Ethical Business in Brighton – part 3

From hopeful beginnings, our little ethical business network had lost its way.

We didn’t know what people wanted, there weren’t enough at the events to tell us, so we put together a short survey and sent it out to everyone on our ethical network mailing list – whether they had come along to an event or not.

The gist was this: they liked the network being there, they had made some useful connections, had some good times but they weren’t prepared to pay for it – at least not on a monthly or annual basis (which would allow us to plan, save us some stress and give us a rough idea of attendees).

Just ‘meeting in a pub over drinks’ remained a popular option – but this still required someone to be there every month, even if nobody else turned up, and as I was now based in Worthing with a little one in tow it wasn’t going to happen. And of course the global Green Drinks movement already caters to this crowd: http://www.greendrinks.org/Brighton

We tried to take the network online using LinkedIn groups but the impetus had gone and the virtual world makes so many demands of us now it is almost harder to organise a meeting here than in the real world – it takes just as much time and effort if not as much expense.

It seemed that Our Ethical Network had run its course.

And that was ok. It was time to let someone else with new energy take on the challenge of inspiring and connecting all these small ethical business owners who had so much to share but so little time.

A few conclusions

From the challenge of setting up Our Ethical Network we’ve realised a few things.

We’ve realised that to make a successful network you need more than a bunch of email addresses and a free venue.

We’ve realised that the promise of an organic pint isn’t enough to draw the ethical masses.

And we’ve realised that if you’re going to run a network it either needs to support your own business (we kind of lost sight of ours while we were trying to sort things out for everyone else) or be part of your business (for example an ethical events company running an ethical network).

Networking is important; I’ve almost given up many times and it’s the people in my networks who’ve kept me going. Ethical businesses in particular need a safe space where they can be honest with one another. There is an extra pressure to running an ethical business that you are a pioneer, blazing a path for a new way of doing things, a better way, and you’d better make it work or you let the entire sector down. We need to meet others who understand this – and who can tell us it’s ok if it’s not rainbows every day.

So we’re thrilled that the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce has stepped into the breach with its new Green Group. An organisation designed to support businesses, it seems the natural home for a green business network.

You see networks don’t die, they just get recycled.

The Green Group next meets on Wednesday 6 July. For more details, contact the chair, Clare Hall at info@hallcreativedesign.co.uk

To keep up-to-date with Brighton Green Drinks (for all green-minded folk, not just businesses) see: http://www.greendrinks.org/Brighton

Happy networking!

Katie

Ethical business in Brighton – part 2

The first Our Ethical Network event had been such a success that we adopted an ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach to the second.

It seemed to be the right one.  Meeting in the function room of a pub we again got a bunch of ethical businesses together and let them get on with sharing ideas and solving problems.  We did some subtle (we think) introductions and made sure everyone had a name badge but then we left them to it.

We thought we had the essential ingredients for a successful ethical business networking event:

• Mailing list of ethical businesses – check
• Cheap or better, free venue – check
• Mid-week evening – check
• Lots of email reminders – check

But when it came to Our Ethical Network event #3 things weren’t quite so rosy.

Yes, it was raining, yes, the football was on, yes, it was nice in a way to have a more in-depth conversation with just a handful of people but we now had to look at why we only had a handful of people (beyond the aforementioned reasons) out of all those enthusiastic supporters who came along to events #1 and #2.

We realised we were missing that extra special ingredient.  The first 2 events had worked because there were new people to meet, new companies to discover.  But the pool of ethical businesses is limited (or rather was then – it is much wider now) and the preponderance of 1-man-bands in the sector meant time out of the office was at a premium – reserved for proven useful, valuable extra curricula activities.

We started to brainstorm ideas and a keen new member joined our planning team – Karen from Green Minded.  We looked at feedback from the previous events: one of the things people appreciated the most was our introductions that forced them to speak to different people rather than only those they had come with.  How could we do this again – but x10?

Speed networking.

After intensive planning and much debate on the logistics we did it.  About 30 businesses came along and the result was stressful, noisy and chaotic but kind of successful.

There were flaws – 2 minutes per networking couple wasn’t long enough, tables were too close together making it too noisy, we didn’t have a clear record of who had spoken to whom.

But those who risked their sanity to join in found having to pop the selling point of their business and what made it ethical into a nutshell clarified their ideas about their company (a chance to hone that pitch).  And while most were nervous before the evening began, they thanked us for putting them in front of so many new contacts.

We should do it again, they said.  And we should do speaker events, workshops, get each member business to lead a session on a different ethical issue.

We agreed.  But as we went on to organise a speaker event (poorly attended) and a Christmas do (fairly well attended) we realised we were devoting more and more time and resources to the network for little return.

Back to square 1

So there we were – back where we started.  Struggling with the dilemma of trying to be ethical and needing to make some money.

We put it to the Our Ethical Network members: these are the issues, what should we do?

And their reply? Find out in my next post.

Katie
Director of Ethical Weddings Ltd
Communications Manager, Ethical SEO Ltd

Ethical business in Brighton

I have been bumbling along the path of ethical business since 2006 when I launched my website, www.ethicalweddings.com.

On the way, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because it’s ethical it doesn’t mean you don’t need to make some money (ok, so I’m still coming to terms with that).

Is this a dilemma that other ethical businesses struggle with? Can we reconcile dirty cash with a clean conscience? Can a passionate, ethical heart go with a hard-nosed business head?

These were the type of questions I wanted to put to other people like me, who ran other businesses like mine. I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone, that others were facing the same issues, and that some had found answers. This was what led me – and my friend and then-colleague – to start an ethical business network in Brighton in 2007. More than anything it was about supporting one another.

