Norwich City Of Culture Bid

What a shame Norwich didn’t win the City of Culture bid. Following the impact in Liverpool, who won the European Capital of Culture in 2008, clearly it would have given the city a great boost at a difficult time. The competition was tough, Birmingham, Sheffield and Londonderry are all great cities. I haven’t been to Londonderry, but I have visited Birmingham and Sheffield many many times and they are terrific places full of culture. That said – so is Norwich. We are smaller, perhaps a little more remote, and at times perhaps a little slow off the mark. On the other hand, we are independently minded, original, entrepreneurial, friendly and welcoming, imaginative, creative, successful, skilled, and knowledgeable. We have a great heritage of buildings, of places, of events and celebrations. We have some great musicians, artists, writers, photographers and actors. We also love coming together and have a history of producing great food and drink in all manner of different ways. Norwich has two amazing Cathedrals, two beautiful rivers, a historic market, a castle, a superb and technically advanced university, and one of the most respected Art Colleges outside of London. We also spent considerably less money on putting our bid together than the other cities did.

Although we didn’t win the honour, I think the process reminded a lot of people just what a special place Norwich is, it got a lot of the arts community in Norwich talking and working together, perhaps marketing Norwich properly for the first time, and it laid the foundations to make Norwich a city of culture not for one year but on an ongoing basis.

Freakonomics!

I have just finished reading Freakonomics. What a thought provoking and interesting read. When I first became interested in Marketing professionally I did dabble a little in economics and this book reminded me what a fascinating subject it really is. The writers describe economics as the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. It asks the question, what is the precise incentive needed to trigger an exchange between two people? And the scary thing is that the incentive required may not always be what you think it is. By looking at a wide range of topics (including gun crime, sumo wrestlers, education, and the naming of children amongst other things) some unusual comparisons, and some clever contexts, the book demonstrates how deeply you have to look at things to truly understand the correct incentive to offer up to make something happen.

The book is fun in places, but difficult reading in others, perhaps because there is a side of human nature which is disappointing to us all. Easy to read and very thought provoking…. I recommend!

Act On Co2

I have recently completed all six of the University of East Anglia’s Low Carbon Economy courses (part of the Evolve programme). It is a very interesting area in so many different ways. For me there are several topics of great interest and which offer up learning’s for other aspects of business as well as dealing with Carbon Reduction.

1) How do you measure the impact of doing business?

Well is seems to have taken some time, but governments, universities, and power companies have all produced useful calculators to help businesses measure the amount of carbon they produce. Smart meters can help businesses understand when and how they are producing carbon across any resource they may be using.

The more challenging questions are really about at what point does one company’s carbon emission end and another start within a supply chain, and how can all businesses in a supply chain avoid double counting or no counting.

For example, if a business which makes timber doors, imports wood from another country, is the carbon emitted in the milling process the responsibility of the wood supplier, or the door manufacturer?

2) How can you incentivise business?

The easy answer is to tax, right? But sometimes taxing doesn’t work. Either the taxes are not high enough, people refuse to pay them on mass, people avoid them by moving, or people simply pay them and continue as they were.

Carbon trading and reduction schemes are being piloted in Europe, The States, and in South America. Starting with large companies, FTSE 100 in the UK with some exemptions, governments are providing greater incentives to businesses through a credit trading scheme. At first the credits were given away too freely in both volume and value, but this is recognised now and the market is maturing. Furthermore, governments can intervene and buy credits, taking them out of the market and forcing companies in the market to work harder.

It is not a perfect system and it is yet to deliver real results, but it is interesting and it is starting to work.

3) How can you incentivise the public?

Give them stuff for free, right? But sometimes that doesn’t work because if people don’t want something, it doesn’t matter what the price is, they just don’t want it.

So it isn’t about giving people things for free, it is about education. And that is bad news because education takes a long time, sometimes over several generations. Alongside education you need to give people opportunities. Better public transport, better ways to recycle, better cycle lanes, walk ways, smaller smart meters, wider availability of greener light bulbs, more web resources…… it all helps. My learning is that if you educate people and then provide them with opportunities to make decisions based on their own knowledge, they will change behaviour. But it takes time and it is expensive!

4) How do you manage the carbon cost of doing business?

