Change for good

I have had to re-apply to the chartered institute of bloggers to write this piece, it has been so long since I wrote one.My re-application is pending, but in case i dont get struck off for good...

this is a sister post to the recent virtual agency piece on the 'corporate' blog for the Tom Sawyer Effect.That was about doing things differently (in the way that you do things). This is about doing things differently (in what you are trying to do).

Everywhere I look there are people trying to do good things, most of them facilitated by online tools and social media - meet-up groups like 21st Century Network and Social Innovation Camp, campaigns like Twestival, or the Summer of Social Good from Mashable, to company's that are basing their whole approach on being more aware, like Fiat with their Ecodrive technology, to heavy-weight corporate intitiatives such as Google's charitable arm Google.org. 

CSR – doing some good with your company to make it look good – is being replaced by social good – making the very purpose of your company the benefit of the world.

And this makes sense - the CEO of one my agencies' clients stood up in a meeting recently and declared (as many of them do) – the only reason we exist is to serve our shareholders, everything that we do needs to be done with delivering value back to them in mind. Which is bullshit. The only reason your company exists is to provide a service to other people / companies. If you do this well, then the money will come (unless you are either dumb or unlucky).

It is this common mistake in the order of these two goals that has led to the current economic crisis. But it is this economic crisis that provides us with the opportunity to re-appraise. To change and move on in a healthier direction.

There are many that will dispute this statement, accuse me of idealism an accompanying lack of realism. But there are ever-growing numbers who agree, and who are doing things to put these fluffy ideals into concrete, succesful practice. I wish them all luck...

Comments

[suzymiller]

The truth in what you say is evident in microcosmic form on twitter: Put the bank balance first and you come across as a spammer. Join in conversations and offer something useful and you end up with an amazing resource both practical and emotional (you're never alone with twitter) which will ultimately be more use to your long term income opportunities than any 'get rich quick' promise, from those poor sad newbies who have paid out for a course to teach them to pay for software that means they can spam us all day and night using the same tweets (from the 'idiots book for twitts') until we block them. Carry on being an idealist. It's just common sense your talking at the end of the day.