The first one worth watching is 10 minutes outlining the 9 most significant challenges facing South Africa. Similar to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, this lays out a great programme for South Africans to support. Watch it here, or below:

Trevor then personalises these big picture issues by focusing in on just one person: a young person who is facing a tough future in difficult circumstances. He outlines the difficulties she faces, and some of the solutions that will help her. Watch the video here, or below:

As Trevor says, “This must be shared by all South Africans… If as a nation we know where we want to be in 2030, we will share the burden of the journey along the way… there are both costs and benefits to be had. Very importantly, we need to act together in our collective interests.” Precisely right!

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Last week, David Cameron made an interesting speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The item that received most press coverage in the speech was Mr Cameron asserting that “We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.” He admitted personally to be a committed but only vaguely practising Christian with some deep doubts about some theological issues.

He continued: “I know and fully respect that many people in this country do not have a religion. And I am also incredibly proud that Britain is home to many different faith communities, who do so much to make our country stronger. But what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today.”

Some would argue that a time of national crisis and difficulty is precisely when the church can shine in society. The Economist from the previous week had made just such a point in an insightful piece (read it in full here, or an extract below).

Postscript added on 25 December: The Queen’s speech today was filled with Christian messages, and a strong almost evangelistic message. It’s probably the strongest specifically Christian message I have ever heard from a member of the Royal family in the UK. Is this a sign that the leaders of the country have made a decision to use the Christian faith as a means to developing the nation? If so, the church needs to jump at the opportunity. But it must do so realising that people are seeking God, not the church. They want faith, not a religion.

God in austerity Britain

As recession looms, the Church of England is active and vocal, but in the wrong way
The Economist: Dec 10th 2011

CONSIDERING that Britain is a deeply secular country, there is a lot of God about this Christmas. Austerity is a part of the explanation. With the core cultural activity of modern Britain—shopping for stuff—losing its lustre, there are hints of a nation groping for something more profound.

For millions, austerity Christmas will include a dose of carols. The trend has been noticeable for a couple of years. The great cathedrals expect to be packed on Christmas Eve. Charity services, family services, carols by candlelight and sing-along concerts abound. A London church, St Martin-in-the-Fields, is offering “carols for shoppers”, while across town the grand organ of the Royal Albert Hall, a 9,997-pipe monster, will pound through some two dozen carol concerts in December.

Anglican voices are prominent in less cosy contexts, too. On December 6th the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, made front-page news with a commentary on the riots that gripped English towns last August. Too many young people feel they have nothing to lose, the archbishop argued, decrying consumerism and government cuts to youth services. A fortnight earlier, 18 Anglican bishops wrote a joint letter condemning plans for a per-household benefits cap (intended to ensure that welfare recipients do no better than the average working family). This risked being “profoundly unjust” to poor families with children, said the bishops.

The Anglican church has become rather proprietorial about anti-finance protesters camped in the City of London outside St Paul’s Cathedral, after a muddled initial response that saw two senior clergymen resign. Yes, the protesters’ demands are vague, but that just shows that the Church of England is used as a place to air society’s “unspoken anxieties”, suggested Archbishop Williams last month. The Bishop of London has organised meetings between Occupy London protesters and the chief financial regulator, Hector Sants. On a homelier note, a priest reports that two protesters have started attending cathedral services.

It is possible to see why some Anglican clergymen are bullish about their church’s relevance in austerity Britain, despite decades of falling attendance and gibes about woolly, waffly priests wringing their hands at how complicated life is. The decade after the second world war witnessed a “new seriousness”, and a corresponding high point for the Church of England, says Lord Harries, a former bishop of Oxford and long-standing BBC broadcaster. The beginnings of a similar seriousness can be felt today. The Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, points to the headlines generated when church leaders question government policies. If bishops can make the front page, is the country as secular as all that, he asks?

Actually, yes. The latest British Social Attitudes Survey shows just 20% of the British public calling themselves members of the Church of England, down from 40% in 1983. Roman Catholicism (about one in ten of the population) is more stable. Half of the population say they have “no religion”. More than half “never” attend a religious service. Non-Christian faiths are growing but small (6% of the population).

Come all ye faithful, and not

The evidence that the Church of England is returning to the centre of public life is ambiguous. True, religious music is popular. In some places that shows a yearning for faith. But if cathedrals are increasingly popular, it is in part because they are anonymous, admits a priest: there is no danger of being asked to visit a sick parishioner afterwards. Business is also booming for commercial carol concerts in non-church settings, where a mince pie and nostalgia are as much the lure as harking the singing of herald angels. Across the country, Raymond Gubbay, an impresario behind several shows at the Royal Albert Hall, is putting on 200 such Christmas concerts.

