applicants. Currently, many large organisations have in-house IP divisions with agents, associates, lawyers and business development professionals who handle all kinds of IP work. However, most small and medium-sized enterprises do not have separate IP divisions; and due to reasons such as cost, quality and efficiency, many large firms often outsource some – or all – of their IP work to external firms. Since both the price and demand for IP services is likely to escalate during the next few years, and as corresponding budgets (for IP creation and maintenance) are likely to grow only at the rate of inflation, more and more companies and law firms are becoming worried about jeopardising the quality of their intellectual property. Furthermore, as significant Research and Development (R&D) will be carried out in emerging countries such as India and China, many companies are beginning to explore the potential of offshoring their IP services to third parties, particularly those located in lowwage countries such as India. There are around 600 patent agents registered with the Indian Patent Office in India as well as approximately 300 IP professionals who are not. Evalueserve estimates that about one-third of these 900 professionals currently provide the following kinds of patentrelated services to European and American end clients, and predicts that this number is likely to double to 1,800-2,000 by 2010. News about Intellectual Property SIPO Formally Starts the National Intellectual Property Strategy-Making Work “Mr. Tian Lipu, commissioner of the SIPO [State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China] commented that in order to meet both the national and international challenges, meet the requirements of realizing the new-style industrialization, China must formulate its own national intellectual property strategy. The IP strategy is correlated with the Strategy of Developing the Country by Relying on Science and Education, the Sustainable Development Strategy, the Strategy of Reinvigorating China through Human Resource Development, etc. All of the above-mentioned national strategies have a common goal: building a well-off society, making contributions for China’s renaissance. All of the work must be finished in one year, at the latest of not more than one and a half years.” Music copyright: Study on a community initiative on the cross-border collective management of copyrightby the European Commission The study examines the present structures for cross-border collective management of copyright for the provision of online music services. It concludes that the absence of EU-wide copyright licences for online content services makes it difficult for these music services to take off. Online music services targeted by the analysis include services provided on the Internet – such as simulcasting, webcasting, streaming, downloading or an online “on-demand” service – and also music services provided to mobile telephones. The study focuses on these services because all of them can be enjoyed across Europe and, in consequence, their copyright needs to be cleared throughout Europe. It concludes that entirely new structures for cross-border collective management of copyright are required, and that the most effective model for achieving this is to enable right-holders to authorise a collecting society of their choice to manage their works across the entire EU. This would create a competitive environment for cross-border management of copyright and considerably enhance right-holders’ earning potential. In addition, the right-holder’s freedom to choose any collecting society in the EU would create a powerful incentive for these societies to provide optimal services to all their right-holders, irrespective of their location – thereby enhancing cross-border royalty payments. News about the future Ten Key Trends for Women in 2005 and BeyondBy Thomas Frey, Executive Director of the DaVinci Institute “As people move through life, they search for signposts along the way. They search for those rare pieces of intelligence that give them a gut-level feeling of confidence about what to do next. Today’s women are particularly adept at reading these signposts, which range from magazine articles, to movies, to conversations with a people they trust. They trust their instincts and aren’t afraid to make critical decisions. Women today are bold and confident, unapologetic for who they are and the things they like, and vast in their ability to influence nearly every aspect of modern life. In spite of the heavy load that most women shoulder, and the torrid pace of living, the bad years are now past, and a resurgence of hope seems to be building. With guarded smiles reacting to each new piece of positive news, they listen intently for the rhythm of hope that beats continuously in their lives. Women create our culture. They give birth to each new generation and heavily influence nearly every major decision being made today. Its critically important that we pay close attention to the drivers that are influencing the emerging new thinking class of bright articulate women wanting to make a difference in today’s world.” read further Power Play: The Search For Energy-Efficient Chips Discussions of computer performance are typically dominated by references to measures such as MIPS, MHz and MFLOPS. But Wu-Chun Feng, a computer architect at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, expects that to change during this decade. He says it’s time for the computer community to adopt alternate metrics for evaluating performance. “It’s about more than speed; it’s about reliability, availability and efficiency,” he says. It’s more than an esoteric semantic point. ASC Q, a giant supercomputer at Los Alamos, has 8,192 processors, and although each one is extremely reliable (as well as fast), there are so many of them that the machine overall fails about 114 times a month, or once per eight-hour shift. […] So the lab has developed and is now enhancing “dynamic scaling” software that learns the characteristics of the application as it runs. It’s able to anticipate when the workload will shift significantly from CPU-intensive operations to various off-chip functions that don’t require high CPU clock speed and voltage and then temporarily scale them back. This technique has yielded a reduction in power consumption of as much as 70%, but performance has degraded only 1% to 5% for uniprocessor applications, Feng says. Power savings from this technique average about 25%, he says. “If you save 25% on power, that’s 25% more processors I can add to my system and still be in the same thermal envelope.” Next Event: Wednesday, September 21, 16:30-19:15 the future of Ideas – Intellectual Property Wednesday, September 21, 2005Registration: 16:00-16:30, Conference: 16:30-19:15Where: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Prins Bernhardplein 200, Amsterdam [next to Amstelstation], free parking. WithKamiel J. Koelman, Associate Professor, Computer/Law Institute (CLI), Vrije Universiteit: Open source software and software patentsHans Bousie, Owner, Bousie advocaten: Intellectual property and intelligent ownershipHedda Pahlson-Moller, Managing Director, Omnisource International, Client Executive, Evalueserve: Trends in IP Offshoring and our Moderator Marc Bolick, CEO, Dmarc8 International 15 Global Challenges 15 Global Challengesby ACUNU Millennium Project The 15 Global Challenges, with a range of views and actions to addressed each, are updated each year and enriched with regional views and indicators to measure progress on these challenges and published in the annual State of the Future. The list below links to a short overview of each challenge and the invitation to help update them. How can sustainable development be achieved for all? How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict? How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives? How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone? How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor? How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced? How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change? How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction? How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition? How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises? How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently? How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition? How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions? Games