Welcome.

You have been invited to join this new group.

Perhaps it’s a committee or a council, a board or a brains trust.

We can imagine exactly what and why later.

Your role may simply be to offer advice, to a person or organisation.

Then again, it may be to make stuff happen.

That’s why I’m writing this post.

I was thinking about this recently when I heard that HRH the Prince of Wales is to lead a new Campaign for Youth Social Action;

 “a strategic, long-term, cross-sector transformation initiative, which will unlock the potential of youth social action across the business, education and voluntary sectors of the UK.”

To use another example, Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has an Entrepreneurs’ Forum,

 “to provide informal and personal advice on new business and enterprise policies.”

I like the idea of new groups coming together, crossing organisations, industries and perhaps even countries.

There’s an excitement which comes with that new blend of characters.

Fresh perspective, energy and experiences.  A can-do spirit which wants to prove the pessimists wrong.

And let’s be honest, there are a few pretty massive problems right now which would benefit from some new A-Teams.

So, as as you’re reading this, you may be pondering whether to start one yourself…

Or whether you’d like to join one.

Now imagine you’ve joined.

Today is the day.

The meeting room is filling up, the coffee being poured.

You recognise some guests and not others.

You’re here for a purpose.

But what are you actually going to DO?

If the group you have joined is expected to do more than simply offer advice, then here are five possible approaches to making stuff happen.  There may be many more, however these are the top ones which come to mind.

It often amazes me how many groups seem to want to stick with number one or three (and as a co-founder of StartUp Britain, I’m not averse to starting things myself).  My hunch is that by really throwing themselves at three, four and five, and with the right partnerships, some amazing things could happen.

1) Start Stuff.  New schemes, initiatives and activities.  From scratch.  Shiny and fresh.

2) Grow Stuff.  Identify groups and individuals who are ‘onto something’ in their area or sector.  This may have taken months or years.  Sit down with them and identify what is holding them back from growing the impact of their work.  Then try to help.

3) Discuss.  Bring together groups of people who should meet and often don’t, to have tough discussions about problems worth solving.  Consider publishing your conclusions.  This may well be derided as nothing more than a ‘talking shop’.  But in a world in which people often can’t see the wood for the trees, talking matters.

4) Connect.  Think about the most useful introductions you could possibly make to advance the cause of your group. It may be programme makers with teachers, builders with bishops or chefs with ministers.  Make those connections and make a concerted effort to track the progress which follows.  In many cases the thing you’re looking for has already been discovered.  This is why introductions matter and why progress depends on connections and connectors.

5) Promote. Too many brilliant projects and opportunities are simply not well known enough.  Whether to your peers, funders or to customers and users, consider making it your group’s mission to promote examples of fantastic work to the widest possible audience.

Of course it’s possible to blend together all of the above.

Wouldn’t it be great to see more A-Teams pledging to grow, connect and promote?

Are you part of a new group?  How are you getting on?  

Are you tempted to form one?  If so, what is stopping you?

In any case, I’d love to hear from you.

This was supposed to be an A-Z of people who inspire me.

Over the years, I’ve been incredibly lucky to meet and work with people who are doing interesting things and making a difference.

So I thought I’d start with ‘A’, move to ‘B’, and that this would be a relatively simple, easy post.

Except that I became slightly stuck on A.

Because I couldn’t decide who to pick.

So, as Julie Andrews once observed, the very beginning is a very good place to start.

And I’m afraid that that it is also where this post stops.

For now, at least, the first letter of the alphabet is all I’ve managed to share.

If this is useful, I’d love to share more.

For now, I hope that you’ll have time to check out the fantastic work of the following…

Adil Abrar with the Amazings.  Classes, courses and wisdom from elders with amazing life experience.

Adam Gee and Embarrassing Bodies.  Multiple award-winning commissioner who is always terrific conversation.

Andrew Ellis with Like Minds.  Now hosting a series of breakfast events at the stunning-looking, and newly opened ME Hotel.

Andrew Scott, founder of Rummble interested in film, technology and politics.  His next moves will be very interesting to watch.

Annabel Davidson Knight at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, funding a range of projects, with a particular interest in inter-generational work.

Alice Fung, one of the brilliant team behind Hub Westminster who host excellent events. One of my favourite places in London to plot.

Anna Dingley, just back from several years in Tokyo and a must-know person when it comes to doing business with Japan.

Aléna Dundas, successfully exited Gymdeck and hosts TechBites dinners with Mike Butcher. Watching her next entrepreneurial moves with interest.

Adah Parris has put together mentoring programmes for the incredible School of Communication Arts 2.0 and Wayra London.  Great fun.

