after 20 years, it's time to go to the toilet

My business is 20 years old.

20 years! Only about 10% of enterprises that start-up get this far. 

To put this in perspective - when I started out, smartphones didn't exist! (it would be another year before the first tweet was posted; 2 years before the first iPhone was released on the world; and 3 years before Dropbox was launched. The typical best internet speed was 1Mb compared to around 900Mb today - we had to rely on using sharpened bones to scratch messages onto stones, and then hope people picked those stones up when we threw them at them).

Now, it turns out that the material associated with this particular anniversary is porcelain - something that most of us here in Britain associated with toilets.

But for me to have gotten this far, porcelain actually seems an apt simile for me:

• it has a high elasticity - to be able to keep up with all the changes in the world over the last 2 decades, the range of work I do, and types of organisations I support across all sectors, means I've had to be able to easily keep stretching myself.
• it has considerable strength and hardness - I've pushed hard on some things over the years, often to personal and professional criticism and opposition. This includes: (successfully) challenging CIC legislation; publishing a book that exposes most of the claims that people make about 'imposter syndrome' to be unproven and/or not based in any factual evidences; shining a brighter light on the 500,000+ unpaid carers who are discriminated against by all the bodies that are supposed to be supporting them because they're the only type of carer who aren't recognised in law for the sole reason that we're also self-employed; and calling out the apparent unprofessional practices of some social investors, which are damaging the wider sector; to name but a few.  
• it's translucent - I've openly published details of how I'm creating (or not) impacts of different types each year; and also been honest in my blog posts about when and where I've gotten things wrong.  
• and it has a high resistance to shock - if you've followed my blog over the years, you'll know that since becoming self-employed, my family has been made homeless twice; my father (who lives at the other end of the country) has almost died twice; I've navigated a difficult divorce; been investigated for tax fraud by HMRC three times (and cleared every time); had 'unannounced police visits' late at night; and so on. So much so, that the few people who know just how much 'shock' I've had to respond to and work through over these last 2 decades, are all amazed that I'm not only still in business, but not needed to be admitted anywhere...

So I'm actually pretty chuffed to be associated with porcelain.

But I also didn't want to miss the opportunity to try and mark this milestone - so, linking back to the toilet analogy, I've decided to twin my office toilet with a school in Uganda via https://toilettwinning.org/

25% of all human beings today don't have somewhere safe, clean, and hygienic to go to the toilet. Not only does this create all sorts of associated 'bio-hazards', it strips fellow people of their dignity. And if schools don't have toilets, then kids will find ways not to go there for those reasons, and as a result, lose the chance for education and so lose the future that they could/should have had, including the opportunity to break generational poverty.

So the next time you're paying a visit to the loo this year, please think of me and what you might be able to do to similarly 'be more porcelain'; and maybe if you might also be able find a similar excuse to twin your toilet with someone else's. 

why not being an academic means university students get more benefit from my teaching

Over the last 25 years or so, I've found myself approached from time to time to speak as a guest / associate lecturer within within various universities and faculty schools. And sometimes, I've also been asked to help design new degree course content around themes of social entrepreneurship; social innovation; and there's even a podiatry degree that now has an enterprise start-up module in it thanks to me!

The feedback is always that students enjoy my sessions, and they seem to get more out of them than they do in their usual taught syllabi (a group of students who were part of a startup bootcamp I was part of told me that they'd gained more useful knowledge from the 2 day sessions I'd delivered, than they had from the last 2 years of their business degree!). 

However, despite this consistent appreciation and validation from students, I'm sometimes not invited back...

So there's obviously a dilemma here: students enjoy it, but the university doesn't.

This relates to the old-school marketeers story of the bakers dilemma: understanding that your customer and consumer are often two very different groups of people, each with their own divergent expectations and needs: 

- students want new experiences, they want to learn in new ways, they want to develop their own critical skills in new ways;

- but further and higher education is a regulated teaching context, where curriculum content has to be covered, and assessed in pre-determined ways.

I'm therefore always trying to walk the line between ensuring a university is able to ensure compliance with its teaching requirements, but at the same time, students get an experience different to what they might usually enjoy.

But I also recognise that I'm not 'academically gifted' in the traditional sense: I scraped through school with a clutch of GCSE passes; similarly limped through College with only 2 A-Levels just about passed; and was only offered a place at a business school through clearing (which subsequently saw me graduate with a 'Desmond'* after 5 years) - but I've since gone on to create, co-design, and develop curriculum content and modules for a number of universities and international colleges; influence national policy and company law, etc. 

