1. CONCENTRATING THE FIVE MINDS

People who are able to think in a certain way will be at an advantage in the future world of work, says Howard Gardner, the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University.

Gardner is renowned worldwide for his theory of multiple intelligences. Now, in his recent book Five Minds for the Future, he focuses on the future and "the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead," - the qualities of thinking that will allow people to survive and prosper in the 21st century, both in work and life generally.

What is the backdrop to the five minds concept?

First: the importance of technology, particularly computers. Computers can do almost everything that human beings can, so the things we are going to value human beings for will be very different.

Then globalisation, and understanding the interconnectivity of the world and what you need in order to be able to function in a world that was not nearly so interconnected 50 years ago.

And a third thing has to do with diversity. Today, diversity stares you in the face in a way that was inconceivable when I was growing up.

The five minds outlined in the book are the ways of thinking that are best suited to this new world you are describing. What are they?

The first three I have been talking about for a very long time: the disciplined mind, the synthesising mind and the creating mind.

The last two, have more to do with the human sphere: the respectful mind and the ethical mind. Over the last decade a lot of my research has focused on these two.

Could you explain a little more about each mind?

The disciplined mind is knowing something very well, being an expert in an art, craft, or profession and keeping it up. That means being disciplined. If you don't have a disciplined mind, you really don't have a job at all, or you end up working for somebody who does.

The synthesising mind stems from the fact that we all are deluged with information. How do you decide what to pay attention to, what to ignore, how to put it together in a way that makes sense to you otherwise you'll lose it? How do you communicate your synthesis to other people?

And the creative mind?

The third kind of mind, the creating mind, is basically coming up with something new that eventually affects how other people are and think. If it is "thinking outside the box" then the disciplined and synthesising minds provide the box and, for many people, that's enough and you wouldn't want everybody to be creative or the world would be too chaotic. But for some cutting edge or eccentric few, it's thinking and doing stuff that really ends up affecting a lot of other people.

And what of the remaining two minds?

The respectful mind is very simple, and certainly goes back to pre-biblical, pre-literate times. Basically it means giving other people the benefit of the doubt, trying to know them, trying to understand them, not being too judgemental and being capable of forgiveness. The reason it's so acutely important nowadays is because of the diverse society we live in.

Which leaves the ethical mind.

The ethical mind is a mind that is capable of abstraction. And the ethical mind basically can think about oneself abstracting. So I'm not just Howard Gardner, but I'm Howard Gardner who is a journalist, an author, a lawyer, an engineer, whatever. I have a role occupationally and I'm also a citizen; I'm a citizen of my community, my city, my state, my region, my nation, the world.

The ethical mind asks, what are my responsibilities as a journalist, what are my responsibilities as a citizen of London, the UK, of the planet?

2. DOGGONE IT

There is a new phenomenon in US politics - regular hockey mom, Sarah Palin. Love her, or loathe her, you have to admire the ability of the Governor from Alaska, to connect with a swathe of the US electorate in a way that few politicians ever manage to achieve.

For a start there is the language that she uses. Palinisms include "Joe six-pack", "you betcha," "darn right," "a heck of a lot," and " Drill, Baby, Drill" among others. Her use of the vernacular is intended to separate her from the professional politician, and instead represent her as an everywoman, just a regular mother, with the same hopes and fears, the same problems and challenges, as the majority of small town Americans.

Only the people who know her well will know how authentic her mode of speech is, but there is little question that Palin is aware of the way that she speaks and its effect. At the outset of the first vice presidential candidates debate, she went up to her opponent Senator Joe Biden and asked if she could address him as "Joe." In that moment she was establishing herself as laid back and "ordinary". Biden referred to Palin as "Governor", throughout.

And the way she engages in conversation, is just that, conversational, whether it is a national televised debate or a political rally. Palin makes people feel that they are the other half of a casual chat in the kitchen, or on the front porch. So the financial system is in need of "some shakin' up and fixin'". She even uses words like "cool", and "awesome".

And it is not just the verbal communication, it is the whole package. There is the intonation, her voice modulating up and down, using her experience as a sports presenter, to overcome the neutralising effect that television has on conveying emotions through speech. She demonstrates good storytelling technique, and strong use of non-verbal communication, from the wet finger in the air, to the conspiratorial wink.

