FabianPattberg.com

A little later then usual here are the Top 5 Sustainability & CSR News stories of the past week. I really like the last article on IKEA. Well worht checking out.

My Top 5 Sustainability/CSR News Stories the past week:

US execs: CSR initiatives do boost the bottom line
Three quarters of business executives now accept that responsible corporate citizenship brings with it financial rewards.

Greenhouse Gases Warmest Ever in 2007
It’s no fun reporting on ever-rising greenhouse gases – the United Nations weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization, says carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide reached record highs in 2007, and methane rose to its highest level in 10 years.

A Green Deal for Transportation
Interesting article on the need for the US Auto Bailout to be more sustainable.

London 2012 publishes sustainable procurement code
Olympic’s green procurement guidelines likely to get tougher as Games approach.

IKEA Goes Beyond Plastic Bags
Great read from the GreenBiz column on IKEAs effort to become more sustainable.

I am currently sitting in the waiting area of the Luton Airport waiting to bord a flight to Hamburg, Germany and I just noticed that I did not do a Lifestream post during the past two weeks.

So what has happened over the past two weeks?

In short: A lot as always.

Here is the extended version sorted by current activities (business and private):

• Two weeks ago one of my major projects really kicked of in terms of workload and time commitment. This project has really taken a lot of my time over the past weeks. Especially  after one of the project managers fell ill 2 weeks ago and I had to jump in to fill the gap.
• I also had to travel to Germany last Sunday for that project. I choose to travel by car as I needed to have some repairs done on my old faithful Ford Focus. Traveling by car meant that a both ways 6 hour journey by plane then took me 2 full days traveling time (numerous traffic jams included).
• The website development has also not been totally on time the past 2 weeks. This is mainly due to some personal changes in the programmers team and issues with the Content Management System (CMS). I hope this is sorted out this week.
• We also had several friends visiting us over the last couple of weeks. It is was really great to finally have time to catch up on old and new stories. This week a special old friend made the journey to London for an extended weekend and we really enjoyed the last few days. Friends are really important and life can be very lonely without good friends.

All in all have the past two weeks been very interesting and eventful. But my experience of the past few years has been that these weeks in November and early December are especially busy weeks. Everyone seems to either start or finish a project, do end of the year client visits, etc. People seem to work harder then they usually do during other parts of the year. I assume this is similar to the typical “Oh my God is it already Friday work mentality” in business. On a Friday I always feel that a lot of people need to sort out their unfinished tasks of the week. I get a lot more calls and emails from people on the Friday then any other time during the week.

Maybe this is just me but I seem to see a correlation.

I am in Hamburg all of this week but I am already looking forward to the flight back on Friday evening. Don’t get me wrong I love my work but family is family. And life without your family and some good friends is like food without spices………Just boring and colorless.

On that note, have a good week everyone and lets get „November Busy“!

Kind Regards,
Fabian

Well here we are again. Saturday and it is time form my weekly catch-up of the events in my business, etc.

I was very happy to stay the whole week in London in order to be able to catch-up on my emails and more after a week’s holiday in Crete. It is just amazing how much you can get behind if you are only out of contention (and emails) for a week. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the break and it was really needed in order to get the head free and switch to the next gear for the rest of the year. But I guess that is why the holiday season is there as nothing happens then and you can have peace of mind that you are not missing much. If you do holidays while everyone is working 100% you are bound to loose contention on many topics and developments.
Anyway. I am happy to report that I have finally concluded the talks with two “potential” clients to become clients. This means that I am pretty much booked out in terms of monthly consulting days for the next 6 months. This is great news and it will enable me to make for sophisticated plans for 2009.
The redevelopment of the forum is also going according to plan. I think we will have something to report and show before we all go on our Christmas holidays. Keep your fingers crossed.
I published three hopefully interesting posts on my blog this week.
Here are the titles including links:

• How To Read A Sustainability Report (Very popular and many interesting comments)
• Choosing The Right Domain Registry
• Top 5 Sustainability & CSR News Stories this week – 16.10.2008

I will be in Germany for most of the upcoming week at client meetings and then in Krefeld to catch-up with lawyers, advisors and some good friends of course.

All the best,
Fabian

It is Sunday again I finally have to the time to sit down and let the week pass by.

Here are the milestones of this week:

• Monday: Another partnership confirmed involving SustainabilityForum.com
• Tuesday: Had a great meeting with my developer in London. Things are moving forward there as well.
• Wednesday: Another media partnership and sponsor signup.
• Thursday & Friday: Travelling to Hamburg and initial meeting with a new client – a very productive meeting indeed.
• Saturday & Sunday: Relaxing, shopping, washing cars and spending a lot of quality time with Anne.

So, all in all a lot of work. But that is just how I like it.

I also wrote several new posts here and on my other blogs:
On this blog I started a new series of domain name posts. The aim is to provide an overview of the whole concept of domain names and more. Domain Names – Part 1
The second was a post on my favourite Firefox add-ons. I find Firefox really useful so I thought I would share it with my readers.  Firefox Add-Ons

On SustainabilityBlog.org Kim Leslie, a writer in the Sustainability Writers Network wrote a great post on packeting in the IT sector and how things are changing there for the better. IT Sector and Packeting
Then two days later I was delighted to see Amy Fetzer submitting an article on the sustainable practices of Universities.

So all in all a really great week.

Next week will be just as busy with a lot of work until Thursday when I have to go to Hamburg for another two days again.

