Budget Luxury Is Possible

In the last 10 years I have stayed in some really crappy hotels. What has become clear is that price does not guarantee a thing.

Most people want a good bed, peace and quiet and a decent breakfast. Internet connection would also be nice. However, more often than every now and then I have fought with a crappy air-conditioning system, tried to find something fresh from the breakfast buffet of sweaty cheese, stale croissants and weird mayonnaise salads. And even in some fancy hotels the only thing they have to offer is a 10 euros per hour slow Internet, which works only with a cable. Hotels too often only end up increasing the traveller´s stress. I also cannot stand the idea that hotels are just copy-pasted to dozens of locations without any link to the local setting. I don´t want to stay "anywhere in the world".

But the good news are: there is hope. Easter in Amsterdam showed that great can be affordable. The new Citizen M budget boutique hotel chain provides the essential: great bed, natural light in all rooms, free WLAN, beautiful settings, good breakfast - and excellent service. The rooms are small - I mean under 20 sqm2 - but everything works. The breakfast comes in a paper bag but has freshly pressed orange juice and a fluffy but crispy croissant. It seemed Citizen M has got it right: invest in quality in the things that really matter - staff, interior design, produce, bed.

The design furniture lobby was one where you did not feel like you were working in a hotel lobby. You were not constantly surrounded by people with supersize bags and tour groups waiting for their bus. The staff at Amsterdam City was relaxed and hospitable. I and many others ended up working in the lobby for the entire day. The canteen had a selection of personal British and Dutch snacks and dishes - not the normal boring Pringles cans. The staff was helpful but not intrusive. They seemed to switch smoothly between the canteen and reception. None of the regular "you can go and ask my colleague".

The most amazing thing was that when I tweeted on the hotel, the staff responded in 10 minutes asking if they could give me any more information. We exchanged some messages back and forth and within a day I got great information on their take on sustainability and service. They told me that "from the development of our hotels, the efficient building system is combined with a dedicated offsite factory allowing the construction of the rooms with higher quality, less environmental impact at the construction site, less waste produced spite of reducing the total construction time from 2 years (market average) to around 10 months." This answer came from Diego working at the Amsterdam hotel, not from someone somewhere in the "service center". It seemed clear to me that the staff is proud of their concept - and the enthusiasm is addictive. You can find out more here.

And all this for, get this: 90 euros for a 2-person room.

By now they are only in Amsterdam. But according to the website, "hotels are planned across Europe – in all major cities – such as: London, Barcelona, Glasgow, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels, Milan, Copenhagen, Moscow, Paris, Istanbul, Warsaw, Budapest to name a few." I wish the best for them. My first visit to Citizen M made me a loyal regular. I love promoting companies like Citizen M and Virgin, which have realised how to make the entire service chain work. They are also proving to the consumer that the whole extra premium for better experience is often just disguised greed.

Food Freedom

Last week the City Council of Helsinki discussed over three hours over a weekly vegetarian school lunch. Next to the absurd health concerns ("our kids will starve!"), one of the key arguments against the plan was limiting freedom of choice. For many the idea that there would not be meat available every day felt like a bigger restriction than the current selection between 2-3 meals. They actually managed to make it seem like a school lunch cafeteria would work like an a la carte restaurant driven by the kids´ wishes. Luckily, the City Council was wise enough to pass the proposal.

The debate in the city council is another example of how our idea of food has drifted far from a connection to seasons and nature in total. Access to 2 eur/kg pork and tomatoes even in the midst of winter are presented nearly as human rights - despite their ethical or ecological problems. The need to get everything whenever we want dominates over quality concerns. We´re willing to feed and eat whatever the shop serves. The shop blames the consumer, the consumer and the farmer blame the shop.

Government´s role is completely forgotten as a body that has the authority to set standards and direct production with taxation and incentives. But even greater than this, governments could have a greater role in directing consumption by demanding that there would be more information on the produce sold. Sustainable and quality choices need to be made affordable and attractive. This can be addressed also as a democratic issue. If we are sold stuff that harms the planet and harms us with its additives, we should have the right to know this. There is a difference between ignorant and informed freedom.

