X-EVENTS: The Collapse of Everything. How to deal with the unforeseeable? Complexity overload and mass psychology create “X-Events”, the game changers of modern life. When the X-Event hits, finance, communication, and travel will halt. The flow of food, electricity, medicine, and clean water will cease. WHAT WILL YOU DO? How can we anticipate and manage these events, and even benefit from them (sometimes)?

Professor John L. Casti is one of the most outstanding thinkers and researchers of our times – and he is right in time.

His primary research interests are currently focussed on the exploration of questions in the social and behavioral realm and the relationship between social “moods” and their consequent social actions and behaviors. In this direction, his 2010 book, Mood Matters: From Rising Skirt Lengths to the Collapse of World Powers, addresses the directions and patterns of social causation and their implications for future trends and collective social events, such as styles in popular culture, the outcome of political processes, and even the rise and fall of civilizations.

Read here two recent articles on HOW MOOD MATTERS:

How Social Mood Moves The World: Why do share prices, skirt lenghts, even the state of the European Union, fluctuate so wildly? It’s down to social mood, says John L.Casti , and we must heed its messages

The Fear That the Future Will be Worse Than The Present: An interview by Thomas Seifert, DIE PRESSE, on a very burning question, one year after the Arab Spring movement started: the interrelation of social unrest and the collective mood.  

Castis’ most recent book X-EVENTS: The Collapse of Everything addresses the underlying cause of extreme events generated by human inattention, misunderstanding, error, stupidity and/or malevolent intent. It will be published in June 2012 by HarperCollins/Morrow, New York.

With his speeches Professor Casti enhances public awareness for the counter-intuitive ways of complex systems and builds knowledge on how to manage such systems under conditions of great uncertainty. Professor Casti teaches his audiences how to anticipate and manage Extreme Events, the game changers of life, and how to even benefit from them.

Read here John L. Castis’ full profile and get an overview about his speech topics: JOHN L. CASTI.

Beatrice Achaleke at the evening reception of EDIC 2012

Hardly ever I’ve had so much fun at a business conference. So THAT must be “Diversity” – when life is showing itself in its’ fullest range of colours in the business world. You get a feeling of that “something more” that you could reach, of those new ideas and solutions you could develop, just because you finally see and feel that there are no limits to lifes’ possibilities. The only thing you need to do is to OPEN UP in order to SEE.

The EUROPEAN DIVERSITY & BUSINESS CONGRESS, organized by our charismatic top-speaker BEATRICE ACHALEKE, is running its’ second day and I am encouraging all of you to follow the twitter feeds on: https://twitter.com/#!/EDIC2012.

In Austria “DIVERSITY” is still treated like an additional “nice to have”. Few companies recognise that the more they embrace diversity as a mind set and make it a living value of their coporate culture the more they will be able to reach out to customers in a more and more divers world. And this is not only true for multinational companies – which have learned to live at least ethnic diversity since a long time just because of their international structure – but for companies belonging to the so-called “Mittelstand”:

Recent interviews with Beatrice Achaleke on that topic (unfortuntaly only in German):

• TV: ZiB 24 - LIVE Interview with Beatrice Achaleke
• WIENER ZEITUNG (print): “The more divers the more productive”
• die wirtschaft (print): “Diversity is something you can learn”

STAY TUNED FOR MORE TO FOLLOW. This is only the start!

Beatrice Achaleke at the World Diversity Leadership Summit

“I was born into a society composed of 200 independent peoples speaking 250 independent languages of which I master three and with two additional, official languages – English and French. I know something about “diversity”… I am living in Austria since 17 years, have studied at the University of Vienna and have founded my business in this city, raising two children with my husband like many other business women do… and I have the feeling that I am not looked at as an Austrian woman of black colour or as just simply different, but as somebody really exotic”, says Beatrice Achaleke, awarded 2010 with Rank 3 of the “Most Powerful and Influential Black Women in Europe” and with the Badge of Honor of the Republic of Austria for her contribution to the intercultural dialogue – just to name some of the Awards.

But like all change-makers of this world Beatrice Achaleke is not really interested in prizes – she is interested in moving her world a bit forward. She has found her vocation in her own past. She was made for being a Diversity Expert and she truely is one. – Not only regarding people of different ethnic background. She has become one of the most important experts in Europe for the whole range of diversity matters which are: gender, sexual orientation, age, health and last but not least ethnic background.

