Right or wrong it’s a fact that 2nd editions are better than the first. Look at the Blackberry phones made by Research in Motion. Older models are very reliable. When they joined the craze to produce masses very quickly things went a sky high in profits because more people wanted to know why everyone from celebrity to business person had one, but kinda went south in terms of its reliability and people have been getting frustrated with them, sue in the iphone as an alternative, which obviously effects Blackberry’s appeal even if only slightly.
Either way its decisions, decisions. When will you get yours I wonder and how much will it cost you in money, time and effort. Update us on your how you get on and give us a review of product and whether we were right or wrong.

1) Make your PR activities relevant.
Again it seems a no brainer but PR that is not relevant just doesn’t work. That’s the kind of PR you get from agencies ticking boxes rather than adding value or being clever creative. Clever creative should occur when you want to improve or build upon your success in this case in the last Quarter. Relevant clever creative strategy will see better engagement of target audience and a following of brand which will see you hit visibility and relevance.

2) Understanding business values
The understanding of business value’s for a PR person is invaluable. PR should be a practice of business and that should result in PR creating value towards the bottom line which is the most important thing to businesses. (Obviously this is dependent on client needs)

3) understand the client’s needs
Make PR fun by understanding the client’s needs. Clients are only happy when their needs are met and this is what makes them come back to you time and time again. So the tonic to existing and increasing business with customers and clients is to do what they care about and make them happy. However don’t negate your responsibility to PR and be creative. Sometimes a compromise of knowledge and ideas is what makes the difference.

Here’s to Media Monday. Don’t you just love Mondays?

Wars, hunger, inequality and all such things are caused by irresponsible thinking when it’s most critical.
Take the developing world for instance. In these developing countries often the war, famine and deprivation is due to the actions of the ‘few’ which go onto affect the ‘many’. The ugly face of ‘War’ in this instance has usually just stopped at that country’s door and or its staring it in the face from horizon it sits on.

What can be done? Well to be honest so much can be achieved but at the same time not much of it will take effect instantly. Much in way of education towards the sustainability of resources is critical and the irony is it’s this vastness which is the cause of so much in way ‘war’ in the first place. Changing the attitudes of the ’seesaw’ effect where one side must lose for the other to gain; usually being value created for few resulting in value destroyed for so much more, is a vital step towards creating a developed and sustainable environment.

This is just one example. Continuing to change the attitudes and stigmas of responsible behaviour will determine the societies we live in tomorrow and the day after that and after that.
Attitudes to how CSR can be done must also change in order for it to be effective in its cause. Remember stop looking at CSR as a handout and start looking at CSR as a way of creating value where it was once lost.

Its Ironic that having a lot can lead to having nothing at all isn’t it?

You know what they say about Thursday’s child and having far to go? We believe that couldn’t be truer today. Cartà SR will now seething out all our new posts on Thursdays, that way it brings about a new excitement factor just before the weekend kicks in boosting your Thursday and Friday keeping you interested for two more days before the weekend kicks in.

We have 3 tips for you this Topical Think Thursday for the world of responsible business.

Tip 1# CSR campaigns and programmes that engage and add value.

You would be so surprised how many programmes that we come across in the responsible markets that fails to do just that. “Add Value”. Value for the organisation carrying it out the programme, value for the beneficiary and value for society. If it doesn’t add value, why bother? If it fails to hit the mark, what’s the point? Simply put there isn’t one!

Too often organisations fail to be creative with their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes and follow the conventional route of looking at the things everyone else is looking at, just becoming another sheep in the herd. Corporate Social Responsibility doesn’t have to be that way. If you fail to engage properly with the beneficiaries, you’re CSR fails and money and time wasted. Don’t engage in corporate social responsibility that adds no value by way of effecting the TBL=triple bottom line. Look at the value you could create and make sure you create it by engaging with the people who will benefit without neglecting your own benefits from it.

Tip 2# Corporate social responsibility is more than a box ticking exercise

Time and time again businesses use corporate social responsibility to tick the boxes at their meetings and reviews. You actually waste more time and effort by doing this. The businesses that neglect that corporate social responsibility can actually positively affect their bottom line if they took more notice of it. It’s no coincidence that in the age of digital media consumers now are more sophisticated to what is going on in a business’s supply chain right the way through they and their employees embrace responsible behaviour.

So don’t waste your time, look at the benefits and take a greater interest in the world around you. Don’t forget, consumers drive your business and the power of building a culture of responsibility within your business amongst staff and senior management alike will far outweigh its draw backs. Remember employees are your business, consumers drive your business.

Tip 3# Footnote’s? I think not.

We were at a Conference and someone mentioned that CSR is just a footnote in their strategy. That goes to show why that company’s bottom line has shrunk rapidly over the last few years since installing that same guy as they’re new MD.

