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Blog

This Way Forward: B-Corps, Letting Your Values Lead the Way

At Aspire we focus on letting our values lead the way – our guiding light through any change.

March is B-Corp month, and last October, we were overjoyed to be awarded B-Corp status after a lot of hard work and gruelling questionnaires… For those who may not know, certified B-Corps are businesses which put people and planet before profit. At Aspire, we have always endeavoured to do just that, so when we learned more about B-Corp certification, we couldn’t wait to apply. We looked at what we did already that aligned with B-Corp principles and used those as our path through the process.

We managed to get our B-Corp rating after enacting very little change in our practices.

Sometimes though, change is required in order to move forward, so how do you do that without losing sight of who you are at your core?

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Fabulous books by fabulous women for World Book Day and International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day. And that’s not all that’s happening this week. Parents, carers, and educators around the world have also been pulling together creative (and not so creative) costumes for the school event of the year – World Book Day. (Disclaimer: I am in the not-creative camp. My child went to school in a store-bought unicorn onesie.)

Tying in with this week’s important themes of 1) celebrating books, creativity, and learning, and 2) recognising and honouring women and highlighting the gender inequalities that still exist, I wanted to share an excellent book, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, which kickstarted the idea for this blog.

Invisible Women uses data to demonstrate how this world is built by men for men, and highlights the unseen daily bias that impacts the professional and personal lives of women. From the use of dummies with male proportions to test car safety to the urban planning of cities being developed for men who don’t have to do the school run, this was an incredibly eye-opening read. I was amazed by how many things I had just accepted as ‘the way things were’, and it made me question these and start to push for better. It’s a great read to help you become more aware of how these invisible biases may show up in your own communities and workplaces, and to prompt discussions about how you can begin to level the playing field.

And it got me thinking, what other incredible books by women are out there that we should know about and that could change our ways of thinking and working?

So, in celebration of International Women’s Day and World Book Day, some of the Aspire team have shared their top book recommendations by women authors.

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How do you deal with an awkward audience interaction as a presenter?

I want to tell you about the time a legend of the silver screen and theatre showed me how you deal with an awkward audience interaction effectively. It taught me so much about where I think my focus ought to be as a presenter or public speaker and added a valuable tool to my toolkit.

 

A while back, I attended a Q&A with celebrated Norwegian actress, Liv Ullmann, at London’s BFI, following a screening of one of her films with Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata.

 

Full disclosure: I generally don’t enjoy attending Q&As, because I get worried that members of the audience, instead of taking the opportunity to ask the speaker an insightful question, will opt to make a long, drawn-out observation or boast about a previous encounter with that speaker. Then I feel uncomfortable.

 

On this occasion, however, I couldn’t miss out on the chance to hear one of the world’s greatest living performers in conversation. And, as I expected, the post-screening chat with her interviewer was illuminating.

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