Blog bloc

As anyone who knows me will attest to, I am not known to be short of opinions even, some may say, in areas that I am not nearly qualified to have them in (pls don't listen to these doubters).

So why after launching our Good Business blog have I not blogged?

I can't seem to muster my first few words. Well I have been racking my brains as to why and I think I have the answer. Its because it gives me the chance to write about anything - its just too broad - I just don't know where to start.

So my solution, because I have to start somewhere, is to start with the name of our blog.

In the 16 years since Good Business came together in a conversation between myself and ex-business partner Steve Hilton many things have changed from the macro/external (I'm sure I don't need to tell you this) to the internal - what we do, the work that Good Business generates, the people we work with, and the businesses and NGOs involved have all changed.

But one thing has never changed - we wrote on a scrap piece of paper 'Value + Values = Good Business' and 'Good Business = Value + Values'.

No business will succeed without a great product and a great price but, increasingly even with that, it does not give you the right to succeed. The product must also be a positive contribution to society in a way that also makes me, the purchaser, want to be associated with it (think Toyota Prius, Innocent drinks, Dove, Green and Blacks...).

In 16 year this has gone from a nice to have to an absolute must have. In fact I would go so far as to say that I don't believe any new product can really be launched in the future that doesn't think as much about the impact of the broader society and environment as to the person that they want to buy it.

So you heard it here first (or sometime in the last 16 years). Business, and most importantly marketing, must evolve its obsession with just focusing on the end consumers in a vacuum, to thinking about the end consumer a part of the broader community, who matter as much.

Onwards and upwards.