It really started when my friend went to a mainstream business networking event where she spent the evening talking to mainstream business people about her niche ethical business idea – and was met with mostly friendly but slightly bewildered responses. So she asked the coordinator of the event if it would be possible to organise a special ethical/green business networking event. The reply? There would not be enough interest.

When she told me, my response was the same as hers. No interest? In Brighton? Really? I mean, really? We were sure that with a few emails to a few contacts, and their contacts, and a search through a few green directories we could pull together enough people for a pleasant evening of ethical business chat with possibly a handful of good ideas thrown in for good measure.

And we were right. In 2007, Our Ethical Network was born. 30+ people got together at Bill’s in Brighton and chinwagged till we were thrown out. We had a local printer, an ethical finance company, an organic chocolate maker, a restaurant known for its local sourcing policy, a recycled furniture organisation, a green cleaning company, fair trade fashion retailer and more besides.

The majority of those who came along were one-(wo)man bands so the overwhelming feedback was how great it was to get out of the office (or kitchen or lounge), find others in the same boat, who were coming up against the same problems and working out different ways to tackle them.

It was a success. But could we keep it up?

Katie
Director of Ethical Weddings Ltd
Communications Manager, Ethical SEO Ltd

What is Ethical Business?

Ethical SEO is an ethical business. I can say this with a great deal of conviction, I truly believe it, but what on earth does it mean?

What does ‘ethical’ mean for me and my business. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this. I believe this thinking to be the number one criteria for being an ethical business. I believe it is important to think about what we are doing and why, we need to be reflexive. If we think about all the decisions we make as business owners, if we think about the possible outcomes and effects of our decisions not just on our own business but on the wider community, there is a good chance we may act more ethically.

Like many small business owners who view themselves as running an ethical business I have tried hard to do the right things. I bought my computer from Very PC, office electricity is supplied by Good Energy, coffee drank is fair trade, milk used is local, organic and raw and the list continues. As a business that purchases products and services, thought and care is put into those purchasing decisions, my business is an ethical consumer. So perhaps our second criteria for what is becoming a list for being an ethical business is that ethical businesses should base their purchasing decisions on ethical considerations.

The next stage for my business came with thinking about transparency. So far I am working on two solutions to the problem of how to be more transparent in a way that is genuinely useful. First I signed up to a scheme called ‘SEE What You Are Buying Into‘(SEE). SEE aims to create a platform and labelling scheme to increase transparency in business, I worked with them for six months answering a series of challenging questions about my policies relating to issues of social, environmental and ethical importance. The questions and the answers I have given are displayed publicly here: www.seewhatyouarebuyinginto.com/profile/ethical-seo. This was an extremely useful exercise for me, not only did it make my ethical business policies open to public scrutiny and thus increase my transparency it also helped me formulate those policies. Whilst I have given considerable thought to the brand of coffee I drank and the computers I use there were many issues that I had just not considered before.

I think we now have another couple of criteria for my list of what makes an ethical business. It is important to get some help with thinking about what we are doing and why, and it is good to get some help from people that really know. SEE have some fantastic support in helping them formulate their questions from organisations such as ‘The Commission for Racial Equality’ and ‘Action Aid’. The other criteria I am suggesting is that we are honest about our policies and that we are open to feedback from other professionals and the wider public.

For my business I felt that I needed a greater degree of transparency, I wanted to offer full transparency of my working methods to my clients. I wanted them to see exactly what I am saying and doing on their behalf. The SEO industry has a reputation of being a bit cloak and dagger, with a large degree of protectionism over working techniques. I do not think this is good for business, is not good for customer retention and feels a bit yucky. So I’ve developed a client extranet so that my clients can log on at any time and see the work that I am doing on there behalf. It is up and working and the available to my clients but I have to admit it is not hugely useful. There is some similarities to the governments increased transparency with its records, they are available, we can look at them, but it takes a lot of time and skill to work out what it all means. I would like very much to improve this.

So my criteria number 5 is about trying to increase transparency continuously, improving the clarity of information available to clients and the wider public.

I plan to write a lot more about this and it would be great if you would give some feedback.

To paraphrase the self help community horribly, ‘being an ethical business is not a destination but a journey’.

What does ‘Ethical SEO’ mean?

As soon as search started to become an important way for people to find what they were looking for online, people realised that they could make money by tricking search engines. Website owners discovered that if they repeated the words ‘buy fluffy widget’ all over their webpage in invisible writing (for example white writing on a white background) the search engines believed that this page was the perfect place to send someone who was looking to buy a fluffy widget.

Over time search engines became increasingly sophisticated, taking into consideration how many other sites linked to your site, how old those sites were, how many sites linked to those ones, what those ones were talking about etc.. Then the make money quick by tricking the search engines brigade became increasingly sophisticated. They developed robots that would scour the internet looking for blogs to post comments on with dodgy content linking to their site that sells viagra, they hacked into other sites placing their links into the templates, they used some of the most powerful computers in the world to work out how to trick the search engines.

As a result of this behaviour the search engines published guidelines of practice, stating what they approved of and what they did not approve of. Any behaviour that did not comply with their guidelines could be punished. The punishment consisted of having your website dropped from the Search Engine, for several websites this meant a huge drop in traffic and revenue. It has not meant however that un-ethical SEO has stopped, far from it. Un-ethical SEO is rife on the internet but thankfully you can achieve just as good results through Ethical SEO.

Practising SEO that stuck to the guidelines given by the Search Engines became know as ‘Ethical SEO’.

For me, Ethical SEO is much more than just sticking to the guidelines given by the search engines, it is about being honest and transparent. I love the work I do and love to talk about it. There is no trickery or high fa luted techno wizardry. SEO is not really much different to traditional marketing and PR, it is about effective communication, building relationships, listening and having something worthwhile to say.