I’m not sure whether it’s me. But I’m REALLY noticing a focus on water when it comes to giving.  Scott Harrison’s Charity: WATER continues to do amazing things and now one of my favourite bloggers, Chris Guillebeau has joined the cause too focussing on water in Ethiopia.

But there’s another groundswell going on where B1G1 businesses are linking their water-based products and services directly back to water charities like WellWishers.

We’ve already written about the great things going on with Elaine Buckland’s mokitaonline and Patterson Stark’s alkaline water . But one that’s escaped our attention (at least in print until now) is the lovely concept of Water-In-A-Box done by New Zealand-based Aquaceuticals.

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Over the last four weeks, there was no blog entry on this site.

Did B1G1 team loose the energy and momentum? - Absolutely NOT!

We were touring in Australia and New Zealand covering 7 cities in total. And our main blogger and social media writer Paul Dunn was the centre of all these events this time.

Paul's fun, engaging, inspiring and insightful talk, "WOW - Standing out in 2010" created great energy and interest toward B1G1 in every city we visited. Some of the events attracted so many more people than we expected that we did not even have enough seats (RYDGES in Auckland for example ran out of all spare chairs and we had to 'steal' more from the restaurants!).  Many people were standing at the back of the room enjoying every moment of the evening until the very end. 

If you are one of them who missed the opportunity to be there, make sure to watch out for the next round because we had so many people saying that the event was full of amazing values that they could not believe it was free (thanks to the generous sponsors for each of the event) and some people even came from other cities driving hours to get there. 

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I received an email just before Christmas. In part it said, “…. 2009 has been a horrible year — can’t wait for 2010.” You may have heard something similar. And normally I’d just write back ‘Happy New Year’. But when I got the original message it struck me how our lives have little to do with the year. Or, to put it another way, how much ‘the year’ has to do with us, not the other way around!

 Another friend, Tim Fernandez in Kuala Lumpur , put it this way: ‘The year has been somewhat extraordinary. The reason, not only because of the many things that have come to manifest themselves – I would say it was extraordinary for the simple reason that we’ve reached out to many and created possibilities.

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In my live seminars, I love drawing upon the work of Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom and their first Funky Business book .

My favourite quote which provides a platform to build from is this one:

It’s so true. Every word of it.

And if, as they say, normal does equal nothing, then it seems obvious that abnormal equals something.

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At Buy1GIVE1 (or B1G1 as most people know it now) we’ve got a clear mission — to create a world full of giving. And we do that through providing people with the wonderful process of transaction-based giving — increasingly being called, 'Embedded Generosity' or 'Embedded Giving'.

I find that creating a world full of giving is pretty inspiring. Then I got a note taking it all to another level from my friend (and B1G1 Business client) Tom Minter in the UK. Tom co-founded and co-runs the wonderfully zany and magically brilliant ‘Socks for Happy People ’.

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Call it ‘pushing the envelope’. Or perhaps ‘being on the edge’. Whatever you call it, it’s cool to be identified as a ‘trend’.

And so we feel good that Embedded Generosity – another label for B1G1 transaction-based giving – recently made number 8 on the Trendwatch Top Ten Trends for 2010

It’s not surprising either. All of us have at some level noticed the additional

consciousness around giving back. As I’ve written elsewhere, giving is a HUGE wave – one that is larger than any trend I’ve seen in my business life.

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Yesterday I blogged about words and how they make a HUGE difference. Here’s another example (though maybe not quite as impactful as yesterday’s banning of the word ‘corporate’ ).

As you’ll see from the photo, this ‘interesting thing’ occurred when we checked in at my favourite airline counter here in Singapore (Singapore Airlines in case you don’t recognise the uniform).

And the most interesting thing about the picture is not the smile but the badge the check in person is wearing. It’s a normal Singapore Airlines badge with her name on it but attached to the badge is a little bouncy badge. It shows the lady’s ‘position’ in the team.

She’s what most airlines would call a ‘trainee’. But her badge doesn’t say that. It simply says, “I’m new here”.

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You know how it is when ideas hit you – it’s kind of like a ‘KAPOW!!!’ moment.

I had one yesterday.

It’s been brewing for a while and like all ‘interesting’ ideas, it’s so simple and obvious you wonder why it took you so long to get it. So here it is:

Take for example the oft-heard phrase ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’. It’s used so often we don’t even think of the potential turn-off effect it has.

For example, imagine a conference being held in your city. It has the theme of Corporate Social Responsibility. And imagine too you’re a so-called ‘small-to-medium scale-enterprise’ or SME.

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Disclosure: I’m not what you'd call a keen student of the Bible. But after a recent trip to New Zealand, I believe I can imagine how the man felt who actually did pick up his bed and walk.

That’s because I was ‘operated on’ (as you’ll soon discover, that’s COMPLETELY the wrong term) by new B1G1 Business owner, Master Applied Kinesiologist, Doctor of Chiropractic and author of  ‘Live now - Die later’, Patterson Stark .

I’d met Patterson the night before with my dear friends Martin and Sarah Jimmink. They’d held the equivalent of a B1G1 Seminar in their home in Christchurch, New Zealand.

And after the program, Patterson and his Partner, Gayel Marquet, not only decided to become a B1G1 Business linking their Alkaline Water with giving kids access to water in Africa, they stayed for hours talking about water, about B1G1 and about Patterson’s views on health.

Twenty years ago, Patterson was told he had 2 weeks to live.

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If you know anything about Australian music, ‘All my friends are getting married’ was the title of a huge hit for iconic Australian band Skyhooks in the seventies (OMG am I that old???).

And it’s not strictly true that ‘all’ my friends are getting married but my best friend is – this Monday saw Martin Cooney tie the knot with his South African sweetheart, Pam Lakey.

And in an act of total weirdness, I’m going to Bali to spend some time with them on their honeymoon (don’t read ANYTHING into that!)

And what on earth does that have to do with Dame Anita Roddick and the Body Shop ? Simply this.

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