My last post actually made me recall an old post that I had written and I decided to post it here again. In an old blog that I have since removed, I wrote a post about losing perspectives with luxury goods. That we have created a society where people can own (and pay for) a handbag that could feed a quarter of a million children. And that this is considered fashion. At the end of the day, it’s all about perspectives and I think we as a global society seem to loose perspective on consumption.
So what was I referring to? Well, in 2007 Luis Vuitton made 24 copies of their most expensive handbag to date that cost 45 000 USD. They sold out.
To put things in perspective, I looked at Doctors without borders’ homepage and learned that the same amount of money could buy:
Two high-energy meals a day to more than 257,000 children
OR
Infection-fighting antibiotics to treat nearly 18,000 wounded children
OR
Emergency medical supplies to aid 225,000 disaster victims for an entire month
What started out with an art student selling t-shirts to raise money for Darfur is taking even more twisted turns as of lately. In 2007 Nadia Plesner started an art project to raise awareness on Darfur. In her own words:
“As I was reading the book “Not on our watch” by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, I felt horrified by the fact that even with the genocide and other ongoing atrocities in Darfur, Paris Hilton’s prison insident was the one story getting all the attention.
Is it possible that show business has outruled common sense?”
She named the project “simple living” after Paris Hilton’s reality tv-show and drew a child in Darfur holding a similar dog and hand bag as Hilton. She then put the print on t-shirts for sale to raise money for Darfur. The t-shirts were an online success. And she was contacted by Louis Vuitton. But not to offer to help her with the campaign, instead asking her to stop it as they felt the bag in the drawing was a violation of their copyrights. In response, she posted their letter on her webpage and continued her sales, but after a hefty lawsuit and tons of media attention, she eventually started using a new drawing to focus on the campaign instead of court.
Now, three years later she has been convicted in a second court case where she was sued by Louis Vuitton. This time it’s about her artwork Darfurnica (after Picasso’s Guernica) that includes the original drawing of the child in Darfur in the middle of the painting. She has been sentenced to pay 5000 euro per day that she continues to show the painting (since Jan 28). Ironically, at the same time, Nadia Plesner herself was packing a new container with medical equipment for Darfur. And she has gotten Darfur back in the media.
In response to Hu Jintao speaking on the importance of innovation this week, this article in China Daily highlights inquisitiveness as the mother of innovation but that it goes against Chinese tradition to ask questions. It is suggested that this causes a dilemma as an inquisitive mind is an innovative mind. But the journalist sets a positive tone highlighting nationwide discussions.
It made me recall a recent, different but similar, discussion on the same topic (i.e the importance of innovation and what lies in its way) in another BRICS country, namely Brazil. A few months ago when I was speaking at the International innovation congress hosted by the federation of Industries of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (FIERGS), there was a discussion after the panel. From the audience it was suggested that we could not expect innovation in Brazil as long as there is poverty and people starve. An innovate mind has it’s basic needs met people said. I would argue that innovation can exist in every setting and many of the most exciting innovations today are being developed in places people do not see as innovative by groups that are not often seen as drivers of innovation (when using “old” measures for innovation such as patents, rather than actual solutions to real needs). The 21st century will be different from the 20th century. I have to say that I thought it was interesting to hear these kind of “excuses” in Rio Grande do Sul – one of the most prosperous Brazilian states with a thriving industry…
Kicking off the new year with discussions on app development and possibilities to increase transparency in our daily choices. I’m currently meeting entrepreneurs and developers in Amsterdam and we’re discussing the transparency potential of apps to make the invisible visible. We’ve been going back and forth on the feasibility of adding a feature enabling users to hold up their phones and seeing data such as “green” credentials, contributions to poverty reduction and other relevant facts to make better informed decisions immediately on their screens. Having worked on developing applications and capturing their transformative potential, I can definitely appreciate the challenge this perspective has since it’s not in line with the simple and light entertainment offered by so many popular first generation apps. Nevertheless, it’s what we need for the future.
A coincidence is actually that my last time here in Amsterdam was on the same topic in May 2010 for GRI’s Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency. At the conference both me and Jennifer Pollard from Microsoft were actually talking about the feature of holding up your smart phone to get additional information about a product or company to make better and informed choices.
Our increase in connectivity and unprecedented capacity of mobile devices to gather and process complex data presents a unique opportunity for sustainable solutions.