People Play Games People PlayLife invades games, and vice versaby Jesse Walker, reason.com Fans across England are mourning the death of Jamie Kane, the scandal-tinged veteran of the boy band Boy*d Upp whose solo career was, to quote Wikipedia, “mildly successful.” He was killed in a helicopter crash en route to a video shoot; the BBC’s Top of the Pops website reported that his aircraft “experienced some technical difficulties on the flight, and crashed into the sea some miles from its destination.” Some suspect foul play. Nearly everything in the previous paragraph is untrue. There never was a boy band called Boy*d Upp, there never was a pop star named Jamie Kane, he never had fans, he never faced a scandal, and he never died. The BBC did report his death, though, and an outline of his alleged career did surface briefly in Wikipedia, the popular online reference that relies on its readers for its content. Above all, the whiff of foul play is undeniably in the air. Jamie Kane is a character in an alternate reality game, or ARG, the most immersive form of fiction since religion. (Not your religion, dear reader. That one’s the unvarnished truth. I’m referring to all the others.) The most famous ARG is The Beast, an elaborate puzzle that was created to promote the Steven Spielberg movie A.I., was widely regarded as far superior to the film it advertised, and set the template for the genre by inverting the classic concept of virtual reality. In “‘This Is Not a Game’: Immersive Aesthetics and Collective Play,” a paper for the 2003 Digital Arts & Culture Conference, the Berkeley-based game designer Jane McGonigal contrasts “immersive artworks that try to create realistic sensory experiences and meaningful interactivity in an artificial setting” with The Beast’s approach, which “sought to use natural settings as the immersive framework. Rather than creating virtual environments that were (hopefully) realistic and engaging, the Beast’s producers co-opted real environments to enable a virtual engagement with reality.” Among other things, that meant thousands of Web pages planted throughout the Internet, clues dropped unannounced into newspaper and TV ads, real-world phone calls and faxes to players, packages in the mail, even carefully placed bathroom graffiti. “The Beast recognized no game boundaries,” McGonigal writes; “the players were always playing, so long as they were connected to one of their main everyday networks.” Its slogan: “This Is Not A Game.” […] When Beast players try to solve the real-life murder of 3,000 people with the same techniques they used to decipher a high-tech narrative, you might start to worry that they’ve confused their pastime with the much more byzantine complex of games that constitute human society. But at their best, ARGs might push us in a different direction: toward a more self-conscious awareness of the games we play in real life. for the full article click here Recommended Book The Future of Ideas : The Fate of the Commons in a Connected Worldby Lawrence Lessig If The Future of Ideas is bleak, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Author Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor and keen observer of emerging technologies, makes a strong case that large corporations are staging an innovation-stifling power grab while we watch idly. The changes in copyright and other forms of intellectual property protection demanded by the media and software industries have the potential to choke off publicly held material, which Lessig sees as a kind of intellectual commons. He eloquently and persuasively decries this lopsided control of ideas and suggests practical solutions that consider the rights of both creators and consumers, while acknowledging the serious impact of new technologies on old ways of doing business. His proposals would let existing companies make money without using the tremendous advantages of incumbency to eliminate new killer apps before they can threaten the status quo. Readers who want a fair intellectual marketplace would do well to absorb the lessons in The Future of Ideas. – Rob Lightner The Luck Project The Luck Project Lucky people meet their perfect partners, achieve their lifelong ambitions, find fulfilling careers, and live happy and meaningful lives. Their success is not due to them working especially hard, being amazingly talented or exceptionally intelligent. Instead, they simply appear to have an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time and enjoy more than their fair share of lucky breaks. The Luck Project scientifically explores why some people live such charmed lives, and aims to develop techniques that enable others to enhance their own good fortune. The project began in 1994 and has involved hundreds of exceptionally lucky and unlucky people. The main findings from the research have recently been published in Prof. Richard Wiseman’s The Luck Factor. New Research How to be lucky in loveSome people are lucky in love and find their perfect partner in life. Others are unlucky and experience an endless string of unhappy relationships. New research discovers why. As part of his ongoing research into the psychology of luck, Prof. Wiseman devised a questionnaire measuring key aspects of people’s psychological make-up, such as their levels of extraversion, optimism, intuition, etc.. 100 lucky and unlucky people completed the questionnaire and then imagined that they were about to go on a blind date. […] How well connected are you? – The Surnames ExperimentThe concept for the ‘surnames experiment’ was based upon an idea briefly mentioned by American journalist Malcolm Gladwell in his book, ‘The Tipping Point’. To explore the notion of social connectivity, Gladwell carried out an informal study in which he presented people with a list of surnames and asked them to indicate if they knew people with that surname. I wondered whether it might be possible to use the idea as the basis for a questionnaire that could both quantify the relationship between luck and social connectivity. Thousands of people were asked to classify themselves as either lucky, neutral (neither lucky nor unlucky) or unlucky. Next, they were presented with a list of 15 common British surnames, and asked to indicate if they were on first name terms with at least one person with each surname. The results were dramatic and demonstrated the huge relationship between luck and social connectivity. Almost 50% of lucky people ticked 8 or more of the names, compared to 35% of neutral people and just 25% of unlucky people. […] Luck and the small world phenomenonMost people have encountered the “small world” phenomenon – that striking coincidence that emerges while chatting to a stranger at a party when you discover that the two of you have a mutual friend or acquaintance. Many scientists now believe that almost any two strangers, selected at random from anywhere in the world, may well be linked by an amazingly small number of people – half a dozen or so. We know that the internet, the brain, the web of reactions in a living cell, power grids and the economy are other examples of this connectedness. In short, scientists believe that we live in a genuinely small world. But what evidence is there to support this view? Not as much as you might think, for an idea that has been around for decades. […] Club of Amsterdam Upcoming Events NEW: .Our Season Events are Wednesdays 16:30! 16:00-16:30 Registration16:30-17:45 Part I: Presentations17:45-18:15 Break: Drinks and evtl. live music18:15-19:15 Part II: Discussion .Club of Amsterdam Season Events 2005/2006 .Sept 21 the future of Ideas – Intellectual Property .Oct 19 the future of the USA .Nov 30 the future of Software Architecture .Jan 25 the future of Futurist Tools – how to improve your strategy and planning processes .Mar 1 the future of Electronic Identity .Mar 29 the future of Governance .Apr 26 the future of Drugs & Pharma .May 31 the future of Reputation Management .Jun 28 the future of Journalism – Ethics in Journalism Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club