Similar to our featured speaker of last month – Bernd Küppers - she is pointing out that something which would have seemed to be a “social/leftist” ideology at other times is something directly connected to turnover, economic growth and shareholder value now: “Embracing DIVERSITY is not at all a matter of “good-will” and “nice to have” – it is a matter of whether a company is making it into the future or not”, she explains.

“Just in tiny Austria the spending capacity of migrants totals 20 Billion Euro! If you want to reach these communities you need a bridge – your employees,” she said last Saturday in her interview with the Austrian Daily KURIER (read the whole interview here: KURIER Interview mit Beatrice Achaleke_04022012).

Diversity is a matter for strategic top-management decisions. It’s all about whether a company will be able to or continue to reach out to all its’ potential customers or not. It’s about whether new market segments will be explored and opened up or not.

DIVERSITY IS THE CURRENCY OF THE FUTURE - better you own it in order to stay in the game.

To step into the topic of diversity, join the EUROPEAN DIVERSITY & BUSINESS CONGRESS, the top-event for Senior Corporate Managers, HR and CSR Managers, oranized by Beatrice Achaleke on March 1 – 2 in Vienna. Go here for details and registration: http://www.diversityleadership.eu/event/european-diversity-congress/#home

To find out more about inspiring Beatrice Achaleke and to book her as a speaker for your event, go here: http://www.international-business-speakers.com/en/speakers/beatrice-achaleke/139/5/ 

Bernhard Küppers

Massive losses due to demotivation and burn-out, this is the new business reality of many big corporations. How to win and retain the best, how to lead those who don’t want to managed but inspired … these are the main challenges of the future and Bernhard Küppers has put his expert focus on them.

In his new book “Im Mittelpunkt der Mitarbeiter” he shows the reasons but also the remedies for the lack of loyality and engagement amongst employees.

In the following interview he explains why companies need to establish a culture of open communication if they want to survive and even better – THRIVE: “Es fehlt noch die Kultur, offen zu reden” (in German).

Read here the full profile: Bernhard Küppers

Thomas Seifert at TEDxPannonia 2011

 Connecting to the “REVOLUTION” – topic of my recent blog-posts let me present one of the “Speakers for Change” to you: THOMAS SEIFERT, International Correspondent, Author and Photographer. His latest book “Black Book on Gold” is still “hot”.

He is not only travelling and exploring the countries which are currently in a state of BOTTOM-UP REVOLUTION, but also countries which are in a state of REVOLUTIONARY EVOLUTION – like India and China. Just recently he gave a speech full of inspiration and insight at the TEDx Pannonia on “How Eastern Education and Innovation are driving Asia’s development“.

We know a lot of the war-zones and so-called “developing countries” of this world but most of all the negative sides – death, pain, tragedy, poverty, injustice. But who is interested to dig deeper and to try 1^st to SEE and 2^nd to UNDERSTAND what lies behind that surface of an “undesirable life” as it might seem to us?

Thomas Seifert discloses with his speeches the extraordinary know-how of people and countries that otherwise we would not see, not understand and not be able to appreciate.

“Just to take an example”, he says, “there is a lot to be learned from Guerrilla Fighters – and more than that: WHAT WE HAVE TO LEARN if we want to survive. We live in an age of absolutely revolutionary break-ups; the geo-political foundations of our system are under total deconstruction. Problems become more complex, unpredictable and inter-connected and we are losing more and more control. States see their role of absolute power dissolve and non-governmental parties are gaining power. The old geo-political paradigms of the “Balance of Power” are not any more valid – we will need to get accustomed to the fact that “resilience” and resistance become much more important than the pure exertion of power.”

He speaks about the “David vs. Goliath – Principle” or the “Beauty of Asymmetry“ when he explains how it was possible that only 500 to 1000 Hezbollah-Fighters could stand up against 30.000 Israeli soldiers and let’s us understand why Fanaticism is always better than Fatalism when he states the case of “What Hezbollah-Chief Hassan Nasr Allah and Steve Jobs have in common“.

See his complete profile here: THOMAS SEIFERT