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?

crystal ball or disco ball?

One of the tough things about being an entrepreneur is however hard you try, you can never fully predict the future.

One of the other things about being an entrepreneur is that when you look back, you realise you've usually a lot of achievement to celebrate.

So which is more important to focus on having? - a crystal ball to try and second guess what everyone else is going to do next so we can sidestep the coming poop and make sure we're in the right place at the right time, or having a disco ball to remind us to celebrate our successes and renew our excitement for taking on whatever comes next?

Of course - it's not really an either/or question: we need to have both in whatever enterprises we create or are part of. The tricky part is not only reminding ourselves that we have them, but also to get them out from time to time.

(for the record - I take a disco ball to every startup I support as a gift to their first office warming party)

Bah Humbug - why I won’t be celebrating Christmas…(as much as my employed counterparts)

Its that most magical time of the year again when everyone who’s fortunate enough to be in employment gets invited to ‘the works do’ - a chance to relax with colleagues and friends, reflect on the highs and lows of the year just passed, and generally make merry. A time to be encouraged and re-invigorated.

But not for me. Not because I’ve not been invited to others’ works do’s (‘cos I have, but have had to turn them all down owing to other clients needing me to support them fix problems when those parties are taking place - I’m afraid that for the time of life at the moment, the choice of earning money to pay bills always has to come first), but because as a sole trader, the tax office discriminates against me being able to have my own celebrations in the way that my employed counterparts can:

You see, the tax office allows for a spend of up to £150 per employee in respect of Christmas parties (so if your boss is saying they can’t afford anything more than limp sandwiches and  1 bottle of cheap plonk between 15 people, you can set them straight!). But this only applies to people who are in the employ of others - not those who are self-employed. Any celebratory costs I incur on behalf of myself and others I‘m fortunate enough to work with and might choose to partake of a mice pie and sherry with, I have to bear the full costs of at my personal expense after tax…

Given that the growth of the business population seems to be increasingly rooted in people like me: the self-employed, surely its time for HMRC to review these rules so we don’t have to miss out on the festivities that others are enjoying…?

But this is Christmas time - not a time to be melancholic and upset, but a time to try and spread goodwill: so to all my fellow sole traders, you can hopefully draw some moral comfort from this in that you’re not the only one to feel you’re missing out on the egg nog and turn under the mistletoe;

to everyone else-  warmest wishes of the season to you and your loved ones;

as for me - I’m off to seek what’s on special offer at my local off-license, find a limp sandwich and pull my cracker by myself…

Pornography is more ethical than tobacco

...at least, that's the finding of the most recent research into charity investment funds.

What surprised me most isn't the ordering of what's most and least ethical, but the gap between them: nearly 90% avoid tobacco, while only 36% avoid alcohol.

But what are these ethical views based on? In the case of this survey, it was principally the fear of reputational risk to the charity. But other institutions base their ethical decisions on what their customers view to be the 'most' ethical from a short-list of options (for example, The Co-operative Bank).

But what should we as consumers, citizens and otherwise general influencers of the world at large be then basing our ethics on?
I wrote a piece a few years ago

arguing that faith-based entrepreneurs could teach us a lot as a movement in this regard as their ethics are based on their faith which in turn is rooted in scriptures and theologies that have remained pretty consistent over the centuries and millennia – and its important that as social entrepreneurs we are aware of the implications of ethics changing: remember that in the grand scheme of things, its not that long ago that slavery was deemed to be ethically acceptable...

Then there's also the argument that its only by actually investing these 'unethical' industries that we can hope to change them for the better.

fair trade tobacco?

a few years ago, I was asked if I knew of anywhere a colleague might be able to procure fair trade tobacco from - and it got me thinking: why not?

1) Fair Trade producers are inevitably organised as marketing or agricultural co-ops, and there's at least one tobacco growers co-op (in Tanzania - scroll down to the bottom of this linked page to find their contact details

)

2) There seem to be lots of 'lifestyle' goods gaining the fair-trade label beyond food - fashion clothing, footballs...

3) An ethical dilemma? Well, to my knowledge the Fair Trade foundation who administers the mark have no stated restrictions as to the types of goods that they can't assure on the basis of ethics

So why not fair trade tobacco?

For the sake of all those smokers who want to be more ethical, let’s help them at least change the impact they have on poverty through the 'lifestyle choices' they've made (just like we do for those people who can't quite kick their love of chocolate or alcohol in the form of wine...)