Wednesday 18 June 2008

Rising cost for energy and food - is media paying the bill?

Exciting discussion at the future congress “forward2business“ in the East German city of Halle. Stefan Liebing, coordinator for government relations at Shell oil company gave a forecast for the worlds energy consumption in the next ten years. According to Liebing a huge challenge.

The auditorium agreed on the fact that the gigantic demand for energy from emerging economies like China and India will force average western households to invest a bigger share of their budget for daily basics. Prices for energy and food – quite stable for decades – will keep rising and will remain on high levels. But who is paying the bill? I guess that not only leisure and travel expenses but also the media and entertainment budgets will suffer significantly. Another blow for newspaper subscriptions and Pay-TV?

For Germany „forward2business“ is quite an unsual event – may be thanks to its East German roots. 200 innovators and change managers from all industries share their ideas for the future trends in management and society, technology and science. I like the atmosphere, sitting in the garden of the medieval castle „Burg Giebichenstein“, enjoying the sun and the unconventional ideas of people who share their passion for the new. A touch of californian web camp feeling in the middle of Germany. We need more of that...

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