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Medinge member Nikolaj Stagis collects 2011 Danish Communication Award, for Stagis A/S’s Movia project

admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:18:26 +0000

Stagis A/S, the ﬁrm founded and run by Medinge Group member Nikolaj Stagis, has won the 2011 Danish Communication Award.
The award was given by the Dansk Kommunikationsforening (Danish Communication Association) at the DR Koncerthuset (the Copenhagen Concert Hall).
Five projects were nominated, with Stagis A/S’s one for Movia among them. It received nearly twice as many votes as the runner-up.
The Movia project, dubbed ‘Chauffører med karaktér’ (bus drivers with character), was initiated and executed by Stagis. The project integrates efforts in the fields of organizational culture, corporate branding and corporate communication in order to create more character, pride, appreciation and job satisfaction for the bus drivers and managers in greater København. The ultimate aim is to deliver a higher level of service and create a better experience for the bus passengers and get more citizens to use public transportation.
Three years ago Stagis set out with a test project that proved it was possible to change attitudes and pride within bus companies. Almost 7,000 bus passengers have sent their stories about “good moments” to the bus driver website www.buschaffor.dk, supported by a media effort, a training programme, and a Bus Driver of the Year award.
Mr Stagis said, ‘We are really proud of the award and the acknowledgement we’ve received from our colleagues in the field of corporate communication … What makes me just as proud as receiving the award is meeting some of the bus drivers who has been involved in the project, and who tells me that it made a difference in their lives. Like the bus driver Linda, who was awarded the Danish Bus Driver of the Year on September 2 and is soon flying to Singapore to see public transportation there and meet bus drivers in that region. She loves the bus and the passengers and now she is going to board an aeroplane for the first time in her life to fly to Asia!’
Mr Stagis collected the award with Movia executive Maja Nellemann and Stagis project manager Louise Kramer.
Further information on the award can be found at the Dansk Kommunikationsforening website.

Medinge director Jack Yan to give two presentations in Melbourne this week

admin — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:02:09 +0000

Stockholm, July 31 Medinge director Jack Yan will give presentations on branding at both Swinburne University and the University of Melbourne in the coming week.
His lecture for the faculty of design at Swinburne University, entitled Typography and Branding, looks at various elements of branding, including destination branding, the shift to humanism, cultural aspects, and the renaissance in typography.
It takes place on August 4 at 1 p.m., at the Lecture Theatre (PA309), PA Building, Prahran Campus, 144 High Street, Prahran.
His second presentation will be at the University of Melbourne on August 5 to members of the marketing faculty, and will look at his latest paper on social media and branding. A version of the paper appears in the next Journal of Brand Management, a special issue edited by Medinge director Dr Nicholas Ind and life member Ian Ryder.

Six Medinge members quoted and cited in upcoming Viewpoint magazine

admin — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:57:03 +0000

Stockholm, July 31 Five Medinge Group members—founder Thomas Gad, CEO Stanley Moss, director Jack Yan and long-standing members Philippe Mihailovich and Tony Quinlan—were interviewed by journalist Anna Sansom on cognitive ﬂuency in the next issue of Viewpoint magazine in the UK. Medinge director Dr Nicholas Ind was cited by Ms Sansom.
Ms Sansom’s story, out for the northern autumn, deals with recent academic studies on cognitive ﬂuency and sought experts’ opinion on the subject.
Each respondent gave answers in some depth, with useful debate, alongside other experts such as Prof Norbert Schwarz, Uri Baruchin and Dr Anastasiya Pocheptsova.
Viewpoint’s previous issue can be found in preview form at the publisher’s website, www.view-publications.com/content.html.

Medinge Group planned speaking roles, September to November

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:01:24 +0000

Stockholm, July 6 Medinge Group CEO Stanley Moss and member Yousef Tuqan Tuqan will speak at the Social Media World Conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE. They will be on a panel together on September 27, and Mr Moss has a keynote address on the 28th.
Medinge Group director Jack Yan will speak at the Creative Camp in Wellington, New Zealand on October 28–9, dealing with typography, and will follow up with an address on social media to the Motor Trade Association in Rotorua, New Zealand, on November 11.