Well just like with any business resources you have or have to buy.
- Cut waste, aim for zero!
- Use more efficient equipment
- Switch to less expensive equipment
- Capture, store, or offset the final costs

It is not easy, and it needs continual focus as with any cost reduction or cost management programme, but if you can get the business culture right along with understanding and consensus, it can be achieved.

5) When tackling a global problem, can countries work independently?

This is something I really wrestle with. How can we make a difference if when we cut back our emissions, other countries like China are actually increasing theirs? Are we actually reducing our carbon in the UK, or are we simply getting other countries to do more of polluting for us? On the other hand, you have to start somewhere, and if nobody did anything, where would we be? I think as a country Great Britain does take initiative in so many ways and by doing this we build skills and knowledge faster than those around us. If we can use those resources to build new businesses or industries in our own country and others, then we get a return which is of great value. The Low Carbon economy is coming, so we need to understand it, be a leader in the discussion, and demonstrate cutting edge thinking to build credibility.

We cannot solve this problem alone, but if we lead, others will follow.

6) What is the tipping point required to get serious action?

We don’t know the answer to that question yet. Our planet is being damaged and our climate is changing, but it is not significant enough or affecting enough of us to create global change. Something will happen that will immediately change people’s thoughts on a global basis but when or what it will be who knows. What I do know is that when humans want to, when they come together with a common purpose, they can do amazing things.

I have touched on many large issues in this post, so do feel free to get in touch if you would like to talk more about a particular point, or would like some more information.

Final Reflections on Common Purpose!

OK, so it is the end of my Common Purpose Matrix course. I have graduated and completed all the modules. I have been reflecting on the experience and trying to sum up what I have learnt, not from one specific event, but from the overall experience. In no particular order – here are the things that strike me!

1) Having a clear and compelling vision championed by someone or by a group of people is an essential aspect of leadership.

2) Leadership is not about authority, it is about having the vision and believing in it 100 percent

3) Understanding the historical context which has led to a present situation is a critical part of moving that situation forward in any meaningful way.

4) Problems or challenges are undoubtedly more complicated and complex than they appear at first. Good leadership often requires an ability to quickly understand and absorb the detail.

5) Negativity in any environment is highly corrosive and damaging to momentum

6) Change does not happen over time, it happens in a split second. It may take a long time to build up to change, and it may take a lot of energy to avoid changing back, but change itself happens very very quickly.

7) Providing opportunities is the most effective way of creating positive change

You cannot make a leader, you can only put someone in an environment where they have the potential to be a leader.

Without a doubt the most important thing I have realised from the course is the value of opportunity and choice. It ‘s been good fun, but what to do now is the question!

What is leadership?

I heard a great quotation last week. You become a leader with great leadership qualities when you can see “the whole vision in glorious Technicolor!” I love this phrase because I think it sums up so neatly when a great leader is able to do. Something inspires them, excites them, makes them passionate, makes them focus, and then they are off. They move into a different “gear” because ignites those qualities in them. They do not rest until they have reached their goal, no matter how long it takes, and no matter what gets in the way.

When I think of great leaders, I think of Winston Churchill, Earnest Shackleton, Nelson Mandela, J F Kennedy, and Ghandi. What seems to unify all these great people, and all the other great leaders there are in life, is having that vision, sticking to it, relentlessly communicating it, and pursing it without compromise indefinitely.

For me, if you want to be a great leader you must possess these qualities. Perhaps you don’t have them all the time, and in all circumstances, but for a particular project or cause, something is ignited that brings those qualities to the front of the persons mind. I don’t think you can teach someone to be a great leader but I think you can provide the opportunities and environment for leadership to naturally flourish. I think anyone can become a great leader, but they need to find the cause that brings it out of them!

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Build A Brand In 30 Days

I have just started reading Simon Middleton’s book – Build A Brand In 30 Days. I met Simon a few weeks ago when he gave a presentation to my Common Purpose team in Norwich. By coincidence I met him on the train the following morning, and again in the evening at his book launch in Waterstones. Simon is a great communicator and is able to really inject enthusiasm and passion into his discussions and presentations about branding. That ability to really capture the attention and imagination of an audience is such a great gift to have.

I have only read the first three chapters of the book, but I like the easy to read style and language, and the relevant examples that make it easy to translate his ideas into story’s people know and can relate to.

