The Melting Pot Newsletter | Issue #51
iWHAT IS PURPOSE IN BUSINESS (AND HOW DO YOU FIND IT?)
What a week! Meltdown in Westminster, no sign of a resolution to the endless Brexit calamity, fires burning in the Amazon, disaster in the Bahamas, Hong Kong paralysed by discontent. Uncertainty has become the new normal. It feels like the world is in uncharted territory.
It’s no coincidence that at times like these, people yearn for certainty and meaning in their lives. And often, that certainty can come from a true sense of purpose – a reason for existence. This can become an anchor in the turbulent waters of world events.
It’s also why businesses with a genuine sense of purpose tend to be more successful. Once lived and breathed by every employee, purpose increases motivation and happiness at work as well as being a north star that guides every company decision.

Brandwatch: matching business needs to the world’s needs
This week’s guest is Giles Palmer, founder and CEO of Brandwatch, a company devised to help organisations find and engage with online conversations that matter; a digital consumer intelligence company. Brandwatch exists to help brands primarily, but also agencies understand their modern consumers—who they are, how they behave, their preferences, what they’re sharing and what they’re saying—so that the company can make better decisions about what they make and how they bring that product to market.
In conversation with Dom, Giles discusses:
- Why Brandwatch measures the impact of influencing, without being an influencer itself
- The different interpretations of fake news
- How big data allows companies to make better decisions
- Coffee trends come out of San Francisco
- Dealing with a gender pay gap
- The issues with merging two rival companies
Recommended Articles

HOW FEARLESS ORGANISATIONS SUCCEED
Achieving high performance requires having the confidence to take risks, especially in a knowledge-intensive world. When an organization minimizes the fear people feel on the job, performance — at both the organizational and the team level — is maximized. But how do you make your organization fearless in a way that builds its capability?

SURVEY: WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT MOST FROM THEIR WORKSPACES
In an effort to support a healthier and more productive workforce, employers across the country are expected to spend an average of $3.6 million on wellness programs in 2019. Think onsite gyms. Standing desks. Meditation rooms. Nursing hotlines. These are just some of the benefits companies are investing in. But is any of it paying off?
THE KEY TO HAPPY CUSTOMERS? HAPPY EMPLOYEES

We all know that customers are central to the fate of businesses. It’s captured in the maxim, coined by department store tycoons of the early 20th century, “The customer is always right.” Jeff Bezos, one of today’s most iconic businessmen, has laid Amazon’s incredible success at the feet of its obsession with customers, saying “You can be competitor-focused, you can be product-focused, you can be technology-focused, you can be business-model-focused… But in my view, obsessive customer-focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality.” As company leaders strive to put customers first, our latest research offers new insights into how that might be achieved: through engaged and happy employees.
Recommended Reads
THE POWER OF MOMENTS: WHY CERTAIN EXPERIENCES HAVE EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT

In this latest New York Times bestseller by the authors of Switch and Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath explore why certain brief experiences can jolt, elevate and change us – and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our own life and work.

Discover how to use Blogs, Video, Podcasts, Social Media and other forms of Content Marketing to attract your ideal clients, put your marketing on autopilot and make sales simple and seamless! This book is a simple, how-to, step-by-step guide to growing your business online WITHOUT having to resort to cold calls, paid advertising, meetings and everything else you hate about outdated sales and lead generation methods!