And all of this means I carry a prejudice and bias about how I see the value of taught curriculums and formal education - but in turn, this means I'm more emboldened to take risks and do things very differently to how students might usually experience learning in academic institutions. And it's this difference that they seem to appreciate and enjoy: having someone who not only talks about how things can be done differently, but physically models this too, encourages them to re-examine their own wider learning and how they are engaging with it, and in doing so, get even more value and benefit from it.

* if you don't know what this is, then I'm obviously far older than I'd like to think I am for making this cultural reference...

the impact of a pandemic on the impact we create

Some of you reading this will be aware that for the last 15 years, I've annually published an 'impact report' on my activities as a sole trader/freelancer - and each time I do, I try and pause to reflect here on some aspect of it that's particularly struck me.

Most businesses, charities, and social enterprises who are currently talking about the impact they've created through the pandemic, successive lock-downs, and the disruption to communities and people's lives over the last year, seem to be largely focussing on what they've done over this last year. Which is fine and proper, but it doesn't help us fully understand the wider, longer-term impacts of the pandemic on how we try and achieve our respective missions - only what our immediate responses to it have been.

But I've been using a consistent framework and measures in how I monitor, report, and reflect on, my impact for over a decade. That means that this year's impact report has allowed me to better explore just how far the disruption to how we work, think, and feel, has truly had on my practices - and as such, I'm better able to consider what changes I might need to introduce as we emerge into our brave new vaccinated world (and which I can politely pass on).

Spoiler alert: it seems the pandemic has had little (or as expected) effect on the metrics I use to capture the impacts I create across different themes.

But what I do find of particular note is:

tax paid: it's been already shown by others that in being self-employed, I already pay proportionately more tax on my income than my counterparts both on payrolls, and those taking their earnings as company Directors. But this year, the amount of tax I've paid has significantly increased - and tracking this back into the data shows that it's because I was fortunate to be eligible for some of the government's coronavirus business support schemes: but that support I received to help me sustain my business (and family) was always going to be subject to being taxed - so although it may have initially seemed I could have breathed a sign of relief when HMRC said I was eligible to apply for SEISS, I always knew that there'd be at least one painful sting in the tail associated with it...

grace: in my last impact report, I'd started to capture and monetise my 'grace': the amount of lost earnings I'd suffered due to people either forgetting that we had arranged to speak/meet, or cancelling training sessions with only a days' notice (with no recourse for me to claim any late cancellation fee). Perhaps the most distressing part of this year's impact report is not that this figure hasn't changed, it's that if anything, its actually increased. Which means that the respect we're showing each other in making sure we turn up (or phone in/log on) when we've agreed to, or at the very least, sending apologies in good time if we know we can't, is on the wane...

But there's lots of other things in this years report. It now runs to 11 pages, with 12 indicators, 3 charts, 3 tables, and a slew of summary case studies and testimonials - in the first year I created it, covering the year 2006-7, it only had 3 numbers and was a footnote in my corporate CV!

And you can view it in all it's glorious technicolour and images, here.

Therefore, please do take a look through it - I'd be keen to hear what strikes you about it as being of particular interest in help me better understand it myself, and to therefore continue to create as much positive impact as I can into the future.

spreading some 'polite anarchy' (and pretending to spider-man)

Bit of a different post, this one (just to warn you).

I was recently interviewed as part of an ongoing podcast series (which is hosted on youtube) called 'Delightful Dissent' - exploring a range of assumptions we make in how we work together, and think about how we approach different circumstances in our lives.

You can catch-up with the arguments and stories about how I explored an assertion about how our trust in others, and our relationships with them, is damaged/enhanced in equal measure when we bring challenges in the workplaces and communities we're part of:

NB: you may need to follow a link in this window to watch the recording, or you can jump directly to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzj55l-pGhQ 

But watching it back (and having watched a few in the series before me), it struck me that I've probably managed to come across as rather 'unprofessional':

• you can see me enjoy a single malt whiskey throughout the conversation;
• I openly retch when the topic of marmite is raised (I'm in the haters camp);
• I encourage Matthew and I to play at being spider-man;
• lego makes an appearance with an encouragement from me that we should all play with it more;
• and I advocate that we should all try and revert to being more of who and what we were as children (because being an adult sucks a lot of the time).

But watch it through, and check out some of the other conversations in the series and see what you think - did I go too far, lower the tone of what should have been a more sombre and thoughtful process, or should I have pushed it further?

becoming deaf, dumb, and blind, during the lock-down

Nearly all of us are currently subject to a national 'lock-down' during an unprecedented pandemic.