Personally I am not sure that you can build a brand in 30 days – even if they are spread over a longer time period. That is because I don’t think one person can build a brand. I think brands are built by consumers, consumers who pester customers to buy on their behalf – even if that is just another part of their own conscience, and customers who demand more from their brands. Perhaps more products, features and benefits, perhaps better packaging design, perhaps better language or tone of voice which suits them, or perhaps a simple demand that the brand pulls itself together! The greater the enthusiasm with which consumers and customer do this, the more powerful your brand is. I have been privileged enough to manage some great brands – but I never thought I owned them or built them. I did some stuff to keep them in good shape, to keep them engaging with their audiences, and to keep them relevant. Perhaps I did help in some small way to build them, but I was only a small part of an architectural team, the people who did the building were the guys how bought the products, who emailed me when my products weren’t quite good enough, who mentioned the irritations in something that wasn’t quite right, who said when they did or didn’t like our advertising, and who pointed out when a competitor was better than us.

I like Simon’s book and thoroughly recommend it, and I shall be writing more about it from a different perspective in a couple of weeks, but if you don’t own a brand (apart from you own – watch out, this is going to be Simon’s next book!) you can still help to build one. Choose the product you love – enthuse about it to your friends, find out more about it and how you can help it to grow…. what do you get in return? A small emotional stakeholding in something that as it grows and you see it appearing in more places you will be proud of!

A News Room In Norwich

On the last but one day of my Common Purpose course I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to visit a news desk for a local TV broadcaster. It was a great opportunity to get behind the scenes of how a story can become news and news can become a television broadcast. The first things I noticed were 1) the energy of the team, their enthusiasm and excitement, and 2) the audience’s natural scepticism and negative perception towards the media.

The process of making news is interesting. Information comes into a news room from all kinds of sources, about all kinds of things (business, politics, economics, marketing, Norwich, Norfolk, the UK, celebrations, people, history, etc etc), sometimes by investigation, sometimes by a third party, and sometimes just through observation. News can come from twitter, from a press release, from a phone call or email, or from a spokesperson. Every potential piece needs to be assessed and this is where the editing and production team have such an important role. They must consider if the piece is newsworthy to the audience, have they got the relevant facts and figures, the different perspectives of the story, and where does it fit into the programme format. Above all the editing team and producers must seek to protect the integrity of their programme and reporting, perhaps even their brand.

In any business this would be challenging. In most of the businesses I work with information typically comes from the same familiar sources in the same format – the source and format of information received by a news reporting organisation is rarely the same. If this doesn’t make the challenge big enough, you often have only a few hours to pull your entire product or presentation together. Again, in the typical businesses I work with, a presentation would take some weeks to build and the information that underpins it would have been analysed for several months.

Whatever you may think of the media in the UK, I think we should at least acknowledge the great accomplishment that is a news at six, or a news at ten, every day, every week. It’s never late – it’s never not half an hour, and there is usually something of interest in there somewhere!!!!

Rebrand or Reposition?

Perhaps it is just one of those coincidences, but recently I have heard a lot of people talking about Rebranding. “We’re about to rebrand”, “We’ve just rebranded”, “We’re going through a rebrand” or my favourite “We rebranded a year ago, but it was a disaster so now are going to do it again”!!

I am always very worried when I hear the phrase rebrand because I think it is nearly always misused and should be considered very very seriously before any business undertakes such a thing. To be really clear, I am not even sure that you can rebrand. I think you can redesign the expression of your brand, and I think you can reposition your brand, and you may do either of these things for perfectly valid reasons, but you cannot rebrand. You can throw your existing brand away and start again – but I am not sure the agencies that seem to be recommending a rebrand would recommend that with such enthusiasm and confidence.

So if you are getting feedback that your brand is becoming out of date, or tired, or slow to react, or boring, or out of touch, what should you do? A rebrand? NO! Listen to your customers and consumers, and ask what is wrong. If it is the product, work hard to update it. If it is the tone of voice of your brand, refine it and perhaps modernise it (do this only based on your customers feedback), if it is the look and feel of your packaging, consider updating the design. My point here is do not rebrand – the values of your brand should still hold true, but do consider improvements to the relevant areas of expression of your brand to keep it relevant and engaging to your audience. This is not a rebrand, or even a reposition – it is at best a refresh to the shell!

