Beating one of the worlds deadliest diseases at Cleavage Creek. Now I’ll drink to that.

We are indeed living in dark days . With what can only be described as a shameful healthcare provision for the women of this country maybe it's time to start taking control into our own hands. No pre natal medical consultation (for up to 7 months in some instances) when expecting a baby is a stressful situation, especially for first time mothers, but not nearly as stressful as the shocking circumstances thousands of Irish women face every year when diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast cancer is a disease which not only shatters the lives of women, but its fallout wreaks devastation in the world of the silent sufferers, children, husbands, parents.

And so, when Arlene Brown , 48 years married to husband Budge lost her battle with the disease in 2005 his total devastation turned to anger. So angry was he that he became totally driven and determined to do what ever he could to find a cure for breast cancer. He says he doesn’t want what happened in his life to happen anyone else, he says it's time to do something about it. And so, in 2005 American farmer Budge Brown purchased a wine label with a difference - Cleavage Creek Wines.

In 2007 the first vintage of Cleavage Creek Wines was launched at Pope Valley vineyard, Napa Valley, California . The 2nd vintage of Cleavage Creek wines was released on October 4th, 2008.

The Cleavage Creek look is distinctive and significant. The label of each bottle of Cleavage Creek wine features the image of an actual breast cancer survivor whose story is told on the Cleavage Creek website. “Putting a face on this disease and telling the stories of those who are dealing with it personalizes this and hopefully inspires everyone to take on the fight,” says Brown.

Although making a donation to the charity of his choice might make more sense to some people, Brown believes that Cleavage Creek wines will have much more of an impact. “The world is full of people who enjoy good wines,” says Brown. “When they buy Cleavage Creek products, they can select from award winning wines while helping to find a cure for breast cancer. Everybody wins. When people learn about Cleavage Creek and the motivation behind it, well, if it reminds one person to go for a checkup, do a self-examination, or become more informed, we’re accomplishing my goal of saving lives. The cure for breast cancer may not come in my lifetime, but the mere existence of Cleavage Creek could bring it along sooner rather than later. Job done.”

“I am very proud of the quality of our Cleavage Creek wines,” notes Brown. “Wines from our two years of operation have won a multitude of medals in the most prestigious national and international contests. These are seriously good wines doing seriously good work.”

A special meditation flower garden overlooking a lake has been built to honor the late Arlene Brown. Her favorite flowers are planted there, including over 120,000 daffodils, 10,000 iris, California poppies, a host of wild flowers, thousands of tulips, and roses. “I want people to visit Cleavage Creek and celebrate life and health,” says Brown. “There’s no better way to do that than with a fine wine and the company of those who are a part of the fight.” Brown looks forward to hosting events and celebrating survival. “We have to move forward,” he insists. “The optimal way to do that is by focusing on a cure. It can happen, and it will happen.”

Budge Brown has grown crops of grapes, apricots, and almonds for well over 40 years. But his current cultivation, spearheading a search for a cure for breast cancer, may very well be his greatest harvest. 10% of the gross dollar amount of this operation is donated to cutting edge research to fight breast cancer. To date, Cleavage Creek and Budge Brown have donated over $55,800 to breast cancer causes.

How could this approach translate for us here in Ireland? If fighting breast cancer is a vital woman's cause, what are the learnings we could take and apply from Cleavage Creek Wines?

We don’t produce grapes but we do drink a lot of vino. Could a collective of women approach an Irish wine importer about the possibility of donating a percentage of their profit to breast cancer research? This donation could be branded on the back of the wine labels that take part of the initiative giving them the deserved kudos.

On a smaller scale, maybe us girls could consider donating a token sum of money every time we have a great ‘night in’ with the women who we value, cherish and laugh with until we cry.

Or, how about lobbying restaurants to donate corkage charges to breast cancer research?

Has anyone else any ideas on this initiative?

I don't know the solution to the failing healthcare system for women in Ireland. But I do know that us Irish girls enjoy our wine, and I do know that the time has come to start taking action together to make Ireland a better place to be a woman. What a good place to begin while sipping a crispy cold pinot!

www.cleavagecreek.com

Lisbon...once more with feeling.

The schools are back, routine is restored, and I am now narrowing my gaze on the Lisbon Referendum, Mark 2.  I have high hopes for this campaign.  To begin with, it's a welcome antidote to my credit crunch fatigue.  Secondly the stakes this time are extremely high and it's going to be interesting to see how sophisticated the roll out of the campaigns is going to be. We have learned from the Obama campaign that a digital strategy plays a huge role in connecting with voters and galvanising support around an issue or outcome.  Will any of those lessons be taken on board here?

You can download a guide to the Treaty here http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_guide.pdf

The following link doesn't imply any political affiliation.  I found it an interesting read.

www.labour.ie/women/newsandevents/index/1208421873376567.html

Focus, people

A previous post about the Rose of Tralee and Newbridge jewelry got me thinking about brand extentions and how they can bring focus to your brand.

