Vote for your favourite marketing hero

As if compiling votes on the favourite brand of the last 50 years wasn’t enough, the Marketing Society also wants to see who is your marketing hero.

There is quite a long list to choose from, but I was disappointed they only managed to find two women; Anita Roddick of The Body Shop fame, and Dianne Thompson the CEO of Camelot Group who run the UK National Lottery. I have added a few others to see who you recognise.

Follow the risers and fallers on the FairTrade 100

Having spent much of my working life working in the investment world of the City of London, the various share indices were bread and butter to me. My key one was actually the FTSE All Share, but the FTSE 100 was a regular feature in my working day.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the good people at World Fair Trade Day have developed their own take on the indices by introducing the FT100 for organisations that are “100% committed to Fair Trade”.

You may recognize some familiar names on the list such as Oxfam, Traidcraft, and one of our recent Inspiring Entrepreneurs speakers – People Tree.

However, the nicest surprise, was to see the only company I have ever directly bought shares in sitting in the list. I bought 1,000 shares in Cafédirect over five years ago, and since then the company has gone from strength to strength.

Cafédirect is the UK’s largest Fairtrade hot drinks company. Our brands, Cafédirect, Teadirect and Cocodirect are sold through most of the major supermarkets. We buy from 39 producer organisations in 13 countries, ensuring that over a quarter of a million growers receive a decent income from trade. We are proud to be working with farmers who have the expertise to provide the exceptional quality we require. This ensures that you enjoy the finest selection of coffees, teas and chocolate drinks. As part of our Gold Standard Fairtrade policy, over the past three years we have invested on average 60% of our profits in the businesses and communities of our grower partners.

Light green is the new black

I can’t claim to have been in the forefront of the environmental movement, although I have just installed a hyper-efficient condensing boiler at great expense (the old one was done for).

So it has come as something of a surprise to discover that various tones of ‘greenness’ have been catagorised and documented.

This knowledge was triggered by a reference to Light Green  – The Eco-chic Emporium.

According to Wikipedia, light greens are just one of three shades of green.

Dark greens, light greens and bright greens

Alex Steffen describes contemporary environmentalists as being split into three groups, “dark”, “light”, and “bright” greens.^[7]

“Light greens” see protecting the environment first and foremost as a personal responsibility. They fall in on the transformational activist end of the spectrum, but light greens do not emphasize environmentalism as a distinct political ideology, or even seek fundamental political reform. Instead they often focus on environmentalism as a lifestyle choice. The motto “Green is the new black” sums up this way of thinking, for many.^[8] Though many environmentalists of all stripes use “lite green” to describe products or practices they believe are greenwashing.

In contrast, “dark greens” believe that environmental problems are an inherent part of industrialized capitalism, and seek radical political change. Dark greens tend to believe that dominant political ideologies (sometimes referred to as industrialism) are corrupt and inevitably lead to consumerism, alienation from nature and resource depletion. Dark greens claim that this is caused by the emphasis on economic growth that exists within all existing ideologies, a tendency referred to as “growth mania”. The dark green brand of environmentalism is associated with ideas of deep ecology, post-materialism, holism, the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock and the work of Fritjof Capra as well as support for a reduction in human numbers and/or a relinquishment of technology to reduce humanity’s impact on the biosphere.

More recently, “bright greens” emerged as a group of environmentalists who believe that radical changes are needed in the economic and political operation of society in order to make it sustainable, but that better designs, new technologies and more widely distributed social innovations are the means to make those changes – and that society can neither shop nor protest its way to sustainability.^[9] As Ross Robertson writes, “[B]right green environmentalism is less about the problems and limitations we need to overcome than the “tools, models, and ideas” that already exist for overcoming them. It forgoes the bleakness of protest and dissent for the energizing confidence of constructive solutions.”^[10]

As well as being light green, you can also be light black, by adopting an Ecofont.  As reported on SpringWise, Dutch creative agency Spranq has developed a font called the Ecofont that’s designed to extend the life of ink cartridges and toner. This new font has lots of tiny blank circles resulting in a saving of up to 20 percent less ink than standard fonts.