Nor is the St Paul’s Cathedral camp as flattering as it seems. The protesters wanted to surround the London Stock Exchange. Thwarted, they ended up at St Paul’s largely by accident. Headlines about bishops chiding the government are also double-edged. Too often, what is striking is not the daring of Anglican prelates but their lack of self-confidence. Time and again, bishops sound like shop stewards for the welfare state, taking to the airwaves to demand the preservation of specific benefits without mentioning the church, the role of faith or Christianity.

Welfare utopianism is an Anglican tradition. In the 1940s the church embraced the welfare state as a modern, professional alternative to charity, willingly dismantling voluntary relief networks and signing over thousands of church schools, hospitals and other bodies to the state, notes Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University. In a 1985 report the church attacked Margaret Thatcher for putting economic efficiency ahead of welfare. She retorted that church-going is not about wanting “social reforms and benefits” but about spiritual redemption and, indeed, God.

The church has a perfect right to comment on politics, says Lord Harries. If you love your neighbour, you must have a view on policies that affect his welfare. At the same time, he argues, the English have always been reticent about religious language. The clergy must use religious imagery “very shyly”, otherwise the English immediately back away.

Fair enough. England is an odd place: a secular country where an established church still has a role in public life (and, on the ground, does much unsung good). But the economy may be about to fall off a cliff. That poses a huge test for the Church of England and its claims to be a source of national strength. If the church cannot offer a message more spiky and distinctive than social democracy in a clerical collar, it will fail that test.

Source: The Economist

The Economist has it quite right: The church’s message should be very similar to Jesus’s message. A new Kingdom is available, and could break in all around us. It can be on earth as it is in heaven, and God’s will can be done here and now.

In a similar article from a different perspective, Eric Weiner reflected on America, stating: “Apparently, a growing number of Americans are running from organized religion, but by no means running from God.” Americans are abandoning religion, but not faith. They have had enough of church, but not of God. These are signs indeed that the church is failing the test. It has lost its ability to be meaningful in society.

But it does not need to be so.

A part of the solution is for Christian leaders to start bringing joy to the world. That’s a big Christmas theme, lost for most of the year in Christian rhetoric. As Weiner says: “Put bluntly: God is not a lot of fun these days. Many of us don’t view religion so generously. All we see is an angry God. He is constantly judging and smiting, and so are his followers. No wonder so many Americans are enamored of the Dalai Lama. He laughs, often and well. Precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout. God is not an exclamation point, though. He is, at his best, a semicolon, connecting people, and generating what Aldous Huxley called ‘human grace.’ Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of this.”

We need the church to become more missional and less defensive. I hope that 2012 will see steps in that direction.

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally friendly, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender non-specific celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Gregorian calendar year 2011, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our world great and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message.

OR, if you prefer, have yourself a merry little Christ-mas and a wonderful new year.

You had to select just the right card to portray the right message: not too wintry if you’re southern hemisphere, not to secular if you’re religious (or vice versa), and always consider buying from a charity – it showed you cared. Then, you had to spend a long time making your list of recipients. Was there anybody to add? Anyone to remove? And, of course, you then had to hand write each one of them, and send them individually.

It was costly: in money, time, effort.
It was personalised.
It meant something.

That was then.

But it’s different now. It’s been happening for a while, but I only noticed this past week how many people have now gone digital with their Christmas cards.

That’s not a problem – it makes sense. But I don’t think we’ve got the etiquette quite right. Too many of the email “cards” I’ve received as Christmas greetings this year have been sent out as mass mailers. People haven’t even taken the time to customise the greeting for me, preferring to just hit “send to all”. I recognise that some have taken some time and effort to craft. And I have enjoyed some of them as they’ve helped me catch up on the lives of some of my friends. That’s been useful for friends who still haven’t started chronicling their lives on Facebook.

But mostly, I have just deleted the emails after a very cursory reading. They really haven’t made a connection.

I don’t think I am turning into a grumpy old man who yearns for the “good old days” before all of this “dehumanising technology” took over. I firmly believe that, correctly used, technology can help us to connect more, and connect better, than we ever have. But sending out mass mailer “Dear friend , you mean so much to me” emails is not such a correct connecting use of technology. It doesn’t feel that way to me, anyway. I’d be interested in your thoughts, and am always keen to see the world through other people’s eyes. Feel free to help me out in the comments section of this blog entry.

In my view, we either have to downgrade what we think Christmas cards are (maybe they were never heartfelt before, and maybe we weren’t as friendly with all those people anyway). Or we need to take the time and effort and energy we used to take to make a personal connection with people who mean something to us. I did not send Christmas greetings this year, and I am sorry I didn’t. It feels like an opportunity to connect has been lost. But sending out a generic greeting is equally a lost connection opportunity.

I don’t want to downgrade my view of Christmas cards. But I want us to upgrade our use of technology to make personal connections at this time of year.

Let’s use technology to enable a better humanity, rather than detract from it.

What do you think?