Club of Amsterdam Journal, August 2005, Issue 51
Content Extreme Engineering News about the Future International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005 Research Labs in ChinaRecommended Book Future of Tourism in Asia and the Pacific Islands AgendaClub of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Extreme Engineering Extreme EngineeringBy Discovery.com Extreme Engineering unveils some of the most ambitious architectural plans of our times. Some are theoretical; others are in the works. But all must face challenges that stretch the definition of what’s possible. Tokyo’s Sky CityIt would house 35,000 residents and host 100,000 daily workers, students and visitors. This space-age city in the sky might seem like science fiction, but it answers some questions about where humans might live as our most crowded cities become even more densely populated. Transatlantic TunnelSo, if you could take the train from New York and in less than an hour reach London, would you do it? What if you had to make the journey through a tunnel 150 feet under the Atlantic? And on a magnetically levitated train traveling at 5,000 mph? City in a PyramidImagine a self-sustaining pyramid-shaped city in the air. And imagine that it is built by robots and with little help from human workers. Bridging the Bering StraitFor the first time since the ice age, there could be a bridge across the Bering Strait linking Asia and North America. First, engineers must learn to deal with 55 miles of violent seas and crushing ice over the Arctic Ocean. Tunneling Under the AlpsHow might Europe be different if the great land barrier of the Alps could easily be traversed via tunnels? Building Hong Kong’s AirportIn the 1990s, Hong Kong undertook one of the largest civil engineering projects in history when it decided to build a new international airport 16 miles out to sea. See how it was done. Holland’s Barriers to the SeaMost of Holland is below sea level, the nation a drainage basin for three major rivers. Its people have fought back against floods since the Middle Ages. But now, they have massive, computer-controlled sea barriers and dams doing the trick. Boston’s Big DigHow do you put a new, 10-lane highway 120 feet below downtown Boston without succumbing to crumbling earth, and without endangering the buildings and people above? It’s happening right now. Widening the Panama CanalFor nearly a century, one of the world’s most important waterways has let ships make a commercially critical shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But many of today’s ships are too big for the man-made canal. Can it be widened? Subways in AmericaHow do you overhaul one of the nation’s oldest and most traveled subway systems without shutting down a city for several years? New Yorkers are finding out. News about the future IBM and the Future of Driving [podcast] IBM Investor Relations presents a unique audio series entitled “IBM and the Future of…” on key business and technology topics.Jim Ruthven and Dr. Roberto Sicconi are two of IBM’s experts on how I/T is changing cars and how we drive them. In this IBM podcast, they discuss how voice-recognition technologies, telematics, new user interfaces and sensing technologies are coming together to change the way we design, build, drive, maintain and insure our cars. Facing the development and delivery of digital contentby OECD Three sectors presenting different dynamic characteristics of digital content development and delivery were presented and discussed in detail: scientific, technical and medical publishing, music, and online computer and video games.Broadband content: Changing value chains and business models: Network convergence and rapid diffusion of high-speed broadband has shifted attention towards broadband content and applications (new demand for the digital economy) that promise new business opportunities, growth and employment. The potential for digital content growth is very high and growth is only just beginning. Technologies to assure the diffusion of content and content products are increasingly R&D-intensive (faster networks, new platforms, softwareintensive products, virtual reality applications, data-base management, etc.). Demand for content from consumers and intermediaries exploiting the potential of multiple content delivery channels is extending and supplanting infrastructure push as a major driver. Disruptive technologies, and broadband in particular, are challenging established business models while creating important development opportunities in all three sectors. Mobile content and applications received particular attention and are potentially major drivers of mobile telecommunication service and content industry revenues in OECD countries. The relationships between content originators and final users are changing, intermediaries are being created or replaced, and attitudes to content ownership and acquisition are changing. However complete disintermediation and direct contact between content creators and content users has not so far developed to a significant extent in the three sectors. International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005 International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2005By KPMG “Corporate responsibility (CR) reporting in industrialized countries has clearly entered the mainstream, with Japan and UK in the lead. There has been a dramatic change from purely environmental reporting up until 1999 to sustainability reporting in 2005, encompassing social, ethical, environmental and economic indicators. The CR performance has definitely caught the eye of the financial sector which is reflected in the two-fold increase in reporting in this sector since 2002. We believe it is the most comprehensive survey of its kind since its initiation in 1993. With its vast coverage of 1600+ companies, including the top 250 companies of the Fortune 500, the survey provides a truly global picture of reporting trends over the last ten years.” Research Labs in China Research Labs in China Microsoft Research AsiaMicrosoft Research Asia, founded in November 1998, is Microsoft Corp.’s basic research facility in the Asia-Pacific region. The goal of the lab is to achieve Microsoft’s vision of future computing by attracting the most talented researchers in the field of computing and becoming one of the best computer science laboratories in the world. Areas of Research [examples] Internet MediaThe Internet Media Group at Microsoft Research Asia will perform leading-edge research towards such a seamless media eco-system. We will investigate technologies and systems for media capturing/recording, media authoring, media coding and delivery, media management and content analysis, media sharing and distribution, media representation and post processing, with emphases on media scalable compression, cross-network and cross-device support, user-friendly media interaction, digital right management and security, semantic content analysis, template-based media authoring and sharing. Web Search & MiningThe Web Search & Mining (WSM) Group at MSR Asia is currently conducting research in the following areas: Text and data mining, Web information extraction, Web structured data record extraction, new models and ranking algorithms for search, deep Web crawling and search, large-scale text classification and clustering, Web modeling, large-scale link and graph analysis, community mining and search, object-level Web search, mobile search, and media search. Natural Language ProcessingCompleted projects include machine translation, an English writing assistant system, an English reading assistant system, a Chinese text proofreading system, a Chinese pinyin-hanzi conversion for Chinese IME, and a Japanese kana-kanji conversion for Japanese IME. System ResearchThe System Research Group (SRG) in Microsoft Research Asia conducts research in the theory and practice of building large-scale distributed systems. The current research areas include peer-to-peer (P2P) systems and protocols; large-scale distributed storage