Cause No Unnecessary Harm – On Social Responsibility From Patagonia to Walmart

“If you have a business you are impacting something negatively.”

Patagonia puts it right out there in the mission statement: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Cara Chacon has the title of Director of Social & Environmental Responsibility with the company, but she makes it clear that everyone is expected to advance the organization’s adherence to their social ethic.

“It’s not just marketing, not just production, not just the environmental department,” she insists. In questions as seemly mundane as where to obtain zippers and pulls, environmentalism, sustainability and social responsibility come into play. “If I’m not completely satisfied with a factory’s record, I have complete veto power.”

Six Terribly Boring Ways to Make Your Technology Brand Sizzle

Simple brand strategies often neglected by even the most earnest technology marketers.

Co-written by Dave Wenger and Dave Shaw in 2003.

pdf here: sixways

There are a thousand theories for how to strengthen your technology brand, and most of them have worked at one time for some company, or they wouldn’t have found their way into someone’s book on brand building.

But how much of what you read in the marketing press is really applicable to your industry, particularly if you are a technology or manufacturing company? Can the lessons learned from Starbucks brew success in the IC equipment business, for example? The answer is both yes and no.