I had an interesting meeting today, during which one of the people I was speaking with brought up a talk given by Jonathan Schwartz last August. Schwartz - the CEO of Sun Microsystems - delivers a fascinating talk over about 25 minutes during which he relates important demographic and development trends to Sun's need to develop and implement a "base of the pyramid" strategy.

(Full disclosure: during the speech, Schwartz mentions NextBillion writer and WRI Vice President Al Hammond by name, and cites data from The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid. What can I say - I'm proud that Fortune 500 CEOs are looking to Al and to our report in support of their emerging markets strategies.)