systems; a distributed system development and simulation platform; and correctness and performance of distributed protocols. Google Beijing Research and Development Center The world’s premier search engine had good reasons for choosing the Chinese capital. Beijing is home to much of the country’s top IT talent while tech and telecom entrepreneurs abound there. The Google center is its third such facility in Asia – following Bangalore and Tokyo. Its other facilities are in Zurich, New York, Kirkland (Washington), Santa Monica (California) and one at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. Shayne Heffernan added, ”With mobile users being over three times the number of Internet users in China, a focus on mobile solutions will be a key priority for Google”. In mid-2005, China reported more than 350 million mobile phone users and 100 million Internet users. Shayne Heffernan notes, ”Google has been ‘virtually’ here (in China) for years – Chinese Internet users have embraced it along with the rest of the world.” Recommended Book Winning the Oil Endgameby Amory B. Lovins This independent, peer-reviewed synthesis for American business and military leaders charts a roadmap for getting the United States completely, attractively, and profitably off oil. Our strategy integrates four technological ways to displace oil: using oil twice as efficiently, then substituting biofuels, saved natural gas, and, optionally, hydrogen. Fully applying today’s best efficiency technologies in a doubled-GDP 2025 economy would save half the projected U.S. oil use at half its forecast cost per barrel. Non-oil substitutes for the remaining consumption would also cost less than oil. These comparisons conservatively assign zero value to avoiding oil’s many “externalized” costs, including the costs incurred by military insecurity, rivalry with developing countries, pollution, and depletion. The vehicle improvements and other savings required needn’t be as fast as those achieved after the 1979 oil shock. The route we suggest for the transition beyond oil will expand customer choice and wealth, and will be led by business for profit. We propose novel public policies to accelerate this transition that are market-oriented without taxes and innovation-driven without mandates. A $180-billion investment over the next decade will yield $130-billion annual savings by 2025; revitalize the automotive, truck, aviation, and hydrocarbon industries; create a million jobs in both industrial and rural areas; rebalance trade; make the United States more secure, prosperous, equitable, and environmentally healthy; encourage other countries to get off oil too; and make the world more developed, fair, and peaceful. Future of Tourism in Asia and the Pacific Islands Future of Tourism in Asia and the Pacific Islands The East-West Center is an internationally recognized education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen understanding and relations between the United States and the countries of the Asia Pacific region. The Center helps promote the establishment of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia Pacific community in which the United States is a natural, valued and leading partner. Tourism remains one of the fastest growing economic sectors in many countries – despite some set backs related to global events the past few years (e.g., 9/11, SARs outbreak, Bali bombing, Iraq War, Indian Ocean Tsunami) – and respresents a sector that provides millions of jobs and livelihoods in many Asia and the Pacific Island economies. Academic and research attention to the tourism sector has risen sharply, and much of the existing research focuses on issues such as the environmental sustainability of the tourism, or market forecasts – and applies qualitative case study approaches or reduced form statistical estimation. This EWC research focuses on economic analysis of the long-term determinants of tourist flows, and the linkages between tourist growth and broader macroeconomic trends, the state of the environment, and social development (particularly impacts on poverty and inequality). This research will endeavor to improve the understanding of the factors driving tourist flows and of the consequences of tourism by applying/adapting available empirical analytical approaches in complementary studies of a few tourism subjects. The principal areas of focus in the Project are: An overview of tourism flows, existing long-run tourism forecasts, and economic impacts of these trends (with particular focus on the emergence of Mainland China as a major host and sender of overseas tourists);Demographic change and international tourism departures in Japan and other East Asian countries for which suitable data are available;Examination of the long-run determinants of tourist flows through a ‘gravity model’ estimation (1985 to 2002). Gravity models have been widely applied to study international trade to identify and understand the effect of economic fundamentals, government policies (e.g, tariffs, industrial policies, exchange rate regimes) on trade. This study will adapt this approach to consider determinants of tourism flows between countries and the effect of policies (e.g., visa regulations, tourist promotion and public investments into tourist infrastructure) and global events on the levels of cross-border tourism; andStudy of the impact of tourism sector growth on income, inequality, and poverty in selected Southest Asian tourist markets. This research combines quantitative modeling and econometric analysis with qualitative insights from detailed case studies. Work is presently focused on application for the research approach in Vietnam. A key goal in the research is to identify policy approaches for making tourism development more ‘pro-poor’ in developing countries in Asia. Research cooperation with Dean Walter Jameison of UH-Manoa’s Travel Industry Management School and other institutions based in Asia/Europe complement the EWC’s expertise in carrying out the broader research endeavor to better understand the linkages between tourism development and poverty (and other social outcomes) in selected low-income Asian economies. An early output of this collaboration is the paper by Walter Jameison, Harold Goodwin, and Christopher Edmonds (2004) Contribution of tourism to poverty alleviation: Pro-poor tourism and the challenge of measuring impacts, December, that provides an overview tourism development and poverty linkages. This paper was commissioned by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s Transport and Tourism Division. Club of Amsterdam Upcoming Events NEW: .Our Season Events are Wednesdays late afternoon: 16:00-16:30 Registration16:30-17:45 Part I: Presentations17:45-18:15 Break: Drinks and evtl. live music18:15-19:15 Part II: Discussion Club of Amsterdam Season Events 2005/2006 September 21, 2005 the future of Ideas – Intellectual Property October 19, 2005 the future of the USA November 30, 2005 the future of Software Architecture January 25, 2006 the future of Futurist Tools March 1, 2006 the future of Electronic Identity March 29, 2006 the future of Governance April 26, 2006 the future of Drugs & Pharma May 31, 2006 the future of Reputation Management June 28, 2006 the future of Journalism / Ethics in Journalism Summit for the Future 2006 May 3-5, 2006 Life Sciences Media & Entertainment Trade Healthcare Corporate Governance Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club
Club of Amsterdam Journal, June 2005, Issue 50