And all of us are responding in different ways to the challenges that this 'new world' we now find ourselves living and working in present.

After the initial panic, patterns seem to be starting to stabilise: we're getting used to having to que for an hour (or longer) to get into the supermarket, and then once we're inside for it to take 2-3 times as long to get around as we used to be able to do our shop in, in order to practice social distancing and limiting contact with fellow shoppers and store staff.

But for many, the revelation that they can now work from home using video conferencing and remote access, and which people seem to already be developing habits around, seems to suggest that many will struggle to want to go back to the drudgery of commuting once we're out of the other side of this (whenever that may be).

But there's something about working from home, and also the wider implications of how as enterprises and business we fumble our way forwards through this, that no-one really wants to seem to talk about:

1) what it your internet connection goes down? I've heard of several people and small businesses who have been essentially excluded from the world completely after routine line installs and upgrades fell foul of 'human error', leaving them deaf, dumb, and blind to the world...

2) and what it your tech dies? My laptop's hard drive failed at the start of this week - and it's unlikely that I'll be able to get it anywhere for repair for months, so in the face of having already had nearly all my earning work cancelled by clients already, and an uncertain wait to find out if I'll be able to access the self-employed income support scheme, I've had to pay out several hundreds of pounds unexpectedly to order to buy a new one, and hope that it can be delivered sometime in the next 2 weeks... (in the meantime, my girlfriend has very kindly offered me the use of hers, from which I'm typing this).

3) Gurus and experts all seem to be extolling the virtues of 'pivoting' our business models - but encouraging us to do so in ways that assume that it's only our current market place or customers that are being disrupted - this is nothing like any of us have lived through before, and nothing that was ever conceived of by the academics and speakers who developed these models and frameworks. So for us businesses and enterprises already facing an immediate uncertain future because of cash shortfalls, our longer term planning is also compromised by the models we're being presented with to reinvent ourselves through having been developed for different times...

4) And finally, what happens after the summer for education bodies?

Universities and Colleges quickly moved to continue to offer teaching and classes using on-line platforms, and replace exams with assignments. But within a few months, these will become the norm for many students, who must surely then begin to wonder why they need to raise the money to live on or near a campus to be able to engage with their further and higher education in the future, when they can access it equally from wherever they find themselves living now?

Like many, I can't see that we're ever going to fully return to living and working as we were at the start of 2020, but I wonder how many waves of shock, panic, and fear this pandemic will successively unleash on us before we can all feel its over - and what these will do in turn to our work, learning, and relationships as societies, communities, and economies.

Hopefully the time that the lockdown offers us to start to carefully think about these things will mean that we don't emerge from the pandemic only to fall into the next global panic... 

why I go quiet on social media in times of pandemic

Unless you've been a contestant in a Big Brother House, everyone in the world is currently united in fear about the Corona-virus and Covid-19.

In the UK we've been seeing swift, sweeping actions and measures announced by the government - but in light of the unprecedented nature of what we're now (hopefully) living through, information about how our businesses, livelihoods, and homes can be protected in light of most trading and employment of all types suddenly ceasing (with no indication of when they may return), is scant.

Scant information in times of panic means that we worry and panic more - that's why we see explosions of fake news, contradictory guidance, confusing stories and such like. And our brave new world of social media that we've all been building over the last decade or so means it's scarily easy for all of us to be posting, re-posting, and sharing others' posts like spam-bots. that only exponentially makes the situation worse for all of us and our mental well-being and health.

Which brings me to the title of this post - some of you reading this will now I'm usually relatively prolific across multiple social media channels on an ongoing basis. But I also try and live in a way that's 'authentic' (modelling behaviours in myself that I think are important for us all) - and that means that rather than accidentally 'fanning the flames of social (media) panic', I'm watching what's being posted and shared more than I'm posting myself; and I'm only posting or re-posting content where I think it will offer immediate, tangible, and direct assurance and benefit to groups with whom I closely identify and work with:

- fellow freelancers and the self-employed (all 5 million of us!)

- people who live in rented homes (equivalent to roughly 13 million households)

- co-operatives, social enterprises, and charities 

- micro and local businesses 

As to when I'll resume 'normal service on social media' (insofar as I have a 'normal service') - I'm currently looking to start to ramp back up my traditional provocations, encouragements, and randomness in line with how we as a society start to feel we're coming to terms with this 'new normal'... 

why do we keep insisting on keeping social and 'regular' entrepreneurs apart, when both have the same sh!t to deal with..?

