This is great … an MGM produced promotional video of Victoria and Vancouver replete with 1930’s era newsreel music. I’m half expecting Tom to start chasing Jerry across the screen into a mouse hole.

We know that companies all over the world are doing great things, but only a few are effectively telling their story.

MakeGood acts as the bridge between the customers and businesses, enabling companies to display the positive things they are doing while publicly stating their commitment to social responsibility. Which is great for customers, because they can see what each company cares about and supports.

Businesses have a responsibility to make the world a better place, beyond just the balance sheet. But it’s not only about a big corporate donation. Being responsible can be employees donating their lunch hour to volunteer at a soup kitchen or making environmentally friendly choices; like going paperless.

With the MakeGood System, businesses are able to communicate the causes they support, simply and easily.

Click here to see How MakeGood Works.

… I guess in a way, I needed change, but really just wanted to start over. I may “repost” a number of historical posts, but probably the only the ones that are even remotely interesting (trust me … not that many are). Also, I’ll probably “pre date” them to their original date.

Anyway, I’ve now installed WordPress on my MediaTemple-hosted web site. It is actually a very easy “one click” installation.

This post in fact is a bit of a test to see if it is set up alright, since I’m writing this in Windows Live Writer.

I remember in the late 90’s, when I was an analyst for a venture capital firm, the number of “pimply-faced” self-styled entrepreneurs that would come in with a hastily written business plan, seeking 7- and 8-figure series A financing. Without exception these business plans had one thing in common: no prospect of positive operating cashflow or income in my lifetime.

When we would interview these young “visionaries” and ask about the prospects of positive cashflow or income, they would often suggest “that was the old economy”. The “new economy” at that time apparently had more to do with market share and “eyeballs”. This “new economy thinking” had a predictable result, demonstrating that history does repeat itself.

Not that the parallel to recent “innovation” in the financial markets is perfect, but I find myself wondering when we’ll just return to plain old business values, measures and principles? The Canadian banking system has been considered one of the strongest in the world, thanks principally to common sense regulatory constraints on capital-to-lending ratios, aggressive acquisitions and the use of highly “creative” financial instruments.

A recent article by McKinsey & Company’s then-Worldwide Managing Director Ian Davis points out that the change in “business as usual” will be a boon to competitiveness and market efficiency suggesting that there will continue to be substantial strides in technology-led innovation and knowledge management. He later concludes that “the result will be an environment that, while different from the past, is no less rich in possibilities for those who are prepared.”

In fact, with the increased participation of governments in the global economy through nationalisation initiatives and public investment through to increased levels of regulation and oversight, organisations may find that state- and federal-government may be their largest and most significant trading partner. Developing strategies to work more effectively and efficiently with government should be priority for every chief executive.

We believe that in order to be differentiated in the “new economy” organisations will need to develop unprecedented levels of connectivity with and between workers, trading partners and even the underlying systems and processes that define your business. This is what we refer to as the “Connected Business” and developing mature capabilities in this area will deliver demonstrated outcomes that contribute to real gains in productivity and returns to equity.

… so after 6 months (January 31, 2009 I’m guessing) my existing card got cancelled with no further warning.  This has resulted in me having to scramble to renew a number of pre-authorised payment vendors and left me a little red-faced today at a local restaurant with colleagues and clients.

My question: Does it seem odd/fair that Visa (or is it RBC?) should be able to force a card “upgrade” when my original card doesn’t actually expire for months?

A call to their customer service department resulted in only one option: they could courier a new card (under the new plan) to me, which would take 2 days because it is after 5pm … Eastern time. I guess my other option is that I could cancel my account… which I will.

This is probably neither here nor there, but this card in particular does between $8,000 – $15,000 per month on average in volume (paid monthly in full) because I use it for my company… and I’ve had it for at least 8-10 years, which I would presume makes me a good customer.

Does anyone else have a story similar to this? If so, please comment here and submit a complaint to the following agencies:

As for me, I’ve sent the details and submitted formal complaints (where applicable) to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority, the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments, the Better Business Bureau (in Vancouver and in Oakland/San Francisco… because that’s where Visa Headquarters are) and even our local consumer affairs watchdog at CTV’s “Olsen on Your Side”. That’s just so far…

Corporate Social Responsibility

A colleague of mine, Dr. Rick Goossen, has recently launched an interesting new web-based offering that allows companies to socialise their social good works.

