The social sector reforms have seen organisations obsessed with building a strategy to sustain their organisation. The strategies have tended to focus on new branding, a marketing plan and investment in a business development manager. Sometimes it has meant a restructure and sometimes it has meant further investment in IT. In many organisations the emphasis has been on growing bigger to deliver more at a lower cost. It is not a race to the bottom. The organisation with the lo

“ I thought I saw a movement. It was. It was. I’ve seen a movement being born. It is truly a marvellous experience of human ingenuity and passion”. MadQuarry Dictionary, 2013 The truth is that everything that we have come to value in our society can be traced back to a group of committed people passionate about their cause. Public health, education, sporting, women’s rights, disability rights. All results of a few people who started a movement, created followers and the rest

I tell you no lie. I was leading a strategic planning session and one hour later they were still going on about the label they would use to describe the people who they serve. “ I don’t like consumer”…. said one woman. My clients don’t “consume”. Another said…”customer is so commercial…the next thing we will be doing is selling personal care at a bargain price…” The conversation got heated (and long). Frankly, I was not surprised but I was getting bored. So I intervened… “ Wh

For many years, our funders required us to have strategic plans; not so we could follow them not measure the effectiveness of what we did, but because we needed them! Times have changed and the next time you hear a customer ask for your strategic plan before they decide to use your service, will be first time. Strategy is about understanding the environment within which you operate and making choices about what you will do. Planning is about making choices about how to use th

Learning Number One – A new Brand and Marketing Plan isn’t the answer When the going gets tough, it seems social care organisations get a new brand and a new marketing plan. Although brand and marketing are important in the evolving social care market place, it should not become your central strategy. Your brand is more about your people and their behaviour that the artwork, font logo and colour scheme you choose. If you want to invest in your brand – invest in your people

Just when you thought you had it all under control, something changes. Most organisations are aware of the ‘’hyper-connected consumer’’ … we have been told that people are now connected 24 hours a day; if they don’t like something there is a website they can criticise you on; if you don’t have multiple social media channels, no-one knows who you are, etc. – the reality is that is true and with the advent of a more ‘’open market’’, many organisations in the social care sector

The McKinsey Global Institute released an excellent report in 2012 entitled, The Social Economy. Unlocking Value and Productivity through Social Technologies which whilst some three years old, make compelling reading. The report found (amongst other things) that: The speed and scale of adoption of social technologies by customers far exceeded any previous technologies but businesses and organisations were far from being able to harness their value. Social technologies had dis