Selections from the archives of networkers of world class brands , brand blogspot, africanidol.tv , worldcitizen.tv and universityofstars.tv 08.1 Just playing with a few rolling concepts something 1970s marketers used to do until one popped up that everyone said win-win-win to. If anyone really gets this mail perhaps they could give me a hands up; want to get 20 minutes with Dr Yunus on a version of it next time he's in one of our easy to get to cities such as: london, paris, new york, DC. 0 Until Grameen exists operationally in a country , its yunus forum group appropriately branded and authorised could still be a forceforgood news hub swapping stories (and dream questions - why cant we find a free market home for orphan drugs?) Grameen Bangladesh wanted to test with citizen networks as well as stories citizens wanted their role model leading youth and fashion seeders to action 1 I think it would be good if not all Tomorrows Company www.forceforgood.com accolades were individual 1.1 we need a FFG journalist team who get yunus or who get tomorrows company or who gets map or who gets value multiplication is not bottom line value add; and that we need responsibility audits at sector levels even more than corporate levels etc and increasingly these journalists instincts dont cover business news just with the knee-jerk reaction quarterly number went up so company's value/goodwill is on an upward exponential who might this group connect as well as alan; there seem to be some folk at channel 4 news; David Frost gets it; my dad can still ferret out a few people, perhaps andrew neil.. and your web suggests Anthony Hilton might be on the side- the one UK chairman I would start with is sir john banham (when was CBI director general he supported sustainability debates and he has always campaigned for Industry sector responsibility being wholly different game for the bust Corporate Social Responsibility) -see if he can help with media's who's who -perhaps this isnt a declared forceforgood new item but tomorrows company hosting a biannual dinner for journalists who want to question sustainabilitys exponentials and see there are more of them than they knew- after all we are investigating 99% of all future wealth and health which is currently not being analysed sustainably or correctly 1.2 an absolutely FFG group is youth before they become superstars; yunus green children are in that category; as is Carolina Kluft swedish olympic gold medalist who tells journalists off for reporting her sports story and not her interest in African orphans; the model we need has been debated amongst gandhians and others for 5 years now http://universityofstars.tv Essentially Grameen World needs superstar ambassadors far more than Unicef does; and trainee superstars need to have chosen a grassrooted mission in life before they get surrounded by 100% celebrity life; and every multinational social brand could do with a superstar giving it free market share of voice; and other tricks that my networker of world class brands practitioners first asked The Economist's Year of The Brand to start questioning in 1988 1.3 perhaps this suggestion is too early; I dont want to stress our relationships until tomorrows company and grameen have got something they want from each other flowing irrevocably 2.1 parallels for every profession: Gandhis number 1 rule when he mentored my granddad for 25 years was when your empire's system is destroying local people, there will be something wrong about every profession's monopoly rule that needs changing if we are to get to the other side - so ever profession needs a biannual dinner for those who want to transform it from compounding badwill or blindwill to goodwill I believe the mindsets interviews that alan will be completing with father, yunus and others will provide pointers to where each profession is crashing us into its own short-term brick wall 2.2 I will be putting some of alan's slides up at http://egrameen.com -need to think carefully how to put our most important future history debates up at this web as grameen itself moves from brick to click! 2.3 Incidentally in tomorrows company can think of what to do with futurecapitalism.com , you can have it - could it be an international set of think-and-do clubs (if that's your sector) which Dr Yunus patron advisor to? Which one Indian club? South African club? Lesley could help with suggestions there and perhaps she and sofia could tell us if there is one dream club in s.america - eg is it around De Soto? tav might be able to tell us if berners lee still has a dream conference board to return the web's collaboration flows to that he intended in 1989 ...etc etc would you choose to try and ring into your and yunus's joining sustainability views of the world? 