Alex Butler, brilliant founder of KindredHQ, the community for independents and freelancers.

Alice Bentinck, COO of the brilliant Entrepreneur First programme which helps people to create technology start-ups.

Allie Carr, head of Client and Service at Coutts Private Bank, hosting some excellent events.

Alex Cheatle, founder and chairman of Ten (the concierge and support business) and The Key (service for school leaders).

Alex Dunsdon and Andrew Humphries of The (newly launched) Bakery, bringing tech companies, brands and ad agencies together.

Alberto Nardelli, founder of Tweetminster whose passions include technology, politics, Italy and good food.

Andy Gibson, founder of MindApples, promoting ‘Five-a-Day’ for the mind, for positive mental wellbeing.

Ali Goldsworthy, campaigner working across politics, blue chips and charities.  Force of nature.

Alicia Navarro, awesome founder of Skimlinks, spending time between London and San Francisco.

Anthony Seldon, super-smart and inspiring Master of Wellington Colllege.

Adam Hildreth, fun-loving founder of Crisp Thinking, keeping young people safe online.

Adam King, founder of TrafficLight Solutions and co-founder of (excellent) tailors, King and Allen.

Andy Hobsbawm, founder Green Thing and of EVRYTHNG, connecting products to the web.

And by no means least…

Andy McLoughlin and Ali Mitchell, inspiring founders of Huddle, collaboration software, now based in San Francisco.

There you have it.

Over twenty people who I respect and admire, and who, if I’m lucky, I’ll be seeing again before too long.

Putting them all together in one room…

Now that really would be the start of something!

“As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And happiness I’ve known proves that it’s right
Because you’re mine, I walk the line” Johnny Cash

Google recently announced a Global Impact Challenge.  The firm invited people to submit a technology-based project that “has the potential to change society on a large scale.”  The prize?  £500,000 pounds, plus “technical assistance from Googlers to help make their project a reality.”

Meanwhile, just last week, colleagues at Wayra (the accelerator programme belonging to Telefónica, Spain’s biggest multinational), unveiled a collaboration with Unltd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs.  Wayra Unltd is seeking “the UK’s best early stage digital social ventures”.  Winners will receive “£40,000 of funding, office space in a brand new central London Academy for 8 months, expert advice and support and potential access to Telefonica’s 300+ million customers.”  Wayra Unltd is looking for “amazing digital start-ups that have the power to improve society, we want to accelerate businesses that do good (e.g. in Health, Education, the Environment – anything that supports improving people, communities or society as a whole).”  Back at Google, they are looking for projects which are “creative and data-driven”, and which “use technology to solve a specific social issue on a grand scale.”  Two excellent competitions.  Kindred spirits.

One thing which caught my eye was the fact that you could ONLY apply to Google’s competition if you were a registered British charity.  In this way, Community Interest Companies and companies limited by guarantee were ineligible. As were private companies limited by shares.  By contrast, you can ONLY apply to Wayra Unltd if you are in this latter camp – a company limited by shares.  In other words, if your organisation is able to pay out dividends to shareholders, rather than being bound to reinvest all of its profits back into the enterprise.

Google is perfectly entitled to only wish to hear from charities.  Likewise, investors in Wayra companies are quite understandably looking for a return.

This is not a post to speculate about which is the ‘better’ or ‘more inspired’ model.  It is simply to observe that, as the fortune cookie hoped, we live in interesting times.  It is in the best traditions of this mildly ambiguous phrase which I ponder…

Aside from my two examples above, there seems to be a school of thought which believes that the founders of companies are only interested in one thing:  profit.  Trouble is, this simply doesn’t ring true, when I think of the hundreds of entrepreneurs I have met over the years.

So why DO they get out of bed?  To solve problems?  Yes.  To change the world?  Often. To create something of value which people will love and pay for?  Of course.  To make money?  Yes.  But at the cost of all of all other things?  Almost never.

In fact, the most financially successful people I have ever met will almost always tell me (believe them or not) that whilst money may have been an interesting way to ‘keep score’, it is absolutely NOT their main motivator.  And yet the suspicion lingers.

If we’re cagey about founders, then we’re positively paranoid about investors.  Someone sticking their hard-earned cash into a company, large or small, must ONLY care about one thing?  Maximum return, right?  This is the ‘duty’ to shareholders which we always hear about, isn’t it? I’m not convinced.  As a potential investor, of course I would like to see a return.  But a MAXIMUM return, forsaking all other outcomes?  Hang on a minute.