Content The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception News about Philosophy News about the Future Next Event eGovernment in the Member States of the European UnionRecommended Book Ecology AsiaAgendaClub of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception Theodor W. Adorno1903-1969 Max Horkheimer1895-1973 The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass DeceptionBy Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944)Transcribed: by Andy BlundenThe sociological theory that the loss of the support of objectively established religion, the dissolution of the last remnants of pre-capitalism, together with technological and social differentiation or specialisation, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system. The decorative industrial management buildings and exhibition centers in authoritarian countries are much the same as anywhere else. The huge gleaming towers that shoot up everywhere are outward signs of the ingenious planning of international concerns, toward which the unleashed entrepreneurial system (whose monuments are a mass of gloomy houses and business premises in grimy, spiritless cities) was already hastening. Even now the older houses just outside the concrete city centres look like slums, and the new bungalows on the outskirts are at one with the flimsy structures of world fairs in their praise of technical progress and their built-in demand to be discarded after a short while like empty food cans. Yet the city housing projects designed to perpetuate the individual as a supposedly independent unit in a small hygienic dwelling make him all the more subservient to his adversary – the absolute power of capitalism. Because the inhabitants, as producers and as consumers, are drawn into the center in search of work and pleasure, all the living units crystallise into well-organised complexes. The striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm presents men with a model of their culture: the false identity of the general and the particular. Under monopoly all mass culture is identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through. The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce. They call themselves industries; and when their directors’ incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed. Interested parties explain the culture industry in technological terms. It is alleged that because millions participate in it, certain reproduction processes are necessary that inevitably require identical needs in innumerable places to be satisfied with identical goods. The technical contrast between the few production centers and the large number of widely dispersed consumption points is said to demand organisation and planning by management. Furthermore, it is claimed that standards were based in the first place on consumers’ needs, and for that reason were accepted with so little resistance. The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger. No mention is made of the fact that the basis on which technology acquires power over society is the power of those whose economic hold over society is greatest. A technological rationale is the rationale of domination itself. It is the coercive nature of society alienated from itself. Automobiles, bombs, and movies keep the whole thing together until their leveling element shows its strength in the very wrong which it furthered. It has made the technology of the culture industry no more than the achievement of standardisation and mass production, sacrificing whatever involved a distinction between the logic of the work and that of the social system. […] But any trace of spontaneity from the public in official broadcasting is controlled and absorbed by talent scouts, studio competitions and official programs of every kind selected by professionals. Talented performers belong to the industry long before it displays them; otherwise they would not be so eager to fit in. The attitude of the public, which ostensibly and actually favours the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system and not an excuse for it. If one branch of art follows the same formula as one with a very different medium and content; if the dramatic intrigue of broadcast soap operas becomes no more than useful material for showing how to master technical problems at both ends of the scale of musical experience – real jazz or a cheap imitation; or if a movement from a Beethoven symphony is crudely “adapted” for a film sound-track in the same way as a Tolstoy novel is garbled in a film script: then the claim that this is done to satisfy the spontaneous wishes of the public is no more than hot air. […] Today the culture industry has taken over the civilising inheritance of the entrepreneurial and frontier democracy – whose appreciation of intellectual deviations was never very finely attuned. All are free to dance and enjoy themselves, just as they have been free, since the historical neutralisation of religion, to join any of the innumerable sects. But freedom to choose an ideology – since ideology always reflects economic coercion – everywhere proves to be freedom to choose what is always the same. The way in which a girl accepts and keeps the obligatory date, the inflection on the telephone or in the most intimate situation, the choice of words in conversation, and the whole inner life as classified by the now somewhat devalued depth psychology, bear witness to man’s attempt to make himself a proficient apparatus, similar (even in emotions) to the model served up by the culture industry. The most intimate reactions of human beings have been so thoroughly reified that the idea of anything specific to themselves now persists only as an utterly abstract notion: personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odour and emotions. The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them. The full article can be read here News about Philosophy Guidance for Writing a Code of Ethicsby Chris MacDonald These suggestions are in no particular order.1) What will be the purpose of your new code? Is it to regulate behaviour? To inspire?2) Different kinds of documents serve different purposes. Is your new document intended to guide people or to set out requirements? Is it really a Code of Ethics that you need? You might consider creating a Statement of Values, a Policy, a Mission Statement, a Code of Conduct…3) A code of ethics should be tailored to the needs and values of your organization.4) Many ethics codes have two components. First, an aspirational section, often in the preamble, that outlines what the organization aspires to, or the ideals it hopes to live up to. Second, an ethics code will typically list some rules or principles, which members of the organization will be expected to adhere to.5) Will your new ethics document include some sort of enforcement? If so, what kind?6) Often the principles or values listed in an ethics document will be listed in rough order of importance to the organization. The ordering need not be strict, but generally the value or principle listed first will have a natural prominence.7) Think carefully about the process by which you create your new code. Who will be involved? A small working group? Or all the people affected by the code? How will you distil the needs of your organization and the beliefs of your members into a document? The process may matter as much as the final product.8) How will your new code be implemented? How will it be publicized, both inside and outside of your organization? What steps, if any, will be taken to ensure that the values embodied in your code get implemented in organizational policies and practices?9) How / when will your code be reviewed / revised? And remember that a code of ethics will not solve all ethical problems:“But we must remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government. Hence there are two parts of good government; one is the actual obedience of citizens to the laws, the other part is the goodness of the laws which they obey…” (Aristotle, Politics 1294a3-6). On the Other Hand…by Joel Marks Sometimes the greatest enemy of ethics is ‘ethics’[…]In effect, the professional ethics movement among businesspersons is what I call the Other Hand Theory, namely, that by conducting business ethically, profit will result (as if by an invisible hand). As noted, there is even a plausible mechanism to account for this, so that this ‘hand’ need not seem mysterious at all, since some level of trust seems obviously necessary to conduct most human affairs, business included. I will be happy to link arms with professionals who believe that, but I won’t relinquish my ethics credentials to them. For, even apart from the objection of naiveté, I see a deeper flaw in their reasoning. What I have to say parallels comments I made in an earlier column about academic cheating. Ethics is not about rewards. If one does ‘the right thing’ in order to achieve personal gain, then one is not really acting on the basis of integrity. For example, if you tell the truth only because you think it will benefit you, is that honesty? Obviously not, I would say. My argument: An honest person is precisely one who is committed to truth-telling such that, even if she sees benefit to herself from telling a lie, then, barring extraordinary circumstances, she can be relied on not to tell the lie or deceive either. Therefore, the kind of ethics that the happy entrepreneur promotes is in a way the enemy of ethics, for the implication is that should there ever arise circumstances when profit would not be maximized by acting morally … too bad for morality! News about the future Scientists create artificial cricket hairCricket Inspired perCeption and Autonomous Decision Automata.