Jan
At a Glance: Recent Publications
In the last two months my writings have appeared in two online outlets: (1) The Changer and (2) Good Impact. The Changer is a Berlin-based social business, which has grown in just a couple of months into a remarkable, one-stop outfitter for everybody who aspires to ‘do good’ through their work. It equips the social entrepreneurs/NGO-workers/socially conscious consumers with the full armament: how-to guides, job listings, event calenders, interviews and founder profiles. The resources on their website are in English and German. Good Impact is a German collaborative content platform that curates ideas and solutions to the societal challenges of our time.
The Changer Article: “Taking a Deep Dive into your Customer’s Lives – How to Conduct Market Research”
With the experiences from Malawi still unclouded on my mind I flesh out how the lessons from ethnographic, immersive market research can help businesses of all sorts to understand ‘how their customers tick’.
The Changer Article: “Holding up the Mirror: Behavioral Biases of Development Workers”
“While lately a lot of buzz has been around research on how to best help people escape poverty traps by ‘nudging’ them towards more sound economic decisions, a similar critical examination of the decision-making biases and shortcuts of development professionals has lagged behind. The widely anticipated World Development Report 2015 (WDR 2015) published by the World Bank Group holds up the mirror in a surprisingly self-critical way to those, who as policy makers, consultants or develop-ment officials develop programs with the objective of alleviating the strains of poverty.”
Good Impact Artikel: “Auf den Spuren der BCorp Philosophie”
In diesem kurzen Essay gehe ich der Frage nach inwiefern heutige BCorp Gründer auf Ideen zurückgreifen, die bereits in der Antike oder im viktorianischen Großbritannien entwickelt wurden. Welche Parallelen gibt es zwischen der Philosophie der Benefit Corporations, Xenophon, Robert Owen und den Model Dwelling Companies? Haben wir es also tatsächlich, mit einer so revolutionären Idee zu tun, wenn das Phänomen BCorp heraufbeschworen wird?