In my experience of supporting various start-up programmes throughout the UK over the last 20 years, and having walked alongside many for part of their journey, most entrepreneurs don't call themselves that. 

They're simply people trying to make a go of an idea to either help them fix a problem they see in their community or help them get a bit more financial security for themselves (usually both).

So I'm increasingly frustrated when I keep seeing national sector bodies re-enforcing a narrative that social and non-social entrepreneurs need special treatment that somehow doesn't seem to apply to the other:

• the School for Social Entrepreneurs recently posted about the 5 ways that social entrepreneurs best learn - but if you took out the 'social' in the title, you'd instantly recognise them as being exactly the same way that any non-social entrepreneur prefers to learn too...

• and the recent Good Deals conference emphasised the impact that being a social entrepreneur has on their mental health - echoing the findings of the World Economic Forums' own research into the mental health of all entrepreneurs around the world... (but not seeming to make any reference or links to this...)

It therefore seems that if you identify as social or not as an entrepreneur, you're probably going to be sharing the same needs, concerns, and preferences for how you access the support you want - and this isn't anything new either: cross-sector research I did into social enterprises, charities, and private businesses all the way back in 2003 (an era of dial-up internet!) found that regardless of which sector people identified as being part of, they all had the same development needs and shared preferences for how they accessed learning and training.

And to my mind that suggests that we're continuing to miss a trick in amplifying the impact that entrepreneurs could be making on society's problems, and the wider economy - why are we creating this artificial segregation of entrepreneurs based on their founding motivations, when the support they need is the same.  And surely by learning and growing together they might better encourage, inspire, challenge, and ultimately "be" more than the sum of their respective camps..?

In the enterprise programmes I've been fortunate to have been able to manage and lead over the years, I've always sought to encourage such a 'mixing it up' philosophy, and although none were ever evaluated on the grounds of it being mixed-sector entrepreneurs, no-one in them seemed to have any problem in undertaking their journey as an entrepreneur with the others who had differing visions or motivations to their own.

So when we will we start to see (social) enterprise support agents admit that these divisions between sectors aren't really that valid or justifiable, and in doing so, be able to be more inclusive in releasing support into our wider communities and economies for the benefit of all..?

the joy of lunchtime lectures

I recently attended a lunchtime lecture - now, don't run off just yet... I know it's not the most thrilling of openings, but bear with me as I think I may have an important idea about why they're better than podcasts, webinars, and MOOCs as a format* - 

I've always been a fan of lifelong learning, and recently being able to spend an hour, immersed in the stories and ideas that surround the topic of "working class writing and publishing in the late twentieth century" (there's even a book published about it!), I was reminded that learning for its own sake can be of as much value as gaining knowledge and skills needed for an exam or particular workplace task. Learning doesn't have to be tied to pre-set outcomes, qualifications, or career progression, to create enjoyment and further our understanding of, and thinking about, the wider world around us.

Historically, adult learning would be only available in such formats: guest lectures at reading rooms and museums, but today technology widens their accessibility through webinars, podcasts, and the like.

But in making such opportunities more accessible to all, I wonder if we haven't lost something along the way - being in a room reduced the distractions to my being able to retain interest and focus on the subject matter. Physically sharing the experience with a roomful of other 'real' people (rather than avatars) re-enforced the value of being there by being part of such a tangible peer community. Needing to invest time to travel to the venue (the impressive and under-recognised Working Class Movement Library) made it more of an occasion - further adding to the experience and my subsequently being a in a head-space that made it far more enjoyable than listening in on a pair of headphones... And the fact that there was tea served afterwards for us all to further reflect on the questions the lecture had started to raise within us was halcyon!

So next time you see a lunchtime lecture (or similar) advertised anywhere, and you the subject matter briefly piques your interest - I'd urge you to make every effort you can to get to it.

(*Of course, I recognise I may be a little biased in having delivered lunchtime lectures myself in the past...)

what I did in 2018 that got me noticed (in trouble?) the most...

It's that time of the year when a lot of people are starting to share their retrospectives of the last 12 months - greatest hits type profiles of their biggest 'wins', most exciting adventure, and such like.

And it struck me that although I'm now entering my 14th year of being self-employed, I've never actually done one on myself. So, in the spirit of the season, and in keeping with the adage of "try everything once apart from morriss dancing* and incest", here goes:

As this is my first one, I thought I'd try and start with something relatively straightforward and simple - what did I write/post about over the year that caught people's interest and imagination the most?