The Vision Thing

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at the Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., in 1963. Credit: National Archives and Records Administration

With Barack Obama’s recent presidential inauguration, and references to Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, in the media, I have been pondering ‘the vision thing’.

So many of the successful entrepreneurs I have met, or heard speak, have had a clear and powerful vision of the future of their business, invention or service.

For me, the entrepreneur with the clearest vision has been Jordan Kensington, founder of Invincible Media who I mentioned back in November 2007. He described in vivid detail how, when starting out he had a film running in his head showing people on the streets reading his magazine (his first product), and the kind of stories it contained. He explained how the power of his vision was so strong it drew people with the necessary finance, and expertise into his network and led to a successful business.

Gerard Burke in his Growing Business column from last November last year describes the concept in more detail. He gives the example of Karan Bilimoria and his Cobra Beer, who even when he was delivering his first cases of beer in a battered 2CV car, had a vision of Cobra as the first global Indian brand.

ARK clothing for Acts of Random Kindness

Thanks once again to Springwise for finding a business with a difference.

In this case it is fashion brand ARK from Northern Ireland, founded by 18 year old Cameron, who insists that the wearer of his clothes must undertake an Act of  Random Kindness each time they are taken out of the closet.

I think Cameron explains it better than I can:

So I have this idea. I’d love you to join me in it.

I’ve started a clothing line with a purpose other than profit. The name, the movement, is ARK – Acts of Random Kindness.

The idea – one ARK every time the clothing is worn. That’s it.

Buy someone a coffee, give up your seat on the bus, help a drunk home. Any expensive ideas – send them my way, our profits could help. Just love – love everyone except yourself. You’ll see lives changed, including your own. Just love.

Change your world

Entrepreneurs to help Cancer Research UK beat cancer

I recently met one of the team behind the Open Ventures Challenge in aid of Cancer Research UK.

Their radical idea is to apply open innovation principles to venture creation, with the aim of building three new activities which will each generate £10 million to help beat cancer. They can be independent business ventures, new ventures for an existing company or a new venture for Cancer Research UK to run themselves.

This is a brave experiment from Cancer Research UK as it combines the use of social media and ethical capitalism. As they say on their website, they don’t know what will come out of it, but “look forward to seeing what you come up with”. Could it be a “Body Shop for Cancer”? Could it be the next “Race for Life”? Could it be a way to remove £10m from the cost of research?

The Challenge runs from November 2008 to June 2009 but already has 32 suggestions.

To join in with this fascinating experiment you have to agree to the following:
1. to give honest and open feedback
2. to act in good faith at all times
3. to treat all community members with respect and courtesy

Make a Wave Awards – closing date 12 December

The second round of the Make a Wave Awards 2008-2009 from Ogunte and UnLtd (The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs) closes on 12 December Open to Women!

So if you are a woman with  “bold, fresh and ground-breaking ideas to help solve issues emerging in the communities of their choice, in the UK”, why not apply for an award of up to £1,000?

They are made to women in the UK who can show that a very small amount of money, paired up with a resourceful brain, can be used to make a difference.

“We are looking for ideas that fit with the values of UnLtd’s mission to reach out and unleash the energies of people who can transform the world in which they live. UnLtd call these people social entrepreneurs.

Your ideas need to be aligned with Oguntê’s Women in Social Leadership vision: inspiration, entrepreneurship, networking, confidence, and sustainability.”

DOWNLOAD SPECS Make A Wave Award – (Word Doc

DOWNLOAD APPLICATION FORM 2008-2009 (Word Doc)

Are you ready to start your own business?

Well, according to the new Enterprise Readiness quiz on the SFEDI web site I am, as I scored 9 out of 10.

Your score is: 9 points out of 10
Looks like you really do have what it takes to be an entrepreneur… you’ve considered what’s involved in running your own business and you’re ready to take the leap. Contact your nearest SFEDI Centre of Excellence to find out how we can help you achieve your goals.

SuperJam Tea Parties helping to tackle loneliness

Great to see that one of our most memorable Inspiring Entrepreneurs speakers Fraser Doherty (the teenager behind the Super Jam brand) has been doing his bit to help with the growing issue of loneliness for elderly people.

