Most mornings, I walk my faithful hound along beside a stream, towards a field of dandelions. Daily, it is a therapeutic and life-resetting journey for me. The stream serves as a constant reminder to go with the flow, rather than swimming against the current. Following this principle is key to our project to make Guernsey […]
The Gifting Economy
By February 12, 2016 5 Comments
One of the most spectacular things I have seen in my lifetime is a gifting economy in wide-scale operation, at the outlier festival Burning Man. Over 60,000 people manage to thrive in a makeshift city in the desert for a week, largely without money. The model works on mutual kindness rather than financial exchange. Although […]
More Human
By October 28, 2015 19 Comments
I was recently recommended a book called More Human by Steve Hilton. It talks about the many ways we can design a world in which humans come first. All our institutions – from government to business; our lives; our education; our food; our health systems – have all become too big, impersonal and industrialised. The […]
Making the Pan Boil
By October 14, 2015 4 Comments
I often use a particular analogy to describe the work I do. I talk about ‘making the pan boil’. I see every new idea or solution that progresses the world as heat in the system. I see the world as a big bathtub and all the solutions around the world gently heating that bathtub. Because […]
The Power of Small Actions
By July 22, 2015 8 Comments
The speech that the wonderful Pam Warhurst recently gave in my community stated her belief in the power of small actions to change the world: “Through an organic process, through an increasing recognition of the power of small actions, we are starting, at last, to believe in ourselves again, and to believe in our capacity, […]
Fixing The Broken Triangle
By April 8, 2015 4 Comments
There is a broken triangle in my community – and in most communities around the world, in fact. The relationship between people, politics and the media is broken. Nobody is happy. Each one is dissatisfied with the other. And the trouble is, the breakdown is getting worse and worse. Our communities are as unhappy and […]
Soft Landings
By March 25, 2015 6 Comments
Just over a week ago, I ticked another item off my bucket list. I went up in a hot air balloon. One thing we were lucky enough to achieve on our adventure was a soft landing. A beautifully soft landing. As I go through some of the craziest weeks of my life, I do start […]
The End Of Government?
By March 18, 2015 10 Comments
There is a really interesting debate going on in my island nation community of Guernsey at the moment. There is large review of government tax and spending. There is a suggestion that the cost of government will need to move from 25% to 28% of GDP. Our government rightly argues that ours is already one […]
Thinking and Feeling
By March 11, 2015 Leave a Comment
There are three questions I like to ask myself whenever I have a big decision to make: What do I think about this? What do I feel about this? Why is there a difference? At one time, I did not imagine there could be any possible difference in my answers to the first two questions. […]
The Alleviation of Wealth
By February 25, 2015 3 Comments
I have a problem with the general perception of poverty in the world today. People seem to think it’s all about money. It’s not. Over the past couple of decades, I have seen the damage caused by the poverty industry, from the unintended consequences of aid programmes. I have interacted with many charity leaders who […]