As some may know, I don't place much stock in social media analytics, so don't have fancy dashboards that track my activity across all my social media channels (and there's rather a lot of it!). So what I've done in the 'keep in simple and quick/easy to start' philosophy is to use the dashboards that are built into my blog site, and on twitter, to try and spot which post on each got the most impressions (people coming across it and reading it), as this seems to me to be the 'right' count for the sake of consistency and continuity? 

But enough already, you cry! What's the result - what did I post about this year that got the most people talking, thinking, and otherwise pausing for a brief moment because it chimed with what they're thinking about or trying to work on more (cue drum roll...):

On my blog - it was my post reflecting on my latest social impact report on myself, and how I'm now aligning it to the UN's Global Development Goals:

https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-social-impact-reports-sometimes.html

On twitter - it was celebrating my being named as the most innovative in the UK in developing new csr models: 

https://twitter.com/AdrianAshton2/status/1032656981620867078/photo/1 

At first glance, this might seem a bit narcissistic (something it's been suggested I am in the past by Liam Black), but I'd like to think there's something more encouraging to be taken from this - because to me, what ties both of these posts together is something about being a responsible business: not just in a 'tick box', "we'll help raise some money for a local charity" kind of way, but something deeper about how people are wanting businesses to keep stepping up to the mark and do the right thing by everyone (not just their owners).

This idea also fits with recent national surveys highlighting that public trust in businesses is at an all-time high, while it's at an all-time low in charities, and I'd rather not go into how people are feeling about the government...

So, 2018 - the year that businesses not only heard the rallying call to be the leaders and supporters of society and local communities that we the people are needing, but have also started to try and figure out how they best answer it..?

* sadly I recently came across a photo my mum took of me as a young child dressed in morris dancing attire, but I'm determined to never do a 'luke skywalker'...

too prudish or too offensive?

As a freelancer, I have a lot more freedom than my employed counterparts (something that I've used over the years to challenge and change national policy and legislation, openly argue with some of the direction that sector bodies suggest their members should be taking, and so on - in effect, being a 'modern day prophet').

But while this may sound quite exciting and glamorous, there is also an associated risk - in not being part of an ongoing team, having a line manager, and such like, there's a risk that I may start to believe my own hype, and end up 'going off on one'... which is something I've always sought to avoid through how I've designed part of my business model.

And this usually plays out ok - but sometimes it may mean that I go a step 'too far'.

I recently tweeted whilst on my way to deliver a workshop for a client that would be being attended by a range of people thinking about starting up their own business in the future. I glibly referred to the fact that I was looking forward to busting some of the myths and hype that surround business plans and included a picture of some of my 'learning aides' that any who's ever been in one of my courses will recognise.

For 14 years no-one has ever had an issue with any of these types of toys/gimmicks/props (with the exception of one person who suffered from the diagnosed medical condition pediophobia), but on this occasion, my client phoned me within minutes to ask me to delete it as they felt some people may find some of the content offensive.

Now - I'm not their employee, and neither did our contracted terms relate to anything which said they could direct what I could or couldn't say in my own right, so I could easily have said 'no'. 

But I've always had the approach that if someone's not happy with something that's happened, my first response isn't to find excuses or dodge potential blame, but rather find the quickest way to fix things so everyone can keep on getting along.

So I deleted it.

But, being me, I surreptitiously sought a view from the people attending the workshop about the items in the picture - asking if any of them were offended by any of them (some of which have also featured in national prime-time tv shows). They all said that they couldn't see any problem with any of them.

Which leaves me wondering - are clients sometimes too prudish in what they think others might think, rather than asking those same people, before acting on imagined fears; or am I starting to push the boundaries a little too far...?

(...and even though I've anonymised details so no-one will know who I'm referring to, will the client recognise themselves, and get even more upset with me?)

microbizmatters day - 1 down, 364 to go...

Last week saw the 4th annual #MicroBizMatters Day - a day long live stream on youtube of interviews, performances, challenges, and encouragements to, for, by, and about, micro business owners everywhere (you know, micro business: those small local firms who collectively employ 1/3 of the population, make up 96% of all businesses, and such like, but yet receive hardly any government support...)

Anyways - as with last year, I (and my fez) were invited to the host venue for this year, XYZ Works in Manchester, to help co-ordinate and support the day. And now 'normal service' is being resumed, it's probably a good time to pause to reflect on the day that was, and why it may be the least important day of the year for micro businesses..?

