Teblog

Goodbye Felix Dennis

Last week, someone very special to me died. I could have sworn I posted here about his passing, but the week was a bit of a blur and I clearly hadn't.

Last year's post about him (Poetry in Motion) will give a flavour of my feelings about Felix.

Read his 'company poem' The Bearded Dwarf to get a sense of what life was like aboard the good ship Dennis Publishing, or Bunch Books as it was when I worked there. (I understand Rolls Royce was none too happy about the logo. I knew life there would be a blast as soon as I saw it engraved in the glass above the entrance door.)

Felix took me on to help create a personal computer magazine. This swiftly turned into the relaunch, in September 1979, of Personal Computer World.

 

Here are some posts I made in Facebook last week - the only place I semi-publicly shared my thoughts and feelings.

23/6 RIP Felix Dennis, wonderful man, good friend. We're gonna miss you so much.

 

23/6 Me, Sylvie, Felix and mystery person in foliage. March 1st this year. Didn't know it was our 'goodbye' to Felix. Lots of great memories of the man.

 

24/6 When I met Felix Dennis, he took me to the art room where they were laying out John Wayne's obituary. I said, "I didn't know he'd died." Felix said, "He hasn't yet, but he's very ill." Eye opener for me.

What has amazed me this week is that papers and online sources have had years to get the facts right about Felix, yet they still manage to screw up his biographical basics.

It makes me wonder how much of what we read is similarly incorrect.

 

25/6 I go to sleep thinking about Felix Dennis and I wake up thinking about him. It's like an infection of the brain. He's never far from my thoughts because he had such a profound impact on my life. I'm probably going to shut up about him for a while but, before I do, I'd like to share a couple of his insights with you.

One is a scan of an interview I did with him years ago for the now defunct "Sustainable Solutions" magazine. It was so completely against the sustainability grain that the publisher loved it.

The other is the pdf of his excellent lecture (Journalism or Churnalism) on why the reader is king.

Enjoy. And take heed.

Goodbye Felix. Thank goodness you've left such a huge written and recorded legacy.

 

29/6 If you think you've got a great story about Felix Dennis, check these out first. They are utterly brilliant. (They're tributes from people who've worked for him.)

 

You don't have to agree with everything Felix did, few people would, but he was a man of utter conviction, he was honest, he was an inspirational publisher and he made a massive difference to tens of thousands of people's lives. (Maybe more than that.) Including mine.

Thank you.

 

What Tebbo did next

Looking back at the past five years, it's been a lot of fun and I've worked exceedingly hard on three major projects: Freeform Dynamics where, as an analyst, I became deeply involved in social, cloud and environmental aspects of ICT. Then Blue & Green Tomorrow, where I launched, edited and wrote all the news and many features in the print edition. Then 6Connex EMEA where I consulted (and still do) on all manner of things - mainly writing stuff but also getting roped into the technical side of things as well. As a virtual event company, 6Connex also has a strong environmental angle.

Following a particularly large project which almost gobbled me up, I find that I can rebalance my life somewhat. So I'm back to doing more writing - monthly in cio.co.uk, about individual CIOs and their sustainability efforts, and private commercial writing (B2B). I even run the odd writing skills workshop.

I'm also training in media skills either solo, with PR partners, or with Martin Banks, depending on what's required. Clients are usually blue chip ICT clients but I've also worked with a chemical company, a charity, some engineering firms and a university.

No doubt things will unfold in interesting and unexpected ways. They usually do. If anything changes radically, I'll let you know. You still won't see many blog posts here in the short term, but I wouldn't rule it out long term. At the moment, my editing and blogging urges are more than satisfied with The Right Thing To Do?.

So there we are, just in case you were wondering. If you're not, I guess you wouldn't have read this far.

 

The right thing to do?

Recent events have drawn me away from Teblog and I think they're likely to keep me away. But I am involved in something much better.

First a bit of background: editing and writing much of the original paper version of Blue & Green Tomorrow gave me massive opportunities to write about the environment up to May last year; on the communication front, media skills training hit an unexpected peak in January; and, since June, I've spent at least half of my time with a company which hits every Tebbo hot button: communication, environment and IT.

