Weirdly, this reminded me of an article I read in The Guardian over the weekend about the singer Lana Del Rey. She is currently being lauded as a ‘one to watch’ for the next year after some internet hype around her first two singles last year.

Things have not always been this way for Lizzy Grant (LDR’s real name). Her first career as a ‘run of the mill’ singer-songwriter in her own name resulted in an album that did not perform well. Some rebranding with her new pseudonym and a makeover as a “gangster Nancy Sinatra” and her ‘debut’ album is now being waited for with baited breath.

Unfortunately for her, the indie blogosphere that hailed her initial releases are already starting a backlash that her look is contrived and too marketing focussed. Personally, I don’t see the harm in creating an image that will get you attention.

Why are they so surprised? After all, it worked for Madonna and Bowie … even The Beatles had their ‘mop-top’ image to help them get ahead.

Packaging is important. It’s the immediate shelf impact that makes your product stand out above the competition and helps to encourage your customers to keep it on their shelves. So how do you ensure that this vital part of your product is properly developed and managed to protect your brand?

“It’s not just the Conservatives. I use a very old-fashioned term – it’s the ruling class … Politics has become hollow and bland. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Labour or Conservative, Lib Dem, whatever.” - Rod Dixon, Artistic Director of ‘Big Society!’

No matter how much I try to engage with it, I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about modern politics. Just reading political headlines or watching Question Time irritates me as I am faced with ‘career politicians’ who seem more interested in sniping at their opponents than anything else.

Worse than that is the ‘smoke and mirror’ tactics that they employ; as if any definitive answer that they give is instantly held up as policy.

I don’t think that I am alone in my disillusionment.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if somebody gave a direct response that addressed the question? Or, even better, wouldn’t it be nice to get some evidence that backed it up? Surely, it’s not beyond the realms of imagination to whip out a laptop and say, “Well, I’d love to employ more nurses but this is how much that would cost, and this is how much we actually have coming in and we still have to pay for education and policing and the rest.”

Isn’t it time for a change?

We work with businesses on projects that centralise information to help people make better decisions about their products and services based on facts, rather than on headlines and assumptions. One of the key outcomes of this process is that everybody can be engaged and passionate about the final outcomes.

What if the politicians did the same thing and gave us the facts rather than the headlines so that we could make informed decisions. Doesn’t that sound like a ‘Big Society’ that we could believe in?

6 years ago when Cheeky Monkey was born they took a different approach to delivering change. It was a different concept and they didn’t know how that would be accepted.

The last 6 years have been challenging because they have stuck to their guns and not compromised what they believed in.

Now Cheeky Monkey are ready to make another step change to take their approach forward by connecting to even more people with the launch of the first Cheeky Monkey book and this new website.

People will use the book and this site to enhance their business, if you haven’t bought it yet get out and do so for no other reason than I feature in it!

A challenging 6 years, a step change and now an invitation to Connect.

Thanks and congratulations to all those who have been working on the book and the new site keep being the change you want to see (my friend, Ghandi).

The solution has to come from the end point- what, in its simplest form, do your consumers want? Who is giving it to them? How can you improve that offer through innovation? Be warned; it may mean the end of the fight.

Another recent feature allows the user to subscribe to the feed of any other user, no matter how disconnected, providing the latter agrees to publicly display their feed. The first of these new features is obviously a direct counter-move against Google+, the second, an interesting attack aimed at the more established Twitter.

But what is Facebook really trying to achieve here? Isn’t the potential market for social networking sites so vast that users will have profiles across all sites, for different segments of their lives? If so, a traditional competitive strategy may be inappropriate for an environment where loyalty shifts quicker than you can say “hashtag”. Wouldn’t open collaboration be a far better solution?

Due to their seemingly panicked reaction to Google+ as a new entrant, Facebook would also no doubt have been rattled by the eagerness of certain politicians to establish themselves on Google+, desperate to ‘engage’ with the public on a newer and less renowned social platform. David Cameron, posting no less than 106 comments in 15 hours, was criticised for not asking relevant questions but just posting for posting’s sake.

Another question therefore arises, do we as users even truly get what we want from social networking- or is the ‘build it and they will come’ game still on? Considering the example of the PM who would most likely be judged as fuddy-duddy if absent from our online conversations, it is likely that he may never win the war.

Despite the current necessity for individuals and businesses to have an online presence, the question arises as to whether competition between the different online factions will cause further confusion and frustration amongst users who, at the heart of it, simply want to communicate, connect, or gather information easily. Apparently one of the core reasons Google+ entered the social networking world was its fear that 700million users were spending too much time on Facebook, opening up valuable advertising opportunities for their opponent. But will FB users be happy if they are constantly bombarded with ads while conversing with friends?

