Simon Mainwaring Quotes

And if you look at the reality in the United States, where you have more than 40 million people below the poverty line and 42 million on food stamps, and then you look at poverty around the world, clearly the way we're running the engine of capitalism is not serving us well.

The future of profit is purpose.

Today's consumers are eager to become loyal fans of companies that respect purposeful capitalism. They are not opposed to companies making a profit; indeed, they may even be investors in these companies - but at the core, they want more empathic, enlightened corporations that seek a balance between profit and purpose.

CEOs must embrace the role of serving as the public face of the company to their customer community and the marketplace at large.

There is a growing awareness among brands that in order to participate in conversations that are taking place across social networks, they must join these discussions on the basis of something that is meaningful to their customers.

Corporate America cannot afford to remain silent or passive about the downward spiral we are undergoing. It cannot turn a blind eye to how difficult the experience of life is for so many of their customers.

The leverage and influence social media gives citizens are rapidly spreading into the business world.

Business practices and how we treat the planet are also in desperate need of re-humanization.

Greed has increasingly become a virtue among Wall Street bankers and corporate CEOs in the U.S. Nowhere else in the world do CEOs insist on receiving compensation as high compared to what their employees earn.

Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation and consensus.

Often motivated by a desire to maintain the existing status quo, sloth almost cost the U.S. its auto industry, as it refused for decades to build fuel-efficient cars to compete with Japanese, Korean and European imports.

Corporations, consumers, and citizens must begin acting in concert to create a powerful third pillar of social transformation if we hope to meet the social challenges we currently face with equal force. This begins with corporations that choose to alter how they practice capitalism in two ways to serve the greater good.

Radical transparency has an enormous impact on our personal lives. We can no longer share thoughts, quips, photos or personal opinions anywhere on the web without being mindful that they may turn up where we least expect it (notably job interviews, divorce proceedings or public media).

Non-disclosure in the Internet Age is quickly perceived as a breach of trust. Government, corporations and each of us as individuals must recalibrate how we live and share our lives appropriate to the information now available and the expectations of others.

We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations, climate control, pollution, poverty and disease.

The new dynamics between brands and consumers, driven by social media, are proving to be a powerful impetus for change.

There is an overwhelming amount of information available to us all on the web each day, not to mention what is shared with us by our family, friends, fans, and followers. This necessitates the need to filter through all that information and to decide for ourselves where to put our attention.

Concerned consumers are realizing that they can use social media to organize themselves around shared values to start effective movements. Social media gives them a sounding board to share ideas, as well as a means to punish irresponsible corporate behaviors.

As a function of the easy access to information provided by the Internet, and the ease with which it can be shared thanks to social media, consumers are now better informed as to the behavior of brands and the multiple global crises we face.

Without question, CEOs, executives and employees in companies in the United States and around the world have rallied to face the challenge of a social media marketplace.

Brands are faced with the daily challenge of massively scaling their outreach in order to build personal relationships. While this may seem like a contradiction in terms, it becomes much more possible when brands shift from push to pull dynamics in their marketing.

Let's hope brands recognize that the true power of this technology is not its reach but its ability to communicate substance that adds meaning to our lives. Otherwise, brands will be investing in technology that consumers simply won't buy.

For decades, media companies have largely controlled the tools through which consumers were told what to buy, wear or think. Now consumers possess the same ability to produce, distribute and curate content and distribute it to their peers in real time across social media platforms.

There is a fundamental shift that social media necessitates in business today - the need to transition from 'Me First' to 'We First' thinking.

We need to develop and disseminate an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that supersedes the traditional silos that have divided governments, philanthropies and private enterprises for decades and replace it with networks of partnerships working together to create a globally prosperous society.

The theory of social contracts extends as far back as Plato. However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract between citizens and governments sharply into political thinking, paving the way for popular democracy and constitutional republicanism.

The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.

There are many individuals, companies and even countries operating in what I call a 'me first' mentality, which is effectively a purely competitive approach to life, treating the planet as if it has infinite resources and pitting one country against another for supremacy.

Brands must empower their community to be change agents in their own right. To that end, they need to take on a mentoring role. This means the brand provides the tools, techniques and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals.

The most impactful way consumers can assert their power is to become mindful shoppers, giving their dollars only to socially responsible companies. In today’s world of social media and smart phones, this is easy to do.

Find the human in the technology. The currency marketers trade in has not changed even if the methods have. Emotion is what we exchange.

More brands are waking up to their social responsibility and doing good work through cause marketing campaigns. Yet too many still go about it the wrong way. I mean 'wrong' in two senses. Firstly, they are marketing ineffectively, and secondly, as a consequence their positive social impact is not maximized.

Millions of people are falling out of the middle class into the ranks of the poor.

When a positive exchange between a brand and customers becomes quantifiable metrics, it encourages brand to provide better service, customer service to do a better job, and consumers to actively show their gratitude.

One of the greatest challenges companies face in adjusting to the impact of social media, is knowing where to start.

Consumers now have a voice. And the fact that consumers can be creators, producers and distributors means they can push back against brands to punish them for their socially irresponsible behavior or reward them for their responsible behavior.

Technology is teaching us to be human again.

As more people use social media to tell the story of the future, the wants and needs of more people will be reflected.

Gluttony might be innocuous were it not for the fact that gluttons tend to disregard whether their self-serving behaviors harm anyone else. We don’t need to look far and wide to find examples of gluttonous behavior, as they are numerous throughout the history of capitalism.

When people align around shared political, social, economic or environmental values, and take collective action, thinking and behaviour that compromises the lives of millions of people around the world can truly change.

By linking with friends and ultimately strangers and building those relationships, social media is reweaving the social fabric that can then be used to scale your non-profit efforts.

A world in which government is burdened by historic debt, philanthropy has limited resources, and the private sector is only interested in its own personal gain is simply unsustainable.

Companies and their brands need to reach out and speak directly to consumers, to honor their values, and to form meaningful relationships with them. They must become architects of community, consistently demonstrating the values that their customer community expects in exchange for their loyalty and purchases.

As any speaker will tell you, when you address a large number of people from a stage, you try to make eye contact with people in the audience to communicate that you're accessible and interested in them.

Brands must have a point of view on that purposeful engagement, whether it's directed towards the environment, poverty, water as a resource or causes such as breast cancer or education. Merely declaring your commitment to a category or cause will not be enough the distinguish your brand sufficiently to see a return on these well-intended efforts.

The simple act of saying 'thank you' is a demonstration of gratitude in response to an experience that was meaningful to a customer or citizen.

Done correctly, everyone from individual speakers to large organizations can inspire citizens and customers to spread a message using their own social channels, and in so doing, inspire countless supporters to build their reputation, profits and social impact.

Consumers want a better world, not just better widgets.