Times Online article Living without money

A German woman has lived 13 years without money. She set up a successful “Tauschring — a sort of swap shop — a place where people can exchange their skills or possessions for other skills and possessions…”

As one of the comments (Marco V) pointed out, bartering “may even bring a community feel back to the country.”

Many small and …

Services are seldom valued properly, especially when it is provided as part of a product which is bought on a cost vs benefit basis.

Consider the technical advice provided by reviewers and shop assistants. Customers don’t value this – they will buy from the cheapest online retailer. Similarly, few clients will willingly pay for the technical support and education provided by web developers. Or the business consulting ideas …

Service design has two aspects: technical execution and relationship building.

Technical execution is about making the mechanical bits work. For example: the aircraft takes off and lands without unnecessarily killing anyone on board.

Relationship building is making people feel good about the process. For example: hot pre-flight towels, good in-flight movies and service with a smile.

Technical execution is easier to plan, implement, and measure. In many cases, good execution is …

Conventional businesses are designed from the ground up to run gravy trains. Research and development is kept as short as possible. It’s primary intention is to quickly developing a gravy train to run.

Once a train is up and running, all new thinking stops. The default behaviour is keep things running as smoothly and consistently as possible. Occasional incremental improvements aside, changes are kept to a minimum. “All aboard…” …

In Wired to Care (ISBN 978-0-13-714234-7) author Dev Patnaik wrote: “Bringing people face to face triggers a caring response. … Putting consumers and producers together can do much of the regulation for you. When producers can see the impact that their business decisions have on their customers, they instinctively change their behaviour to generate more positive effects.”

Our laws and regulations are essentially a set of agreed and …

This is a great reminder to everyone post the Christmas buying craze and as we head into the new year. Let 2010 be the year we reimagine and reinvent the way we live. Consumerism and the materials economy is so post-WWII. The Story of Stuff illustrates this beautifully.

Governments pander to the needs of big corporations – businesses …

The Story of Cap & Trade is a super-clear and worthy summary of the climate change issue. It highlights the role of business-as-usual in the creation of our climate problems, and the continued attempts to perpetuate the problem in the name of selfish profit – profit at the expense of the welfare of the world.

There are undeniably stupid actions being …

The Art and Science of Pricing by Havi Brooks

Using resonance to set a price: “You feel it or you don’t. And your goal in setting your prices is that your right people — the people you really want to serve — feel it too. They get that “mmmmm, yeah, that’s exactly what it should cost” vibration.”

In other words, listen to your body when setting a price. …

Summarised from Working for Happiness by Alex Frankel.

Over two years, journalist Alex Frenkel worked a diverse range of jobs to explore the connection between corporate culture and happiness at work – UPS, Starbucks, Gap, Enterprise and an Apple Store. He discovered three secrets to a happy workplace:

Go for flow

Autonomy to manage one’s own tasks and timelines.
Measure on what was done (outcomes); not micro-managing the how.
Enable pride …

1. Solving their own needs –> 2. Asking others what they want –> 3. Tapping into a mission with wider relevance.

Many businesses start off doing something for themselves. Leveraging a talent to build a product, or create a service that satisfies their own needs. For example: Apple started because the two Steves had a need to build a computer. This is step 1.

As their product or service took …