The Social Business

The benefits of organic food production

The Food Standards Agency yesterday published some research which claimed that organic food offers no extra nutritional benefits when compared with conventionally produced food. 

Their aim, they suggest, is to enable consumers to make "an informed choice".

Have these researchers been living in a cave, with nothing to sustain them other than a few berries and nuts?  I don't think that the majority of people who eat organic food think that it's going to make them healthier.  They don't eat organic broccoli thinking that its stuffed full of nutrients that just aren't there in non-organic brocolli.

They eat it, I think, because they think that farming non-intensively, without routine use of pesticides, is a better way to produce food - better for us (in a wider health and wellbeing sense), better for wildlife, better for the long-term health of the planet.  And it's not just about not using pesticides - it's often about a whole different approach to linking consumers, farmers and food.

You can read the Soil Association's response to the research here.  

I thought I'd pop down to Swillington Organic Farm to see what they thought of the research.  There were plenty of customers there who've clearly made up their own mind, and who frankly don't need second-rate FSA research to help them to make an informed choice.  Here's what the Farm's Organic Apprentice thinks the benefits are of the way they farm at Swillington:

What am I going to do about it?

Liam Black, from Wavelength, made an interesting comment on Tuesday's post about local food.  I'd suggested that the woman in the photo was probably thinking that I was some kind of freak.  Liam replied:

"Face it she's right - you are some kind of freak!!  But in a good way.  You give a shit about important stuff and you say interesting things.  That puts you in a very small group indeed Mr Greenland.  Why are you demotivated and what are you going to do about that??"

I've been wondering how to promote myself for a while.  Liam's solved the problem.  "Hello, my name's Rob Greenland, and I'm a freak who gives a shit about important stuff."  That'd get Theo and Duncan's attention.  

I'm more interested in his question though.  "Why are you demotivated and what are you going to do about that?"  In the original post I'd said that I'd been out on my bike, partly to stimulate my brain a bit as I wasn't getting the stimulus from the work I was doing.

If you read this blog regularly you'll hopefully appreciate that I aim to be pretty honest about things.  There's clearly a risk in me basically questioning whether I'm doing the right thing, given that I earn a living out of the things that I do.   But I believe that in being honest good discussions open up - like the one that Liam's started here.

I wrote this in my first blog post of 2009:

...If social business is really something that I want to make a living out of long-term, I have to do things that I think create change....  If this reads as much as a memo to self as a blog post, that's because it is.  If you see me chasing money and not creating much change this year, buy all means point me to this blog post.  

I don't think I've chased the money, and I've done a fair bit of thinking about what I want to do longer term. I'm still not completely sure what that is - but I'm pretty clear that I don't want to just continue doing what I've done for the past four years.  

I've mainly focused on third sector social enterprise stuff - helping third sector organisations to become more enterprising. I think - hope - that I've done some useful work.  Yet I've been part of, and become increasingly sceptical of, a social enterprise support industry that at times has felt like the enterprise arm of the UK Government.    Don't get me wrong, I'm keen on finding different organisations to deliver public services, and I also like to see organisations find ways to sustain what they do.  But I came into this to do more than that.

I won't be jumping into the sea, Reggie Perrin style, with my old social enterprise clothes in a heap on the beach.  But I'm keen to explore different ways to create social change - not just in the third sector.  I'm not sure what that will be yet, but I think you need to free up space in your life if you want to explore different things.  If I continue to work 100% on what I do now (and it seems that there's still plenty of work out there for me) then I'll never get round to doing something different.

Does any of this matter to anyone other than me?  I think it does.  I don't think I'm alone in being increasingly sceptical about a lot of what goes on in this country under the banner of social enterprise.  I'll let Liam speak for himself, but I think his move - into a private company (heaven forbid), working with, yes you guessed it, private companies (alongside social enterprises), is an interesting one.  He seems to believe that that's where he can help to create most change.  

So Liam, thanks for the question, it was a good one!

More of what I want

I've just been out for an hour on my bike.  I have a nice little circular route which I ride regularly, with a few good hills and some nice greenery.  I'm trying to cycle more at the moment for a few reasons.  

One is to get fit and lose weight (having never had to worry about that kind of thing I've noticed the beginnings of middle-age expansion recently).  Another is to be a bit more eco - if I'm fitter I'm more likely to use the car less.  And the final one is that I'm pretty demotivated by a lot of what I do at the moment - so an hour's bike ride tricks my brain into stimulus (and is better than sitting at my desk looking at my Google stats).

