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Regeneration: The Future of Community

So our book is finally here. At one point – when we were at 500 pages – I almost gave up. But then I remembered Gail Mazur‘s advice: “anything worth doing is worth doing badly,” and decided to carry on. Now, at 320 pages, this book tries to cover the various angles and sights and buzzwords we see creeping into the regeneration ecosystem (pun intended).

The book’s original title was Regeneration: The Future of Community, but as we went on, it ended up becoming Regeneration: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World.

What’s the big idea? Actually we think there are several.

Climate change is the greatest market failure in history. Its costs are not priced into market transactions because third parties overwhelmingly bear them – they are euphemistically called “externalities.” There is a fatal misalignment between what is in the interests of the economy and the incentives of the companies that comprise it. Nature, and the communities we live in, are nowhere part of the equation!

 Regeneration means regenerating the Common Good. Our position is this: The Climate Crisis and the Collapse of Society are both symptoms of the same fatal sickness: the destruction of the Common Good.  We cannot compartmentalize the climate and separate it from the rest of society or our activities. 

Here are the questions we – Philip Kotler, Enrico Foglia, and myself, asked ourselves:

The choice is clear. It is regeneration, or extinction.

Learn more at the Regeneration Marketing Institute >>

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Steel Pulse: “Only One World (Wicked Problems)”

The legendary reggae band Steel Pulse (one of Bob Marley’s favorites) raises its voice to challenge the world to come together – a “movements of movements” – to save the Earth:

The song is a collaboration between Steel Pulse and The Wicked7 Project.

Special thanks to Jessica Lieng from the W7 Working Group for putting together the video. Maximum respect to Steel Pulse and David Hinds in particular!

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Webinar: “Population & Migration”

Join us for the latest webinar from the Wicked7 Project >>

Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar as we discuss the final wicked problem of the Wicked7 Project. With us for the webinar – a group of dynamic personalities from Palermo, Sicily:

– Leoluca Orlando. As Mayor of Palermo, Orlando’s extraordinary vision and courage has changed our understanding of immigration, tolerance, and the fight against corruption.

– Claudio Arestivo. A co-founder of Moltivolti – a unique regenerative business – which serves as an example for the future.

– Melania Memory Mutanuka. An immigrant from Zambia, she is an emerging leader with a purpose.

– Carmelo Pollichino. A passionate leader and the head of the non-profit Libera Palermo contro le mafie

– Francesco Bellina. An award-winning photographer and artist whose brilliant work on the problems of migration and exploitation are featured in leading newspapers such as the Financial Times and The Guardian.

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Thinkers50: Conversation with Philip Kotler

It was my great honor to interview the “Father of modern Marketing” on his lifetime of achievements in marketing.

Professor Philip Kotler received the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award for his work over the past 50 years. I am deeply grateful for his friendship and mentorship – and everything he has done to demonstrate how marketing must be a force for good.

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Webinar: “Health & Livelihood”

Join us as we welcome:

  • Stuart Hart – a leading authority on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. Hart is the Founder and President of  Enterprise for a Sustainable World
  • Bob Freling – Executive Director at Solar Electric Light Fund, Freling developed the “solar village development model” – a wholistic community-based approach to development.
  • Hennie Botes – CEO and founder of moladi Construction Systems, Botes is an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. The designer of a multi-award winning affordable housing technology, Botes has over 30 years of experience in the building industry. 
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Paul Polak: 12 Social Entrepreneurial Principles for Solving Poverty

Sometimes I wonder why we have forgotten these principles from the late Paul Polak. When I chatted with him about the $300 House, he wanted me to reconsider and make it a $100 House. His point was simple: affordability drives design.

Now, as part of the research agenda of the Regenerative Marketing Institute, I’m thinking about how these BoP principles and Stuart Hart‘s BoP protocol apply to the developed world — to communities trying to find a way back from the COVID-crash.

Here are Polak’s principles:

1) Go to where the action is. You can’t solve poverty from a World Bank office.
2) Talk to the people and listen to what they have to say.
3) Learn everything about the context of the problem and the people.
4) Think and act big. No reason to be modest. Small solutions applied thousands of thousands of times.
5) Think like a child to find the obvious solution people have missed in the past. (Irony of thinking big and like a child)
6) See and do the obvious. Emersing yourself in the problem helps.
7) If someone has invented it–you don’t have to. Find existing solutions
8} Make sure your approach can be scaled up.
9) Design for the poor. Affordability rules the design process with poor customers.
10) Follow practical 3 year plans. Must transform into effective work plan for 3 years.
11) Continue to learn from your customers. (Interviewed more than 3000 farm families, $12 solar lantern)
12) Don’t be distracted by what other people say (Almost every project I’ve done has had sceptics)

Let’s add another principle for impact innovation:

13) Design for justice. (The design schools don’t)

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It’s time for a Movement of Movements

It’s time to put aside our toys – our ideologies and guns – and look at this time in history as our final exam. This is a test, as Buckminster Fuller said, to see if we, the human species, deserve to carry on. COVID has shown us that we cannot find consensus on how to deal with the virus. 

Time’s running out. Philip Kotler, Karthiga Ratnam, and I think it’s time for a movement of movements.

Learn more on the Wicked7 Project site >>

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The Wicked7 Project Meets the #ForkintheRoad

What are we going to do now?  The #forkintheroad which Buckminster Fuller warned us about is here now >> “Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment… Humanity is in a final exam as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in the Universe.” 

What will it take to leap across the chasm and undo the destruction we’ve caused? Why can’t the UN fix it?

We’re hurtling into a state of climate emergency whilst we simultaneously face the convergence of the Wicked7.

What are the Wicked7? The world’s most urgent problems.

We’ve distilled over 200 problems into the Wicked7:

  • The Death of Nature
  • Inequality
  • Hate & Conflict
  • Power & Corruption
  • Work and Technology
  • Health and Livelihood
  • Population & Migration

You can’t solve wicked problems. That’s what we’ve been led to believe. And for years, we haven’t. Solve them, that is.

Well, if not now, then when?

Wicked problems must have virtuous solutions. If any lesson has emerged from this COVID-19 pandemic, it is this: we must address the urgent problems of the world now, or perish. Why? Because COVID-19 is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg… the ecosystem of wicked problems will not wait.

After working on this idea for over a year, Philip Kotler and I kicked off the Wicked7 Challenge on April Fool’s Day, 2021.

Our first challenge? The Death of Nature.

Join us >>

P.S. – Bucky Fuller was wrong. Thanks to Sonmoy, one of our W7 advisors, we now see that there’s a triple fork in the road, and utopia is simply no longer an option. What we must fight for is survival.