When all is said and done Palin may or may not make it to the number two spot, vice president of the world's most powerful nation, but she will certainly be a communications case study for years to come.

3. WHAT KIND OF SHOPPER ARE YOU?

When it comes to devising internet retailing strategies not all shoppers are equal. In fact, according to business academics at Cass Business School, City University, London, online shoppers come in two distinct flavours, and etailers would do well to target their web strategies accordingly.

In "Tailoring Online Retail Strategies to Increase Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty," the authors, Vangelis Souitaris, professor of entrepreneurship, and George Balabanis, professor of marketing, both at Cass Business School, identify two types of online shopper, each with different motivations: goal-oriented and experiential.

The more ubiquitous goal-oriented shopper is motivated by convenience, selection, information and lack of sociality. Shopping traits demonstrated include control and a lack of commitment to buy in the online environment. The goal oriented shopper is reluctant to buy until absolutely ready.

The experiential shopper, on the other hand, is more concerned with hedonic experience than military precise shopping. Experiential shoppers are motivated mainly by recreation and experience, and this type of shopping is associated with surprise, uniqueness, a more sociable approach, and an eye for a deal.

Despite the differences between the two types of consumer, many etailers try to satisfy both the goal-oriented customer, who wants something specific quickly, and the experiential customer, who enjoys browsing and impulse buying, with a strategy balancing the needs of both. Most fail. The research suggests, however, that etailers can satisfy both types of customers with different strategies.

To increase overall satisfaction and loyalty, differentiation based on customisation, product assortment and website design is more effective when directed at experiential shoppers. But with goal-oriented shoppers, etailers are better focusing on differentiation based on customer care, convenience, value for money and product quality when they are trying to generate customer satisfaction and loyalty.

How do you tell whether a shopper is goal or experience oriented? You can ask them, "How do you use the internet?" say Souitaris and Balabanis, and then give them a choice of response, either "I am looking for specific products when shopping online. I want to get-in-and-out quickly" or "I constantly browse out of curiosity just to see if there anything that takes my fancy".

Or alternatively, an etailer can let shoppers decide for themselves, providing them with an initial screen complete with two option-buttons - one for leisure browsing and shopping, and the other for a quick checkout - for example.

4. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

An important factor in effective communication is an awareness of the audience. You need to know a good deal about your audience, to ensure that you deliver a message that they will be receptive to, and then have the audience in mind when delivering that message.

Sometimes, however, as Marc Woods - five times Paralympian, leadership consultant and BBC swimming commentator - knows from experience, there can be more than one audience, and that is where things can get complicated.

In the recent Paralympic games in Beijing, Woods was on the swimming commentary team for the BBC. If you were asked to identify the audience to which the commentator should direct his commentary, the obvious answer would be the television viewer. But in reality the commentator has to satisfy two constituencies.

"When I first was doing the commentary, I was describing the technical details about what I saw, but then I got feedback suggesting that I needed to think more about the average person sitting at home watching, rather than someone who would be aware of the technicalities of the sport."

But, having mastered delivering a suitable commentary for the television audience, Woods soon discovered that there was another important audience that he needed to tailor his commentary to. Of the 140 races that Woods commentated through -and this was commentating through the entire race - only a handful were shown in their entirety. The rest were edited down to a few minutes of action.

"The issue is then about making sure that I am doing the right thing to help the people, who are going to edit it the footage, knowing when to be quiet and when to talk, when to repeat information, and thinking about how it is going to be edited together," says Woods. "If I just carried on talking all the way through the races, then it makes the editors' job very difficult when it comes to putting highlight packages together."

A good example of the challenge involved is where Woods needed to explain the nature of the competitor's disability. He had to make it clear what the disability issue was right from the start, in case the whole race was shown, but then for the highlights edit had to repeat the information but in a different way towards the end of the race.

While few of us will ever have to commentate, Wood's example emphasises the need to think both about how what we say and do is captured by others. What are the different audiences that may use the messages and information that you provide? That is the question you need to address.