This problem has had quite a bit of media coverage in recent weeks such as this item from BBC reporter Tim Muffett.

Fraser has introduced tea parties as a way of bring lonely elderly people together:

“after months of preparation, we today hosted our first of many tea parties for the elderly. About thirty guests came along to Sighthill community center and we all enjoyed a great laugh for a couple of hours and the delicious cakes and scones that were kindly donated by Waitrose. Alan from  Contact the Elderly  also came along and entertained us all with games, a couple of quizzes and a hilarious poem.”

Feeling good about ethical fashion

The British Library had it’s own contribution to London Fashion week in the form of Feelgood Fashion.

We brought together a panel of pioneering design and fashion entrepreneurs to talk about ethical fashion.

Jen Ruppert, founder of eco-fashion company Revamp

Ed Gillespie, creative director and co-founder of communications agency Futerra

Safia Minney, founder and director of People Tree, an environmental and Fair Trade label available in TopShop.

After the presentations and question and answer sessions we were treated to a fashion show in the main entrance of the British Libary. The creativity and quality of the re-cycled clothing was spectacular.

Blind tours of London?

The ever wonderful source of ideas Springwise has come up with Blind Tours. In this instance Lisboa Sensorial organizes blindfolded walking tours of Lisbon.

After being securely blindfolded, participants are steered through Alfama’s narrow streets by blind guides from the ACAPO (Portuguese Association for the Visually Impaired). The guide share their experience of the surroundings, and encourages participants to fully explore their altered perception of “the narrow streets, the smell of grilled sardines, the sound of a Fado that can be heard from afar.” A guide with historical knowledge of the area also accompanies each group.

The project has two main goals: to provide participants with a new sensory experience of their surroundings through the stimuli of smell, touch, taste and hearing, and the absence of vision.

Secondly, they aim to make sighted people more aware of how the visually impaired experience the world.

As Springwise point out – this seems like a concept that’s worth copying to other cities such as London.

I am trying to imagine the sounds and smells of my various routes to work in London, in particular through Covent Garden and past Monmouth Street Coffee Shop (the best coffee in London IMHO).

A friendly version of Dragon’s Den?

BusinessZone.co.uk has joined forces with the Bristol Design Festival 2008 to organise The Pitch, an opportunity for up and coming entrepreneurs to sell their idea or existing company to a panel of specialists who have their finger on the pulse of business.The UK’s next generation of successful entrepreneurs are being invited to pitch their lightbulb moment to a panel of leading business experts and win a prize package worth over £1,000.

Having watched Douglas Campbell present his Project Hold Me (a unique and innovative egg-shaped incubator aimed at nurturing the bond between mothers and their newborn babies during their stay in hospital), I a would say that the ‘Dragons’ in this instance are a much more friendly and constructive bunch than seen on BBC television.

Have a look at the others and see what you need to do to develop your perfect pitch.

Twittering away at SLA in Seattle

Thanks to the Yankee In Canada (otherwise known as Daniel Lee) for producing an SLA twitter cloud for the recent conference. The cool image below was produced using Wordle, and is based on analysis of the 1,194 tweets produced during the conference.

I even managed to contribute a few to the total myself, which was fun while it lasted.

The Business & IP Centre takes on twitter

First we blogged, then we facebooked, now we are twittering here at the Business & IP Centre.

Although Web 2.0 expert and commenter Leo Laporte has been extolling the virtues of twitter on his (unrelated) Twit.tv shows since it first started a couple of years ago, I remained to be convinced. But now we are engaging with this form of real-time web community to see what will happen.

In order to understand how twitter works have a look at the Twitter in Plain English video below. This is from Common Craft the same people who created the Wikis in Plain English video I blogged about in March.

Facebook comes to life at the Business & IP Centre

Since first joining Facebook a few months ago I have had mixed feelings about this latest (and greatest?) form of web social media. I am sure this is also true for many of you too  based on conversations I have had.

The downside are the high level of childish applications which can appear to dominate Facebook, such as Hot or Not, and variations on that theme. This is particularly annoying as Facebook is marketed as a more professional and mature version of Bebo and MySpace which are specifically aimed at children and teenagers respectively.

