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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Most weekends I try to get started on at least one book. Some I can start and then get back to over the course of a few weeks. Others I've just got to keep reading.

This weekend I got one in the 'other' category. I'd actually had the book for 4 weeks but hadn’t read the inside flap properly. Had I done that, I would have been writing about the book 4 weeks ago.

The reason? It's brilliant: probably THE best book on Social BUSINESS Entrepreneurship and so-called 'Conscious Capitalism' I’ve yet read.

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Yesterday I wrote a blog about a dream I had about President Obama. I related how I’d envisage him taking a stand and imploring business to take a stand.

And today I realised that the President had already said essentially what I’d been dreaming about (more on that in a moment).

And then just a few moments ago I downloaded the latest update on the progress we as ‘the world’ are making on the UN Millennium Goals set down and finally agreed upon in 2002. It’s NOT a pretty picture.

In the foreword to the report, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon writes: 

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In a radio interview a few weeks ago, the host told me how he’d actually cross to the other side of the road if he saw a charity group ahead of him ‘rattling a tin under everyone’s nose’.

And a senior executive in a major corporation told me how the way the giving worked in their company was essentially like this: ‘we figure out what the profit is and then we decide how much of that we can give away – taking into account tax breaks of course’.

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February 27, 2009

Interesting day today. A major international philanthropic NewsWire (Triple Pundit) picked up the Buy1GIVE1 'story' and circulated it worldwide in the form of a conversation between the editor and me as B1G1 Chairman.

If you'd like to go to the Triple Pundit site to view it, just click here. Or, if you'd like to save a click, we've reproduced the text of the article for you right here. Hope you like it. Come join us.

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Paul Dunn from Buy1GIVE1 got rated as the number 1 presenter at the recent CSR forum in Singapore. Business people around the world came to this recent conference to explore the latest CSR topics.

He was also interviewed by a reporter (Alicia Wong) from 'Today' newspaper after his presentation.

Read the article here .

Buy1GIVE1 transaction-based giving is now being recognised as one effective way to create more synergy and energy in organisations.

New findings from this year's goodpurpose(TM) global study of consumer attitudes reveal that nearly seven in 10 (68%) consumers would remain loyal to a brand during a recession if it supports a good cause, and 71% say that when they think about the economic downturn, they have either given the same or more time and money to good causes.

These findings, part of the second annual goodpurpose(TM) study, convey the eye-opening yet encouraging news that recent economic events have not had a negative impact on consumers' contributions to good causes. Despite the downturn, across the globe

In TIME Magazine recently, Bill Gates wrote a keynote piece on giving. It's 'required' reading for all of us here at B1G1.

The accompanying diagrams with the article showed how giving 'started' in the 19th century (funnily enough with Cadburys!) and then really picked up in pace since 1960 when people like Dave Packard (of HP fame) were making statements about Corporate Responsibility.  

The article also shows how, until now, CSR has been the 'domain' of the large corporations.  We feel it's now time for another 'movement' B1G1. And it would seem that Mr. Gates loves the idea too. Read on:

Right now I’m on a plane from Australia’s Gold Coast to Melbourne.

And as always, being on a plane is a great time for reflection. Today it’s more than just reflection in some ways. I’m actually heading off for what we might call a ‘high-level’ meeting with one of Australia’s major retailers.

So I’ve done the background. And it’s interesting. This particular retailer gave just over $10 Million to charity last year. And that’s great! But here’s the challenge; not a single one of its customers knew about it!

Now don’t for one minute think that I believe they should shout about it in the

Last Thursday I took a flight on AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. And when I fly, I like to read what the Chief Executive is saying in the in-flight magazine.

 

You can tell so much about the company from the CEO’s articles. Read the QANTAS one and it always strikes me as ‘stuffy’. Read the VirginBlue one from CEO Brett Godfrey and it’s ALWAYS upbeat, always focussed on the customer (in Virgin’s case, the “guest’). And it’s always fresh as opposed to stuffy. But back to AirAsia.

 

I met AirAsia founder Tony (now Dato Sri) Fernandez four years ago. And you just knew that if anyone

If you’re like me, you can’t help but get fascinated with the ups and downs of American politics. And, if you’re like me, you were pleased to see Barrack Obama come through as the Democratic candidate.

So what does this have to do with Buy1GIVE1?

Simply this. I was on a plane from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur this morning reading my favourite newspaper (the International Herald Tribune) before take-off and I saw an article about Al Gore endorsing Obama.

My thoughts turned to how Senator Obama had used the World Wide Web (amongst other things) to get donations for his campaign that run

One of the biggest pieces of luck this week (there is so much magic happening right now), was meeting with the general manager of one of the biggest ratail chains in Australia at their Sydney headquarters to discuss how we could work together.

To be honest, before meeting this wonderful gentleman at the remarkable new office in the outskirt of Sydney, I had a feeling that working with a company this big may become a little limiting factor for us.

We have many interesting ideas, and in some ways, our vision could be perceived as a little too idealistic for some. I was very curious to see what