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The Homes & Communities Agency’s Showcase website features a video of Housing Minister, the Rt Hon Grant Shapps, calling for contributions and ideas about how to get more empty homes back into use. I posted the following idea on the website yesterday.
I have an idea to enter into joint venture partnerships with owners of empty, derelict homes whereby the owners invest their blighted property at its present use/ present state value and the JV partner would invest in refurbishing the home, by contracting with social enterprises and social firms to do the work. This idea uses empty homes as employment opportunities for retraining the long-term unemployed, ex-offenders, and people from excluded groups. The completed property is then usable and livable and can be used to house people in need in the short term, but more likely sold on the open market, the profits shared between the private owner and the JV social enterprise developer. Sharing the profits is intended to motivate the private owner. The social enterprise developers’ profits can then be re-invested into new projects and pay wages so that re-trained workers can start to afford housing as well. It is by no means a perfect solution and does not appropriately address the affordability issue, but it does start to create a new cycle of employment opportunities and more equitable distribution of wealth.
I have been toying with this idea for months, originally inspired by two large family homes which have sat in dereliction for at least 6 years on my street. I walk by them at least ten times a week. I had reported them empty on the reportemptyhomes.com website and got a response from the local council’s empty property officer. The council initiated compulsory purchase proceedings. I thought this was great at first – action! I thought perhaps I could suggest this joint venture idea to the council, to partner with them if they were successful in gaining ownership, thinking it would be easier to get the cooperation of the council. However, I was advised that the council would put the property back on the market if compulsory purchase proceedings were successful. I presume this procedure was designed in the interest of the community and meant to avoid conflicts of interest.
After delivering some impromptu 1-to-1 advice sessions at the SHINE Unconference in May, I decided to do some scheduled 1-to-1 business modelling advice sessions at the Rewire London Unconference on Tuesday 8 June at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. The inaugural event was organised by Alison Coward and my friend, Sinead Mac Manus.
The Rich Mix was all a-buzz in the main area where the presentations and larger-audience interactive sessions were being held. I set myself up in the ground floor café by the window – it was a vibrant, healthy, quieter atmosphere – perfect for meeting Rewire delegates and listening to their great enterprise ideas and creative ventures.
The afternoon’s topics included building community and collaboration, working with partners with complementary skillsets, making transitions, prototyping, defining vision, and identity. All of these ideas, challenges, and opportunities feature in developing a business model – defining the key components of a business and the relationships among them.
Here’s a brief rundown of who I had the pleasure of meeting and some of the things we discussed:
- Candy Willems, who is developing Why Create, a creative agency and centre for collaboration, helping students and recent graduates in creative industries connect, grow, swap and share resources. We discussed making connections with the organisations and companies that might hire the people within the community she is creating and other sources of support for the creative industry.
- Vita Gottlieb, a print and textiles designer, who is interested in extending her designs and printed fabrics into fashion (lounge wear, intimate apparel). We had an interesting conversation about transitioning from one business focus to another and about making samples – prototyping for fashion.
- Alex Haw, who described himself as a trained architect when he sat down to speak with me, but by the end of the conversation I described him as an innovator. He runs the atmos studio and we spoke also of working with partners with complementary skills and what a redefined business might be and look like.
- Vincenzo Di Maria and Bruno Taylor, co-founders of Common Ground, applying design to deliver public services more effectively. We had an inspired chat about defining vision – the seed or core around which a business model is built.
- Nayan, from Food For All, dropped in at the end of the day who asked me the challenging question of what processes exist for making decisions and choosing amongst multiple ideas and options. In my mind, decision-making is not always solely a logical or intellectual process. I described reaching agreement amongst my intellectual (logic, thoughts), emotional (feelings), spiritual (intuition), and physical (body, physical ability) elements as being a sign of a good decision. More on this concept in a future post!
I must also give credit for the Business Model Canvas, which I like to use as a tool when I explain the concept of business modelling and describe how things join up. I really enjoyed the afternoon and value the opportunity to help people move their ideas steps forward. It also re-ignited my love for design and creative work and I, myself, am thinking about ways design can help make business modelling easier to understand and less daunting to undertake. Afterall – business modelling is about designing a business.