For those of you who missed the day's broadcasts, you can catch up with the full 7 hour (and a bit) broadcast on youtube here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzsYSeNjOgw&feature=youtu.be

And there were also a number of 'bonus extras' broadcast via facebook live over on the MicroBizMatters page there:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/microbizmattersday/videos/?ref=page_internal (where you may be able to spot me showing off my 'red carpet socks' and explaining why a moustache has appeared on my face...)

There's always a lot of excitement around each MicroBizMatters Day, but I'm wondering if in the rush of the romance of it all, we risk forgetting that it may not be that important in the grand scheme of MicroBizMatters - talking with guests and visitors to the 'broadcast suite' on the day, i was struck by how many came to be involved through the ongoing campaigns of the movement. And its these campaigns that we should perhaps highlight more, as its these that will change the culture and landscape for micro business everywhere by being talked about every day, in ways that a single days live stream could never hope to achieve?

#PayIn30 - making sure we keep the cash flowing in micro businesses, and that our clients pay when they're supposed to

#Indie25ER - a target of 25% of our purchases to be made from local independent micro businesses, to help strengthen their resilience as providers of local services and local employment

#NotAnSME - challenging government to do more to recognise the valuable role and contribution of micro businesses to GVA, employment, import/export, and generally doing a fair bit to keep the UK economy going!

#IGave12 - encouraging micro businesses to offer support to each other as part of building a peer-led movement

As for my own personal role on the day, I'm pleased to report that I seem to have retained my reputation for being the MicroBizMatters 'naughty boy' judging by others' posts and comments about me on instagram and twitter (including my tabletop dancing...), but that the professionalism and standard of the other roadies to the day seemed to more than cover for any reputational risk my antics may have otherwise caused:

Jo Harrison - http://www.joharrison.rocks/

Gaynor Carr - http://www.thesmartstation.com/

Ed Goodman - http://www.edagoodman.com/

Elaine Clark - http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/

Marianne Whitfield - http://www.essential-business.co.uk/

Naomi Timperley - http://www.technorthadvocates.com/

Michelle Dorrell - http://www.chellesdesignernails.co.uk/

Paul Lancaster (who also sponsored our breakfast!) - https://plandigitaluk.com/

"ain't nothing like a Dame", forgotten legacies, and growing lettuces in space... (the future of the co-op movement from a regional perspective)

I was recently invited back to my old stomping ground of Cambridge to speak at the Regional Co-op Council's annual conference - as some may know, I spent several years turning around the fortunes a local co-op and social enterprise development agency there, and somehow initiating some ideas that have since become national flagships...

And the invitation was too tempting to pass on: in 1997, The East of England was the first in the country to form a regional co-op forum (which became the regional Co-ops Council model today), and in doing so inspired every other region in the UK to not only form a corresponding Council model, but also informed every region to then go on to create a wider regional social enterprise partnership too! (and I was involved in the forming of both this first regional council, and the subsequent first regional social enterprise partnership too, so nice to go back and see how it was getting on)

The East of England was also the first to create a 10 year strategy for shaping the future of the co-operative movement from a regional perspective (which I still have a copy of!, although sadly just about everyone at the Coops East conference seemed to be unaware of just how influential they've been in shaping the wider movement and beyond through these things in its history...).

Therefore being able to return to remind them of their history and legacy seemed an important thing to do in encouraging the next wave of the 'co-operative revolution'.

(and it was also personally encouraging for me to be able to see some people I originally got to know 15 years ago still active and impacting the world through their roles - Austen and Sally: yes, that's you I'm referring to!)

While the day itself may have seemed to have had too many speakers for some people's comfort (8 main presentations, 2 facilitated round table planning activities, and a break for lunch - and all in the space of about 5 hours), my impression is that many also felt that they wanted more... and my overriding impression was that rather than blinding people with stats and policy headlines, all of the speakers more appropriately drew on stories and histories of their respective co-ops - its stories that capture our interest and imagination much more powerfully, and make it easier to share these ideas with other people, than any set of quantitative data and mapping reports ever can.