During my 3-day visit to Zurich this week I discussed food policy with numerous people I met.
Many of the people I met were enthusiastic members of a food coop called Tor 14. They picked their vegetable bag and other groceries on Wednesdays and Saturdays from a cellar in central Zurich. Supermarkets were for them places to complement what they have at home, not all-you-could-eat selections for the meal you just there and then desire. Their cooking was driven by their pantry and the exciting vegetable selection of the week, not by the supermarket´s 20 000 items. In a way it´s the cooking style of my grandparents.

Going back to the vegetarian day debate, one could say that the system sounds too strict and limits your freedom. But the experience of the coop members told a different story. Through Tor14 they had learned to use numerous root vegetables found from their bags. Apparently phone calls are common after the Wednesday visit to the store:"Hey, do you have this green thing with yellow spots? What is it? Do you have ideas what to do with it?"

They had also understood how to plan meals for the week. Their organic and local ingredients had stories. They sometimes met the farmers. The people running the coop were eager and willing to share recipes. The montly membership gives security to the people running the coop and keeps the prices low.

Food coops should be encouraged by the government. They make one appreciate the ingredients, they reduce waste, they help people in getting to know diverse ingredients and they make cooking exciting. As non-profit collectives, they also lower the price of good products. I don´t know about you but I am tired of the soggy zucchini, bouncy Dutch bell pepper and the plastic-wrapped parsnip of my local Alepa.

No More Don´t Ask, Don´t Tell

My biggest awakening of this year has been on the political aspects of food. I blogged earlier about Pollan and Safran Foer as some of the people kicking the discussion food going. Having now finished Safran Foer´s Eating Animals, it is becoming more and more obvious that we need to treat food more as a political issue. We´ve kind of let ourselves be swept away by nutritionists and health advocates.

Never have we Finns spent such a small part of our income on the things we eat. What we eat is making the planet and ourselves sick. We push stuff down our throats without a faintest clue of what it contains. Food comes increasingly from the Alepa shelf, not from the field. We´re like that awful Clinton policy on gays in the military: we pretend that there are no problems by not asking any questions. When something goes wrong, we say it is an individual mistake.

EU governments and the EU itself spend an insane amount of money on subsidising and promoting food. Just last year the Finnish government spent 257 000 euros on promoting diverse eating of pork (result here). Let me say that again: 257 000 euros on diverse ways of cooking pork. Honestly.

We have elections in 2011. I want the next government to take food seriously. I want better consumer policy, better ingredients and food produced closer to where I live. I want agriculture policy that takes climate change seriously. As a consumer and citizen I want to know where my food comes from, how its been grown and how ethical it is. And yes, I am willing to pay a bit more for the things on my plate.

I want better and more sustainable food. I want exciting food policy. I want beets of different sizes, big and dirty parsnips, uneven carrots and local bread in my grocery store. I want less of those soggy mozzarella-tomato paninis and more root vegetable delis. I want more publicity to proud farmers like Janne Länsipuro who gets excited over a pumpkin and a burdock. I want to take my nephew to a farm for a weekend to see how flour is made and where herbs come from.

But we also need actions by local and national government. Schools and lunch cafeterias are great places to teach people what good food tastes like. These are also excellent places to create sustainable ways of cooking for instance by diversifying the vegetarian meals.

People need incentives to make right choices. Food if anything can be a political issue that is truly participatory. Good food is a fun issue.

Food Politics

I just got a delayed Christmas present in the form of books. I have been fascinated by the politicization of food for some time now and therefore this present really hit the ball straight out of the park.

It´s clear that more and more people are starting to advocate for healthier and more sustainable ways of eating. Brilliant. What seems to work is what we do at Demos as well: giving people tools and tips how to act rather than beating them on the head with information and guilt.