However, there are significant upsides to using Facebook, particularly communicating to far flung relatives and friends. It also enables me to keep a weather eye on my two teenage kids (but don’t tell them…)

Another real benefit was shown last night when we had a networking meeting at the Business & IP Centre to celebrate reaching 1,000  members on our Facebook group. It was wonderful to meet the real people behind their Facebook profiles and to engage in conversation in the way that is only possible face to face. We have posted photos up on our page to prove it was ‘real’.

Alex Bellinger the founder of SmallBizPod was there with his microphone and plans to put up a podcast on his site shortly.

Social Enterprise – Inspiring Entrepeneurs

The evening after the Teenpreneur event we held one focussing on Social Enterprise.

The speakers were Tim Campbell, founder of the Bright Ideas Trust, Sophi Tranchell, managing director of Divine Chocolate, Zarine Kharas, founder and CEO of Just Giving, Kresse Wesling, director of EAKO, Babaloo and Bio-Supplies.

All four speakers were truly inspiring, starting with Tim Campbell racing through his talk and questions before rushing of to speak at another event. He was very complimentary towards Sir Alan Sugar, and explained how supportive he had been during their two years working together after winning the first Apprentice series.

Sophi Tranchell explained the story behind Divine Chocolate, a brand I can personally vouch for as I buy it regularly from our British Library shop. From it’s foundation nearly ten years ago it experimented with a new business model in which the co-operative of cocoa farmers in Ghana owned shares in the company making the chocolate bar. These farmers now own an incredible 45 per cent of the company since The Body Shop made the decision to donate its shares to them.

They are now ambitiously taking on the American market in primarily to generate more sales which will bring more benefits to the farmers who grow the cocoa pods.

On yer bike (Freecycle)!

I have been a fan of charity shop giving (in particular Oxfam) for many years. However they understandably can’t take many items. So what do you do?

You join the Freecycle Network which currently consists of 4,134 groups with 3,927,000 members across the globe. It is a grassroots and entirely non-profit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Due to the local nature of the exchange it also helps reduce your carbon footprint.

Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer to keep out spammers, and I have found a group for my local town. In the last two years I have ‘Freecycled’ three bicycles, two dead computer printers and a sofa-bed. Plus I acquired two boxes of unwanted candles.

If you want your bicycles to go to a really good home I suggest using Re-cycle.

Anita Roddick an inspiration to so many

I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Anita Roddick while I was away in Vietnam. I was lucky enough to meet her several times during visits to the Business & IP Centre for her free Ask the Expert sessions with entrepreneurs.

The first time I met her I was surprised by how small she was. Given her reputation I was expecting someone much taller. However her energy and enthusiasm more than made up for her physical stature. She was such a positive person and made such a positive impact on business and the wider world.

Under her influence the Body Shop was one of the first companies to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals and one of the first to promote fair trade with third world countries. She was also involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue. In 1990 she founded Children On The Edge, a charitable organization which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Making a noise on the Net

Today I saw (heard would be a more appropriate description) a free program that can turn a PC into a talking computer.

Thunder software is produced by Screenreader.net a CIC (Community Interest Company)  run by Roger Wilson-Hinds and Tim Carrington. It has already been downloaded by 16,000 blind and partially sighted web surfers and is only just a year old.

It was fascinating to watch and listen as Roger navigated the web using the reader to guide him. It made me appreciate just some of the challenges blind web surfers face. Especially when one considers how much information is now only available through the web.

Roger also has a blog The Blind Blogger where he sounds off about internet issues for the blind and partially sighted.

3,000 into 100 will go (won’t it?)

The UK government has a very ambitious target of reducing the number of business support schemes in England from around 3,000, to no more than 100 by 2010.

Admittedly the current set-up is overly complicated, and in my experience people starting up in business are often confused about where to go for help and support.

The aim is for Business Link to become the primary route and the Government is seeking views on how they can be developed to play this role. The closing date for suggestions is 14 September, and the worryingly long email address to send them to is SimplifyingBusinessSupport@dti.gov.uk

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/page40113.html