If you can understand that infinite growth of GDP on a finite planet is a really terrible metric for countries to be using to measure progress, then you might wonder why almost all of the do. The short answer is that we started sort of by accident, it became popular, and we've never found a better way. In 2018 I was lucky enough to hos...

Today is day fourteen. This is article number fourteen. I'm allowing myself to be just a little proud for still being on target. At this point, not breaking the streak is an addition motivating factor and it feels like a habit is starting to form. For today's article, I wanted to do something different. Making better impact is a team s...

Your website. That's it. Your website tells me everything I need to know. If your company is serious about making better impact, then you have to be serious about telling the world. There is no better place than the front page of your website. There are many ways to do this. Examples range from talking about your vision of the future, ...

Imagine for a moment that your company had no competitors. What would that mean for your business and sales? How much energy could you redirect to making impact? When we focus our energy on making impact first and finance second, something magical happens. We move from being in a zero sum game, to a game of abundance. A zero sum game i...

The statutes of incorporation that were signed and put on record when your company was formed, almost certainly say that the goal of the business is to create as much shareholder value as possible. That's a legal obligation. The shareholders who own a part of the company, almost certainly took their stake as position for collecting som...

“"Execution pays your salary. Innovation pays your pension."” I love this recent quote from Steve Blank who wrote *the* book on modern day entrepreneurship. I'd like to add a third line to the mix: Impact makes you immortal. Innovation is the thing that gives our business a future, but it is not a goal in itself. It's a "how" and the c...

So here it I am, day nine, aka late Sunday evening, and I'm kicking myself. I've got plenty of things to write about, but it makes no sense to post any one of them now. I feel like I've trapped myself into a corner. I started this challenge, to kickstart myself into getting this knowledge out of my head, but actually, that's not my goa...

"We need to destroy the competition." Have you ever stopped to think about how the language of business is incredibly violent? "James from sales has been killing it this quarter, but we are still losing ground to the competition." I mean, right down to thinking about your target customers. Really! As if the people that pay for your pro...

Think back to 2012, what were you doing? Even if you are the kind of person who cares more about money than anything else - it's not a question of whether your business will become a force for good or not, the only decision is when. Compare how the generations of BabyBoomers and genX look at the world, with mindset of the millennials. ...

Writers block isn't a thing I have enough topics to write about I'm not scared to publish I wasn't too busy either - but still I just couldn't be bothered I promised thirty articles To make your business better So I thought a little longer - but still Skipping a day would be easy Just get back on track tomorrow Add an extra day on the ...

Most people hate green washing. I love it. Imagine seeing a giant billboard, covered in an advertisement from a major oil company, proudly suggestion that you can fill up your car with fossil fuel and drive CO2 neutral. Just buy planting trees. True story - and you can image it didn't take long for the general public to ridicule them f...

What would Batman be without Joker, or Wonder Woman without Doctor Psycho? Your business can only be a super hero if you are fighting a super villain. Are you familiar with Simon Sinek's three "Golden Circles" model of why, how and what? It's great - but he missed the most important one. His 2009 TEDx talk has been watched more than 55...

If I ask you to think about companies which make impact on the world, what names come to mind? I'm going to assume that a few brands came to mind. Possibly your favourite, or even most despised. In my experience, here's what didn't come to mind: your company. Here's a secret: the company you work for, whether you are a freelancer, star...

Why I will eat my own dogfood by testing ideas in public for 30 days. What would life be like if all business could only be profitable by being good for the world? A place where business priorities are switched: to be a force for good first and profitable second. I don't know what that world looks like, but I do know that I want to liv...

Whether you love her or hate her, Greta Thunberg has done an incredible job of raising awareness of climate crisis across people young and old. And it's working. Increased awareness of Thunberg correlates to an increased likelihood of activism. Click through to the original Guardian report Influencers for a better world will continue t...

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (the Dutch Railways) has recently won a circular award for their work upgrading a major part of their train fleet. The statistics are astonishing. From a total of 242 (18 year old) double decker train carriages: 99 percent of the old train materials have been given a second life, and 85 percent of those materials...

There's an update to this, at the bottom of the post. I'm a huge fan of Signal.org, the foundation that operates Signal messenger - the very best, and fully private, competitor to Whatsapp*. If you're not using it, you should be. It was a joy to wake up this morning and see that they had delivered a ridiculously simple, brilliant, mark...

Almost overnight and now for more than a year, a truly enormous amount of work has been performed not-at-the-office. There's a running joke that Covid19 has done substantially more for digital transformation than all executive teams combined. As vaccinations are now being given across most of the world, the conversation is turning to w...

One of the promises of cloud computing, is that you never have to lose anything, ever. Which, sounds like a dream come true for anyone who has had hard drives die unexpectedly. It does, however, come with negative consequences. There's a good chance that you've never really thought much about the impact of your email. The folks at HEY....

Now that The Vegetarian Butcher has been successfully assimilated and expanded by Unilever, it's interesting to note that there's also room at the small end of the industry. Thanks to the pandemic, two British vegan restaurants have pivoted their business into becoming vegan butchers*. Rudy’s Vegan focusses on vegan versions of America...

Two examples of great companies, doing well, with a long term vision, pioneering in their field - both getting into serious negatively impactful issues, thanks to their greedy shareholders: Bloomberg asks What Ever Happened to Toms Shoes? and then goes on to talk about their comeback strategy being necessary because they had been "mism...

This is a short case study about how newcomers can compete in traditional industries - as long as they do it on their own terms, and not try to copy the existing competition. Brewdog - is probably known to most people who drink beer. A small craft brewery started in Scotland in 2007 and has now grown to be one of the bigger boys of the...

Getting started is usually the biggest obstacle in life. Not getting started is the biggest killer of all opportunities. Being a perfectionist is the second. Get the ball moving. Just start: If you firmly hold a vision but are open to flexibility along the way, new opportunities will reveal themselves, you just have to be open to them:...

A list of companies and products that I find to be evil and which alternative(s) I use. Blacklist (zero use/support/payment) • Amazon • Stuff = anywhere but Amazon. • Ebooks = Kobo, or direct from the author's website • Goodreads = StoryGraph • Google • Search = Duck Duck Go or Brave • Browser = Brave / Safari • Maps = Apple Maps / Ope...

Schadenfreude - the German word for experiencing delight in another person's misfortune. Not something I usually encounter, but in the case of Mark Zuckerberg, it seems wholly appropriate. In 2019, Hackers managed to compromise data - including telephone numbers - of 533 million Facebook users. Zuckerberg's (and his former co-founders ...

Even if you'd never really paid any attention to the words "Blockchain" and "Cryptocurrency" before - you may have seen some things hitting the news recently. Bitcoin finally breaking $50k for example. Or that NFTs have become so hip that someone burnt a real Banksy and sold a digital copy online. Just a few hours ago Christies sold on...

This is me, writing an email. In a moment, I'll click send, it will appear on the web and people who subscribe will receive a copy in their inbox. So wait, is it an email? A newsletter? Or a blogpost? All of the above really. It's that simple. Yet so powerful. Sending in 3, 2, 1...