The people I work with are great and we've created a neat website, demo and knowledgebase plus various social media presences. The company itself, 6Connex EMEA, is all about online events, content and collaboration, thus accelerating work and cutting the costs (financial, social and environmental) associated with travel.

But it gets better. Tracey (the boss) and I wanted to do something extra but non-commercial. Inspired by the work of the Lunar Society at the dawn of the industrial age, we wanted to get right-minded people to share their practical insights with each other and with anyone who cares about making the world a better place. (The motivation is similar to Blue & Green Tomorrow's. The difference is that it goes way beyond environmental issues.)

We've had direct contributions from people like publishing mogul, poet and forest builder, Felix Dennis and green investment wizard Ben Goldsmith. We've covered some interesting TED videos - one on Gross National Happiness and another on why things will get better. We've also had people who are at the heart of change in educational systems and one who argues that growth and sustainability are incompatible.

 

Some pioneering contributors and featured presenters in The Right Thing To Do?

Top row: Euan Semple; Clive Longbottom; Ben Goldsmith; Ray Maguire.
Bottom row: Matt Ridley; Chip Conley; Felix Dennis; Salman Khan.

 

Just this week, social networking guru, Euan Semple, contributed a great post entitled "Bloggers are the rag and bone men of the information world."

Everyone is giving their time and ideas for nothing. No-one puffs their business directly, although they can all share their credentials in their mini-bios. TRTTD exists for knowledge sharing and discussion which will provide a bedrock of thoughtful considerations for our collective future. Depending on individual circumstances, posts are either contributed, the product of an interview or are written up around an online video.

Curating TRTTD seems to me to be a much better cause than continuing with Teblog. I'll keep it open for now, but expect most of my energies to be spent elsewhere. And, if you like the sound of "The Right Thing To Do?" why not come on over. It would be great to see you there. Here are the Website and Twitter links. 

 

An evening with PR/Marketing Guru, Larry Weber

Back in May, I trotted off to meet with marketing/PR guru, Larry Weber and a bunch of other interesting people, including Jack Schofield (IT man at the Guardian for donkey's years and erstwhile competitor - we both edited PC magazines in the early eighties) and Bill Nichols an academic and marcomms/reputation consultant who, when Jack and I were competing, was Clive Sinclair's PR man. They were both on the speaker panel with Larry. The other notable people were in the lively audience.

The occasion was the UK launch of Larry's (then) most recent book: Everywhere. It's about social networking being at the heart of the future of business. He calls this 'anytime, anywhere' access the the fourth wave of computing. (I ought to know what the three earlier waves were, but I've forgotten. Maybe it was brains, internal networking and internet, or something.)

No surprises so far then. But I don't think Larry set out to surprise us particularly. More that he wants to share his familiarity with the subject matter in a non-frightening manner. After all, the people who really need his insights are those who are probably the most fearful of openness, transparency and genuine dialogue. You might think of them as the 'command and contol' brigade. While this has its place, it's probably not where the rubber of the corporation hits the road of the marketplace.

Sorry, I should be talking about Larry's evening. (And, if you're wondering why it's taken me so long, it's because I was suddenly pitchforked into a new company and I've been more than a tad busy. My conscience was pricked by a Facebook post about his recent presentation to the Public Relations Student Society of America. The headline of the post was "Social media’s impact bigger than television’s.")

At his book launch, he predicted that, by 2015, "you'll be hard pressed to find any newspapers or nightly news on TV." He says, "TV ads have got to die sometime." He may not always provide answers but he knows how to provoke fresh thinking. Let's hope the revenue replacement doesn't put the TV companies even deeper in hock to corporate sponsors.

With regard to the Fourth Generation thing, he told the story of how he sent off for brochures from all the prospective colleges for his daughter. She didn't look at one  of them. She'd already done her research online. Except she didn't refer to it as online. When Larry once said to her, "I'm going online", she replied "Oh Dad, we don't go online any more. We just are." Online, that is. And a lot of people reading this will know what she means. If you're not one of them, then it's likely that his book will interest you.