- CICADA Scientists have re-created one of nature’s most sensitive sound detectors – the tiny hairs found on body parts of crickets, which allow them to hear predators and make an escape before they get close enough to catch them. This research will help scientists understand the complex physics that crickets use to perceive their surroundings and could lead to a new generation of cochlear implants, for people with severe hearing problems, in the far future. Physicists at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have now succeeded in building artificial sensory hair systems, which they hope will enable them to unravel the underlying process and develop sensor arrays with a variety of important applications. Marcel Dijkstra, a member of the Twente team, said: “These sensors are the first step towards a variety of exciting applications as well as further scientific exploration. Their small size and low energy consumption make them excellent for application in large sensor networks, whereas there mechanical nature allows for mechanical filtering and parametric amplification. We could use them to visualise airflow on surfaces, such as an aircraft fuselage.” $2.5 Million Available for Native American Tribes to Develop Renewable Energy Resources The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that it is making nearly $2.5 million available to 18 Native American tribes to advance the use of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies on tribal lands. “DOE is committed to helping Native American tribes develop their energy resources,” said Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman. “Renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies can play a significant role in encouraging tribal self-sufficiency, creating jobs and improving environmental quality.” One tribe receiving assistance is the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Tapping the resources of Fire Lake on their reservation in Central Oklahoma, the tribe will use geothermal ground source heat pumps to provide electricity to community buildings and a grocery store. The tribe, the ninth largest tribe in the U.S. with 1,011 members, will also build a 20-by-96-foot greenhouse using previously wasted heat to grow vegetables to sell in the reservation grocery store. Next Event: Wednesday, June 29 the future of PhilosophyWednesday, June 29, 2005reception: 18:30-19:30, conference: 19:30-22:15location: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Prins Bernhardplein 200, Amsterdam [next to Amstelstation], free parking. Huib Schwab: It’s spirituality stupidJohn Grüter & Mathijs van Zutphen: VISHandCHIPZ stand-up philosophyMonica Soeting: Philosophy – a method for returning to realityModerator: Homme Heida eGovernment in the Member States of the European Union eGovernment in the Member States of the European UnionThis report is the compilation of the country Factsheets prepared by the IDABC eGovernment Observatory. As part of its mission to inform the European e-government community about key issues of common interest, the eGovernment Observatory maintains a series of Factsheets presenting the situation and progress of e-government in each Member State of the EU, providing for each one of them a wide and consistent range of information: Country Profile (basic data and Information Society indicators); History (major past e-government developments and milestones); Strategy (vision, objectives and principles supporting the e-government drive); Legal Framework (main legal texts impacting on the development of e-government); Actors (key organisations involved in the e-government drive); ‘Who’s Who’ (main decision-makers and executives steering and shaping the move to e-government); Infrastructure (key components of the nationwide e-government infrastructure); e-services for citizens and for businesses (online availability and sophistication of services for citizens and businesses, based on the eEurope common list of basic public services). This compilation report provides the most extensive sum of information to date on the advancement of e-government in the enlarged EU. Recommended Book Philosophers in Conversation: Interviews from the Harvard Review of Philosophyby Thomas Scanlon, Phineas S. Upham This volume brings together for the first time thirteen recent interviews with the brightest names in contemporary philosophy, including W.V.O. Quine, Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Hilary Putnam, as well as the only known interview with John Rawls. The pieces are culled from the Harvard Review of Philosophy, which has operated at the core of Harvard’s Philosophy Department since 1991. Covering wide range of topics from the philosophy of law to logic to metaphysics to literature, the interviews provide a fascinating introduction to some of the most influential thinkers of the day. The book also includes an introduction by Thomas Scanlon. Interviews with Henry Alison, Stanley Cavell, Alan Dershowitz, Cora Diamond, Umberto Eco, Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., Alexander Nehemas, Hilary Putnam, W.V. Quine, John Rawls, Richard Rorty, Michael Sandel, Cornel West Ecology Asia Ecology Asia“Ecology Asia draws attention to the plight of Southeast Asia’s wildlife and degraded environment. In the Eco-news section there’s thousands of cloned news articles, rescued from oblivion and archived by country and category. These articles are used extensively by school and university students for their assignments. Check out Eco-focus for factsheets on hundreds of fascinating species of vertebrate, with all photos taken in natural habitats. And in Eco-location you can read about selected areas rich in fauna and flora.” Some samples: Spectacled Langur The charming Spectacled Langur has dark grey to blackish fur, becoming lighter grey on the crown. The skin on the face is dark grey, the chin and lips pinkish, and the eyes surrounded with a thick white ring. The young are bright yellow. The species occurs in a variety of habitats including coastal and riverine forests. […] Malayan Soft-shell Turtle The Malayan Soft-shell Turtle is wide-ranging from Burma, Thailand and Indochina to Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo, Sumatra and Java. […] Mount Kinabalu National Park At 4101 metres Mount Kinabalu is the highest peak in Southeast Asia (excluding New Guinea), and one of the youngest, having been formed in the last few million years. Its core is formed of hard, silica-rich igneous rocks (mainly granite and granodiorite), however there are significant ultramafic zones (i.e. rock formations low in silica content). The resistance of these rock types to weathering has given rise to a dramatic summit dominated by a series of treacherous, jagged peaks carved during the last ice age around 10,000 years ago. […] Club of Amsterdam Upcoming Events Club of Amsterdam Season 2004/2005 June 29, 2005 the future of Philosophy Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club
the future of Philosophy, June 2005
