Water world

Well before this blog began, I went on a conservation trip to Antarctica. It’s amazing to think that the Antarctic ice sheet contains around three quarters of all fresh water on Earth. We earthlings are mostly water, and our global supply of this life-giving wonder is under pressure. Over a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and factors like rising population, falling aquifers, plastic pollution, poor infrastructure, and water wars in arid regions are heating up the water debates. I was in Europe recently discussing the issues with diverse stakeholders in water, and there’s a quickening consensus that the long view is the only view. Whatever your take on it or stake in it, it’s clear we need to re-frame our entire approach to water.

Assuming governments can get water policies right (a big assumption), all of us are still going to have to work together on this. Ideas are the key. Simple, irresistible ideas like the Dave Droga-inspired Tap Project, where restaurant-goers donate one dollar each time they order free tap water. The funds go to UNICEF’s water and sanitation programs. The Lifestraw, a portable drinking filtration system worn around the neck which won the fifth Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas, is in this same revolutionary space. Thousands of children die daily from unsafe drinking water, and this super straw only sucks up the good stuff. There’s a lot to do at international, national, local, and personal levels. Water connects all of us and we are all going to have to start connecting with water.

An old P&G colleague of mine, John O’Keefe who is principal and Founder of a creative thinking consultancy recently wowed the P&G alumni in Rome with some radical truths and big ideas on water. He’s now looking for like minded folk to join him on the quest.

Strategy for Sustainability

This week Adam Werbach’s book Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto, was launched on the world. Adam is CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S – Saatchi & Saatchi’s specialist sustainability agency, and a great guy, who shares my belief that sustainability is the most realistic strategy for long term business success and business growth. His book comes from the heavyweight Harvard Business Press so it’s been worked over by the business management pros but I found it challenging, fascinating and moving by turn. How many business books can you say that about?

Adam sets out a step-by-step guide to how any business can step up to be the best they can be as sustainability instigators, activists, advocates and champions. This is sustainability as a catalyst not a set of rules and standards to hold you back. The place to start is with what Adam calls your North Star Goal (in our Peak Performance work we call this an Inspirational Dream). Any goal set by the North Star has got to be inspiring, after all it is the star that has been used for thousands of years to find your way home when you are lost and as a trusted guide when you venture into the unknown. To find your own reference point, closely examine current trends and how your business could win advantage from them by improving your business planning and execution. Adam stresses that your North Star goals have to be core to the business, engaging to your people and connected to a higher purpose for the rest of the world.

At Saatchi & Saatchi our North Star Goal is to “help a billion people create their personal sustainability practice through the products and people that touch their lives.” We’ve started with ourselves and the Do One Thing (DOT) program. Already we have 2,000 Saatchi & Saatchi people involved. The magic starts happening when that 2,000 sign up another 10 people each and we will leapfrog to 20,000 and then that 20,000 … you get the picture. It’s exciting, it’s fast, it’s viral.

Paradoxically, it is now with a recession gripping the world, that there are more opportunities to advance sustainability than fewer. At times like these the green washers start to back away from their commitments and we can all see them for what they are. Big promisers taking little action. Adam says in his book that this is the most dynamic moment for business strategy since the Great Depression and I believe he is right. It’s why it is so important that this book is published now when throughout the world businesses are reconsidering their fundamental models. Strategy for Sustainability shows how to make the most of this process and build businesses that are transparent, flexible and make authentic, long-term connections with consumers.

Buy your copy now and get started with what you can do.

Radio City Business

The global financial catastrophe has hit companies, families, and individuals. In the background is the endless expert buzz on whether there’s light ahead, with many economists now saying there is. Well that’s where I sheer off. Not because I want to be a one-time dismal scientist, but because the economic and social consequences of living beyond our means has still got a long way to ripple. There is little spare money and this will squeeze consumers and businesses onto a tighter course. We are living through a structural shift, a historic global event that is tilting capitalism from exclusion to inclusion. This is my hope.

For inspirational leaders, the sorts of threats and challenges prevalent today offer excitement and opportunity. Ideas can come from anywhere; the thing is to recognize them and give them shape. I’m picking it will be ideas around a sustainable future that will get the full treatment at this year’s World Business Forum at Radio City Music Hall in New York on 6 and 7 October.

The annual forum debates the most pressing issues of the day. It’s produced by HSM, the top management event and content team with whom I have worked with in Europe and Latin America. The line up in October will include Gary Hamel, President Bill Clinton, George Lucas, Irene Rosenfeld, Jack Welch, Paul Krugman, and Jeffrey Sachs. The topics are for the times, ranging from leadership, innovation and branding, to crunch arenas like energy, health…and storytelling.

I’ll be looking at how to create true value for tough times and beyond. It’s clear to me that sustainability, or what we’ve called True Blue (caring for people first and then the planet), is at the core of creating value. To be “good value”, not just good for the world, marks a tipping point for sustainability. Last year, 500 new sustainable products were launched in the U.S. This year it’s looking to be 1,600. Watch as value gets reframed in ways that build sustainability into everyone’s choices. I believe the next track to sustainability lies more in changing the value equation and less in talking about changing values. At Radio City Music Hall this year, expect this to be the theme tune.

The Most Grateful Dead Songs Named in 30 Seconds

When I was a kid, The Guinness Book of Records (now Guinness World Records) was something we poured over. Some of the records were incredible, some outrageous, and some were, well, unbelievable. The reason we did believe them was, of course, because the Guinness organization seemed to have a rigorous set of rules with high standards of proof for each record set or broken.

