CSR = Your Better (Small) Business

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Vodafone’s ‘Your Better Business’ website, which describes itself as

“an open exchange of ideas and opinions that can help shape the future of business. It’s also a platform where the brightest business brains will contribute and share information on the latest best practice models, give expert business advice and talk about the role technology is playing. ”

Here’s a short extract and a link (below text or image top right) to an article I  wrote on real world CSR for small business…

“In an increasingly connected world, where political upheaval and environmental challenges are gathering pace, there’s pressure on business to adapt.

As a result, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming more and more relevant – even critical – to the success of businesses of all sizes. The problem is, it’s commonly misunderstood, and its power underestimated. So dismiss it at your peril.

Definitely worth further investigation via the Your Better Business website and via Twitter at @betterexchange

Want To Be A Global Ambassador for Social Good?

Are you planning a trip around the world to meet leaders and make our society a better place to live? No? Why not?

Sometimes the world can feel like an overwhelmingly big place and we, as individuals, can do little on our own to make it better against the tide of challenges and barriers, especially our own self-limiting beliefs.

There are those who believe differently though. Are you one?

yourbigyear.com has launched its third year of a global competition that doesn’t take no for an answer when it comes to social impact and talent. Last year I spent some time talking to Chris Arnold, Founder of the Smaller Earth Group that created Your Big Year and shared a few thoughts in this blog post.

So, if you’re aged between 18 – 30  and think you’ve got what it takes to be a global ambassador for the greater good, I dare you to watch the video below.

12 winners from around the world will be flown to Liverpool for the final round and the overall winner walking (or flying) away with the year of a lifetime and a springboard to an amazing career.

World Merit Co-Founder Marti Wigder Grimminck says “We are looking to connect and support the world’s talent, the next generation of leaders. Diversity and common purpose brings about innovation and social change.”

@YourBigYear

Genuine Leadership Comes From MERIT*

The world needs leaders, and more than ever leaders with a strong moral compass.

You may remember my post about 2012  To Be  Big Year For Somebody, if not Your Big Year is a global competition aimed at identifying and nurturing the young  leaders of the future from across the globe through a year of travel and meeting current world leaders. Year one was big. Year two was bigger, and next year will see something new and even bigger.

Here is last year’s Your Big Year winner, the amazing Charles Batte, to set the scene…

 

The evolution is called World MERIT* (the asterisk is part of the brand!) and takes the concept well beyond that of Your Big Year.

The huge challenges of our tomorrows require a new breed of leader today. We have all been let down by those in historic positions of power across business and society that now require inspiration from those who are genuinely and tangibly connected to grassroots communities. Your Big Year began to unearth countless potential talented people from diverse backgrounds but could never nurture more than the overall individual winners. That needed to change.

So without further ado, relax and enjoy…

 

Trust me, this is going to be BIG. World MERIT* will officially launch later this year, and this is just the tip of the iceberg with a revolution being nurtured in parallel behind the WM* scenes.

I’ve agreed to help Chris Arnold (@MERITChris) and his team spread the message to the corporate world to help identify those looking to find potential World MERIT* candidates in their own organisations. So if you want more information about engaging your company send me message and I’ll connect you to Chris.

Watch this space…

2012 To Be A Big Year For Somebody

The things I love most about doing what I do are the amazing people I get to meet, no two days are even close to being similar and the exposure to a countless stream of world changing ideas.

I’ve always been a natural connector and constantly looking to learn from new and strange sources. The Coethica  social media rollercoaster of the last few years took me from a pretty isolated laptop to a whole new global community of friends, colleagues and connections – all with that similar values set that I’d craved for so long. It’s only now comfortably coming to terms with how to have a productive relationship with so many people!

Occasionally though, it takes a perspective on the entire planet to stumble across fantastic people and concepts much closer to home.

Meet Chris Arnold (@CJASmallerEarth), a Liverpool based entrepreneur that is responsible for Your Big Year,

Football CSR Team Talk at Responsiball

This week for no reason in particular my attention has been gravitating towards football. It may well be a returning passion after recovery following eight years worth of burn out. Behind the media hype  I’m constantly on the look out for any beacons of hope in the form of CSR related developments to really begin to justify the overused ‘Power of football / sport’ cliché. One such emerging gem may well be Responsiball.

My football radar started pinging last week with Gary Speed’s sad and untimely death through what appears to a result of depression, then watching a resurgent Liverpool FC remind ex-team mate Fernando Torres what a good team is against Chelsea FC in the Carling Cup, next I saw the news break about a former Everton FC colleague, Communications Director Ian Ross, departing the club in strange circumstances, then it was a formal yet enjoyable discussion about Coethica steering a to remain unnamed Premier League Club toward a more strategic CSR path, and finally rounding things off today just in time for the Euro 2012 draw.