Another thing he talked about was Innocentive. Companies give it problems and money and it gets its community of 'solvers' to apply their brains. Larry gave examples of $100,000 here and $25,000 there. It's all online (of course). And the winning contributor exchanges their IP for the cash. That's a great commercial application of crowdsourcing. Related to this were his comments on how social networking allows for the intense, focused, sharing of knowledge. I think his book goes further and talks of micro-segmentation of the internet so that you can find a community and go deep into just about any subject that interests you.

He is very clear that successful companies (especially consumer-facing) will have to become radically transparent, be willing to share and also to stand for something that will resonate with customers and prospects. Core values that permeate the company's business. Larry doesn't claim it will be easy, but he sprinkles his conversation with stories old and new of how companies have turned on the proverbial dime. Dell, of course. BP to a certain extent. And so on.

I was quite taken with the idea that, "big sites will die under their own weight." He said this because he believes that all the power is now in the network. Not sure that a behemoth like IBM would totally agree with this sentiment, despite its strong advocacy of social networking values. With statements like this, the evangelist in Larry seems to pop out of the closet. (My views of evangelists are here.)

Let's turn to one of the other speakers, Bill Nichols. He scored a hole in one for me with his observation that "People respond to emotion and fairness."

I have the sense that the former has been faked and the latter missing for a long time.

If Larry and Bill are right, we would seem to be heading towards a better and much more harmonious world.

Let's hope so.

Small is Beautiful

On June 21 1973, Peter Lewis - the Daily Mail's Literary Editor - wrote a review of a book that was to change the direction of my life: Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered by E.F.Schumacher.

I rushed out and bought a copy and, among other things, was taught the wisdom of a focus on need rather than greed. It led me to the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), now called Practical Action, and many other environmental and sustainability initiatives.

I mention it today because, clearing out the garage the other evening, it fluttered to the floor. I thought you might like to read it. Click on the image to see it in a new window (zoom to suit).

Apologies for its general dishevelment. (And, to those who are sensitive to such things, for the fact it was in the Daily Mail.)

Here on Earth

I finished reading Tim Flannery's Here on Earth a couple of days ago.

It lays out a fascinating history of our planet, the flora and fauna and their effects on it (including mankind, of course) and what we need to do to ensure our own species survives. We're the only ones with the intelligence and understanding to change our ways.

His recipe for global cooperation - a shared 'mneme' which acknowledges the harm we're doing and how to reverse it - is plausible in the abstract. But the book contains all the seeds (no pun intended) of why this is a tall order.

As a provocation, the book is excellent. If you're of a defeatist mind-set, you could end up very depressed by it. Especially if you have children and grandchildren. On the other hand, if you have a grain of imagination, it could start you thinking very seriously about how we get from an unacceptable 'here' to a desirable 'there'.

It will mean change, and that's the threat to religions, nations, different strata in society, business, politics, and so on. All have to find ways to put our common interest ahead of their own.

The book is very readable for the most part - at its best when describing our world and its mechanisms and, understandably, at its weakest when suggesting a way forward.

But, unlike the alarmist books which simply annoy, it gets you thinking. And, for that reason alone, I think it's worth a read.

Eggs and baskets

Being away from here has given me a chance to focus intensely on launching a new magazine without too many distractions. We now have five issues under our belt and I have reaquainted myself with the rhythms of conventional publishing. I know where the peaks and troughs of effort lie and I can get back to a more normal and less distorted life in the troughs.

Creating, editing and writing for Blue & Green Tomorrow has been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. And it couldn't have happened without Simon, Lori and Dominic (publisher, sub-editor and designer respectively) and, of course, our marvellous contributors. Other people take care of 'webifying' the magazine at blueandgreentomorrow.com. You can register (free) which gives you an account tab and access to digital copies of the magazine. Otherwise much of the content is publicly available under the various themed tabs.

Even through the mayhem of the launch, I've continued to do the occasional course on how to handle the media, often with my long-time partner in crime, Martin Banks. We used to call ourselves 'Press Here' but, when we both deviated out into analysis work, we sold the domain and renamed ourselves greybeards. One look at our photos will tell you why. I also run the odd writing skills workshop for business people.