Club of Amsterdam pdf version SupporterPricewaterhouseCoopers Huib Schwab: It has an impact on reality, which cannot be. Philosophy is first of all an agora where ideas and frameworks of thinking meet; it contains a timeless treasure of possible and impossible thoughts about existing and non-existing worlds. Overestimated, although the influence cannot be subscribed in a causal way. You can state that the logical positivist framework had a deep impact on society, but it is possibly not an influence according to this theory. Old ideas can become new ideas, after new ideas have lost their power. The variety of ideas in the world of philosophy probably contains all possible ideas now and in the future. Or as Whitehead stated: “all philosophy are but footnotes… on the theory of Plato”. The practice of philosophy is a reflection movement: “What am I doing, what am I thinking, what am I feeling?” These questions are universally relevant, but each individual has to work these questions through; just as every individual needs to learn values (although we already know which are important). Reflection is the key to happiness; we have to know ourselves in order to know our real needs and desires. But the search for self-knowledge is the most difficult one, because you have to deal with different parts of your self. The more intelligent you are the more intelligent you can hide yourself for your reflection part. Culture is a framework of experience and thoughts; it passes through gestures, acts, ideas, feelings and above all meaning. So we need culture in order to give meaning to inner experience. Learn yourself is to give meaning to yourself. Inner experience is not a subjective domain; it is the intersubjective domain of us all. By cultural meanings we connect innerworlds to common worlds. Innerworlds then become objective matter! The focus on facts of the outside world or stating that the facts are the only objective parts of the world is the most anti humanistic event in history. Focus on facts denies the force of the soul of the human being. It is not witchery: you are a spiritual being with material aspects. The force of the innerworld to create or annihilate, to deny or confirm, to value or devaluate is endlessly stronger than the matters of fact. Human beings are cultural human beings. So they are dependent of the context with one another. We think we are dispositional but we are not! People are constantly creating better contexts in order to feel better, or even to be better. With real good friends you feel yourself a better person. With nice rhythm and structure you can move elegantly. With real good rules of behaviour the same. Most fights in relations are about reproaching the other, making bad contexts. In Holland we have lost the feeling for the relevance of culture, we believe too much in facts. But facts do not exist on their own. We have lost the connectedness between human beings, acting as if we are isolated atoms. In fact we are not! But in this way we are powerless to create meaning! The future of philosophy is to bind people not by a new ideal philosophy (because philosophy cannot cover the deep experience of richness of existence), but to give them reflection via common procedures on values, experiences, dreams, and sciences. The Socratic discourse training (and the EuroLAB method) and other philosophical methods are strong procedure, which gives an innovative context for inventing new cultures of meaning. We can invent new cultures by making ideal scenarios of the future in a common context of open understanding. You have to connect yourself to yourself (self reflection), to the other (dialogue reflection) and to society (active citizenship). Philosophy contains the tools and some wisdom to perform this practice of reflection. See different philosophies as different attempts of inventing cultures! It is spirituality stupid: reflections give you the highest and most beautiful satisfaction. Ethics is all about aesthetics! John Grüter & Mathijs van Zutphen: In classical Socratic style John and Mathijs confront some central problems around tonight’s main subject. Philosophy as dialogue, as a dynamic process departing from given insights, developing towards acceptable truths. Thought itself is often more of a deceiver than a harbinger of truth. The inertia of many intellectual thought processes underlines the need for the critical disposition that is essential to philosophy. In order to think out of the box you have to know that you’re inside one, philosophy helps you determine whether this is so. Yet philosophy has allowed itself to be fragmented into specialized doctrines and withdrawn into the ivory tower of academic discourse. Philosophy can be of great value in its ability to transcend the domain of antagonism and specialism. Yet philosophy has frustrated its own application by cloaking its insights in obscure terminlogy and incomprehensible idiom. It can integrate different dimensions of knowledge by asking the fundamental questions, but in order to do that it must also connect itself to context and strive to be meaningful. It must make sense in a way that is obvious both for philosophers and layman alike. Every question that starts with ‘why’ is fundamentally a philosophical question, and with this simple precept we can all become philosopher whenever we wish. Philosophy should make sense and deserves to be taken seriously in a wider context than is currently believed. With an appropriate amount of wit and profundity the two philosophers aim to show that philosophy is action as much at it is thought. Monica Soeting Questioning the value of philosophy is not new. In many cases, the debate about the role of philosophy has centered around the age old battle between philosophy and literature, wherein literature is considered to be the domain of direct, daily life experience and feeling, and philosophy that of pure reasoning. This battle continues to be fought in the realm of contemporary ethics, as in the works of Martha Nussbaum and Michael Cunningham, and has also been introduced in the field of medical ethics. For example, in the discussion concerning the legalization of euthanasia in The Netherlands, it has been argued that novels can give a greater insight in the complex and ambiguous way in which doctors and patients alike deal with questions concerning ‘artificial death’. The question, however, is what does a novel show us exactly? How can it relate to daily life experience and how can it help us making decisions that we consider to be the right decisions? A question above the rest, is whether we may make such a sharp division between philosophy and literature. Since the nineteenth century many philosophers have devoted much attention to literature, because both philosophy and literature, they argue, are concerned with the knowledge of concrete reality. One of the exponents of that opinion is Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). According to Merleau-Ponty the task of the writer is no different from that of the philosopher: both are focused on the experience of the world, as it originates before the thinking about the world. Merleau-Ponty emphasizes that his philosophy is a method, which like literature expresses the pre-reflective experience, i.e. the experience on which all analyses are based. This method can help us not only determine the value of literature within ethical discussions, but also help us determine the value concerning the status, meaning and importance of abstract, strictly rationalistic reasoning within the realms of politics and science. 