MakeGood (www.MakeGood.com) seeks to use the power and wisdom of the masses to certify or verify the good works of a given company.  The concept is simple: Rather than pay a third-party “authority” to certify your results/contribution, a company will simply put your social contribution “out there” for the masses to verify on their behalf.

I guess what is interesting about this is that it makes the act of socialising social responsibility truly … er … social.

It engages employees, customers and even community members in the process, and if successful this initiative could contribute substantially to what is seemingly a growing movement of corporate social responsibility (for both altruistic and competitive reasons).

As a footnote, their logo has recently won awards and is clearly a call-back to the days of earning “merit badges” in Scouting.  In fact, the site defines a number of “cause badges” that can be earned for various types of contribution related to carbon credits, disaster relief, cancer, clean water, hunger and many more.

Avantage Partners currently lists MakeGood as a partner, both in terms of aligned vision and values, but as well is leveraging MakeGood to manage and promote social responsibility in our region and industry:

So … when are you going to Make Good?

www.Idiagram.com

I’ve spent some time on this site, and have to hand it to the author Marshall Clemens, I’m impressed.

Not only does his style work for me, but the challenge of representing complex systems, problems or solutions into such easily understood illustrations or models I’m convinced now is a gift… or maybe a black art.

As I go through the site, so many concepts are illustrated so clearly that I want to bookmark every page.  I won’t, but I will pass on a couple thoughts and a few links.

There are two things that have got me thinking:

1. Complex Problem Solving.  Being a more visual person myself, I need to be able to see the problem or solution before I’m able to comprehend it.  My training in the field of Economics teaches me to model, illustrate or diagram complex issues and create over-simplified metaphors using “ceteris paribus” assumptions to try to get to the heart of the hypothesis.  Marshall takes this further, inferring that these models become in a sense the system (or problem, solution, etc.) itself:
   

   This is the Point:

   Because complex systems are abstract, visual models and visual metaphors — whether in our heads or on paper — are not just useful analogies or an interesting way to think about such things, to us they ARE the things.  Other than mathematical models, and very limited direct experience, they embody most of what we understand about such systems.

   Visual models and metaphors of complex systems — how we imagine them, how we draw them — matter because to us they are the systems.  If we are to understand complex systems, talk about them, use them to model the world, then we should be careful that our conceptions of them — our distinctly visual conceptions — are accurate and productive.

   – Marshal Clemens, Idiagram

2. Practical Visual Modelling.  On a more pedestrian level, I’m envious of Marshall’s ability to create visual models that convey high-level concepts as well as intricate details all within the same canvas… something I’ve never been able to do well myself.  Beyond my graphics-impairment, the Idiagram models convey so much more information.

	vs.
My Modelling Style		Idiagram Modelling Style

Here are a few of my favourite pieces:

• Main site:
  http://www.idiagram.com/index.html
• Interactive “Art of Complex Problem Solving” (mouse-over the stages):

  http://www.idiagram.com/CP/cpprocess.html

• The Approach:
  http://www.idiagram.com/approach/approach.html
• Strategic Mapping:
  http://www.idiagram.com/ideas/strategic_mapping.html
• PowerPoint (the builds help the visualization):

  http://www.idiagram.com/examples/powerpoint.html

• Interactive Complex Systems Science (CSS) Map:

  http://www.idiagram.com/examples/vcss/vcss.html

The irony of this cartoon is that the "employee" may in fact be correct.  Granted that a chart with this kind of dramatic drop-off is not typically illustrative of positive performance, we all too often pay these one-dimensional measurements too much attention.

Like the analogy of the airline pilot sitting behind a cockpit dashboard with only an altimeter.  When asked by a (nervous) passenger, he responded, "Oh that?  This week I’m really concentrating on managing my altitude better… next week I’ll work on airspeed".

How many times have you seen organizations look myopically at a single indicator, often inciting drastic management decisions and policies? 

Organizations in today’s competitive environment need a much more balanced view of their corporate health, taking things like customer perspective, internal processes and knowledge/skills and abilities development into consideration with financial indicators.  Sound familiar?  This is exactly the approach taken by The Balanced Scorecard, which has unfortunately of late, been associated more with software vendors (and their management "dashboards") than then original methodology written by Robert Kaplan and David Norton more than fifteen years ago.

(Cartoon Courtesy Charlos’ Toons @ www.CharlosToons.com)