Posts tagged business

Remember who gave you your first break….

 

No one forgets that person, do they?

They saw something in you, when perhaps no one else did.

And oh boy, were you grateful to them.

That first rung on the ladder may be equally spaced with all the others, but it doesn’t feel that way when you are starting out.

So now maybe you are in a position to give someone his or her lucky break.

The ‘Giving Chair’ programme is way for you and your company to do that.

Quite simply, you buy a ticket for The Do Lectures Start-Up Event (April 25-28th) and we give that ticket to a young remarkable entrepreneurial minded person.

At the Do Start-Up they will have 3 days of listening to 20 amazing speakers talking about starting a business. They will have access to 30 Skype video mentors. And be viagra cheap a part of 10 workshops at the event. And they will be a part of team that starts a company in the 3 days they are there. There is no event like it, for sure. And there is no experience like it either. The Guardian voted it in the top ten ideas festivals in the world along with Ted and Burning Man.

As part of the ‘Giving Chair’ Programme we will get an artist to paint the chair with your name or company name on the back of the chair, so everyone knows that you paid for that young person to be at the event.

After the event is finished, the chair will go into the auction to raise money for The Do Lectures.

Then after the event the student will come to your business and do a talk about what they learned at The Do Lectures. So your people get to learn what they have learnt too. They will

show you the film that they made of their time there too.

But more than anything else, you can help someone on that first rung of a ladder.

Just as someone did for you.

If you or your company would like to be part of the Giving Chair Programme, please email: anna.thomas@thedolectures.co.uk

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Wednesday, 31st October, 2012

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Mission Zero: a tribute to Ray Anderson

 

 

 

Ray Anderson, sustainable business pioneer, dies aged 77 | Guardian Sustainable Business | guardian.co.uk.

John Elkington, Chair of Volans, co-founder of SustainAbility and creator of the ‘triple bottom line’, pays a moving tribute to Ray Anderson the driving force behind the transformation of Interface from being ‘just a carpet’ company to being, by head and shoulders, the best example of what the future of business needs to look like.

Ray’s energy was fired by pragmatism and passion as well as the need to make the profits that would continue to drive change.

Although Ray Anderson has passed, Mission Zero remains, and can be achieved in his memory.

Waking up to changing prices

Fund manager and investment guru Jeremy Grantham has written a useful backstory to why prices of a wide variety of commodities have changed so dramatically in the last decade. He also highlights the unassailable logic that underpins the impossibility of perpetual compound growth.

Gratham’s ideas are not new, and give a useful consolidated summary of the 101 level knowledge that is part of the essential ecoliteracy that blazes a path to a more intelligent future.

Along with Seven Fools colleagues Matt Hart and Denise DeLuca (both Do 10) and Jamie Burdett, we’re seeking out the leaders who recognise that getting say 10% of their employees conversant with a post-conventional view of the future is a pre-requisite for being able to build it. To get the 10%, you need the first few. If you’re a leader with the insight and courage to investigate what radical change might look like for your organisation call the Do office, and come to play at Fforest for a day or two.

 

Jeremy Grantham must-read, “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever” « Climate Progress.

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Saturday, 28th May, 2011

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How much are we paying?

We’re at a time when know how much we’re paying, in cash and kind, is starting to become real, for the first time in a few thousand years. It’s pretty important to keep track of how much the items we buy are costing, year, on year, so that we can decide whether or not to buy them.

It’s even more important to know how much nature is paying for the stuff that we’re buying, so that we can build the true cost of the stuff we eat, and use into the decisions that we make.

I heard the other day that the true cost of a cheap burger, taking into account rainforest destruction, ecosystem degradation and, most recently, murder, puts the cost at over $100. Fancy a bite$

Much More Are we Paying for Stuff in 2011? | uncluttered white spaces.

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Wednesday, 25th May, 2011

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Shopping malls heading south

The Guardian report that some of the UK’s biggest shopping malls – those powerful, town-destroying magnets of consumerism – are finding the going tough as consumers respond to high fuel prices by staying at home.