The most important word in differentiating your brand is focus and the most common reason for loss of focus is ill-considered brand extensions.  For example:

Focused:  Newbridge = cutlery

Unfocused:  Newbridge = Cutlery + jewellry

Bad brand extensions are those that chase short term profits at the expense of long-term brand value whereas good brand extensions grow the value of the brand by reinforcing its focus.  Avoca is a great example of an Irish brand that has focused all its product extentions on the brand. Kudos to them.  On the other hand Stephen Pearse, who’s pottery I love, has gone into bed linen.  Doesn’t make sense to me from a brand perspective.

But hey, that’s just one girl’s opinion…..what do you think?

what would you do if you ran the world?

-- We are living in a different kind of world now. The old top down model that you need hierarchies, organisations and structures to make things happen is broken. The new model is bottom up. It’s about collective, collaborative people power and that is what ifwerantheworld.com is all about. Ifwerantheworld.com is action orientated and is all about making things happen.

The single biggest pool of untapped resource in this world is human good intentions that never get translated into action. Add to this another equally powerful and equally untapped pool of resource - corporate good intentions which are the good intentions of companies who know they must be corporately and socially responsible but who miss the opportunity to allign their CSR objectives with day to day business objectives and therefore miss out on doing good and making money simultaneously.

IWRTW brings those two things together. Human good intentions and corporate good intentions and activates them collectively into shared action against shared goals to produce shared results.

MICRO ACTIONS...THE ATOMIC UNIT OF IWRTW:
The home page of IWRTW is googlesesque in its simplicity . Essentially, it is is a crowd sourced platform for making things happen - the platform and the community connects you with other people who want to do the same thing you want to do, other action platforms that may have been set up to achieve the same goal, brands and businesses who are also alligned to your vision and all of that is broken down into a series of micro actions, little small steps that each one of you can take to achieve the bigger goal. You are able to pick up those micro actions and you are able to invite friends to act, but the important thing is that each micro action is an incredibly small simple easy to do action which is so simple why wouldnt you do it. Using IWRTW you can find the exact micro action suited to you that is no effort.

THE ACTION FINDER:
If you have very little time , IWRTW has the Action Finder which is an advanced search engine. With the Action Finder - you can enter the area of action you are interested in, you can enter the location you are living in, and you can choose from a number of settings to say this is how much time I have, this is how far I am prepared to travel, this is how I like working whether its on my own or with a team, this is the kind of thing I want to be involved in, this is how quickly I want to do it - and the action finder will return only the micro actions on all the action platforms that are perfectly suited to what you want to do , when you want to do it. This is designed to combat that psychological behaviour where a person says to them selves “I want to do something about this but they’ve just told me I need to volunteer every thursday night for the next 6 weeks....No thanks”.

RADICAL SIMPLICITY:
IWRTW is rooted in the concept of radical simplicity. The sole objective, to facilitate turning good intention into action.
The site itself is a combination of rational functionality and technology and the synthesis of the study of many layers of human psychological motivation and emotional dynamics - only through combining the two can the most difficult task of all in the world be achieved.... changing human behaviour.

WHAT IWRTW IS AND IS NOT:
IWRTW is not a destination website, IWRTW is not a conventional online social network . IWRTW is literally a tool or a platform that anybody and anything who wants to make something happen can plug into. Existing online social networks, existing communities, brands, business or organisations can plug into IWRTW and from there IWRTW will make what you want to happen happen. Similarly IWRTW is designed to plug into social media tools – it will plug into Facebook, Twitter etc. IWRTW will be an iphone application so it can live on a cellphone or it can feed to a desktop facilitating making what you want to happen..happen.

THE AMAZING WOMAN BEHIND IT
Ifwerantheworld.com is the brainchild of entrepreneur and visionary Cindy Gallop. When I read an interview with her in wired.com it was one of those few moments in life when all reason goes out the window. I had never met Cindy but I just had to get in touch with her to tell her that this was the most amazing concept I had ever come across and that I wanted to be a part of it in what ever way I could. Such was my comittment I even flew to New York to meet her in person. It turns out I was not the only one. Cindy had received similar emails from people all over the world pledging support and passionate enthusiasm. I guess this demonstrates that there is a genuine yearning and desire in people to try make this world a better place, to somehow make things right again .

As individuals, literally bowling alone we have been like insignificant corks bobbing in the ocean, frustrated in the knowledge that one voice can never make a significant difference. Not so any more, ifwerantheworld .com brings hope and possibility. ifwerantheworld.com provides common stage where those single voices can reach out and join together to create a battle cry for action to change in this world. What would you do if you could change the world?

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/yes-we-plan-how.html
http://adage.com/goodworks/post?article_id=138424
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMOmsW4WLt8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECS2RUEBvOY
http://ifwerantheworld.com/

Predicting 2009: Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve Gives Insights: Simple Living Is the New Black

I've been reading Faith Popcorn's EVEolution and am very impressed.  Here is a press release on 2009 predictions.  Have a look and let us know what you think.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Predicting 2009: Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve Gives Insights: Simple Living Is the New Black

Faith Popcorn? Do I jest?