In my opinion, there is a danger of overcomplicating the features on any social networking site, confusing competition with commercial viability and forgetting the core needs of the end consumer. The Facebook example sends a message to all businesses wanting to rethink their competitive strategy. The solution has to come from the end point- what, in its simplest form, do your consumers want? Who is giving it to them? How can you improve that offer through innovation? Be warned; it may mean the end of the fight.

To find out more about open collaboration and ‘making the competition irrelevant’ at www.blueoceanstrategy.com

We have identified a number of considerations that need to be tackled in your business strategy. Chief Monkey has actually written a book called 99 steps to Business transformation where she lists what these considerations are and what you should do about them. Here are just a few:

• The World economy will remain volatile and chaotic
• Market changes will be fast and unpredictable
• Competition will be Global
• Emphasis will be on the ability to deliver change, not manage it
• Differentiation will win

The first 2 are already proving destructive as the PMI (Manufacturing purchasing managers index) fell to 49 last month which indicates contraction, this is a 26 month low. New export business, new orders and employment all fell.

August also saw the sharpest fall in new orders for the sector. This was a sector that was leading the way in growth and was encouraging the positive signs of economic recovery. However, experts are now talking about a double dip recession and the British Chamber of commerce has reduced its economic growth forecast from 1.9% to just 1.1% this year.

At a Chamber of commerce event 2 years ago I heard a speaker state that any businesses that come out the other side of the recession won’t be the same as they were before, the businesses that are the same won’t exist anymore. I believe this is more true now than ever.

Change is difficult when all is stable so it takes a leap of faith and strong leadership skills to embrace change when all is far from stable but the risk of not making decisions today is the decisions won’t be yours to make tomorrow – so are you an Ostrich or a giraffe?

The camera will photograph and transmit images of the Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers of northwest Brazil in partnership with charity Foundation for a Sustainable Amazon (FAS). FAS approached Google two years ago with the plan to digitize high-quality images from the Amazon basin to demonstrate the effects of poor global sustainability efforts and widespread deforestation on the landscape.

As part of the scheme, Google will train local people to collect the images, and will leave behind equipment so the work can continue long-term. After being taken, the pictures will be stitched together so users can explore 360-degree panoramics of the area.

“It is very important to show the world not only the environment and the way of life of the traditional population, but to sensitize the world to the challenges of climate change, deforestation and combating poverty.” Says FAS project leader Gabriel Ribenboim.

Despite the obvious benefits of the scheme, cynics may ask what the substance is behind the style of Google’s well-meaning display. Uncertainty still remains over Google’s environmental policies, as it does not publicly disclose its emissions data in either annual reports or to third parties such as the Carbon Disclosure Project. Further, the firm does not set annual targets for absolute emissions reduction, nor for carbon intensity.

As is evident with this partnership, Google’s sustainability initiatives currently appear in the form of brand enhancement and risk management. Under some future scenarios, however, Google’s sustainability ventures may become extremely valuable. Sustainability has been continually cropping up as the top concern and challenge for companies in recent times, firmly stamping the next decade as one for innovative CSR strategy. PR razzle-dazzle and smokescreens will no longer hide companies from the glare of social media and aggressive competition.

“It is very important to show the world not only the environment and the way of life of the traditional population, but to sensitize the world to the challenges of climate change, deforestation and combating poverty”

All this said and done, the least Google’s scheme can do is improve the quality of life for the local community and enhance awareness. Local resident, Maria do Socorro da Silva Mendonca had never heard of Google, but is excited by the project:

“I think it is wonderful because our community was never published anywhere, nobody knows we are here.”

For Google, though the project represents the biggest challenge for their Street View equipment, it is the perfect opportunity to build a sustainable, high-value future using their existing capabilities, all be it with perhaps a more solid foundation.

David Cameron said the Government would look at limiting access to such services during any future disorder and Tim Goodwin, the Met police’s acting Commissioner also said that he considered requesting authority to switch off Twitter during the riots.

In an age where social media brings information to us as quickly as to the journalists that used to break it should the powers that be have the authority to decide when we can and can’t communicate through these channels?

Guardian analysed more than 2.5 million riot related tweets between 6^th and 17^th August and concluded that Twitter was mainly used to react to riots and looting and included organisation of street clean ups.

I actually started following Greater Manchester police on Twitter because their information and communication was fantastic and the clear message from everyone that I follow was the rioters are idiots and to remember that they are the minority, this gave a really community spirit through a social media channel.

Its common when faced with decisions on how to change to focus on the negatives of a situation but surely the answer to future riot avoidance isn’t to supress the voice of the people, isn’t that why they started in the first place?