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 restructu...

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...

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...

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...

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 y...

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:

• Th...