Summary: what it means to be human

This week I'm summarising my blogs - that is I've written a lot of blogs on a few key subjects and to assist those interested in a specific subject I'm going to develop a contents page with links to every thing (ok perhaps not everything) I've written on the subject. It will be a great help to me for reference too.

Last week's news of ID chips being placed under the skin of employees in Sweden had a number of bloggers and tweeters taking to social media to express their concern. Me included, and had me reflecting that a large majority of my most angry blogs have been about what I see as the erosion of our humanity namely (although they only represent 3.5% of my content):

• "I don't do soft fluffy stuff" - unless you're an android your every action is motivated and impacted by the soft fluffy stuff. So get over it and realise that the solutions to a large number of our problems lie in the soft fluffy stuff.
• Don't turn a blind eye - don't leave your humanity at the door when you walk into work take it with you.
• The science fiction Armageddon where the robots take over is here - on the right to die rather than let science maintain our bodies beyond what is humanely and compassionately enough.
• If earth was a supplier - treating our home as a convenience store where everything is free.
• Planetary sustainability - suggesting we're selfish and have little consideration for long term survival of humanity.
• The battle for business's soul - with self interest and desire for profit at all costs driving unacceptable behaviours.
• Business values and payment of the living wage - on the basis that everyone should earn enough to be able to live.
• The conspiracies we support on our wellbeing - We do often seem to forget we're human with a body that needs looking after.
• The recent issue at RBS isn't their fault - it's yours - If we don't speak up when we see things that aren't working we can't blame others when they don't - a white lie here condones a big fat juicy one there.

and whilst not as angry as some of the above, never the less a sad sign of the times:

• Is there room for kindness in business - to which I'd hope the answer was yes but seems to often to be no.

Although I realise that getting angry changes nothing and all I can hope to do is be the change I want to see in the world and business, and hope that the business archetype that's worryingly inhumane at times is replaced by a more enlightened one.

• Enlightened business

Don't worry I do blog about other less emotive subjects such as procurement, influencing, language, and well being and will share contents pages for those as the week progresses.

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out - when what you're doing isn't working