Don’t we also want to know HOW the company has made that money, and to sleep well in the knowledge that it has done so legally, ethically, responsibly?  I do.  More importantly, isn’t it entirely possible to make money AND make a difference?

Just as George Bush Senior imagined a kindler, gentler America, surely we have to believe in a kinder, gentler entrepreneur AND a kinder, gentler investor.  They are not mythical creatures.  They are all of us. When we go home, when we spend time with our friends, when we are ourselves.

Just as we shouldn’t judge books by covers, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the motives and feelings of doers, based on the types of organisation they form. Want to know about what drives someone?  Ask them, remembering that actions speak louder than words.

Founders, like investors should remember that it’s OK for things not to be black and white.

As Walt Whitman said;

“I am large, I contain multitudes.”

The relationships between founders, funders and those who they seek to influence will always contain multitudes.

As Mark Zuckerberg taught us, so we say…

“It’s complicated.”

 

 

 

 

Four memories.

1) A picture book from my childhood.  What Do People Do All Day?  Its pages filled with pictures of  builders, bakers and, presumably, candlestick makers.

2) The Mobile Library.  Once a week, in the car park of the local recreation ground.   Faded green tickets.  A pile of books.  The sensation of butterflies as my eyes darted from books about sharks and castles to thicker, mustier novels about spies.

3) The Morrisby Test. Taken at school.  Question after question, resulting in a list of suggestions for potential careers.  So you like books?  You could go on to be a librarian.

4) The Penguin Careers Guide.  Richard Scarry for grown-ups.  More options, more choices, more butterflies.

“When I Grow  Up…”

I remember telling a careers officer at my secondary school that I was considering going into broadcasting. The advice?  It is very competitive, apparently.  Perhaps I should have asked which jobs were massively uncompetitive and we could have chatted about why that was.

Before that, when I was a little boy, I wanted to be a dustman.   Yes, I binned that idea.  However it does still appeal.

A few years later, I considered architecture although I don’t remember why.  Maybe my short attention span meant that I could only (p-p-p) pick up the Penguin for a few minutes at a time.

Then it was Barrister (a few more minutes, I suppose).  Because I watched (to my parents’ surprise, in my early teens) A Fish Called Wanda, starring John Cleese as Archie Leach.  His performance, aided perhaps by  Jamie Lee Curtis, prompted several visits to the public gallery of the Old Bailey in the years to come, watching… thinking.

Some people are fortunate enough to have family or friends in a wide range of careers.  They can meet them, quiz them, wonder what it would be like to do what they do.  For many, this is not possible.

Even today, I haven’t the faintest idea what a vast number of ‘jobs’ actually entail, day-to-day.

An Idea:

A Careers Library, stocked with people instead of books.

The Alternative Careers Library

From A-Z – Architect to Zoologist.

Visitors could browse the shelves, and ‘borrow’ a ‘person’, for a ten minute chat.

In busier times, the ‘books’ would give short talks to small groups.

All around the library, and at each ‘letter’ would be information, on posters and short films, explaining what their particular career is all about, and where to find more information.

Sponsors could be found for the whole project, or for individual  letters.  Engineering, for example.

This Careers Library would have a website.

On the ground, it could exist as a one-off, for several weeks, or even go on tour.

Perhaps it could exist somewhere forever.

A real, permanent library.  Why not?

I would have loved this as a child.  I would love to visit it today.

The guests would volunteer their time.

Visitors could read about examples from each career, listing why certain people love that job and (brace yourself), why they don’t.   The parties are great?  The hours are long and anti-social?

Living Libraries have existed before.  Take this brilliant example, the Human Library, started in 2000.

You can imagine how an empty space could be found.  I cannot imagine that recruiting volunteers would be, in the overall scheme, too difficult.  And wouldn’t schools and parents be interested in a visit?

I CAN imagine, how this idea could get bogged down by clever-trevors, know-alls, “seen it alls”, naysayers, bores and pedants.  People who should stick to writing.

What would make this idea fly?  What might the magic ingredients be?

How can it be made irresistible, remarkable, unforgettable?

Do you know someone who might volunteer to feature in the Alternative Careers Library?  Which one?

Or a potential sponsor or partner?

Why would they like this and what might be in it for them?

What DO people do all day?

Shall we find out?

 

I tell you what seems to be “all the rage”, as my Grandmother might have said.

Crowd-Funding.

In basic terms, this involves putting up a page online, describing a project which is looking for money, and then inviting people to contribute.

Wikipedia, ever-snappy, describes it thus;

“the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.”

As opposed to scrabbling around friends and family, you’re opening it right up.

Blowing the bloody doors off, as Sir Michael Caine might add.

