Going, going, gone...

Well, we've finally invested in a new web-site over at glasshouse partnership and James has popped his cherry with this post on CSR and sports. Watch out for more posts and podcasts, now we have finally ditched the dreaded flash!

Virginal?

Innocent is becoming more innocent by the day...announcing its intention this week to use fully compostable, corn-starch packaging... Innocent is also making headway on increasing the transparency of its sourcing policies, and it making a contribution of biodiversity - for example sourcing its famously deep-red Sanga Sengana strawberries... The company has even taking to blogging. It is the ultimate bobo brand?

Those Issues by the numbers: 2.33 billion and counting...

As of today (4 August 2006), Google thows up 2.33 billion entries on 'environment'. Water, as an issue - 1.44 billion AIDS 0.53 b Poverty 0.23 b and Starvation? just 0.018...18 million entries... And marketing, you ask??? 1,570,000,000. One point five seven billion entries. It's just not enough.

Motivating individual environmentalism

Interesting to see the IPPR pickiung up the question of citizen level environmentalism. They critique, as Glasshouse did in our Branding Biodiversity report, the over-inflation of claims and over-emotionalisation of outcomes - fearing that it may switch people off, and encourage free-rider principles, or simple despair. Well done the IPPR for raising this communications question. However, I'm not aware of any evidence that porn switches people off sex... Neither does enviro-porn switch them off the environment. What it can do, though is to confuse their understanding of what's real and what's fake. Not all women have DD breasts...not all enviro-technologies work.

CSR meet CRM

I'm increasingly obsessing about the merger between person-centric thinking, and the demands of sustainable and ethical consumption. Technology (especially web 2.0) innovation, is, as ever, the bridge, whether through commerce, content-organisation and social interaction. The missing link as ever - is really smart context management - whether through brands, smart visualisations, or web dialogue. Two new(ish) sites point the way... Zaadz a purposeful (and heavily tag-driven) social community site. and Etsy the buyer-driven arts and crafts community. Commerce, community, conscience...

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Long Tail of Apathy

nice post here from Ross Mayfield, questioning the links between political engagement, civic participation and social software. Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Long Tail of Apathy Cynically, Ross is just creating an excuse for saddos to sit in their lofts blogging to themselves and think that this is some form of 'civil disobedience'...rather than just introversion. As one such saddo, though, I agree with him...

Ultimate brand stretch? Toyota House anyone?

Found this in Digg "Concentrating the knowledge and technology of the Toyota Group to the housing business, Toyota's house making is based on the "Skeleton & Infill" approach. Based on careful consideration of customer lifestyles, three different structures have been developed for the Toyota Home line-up... More detail is available here at Toyota

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