Gil Friend’s Blog

THE BURGEONING ESG HUBBUB Unless you've been sleeping under a sustainability rock, you've probably noticed lots of ruckus about ESG lately (the rating of corporate "environmental, social, and governance" practices). On one hand, it's stunning that the once fringe...

As Andrew Winston (co-author of Net Positive) wrote recently: "A banker approached me after a talk and told me that it would be great to invest in the clean economy and other sustainability priorities, but the numbers 'just don't pencil out'." His response: "Yes they...

SEEING PATTERN Some of my friends just don't like data, even though they use cell phones and fly on planes that depend on data. (You know who you are! 😉 But data—especially when presented visually, and well—can disclose trends we might not otherwise perceive—can let...

  Remember Mystery Science Theater 3000? Yeah, wacky times. In our house we invented a variant called "Short Attention Span Theater." It's wildly on display in modern life. Yeah, wacky times. One way: the inability (or unwillingness) of our mass mediators and...

BETWEEN WORLDS. STILL. I ended the year on an uncharacteristically grumbly note. Don't Look Up. The BSAU of ESG. The retreating antarctic ice shelf, the creeping advance of fascism. My usual equanimity and resilience suffered. But I started the year with my most...

THE ART OF CHANGE "I don't know very much about art but I know what I like," someone allegedly said 100+ years. ago. I like art that moves me, challenges me, alters my state and my mood, that shifts my view of the world and the opportunities before me. While we debate...

MOODS & MESSES In the last Living Between Worlds zoomsalon of the year, we reflected on the changes the last two years have brought —in the world, and in our selves. And we explored how we move through the messes—tangles that are far more complex than "problems"...

December 08, 2021 TOUCH AND GO It's a tough time to make assessments, or predictions. The widespread, justifiable, and inevitable disappointment with COP26 masks enormous shifts underway in business, policy, and the wider culture. These shifts that are notable, even...

On our last Living Between Worlds call (the video is here; please subscribe!) we digested the COP26 global climate summit: with a bit of appreciation for the excruciatingly incremental progress that seems to be the only way we know to change—except when we have...