Alexander Manu is a strategic innovation practitioner, international lecturer and author. He works with executive teams in Fortune 500 companies in industries as diverse as consumer packaged goods, media, advertising, mobile communications and manufacturing. Alexander lectures around the world on innovation, imagination, change agents and strategic foresight. He is a Senior Partner and Chief Imaginator at InnoSpa International Partners , teaches “Innovation, Foresight and Business Design” at the Rotman School of Management, and is a Professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design and in Toronto.

In his client and research work, Alexander is involved in transforming organizations by exploring and defining new competitive spaces. For over 20 years he has enabled global companies as diverse as Motorola, LEGO, Whirlpool, Nokia, Navteq and Unilever to develop policies and strategies that address emerging issues.

He is the author of several books, including “Everything 2.0: Redesign your Business Through Foresight and Brand Innovation”, 2008, “The Imagination Challenge Strategic Foresight and Innovation for the Global Economy” , 2006, “ToolToys: Tools with an Element of Play”, 1995, and “The Big Idea of Design”, 1999. His current book, “Disruptive Business” will be published in the Fall of 2009 by Gower Publishing.

The “Earth is Your Mirror” keynote presentation explored a number of central themes around the idea of sustainable human life on Earth. The critical view is that “human life” is a specific form of animal life: one that creates as it destroys. Understanding the implications of being human is seen here as paramount in beginning any conversations about change. The place to start change and transformation is in retooling the individual – our desires, greed and expectations - as a first step, rather than retooling the products and services we create by design. The reality that consumption may not be sustainable for the Planet in the ecological perspective – art and design being some of the forms of consumption this applies to - needs to be balanced with the statement that humans without art are not sustainable as a species. What do we ultimately want? Once we embark on the journey towards a new destination, the Earth will be the honest mirror of our progress.

On the downloadable PDF file below you can find the slides from Alexander Manu lecture at Porto.


  PRESENTATION