Nope. Faith Popcorn has spent the past 30 years successfully mapping out what the future holds, primarily for marketing purposes. She's a real person, and her company is a thinktank called the Brain Reserve. 

And, here's what Faith Popcorn predicts for 2009 in her latest press release (emphasis added on the portion discussing simplicity or simple living):

NEW YORK, Dec 03, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Leading future-focused Trend consultancy Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve sees 2009 as a year marked by unprecedented fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. 

A year in which we'll see a range of consumer reactions to a nation that has seen itself moving in the wrong direction. 

Faith Popcorn notes: "This is not a momentary correction, nor a down cycle -- it's the end of the world as we know it. What we'll be deciding in 2009 is whether we'll simply succumb, or whether through a new set of Rules of Engagement, we'll find a new way to set our priorities."
As has been their practice for over three decades, FPBR is applying their TrendBank, 17 insights that are predictive of consumer habits, practices, preferences and behaviors to the ever accelerating changes that drive our Culture.

The four New Rules of Engagement are: Reclaim, Retrench, Reset and Reinvent.

1. RECLAIM: Reframing our power relationship with Companies. 

Driven by Icon Toppling -- A new socioquake transforms mainstream America and the world as the pillars of society are questioned and rejected.

Look for: The death of the Consumer, long live the Citizen. With the mutuality of responsibility, Citizenship suggests -- shared values, shared interests, democratic decision making, full disclosure and a free ranging, ongoing dialogue.

2. RETRENCH: Hunkering down and praying for survival. 

Driven by Cocooning: Retreating to home to protect oneself from the harsh, unpredictable realities of the outside world.

We'll see that: Cuddles Trump Coupons. A premium based on brands that demonstrate "empathy"; an understanding of the consumer plight -- it's going to be a combination of messaging, price, and purchase continuity programs that offer progressive refunds, as just a few examples. The strategy is simple -- be with them when they're down; they'll remember you when they're up.

3. RESET: Voluntary cutback to find a new equilibrium. 

Driven by Cashing Out: Questioning personal/career satisfaction and goals, people opt for simpler living.

It means: We're Scrooged: If you're looking for immediate proof, watch Christmas '08 sales. The worst downside estimate I've seen is -5%, it will be double digit. Black Friday's top-line sales growth is a false metric. Retailers can ignite a consumption spark via discounting, but will the operation survive at zero margin contribution? How many will resist the temptations of store visits and turn to online shopping? Will they ever come back? 

4. REINVENT: A rediscovery and reaffirmation of American Ingenuity. 

Driven by Fantasy Adventure: The modern age whets our appetite for roads untaken. 

Watch the development of A Wampum Economy. A shadow economy will emerge; driven by a culture of haggling, swapping, bartering, hacking, and re-using. It all hearkens back to a time where a direct Citizen to Citizen relationship drove the economy, rather than being disintermediated by channel and manufacturing.

Ms. Popcorn is available to discuss The New Rules of Engagement, including additional predictions that are tangible manifestations of these New Rules. 

Please call Kathleen Cantwell on 212-792-6333 to arrange an interview, or submit queries to kcantwell@faithpopcorn.com.

SOURCE Faith Popcorn's BrainReserv

all the pretty girls

It’s that time of year again and I am sitting in front of the telly watching proceedings at the Dome in Tralee. Yes it’s the Jubilee Rose of Tralee and there is a fan fare of lovely girls on the stage.  They are intelligient, bright, high achievers with great careers and personalities and yet here they are  giggling for Ray, going goodo on their  tin whistles, doing jigs, reels and bad renditions of Enya. Yet somehow, the whole cringy combination works-  the tawdry tent, the Garda band, the neanderthal escorts, the 1970s style sponsorship stings. 

The Rose seems to be a beauty pageant that is going from strength to stength. Is it the roots of 75 million Irish diaspora abroad keeping the spirit alive? Is it because it’s the only time in a calendar year we have a real celebration of Irish female beauty, strength of character and independence? Is it because it’s so refreshing to see young women genuinely  having the crack  together rather than killing eachother to be crowned? Or, is it because the Irish girl in me  secretly always wanted to be a Rose? Maybe I’m getting older, maybe I’m getting all nostalgic  because  I will never be a Rose now, or maybe I have had one too many glasses of Lidl pinot grigio. Who knows,  but as I sit here waiting for the winner to be announced it feels like I have found an old pair of once favourite shoes which have just come back in fashion. And the winner is  the London Rose, you beauty. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XDun92kOVU

We love inspirational women.  Check out Caroline Casey from the Aisling Foundation and let us know what you think.

Thanks and look forward to hearing from you.

Lucy and Una

The World According to Women

This is the place where you can connect with other women and share your views on issues, opportunities, brands, companies and experiences that most affect your lives.  

We believe your contribution to this platform can affect change in the marketplace where you spend so much of your hard earned cash.

Talk to us.

Lucy and Una