Special issue of Journal of Brand Management sees strong Medinge Group participation

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:59:33 +0000

Stockholm, July 6 The special issue of The Journal of Brand Management, on ‘Conscientious Brands’, has the participation of three senior members and one life member of the Medinge Group, the Swedish-based, high-level branding think-tank.
Both Medinge Group director Nicholas Ind and life member Ian Ryder have edited the well respected academic journal. The special edition features contributions from director Jack Yan and long-serving member Ava Hakim.
All papers appearing in the issue have been double-blind peer-reviewed by the editorial board of the Journal, consisting of some of the world’s leading marketing and branding experts.
The special edition is expected to be released in September.

Medinge’s Petrov featured in Russian business journal

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 04:54:27 +0000

Dmitry Petrov, a member of Medinge, the Stockholm-based international think-tank on brands, is featured in the current issue of a Moscow magazine, The Russian Journal. The issue focuses on global think tanks, with emphasis on Russia. An international group of distinguished authors contributed. Mr Petrov’s article can be viewed in English translation in a PDF ﬁle linked below.

Medinge life member and former director Patrick Harris joins the Futures Company

admin — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 09:19:53 +0000

Leading global foresight and futures consultancy, the Futures Company, announces the appointment of Patrick Harris as a Director in the UK. This hire further strengthens the company’s offer in the areas of Strategic Futures—looking at the future of companies, industries and other issues of strategic importance to organizations.
Patrick Harris served as a director of the Medinge Group from 2004 to 2010. He successfully led the effort to formalize Medinge’s foundation status and managed the group’s membership and ﬁnance. In 2010, he was given the title of honorary life member in recognition of his role in the foundation of our organization.
Patrick is a highly respected futures practitioner, renowned for his ability to distil strategies into actionable plans and generate powerful momentum inside organizations. As Director of ‘Creaticity’ for the Orange Group from 1998 to 2002, where he worked directly for CEO Hans Snook and the executive board, Patrick co-founded and managed the Orange Strategic Think Tank that underpinned the company’s group-wide strategy during a period of rapid growth and expansion.
In 2003, Patrick founded thoughtengine, a consultancy focusing on creativity, strategy, brand and futures. He is a former non-executive Director of France Telecom UK R&D and an Honorary Life Member of the Medinge Group, a brand think-tank focused on furthering the humanitarian efforts of brands and their organizations. Patrick is also a founding member of Leadership Works, a Holland-based think tank focused on the future of leadership. His book, The Truth About Creativity, published by Pearson Prentice Hall, was released in July 2009.
On joining the Futures Company, Patrick Harris comments, ‘I have enormous respect for the talented people at the Futures Company and the valuable services that they provide to a number of organizations. I am delighted to be joining such an exciting, vibrant and intelligent team of professionals.’
Says Sarah King, Managing Director in the UK, ‘Patrick’s appointment represents the Futures Company’s continuing commitment to bringing the very best thinking to our mission of unlocking futures for our clients. We are absolutely delighted to welcome him to the Futures Company.’

International think-tank announces eighth annual Brands with a Conscience awards

admin — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 01:06:33 +0000

The Medinge Group (medinge.org), an international think-tank on branding and business, today releases its eighth annual Brands with a Conscience list. The Group employs yearly awards to support and encourage businesses who demonstrate humanistic, compassionate, sustainable and socially responsible behaviour. The awards may be given to organizations, large or small, for-profit or NGOs, who have come to the attention of the membership and who are deemed worthy of recognition.
A formalized nomination and voting process occurs between August and December, during which Medinge’s members evaluate, based on their expertise in humanistic branding, the competence and authenticity of each nominee.
Among this year’s winners are:
• a marine-based alternative energy system, which references conservation of the seas;
• a monolithic government-owned media company encouraging small business and grass roots’ endeavour;
• an ethical bank located in one of the troubled EU economies;
• a visionary zero-carbon urban community under construction in the Emirates;
• and for the Colin Morley Award, in the year of the Wikileaks controversy, a not-for-profit organization using the internet as a channel for open distribution of information.
The Colin Morley Award, a unique category recognizing excellence by an NGO, this year honours TED and its enduring commitment to ‘ideas worth sharing’.
Stanley Moss, CEO of the Medinge Group, remarks, ‘Once again, the BWAC process has identified the most compelling areas of discussion in the current brand universe: alternative energy, grass roots’ initiatives, ethical finance, community and social media all figure in the organizations recognized.’
Jack Yan, one of the directors of the Medinge Group, says, ‘This is one of those rare times when we see a state-owned enterprise—the BBC—engage in socially responsible behaviour, showing that it is not the structure of the organization that matters, but the strength of its purpose.’

