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Tim Riedel
Climate Advocate and Founder of planetgroups, Change Facilitator, Skills Assessment Consultant, Ark2030 Founding Member
Tim Riedel is the Founder and CEO of planetgroups, an international non-profit consultancy based in the UK, Switzerland, and Germany.1 He established planetgroups in September 2020 with the mission to empower and inspire individuals to drive sustainability and innovation within their workplaces.12
Prior to founding planetgroups, Riedel had a successful career in Human Resources:
- He was the Founder, Trainer & Consultant, and Managing Director of Interpool Personal GmbH from November 2003 to April 2020.1
- Riedel has expertise in international recruitment, talent development, skills assessment, and intercultural communication.1
- He is a trained Systemic Coach (DGSF certified) and has experience in change management and organizational development.1
Riedel's educational background includes:
- A Master's degree (Diplom) in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin1
- A Master's degree (1. Staatsexamen) in Law, focusing on Labour Law and Public Administration, also from Freie Universität Berlin1
He describes himself as a "latecomer" to climate change awareness, with his interest sparked in 2019 when his children participated in "Fridays for Future" rallies.2 This led him to transition from his HR consultancy role to founding planetgroups, where he applies his HR and change management skills to promote sustainability in businesses.2
Highlights
Capitalism is a "racket" - it manufactures problems (the climate crisis, wars, pollution, addiction, obesity, social erosion, etc. ...), and then sells us "solutions" to fix them.
I first heard about the term "racket" in #thegreatsimplification by Nate Hagens with Daniel Schmachtenberger (https://lnkd.in/eeqaNqvP). A "protection racket" refers to the traditional mafia practice of raiding a shop, and then selling the "solution" for money of not raiding it any more.
There are two important differences of how the capitalist systemic "rackets" work:
- In most cases (although in many cases even that is true), the "solutions" are not sold by the same party that creates the problems.
- The party manufacturing the problem gets paid even for creating it, not just for the "solutions".
Surely, we don`t pay companies directly to poison our soils, to harm our health, polarize our societies, or to destroy our planet. We pay them for some instant gratification they provide. But while those companies, immanent to the logic of the capitalist system, make enormous efforts to persuade us into wanting that gratification, they make no effort at all to build an awareness of the problems they are creating along with it.
So whenever we are talking about the "solutions" to any of our predicament (more growth to reduce extraction, more weapons to protect peace, more drugs to make us healthy, the list of such insanities is long) none of them actually focus on removing the reasons that contribute to creating the problems in the first place.
Why is that? Because it's hard to monetize to stop doing something. We could change the algorhythms on social media to reduce screen time, body dysmorphia and radicalisation. We could stop industrial lifestock farming to reduce health hazards through our food. We could ban commercial advertising. And we could drastically reduce our consumption in general. But if we did, then what would we make money with?
It is in that line we must look at reports like the recent Arthur D. Little study "We are doomed - now what?" (https://lnkd.in/eYhbaDGv), well analyzed on Medium by Tim Smedley here: https://lnkd.in/e9r7yXdc. The key question of the report is: “How can decision makers harness technology to help their businesses adapt to the diverse, multivariate, and ambiguous impacts of climate change?” And while the analytical framework and the individual suggestions of the report hold a lot of value (I recommend reading it), it omits the most important question: How can we change the incentives of the system, so that the technologies put forward are more than just another form of modern capitalist racketeering?
As companies and consultancies, if we want a future for ourselves and for humanity, we have to start thinking, communicating, and acting more politically. The way our financial systems are set up, how money is created and distributed, that would be a good starting point!
#thinkinsystems #thinkpolitical #forabetterclimate
BREAKING: Swedish Husqvarna Group, a global leading producer of power tools for wood work, forestry, park maintenance, and gardening, has announced its new "SUSTAINABILITY FIRST" business strategy, after having played our #ClimateBusinessChallenge.
The new business strategy will rest on 6 pillars:
🌳 Service & Repair first: Service, Maintenance and Life Extension of existing equipment - also of competitor brands - before sales of new units.
🌳 Products as a Service: Customer retention and the retrieval of resources and materials through multi year rent-return-renew contracts with both B2B and B2C customers, with both parties making and saving more money the longer the products last.
🌳 Growing, not Clearing: All products, manuals, and trainings will focus on growing, managing, and regenerating the natural world rather than cutting it off, working closely with governments and private parks, land, and forest owners in order to restore (and finance) biodiverse forests and parks.
🌳 Community building: Community training and sharing centers, partially paid for by the municipalities and equipped by Husqvarna, will reduce ownership and material use of equipment by individuals, while increasing both utilization times, knowledge of regenerative park and forest management, and social cohesion at the same time.
🌳 Disaster prevention & resilience: Fire, flood, drought, and storm protection as well as reforestation technologies will become an increasing part of Husqvarnas product and service portfolio.
🌳 New Businesses: In addition, Husqvarna will strive to capitalize of its Know How, and to monetize its equipment and technologies in recycling and replacing pollutants and materials like plastic, metals, or batteries.
On top, the strategy also includes even more ambitious emission and material reduction targets, and related supplier, dealer, and customer awareness programs. It also encompasses an ambitious employee engagement program and substantial financial and communicative efforts to influence public opinion and government awareness towards the need to protect and regenerate the climate and the natural world.
Now of course none of this is true (or at least I am not aware of it). But it could be, couldn`t it? It is only a matter of understanding, imagination, and courage to think outside the box and get there.
Playing our Climate Business Challenge takes three hours, and it fosters exactly that. Please check out our upcoming open sessions in July and September and register for your session at https://lnkd.in/egV2cGkg
#thinkoutsidethebox #thinkbusiness #forabetterclimate
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.