There's a farm shop half way round my bike ride, so I often stop there to buy a bit of veg.  They're really friendly and have some tasty veg.  Obviously now is prime time for tasty summer produce:

(I like the way the woman is staring at me, probably thinking I'm some kind of freak)

I then continue through Fulneck and then down into the centre of Pudsey.  I stopped at the lights and noticed the following:

I'm in prime position to win £100 for the most debated post of the month in the Bloggers Circle.  That post praised supermarkets for their efforts to reduce plastic bag use.  So, just to show I'm not going soft, here's a post having a go at a supermarket.  The fact that they call their store Local just shows how messed up our food and shopping cultures are.  And no, Sainsburys, your store isn't bulging with all the things I want.  I don't want onions from New Zealand, or green beans from Zambia.  I want cauliflowers from Pudsey please.

EXCLUSIVE: Ken Dodd named as UK's Happiness Tsar

The Social Business can exclusively reveal that Knotty Ash comic Ken Dodd has been chosen by Gordon Brown as his Happiness Tsar.

The move is seen as an attempt by the Prime Minister to seize the initiative back from the Tories in the debate about Gross National Happiness.  Brown is said to have been incensed that the feature on happiness on this morning's Today Programme featured an excerpt from a speech on the topic by Cameron.

Dodd, speaking from his Knotty Ash home, told The Social Business "I really am delighted to be joining the Government of all the Tickles."

The Liverpool funnyman is keen to make his mark on national life.  In a high profile move, he is in talks with Peter Mandelson to re-open his jam butty mines as a social enterprise, offering valuable work opportunities to local young people, with support from the Future Jobs Fund.  

Dodd has also helped the Department of Health to write the script for the call centre staff at the UK's Pandemic Flu hotline.  After a series of questions about symptoms, callers will be told one of the many swine flu jokes that are doing the rounds.  If they laugh, they're clearly not that unwell.  If they don't find the joke funny, they will be offered a course of Tamiflu, and a free DVD of Dodd's 2008 Happiness tour to watch in bed.

The Tories have dismissed the move as "a gimmick from a Government which is clearly now a laughing stock."  Meanwhile David Cameron is this afternoon expected to name Jimmy Tarbuck to shadow Dodd.

Dodd's appointment is bound to stir up controversy, similar to that which followed Brown's appointment of Alan Sugar as Enterprise Tsar.  There are calls for Dodd to postpone his 2010 tour to after the general election.  Not to avoid the possibility of political bias, but because we'll all need a good laugh after the Tories get into power.

Leeds Progress School - Please Join Us

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit worried about the world.  

Don't get me wrong.  I have a real sense of optimism that as human beings we're smart enough to get ourselves out of some of the big social issues we face.  You can take your pick - the ones that come immediately to my mind are global warming, how we look after older people, how we educate our children, obesity, and public services. I'd think of thirty more if I had ten minutes.  You'll have your own list of things that you want to change in the world.

It goes without saying that you won't solve those big problems on your own.  A few of us in Leeds have talked about this for a while - and about how we can really help to move things forward.  Progress School is what has emerged.  

We don't know exactly what Progress School will be, because that will depend on who turns up.  But we know it won't be a School with a pre-defined curriculum, sweetened with a procession of experts and celebrity entrepreneurs to stand up front and entertain you.  

It also won't cost you an arm and a leg to come along.  In fact, if you're skint, it needn't cost you anything at all.  We'll ask you to pay what you can - whatever that might be.  

And who might you be?  We think you'll be someone who recognises that you really need to get your act together if you're going to create the kind of change that you want to see.  You might think of yourself as a social entrepreneur, or maybe a local community activist.   You might be a civil servant - you could be a politician.  You might be none of the above.  Money may matter more to you than anything else - or it may be a distraction.  Whoever you are - if you're serious about progress, we'd be keen for you to come along.  

We will ask a lot of each other.  To really create change - to progress - we need to be honest with ourselves and with each other.  We need to be honest about how things are - and not confuse that with how things could be - or with how things look in our marketing materials.  We also need to support each other, collaborate, criticise and encourage.  Our aim is to create an informal learning environment where that kind of thing can take place.

You can find out more about Leeds Progress School here.  We'll meet for the first time on 23rd September at Hillside in Beeston.  If you'd be interested in coming along - or just want to find out a bit more - please get in touch with Mike Chitty - or leave a comment here and we'll get back to you.

Time to start sneezing

I enjoyed watching I Robot on Film 4 last night.  Will Smith can do no wrong in our house.  There's a great scene where he's listening to the boss of the company whose robots are clearly malfunctioning.  The guy is denying there's a problem.  Smith sneezes an almighty sneeze.  The guy is startled.  "Sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit" is Smith's character's reply.