2011 Brands with a Conscience winners

Aquamarine Power/UK
www.aquamarinepower.com
Aquamarine Power’s Oyster tidal energy technology produces electricity from the ocean waves. A demonstration-scale installation has been successfully deployed in Orkney, Scotland, proof that this alternative energy strategy could create sustainable zero-emission electricity, heralding the eventual progression away from dependence on fossil fuels.

BBC World News–Newsweek for World Challenge/UK
www.theworldchallenge.co.uk
Now in its sixth year, World Challenge is a global competition aimed at finding projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots’ level. World Challenge is about championing and rewarding projects and businesses which really make a difference. In making this award, the Medinge Group wishes to acknowledge a channel of mainstream media for using their power and influence to help those under-appreciated organizations in need.

Caja Navarra/Spain
www.cajanavarra.es/en/home.htm
This not-for-profit Pamplona-based bank loaned €3·3 billion and had a net profit of €200 million in 2008. Customers decide the social causes to which profits shall be allocated. There is a policy of complete transparency and exemplary peer-to-peer lending; and bank staff are encouraged to do voluntary work. In an era where banks are regarded with scepticism and disdain, Caja Navarra stands as a model for conscience-driven financial institutions.

Masdar City/UAE
www.masdarcity.ae/en/index.aspx
The world’s first zero-carbon city, designed to be powered by the sun and free of cars and skyscrapers. Projected to accommodate 50,000 people, at least 1,000 businesses and a university. Now under construction, it is being designed by British architects Foster and Partners, funded by the ruler of Abu Dhabi, HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Medinge’s Simon Nicholls remarked, ‘If it works, it will combine 21st-century engineering with traditional desert architecture to deliver safety, health and happiness.’

2011 Colin Morley Award

TED/USA
www.ted.com
TED’s simple credo of ‘ideas worth sharing’ is a concept absolutely core to the philosophy of the Medinge Group. This non-profit organization believes that sharing compelling ideas is the way to change the world. They have created a simple but powerful mechanism for doing it: an 18-minute filmed talk shared for free on the web, an elegant demonstration of the positive power of internet-borne social media which exists in tandem with regular international seminars.

2011 Brands with a Conscience committee
Chairman: Sergei Mitrofánov
Committee: Enric Bernal, Thomas Gad, Sicco van Gelder, Ava Hakim, Pierre d’Huy, Nicholas Ind, Tim Kitchin, Sascha Lötscher, Philippe Mihailovich, Johnnie Moore, Stanley Moss, Simon Nicholls, Simon Paterson, Dmitry Petrov, Tony Quinlan, Anette Rosencreutz, Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, Erika Uffindell, Jack Yan

Yousef Tuqan Tuqan elected to IAA executive board chapter

admin — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 09:30:17 +0000

The Medinge Group is pleased to acknowledge the election of Yousef Tuqan Tuqan to the executive board of the UAE chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA).
The board will serve a two-year term.
Mr Tuqan, the CEO of Flip Media, brings branding, digital advertising and social media expertise to the board.
He told Gulf News, ‘This is an industry that is very close to my heart. What’s also close to my heart is the digital side of the business. I really believe that we as an industry need to focus more on that discipline and that area of our business.’
Mr Tuqan is passionate about educating audiences about digital advertising. In January, he gave a presentation to the Medinge Group highlighting the impact of Twitter and social media on brands.
Membership to Medinge is by nomination and members must meet strict criteria concerning their work in cutting-edge, humanistic branding.

International think-tank announces seventh annual Brands with a Conscience awards

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:58:38 +0000

The Medinge Group (www.medinge.org), an international think-tank on branding and business, today releases its seventh annual Brands with a Conscience list. In the Group’s opinion, these diverse organizations show that it is possible for brands to succeed as they contribute to the betterment of society by sustainable, socially responsible and humanistic behaviour.
In announcing the winners, Stanley Moss, CEO of the Medinge Group said, ‘This year’s awards indicate that principles of compassionate branding are being applied globally, by businesses large and small, across categories from ﬁnance to retail to energy, in established and emerging economies, in new markets. Today, brands with conscience can work to build bridges of understanding between nations and societies.’
Ian Ryder, a founding director of the Medinge Group commented, ‘Winning a BWAC award is more than public recognition—it is a clear statement of your organization’s values, one of the most powerful competitive differentiators in existence!’
The international collective of brand practitioners meets annually in August at a secluded location outside Stockholm, Sweden, and collaborate on the list, judging nominees on principles of humanity and ethics, rather than ﬁnancial worth. The Brands with a Conscience list is shaped around criteria including evidence of the human implications of the brand and considering whether the brand takes risks in line with its beliefs. Evaluations are made based on reputation, self-representation, history, direct experience, contacts with individuals within the organizations, media and analysts and an assessment of the expressed values of sustainability.
Three years ago the group added a unique category commendation, the Colin Morley Award, recognizing exceptional achievement by an individual or NGO. Mr Morley, a member of the Medinge Group, died in the London Underground bombings on July 7, 2005. The award commemorates his visionary work in humanistic branding.
For 2010, the group has singled out the following organizations as Brands with a Conscience:

Alibaba Group/China
Co-op Bank/UK
Marks & Spencer/UK
Merci/France
Pictet et Cie./Switzerland
SAP/Germany
Selco Solar Pvt. Ltd./India

The Colin Morley Award is given to:

Muna Abu Sulayman/Saudi Arabia

Detailed descriptions and web links follow:

Alibaba Group
www.alibaba.com
A young Asian brand built on the idea that it must exist as an experience to elevate their own or other people’s level of happiness. Jack Ma founded Alibaba in his cramped apartment with 17 colleagues. A decade later, Alibaba Group is the largest ecommerce company in China, with 15,000 employees and more than 100 million users. It also has a B2B unit with a community of more than 42 million registered users from more than 240 countries and regions. This year Alibaba will unveil partnership plans for Grameen China, a project to signiﬁcantly increase access to micro-credit for poverty alleviation in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. (Medinge named Grameen Telecom a Brand with a Conscience in 2005, and its parent Grameen Bank was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2008.) Employing the Grameen Bank microcredit model, the group hopes to impact more than 72,000 lives in its ﬁrst ﬁve years.
Ava Hakim, IBM exec and member of the Medinge Group, remarked that Alibaba is a business ‘built on trust, one which respects intellectual property rights and will remove sites which infringe upon the rights of others.’ She also was impressed by the six core values named, which they have successfully applied to their business.

Co-op Bank
www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1193206375355,CFSweb/Page/Bank
The Co-op, founded in 1872, from its origins has focused on serving local communities. Today the Co-op is the only UK clearing bank to publish an ethical statement. Medinge director Patrick Harris lauded the brand, noting that ‘since 1992 Co-op has been building its ethical stance by asking its membership to vote on issues such as animal welfare, human rights and ecological impact.’ It claims to have turned away over £900 million in loans to businesses not in keeping with the Co-op Ethical Policy. The commitment to improve their food business’ ethical and environmental performance is in line with expectations arrived at in consultation with 100,000 members. Co-Op was double-nominated this year, for both its banking and food businesses.

Marks & Spencer
plana.marksandspencer.com
In her nomination, Medinge director Erika Ufﬁndell emphasized the focused approach to climate change, waste and sustainability that Marks & Spencer have adopted. With their Plan A campaign, the company established 100 commitments to achieve in ﬁve years, clear targets for their business, actionable by people across the group. Ufﬁndell ﬁnds the brand very accessible and involving: they have engaged 17,231 customers in making pledges to support climate change and a commitment to sustainability.

Merci
www.merci-merci.com
Merci is a 1500 m² shop for fashion and home furniture based in Paris, France. All sales proﬁts are destined for women and children in Madagascar. The store sells new or artist-reworked donated goods and has had a huge impact. Some goods are sent directly to Madagascar. Merci’s website is especially minimal and modest, yet effectively states the store’s mission. In his nomination, Medinge’s Philippe Mihailovich expressed the hope that Merci’s actions inﬂuence others to follow.

Pictet et Cie.
www.pictet.com
This Swiss-based private bank started in 1805. Medinge director Nicholas Ind cited two signiﬁcant aspects of the brand.
First, its focus on sustainable development and the redirection of funds in this direction by encouraging the maximum investment in sustainable areas for a given risk: the bank’s management of a water fund, launched in 2000, which has become the world’s largest of its kind, with over €4 billion in assets; and a Clean Energy fund. The second aspect is the Prix Pictet—the world’s ﬁrst international prize dedicated to photography and sustainability—mandated to encourage the use and power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. This year’s theme is Earth.

