Goodness & Happiness (2)

I've been mulling the subject of what it means for business to be more generous for some time. I've written a couple of posts on it, but I figured it was time I gathered it all together and put down something more coherent. When I started writing, somehow it ended up as a presentation, but that's no bad thing.

At the heart of this is the belief that business needs to fundamentally shift its approach in the interactions it has with its customers. That it needs to readjust to the new balance of power that characterises a hyperconnected world. By nature, business is not generous. But in the context of the systemic meltdown we have just witnessed, it is time to begin thinking about what Umair Haque calls "next generation business". So this is about marketing. It's about personal outlook. But it's also about the function of business, and the great big fat opportunity that business has to interact with the world in a different way.

As usual, I am indebted to some great thinking and writing which has helped form my own thoughts on this, notably from: Mark, Faris, Umair, David, Eaon, Charles, Asi, Seth, JP, Paul and Paul, whom I credit in the presentation.

This is something I believe in.

Goodness And Happiness - Why Generosity Is The Future Of Marketing Strategy

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: marketing socialmedia)

Comments

[Charles Frith]

Terrific for me Neil. Some of those slides are my words put much better and I cant tell you how heartening it is to see ideas that I explained as not putting wealth creation at the centre of the wealth creation model being said by people who like me know and believe that the cynical nature of business is at a turning point.

I think people get shy at the notion of being/doing good.

I think pragmatism is what drove the world of commerce before but we have a new economic pragmatism which is all about, to quote Bill Clinton and others, were all in it together.

Put like that it makes sense to do as much good as possible.

Heres some of my comment stuff on the topic

http://tinyurl.com/5vz36c

I also think my brand values post kind of got close to this.

http://www.charlesfrith.com/2007/07/purity-values.html

Which was funny because I was just about to join the agency who made it.

Onwards, onwards.

[neilperkin]

Thanks Charles. Nice touch with the comments link - knowing what a prolific commenter you are know theres going to be some good stuff in there :)

[Anjali]

Loved the presentation, Neil. It brings so many relevant thoughts together. The idea of generosity - being open with what you do, what you learn - is something that agencies really need to learn if they are to make a difference, not just to the industry but to the people who work with them. I heard about some people in India organising a FailCamp http://www.barcamp.org/failcamp recently, where you learn from open case studies of others failures. I thought thats brilliant. THAT is being generous with your knowledge, taken to a different level.

[Anjali]

And Charles - do you purposely use the words economic values in ALL your comments?!!!

[Charles Frith]

Anjali. God no. Its just one amongst a lot of comment topics. Google me and say neocons and you might get some breadth of my interests. Or even religion if youre at a loose end.

I know more about 20th century US politics than planning. Not sure if that is something I should fess up too ;)

[purchlive]

Beautiful stuff.....we are working on making the ecommerce place a better space. I hope we can give back something in the process.

[neilperkin]

Anjali - thanks. Liking that failcamp idea. Overdue that I put you on the blogroll BTW so will rectify that

purchlive - thanks and good luck with that.

[jMac]

Great work Neil. This is hardcore fuel for every single one of us.

Blogged here:

http://www.jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=2114

[Asi]

Mate

You put your heart (and money) where your mouth is.

Not only is it a brilliant collection of goodness, it is also a very very generous presentation that will make everyone who reads it happy.

Rock on

A.

[neilperkin]

Asi, Jonathan - thanks guys. Appreciate the comments

[Dan Thornton]

Brilliant presentation, summing up a lot of thinking in a really effective way...

And, shockingly, it also highlighted Id somehow failed to subscribe to your RSS feed (now rectified), so its a bit of luck JMac blogged about it...

Saved to be re-blogged shortly.

[neilperkin]

Cheers Dan

[BenAS]

Love this presentation, the images are great - but then again I am sucker for good photography.

It is great to have people talking about this kinda stuff, I guess the real test of your commitment to this philosophy comes when youre faced with a choice between doing the what seems right and what makes money.

But I would rather die trying to make this work than adopt a Victor Meldrew approach to life!

thanks for the post.

[doug]

lovely stuff mate. you've nailed it again.

[neilperkin]

Ben - well said

Graeme - thanks mate

[Nick]

Fantastic presentation - thanks for being so generous with your time and putting it together...

N

[neilperkin]

Cheers Nick

[Anjali]

Thanks for the blogroll link, Neil!

[neilperkin]

No worries Anjali

[Gavin Heaton]

OK, so I wonder why I haven't seen this before. But then, of course, there is this torrent of life that we live in.

But you know, I think this is even more pertinent now. Given the changes wrought upon us all by the global financial meltdown, we can safely say, things will never be the same again. So we now need to re-evaluate what we do - in every industry and in every market.

Tipping points? A few years from now, we'll look back and see this as a big one ;)