Very simply, if Pepsi and other multinationals are moving towards this area and strategising to engage through it why do other businesses feel that they should omit this from their pipeline plans when that’s the only things they’ve changed in the last 5 years? Simply put, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. The problem is that many businesses’s feel that consumers are happy when you show them something once, twice and in some cases over periods of 5 years or more. So why when this is working do you change your approach? Cardinal Sin. DONT! If CSR was positively impacting your bottom line, carry it on and perhaps improve upon it so you don’t confuse you customers. They may not always speak through words, they definitely do through action.

Those are our Think Thursday tips for the responsible markets.

Follow us on twitter @cartacsr to see how we are developing our new programmes and whom for.

Our resident Civil engineer had some interesting insights into the future of homes and civilisation over a glass of ‘red’ last week and it was too good not to share.

With the continued development of property worldwide and these being major economic factors for many countries its only right and fair that we pay homage and tell you of how green property may look in the years to come.

Planet earth itself has prefaced us and will as you all know (hopefully) outlive us. We are now according to research, reaching our natural limits and there is increasing urgency to come up with new ways of making progress toward economic development that can be sustained without impacting our environment the way we currently do so.

A massive 70% of an average city’s gas emissions are estimated to come from buildings. Reducing these will require radical transformation in the ways that the built environment is planned, designed, constructed and operated. (Ponder on the concept of teaching an “Old Dog new tricks”).

It’s quite obvious that, there is no generic formula for how to convert our polluted and congested 20^th century metropolises into clean, free-flowing, low-carbon cities able to survive what our fairly young 21^st century may throw at us, especially with 50-70% of existing buildings still expected to be in use in 2050. As you may have guessed so far, somehow retro-fitting existing stock may and will probably be quite important and key.

Obviously at Carta Sr we do not for one second believe that this will easy (as the pun of “Old Dog” above suggests), but we do know that the transformation required to style such change needs to be our new ‘fashion trend’, a trend that history tell us is like no-other. The irony here is (depending on where you stand on history), that an eco-logical new era is a very real and feasible possibility, if we can achieve the marriage between “responsible” science, political/ bureaucratic leadership and technical expertise.  Using the ‘Sustainable Integrated Development’ approach- which addresses the interdependency of land use, energy, waste, water, transport, agriculture, economics and sociology – Arup is delivering action-orientated workshops aimed at developing each city’s carbon reduction programmes.

In cities that have most successfully improved efficiency of energy supply to date this has meant moving away from the reliance on a centralised grid, and installing decentralised heat and power networks using combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP) technology, which minimises wasted energy through capturing and using heat created in the process of generating electricity. So-called ‘smart grids’. These offer another option, allowing energy supply to be smoothed over the day, for example automatically turning down the temperature on washing machines during peak demand.

Ultimately, reducing demand for energy will require a behavioural change. Perhaps not teaching “old dog new tricks” but teaching that proverbial dog to do the same things differently. In an era where the word ‘change’ dominates it is therefore ironic how stubborn to “positive change” parties at the Copenhagen summit were at back-end of 2009.

 Who knows, this might be a ‘through the keyhole’ look into our cities of the future. Infrastructure in an Ecological Age. One that if our beliefs are well found will be advancement towards progress for sustainability.

CSR or social responsibility is about exactly that “Responsibility”. (Wish I could highlight this in Bright Red Virtual ink right now).

Responsibility is why CSR exists and it’s why it needs to exist, but properly. If you keep making reference to CSR you can’t pick and choose which part of the triple bottom line you want to choose to impact, you have to impact the triple bottom positively on all fronts and to be honest it’s not that difficult to do, you just have to want to.

Talking about wider and more traditional CSR we have look at what makes the triple bottom line so important and that is the fact that its 3 pronged, not 2 not 1 but 3.

When it comes to business or non related business matters responsibility is the highest order on any day in a CSR “restaurant selling CSR food”. We must remember always responsibility and someone needs to always be responsible in order for the CSR to work. (By someone, we don’t mean a singular person, we mean everyone).

There is a lot of talk about whats fair and what isn’t when it comes to this area, but the fact and bottom line truth is that if something negatively impacts upon the 3 things that seem constant to this society of ours, then that is not responsible behaviour because it doesn’t work for and with the triple bottom line, which is people, planet and profit.

In order to conduct good CSR or act responsibility we must take ourselves out of our own situation (no matter how difficult) and thing on a wider level about the significance of our actions. Looking at China and they’re internet usage (this might sound strange to some of you), but the Chinese and their people have a right to decide whether they want certain content filtered, but only (and thats a big ONLY), only if its done responsibly and without the influence of an underlying motive.