Fast forward a few decades and enter the world as shaped by Wikipedia – the global encyclopaedia that is self-generating, self-monitoring, and self-healing. The result is crowd wisdom on an unprecedented scale and a fantastic example of how power has shifted to the people with a vengeance. Now thanks to one of Saatchi & Saatchi’s creatives, I have discovered The Universal Record Database. Not exactly a catchy name and not a place you’d expect to find Kevin Roberts, until you understand that this is the Guinness Book of Records meets Jackass meets Wikipedia. The site is still in BETA but its aspirations are enormous. It aspires to be nothing less than the definitive site for human achievement based on its belief that every person on earth has the potential to be the world’s best ‘something’. What your ‘something’ is depends on the limits of your imagination – and judging from the site so far, most people are not limited in that department. From the most mouse clicks in nine seconds to the most Grateful Dead songs named in 30 seconds, the records keep coming. Last time I looked, the top rated record was the Longest Sword Swallowed in Shark Infested Water. For your reference, it was 24 inches (61 centimetres).

Before you dismiss this as just a bunch of kids fooling around, let me say three things. First up, the site is sharp, all hyperlinks work, it’s easy to get around, you understand instantly what’s going on and how to participate. Try getting that on most brand websites. Second, the uptake has been huge. People want to come here and play. Why is the response so strong? Because URDB combines a fun experience with a chance to compete and throws in some old school aspiration. Try finding that in most brand offerings. Third, the principles of The Universal Record Database are simply brilliant. 1. Honesty and accuracy are pretty much everything, 2. Don't hurt yourself. Don't hurt others. Don't hurt the planet. 3. Waste sucks.

If I were running Guinness World Records, I’d be watching. Hard.

Tweeting the future

When the telephone was invented, no one really knew what to do with it. It was thought that it might be a great way to broadcast useful information, and perhaps, music. The thought of one person talking to another was not even considered a possibility. There were sensible reasons (also known as prejudices) for that, of course. Speaking to someone without first having been properly introduced was considered poor form, as was talking to people below you on the social pecking order. Such unfortunate events were frighteningly possible if the telephone was unleashed. However, The People stepped in and everything changed. Before long, the telephone found its true purpose: making connections.

Technologies often take a while to find their feet. The Internet, which was started to protect military information from attack, is now a worldwide network connecting billions of people. The phone is transforming, through mobility, into a powerful life support center – communications, organization, entertainment...you name it, the mobile phone can do it. So what’s going to happen to Twitter? This remarkable phenomenon born out of the status bar on Facebook (now called 'What’s on Your Mind?') sends millions of short (less than 140 characters, and that includes spaces and punctuation) messages each day. Something about the Twitter format has proved irresistible to us. Like texting, it keeps you in the flow. You don’t have to make a lot of effort, and you can truly reach out and touch somebody.

Now businesses are becoming tweet-friendly. I’ve heard that the attendance at some meetings have been slashed (that’s got to be a good thing) with a small core team meeting and tweeting about what’s happening. Good-bye meetings for catch-up, background, or holding territory. Maybe Twitter is the ideal form for Winning Ugly – fast, focused, and functional.

Last week, I visited a site that provided a glimpse into another possible future for Twitter. Open Brands calls itself a social brand monitor. By combing through the globe’s tweets, it finds and gathers comments on specific brands. What you get is a real time look into what people are thinking about a brand, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. If you want to know what people are thinking about Oprah after a particular show, just scroll through the tweets. I was riveted by the Toyota tweets. It was like dipping into a stream of authentic engagement with a mix of commentary, opinion, pointers to interesting articles, and responses to other tweets. Fascinating. It felt like people were inventing the future.

The wild side of love

Consumers are neck deep in information. That’s the grim truth of twenty-first century marketing. Consumers often know far more about a product they are considering than the people on the other side of the counter. They’ve researched, compared and consulted, and I believe what they are hoping for now is an experience. Some fun, some intrigue, maybe a little romance. If this thought strikes a chord with you, crack open Cristina Nehring’s book A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century.

What I like about this book is her tough view of romance. This is not some sickly package of sweet-nothings. Romance as far as this author is concerned is full of passion, high on emotion, sometimes stormy, and not always successful. In short, romance is a vital part of life itself that doesn’t bother to respect the rules we try to lay on it.

I’ve often said that if we are not stalked by failure we’re living a life of templates and formulas, and no one wins with them. Nehring puts the same idea beautifully, ‘Somewhere in our collective unconscious we know — even now — that to have failed is to have lived.’ This is important because the transforming power, the true power of Lovemarks is dramatically slowed when people try to turn it into a set process with rules for what works and what doesn’t. I’ve always believed that to deserve the name, a Lovemark is imaginative, intuitive and unpredictable as it finds fresh ways to respond to the lives of real people. This means that what may inspire Lovemark status in one place won’t necessarily have the same effect in another. Vive le difference! The foundation concepts of Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy are always at the core but this is a constantly changing landscape. What we are dealing with is emotion and emotion comes in many guises. For example, I am convinced that emotion is part of the success of Google. Just think about its ever-changing front page. Google carefully uses this amazingly valuable commercial property to respond to the stories and celebrations and personalities that are important to its users. The First Day of Spring. Happy St Patrick’s Day. Charles Darwin’s birthday. Etc etc. This is a great commercial decision to not be commercial.

What I like about A Vindication of Love is Nehring’s belief – one I share – that passion is the secret to love. That in our idea of Love we have become too pragmatic and pedestrian, too limited in our goals, too small in our expectations of each other. When Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands was first published, some of the reviewers couldn’t fathom how Love could play a part in business. I suggest they read Cristina Nehring’s book. Hers is a vindication of the wild side of Love indeed. No gain without pain? I’m with her on that too.