And, now, here I am blogging again. Given the nature of the magazine, I suspect that I'll be blogging more about sustainability (could a word possibly sound more boring?) than about IT. But it's hard to keep me away from software. Talking of which, I now have an HTC Desire smartphone running Android, and jolly pleased I am too. That could be another running theme.

We'll see. But, as you can see from the title, I think that a deliberate spread of activities, providing I can do all of them well, will makes for a more balanced and fulfilling life than having all my eggs in one basket.

So, the last post turned out not to be The Last Post after all, just a pause while I gathered my wits.

See you again soon.

David

 

Blue & Green Tomorrow

Funny how things work out. No sooner had I reorganised my life (see this blog post) than I got an irresistible offer to help create and edit a new magazine. Since July, we've been working on the creation of Blue & Green Tomorrow which hit thousands of carefully-selected doormats two days ago.

We've called it Blue & Green Tomorrow because we want our planet to be as blue and green tomorrow as it was yesterday. And we believe that the way to do this is for our readers to start making more informed choices about their domestic, business and financial lives.

We're not interested in stale debate or slanging matches between vested interests which lead to the deferment of decisions, we believe that all of our readers can take positive actions right now, if only they could easily lay their hands on the right information.

That's where the magazine comes in with its news from around the world and features on subjects such as shopping, travel, energy and investment. It is relentlessly focused on positive, practical and pragmatic choices that readers can make to leave the world better than they found it.

We expect their influence to spread and affect others, whether it's by setting an example or by helping to finance the right kinds of business.

We aim to give them an informative and enjoyable read. We want the magazine and its website to become a lively forum for the readers and the publication team. The buzz has already started as we get feedback on the first issue of the magazine. The website is live, but you can expect much more very soon. A twice-monthly email newsletter will follow for those who choose to opt in.

That's probably as much as I can tell you at the moment. One or two people have questioned our use of paper for the magazine but it comes from sustainable forests, is bleach-free and can be easily recycled. You could add other benefits such as it being possible to read it anywhere and it keeping postal workers in business.

When I helped relaunch Personal Computer World in 1979, I just knew we were at the start of a fantastic era in which computer power was going to be put into everyone's hands. Right now, I have similar feelings about the opportunities that face us with clean energy, ethical purchasing, wise investment and sensible travel. And that's just for starters.

As someone whose environmental awareness was awakened in 1974, when I read E F Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, I'm just thrilled to be associated with such a forward-looking and optimistic publication. While I've been involved in many sustainability initiatives over the past seven years, none has felt as 'right' as this one.

I'll keep you posted on progress.

 

Track what's important with paper.li

To my (slight) shame, I periodically purge the list of people I follow on Twitter. I simply don't have the time to read the minutiae of some of their lives, despite the fact they occasionally come up with worthwhile gems.

Now, I've discovered a way of getting the best of both worlds: I can keep up with the more interesting/useful Tweets from whoever I like while keeping down the number of people I follow in Twitter itself.

So, three cheers for paper.li - a free service that builds online daily newspapers: from a Twitter user and the people they follow; from a twitter list; or from a hashtag. It looks for Tweets that contain links and publishes an extract from the destination, crediting the Tweeter at the foot of the piece. You can click the headline to go to the original article/site

Paper.li earns its money from small display ads dropped into your newspaper.

'envirolist' is my Twitter list of people who specialise in environmental and ethical stuff.

You probably can't see the detail in the above picture, but it has a 'trending topics' cloud and a live Tweet stream from the people in the list over on the right.

I currently have two papers running and I can create a further eight. My two are paper.li/tebbo and the one above, paper.li/tebbo/envirolist.

As a quick way to catch up on what's going on, paper.li is a corker. It requires minimal effort to set up a paper and it will even announce each new edition to your Twitter followers if you want, complete with the inclusion of some contributors' names.

[Update Sept 7: I switched the notification off two days ago. While no-one had complained to me, paper.li updates were beginning to annoy some Twitter users. This could only get worse as the service became more popular. Today, the company has changed the notification to top story only and it has dropped name plugs. It helps, but if anyone wants to follow my papers, the links are in my Twitter bio. I'm not switching notification back on.]