5. NEW MEDIA MARKETING

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project some 84 per cent of U.S. Internet users, or about 100 million people, are members of a virtual community, while 44 per cent have actively created content for the online world. Evidence suggests that social networks and online communities are changing the nature of the way people consume mass media, and the way that consumers obtain value, and this has important implications for marketers.

Traditionally, the value for the consumer in a transaction lies in the use value of the information, product or service that they consume. However, new research by a group of business school academics suggests that, in the case of online communities at least, there is a shift towards some consumers gaining additional value from social capital - "an intangible resource from which benefits that are available at the individual or communal level will flow, via a specific social structure and governed by relational norms of voluntarism, reciprocity, and social trust".

The members that create the social capital are both recent members, looking for information - newbies - and long-standing core members - wikis - who provide information, regulate the community and interact with other members. Although newbies usually arrive at an online community looking for information, the very existence of social support and their continued interaction with the members of the community over time builds commitment to the community and adds to its social capital.

The research suggests that the way that consumers obtain value is moving beyond the simple individual transaction value obtained from buying or using things, to a more complex notion of value derived from participating in online communities and social networks. In these communities and networks, factors such as voluntary contribution of time and effort to benefit others; reciprocal co-operation, and the sharing of knowledge and support, and trust in the community, play an important role.

Social networks and online communities might not seem core to what most businesses do, to the senior executives running the business. But if Generation Y finds contributing to these online phenomena a source of value, then marketers will need to get to grips with online communities and social networks and find ways of harnessing their power as part of the company's business model.

Social Capital Production in a Virtual P3 Community by Charla Mathwick, associate professor of marketing and advertising at the School of Business, Portland State University, Caroline Wiertz, senior lecturer in marketing, Cass Business School, City University London, and Ko de Ruyter, professor of marketing, Maastricht University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.

6. THE POWER OF ENVIRONMENTAL INDULGENCES
Article originally published by Caroline Rennie on her blog ren-new.blogspot.com.

Purchases of carbon offsets* by individuals are at an all time high - despite the grim economic news, reports the Washington Post. And this tells us that there is money to be made by businesses who invite consumers to participate in solving environmental problems.

A lesson from the Church
The Catholic Church has known this from its inception - and used to sell indulgences (the promise of eternal salvation, for a small fee) to fund its activities. The need they responded to then continues to exist in the human heart, even in our more secular society. Today ABC agnostics buy eternal salvation in the form of offsets - the promise that some good is being done somewhere that cancels out the feeling of guilt from personal actions today. And they feel even better than the Catholics of yore because they are not only buying personal salvation, but the salvation of the planet.

But this means that people are investing more than their money - they are investing their faith in the solution - and if they discover that their faith was misplaced, they'll hold onto a sense of betrayal for years - and perhaps for ever.

An anecdotal illustration
At a dinner a few days ago, people were discussing the environment and climate change and the general difficulty of dealing with this at the personal level. The conversation turned, as it usually does, to recycling. "A total waste of time", declared one participant, "after you do all the separation, they lump everything back together and put it in the trash. I don't see the point of participating any more."

She was Swedish, and referring to a scandal in Sweden more than five years ago. We were having the discussion in Switzerland, with a known and effective system. But the memory and resultant behaviour are proving irreversible.

This has now been demonstrated in studies regarding actual vs perceived environmental performance among major brands. Those brands that had had a bad time of it in terms of reputation - such as Nike - had less benefit from greater effort. (MapChange Sustainability Study 2008).

So, if you are going to provide the means for consumers to participate in improving the environment, ensure you have NGO support, external advisors, and a solid programme. The closer you come to pure PR, the harder the fall for you and your (ex) consumers when they learn the truth.

After all, it takes 20 years to build trust, just 20 seconds to destroy it.

* Carbon offsets are the credits provided by, for example, a switch to green energy, sold on to third parties to "neutralise" their impacts. The thinking is that this creates an incentive to keep organisations investing in clean technologies. In fact, regulation and standards are inconsistent and poorly policed, and the programmes are sufficiently dubious that the US government has come out with a report questioning their validity. (Last week the Wall Street Journal writes, the General Accounting Office released a report criticizing "the limited assurance of credibility" in the voluntary market for offsets.)