SAP
www.sap.com/about/SAP-sustainability
Today, many B2Bs are silently doing a fantastic job to adapt to our global challenges. Medinge’s chairman Thomas Gad nominated Germany’s SAP, a software company whom he admires because ‘they actually help other companies to create usable metrics in their CSR and sustainability.’ Over the past 10 years, SAP has been recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for upholding ethical, environmental, social, and governance values in products and services.

Selco Solar Pvt. Ltd.
www.selco-india.com/index.html
Medinge CEO Stanley Moss described Selco as an interesting small business, 14 years old, who supply solar power solutions, mostly in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. They rely on microﬁnance loans, employ 140 people, and have done around 100,000 installations of small to large size. They are partially funded by Grameen. Moss was impressed by their cradle-to-grave attitude about product, longevity in the marketplace after a tough start-up, good work on the individual level, private ownership, and the understanding of need for innovation.

The 2010 Colin Morley Award to Muna Abusulayman
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muna_Abu-Sulayman
Simon Nicholls, a member of Medinge, nominated Muna Abu Sulayman, who receives 2010’s Colin Morley Award, for excellence by an individual or NGO, acknowledging their contribution to the betterment of society through sustainable, socially responsible and humanistic behaviour. In giving this award, the Medinge Group recognizes Muna’s outstanding work in educational development, poverty alleviation and strategic philanthropy; as Executive Director of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, developing and implementing operations for humanitarian assistance across the globe; her role as the ﬁrst woman in Saudi Arabia to be appointed by the United Nations Development Programme as a Goodwill Ambassador; and for exceptional reporting as co-host on popular MBC-TV social programme Kalam Nawaem, in particular her advocacy of rights for women. As a public and media personality, she speaks about issues relating to Arab society, media, building bridges of understanding between east and west. Since 1997, Ms Abu Sulayman has served as lecturer on American literature at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. She frequently appears as a panelist at the Davos World Economic Forum, Jewish Economic Forum, C-100 of the World Economic Forum, Brookings Institute Conferences and other venues.

Patrick Harris, a Medinge director, added, ‘In the list of 2010 Brands with a Conscience winners, we can see a clear focus on commerce and ﬁnance. This is no accident. Instead, this is a sign of the world’s markets responding to the need for responsible and inter-generational business activities.’
Regarding his nomination of Co-op Bank, Harris said, ‘The UK’s Co-operative Bank is a prime example of a highly principled business within a traditional competitive landscape. The Co-op are being recognized by Medinge for their values-led business focus and for the impact that they bring to a beleaguered sector.’
Jack Yan, a director of Medinge said, ‘Again, the Medinge Group’s international inﬂuence has resulted in a global list of winners, all of which practise our ideals of humanistic branding. I’m thrilled we’ve recognized our ﬁrst Chinese and Saudi Arabian winners this year.
‘In particular, Selco Solar of India shows a commitment to green energy that is very poignant in the 2010s. Just because fuel prices have dropped from their 2008 highs does not mean that the energy crisis is over, a fact the Medinge Group recognizes.’
Medinge Group member Ava Maria Hakim commented, ‘The message to the world—and Alibaba’s 100 million users—is that China’s Alibaba Group has set a global brand and business benchmark that goes beyond corporate social responsibility to building an integrity-based business driven by long-term vision. Alibaba Group is a Brand with a Conscience of the future.
Erika Ufﬁndell, a director of Medinge, commented, ‘Marks & Spencer is a great example of an organization living by its beliefs. M&S has been recognized by Medinge for creating the innovative Plan A—an initiative that involves customers and partners in their ambition to help combat climate change and reduce waste. Plan A focuses on ﬁve key areas: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, health and being a ﬂair partner. Marks & Spencer’s ability to involve their stakeholders in such a simple and accessible way has been reﬂected in their signiﬁcant achievements to date.’
Nicholas Ind, a founding director of Medinge stated, ‘This year, the Medinge Group’s Brands with a Conscience awards shows impressive diversity and reﬂects the commitment that brand owners are demonstrating around the globe to building organizations that meet the needs of all parts of society. The 2010 winners come from the UK, China, India, Switzerland, Germany, France and Saudi Arabia.’

Special thanks to Medinge’s 2010 BWAC nominating committee
Paulina Borsook
Thomas Gad
Ava Hakim
Patrick Harris
Pierre d’Huy
Nicholas Ind
Philippe Mihailovich
Sergei Mitrofanov
Stanley Moss, chairman
Simon Nicholls
Anette Rosencreutz
Erika Ufﬁndell
Jack Yan