Stephen J Pain's blog
Age of Good® consumerism
posted 2 March 2011
What’s happening in the high street? Passing fad or profound change in consumer behaviour?
Fairtrade sales in 2010 were up 40% on the previous year to an estimated value of more than £1 billion. The Co-operative Group has joined Greener Together – the Co-operative way and now has the widest range of own-label and branded Fairtrade products.
The key question now is to what extent can 'good' drive sales? It would seem that, post-financial crises, the collective consciousness among consumers is now becoming a real force in consumer spending. How much this is a developed world phenomenon and how speedily it gathers momentum in affecting the long-term behaviour of the global consumer remains to be seen.
Undoubtedly, if this trend continues, organisations that get behind creating a sustainable business model will win in terms of differentiating their vision, strategies and products in the hyper-connected global marketplace. The language of business is changing and, therefore, so too must the language of communicators. New dynamics are at play: sustainable business, sustainable growth, sustainable value, sustainable reputation.
The Age of Good® consumerism is upon us. Deal with it.
Age of Good® decisions
posted 21 February 2011
What makes a ‘good’ decision? Profit? Purpose? Successful outcome? Personal benefit? Collective benefit? The University of Reading and the Henley Business School are taking a fascinating approach to the question of just what goes on inside the minds of leaders as they make decisions.
Decisions taken in boardrooms can affect the reputation of individuals and organisations. But is there a physiological pattern in the brains of leaders that, through genetics, pre-disposes them to make ‘good’ decisions and develop for themselves a ‘good’ reputation? That’s the question Dr Kevin Money, Associate Professor at Henley Business School’s Sir John Madjeski Centre for Reputation and Professor Doug Saddy, Director of the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) at the University of Reading are trying to answer.
The CINN at Reading has one of the most sophisticated brain scanners in the world with, I believe, up to twice the power of a normal medical scanner. Sir John Madjeski, Chancellor of the University and Chairman of Reading Football Club, is the first leader to have been ‘scanned'. Others are being lined up to take a look inside their own minds as their brain activity is monitored while they make realtime decisions.
This research is likely to allow us to take a look at leadership in a totally different light. Could a session in a brain scanner, I wonder, become an essential part of the senior executive recruitment process in the future?
Realtime living in the Age of Good®
posted 15 September 2010
The other day I overheard a young colleague say, 'If it's not on line, I'm not interested.' When I asked her what she thought the effect of social media is on the communication profession she replied, 'It just means we now have to manage reputations realtime.' Pretty cute answer, I thought. Then we discovered the phrase that she'd used is not new - Google it and you'll even find a monitoring service called Realtime Reputation.
Social media is changing everything. The ubiquity of realtime connections between people, computers and, with Web 3.0, everyday things such as appliances mean that 'realtime living' living will be the norm - you will connect to virtually everything the way you want to connect through an increasingly 'intelligent' life form called www. Who knows what this will mean for strategy and long-term planning, particularly for communications professionals? Perhaps the only possible long-term strategy is to learn, first, how to exist, realtime, in the here and now.