With a business strategy built on customers having unlimited access to cheap personal transport, it’s unlikely that any planning would have taken into account the certainty that prices would go up. If they’re experiencing a 9-14% drop in sales with oil prices hovering at around $120 a barrel, it’s going to be interesting to watch what happens when the price goes up 30% or more on those prices. Maybe our town centres will regain some of their vibrancy as people travel on foot again.

Out-of-town shopping malls suffer as fuel price deters shoppers | Business | The Guardian.

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Saturday, 9th April, 2011

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7 lessons for leaders in systems change

About eight years ago I had the pleasure of facilitating a course for Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and The Web of Life,  at Schumacher College , Dartington, UK. It was a life-changing, humbling, enlightening, maddening and inspiring week of sharing ideas on systems change with social workers, entrepreneurs, farmers, health workers and many others. Many of Fritjof’s messages gestated in grey matter for months before they emerged, dazzling bright in daylight.

Capra has dedicated his time to the Center for Ecoliteracy at Berkeley, California, developing the most powerful and effective ways to enable the next generation of leaders, doers, parents and community workers to think beyond the tramlines of traditional education. This article is a powerful taster of what you’ll fin in the Center’s resource base:

Seven Lessons for Leaders in Systems Change | Center for Ecoliteracy.

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Friday, 11th March, 2011

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Taking the piss out of hydrogen? Not any more

Pee power could fuel hydrogen cars | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

There’s a lot of smart development, design and thinking happening on hydrogen, and the role that it has an energy storage medium for a carbon future. The neat thing about unhooking hydrogen from urine is that the hydrogen isn’t stuck as tightly in ammonia molecules as it is in water.

Have a look at Hugo Spowers’ www.riversimple.com hydrogen powered car to see what the solution might look like.

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Wednesday, 9th March, 2011

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Imagine if astroturf was only for play

George Monbiot writes about the disturbing practice of astroturfing that gives corporate clients the ability to create the opinions of digital personalities  - make believes that seem to the untrained, or even trained eye, to be the voices of real people.

Maybe we need to be using some form of captcha to catch the buggers out and share their opinions and shadows, to the world courtesy of Mr Assange?

And, at the same time, let’s continue to look deep and hard at the values of the businesses and organisations we support directly, or choose to benefit from through our pensions and insurance companies.

The need to protect the internet from astroturfing grows ever more urgent | George Monbiot | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

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Wednesday, 23rd February, 2011

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Organisations that are Doers

Co-operative Group commits to ambitious ethical operating plan | Business | The Guardian.

The Co-operative have stepped up a significant gear to reduce their carbon emissions by 35% and invest £1bn in renewable energy. With 120,000 staff and millions of customers, they’re in a good place to make change.

Tata Steel Colours paint 100m square metres of steel a year; they’ve been busy developing some neat technology that turns their roof and wall products into power stations for electricity and heat. By 2020 they intend to be producing 30% of the UK’s renewable energy.

Menter Cwm Gwendraeth are a community organisation in west Wales, doing great work with communities on regeneration and environmental projects. Aled Vaughan Owen had the courage and dive in at the deep end with Matt Hart from Industry Approved, Tom Farrand, curator of Good for Nothing and me, for a 24 hour sustainable innovation marathon with a couple of hundred amazing people. Lots of people said no to the idea; Aled said why not?

It’s good to see organisations stepping up to the mark even more strongly. The more Doers there are to play with, the faster we’ll make sense of madness. Bring them on, grow more, Do more.

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Saturday, 19th February, 2011

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1% leverage

For many years, I’ve had the privilege of paddling, riding off road and planning change with Amazonas Explorer founder Paul Cripps. Along the journey, Paul joined 1% for the Planet; as a direct result, he’s planning to plant a million trees in the Andes. Not bad for 1, a small number. Watch an interview with Paul here.

YouTube – LATA Foundation – Reforestation Project, Peru.

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Wednesday, 16th February, 2011

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