I was actually quite surprised last week to see that TV host Ellen DeGeneres - a stay-at-home mom favourite - had author Jonathan Safran Foer in her show talking about his new book, Eating Animals. In his book Safran Foer explains his journey from a father of a new-born baby wanting to know what to feed his child to an advocate of a vegetarian diet.

If you have followed the debate - in the form of documentaries, celebrity chefs and books - there is nothing new in Safran Foer´s book. But what makes it briliant is that a celebrated bestseller novelist - you might even say a household name - decided to make a big move towards more conscious eating. In the TV interview Safran Foer was simultaneously funny, witty and still critical and factual. I think we get further with that strategy than with the Michael Moore approach.

The other book in the gift bag was journalist-writer Michael Pollan´s pamphlet-like publication Food Rules, An Eater´s Manual. It builds on his bestseller In Defense of Food but makes an excellent move toward simplifying his message. Pollan´s book is concise and something you could have in your bag when you head to do the groceries. The book has 64 tips. Here are some of my favourites:

Rule 3: Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.
Rule 6: Avoid food products that contain more than 5 ingredients.
Rule 12: Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
Rule 21: It´s not food if it´s called by the same name in every language.
Rule 22: Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
Rule 47: Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
Rule 59: Try not to eat alone.

I recommend you buy the book. It´s funny, useful and to the point. The most important contribution by Pollan to the public debate on food is: it´s not that complicated to eat healthy. Common sense gets you far.

Pursuit of Happiness

Richard Layard
Originally uploaded by Andy Miah

This blog has been rather quiet - or to be more honest - dead for some time now. My apologies for that. One of my New Year´s resolutions is the following: one post and one post only per week.

The new focus: things making us happier. That takes me back to the name of this blog. My favourite word in the Dutch language, kiplekker, basically means chicken licking good.

I finally made my way through economist Richard Layard´s (pic) classic Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (2005). Layard´s basic argument is that the obstacles we once had for using people´s feelings as a measure of societal success are more or less removed. Brain research today gives us enough evidence to measure happiness and well being. This provides us with an opportunity to move further from economic growth and behaviorism that have driven politics for ages now.

Layard stresses one of the things that we work with a lot at Demos Helsinki: that even if all the material things are well, we are more affluent than we have ever been, that does not result to happiness. In a way we as societies are failing the ultimate test: are we building societies where people do well? Every day greater numbers of people feel like they lack a sense of self, skills to deal with their feelings and a sense of relevance in relation to others. Layard puts special emphasis on issues such as helping the poor of the world, reducing unemployment, treating mental illnesses, finding new measuring criteria next to economic growth and supporting family life as ways to happier societies.

So the blog goal is now set for 2010: once a week a post over a phenomenon, project, advertisement, person, website, sports club that is enough reason to get excited about. There´s one more criteria.

The things covered need to answer YES to the following:
Does it create happiness?
and NO to the following:
Does it harm others?
And finally YES to the following (question taken from Charlie from Make Nubs):
Is it fresh?

More to follow.

Donate Here

Some advocacy organisations just get it better than others. WWF - the people who brought us Earth Hour. Via: Deceptive Cadence.

Once Were Consumers

olimme kuluttajia
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

The pamphlet Olimme kuluttajia (We Were Consumers, Tammi) published yesterday by Aleksi Neuvonen and Roope Mokka of Demos Helsinki lays out four scenarios for 2023. The book takes scarce resources and higher price of energy as matters of fact and looks at our future within this context. It quotes on one hand Hannah Arendt in advocating that true freedom is not the freedom to own but the freedom for meaningful and public action and on the other hand scientists that we have reached the climax in the amount of core resources. If we do not change our way of living, in 15 years the climate has warmed up to the extent that certain parts of China and the American East Coast are starting to be unbearable to live in. The book follows the line of thought in the public debate now that the recession could actually be an opportunity to reboot.

