Thomas Hettich
I'm a dad to my 5 year old daughter, provider to my family and working towards improving practices in our own home and beyond.
Location Zurich
Activity
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
I stopped at "unicorn". Didn't get it after 7 tries or so. Swiss German isn't written (we only write High German) and have probably around 46 phonemes.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
Somewhat complex - it took 2 minutes or so. I hope we don't need to learn all these symbols.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
I agree with others that there should be more options here, especially the option to select several (and maybe more granular, such as magnetic letters, guided writing books, specific apps)
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
I found the above descriptions don't well explain the four bullets. Please improve the clarity of this part (maybe give examples for each). I selected "No strategies" as I wasn't sure what the different answers entail.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
I definitely see a development towards more social businesses. As awareness of our global problems increases, not only do individuals start more businesses with a social agenda, but the actions of governments are increasingly "taxing" bad behaviour which affects even for-profit businesses to think broader about their impact (and purpose).
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Thomas Hettich replied to M B
These inspirational project do seem far between. I worked on the start-up of a hotel (also a social business) in 2015-2016 where we aimed to employ refugees, were active in inspiring local political change, worked towards making better use of local resources and food suppliers, allowing employees a say in hotel strategy, etc., etc. During the one year working...
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Thomas Hettich replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
Like you, Natasha, I disagree with the limited definition of a social business (in the video above as well in the previous video). Take the concept of the B Corp (to me clearly a social business): The social purpose of the company is at the heart of the business and no stakeholder will be given preference - thus it is not a profit-maximizing business. However,...
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Thomas Hettich replied to Pete G.
A point that seems totally lost (or maybe I just didn't see it) in this otherwise comprehensive thread is that, social businesses can also have a scalable business model - if successful, this will lead to a higher stock evaluation and potentially even a to an IPO (as recently witnessed in the case of Laureate Education,...
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I'm a bit late to the course (starting today). However, there is a big community of businesses (B Corp) that do exactly what you are hoping for. This might be covered extensively in this course...
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Thomas Hettich replied to Gilian Le Sueur
Thanks, Gillian. Did the encouragements help?
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Thomas Hettich replied to Gilian Le Sueur
I'm in the same boat. Just starting week 2 now. And today has been quite a struggle as I work from home and my 20 month old baby girl was crying a lot last night and has been cranky since waking up early today (before 5 am). Good luck.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
Without intimate knowledge, this model seems fine for political dynamics. For a broader, more universal model, the impact on biospheres ought to find representation.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
Sustainable development is the pursuit of (social) goals while aiming for a positive impact to all stakeholders (such as state, environment, community). A contrast would be the simplistic pursuit of profit to shareholders.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
After many years in finance in Switzerland, US and Singapore, I have recently moved to Bangkok and am witnessing unsustainable business practices like never before. I look for inspiration and guidance to adapt and implement sustainable practices locally. Any other people in finance?
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
One Eureka moment was the start of an intercultural learning seminar. The instructor started by asking us to introduce ourselves and state what we would expect of the seminar. We all felt straight at ease - telling our names and expectations was easy. Then, he asked us to agree on what the role of the instructor should be during these days; we were quick to...
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
Managing people would be easier, if all people within a company wouldn't assume that management was easy or set in stone, but rather be subjective to an ongoing constructive dialogue aiming to improve management practices.
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Thomas Hettich replied to Phoebe Keriniotou
Thanks Phoebe and Fabio, I just signed up as well.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
This was my first FutureLearn course and I feel that the clean interface helps in the learning process (compared to Coursera, FutureLearn is more intuitive to navigate, helps focus on content and see where you stand on progress - clicking 'Mark as complete' and seeing the colour shift always makes me feel good).
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, only some...
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
We know that money causes people to cheat, so no wonder that bankers regularly mess up.
A few sessions ago, Nick asked how the narrative of society influences how our shallow minds create our own stories. And now this message board has most of the comments falling into the unbalanced and very popular narrative, that "banks are bad". I don't think Nick...
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John, this is an excellent point. And not only do humans influence the outcome of a lab experiment (the below recent article in The Economist describes this), studies have also shown that the animals most likely to be caught in a trap (and be transported off to labs for further study) might not be representative for their species as these tend to be the...
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Thomas Hettich replied to Thomas Hettich
I mean, of course, that I hope it helps anyone, besides me.
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
Allow me to give two examples of how I understand Nick and his qualms with 'economic theory':
1) The general capitalist narrative is that people are completely self-interested (and will only act for others if they have the proper monetary incentives). However, people care greatly about values (however elusive) and mostly act in an ethical manner. A source...
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
A part of my job as a financial advisor was to help investors clarify why they would want to make an investment (like buying a share). Were their reasons fundamental, technical or based on a gut feeling? If fundamental, the sell decision should also be fundamentally based, if technical, the technical indicator would alert them when to sell and if based on...
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Thomas Hettich made a comment
For 20 years I worked in a bank and always thought of myself as pretty content. After I got divorced and started living on my own, it became clear that without the inspiration of and shared path with my partner, my life seemed shallow.
Having changed my life significantly, today I strive to do daily activities that improve my health in a number of ways:
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