This passing-of-money can take a number of forms.

With some sites, like Kiva, started in 2005, now supporting projects in 67 countries, it’s a loan, and can be as little as $25.

On others, it’s more of a gift, because you want to see the project brought to life. Aside from a warm feeling, you expect ‘nothing in return’.

KickStarter and Indiegogo tread a fine line here, offering ‘perks’.

These perks might include a digital subscription to the publication you’re part-funding or a ticket to the first gig of the band you’re helping to support.

Some platforms go the whole hog, enabling you to ‘invest’ your hard-earned cash in projects and companies, receiving shares in return.  Leading examples of this include Seedrs and Crowdcube, the latter of which has helped raise over £5.5m since it started.

Finally, for the more socially minded, Buzzbnk (launched in 2011 by a team including serial entrepreneur Michael Norton) aims itself at ‘social ventures’. Meanwhile, SpaceHive (led by former Sunday Times journalist Chris Gourlay) is for UK public space projects (for example, the playground which needs refurbishing).

So, that’s your whistle-stop tour around some of the latest and greatest sites on the crowd-funding map. Confused yet?

Now what…?

Well, here are a few thoughts and ideas I’ve been having on the subject -I’d love to know what you think.

• I predict that we’ll see a brand, in the not-too-distant future, enter this space.  Imagine a well-known drinks company, for example, giving its customers a place to upload their own projects, and fund each other.  Or a national newspaper realising that ‘the editor’ picking three charities to support is all ‘a bit 1990’, deciding instead to enable readers to fund projects directly, sourced from amongst its reader-base.

• How about broadcasters?  Will the days of ‘voting someone out’ of the Big Brother house seem a bit old-fashioned when talk around the water-cooler turns to which contestants we’ve just funded, as we compare digital share certificates, newly arrived on our mobile phone?

• Chatting to friends and colleagues who have been through crowd-funding experiences, I’m struck by how much leg-work the individual has to do to promote their project once it’s up and online.  It’s worth pondering where the greatest ‘digital footfall’ might be in the busiest of all imaginable sites.

• What does this all mean for existing funders?  If you are in charge of distributing millions each year to ‘good causes’, how do you embrace crowd-funding?  Do you set up your own platform, or partner another?  And in either case, do you use your money to follow the crowd, or inspire it, funding first, or following the money?

• And how do you play this if you’re in Government, currently funding a range of good projects, from health to the arts?  Is the best route for public money to go via a large department, on through an independent body and then to a small theatre?  Or could Government make it easier for local organisations to raise the money directly?

From the point of view of someone raising money using crowd-funding platforms, a few thoughts…

• In some cases, the person giving you money, perhaps even investing in your company, may be relatively unknown.  How do you feel about this?  Are they one of your biggest competitors, for example?  How many questions is it reasonable to ask, before accepting their offer?

• Once you’ve raised the money, you may well wish to meet your funders.  Should the site make this easy for you, or difficult?  To what extent would their geographic location make a difference and how acceptable is it to specify that you are only looking for ‘local’ money?

• In a world in which creators are inventing ranges of perks and special incentives for funders, what do we now make of simply asking for a good, old-fashioned donation?  Is this straight-forward and pure, or is it lazy and unimaginative?

For me, the lines are becoming blurred, and in a positive way.

Increasingly, my ears prick up at the word ‘social’, because I’m keen to know what its users would describe as anti-social.  Kickstarter is full of ‘social’ projects, isn’t it?

What would an anti-social enterprise look like, and how would we describe its customers?

Last week I met with the CEO of a brilliant international charity.  She talked about the fundraising efforts of its beneficiaries and I was intrigued to know how many of them tended to ‘raise’ their money.  It seemed that most of the cash came in the form of donations.  Personally, I’d be interested to know how charities would feel if the majority of their income came through them (or their helpers) ‘selling stuff’, as opposed to through traditional donations. Of course, this is happening more and more, with charities setting up trading arms.

My prediction:  Today, the term Fundmaking, as opposed to Fundraising does not appear in the Oxford Dictionary or Wikipedia. In five years, it will.

The ways in which we raise and make money are evolving.  Relationships between buyer and seller are shifting.  Investor becomes customer, donor becomes beneficiary.

One final prediction: The biggest crowd-funding sites of tomorrow will move beyond money.  They will give founders the tools to ask for talent, resources, introductions, space and more.  Hundreds of other things, beyond simply cash.

Money might make the world go round, but what is it?

“a current medium of exchange” 

How current?

In a world in which a single person can ask millions of others for help, we are just beginning to discover the smartest ways in which that call for support might be answered.