Haiti Fundraiser in London

(That my friend Aladin is involved with)

We've just announced early details of a fantastic fundraising Haiti benefit gig at the Roundhouse on February 25th - with a really strong line-up and some huge special-guest acts still to be revealed next week.First acts announced for Haiti Earthquake Fundraiser@The Roundhouse includes Seasick Steve; Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, Magic Numbers; Mr Hudson, The Futureheads and Bombay Bicycle Club. DJ sets from The Maccabees, Zero 7, Mat Horne and Kate Nash. Presenters include Charlie Brooker, Edith Bowman, Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap/The Simpsons), Marcus Brigstocke, George Lamb and Rick Edwards.
Tickets went on sale an hour ago:
Web - http://www.haitiearthquakefundraiser.com/
F/bk - http://twitter.com/haitibenefitgig
Twtr - http://bit.ly/7C5GIF

POST GROWTH MARKETING?

(A new article for Mediacat magazine)

How could business and marketing thrive in a post growth economy? It may sound like a weird question. Ever since Adam Smith economists have assumed that growth was the essential measure of an economy. Smith’s argument was that only in a growing economy would there be more jobs than workers, keeping wages high. Also he claimed economic growth (rather than absolute size) affected the general mood or morale of a nation.

Most modern economists also believe that GDP growth is essential. Negative growth (a recession) brings terror to the boardroom and panic to parliament; witness the events of the last few years. Prolonged negative growth such as in the Great Depression of 1930s America summons images of mass social dislocation and misery. Employment is still the crux; but it's a more subtle relationship since it is large companies protecting their profits and shareholder dividends that drive the rapid spikes in unemployment (not the long term supply and demand of Adam Smith's writings)?

But from a fringe idea associated - as the author of one UK report (Professor Tim Jackson) put it - with “Lunatics, Idealists and Revolutionaries”, growth has become a key debating point over the last few years in mainstream politics. Prominent figures such as Anthony Giddens (former president of the London School of Economics) and Nicholas Stern (World Bank Economist, author of The Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change) have argued that since all the evidence continues to show that GDP growth leads inexorably to rising carbon emissions, it is mistake to continue to pursue growth which was only ever justified because it seemed to match the broader goal of maximising wellbeing. This linkage has also been challenged by ‘happiness economics’ some of whose studies claim that past a certain threshold level, extra GDP doesn’t make people happier. A conclusion reinforced by the recent Stiglitz report, commissioned by French President Sarkozy and the EU, which concluded we need a wider range of better measures of the wellbeing of nations than GDP alone.

Post growth economics is such a hot topic it made last September’s issue of the Harvard Business Review, in an article by James Gustave Speth called “Doing Business in a Post Growth Society”. In this article Speth argues that believing in continued economic growth could be about as dumb as believing in endless population growth, and for similar environmental reasons. He concludes that this would mean a world of less consumerism and higher prices; but that quality of life could improve in 'neglected areas'.

Economy growth is not necessarily the same thing as company growth, of course. A forest can be a steady state system, but the young trees still grow. For many a large corporation though, post growth economics would spell death. Only large and growing returns will satisfy speculator shareholders. And without ambient economic growth, to ‘lift all the boats’ this would be difficult for a very large and diversified corporation. They are also running out of anywhere to go for cheaper labour (‘the race for the bottom’). So a post growth future may be a place of smaller companies, and also ones with employee, community or customer ownership – cooperatives of various sorts and also social ventures (making money being secondary to some social purpose). In these types of business making excess profits is literally a bonus, the main thing is to serve the needs of your communities.

There is an assumption there would be very little marketing in such a world. A lot of marketing today is tied up with the growth imperative, not just in hyped image markets (perfume, fashion etc.), but also in much less conspicuous consumption such as mobile phone operators, energy utilities and financial services. If companies were not geared for growth would you need to fight so hard for the last fraction of market share? Going back to the forest analogy of course there could be a phase of even greater competition. Like the retail price wars that broke out as we entered the current recession. But after this phase there would be just fewer brands and companies, and people would keep things longer, treasure them and generally get by with less.

It’s hard to tell overall. But my strong hunch is we should be focusing on different kinds of marketing. For instance imagine a world where collaboration, community and sharing were dominant (rather than individualism). A world where the ‘brands’ might actually emanate from groups of people doing stuff together – crowd funding, group buying, even telling companies what they want or co-creating it. The other watchwords would likely be loyalty and trust. Imagine buying your last ever computer – from now on you will just upgrade parts of it (hardware and software), but keep many of the guts and casing. If you were doing that you’d choose a company you believed in, that would still be here and innovative in 20 years. It could spell the death of Dell, or even Apple and the return of IBM?

Speaking of death, the main reasons for engaging in all of this should be as responsible human beings. We surely can’t drive the world over some precipice for the sake of a few more fashionable gadgets or exotic holidays? Or even for the sake of keeping lots of lovely jobs in creative agencies. Even Martin Sorrell of WPP has said as much – that it is time to question ‘superconsumption’ for that reason. The interesting part comes when you realise that we literally need to reinvent everything, from marketing up to macro economics, to unhook ourselves at every level from addiction to growth.