I was in a meeting last week with some people from the public sector.  I have to keep it vague unfortunately but they were people who supposedly were decision makers - and who could decide to support a social business I've worked with, through buying their service.  Alternatively, they could procrastinate, pass the buck, and talk utter nonesense, thus putting the business at risk - whilst also ensuring that loads of people no longer get a valuable service.  They could also decide to do some research into setting up a similar service themselves, some time in the next 100 years.  You can probably imagine which way the meeting went.

I should have sneezed.  It wouldn't have gone down well given our current pandemic.  I don't know what's worse - that these people couldn't see how ridiculous their position was - or that they can see it, and they just don't give a damn.    Either way, it's just not on.  

Nudge nudge, bag bag

I was in our local Tesco the other day and the woman on the till asked me an interesting question.  Or at least it was of interest to someone like me who's intrigued by language.  She asked:   

"Have you got your bags with you?"

As it happens I did.  The two people in front of me in the queue had theirs too.  I wrote last year about Tesco opening at Bramley Shopping Centre.  They gave away re-usable bags for the first few weeks, and it's striking how many people still use them.  

It's in the news today that supermarkets just missed their target of 50% reduction in plastic bag use (they got to 48%).  I'm not a big fan of supermarkets but I think on this one they need to be congratulated.  Remember the reaction against proposals to tax plastic bags, and how, many believed, people would never change their habits.  

Far too many bags are still used but a 48% reduction is a massive improvement.  If businesses and the public can get their act together on this issue, what other seemingly impossible environmental problems might we solve?  It may also suggest that it's better to nudge people into doing the right thing (like the clever question the checkout assistant was trained to ask), rather than taxing them into behavioural change.  

I was cycling home the other day and I could see a plastic bag floating down the road, tumbleweed style, towards me.  It got caught in my chain and wrapped itself around my rear sprocket.  My bike came to a sudden halt, and it took me half an hour to pull all the bits of plastic out.  It felt like one final, desperate act of revenge from a dying breed.  

Eggs for breakfast

One of the things I'm challenging myself on as a result of getting involved in the climate change group is my love of clever bits of technology.  My latest purchase - as you may have guessed from the videos that are starting to appear on the blog - is a small video camera.  It's great - and came highly recommended by the Social Reporter, David Wilcox.  I like it because it's small and unobtrusive - the size of a mobile phone -  and doesn't really get in the way of normal conversations.

I need to work on my technique a bit (mainly to nod in encouragement instead of muttering away constantly in the background) but I like it as a way of getting messages across.

I was at Swillington Organic Farm yesterday doing a few short videos.  Our idea is to give people a real insight into what it's like behind the scenes at the farm.  Here's our first film - about their free-range laying hens.  And if you know anything about free range, you'll know there's free range and there's really free range.  I think you'll see from the film that Swillington's hens have all the room a hen could wish for.

Sweet FA

I went to a Business Link talk today by the founder of Gu Chocolate Puds, James Averdieck.

I have to be honest and say I found the talk quite boring.  These things usually work because the speaker has an interesting story to tell, or is a speaker who can communicate some business "truths" in an engaging way.  Or, very occasionally, you'll find someone who's got something genuinely new and interesting to say.

For me, he offered none of the above.  It felt like a polished sales pitch for a faultless business.  And his key lessons were from the bleeding obvious school of business - get your culture right, get the right team, stand out from the crowd, delight your customers (wow, really?)

The only point of interest for me is that he told us that the reason S'rAlan's Apprentices usually leave after 12 months is that the BBC pays their £100k salary in year 1, then he drops them to £30k as soon as it's coming out of his pocket.  

I met my friend and social entrepreneur Caroline Wherritt from Re-Work Office Furniture there.  I thought she had more interesting things to say, so I did a short interview with her after lunch:

 

Good arguments

We had another meeting of our climate change group on Monday.

One thing we want to do is look at our own lifestyles and do a bit of
a "sustainability" audit.

We'd like to go beyond energy use and look at how we need to alter our
lifestyles to give the planet (or at least us on it) a fighting chance
of survival.

The discussion got a bit heated when we talked about the issue of
working too much. Someone raised the issue of the relationship between
work, money and leading a "good life". Maybe we all need to work, and
earn, less.

Not everyone agreed that we're all in a position to cut down. Of
course some of us have more slack than others, because we earn more.
But I'd argue that we all need to consider these issues.

It's one to discuss more. Again it proves to me the value of the
group. To challenge eachother on tough, personal issues like our
attitudes to money, consumption etc, we need to trust eachother. A
politician telling me what to do will wind me up. So might a friend.
But I'll listen more to a friend, and probably reflect and act more as
a result.

Sent from my iPhone

Rob Greenland Social Business Consulting 07905 800 710 rob@socialbusinessconsulting.co.uk