The digital good life

17 December 2013. The animated short films of “Little Green Bags” reveal what the topics of corporate responsibility, entrepreneurship and the energy revolution are all about. In the wake of academic seminars with a lunch snack, the so-called “Brown Bag Lunches”, the video series “Little Green Bags” offers digital bites of knowledge.

Living well online and offline
Computers, mobile phones and tablets – these appliances open doors to the digital world for us: Facebook is bustling with almost as many people as China, Twitter is almost as big as Brazil. The fifth film in the video series shows how we can live a good digital life. The focus is on five opposites, which must be in equilibrium for us to be able to move around in the country of “Digitalia” successfully and happily: I and we, knowns and unknowns, giving and taking, private and public affairs, being online and offline.

“A contribution in the net is like a handshake in real life. The more hands we shake, the more trust we build,” said script author Miriam Meckel, Professor of Media and Communication Management at the University of St.Gallen. But life must also be cultivated offline. Logging out every now and then and pulling out the plug is good for us, says the communication expert. After all, technologies are here for us, not vice versa.

Digital bite of knowledge
The HSG video series “Little Green Bags” invites people to find out more about the fields of knowledge ploughed by the University of St.Gallen. The topics of energy, sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship are debating points in society, in the economy and in politics and are therefore also an important component of research and teaching at the HSG.

The first film was made by the Institute for Business Ethics and was entitled “What is Corporate Social Responsibility?” The Institute of Technology Management illustrated the effectuation principle and the 10 myths of entrepreneurship. The fourth part explains how innovations come into being. The films are produced in cooperation with the Zurich animation studio Zense and film director Andri Hinnen, who is himself a graduate (SIM-HSG) of the University of St.Gallen. The Academic Director of the animation film series is Prof. Dr. Thomas Beschorner, Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at the HSG.

Photo: Zense / Playlist Little Green Bags: http://bit.ly/littlegreenbagshsg