19:30 Welcome by our Moderator Homme Heida, Promedia, Member of the Club of Amsterdam Round Table 19:45 Part I: Huib Schwab: It’s spirituality stupid John Grüter & Mathijs van Zutphen: VISHandCHIPZ stand-up philosophy Monica Soeting: Philosophy – a method for returning to reality 20:45 Coffee break 21:15 Part II: Panel with the Speakers and our Moderator Homme Heida The panel is followed by an open discussion. Huib Schwab Philosopher, EuroLAB Huib Schwab was born 1953 in Surabaya (Indonesia). He now lives in Amsterdam and in Spain (province Girona). Huib Schwab studied physics and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, he worked at the Montessori Lyceum Amsterdam, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. He designed a philosophy method for high and higher education and published on several aspects of education. He was the driving force behind parliaments approval in 1998, of the introduction of philosophy in the Dutch high school system. An innovative training course for teachers was designed and executed by Huib Schwab at the University of Amsterdam. He developed several philosophy techniques like the value brainstorm, concept analysis, differential analysis, assumption analysis and think tank teaching method. He adjusted the Socratic discourse for educational contexts. He co-designed the philosophy curriculum for the Dutch high school system. He trained several organisations in reflection on mission and ethics, and advised governmental and other organisations on cultural affairs. In the annual festival of philosophy he acts as “stand up philosopher”. He is chair of the Kalos society, which aims to improve the presence of intellectual youngsters in the public domain. Huib Schwab has developed the EuroLAB method, in which the Socratic discourse and the future scenario method are synthesized in a training format in which participants reflect on their position here and now by looking into a designed future. The participants combine all their knowledge to make different, challenging scenarios. The EuroLAB is also a learning method in which students from different countries participate to brainstorm on urgent European matters. They produce an advice for the European government on the chosen subject (migration, water politics, media etc.). They learn by producing. Also they acquire international experience. In the Pyrenean area in Girona (Spain) the EuroLAb is developing steadily into a real virtual laboratory. Learning in an urgent context, and innovate educational systems is his main target now. http://www.xs4all.nl/~schwab http://www.harmlog.nl/eurolab John Grüter Systems Thinker, ICT Generalist, Technology Affectionado, Change Agent and Principal of Digital Knowledge While studying psychology (language-orientation) at the Free University in Amsterdam, John worked part-time as a computer operator. Combining both activities in 1981 he joined a large social security orgisation in the Netherlands with a department created to introduce state of the art on-line database processing. In 1984 he joined the Dutch subsidiary of a US consultancy company as a systems architect, involved in the most research intensive projects building leading edge applications such as graphical user interfaces to large-scale administrative systems, integration of administrative and manufacturing systems, dedicated portable hardware/software to decentrally monitor critical components in chemical plants, and a logistical tracking and planning system using state of the art satellite communication and localisation. In 1990, with two colleagues he founded a consultancy, but left that after three years to join a large Dutch ICT Consultancy, where as a business architect he did many projects involving business process re-engineering, exploiting emerging information technology. In 2000 he joined an e-Business Architect which collapsed when the ‘New Economy’ bubble burst. In 2001 he started Digital Knowledge (www.digital-knowledge.com) dedicated to developing and introducing new business concepts and approaches in medium scale organisations. Currently he is involved in several projects using web-based semantic technology, helping companies to leverage the value of their unstructured information. Recently John teamed up with VISH (www.vish.nl). VISH and Digital Knowledge use Vish & Chipz (www.VishAndChips.com) to explore unconventional societal and business issues. John has entered the McKinsey new business management contest (www.NewVenture.nl) twice, once with a knowledge management product for students (memory bank for students) and recently, with Vish & Chipz, developing a product/service for emergency situations (escapePod). John was born in Australia and now lives in the Netherlands Mathijs van Zutphen Philosopher, educator, artist and creator of VISH Van Zutphen is currently involved in promoting and creating a new and alternative vision on education. VISH is the front end of a private research effort dedicated to gaining a better understanding of reality and our various relations to it through a systems approach. VISH wants to make sense, educate, and function as an online knowledge base. Our knowledge-driven modern society is an informational climate rich in media and communication technology yet poor in meaning and understanding. Understanding arises from meaningful connections between ideas and knowledge domains. Innovation and technology drive complexity, requiring specialization as a way of managing this growing complexity, but specialization entails fragmentation of knowledge. Philosophy, rather than being an academic specialism, can be the antidote to this fragmentation, and has an important role as integrator of disciplines. Van Zutphen is currently involved in promoting and creating a new and alternative vision on education. Background After studies in the US, at the University of Pennsylvania, and at the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Cognitive Science, van Zutphen finished his degree in Philosophy at the university of Amsterdam. A passionate scholar of Philosophy of Science, he studied Thermodynamics, Logic, Logical Semantics and Philosophy of Language. Working as a researcher and lecturer at different Universities in Hungary, he focused on developing educational tools and methods while exploring the complexities of intercultural communication. He gained indepth knowledge and experience as a web application developer, and helped create a succesful Business to Consumer internet company. More recently he was involved in setting up a business intelligence desk at a consulting firm in the Netherlands (Pentascope). Mathijs is an artist (www.malandroart.com) and musician (saxophone), and lives in Amsterdam. http://www.vish.nl Monica Soeting Philosopher, Editor, Publisher Monica Soeting, geboren 1955 in Amsterdam volgde gymnasiaal onderwijs aan het Stedelijk Gymnasium te Leeuwarden en het Dr. Nassau College in Assen. In 1973 haalde zij het highschool diploma aan de Kamehameha Highschool in Honolulu, Hawaii, en in 1975 deed zij staatsexamen gymnasium alfa te Den Haag. Nadat zij een jaar lang gewerkt had in Zuid-Duitsland en Zwitserland, begon zij in 1977 met de studie filosofie aan de Eberhard-Karls Universität in Tübingen, Duitsland. Nadat zij daar in 1979 de Zwischenprüfung met goed gevolg doorstond, studeerde ze twee jaar filosofie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Deze jaren sloot ze af met het kandidaatsexamen. Na enkele jaren kunstgeschiedenis gestudeerd te hebben in Tübingen, haalde ze in1988 haar doctoraal examen wijsbegeerte aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Soeting werkte als medewerker buitenland bij de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Woningbouwverenigingen en was hoofdredacteur van het tijdschrift Surplus. Daarna was zij als recensent verbonden aan Vrij Nederland, Trouw, Surplus, Biografie Bulletin en de Volkskrant en maakte zij deel uit van de redactie van de Gids. In 2002 kreeg Soeting een aanstelling als redacteur bij uitgeverij Atlas in Amsterdam. Tegenwoordig werkt zij als redacteur bij uitgeverij Ambo|Anthos, is zij hoofdredacteur van Biografie Bulletin, levert zij bijdragen voor de literatuurbijlage van Trouw en is zij betrokken bij een project dat uitgevoerd wordt door de faculteit Ethiek & Filosofie van de Geneeskunde aan de Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam. Homme Heida Promedia Member of the Club of Amsterdam Round Table Homme Heida is a generalist by heart, who worked as a journalist for several mass media like Algemeen Dagblad, Tros Aktua and publishing group VNU. After ten years he started his own bureau Promedia: company journalism, which slowly changed into business journalism. Now back again with larger media, he is editor-in-chief of Global Dutch, a magazine for Dutch entrepreneurs, who are active in foreign countries. Homme Heida has a continuing interest in a more philosophical approach of ‘being there’. His views on the future are very much based on new technologies. “Humans change only slowly by evolution. Technology will speed it up”, he argues. His credo is: ‘living body and soul’, which means to him a sportive challenge as well as an intellectual one. From the Amsterdam marathon till the Club of Amsterdam.