The theme spreading across the book is the way we tackle climate change. According to Neuvonen and Mokka, most of us wish that there will be a day when we will be told by The Leader what not to do and until then most of us continue flying and buying in the current accelerating speed - fully aware of its consequences. The reaction is the same as a child who covers his eyes and ears to avoid the bad news. According to the book we need to recognise our role in change for as long as we wait for our elected leaders to make that switch, we are somewhat doomed. Over the last few years politics has actually taken its lessons from consumerism - politics is more a service industry answering people´s wishes than about ethics, ambitions or doing the right and responsible thing. This is very clear in political rhetorics of today. Therefore that SUV will only be banned when the big middle class takes another turn in its consumption. The book is a rare but realistic call for individual responsibility together with others.

The scenarios see control rising as we fight for limited resources. Control is also one of the ways to make people change. Rather than listening to our neighbours through the wall, in 15 years we can follow the ecological footprint of our neighbours from a public record Wastebook. In a world of less, we will surely make sure that our neighbours will not be free riding the system. This has been happening already in some countries in smaller scale for instance by people reporting their neighbours to the authorities when they do not recycle their trash.

The book claims that have moved from Social Democratic I Need Politics to more Centre Liberal I Want Politics. We are seeing the emergence of I Can Politics but the true change happens when we make a shift to We Can. When the media, corporations and governments take a bigger role in showing us the interconnectedness, we move from rights and responsibilities to virtues and pursuing truer happiness through responsible action and more meaningful human relationships. It moves discussion from what I want to what we can do.

This liberation from consumerism and move towards citizenship is quite inspiring and Case Obama is a good example of how it functions as a rhetorical tool. But I end up thinking, after reading the book, what happens when the resources really start running out. What are the arguments for building trust? The book paints a relatively beautiful picture of collective action but I feel it slightly - maybe for the argument´s sake - downplays the conflict and difference of opinion on the tools to make the switch. Politics is about deciding on those alternatives. It is not a question of The Good vs. The Bad but different strategies maybe even towards a shared goal. Does the urgency make our political system more responsible or more vicious What kind of leaders to we get, wish and deserve?

Olimme kuluttajia makes a convincing case that we have no alternative but to change. But I recognise I am already somewhat in the inner circle of this stuff. Reading it makes me reorient my professional focus to enhancing those positive developments and using my writing skills to formulate those attractive arguments to convince ever bigger parts of the population. This requires reaching over the aisle and bringing the engineer, marketeer and politician to the same table to build that map of interconnectedness. And yes, this is terribly exciting.

Greener Across The Border

Globalicious!
Originally uploaded by rogiro

Today´s Forum Virium Hidden Treasure seminar showed the difficulty of international comparisons in policy debate. A presentation painted a picture of the Dutch innovation system and Innovation Platform as a smooth and efficient actor in fostering innovations. However, what was not mentioned was the heated discussion before the last Dutch parliamentary elections whether the entire organization should continue. It was largely seen as an inefficient bureaucratic failure. Alike what was not mentioned today at Vanha was the recent book by Frans Nauta, the first General Secretary of the Innovation Platform, in which he highly critically went through the setup and work of the body. Nauta, who is currently lecturing on innovation in Arnhem, left the office out of frustration quite quickly due to immense struggles with the government engine.

Before the last elections I did an article for Suomen Kuvalehti on the Dutch Innovation Platform as it was assembled following a Finnish example. Most of the interviewees then criticized the Innovation Platform for its broad agenda and the big publicity around its launch. Whereas in Finland the Science and Technology Council is not known by most people and is largely seen as a coordination body, in the Netherlands the government did a huge publicity stunt around its launch – i.e. it was doomed to fail in its delivery. As Joeri van den Steenhoven said in my interview for Suomen Kuvalehti then:”In Finland compromise means that people discuss, vote on the propositions and everyone lives with the result. In the Netherlands compromise means that we discuss and discuss, we split into numerous subcommittees and make an overall strategy so broad that everyone can keep on doing what they were already doing.” As someone on the coffee break rightly said in the Forum Virium seminar:”The problem with the Innovation Platform is that it has no money so it really cannot initiate much.”

