Covid-19 update

We hope everyone is well, following government and health authority advice and coping with the C19 shutdown. Although Red Ochre has closed its offices in line with official guidance the team is working from remote locations. We are supporting our existing clients with email, Skype, Zoom and MS Teams conferencing. If you would like to make contact with us the most efficient way is via email in the first instance. Uday Thakkar, MD & coFounderRobert Foster, coFounder & senior consultantMartin Cooper, EU Project lead Emergency funding The Coronavirus Charity Help Fund offers grants of £5-20K for specific coronavirus poverty relief Read more »

Here’s a short video on social impact I did with Common Venture last week. Read more »

Red Ochre’s work profiled in Pioneers Post

Robert was interviewed about the work with disabled entrepreneurs in Indonesia that Red Ochre has been doing in partnership with Disability Empowerment Centre (DEC) in south central Java. Read more »

Prepare for objections

I recently read a piece on preparing for objections in sales pitches. It was a very simple summary I thought I’d share. The most common objections fall into four basic themes: Read more »

Need help making a video?

Chartity Comms has released a guide on making films for social change. If you’re not sure where to start have a look at the FilmKit guide for both theory and practical advice that’ll help get you started. View the guide and toolkit here. Read more »

4 ways music venues can increase revenues and avoid closure

As a consumer of live music I read this with interest. If you want to read the whole article visit the newbusiness website. The long and the short of it is: Make a brand out of your venue Use social media to engage your audience Actively programme Lastly, that catch-all “be creative”. Although a tad trite in places the general gist of the piece is practical and may well be useful for operators of smaller venues. Read more »

Jobseekers prefer ‘woke’ businesses, says survey

I saw this article on the People Management website and thought it was interesting. There’s been lots of talk for a long time about purpose driven businesses being a draw for new job seekers (Deloitte Millennial survey etc.) but much of the commentary has been anecdotal. This survey by the Henley Business School has some figures to back up the conclusions. For more details see the People Management website or the Henley Business School website. Read more »

Making waves in Tempo

Our project work in Java over the last six months has caught the attention of Tempo Magazine. Tempo is one of the largest circulation and best known weekly news and politics magazines in Indonesia. Read more »

Product development and social media training in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

At Red Ochre we’ve had the pleasure to be able to work with our colleagues DEC (Disability Empowerment Centre), Lawe Foundation and Kampung Halaman with the support of the British Council. During August we worked with members of the DEC association to refine their cultural and heritage products and then developed their storytelling skills for digital platforms. I was really impressed by their openness, desire to improve and the end results. Have a look at some of photos I’ve taken. #BCDice #DEC @SocEntGlobal Read more »

Practical innovation

For those of you who are interested here’s a link to a blog I wrote for the City Business Library (CBL) in London. Read more »

Shout out to “Al Banat”

On the 3rd July the British Council Egypt launched the Young ChangemakeHERS programme. The project is supported by the British Council Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies (DICE) programme, Ashoka Arab World and, of course, Red Ochre. This programme will support 60 young women from 14 governorates in Egypt to develop their creative ad social initiatives. Read more »

Strike a Light wins Brighton Hospital tender

We are pleased to be able to announce that friend and client of Red Ochre, Strike a Light, has successfully bid for the 3Ts Oral History Project run by Brighton Hospital. For more information, to take part or to experience the outputs from the work see the project website. Read more »

Has your organisation turned into a monoculture?

I saw this interesting article on diversity, or the lack of, in organisations. The exploration of arrogance vs humility was an interesting barometer. Source: CIPD Read more »

North Macedonian TV interview

While I was in Macedonia working with partners on the Upcylcing 4 Youth programme I was interviewed for North Macedonian TV. Martin and I are in the piece from 17:31 onwards. Read more »

Weclome to Gunning Kidul

I recently spent a week and a half on Gunning Kidul on Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This wasn’t a holiday. It was an eye opening opportunity for me work with DEC (Disability Empowerment Centre) on a community enterprise programme. I found it interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, DEC is a cooperative (locally called an association) of cooperatives. It also engages directly in work with its members and the wider community. Secondly, 98% of the membership has some form of disability. Furthermore, the membership includes people that completed university through to people that haven’t completed primary school. This was such an Read more »