The fact is, there is a positive and negative to every situation however without the use and implementation of RESPONSIBILITY, usually no positive arises from any situation and thus if anyone told you that CSR is not needed (yeah we have heard the murmurs in the nether-regions), then please tell them to look at the world around them and if they can’t see no fault with it through its irresponsible actions (just look at the Financial Crisis for an example), then ask them to think from someone else’s stance and try to look again through different eyes.

We ask our clients to be responsible above anything else, and thus continue to give ourselves the option for progress.

First of all, we at Carta SR sympathise greatly with the Haitian people and all those affected overseas by the natural disaster which devastated the country some days ago.

However our consultants here at Carta SR are somewhat against the use of a Natural Disaster such as this to gain coverage of how particular institutions’ aid is going to these people in the form of CSR, during this most desperate of situations.

The question is, what better way to impact on the triple bottom line is there at the moment, today? Fact is you’ll struggle to find one. Yet using this disaster as a way of implementing your social responsibility is quite distasteful, given its gravity, nevertheless we can’t deny that aid needs to go where it’s presently needed and it should, No doubt!

So What can Haiti Do? Well given the fact that institutions like the World Bank are offering an option of a loan to the Haitian government, its clear that the country has some options open to them. However, this option wont help them!

Haiti need to rebuild, and considering that they are the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere they do not need another loan to impact their already weak economy and massive national debt, not to mention their balance of payments situation. We feel logically, that the country need to look at the future. That means, coming to terms with the current situation and working their way out of it which we’re sure they’re looking to do.

People are dying in Haiti everyday and with another aftershock registering 6.1 on the Richter scale the devastation is unprecendented. Yet with a look at the future the Haitian people must strive to improve and rebuild their infrastructure so that such a situation if it happens again, (and Yes it may, as they are prone to such things because of where they are on the Tectonic plates) they are better equiped to cope, especially with essential things such as, Healthcare which is found unbelievably wanting, highlighted by this current situation.

So what should they look at? (I hear you ask) The Haitian people should opt not to take any loans or borrow any money, but should seek to use the massive aid they are receiving from  what looks like an increasingly cohesive world (when things like this happens anyway) towards investment in building and construction technology and try to rebuild their infrastructure. This will also create employment for the people of which some two-thirds are under-unemployed and thus sit under the under-poverty line, and go towards preparing the country for a stronger economy and we think that they’re is no better show of CSR and social responsibility than that. This approach will significantly help them leaning more towards Sustainability that impacts the triple bottom line in the most responsible way.

We stand firm in our committed to the triple bottom line and are passionate about what we do. (This is not meant to be controversial, neither is it meant to offend).

We would like to hear your thoughts about this and suggestions as to what can be done if any..We’re always happy to help and you can get in touch by subscribing to our blog and posting your thoughts and possible questions as comments with a simple email address to follow so that we can form a reply. Our thoughts at the moment are with the Haitian people.

Most of you are probably saying “what the heck”, or ”no way” or with stern objection some might even say “bring it on” or even more amusing right now Managers are saying “I’d bloody well hope not” with the sternest objection and actually may even offer quiet threats without actually ever implying it! Quite funny if you can imagine it.

..The fact is that everyone wants an exciting job, but in reality not everyone has one.

In a poll taken a few years ago, research found that most people actually don’t like their jobs at all and would actually rather do something more interesting. “no brainer” or ”not revolutionary I hear you say”..well your right, ‘not revolutionary at all’..
In fact a Russian proverb that says that “if you feel an urge to work, you should take a nap”..I can hear the “not productive murmurs” from here by managers or how are you supposed to work when you asleep, questions.. However scientists in California (if you choose to believe them) have actually found sleeping can help problem solving skills and improve alertness and creativity. Workers were able to think more quickly – and for those who reached the rapid eye movement stage, when dreams occur, performance improved by almost 40 per cent.

To be clear what were advocating here is not to sleep on the job whilst or during work, but to take ‘power naps’  where possible, perhaps on lunch breaks. (Well I know I would with cold snapping at my window recently). We actually would urge employers to suggest this to their creative workforce as a way of keeping them more healthy and as a result improve productivity.

This is in-line with the ‘healthy minds, health bodies’ saying, which happily fits in with our commitment to the triple bottom line.

Try it..let us know what you think..

think about it this way, your only open to silly office pranks if you’ve got a creative office like ours..

we would like to officially welcome you to our blog, where we discuss all things CSR and tell you how we are impacting our world with our work.
This blog is a advance of what is our website which is coming very soon. We are so anxious for its completion that we just need to put our ‘itchey fingers’ to work on this blog.

So join us, join our community and lets bring the responsible business into the mainstream and help to increase its influence on the bottom line..

What we feel we stand for and who we feel we are..

We loved this iconic picture so much we decided to make it “our image on our blog”..