A Poem - Change in 2012

Change -

As we navigate vast waters in our boats,

They springing the leaks we plug and push forward,

We steer cross roiling seas of change,

Aiming for the green terra firma of "Stability Island"

Just what are the COGNITIVE tools

we need to be ready and strong today - and tomorrow?

1- To compress time like an accordion,

as we make a few things happen in half the time

and twice as well. Like Tiger used to play golf!

2- to multitask like Shiva - God of six hands

create with intensity! It causes destruction of the old

3- to Flow, to Catalyze, to Be!

to Verb. Its time to be a Verb

Forget your nouning, your baggage,

Burst in this moment!

Of Discovery! Of Power!

Depite our failures, our lacking, our sadness,

Find the Peace and Flexibility

To Discover. To Create

To Unite (the meaning in Sanskrit of "yoga"

Rejoice! Rejoice!

We can. We will!

Opportunity Surrounds Us

- Jim Hurd 11/2011

Spiderman on Broadway

Just saw Spiderman tonight on Broadway. Some lyrical, searing insights into who we are becoming in our techdom, after a largely disappointing first half to the night. We are rapidly approaching a new future, and we blithely hope it will be positive / benign, when history tells us it almost never is so simple... This play is quite wonderful overall despite many many weaknesses. Fly into its kinetic electric melee.

Harry Reid's Energy Summit 4,0 in Las Vegas 8/30/11

Who wowed the crowds at Harry Reid's Energy Summit 4,0 in Las Vegas 8/30/11?

- Governor Christine Gregoire of Washington was very well informed, intense and ready for action. She kind of showed up the boys on either side of her - Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Governor Jerry Brown of California with her no nonsense, lets get busy words.

- Jerry, aiming to keep up with Gregoire's incisiveness, used humor to crack up the crowd with his witticisms on all kinds of things, including tortoises and other problematic California endangered species that have often slowed the state's legal permitting environment to a standstill, leaving California struggling to compete for large high-dollar projects that have gone to Nevada and Arizona, to the dismay of California cleantech advocates who want a balanced approach to leading the green economy while protecting the environment and endangered species in intelligent ways.

- Vice President Joe Biden was similar to Gregoire - very smart, full of well informed details and eloquent about the dangers to America's future.

- Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, the rock star of cleantech in our military, was eloquent about the big cleantech projects the Navy has already undertaken.

- Best line of the day? That might have come from Chinese CEO Yuseu Wang of the ENN Group, based in Langfan, China, with offices in Las Vegas. After saying that global warming was looking to make Las Vegas alot hotter and eventually put his home town of Langfang under water, Mr Wang said, "Perhaps we should amend your famous President Kennedy's important quote to say, 'Ask not what your planet can do for you, ask what you can do for your planet.'". Well said, Mr Wang.

I participated in a very good "US China Cleantech Showcase" in Shanghai last Wednesday, August 10th

I participated in a very good "US China Cleantech Showcase" last Wednesday, August 10th in Shanghai as an attendee. It was held at KIC - the Knowledge Innovation Cluster buildings in Huangpu District, in the northeastern part of Shanghai. KIC was put together by Vincent Lo, who is also the founder of Xintiandi, the high profile and innovative center for restaurants and nightlife in central Shanghai.
Great event hosted by On Green last Wednesday - with two in-depth venture capital panels throughout the morning and presentations from 14 leading US cleantech companies looking to develop projects in China during the afternoon.
Check out the web site - www.chinacleantechfocus.com
Very good opportunity to have some in-depth conversations with the venture capitalists on the panels and with the CEO's of the presenting companies.

Great "Technology Rare Earth Mineral Security" conference coming up this Tues and Wed

Great "Technology Rare Earth Mineral Security" conference coming up this Tues and Wed - "TREM" - in Pentagon City, Virginia just across the river from Washington, DC. Gal Luft and Anne Korin - of the IAGS - www.iags.org - have led the way on a number of key issues - and this is a very important and very timely one. Check it out. I'll put up a quick report after the conference. Cheers, Jim

My reflections on Hu Jintao's visit to Washington, DC this past week

My reflections - I did not see much in the newspapers in the week or two before Hu Jintao's visit. I was somewhat surprised not to see much. The only thing I saw of note was a Washington Post article five days before talking about Obama meeting with five Chinese American human rights people at the White House – which I thought was an odd way for the Obama Administration to get ready for the visit. It seemed that this focus on human rights was for domestic consumption – and was meant to pave the way for the fact that it was a State Dinner – first one in several decades.

Once Hu Jintao's visit started – things seem to go quite well. The trade agreement of US exports of $45 billion impressed people. Most people I know thought the visit went well.

I was somewhat surprised to not see many comments that got the Chinese perspective across. I didn't see much effort on Americans to understand where the Chinese are coming from. The McNeil Lehrer segment on PBS with David Shambaugh and Susan Shirk and one Chinese professor from California was an intelligent discussion. And Fareed Zakaria’s show – “GPS” – today Sunday 1/23 – had some very good comments in it – from Henry Kissinger and particularly from Zbigniew Bzezinski (sic). One comment from Zbigniew was interesting was “the US and China are a contrast of styles - we short history, they long history…”

The reception on Capitol Hill the day after the State Dinner seemed a bit odd to me – with Congressmen trying to play to their local constituents. I hear that the Speaker of the House did not come to the State Dinner as a form of protest - Republican John Boehner I assume. This seems to be odd behavior - playing to his Ohio constituents. In general the House seemed to focus on the fact that Americans are getting used to having less prosperity - and THEY DON'T LIKE IT! It just happens that China is the rising power - so Americans are mad at China for taking jobs. But the fact is that as Fareed Zacaria said in his book, "The Post American Era" - the US has to start to get used to less prosperity, less dynamic growth - at least for the short to mid term.
I see tensions between US and China happening largely around both countries need to create jobs for its citizens. I believe a joint NGO for job creation in each country could lessen tensions. In general – I believe that China could help communicate that a country with 1.3 billion people can not necessarily be governed as a country with 300 million people. Democracies are hard enough to get going in countries of 100 to 300 million people – but very hard to develop in countries larger than that – other than India and the democratic tendencies that the British brought to India over many many decades. And India’s democracy is not that necessarily enviable to China – with the counter-productive bickering of various factions that has slowed the Indian economy down. China should strive to communicate that it has cultural differences from Western countries – and to help Western countries GET INSIDE WHAT THESE DIFFERENCES ARE – so the US does not just evaluate China on the moral standards prevalent in the US today. I do believe that China should very gradually move toward democracy – in a stable, intelligent and measured way. The flourishing of the Chinese people’s potential is amazing – and will continue strongly going forward. The more the rest of the world gets to know China and its people for who they really are – and not for platitudes that inaccurately sum up a country of 1.3 billion people – the better off all the citizens of this planet will be.

I was at a tremendous meeting in Charleston, SC last week - Renaissance Weekend - of leaders from all backgrounds and disciplines - who gather each year the last four days of December to brainstorm and share contacts to move things forward.

I have gone the last four years and am always truly inspired by the people who come! Some great panel discussions there on the topic near and dear to my work - where the business of cleantech is going - and the kind of collaborations the U.S. can do with China, India, Europe and other countries in the next few years - if the U.S. is able to move quickly enough.

Phil and Linda Lader continue the tradition they started thirty years ago when they founded Renaissance Weekend - amazing!