So let’s go and relax for another few hours and then bring on the new week

All the best,
Fabian

This past week has been another very busy and interesting one. I started out thinking I would be able to focus on the London network this week but on Tuesday I got a call to ask whether I would able to spend 2 days with a client in Germany. So I jetted off to Germany in the early hours of Thursday and arrived back in the UK late Friday evening.
Yesterday (Saturday) was great to relax and catch up on the past 2 days of emails and office work.
The next week will be spent here in London and I have a kick off meeting with my programmer to discuss the next steps for the SustainabilityForum.com. Many of weeks of back and forth on the future of the forum are now over and you can image how happy I am to finally get this show started. 
I will also have more new posts on Social Media, Networking, Sustainability, CSR and more this week. My plan is to; if I have the time, have new posts every day during the week from now on. We will see how this will be manageable.
So on to the next week.

All the best,
Fabian

Well here it is the summer. For a couple of hours on a Friday that is. So you think: “Oh No not something about the weather again.”
I hate to write about the weather all the time but what can you do when the weather is so bad that you wish you would be somewhere warmer and sunnier. Okay now lets stop moaning now Fabian.

This week has been fairly quiet. You can really tell that it is the holiday season. Even my wife works from home today. This hasn’t happened for months because she was always to busy.
Because there was not so much going on this week I focused on online networking with a special emphasis on LinkedIn and Xing. I really love these networking sites. They are so useful sites to connect to likeminded people and professionals in your field. LinkedIn is more a global professional network where Xing in my opinion is very “Germany” focused. But in any case would I recommend to anyone interested in making new business contacts to register with both or at least with one.

I am going to Germany next week to meet up with a potential business partner in Hamburg. I am leaving a day earlier then Anne to meet them. Anne is going to Hamburg as well because we have another wedding in a week’s time close to Flensburg. (link to Flensburg).

And it decision time after that meeting. I have to finalize my plans for the redevelopment of the forum. This might not sound like a big and important decision but this decision in which direction to take the forum will be a huge influencer in where the future of my family lies in my opinion.

This weekend will be a nice weekend hopefully. Anne and I are meeting friends on the Sunday to, if the weather permits, take a long walk in the southern London area. There are some nice places to walk and with a 5-7 hour walk this day should be fun and great ot get away from the computer for a day.

Until next time everyone.

Fabian

This week has been another memorable. With a beautiful and relaxing start in Copenhagen to a very busy and work oriented networking event towards the end.
After coming back from Copenhagen it was time to get going again and define the goals for this week.
I achieved all of them with rewriting some of this website, making major changes to the PB Consulting website, progressing work on the future of the SustainabilityForum and getting as many new contacts at the networking event on Thursday.
Yesterday I finalised the website changes and Thursday was an amazing networking again thanks to the simple concept face-to-face communication. Sometimes the simplest and oldest concepts of communication create the best outcome. The modern social media helps but I think will never replace this type of networking.

Today we are going to visit a friend in one of the most beautiful places in the UK. It is his birthday and he is doing a barbeque. He lives in Bourton-On-The-Hill in the middle of the Cotsworlds (Picture shows a typical house in the Cotswolds).
We will be staying overnight as the drive back to London would be at least 2 hours. I just hope that it does not rain. Keep your fingers crossed.

All the best,
Fabian

Anne and I are off to a wedding in Copenhagen this weekend. Two of our best friends are getting married. Rado and Marie got to know each other during our university time and it is so great that they are now getting married.
And it will also be great to be in back in our old home town Copenhagen. I am looking forward to have a stroll in the city (without Annes most certain regular shopping distractions of course!) and then being able to just walk five minutes from the city centre and sit and relax at the beautiful seaside harbor (See picture). It really beautiful in Copenhagen and we still love to go back to revisit.

This week was a very productive week again and had a great finish with three good meetings today across various parts of London.

We will be back on Monday evening so I am finishing of the week one day early and start it one week late. Now that’s what I call a long weekend.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Fabian

I guess we have all been waiting for this for quite a while now but the summer has finally arrived in the UK as well.
This past week has been really nice in terms of weather and has been very busy when it comes to work.
I flew to Germany on Monday and came back to London on Wednesday evening. The German meeting was very productive and may lead to more later in the year. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Thursday was mostly spent on the phone or Skype respectively. I think I had something like 10 conference calls. I stopped counting at some point.
These where the highlights:

• Three articles by TSWN members where put online
• I published the interview with Novo Nordisk
• Registered the domain Stakeholder.me

I will be in London all of the upcoming week and Anne and I are off to Copenhagen for a wedding on Friday.

All the best,
Fabian

This week has been an amazing week so far. Of course there is the weekend still to come.

These are the highlights of what happened this week:

• The Sustainability Writers Network (TSWN) is taking shape and I was able to recruit 10 more great writers. I will write more about this network next week.
• I have been to two great MeetUps here in London and connected to many great people.
• Connected to Kevin Long the COO of JustMeans. Great guy.
• Got another call with a request for a consulting pitch next week.
• The SustainabilityForum.com got over 60 new members in only a week with the best ever week in terms of traffic.
• My cooperation with AccountAbility21 kicked off.
• Bought a new domain with great potential: SustainableChina.com.
• Sold a domain after weeks of negotiation.
• My new design for this blog was finished and went live.

All in all has this been a very productive week and thank you to everyone that I met or that visited my websites.
Next week I am off to Germany for three days and back in the UK on Wednesday evening. I am going to the Entrepreneur Meetup on Thursday morning and have important meetings on Tuesday and Friday. Keep the fingers crossed for another successful week next week everyone.

I will provide an update when I am back from Germany.

All the best,
Fabian