With paper.li's simplicity comes a lack of flexibility but, once you start complicating things, you have to start learning stuff. This turns (some) people off.

As it stands, paper.li reminds me of my first encounter with Google - it was a shock to just see a text box and a search button. And look what that led to...

Felix Dennis on Nuclear and Sustainability

Felix Dennis has started a Facebook discussion urging the use of nuclear power.

It brought to mind one of the most enjoyable interviews of my life when I was writing for Sustainable Solutions magazine in 2007. Almost everything he said flew in the face of the sustainability ethic, yet the magazine loved publishing such an articulate, but alternative, point of view.

I'm putting it in this blog, a) to be able to put a link into Felix's Facebook discussion and b) to share it with a wider audience.

(Disclosure: Felix was the publisher who took a gamble on me, an IT professional, to help create a personal computer magazine in 1979. I ended up as editor of Personal Computer World following its acquisition by Felix's company, Bunch Books.)

Here's the article:

---

Eco-fascists, dinosaurs and bonfires 

Not one to mince his words, publisher and millionaire Felix Dennis tells David Tebbutt why he has no time for Sitka Spruces, climate change and people he refers to as 'ecoNazis'

 Felix Dennis is a rich man. He has no idea how rich but The Sunday Times Rich List suggests £75O million.

He earned it through hard work, a love of publishing, a talent for writing, an eye for an opportunity and great skill at making deals.

His riches have bought him five houses, three estates and, most importantly, the time to do exactly as he pleases. And that includes a plan to create the country's largest broadleaf forest.

He's quietly buying up parcels of land and finger planting woodland on either side. (Splay the fingers of each hand and point them towards each other to get the general idea.) Between the woodland clusters are from ten to forty acres of pasture

To ensure that the forest is kept for the nation, he has created a trust called the 'Forest of Dennis'. It will provide, in his words, "amenity for humans and living space for thousands upon thousands of life forms."

Mr Dennis considers the extreme elements in the environmental world dangerous and he's happy to spell out the likely consequences. He's also happy to spell out what he would do if he were in charge of the world.

Let's meet the man

What would you say to someone who asked what your forest was all about'?

"None of your bloody business."

Oh dear.

He follows this with a gleeful barking laugh, the first of many which punctuated the interview.

Typically, he buys his land from farmers who are giving up.

He says, "Our farming policies are utterly bonkers and I speak as a farmer with 4,000 acres."

Mr Dennis calls the Common Agricultural Policy, "a daft system of agriculture. In decades and centuries to come people will he awestruck at the self-serving, self-dealing and delusional nature of these arrangements."

And the paperwork that has to be submitted is overwhelming many farmers.

"If you make a single mistake you don't get the grant money. The weight of the bureaucracy causes mass despair. And they give up."

Which is handy for Mr Dennis.

"I get the chance to plant trees all over this unwanted farmland. You can come across cows, sheep, and my lovely rare breed pigs living inside these woodland pastures. They're very comfortable and protected from the wind.

"We are creating the charity so the trees are safe from the predations of the government. Because it was the government who chopped down the last lot of all our forests.

"And the only thing they've ever planted is worthless Sitka Spruces which now deface Scotland. Our wildlife hates them. They can't live on them. An oak tree supports a thousand types of life. I think a Sitka Spruce manages six. Totally pitiful."

His motivation seems to be simply to create something beautiful that everyone can enjoy. He says it has nothing to do with the environment, leaving a legacy, tax advantages or soaking up CO₂.

Mr Dennis admits to being at odds with every organisation that flies under the conservation, ecology or sustainability banners.

On climate change he says: "I think human beings are totally deluding themselves that they are in charge of the planet. So why do they load themselves up with guilt? 

"Humans are animals and we do what animals are programmed to do which is breed and create change by so doing. Elephants, for example, can turn a forested area into  savannah within three generations. That's what they do."

He notes that nature appears to have very few requirements of animal life: live, breed, migrate.

Hunger creates migration. Fear too.

"Our wretched Puritans went to America because they weren't allowed to worship the superstitious dogma that they chose. They were only allowed to engage in the superstition which was the dogma of the government of the day. And if they didn't then I'm afraid they had to be chucked on bonfires.”