But the highlight of my footballing diary this week had to be the conversation with Daniel Cade at Responsiball.

CSR To Save UK Economy?

The UK loses upwards of £17bn per year on poor employee engagement.

Both the post’s headline and the statement above should attract your attention, and hopefully they are reinforced further by the latest research by LeapCR.

It’s always been a difficult sell into UK businesses that allowing employees to take paid leave add tangible value in subsequent productivity, but the evidence is mounting. Employee volunteering is one of the big cultural differences between the US and UK’s versions of Corporate Social Responsibility.

In my home country (UK) there has traditionally been far more inertia against management seeing the benefits in encouraging and brokering volunteering opportunities. To be fair it hasn’t just been the private sector, our voluntary sector also needs to up its game in promoting the benefits, but it is getting better thanks to reports such as this.

In the report out today it says:

World Changing Social Entrepreneurs

The Skoll World Forum describes itself as:

“the premier, international platform for accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social issues.”

In reality it was far more surreal than that and not just another do-gooder conference.

How else could you define a gathering of Hollywood stars*, An  Archbishop, A legendary singer singer-songwriter, A Queen, thought leaders from across the social and environmental spectrum and countless unsung international heroes delivering grassroots change for good? Aside from the recognisable names it was an education in its own right to meet a myriad of  social entrepreneurs to learn directly from their individual successes, failures and share knowledge.

From the beginning it was a bewildering array of workshops with any one of the six or so at a time tantalisingly offering insight into world-changing best practice. Not a place for those who struggle to make decisions, never mind including any consideration of the Oxford Jam fringe events on top.

I never find it easy to report back from such events beyond a couple of minutes of initial ferocious note taking before falling deeply into the intellectual debate. The key themes that emerged to me were those of solidarity, simplicity, scale and passion. I know I’ve developed a penchant for over-simplification of late, quite possibly workload related, but the 3 days in Oxford reminded me of how simple the world really is. We make it complicated usually to justify our own fiefdoms for numerous reasons. Firstly it’s about our planet, then every single person on it. See? Simple.

Social Media, Sustainability and Transparency

Two posts in less than a week? I must officially be an insomniac.

Tonight’s excuse is that I’m waiting for my laptop to painfully slowly back-up before setting off to Paris to take part in Societe Generale’s Citizen Act finale.

I was invited to take part in today’s Guardian’s Sustainable Business live online Q&A on ‘Using social media to communicate sustainability’.

If nothing else I’d head over that way to look at some authoritative responses from Lucy Warin (Futerra Communications) and Diana Verde Nieto (ex Clownfish Group CEO).

I really liked one particular quote from Diana (below) comparing sustainability and the digital space.

Small Business CSR Mistakes

Here’s a quick list of CSR mistakes made by small businesses.

Some of the headings may sound a touch exaggerated, but trust me far worse happens in reality. Names have been with held to protect the not so innocent!

Thinking CSR isn’t for smaller businesses

I had to put his first didn’t I? Think of CSR as a lens to improve your business performance. The core principles work at every level from pre-start up to multi-national. It should be about balance, innovation and unfortunately not so common sense.

Trying to hack your electricity meter won’t reduce your carbon footprint

The old days of the colourful myths surrounding tricks to stop, or slow down mechanical electricity / water / gas meters are fading fast, but not without an element of truth behind their origins, or at least in those attempting to beat the system. The point here is that either trying to manipulate the system or passing your carbon usage onto suppliers or customers is missing the point and will boomerang back and explode at a later date – not carbon offsetting. Nothing beats robust measurement, management and reporting!

New Guide to CSR for Small & Medium Businesses

Twitter yet again demonstrates its power to unearth a nugget of information.

I found a link to a launch of a new CSR guide for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Anybody or anything that grasps the Corporate Social Responsibility for smaller businesses nettle gets kudos from me.

I’ve got to say overall it is not bad at all. The information is accessible to the audience it’s trying to reach, i.e. owner / managers and employees, and it’s presented in a style that is easy on the eye.

The information contained is deep enough for a complete novice and also those who have done some homework on Google. Each individual thematic area takes a very  similar approach to ours at Coethica by offering a 3 stage roadmap of initial quick wins, medium term opportunities and longer term challenges to get businesses on board whilst encouraging them to delve deeper and invest further time and resource.