collaboration, not competition
After a wonderful Think Visual meetup at Sydney uni, I sat down with the Sh8pefshifters and a couple other friends for a wide ranging and life-affirming conversation. I shared the drivers behind EthicCo, our vision for a better economy, the target market for our prototype. In return, I received honest feedback on our website and we pondered the impact of AI on creatives and the magic of music (from pub choir to folk singing).
One thing that struck me (as it repeatedly does these days) is the collaborative and collegial nature of small/ethical business – so far from the commoditisation and contractual small print of big business. Wisdom was offered (without conflict or caveat), ideas were built upon (without a lawyer in sight), potential collaborations were bounced around (time as ever being the main hurdle) and contacts shared to help each other on our next steps. When I co-founded EthicCo, this was very much a driving factor. The premise that people are inherently wired to support community and that companies (and at a macro level – economies) should reflect this.
The systems which drive our environmental factors should make it easier to behave in ways that encourage the best in us, not to block our altruistic nature. It seems so utterly crazy to me that we have our lives dictated by ‘the economy’, it is a human construct and not some natural law…
Sorry, rant over, back to the conversation. The group loved that our website is deliberately ‘non-corporate’, we do not strive for the polish that large consultancies and enterprises crave – big, shiny companies are not who we want to partner with or support. We are setting out to build a business in a way which reflects us, our values and our vision of a different type of economy (worker owned, community focused, in service of life).
‘Scrappy’ was the word that someone threw into the mix. Before they could retract it (realising how it sounded) – I was riffing. It has negative connotations but…
- Aren’t all start-ups scrappy?
- Isn’t the messy nature of innovation and product development always a scrappy journey?
- When you are on a shoe-string budget, you live off scraps
- When large corporations shape legislation, aren’t all small businesses scrapping to be heard?
- It’s okay to get in a scrap against systems build on perverse values
So we’ll own that veiled compliment, EthicCo are happy to be scrappy. We look forward to working with all the other scrappy businesses out there.
Keep scrapping, keep supporting
Ewan