They’re in their 30s and early 40s, have families, mortgages and mid life issues. They’re as settled as they’re ever going to be (although this isn’t what it looked like for the Boomers). One of the things they’re very focused on is their families. Some of these middle managers, for example, are turning down promotions – not because they don’t want to move up in their companies, but because they don’t want to move their families to a new location (their son just made the first sports team at school, and they don’t want to move him). And they will prioritise family time more than any previous generations.

So, if you want to impress them, get their attention, touch their emotions and connect with them, it would be a good idea to connect with their sense of family values. But it’s a new type of family these days, isn’t it?

Microsoft’s latest campaign attempts to do just that – and they get it mainly right. “It’s a great time to be a family” is the tag line, and the series of adverts portray families using technology to do traditional family activities in exciting new ways. Here’s a great example (see more below):

They are really well put together and strike a chord with Gen X. To connect with Gen X you need to show that you understand the new rhythms and relationships of today’s families. They’ve also been adapted for different cultures (there are some excellent changes made for different countries in the homework video, for example – I like the Indian version best; compare it to this).

But they also show the limitations of traditional advertising these days. If you’re an Apple fan, for example, you’d be very unlikely to change across to a PC with Windows based on these adverts – you might even laugh a bit as you realise how simple graphics, videos and multimedia are on Apple compared to Windows. And if you own a PC, you get Windows standard, so I am not sure what these adverts are trying to do. Surely, Microsoft can funnel their creativity (and awesome budget) into something that achieves a lot more.

The connection with a generation’s value is important – in fact, a vital starting point. But you then also need to connect with the experiences of that generation and communicate with them in ways that make sense to them. This series of adverts from Microsoft does the first thing brilliantly, but falls short on the rest. But, that’s better than most, who don’t even pass the first connection hurdle with this middle aged, but still much misunderstood, generation.

Some other adverts from this series include:

PS – isn’t interesting that these last two adverts are from different sides of the planet, and are for different cultures, but they use the same music?

Exciting news: My best-selling book, “Mind the Gap” originally published by Penguin in 2004 has been fully revised and updated and is now available. Buy it from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net.

Nearly 25,000 copies of the book have already been sold, making one of the best selling South African published business books of all time.

And now it’s even better.

This new edition includes a few new chapters. You’ll find our predictions for the latest generation, and maybe you’ll agree with what we’ve decided to label it (there were many options). We’ve added information (and some predictions) about today’s children, and completely revamped the section on Generation Y.

You’ll find an entirely new section at the end of the book about how to apply generational theory around the world, to different countries, regions and people from different economic classes. Our team has spent the last ten years applying generational theory on every continent, and we’ve learnt a lot from people all around the world. We hope these new chapters distil some of what we have learnt into helpful lessons for you.

You’ll also find a few new ‘quick info boxes’ scattered through the book. We know from feedback that these were a much enjoyed feature of the first edition. We have updated almost all of the first edition lists too.

There is not one single chapter that hasn’t had a thorough update. Some chapters have been almost rewritten, while others have had significant additions and expansions. The bibliography and further reading list at the end has also been updated to reflect some of the latest research into generations.

The only downside is that right now the book is not available in ebook format. Penguin, the publisher, are still negotiating author rights across the world for all their authors, and have not yet released any of their titles in ebook format. They are hopeful this will happen in early 2012. Watch this space for more info. Or just buy the physical book for now! Thanks for your patience on this issue – I can promise you it’s not our choice that this book is not yet in ebook format.

I continue to be humbled by the way the concepts presented in this book have had an impact on so many lives. We’ve worked around the world with big corporate organisations, where we’ve helped teams develop new products, revolutionize marketing and advertising, and significantly improve HR, talent management, recruitment, leadership and teamwork. We’ve worked with governments and states, and helped to influence policy that will last for decades. We’ve had the pleasure of helping non-profit organisations, schools and charities, as well as many faith-based organisations (from many different religions).

But my favourite moment of the last few years was when a middle-aged woman came up to me after a presentation recently. She had tears in her eyes. She explained that about five years earlier she had seen me present ‘Mind the Gap’ as a keynote at a community centre one Friday evening. She had been battling to connect with her 14-year old son, and was afraid she was losing him. That talk helped her to understand how her son saw the world, and opened up a bridge into his life for her. Her tears accompanied her thanks: ‘You saved my relationship with my boy’.

Of course, my team and I have done no such thing. All we have had the privilege of doing is showing people things they probably already knew about themselves and others. But we seem to have found a way to do it that rings true and spurs people to change and action. We’re thrilled at all the stories we’ve heard since we wrote this book. We’re honoured to have touched so many lives.

We hope this updated and expanded edition of our book continues to have an impact.

Don’t forget: it’s the edition with the orange cover!

“75m of us will mean death of NHS, benefits…and your dining room” – read it here

Needless to say, the journalist took my most extreme predictions and hyped them up as The Sun is wont to do. Still, I enjoyed the exercise of thinking so far ahead.