Tag: Snnprofit

Coca Cola's Life saving compartment. An idea from Simon Berry Inspired by Annie Lennox

My friend Simon Berry is onto something. After listening to Annie Lennox on Desert Island Disc he blogged this:

By some miracle my PC and Radio Shark did record last Sunday’s
(11/5/08) Desert Island Discs. Unfortunately it’s a very poor recording
but this is what Annie Lennox said.

Just to put it into context, after talking about her passion for
AIDS campaigns in South Africa and the fact that she’s set up her own
campaign ‘Sing’. She then talked about that fact that she would have
shared, with her father, the sense of injustice in the World. Then she
said:

We can distribute Coca Cola all around the
World but we can’t seem to get medication to save a child from
something as simple as diarrhoea and I think that that is wrong. You
know, you have a choice you either get involved with an issue or you
walk away from it. I think it’s a human rights issue and I feel very
passionately about human rights.

Simon is a very practical man. Now he’s asking Coca-Cola to “use their distribution channels (which are amazing in
developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts. Maybe by
dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as ‘the life saving’
compartment?”

If you think that makes sense you can lend weight to the argument by joining this facebook group.

We-Think by Charles Leadbeater. A review

About the time I start writing this a bunch of people will be gathering in London to launch We-Think (Amazon link), the book written by Charles Leadbeater and 237 others. I was sent a review copy, partly because I left a single comment on the wiki, which was used to turn his solo first draft into a collaborative 2nd(!) draft. I also mentioned it in this blog. So send me a free book and I’ll read it:

For those new to the ideas of a world of collaborative and networked creation this is a very measured and well illustrated survey of where the world is taking you. For those already familiar, it’s a clearly written and well seasoned refresher course. For those who wonder why their business model is shot full of holes this might help explain.

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For all groups it comes with that most useful of commodities – caveats. Lots of them. Charles has sought to explore the pros and cons. You can read the first three chapters without buying the book (and for those new to the ideas chapter three on how it works is very helpful), but the most valuable is probably Chapter 6. “For Better or Worse” is the writers’ survey pros and cons of the changes coming. Of particular interest to me is the review of the effect on democracy, how the web is enabling We-Act(ors) rather than We-Think(ers). On balance though the book clearly approves of the long term benefits of the disruption of we-think.

Reading this helps me structure my understanding of the work I’m doing and some of the work I’m likely to do. If you fly to SXSW this week, buy a copy for the plane. If you work in government get your department to buy you a copy and then next year fly you to SXSW.
Meanwhile the launch has been twittered:

Dominic Campbell twittering the launch of we-think

A few other reviews/mentions:

Nesta – organisers
Ed Mitchell – “uplifting”
Charlie Mansell – “how collaboration operates”
David Wilcox – “quote”
Computer Weekly – “will not transform every business”
gnovis – “somewhat controversial”
Sicamp – encouraged by Charles
Andrew Keen – it’s individuals who innovate – stoopid.
The Spectator – “a riveting guide to a new world”
Freshnetworks community managers rock.
Shane Richmond at the RSA: Polariser

Also read:

The Long Tail Wikinomics The Starfish and the Spider.

BOGOF houses, socially responsible shopping and web 2.0

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Perhaps inspired by the buy-one-give-one-away early campaign from the One Laptop per Child programmes an environmental housing developer in Sacremento is offering BOGOF on Houses.

If you buy one of their US homes they will train a mason in Burkina Faso to build a home there.

They call the project Real Estate Development 2.0. I like the idea and the communications built around it.

Hat tip Nick Temple.

4Talent – Social Media for the Creative Industries.

Gaping Void advertisingA while back Antonio Gould sat in my back bedroom and we talked about social media. He’d come round to record some ideas about podcasting for his fifth and apparently final Birmingham made Channel 4 media cast. It is a great listen. Antonio has a clear and enthusiastic delivery, well produced, with loads of very useful content.

The aim is to encourage creative businesses to use all forms of social media, but starting with basics like a blog or perhaps a podcast. I think the lessons apply equally to social enterprises and to local and community groups.
Mark McGuiness makes a compelling case for a realistic use of a blog. It’s like “networking on steroids”, he tells us before adds oddles of great advice and pointing us to copyblogger, one of my favourites gapingvoid of Hugh Mcleod’s Global Microbrand idea, and David Airey.

Emily Martin of Black Apple makes a great case study. Antonio met her when speaking in America about Etsy. She explains why her online home craft business (“I carry my original paintings and prints, and all sorts of curiosities”) benefits from the relationships established through blogging: “It’s not something that will be articulated in the business schools, but people get attached to you. It’s ephemeral and that’s why they like it”.
Indeed – the ephemeral is tricky to measure, but that doesn’t mean it has no value.