Another Year, Book, Blog

www.coopp.net As promised in the intro to Co-opportunity, I've put up a new blog to specifically follow up on the issues, themes and cases in the new book, for interviews and content, as a place for readers to comment/critique and generally hang out. I'll keep greenormal focused on green marketing and innovation; while the new book is more concerned with social innovation (social networks, social movements, social ventures). It's a fuzzy line and when in doubt I will cross post. Please do link to the new blog and do comment there if you want to swap links and join the blogroll :J

Co-opportunity Cover Designs

Can you judge a book by it's cover? Just over 3 weeks to go anyway (out Jan29)...

Draft Article for Sublime: THE CRAFT SOCIETY

(image from nibsblog, 2008)

THE CRAFT SOCIETY

The word ‘Craft’ has dubious connotations – macramé plant hangers, table lamps festooned with sea shells, dolls made out of socks and buttons, home knit jumpers for Christmas… A 1970s that taste forgot looms in my mind, cluttered with knick-knacks and home hobbies. My father had taken up weaving lurid (tropical scene) tapestries as a therapeutic hobby - as well as brewing his own beer. My mother collected teapots. Hundreds of them. From auctions and craft fairs. Displayed on every spare tabletop, mantle piece and window sill. (Adding a frisson of added risk to playing indoors with balls and paper darts and disc shaped things that looked like they might fly like a Frisbee!) This wasn’t ironic or kitsch – it was all about adding a personal touch, cosiness, “turning a house into a home”.

For my generation crafts came to epitomise what (high) culture looks down on. Because they represented uneducated, unrefined, popular culture – as much so as seaside souvenirs, tabloid news and bingo. They could be employed subversively – as kitsch, as anti-cool, as DIY – in the same spirit as Punk. But not appreciated in a simple way.

The cultural tide has turned and now the handmade craft aesthetic is “back”. The trend seemed to start in the art world, a late 90s turn from bold designer art to neurotic neo-realism. Today’s baggy cardigan, acoustic live music, home grown veg, charity shop and camping holiday culture… are once again valuing the handmade and the folk-traditional. Artefacts that are not manufactured or mass produced, but rather are handmade by an individual. There is a growing interest in authentic, artisanal craft goods. Etsy for example is the specialist online marketplace for individual craft producers to sell handmade goods and buy craft supplies. Launched in 2005 it has attracted nearly 4 million members, 250,000 of which are sellers. Craft hobbies are booming too, from knitting to (I would argue) making your own website or blog.

These fashions come and go. The current mass popularity of crafts could be the regression that goes with recession – “a new mood of thrift”. It could also be some new inkling of sustainability – although you have to wonder if most handmade items are intrinsically less resource intensive? Most organic wool in the UK is sourced from New Zealand. Does it then make a huge difference where or how the jumper is made? And there are all sorts of dangers of self-deception in “eco chic” – styling yourself like a hippy but missing the implied values like sharing, peace and anti-materialism? There are pro-sustainability trends within design, for instance in using reclaimed or neglected materials. But the main factor is often the model or business system – whether or not you make throwaway ‘fashion’, for instance.

There’s another way of thinking about all this: Craft as in Craft Guild - ie what happens economically and socially when the main source of value is workers’ skills, not employers patents and contracts? In industrial production every worker is just an interchangeable ‘moving part’. Hence the employer can seek the cheapest workers and claim the maximum profit – today paying below the living wage in the poorest countries in the world. This is still (‘offshoring’, restrictive patents and labour productivity) according to some analysts the main source of growth in corporate profits (rather than innovation).

The introduction of unskilled, low-paid industrial factory work met with protests. The famous Luddites of 1811 were in fact the Guild of Stockingers, hit by food shortages and a virtual police state during the Napoleonic war, priced out of the workplace and denied the right to collective bargaining by the 1799 Combinations Act. According to Lord Byron the Stockingers were “meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life”. The history we were taught at school said “that’s progress”. But actually it’s more political than that. The question is who owns the skill? Is it the worker or the employer? Craft guilds – by holding fast to trade secrets and their transmission, as well as the license to operate - regulated prices, quality standards, employment, training and competition, and also provided welfare and community support for over 500 years. A typical medieval town could have over 200 guilds representing diverse trades like tanning, brewing, baking, filigree and weaving. They had strict moral and commercial codes, kept the merchant speculators out of the local economy, and provided some stability during paroxysms of civil war, plague, famine, debasement of currencies... After the guilds were smashed by Laissez Faire free marketeers (and working hours nearly doubled and standards of living plummeted), co-operative societies (often started by ex guild members) took on some of their role.

The question for tomorrow’s economy could be what is the best set of institutions for a resilient local economy and hence the common good? Our corporate-speculator-growth model will collapse at the first sign of crisis (dodgy sub prime mortages are likely to be the least of our worries when crises in climate, energy, water, food, city flooding and so on hit in the next decade or two). The current model is geared for growth, and not for taking the bad years with the good. The alternative model is mutual, where individuals own skills and networks transmit them. It’s the model that has sustained those services and professions (like academia, law and plumbing) that proved more immune to mechanisation or business process re-engineering. And it’s the craft guild model that was followed by the Open Source revolution in software (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP…) providing a viable alternative to the dominance of the Microsoft’s of this world.

Not only does this model have the potential to create a safer world, with more stability and less suffering. It also holds the prospect of more fulfilling careers – a move back to “your life’s work” and the self respect and development that comes from mastering a trade, whether it is bread making or database development.

It may also mean more macramé, teapots and folk music, but on balance we could probably live with that?

John Grant’s new book Co-opportunity (which includes a section on craft guilds and mutual economic models) is out 29th Jan 2010, from Wiley.