He believes that many, but certainly not all, conservationists and ecologists, "are rapidly evolving into eco-fascists and eco-Nazis."

The businessman draws parallels with what he calls superstitious fascism.

"I'm sorry to take the Catholic Church, it just happens to be handy. The Jesuits, when they renewed the faith of the Catholic Church, went to people and said certain truths had been brought to us by God. We understand these truths.

"You, on the other hand, are a worthless, stinking peasant and a useless excrescence and a guilty one to boot. Unless you listen very closely to what we say and you do everything that we say, even if you don't understand why, then with the greatest regret we are going to have to chuck you on bonfires after we have tortured you. We're not doing this because we're nasty; we're doing this because we're trying to save your immortal soul."

Here's the parallel, he goes on to say.

"The eco-Nazis say: "l have looked at the planet. Gaia has spoken to me, I understand hundreds of truths that you do not understand. It's all too complex for a person like you. And I'm afraid that, unless you do everything that I say, the entire world is doomed. It's all going to he your fault."

Mr Dennis reckons the bonfires are coming

"What the eco-Nazis don't seem to understand is that the planet doesn't care. We are not in charge. We are just a minor life form and, with a couple of shrugs of its shoulders, the planet will bring humans' so-called domination to an end.

"And we only have one way out.”

He whispers: "We must migrate."

His preferred option is to leave the planet.

"We've reached the limit of our ability to migrate unless we live under the sea. Which, may I remind you, is two thirds of the face of the planet."

"Because I'm 60 years old. I couldn't give a monkey's. Stop thinking 'let's all go back to the stone age, let's only have one billion people on the planet, let's hang on to the edge of the precipice for another one or two hundred years.' This is what's being offered to me by eco-Fascists.

"They offer no solution. There can be no solution to what nature put in motion. Sustainability. What does that mean'? I can show you the bones of dinosaurs, hippopotami, alligators and many other types of creatures that were found by the banks of the Thames

"Was that sustainable when sheets of ice went right up on top of them'? There were no human beings, I believe, who caused the sheets of ice to come down after these animals had been basking on sunny riverbanks for millennia."

How about the sun as the power source?

"If you made me tyrant of the world, the first thing I would have is a thousand atomic desalination plants.

"I'd turn Australia into a garden. It will be green from one end to the other. The icecaps will melt and lots of water will come into the seas. Sea levels will go up and we'll use the water, pump it all out.

"Do it. Now. Why not? Because the eco- fascists say 'you can't do that'

"Why? Because you won't know what to do with the waste. So they think that our kids won't be clever enough to figure out what to do with it? Millions of my people have to die now because of their little fear? No sir. We have the technology. We could do it now. We could turn Saudi Arabia into a Garden of Eden. Why aren't we doing it'? Eco-Fascists

 "I'm sorry, but solar power cannot possibly compete with modern atomic technology. I can produce hundreds of millions of gallons of desalinated water using atomic technology. And I can pump it whenever you would like it. I can give jobs to people because they will build the aqueducts.

"And then you will have more room than you ever have thought was possible on the planet. I could see this planet supporting at least a hundred billion people. We're crazy not to be creating far more usable earth than we've ever done before.

"The conservationists want to restrict your life. Using the guise of the death of the Earth, they want you to do everything they say. They wish to become the new priesthood. And they're going about it in exactly the same way that every priesthood always has.

"Most people accept that there is some sort of global warming going on. Whether humans have had anything to do with it is not a matter that anybody is competent to speak upon.

"No benefit ever came from people pointing fingers at other people and blaming them, except to a small number of people who are in charge of allocating the blame.

"I don't despise the people involved, but I do despise the scare tactics which are so redolent of those used by proselytising religions in the past."

"Sustainable Solutions is laughable. The whole idea is laughable

"Sustainable for whom, over what time period'?

"If it wasn't sustainable for dinosaurs, mate, it won't be sustainable for you."  


This article was first published in the July/August 2007 issue of 'Sustainable Solutions' magazine. Reproduced with permission of the Mark Allen Group