So to try and summarise what impressed upon me most from the day means I'll omit some things that others felt were the highlights for them, or focus on some aspects that others felt were more of an irrelevance. But that's part of the joy of blogging - encouraging you to subsequently read others' write ups and form your own view, and a reflection of the diversity of the co-operative movement itself. However, for me the 'highlights' I'd like to share are as follows:

1. Co-ops were highlighted at being at the forefront of the next agricultural revolution with the workers co-op, Delta T Devices, sharing how their equipment is helping to grow lettuces on the international space station
2. Dame Pauline Green passionately argued how co-ops have become the UK's greatest ever export, revealed how she's now a good mate of the Pope, and had people highlight that a musical about her work for the movement is already well know - "There is nothing like a Dame" from South Pacific
3. Tweets that people were making on the day drew interest in what Coops East were doing from the co-operative movement internationally
4. It's impossible for nearly any co-operative to fully cover all of the impact and ways in which they are contributing to making the world a better place in only 9 minutes
5. While some co-ops may be accused of having too many aims for their own good, and people encourage them to therefore reduce them in number; if you were a parent with 'too many children', how could you choose which of them to give up?
6. People's ideas for what a 'paradise region' might look like if the East of England were to be transformed by the co-op sector struck me as being reminiscent of the role that Co-op societies held in their communities at the start of the 20th century (community social events, everyone being aware about what co-ops are and using them as their preferred suppliers and shops, schools being explicitly linked with coops and teaching children about them, local businesses being encouraged and supported by them...)
7. Some co-ops present (and who spoke) seemed unaware of the national programmes and influence they'd created over the years until I referred to some of these during the Q&A panels
8. I also found myself being volunteered to chair the conference in lieu of my father who was too unwell to do so, and so naturally took the opportunity to do some table-top dancing as part of the official proceedings...

I think my overriding takeaway from the day was that as a movement we have a legacy (and future) that is far more impressive and powerful than most realise, but we risk losing it all if we forget our history and don't keep regularly sharing and reminding ourselves of our stories.

But the whole day was also tweeted and instagrammed about by various other people there - just check out the day's hashtag to see other's pictures and stories via #acoopregion; and Coops East have also uploaded all of the speakers notes and presentations to their website: http://www.cooperatives-east.coop/events/acooperativeregion/

not just for a Sunday..?

While I've never been an 'in your face' type of person when it comes to my personal faith and beliefs, I've never made a secret of them (one of my first ever blogs talked about how I try and reflect my faith in how I approach my work with clients).

And its always seemed to me that as a society, we seem to have a cultural norm of handling 'faith' and 'work' as two separate spheres: 99% of all the church sermons and teachings I've exposed myself to over the years have never offered me any direction in helping me reflect on how my faith should inform my work, and various special interest theological journals and groups that I subscribe to seem to take as their starting point that you're a middle-manager or business owner. But an awful lot of us out here are self-employed and freelancers...

However, I was inspired to take this pic of a wall hanging at St Peters Church in Walsden, where I recently attending their service as the guest of my oldest son who attends there regularly. And then I shared it on my various social media channels as it's very rare that I see such examples of an explicit recognition and encouragement of how God is present in all things - not just the Sundays, or in the 'green and pleasant lands'... As such, I wanted to celebrate this, and social media seemed the easiest way to do that.

And I was greatly encouraged by the responses - it's become one of my more popular posts; to date:

Instagram - over 100 impressions

Twitter - nearly 350 impressions

LinkedIn - over 1,000 views (and a dozen likes)

all of which seems to suggest to me that as a community of businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers we're also hungry to explore how we better connect our faith and belief with our work.

So in the great tradition of all the best teachers through history, I'm not going to leave you with what we do about this, or try and draw some deep mystical meaning, but instead invite you to continue the discussion below in the comments to this blog, on instagram, twitter, and LinkedIn...

debt, decommissioning, and death - the dark side of social entrepreneurship...

As a sector, social enterprise always seems to be talking about upbeat and positive stories - you never really hear about chief execs running off with pension funds, administrators foreclosing the business causing the loss of hundreds of jobs, or things like the government having to bail them out...

And I've an idea that that's because as a sector, there's a lot of political agenda being acted out, and that's led to a sense that we can't talk about failure or difficulty - because that would go against the narrative that the sector is trying to present to the wider world.

But that's surely a dangerous thing? If we're not open about the 'tough stuff" that goes on - the failures, the losses, the pain, then how can we hope to develop a generation of social entrepreneurs who are truly realistic about the marketplaces that they're leading their ventures into, and what may be asked of them personally if they're to be able to make a success of it all?

There are signs of hope though - the rise of "FuckUp nights", a model of support to help entrepreneurs recover from failure, that we've imported from our American cousins. And I was also greatly encouraged from recently being able to participate in part of a 12 month national programme of support for social entrepreneurs: all the ventures being supported through the programme meet together once a month and the first thing they do is share what they've been struggling with - not as a ploy to gain faux sympathies, but as a powerful model to build supportive relationships through showing vulnerability, and allowing opportunities for their peers to reciprocate by sharing in turn when they've faced similar and how they tried to deal with it.