2.4 most of the above gets better and contextually deeper if we get the jointly published yunus and tomorrows company and FFG brochure on what a social business is and isnt out earlier rather than later, imo -it can be very short but it must end up with a definition that is unambiguous so that other social enterprise models do not dilute what future capitalism maps we are trying to open source 3.1 probably the biggest hidden agenda of all when I met Dhaka top team in first week of year was the question if we 5 people in Dhaka have an open source system of social abc maps that could help with community building everywhere let alone integrate sustainability investments the right exponential way round wherever a global sector is currently crashing, how do we network/share that with 6.5 billion people; mark has already video interviewed 4 yunus fans on that; need to extend the survey as well as start debating which of the 4 had forceforgood for 6.5 billion ideas some sort of thinktank windows on the world of goodwill's future capitalism needs spreading at each of the a,b, c levels chris macrae usa 301 881 1655 http://www.tomorrowscompany.com/news.aspx#newsitem42 "It's high time we put power back in hands of the right investors" By Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard The city these days is so sophisticated that hedge funds and other activists can vote to change company policy or fire a board at its annual meeting when they are in fact short of the stock - and therefore likely to profit from the shares falling. They can similarly build up a massive voting stake, easily up to 20%, when they have no financial interest in the company. They do this by using contracts for difference, stock borrowing and other devices that give them the benefits and voting rights of owners without their having to do anything as common and oldfashioned, or costly, as buying the shares. This poses a huge problem for boards of directors, who have to be accountable to shareholders. But which shareholders do they listen to when different groups want different things, and some of those with votes may well not be shareholders in the conventional sense at all? How do they distinguish between engaged activist investors, who may tell them uncomfortable truths they don't want to hear but have the longterm interests of the company at heart, and "drive-by activists", who may whisper seductive tales of optimising shareholder value but whose real interest is in extracting cash from the company now, even if that leaves it debilitated and unable to cope with tough times in the future? Tomorrow's Company, the thinktank that has an enviable record for putting its brains in areas most people fear to venture, said this week that, sponsored by pension-fund management group Hermes, it is to investigate "What's happening to ownership?" The comments above show why it is needed. Ownership patterns are changing, and perhaps the rights and obligations of ownership need to change too. The think-tank's founder director, Mark Goyder, points to the increasing emphasis on trading and short-term share-price movements at the expense of ownership obligations and disciplines, the blurring effect on clear thinking of the successive witch-hunts against hedge funds, private equity and sovereign wealth funds, and the need for clear thinking on what obligations owners have, and how these marry with the responsibilities of directors. We all have a stake in this. It is well-known in the City, but insufficiently realised in the country at large, that most of the rewards of growth reflected in improved corporate performance and higher share prices go to the fund managers and other intermediaries, not the clients. An investment banker once said he saw his activities as a tax on the saving classes, but it is not just his profession. The independent financial advisers, fund managers, pension consultants, custodians, privateequity houses and insurance and pension management companies between them suck out all the gain. The client, if he gets tax relief, may come out ahead - but very few do. The intermediaries have hijacked share ownership, and exploit it for their own benefit. The public don't understand what is going on, but they are not blind. They see the City bonuses at one end of the system and their wiped-out pensions at the other, so they know the system is no longer working as it should. But this unease gradually turns to resentment and alienation. The people of the country own the stock market through their pension and insurance policies, but they no longer feel that sense of ownership because they don't see the rewards. Instead, they are getting progressively more alienated from the process of wealth creation. This is potentially a huge threat to business in this country. Ask yourself why the Government can introduce hugely damaging legislation on capital gains tax and non-doms - laws that have the potential to severely undermine the wealth-creating potential of this country - and do so to a chorus of voter support. The shriller the protests from the City, the greater the popularity with the voters. These voters no longer believe the system belongs to them and works to their benefit. If they and, by extension the politicians, no longer feel a commonality of interest with the process of wealth generation, we are storing up huge problems for ourselves. That is why this latest venture from Tomorrow's Company comes not a moment too soon. SOVEREIGN wealth funds just can't win. A group of them made a presentation in Goteborg a few days ago to the International Corporate Governance Network, a body of fund managers dedicated to responsible ownership and good governance. The funds assured the group that they were passive investors who would absolutely not interfere with the way companies were run, nor seek to influence a board's strategy. The listeners were appalled. Influencing strategy was exactly what they thought the sovereign funds should do.