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The Company that Owned a Nation

February 11, 2009 by Liz

The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

by Jean Gogolin, WordWright

Elizabeth I of England is remembered for a lot of things – her virginity and defeating the Spanish Armada to name two – but not many people think of her as the backer of an early experiment in capitalism called the joint stock company.

But by granting a royal charter to a bunch of London businessmen intent on beating the Dutch at the spice trade, she set the stage for a business deal that shaped a nation – one that could teach Wall Street and the U.S. Congress a few lessons.

On December 31, 1600, the Queen granted a Royal Charter to “George, Earl of Cumberland and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and Burgesses” to form what eventually became the East India Company. Shortly thereafter their ships set sail for the Indian Ocean, and the rest is quite literally history.

Initially, the company stuck to trading cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre (for gunpowder), tea, and that big profit maker, opium. Back home, various acts of Parliament renewed the company’s charter, in return for which the company made large loans to the government. Over time, the Company acquired Indian territory, minted money, collected revenues, maintained forts and armies, made war and peace, made treaties, and administered justice – of its own kind. Eventually, it ruled virtually all of India.

Of course, all that power corrupted. Despite its revenues from trade and other sources, the Company found itself burdened with massive military expenditures, and its future seemed bleak. Desperate, the directors tried to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help.

[Sound familiar?]

State intervention put the Company back on its feet, Parliament took greater control over the Company’s affairs, and placed India under the rule of a Governor-General in an arrangement called the Raj. [See “A Passage to India,” available through http://www.Netflix.com]

For the next 50 years, the British tried to eliminate Indian rivals, beating back Tipu Sultan of Mysore and the Marathas, and subjugating the Sikhs.

Finally, of course, India rebelled and eventually won independence.

British histories of the Raj tend to focus on the regimes of law and order installed by the British, the bringing of the railways, roads, and telegraph to the natives, the institution of formal education, the introduction of British political traditions and institutions. Not to mention cricket and gin. To hear them tell the story, relationships between the Brits and the people of Indian were cordial.

But according to one source, at the same time that near-sainted Winston Churchill was waging a valiant struggle against the Nazis and Japanese, he complained to Leo Amery, Secretary of State for India, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” Churchill, you remember, spent considerable time in India.

No wonder Indian historians describe the Raj, and the reign of the East India Company, somewhat differently than the British do.

The East India Company was finally dissolved in 1874 – though interestingly, it still has a 1-page website leading nowhere: http://www.theeastindiacompany.com/

Two small remnants of its existence remain. One is the East India Club in London, now a private gentlemen’s club in St. James Square. The other, surprisingly, is the design of the American stars and stripes, which was influenced by one of the East India Company’s flags.

But the real legacy of the Company, for good and ill, is India itself, forever shaped by those 16th Century businessmen after the wealth of the East.

Jean Gogolin can be found working at WordWright and at Word Tales where she
writes about writing, the news, and the business of words in an intelligent, strategic and slightly edgy way.
Her twitter name is @jgogolin

Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!

Filed Under: Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, East India Company, Jean Gogolin, LinkedIn, ROI of Relationships, SOBCon09, Word Wright

SOBCon09 Comment Box Conference / Q&A — 12 Hours Tuesday Feb. 10

February 8, 2009 by Liz

An Expert Every Hour and Q&A for 12 Hours

Everyone is invited. Stop by for a while listen in and meet some new friends.

Think theater of the imagination meets speakers and attendees in the comment box for conversation.

Why the comment box and not some new technology? The comment box offers a different experience — slower, more intimate, with room for everyone to bring long thoughts and serious questions.

When: Tuesday, February 10th

Where: Successful-Blog.com

What: New Post and Speaker Every Hour
11:00 a.m. – 10 p.m. CT (GMT -6hrs)
Watch the clock in the sidebar.

When and Who:

11:00 – Liz Strauss on How to Build a Personal Development Network
12:00 – Mark Carter on Saving The World With Social Media
1:00 – Lucretia Pruitt on Twittering the Way that Works Best for You
2:00 – Andy Sernovitz on Amazing Word of Mouth for Your Blog
3:00 – Mary-Lynn Foster on Podcast and Blog Interviewing Tips
4:00 – Easton Ellsworth on Visionary Blogging Improvements
5:00 – John Haydon on Social Media and Trust Online
6:00 – VickyHennegan on Writing for the Web
7:00 – Becky McCray on Successful Entrepreneurship
8:00 – Shannon Paul on Internet People and What They Do
9:00 –Angela Maiers on Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century
10:00 –Terry Starbucker on Pitching Social Media to Clients — 5 Key Questions for Potential Clients

Bring your own link to leave to share information about blogging, social media, and ROI of Relationships on the Social Web

C’mon Let’s Talk!

We haven’t done something like this since 2007!
— ME “Liz” Strauss

Register Now for SOBCon09 Explode your network!

Filed Under: Community, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Comment Boc Conference, ROI of Relationships, SOBCon09

Anita Roddick's "The Body Shop" Was Built on Relationships

February 4, 2009 by Liz

The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

Dame Anita Roddick, Business As Unusual
by Gerald Neo

“The old views of business as a jungle where only the vicious survive will, I hope, soon be giving way to a new view of business as a community where only the responsible will lead. If yours values are heralded and if your heart is in the right place, if your feeling are recognized and your spirit at play, I believe there will be footprints out there for all of us.” –Anita Roddick — Business As Unusual

The late a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Roddick”>Dame Anita Roddick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Roddick) is one of those few business person whom I always admired. She had built a business empire The Body Shop not just on making profit out of producing cosmetic products but also an ambassador for fair trade, environmental awareness, animal protection and respect for human rights.

Anita had always being known for her campaigning work on social and environmental causes. And through campaigning, she had caused multi-national companies like Shell and government to take remedial action on the things which they have done wrong.

In one of her books “Business As Unusual”, she mentioned the following reasons as how The Body shop maintains their identity in a business environment that usually alienates humanity in every way.

  • We didn’t know how to run a conventional business. We had never read a book on economic theory and had never even heard of Milton Friedman.
  • We valued and respected labour as fuzzy and cuddly, nerdy as that sounds. We understood that life was no more complicated than love and work.
  • We had no money. Every original was based on reusing everything, refilling and recycling we could.
  • We were naïve. We didn’t know you could tell lies. That grace has stayed with us to this day.
  • We loved change. We believed everything was subject to change.
  • We had a secret ingredient called euphoria. We shared an extraordinary level of optimism, and we still do.

Finally – and this was the main ingredient – we couldn’t take a moisturizer seriously!

Anita had built every business relationship on those reasons. And those reasons had also become the foundation for the values, which every employee of The Body Shop used to guide them as they worked with each other.

In the ever-changing business world, companies can only be successful if the people running it are true to their values. And usually how are they being judged on that? It’s not based on their bottom line but how they maintain their business relationship with everyone from business partners, customer, vendors and even their employees.

Gerald Neo can be found at geraldheralds where he
writes about anything from leadership managment and organizational
managment to online marketing and social media.
His twitter name is @gneo

Register for SOBCon09 NOW!!

Filed Under: Business Life, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Biz School for Bloggers, GeraldNeo, LinkedIn, ROI of Relationships, sobcon

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