Alternatively you may be losing sales, your market may be shrinking, and even worse your share of market may be shrinking at the same time. Should we rebrand? NO! It will do absolutely nothing to improve the position you are in. I don’t want to look at all the possible scenarios which could be driving this unfortunate position in this post, but one may well be that your market is reaching the end of its natural life. A rebrand will not change that – a reposition may do though. A reposition is not about throwing your brand away, it is about making it relevant in a different context. Just as you dress differently when you go to work, when you go to see friends, or when you go to a wedding. People are always rebranding, by changing the style of language they use, the way they dress, the things they talk about. My favourite example of a reposition is Lucozade. When my grandparents were in their 70’s Lucozade was a drink for them, it gave them the extra energy they needed as they were getting older. Today I drink Lucozade, it gives me the energy I need when I go running or swimming. Lucozade has always been about giving energy, inspiring people to perform above their expected performance, but when older people realised they got more benefits from retiring early and playing in a park with their grand children than they did from drinking Lucozade, and as younger people appreciated the benefits of exercise and started to buy gym memberships, a reposition was needed – not the dreaded rebrand!

Leaving Microsoft To Change The World!

Throughout my life in business I have always been aware of the question, could we do what we do with business, what we do to make money and deliver share holder value, to change the world for the better? Could we use the skills we have to instead of selling more widgets, get more food to people who need it, or instead of becoming more efficient, could we help communities that struggle to grapple with famine become sustainable? On a different level individuals often seem to struggle to balance the demands, stress and focus required from high profile jobs with the enjoyment and reward they want from of life. I think it is generally accepted now, that the one who earns the most if perhaps not always the one who is happiest. Alongside or perhaps because of this dilemma, there is also the new idea that is not realised because it means sacrificing too much, or taking too many risks, or is simply just too scary to contemplate seriously.

Leaving Microsoft To Change The World is the story of one man who left a high paid job, the stress and financial rewards that went with it, and perhaps to coin a phrase followed his heart instead of his head. The book is a great story of someone who had an idea, an inspiration and felt confident enough, or compelled enough to make it into a reality. John Wood came face to face with the lack of education in the third world during a well earned holiday and decided to do something about it. To most people that would perhaps involve giving a donation to a local charity – but that was just not big enough for John. He left his high paid job at Microsoft and began sending books to children in Nepal so that they could read, learn, and become inspired to realise their potential. The idea flourished and soon a few books became a library, then one library became a school, and then several schools, then hundreds, and then hundreds in several countries. John Wood had found his calling in life and by making a massive leap of faith, having the courage of conviction, had managed to help hundreds of thousands of children across the world with an education. In doing so he went from having a job and having a life that never seemed to compatible to simply having “found his place in the world” as he puts it.

The book is a great insight into many things. As a marketing consultant in Norwich and someone who is interested in some of the voluntary organisations marketing Norwich, I was most interested by John Wood’s drive and motivation, the way he used his business knowledge in a charitable organisation, how he was able to move from managing a big team of people to working for a start up organisation, the mistakes he made as well as the successes. He openly shares how he learnt on the move, how he improvised, made the most of all his skills, and reinvented himself. The book is inspiration, a motivation, and perhaps a challenge, as well as a good reference for anyone who is considering starting a not for profit organisation or start up business.

It is also a great read and one that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Collaborative Coaching

I like this phrase! I heard it a couple of weeks ago and started looking into the subject. The basic notion is a group of people convened to help someone tackle a problem. A group of people with different backgrounds and different skill sets, but all focused on helping someone solve a problem, move something forward, or answer a question. Where does the coaching come in? Well you don’t have to do it just once, the group can be reconvened at any time to review ideas, developments and progress, and secondly the group is asking open questions, without prejudice or preconception in order to give an independent view and perhaps provoke thoughts and feelings that would otherwise go unnoticed, undiscovered, and not considered in the journey.

As the opportunities for personal development get bigger and bigger the area of coaching is an interesting one. Quality is important; you must choose a coach that is right for you on many levels – perhaps intellectually, socially, and in experience, etc etc. Chemistry is important – you must be honest with your coach and feel comfortable to share anything and everything. I think a coach should be objective, impartial and balanced. I have often been sceptical of substituting reading and structured learning for these softer personal development tools, but I do think they can be a useful part of someone’s toolkit.

To find out more about the specific Norwich Business services I offer, visit my Saturday Kitchen page!