And the struggles people share aren't what you might expect based on the messages and stories usually coming out of the sector - it's a hard shock to some to hear about:

• how fellow entrepreneurs have found themselves taking on debt that they now can't repay; 
• how despite the push for us all to pursue public sector contracts, those services we win and deliver are being increasingly decommissioned, leaving ventures with a business model that no longer works and no obvious way to continue the support they've been able to offer; 
• and the loneliness of being an entrepreneur when a close family member dies - working the grief and pain that's felt, while at the same time trying to also keep a fledgling venture running and support its staff and clients...

Social enterprise, like any other form of business, is tough. And we're surely only setting up future social entrepreneurs to fail if we don't encourage each other to be more open and honest about how tough it can really be sometimes?

my alternative (social) entrepreneurs' A-Z

It’s all Chris Lee and Liam Black’s fault.

If they hadn’t started their ‘entrepreneur’s A to Z’s, I’d have happily sailed on, but something like that, to someone like me… well, you can see from Chris’ blog where he published his A-Z that I was compelled to offer some kind of ‘harsh truth’ alternative. And then he asked me nicely if I’d do my own social entrepreneurs’ A-Z, based on my own experiences of being a micro enterprise these last 9 years, and supporting countless others over the last 3 decades….

So here it is – a no-holds barred, ‘what they don’t tell you about what it’ll be like’ A-Z of being a (social) entrepreneur. And I’ll probably change my mind about most of these after Chris has posted them up, but nothing lasts forever, so here’s my alphabet for now:

A – anxiety; this is natural. Best to medicate symptoms with beer and cake.

B – bluster and bravado; people will take you more seriously the more confident you sound, so don’t be so British: be more American in how to present and promote yourself!

C – coffee; there’ll be many late nights. And even longer weekends, so make sure there’s always plenty in the kitchen.

D – denial; you’ll deal with a lot of this in your clients. Brush up on your diplomacy with them.

E – eggs; they’re good for you. Eat healthy. You’ll thank me for that later.

F – fooling around; don’t forget to try and have fun in what you do. It you wanted a boring job, you should have got that job stacking shelves in a supermarket.

G – goosebumps; there’ll be moments of such excitement when you realise you’ve pulled off what you thought wasn’t possible within the laws of this universe. Enjoy them, revel in them, and encourage others with stories about them.

H – hype and spin; there’s a lot from sector bodies and politicians. Learn how to spot it, and how to ignore it.

I – internet and social media; a wonderful source of faux companionship, and also of filling those odd bits of time between meetings and other things.

J – jumping through other people’s hoops; you can choose not to, but then you won’t get any paying work. Choose your hoops carefully…

K – kleptomania; keep your stationery supplies topped up by taking the free pens, etc from exhibitors and conferences

L – lies, damned lies, and statistics; you’ll start out wondering how anyone can behave apparently completely dishonestly in their dealings with you. If you’re not careful, you’ll eventually start to turn into them…

M – money; you can never have enough, and you often won’t have enough. As much as you wish you could get through this world on love and fresh air, someone’s got to pay to keep the lights on.

N – naughtiness; get into trouble – it’s the best way to get noticed and create impact (and you can always apologise later…)

O – opportunistic; grab chances where you see them – they’ll probably not come around again for some time…

P – pubs; you won’t see the inside of these as much as you used to/would like to.

Q – questions; people don’t asked enough of them, especially about (sometimes questionable) advice they’re offered from ‘expert advisers’

R – research; you can never do enough: keep learning about everything or you’ll quickly be surpassed by others.

S – stories; in the end we’re all stories. Make sure yours is a good one.

T – time travel; you’ll wish you had this to cope with shifting deadlines by clients.

U – universe; the universe is a big place – don’t forget that: it might help keep things in perspective.

V – values; know what you stand for, what you’re willing to compromise on, and where you’re not happy to go: once you’re out there, it’s easy to drift into ‘bad habits’ otherwise…

W – wives (and other types of spouse); you’ll spend less time with them, so make sure when you do, that they know they have your full attention.

X – xenophobia; don’t avoid outsiders – they’ll often be more interesting and challenging to your ideas (and therefore success) that you usual crowd of mates will be.

Y – yellow snow; never eat this. And never overlook the value of advice and support that also reflects common sense – it’s a rare commodity.

Z – zoos; sometimes you’ll be the zookeeper, sometimes the animal being expected to perform. Remember that both have their place, and neither can flourish without the other.

 

This post first appeared as a guest blog on enterpriseessentials blog on Dec 17 2014