Qatar has something every country needs.  I’m not referring to oil or natural gas, although Qatar has both in abundance.  I mean a national vision of and strategy for sustainable development.

In less than a generation, Qatar has experienced huge economic and social transformation.  The discovery and development of its hydrocarbon resources has fuelled – pardon the pun – Qatar’s economic growth from a small nation dependent on fishing and pearling to one of the highest per capita income countries in the world.

In the face of that rapid expansion, however, new challenges...

We overestimate the importance of what we’re thinking about.

We misremember the past and misjudge what makes us happy.

Irrationality is in our DNA—and we are the better for it.

These are just a few of the ideas I’m getting from reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in the psychology of economics.

This book describes the capabilities and faults of “fast” thinking—...

| Greening the Games |

I’m curious. Of the nearly one million visitors anticipated in London for the summer 2012 Olympics, how many will insist on going green? And what does the epicenter of Englishness have waiting to greet the green traveler? As luck would have it, I’m able to schedule a brief London layover on a flight from Bali to New York. Let the pre-Games scouting begin.

It’s my re-entry into the ‘First World’ after a fifteen-month journey across...

How do you convey the profound experiences and needs of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and do so in nine words on a poster, or a 30-second ad? That was the challenge facing Aaron Padin, head of art, and Drew Train, account director at marketing communications firm JWT New York, who led more than a dozen volunteers, including strategists, copywriters, photographers, and editors to create “...