I am all for international comparisons and learning from others. I also hope the Innovation Platform has learned from its start. I am also all for investment in innovation and R&D. But without a full picture of the international case, we end up making the wrong conclusions of it and therefore carry out our changes in false consciousness. But then again, I guess we have come full circle now in the Dutch-Finnish relations: some years ago van den Steenhoven´s and Nauta´s Kennisland was an active lobby in the Netherlands for learning from the Finnish model following Manuel Castells´ and Pekka Himanen´s work. Now we are presented in Helsinki the work of the Innovation Platform only to be followed by statements praising the leadership position of the Netherlands in investing in innovation. How did it go: what goes around, comes around.

Climate Change in a Nutshell

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Quite fresh and factual explanation on what climate change is about and why we need to act now. The cockroaches and rats coming out of the burning globe is a gloomy sight.

Oh and by the way, I have forgotten to link this: an article of mine was published in a book of the Finnish National Gallery around intercultural dialogue. Download the book here, my article is on pages 12-18. (download the book from the right hand side, Perspectives etc..)

March 28 2009, 20:30

I organised yesterday a seminar for Laundry Helsinki and WWF Finland on Green Office, a great concept for public and private institutions to reduce their carbon footprint at the office. Over 100 big Finnish organisations have already joined ranging from McDonald´s to Finnish Tax Authority and more keep coming.

One of the issues promoted yesterday was the importance of action following the declaration. Jos-Willem van Oorschot from the architectural office Venhoeven CS gave an inspiring talk on the possibilities for self-supporting cities and energy-producing buildings. One of the actions we all could do is the Earth Hour in the end of March. Watch the video and see what you can do.

I am convinced, also by yesterday´s talks that sustainability is not something some of us do as a hobby or a cool gadget - it is the only sensible way of living. Combating climate change is not an opinion, it is the only rescue plan left. We need to find ways to imagine our lives improving also through other things than material goods and consumption and find a low-carbon and no-oil solution for living together. As Jos´ speech and many others showed yesterday: we can if we want to. This is where creativity needs to be directed now.

Cool with a Conscience

Monocle Magazine Issue 171
Originally uploaded by genius style

It is rather refreshing to be proven wrong at times. I had seen Tyler Brûlé´s Monocle advertised for months on shop windows of every respectable news store. I kept bumping into his interviews in everything from Kauppalehti to Fantastic Man where he was branded as the definition of cool. I read his Fast Lane columns regularly from Financial Times, which I usually found kind of light on content. I mean two consecutive columns on the perfect men´s bag for a weekend trip maybe explains what I mean.

I always found Wallpaper extremely snobbish and pretentious so the expectations were not high when I purchased both Monocle and Intelligent Life yesterday from Stockmann. Intelligent life unfortunately proved me right - I glanced the magazine through and found very little worth reading. It somehow reminded me of Finnish Gloria women´s magazine´s failed attempt to make a men´s lifestyle publication relying on the holy union of cigars and sports cars.

Monocle, however, I found myself reading from cover to cover. Of course it is filled with luxury product ads but you kind of know that already when you pay 12 euros for a magazine. And then again, luxury product ads never weakened the content of Vanity Fair. But I was fascinated by Monocle mainly because:

- it promotes good ideas and people behind them (like Italy´s minister of public administration suggesting an Erasmus programme for civil servants in order for them to think outside the box or a coffee shop owner in Portland showing his customers where the coffee beans come from and bringing producers over to the US to see the other end of the service chain)
- it addresses sustainability as the thing to do, not a phenomenon we need to react to
- its graphic design is amazingly fresh and playful
- it uses a lot of illustrations
- it is strongly global with a broad correspondents´ network and not a Western publication with "voices from the rest of the world"
- it shows me a lot of Japan, a society that I find superinteresting
- it talks about ethics, local produce, making things well
- it dares to feature technological breakthroughs that will actually make our life better
- it features well-made, beautiful products that I actually would like to buy

I am hooked. Some might say that this post should have been written like 18 months ago but that is exactly the Wallpaper attitude I detest. Well done, Mr Brûlé.