heartharmony.com.au

Last night I attended a black tie awards dinner for the Qld Sustainable Business Awards with my client Spick & Span Commercial cleaning. Although Nuwan didn’t win – the winner in that category was  a truly remarkable industrial estate that was 100 self-sustaining and carbon neutral (Mitchell Enviro Industrial Estate), it was  a brilliant evening.

What made the night spectacular was looking at all of the visionary businesses who wanted to make a difference to the environment. Each business owner was sparked by an idea – one that filled them with passion and excitement and which they turned into thriving, profitable businesses.

There was the Qld Complete Printing Service that only uses biodegradable soy ink and enviro sensitive paper. There was the innovative Cooee DustBloc company that reduces water needed on mine site roads by 90% through a special blend of road coating (given sites generally use 4 million litres of water a year that’s a huge saving), and a brilliant sustainable building at Bond University.

There were many other fascinating businesses on show last night – all founded with a spark of creativity.

What was also interesting was the under-the-sea theme of the event. Guests walked under a giant 20 octopus to get to their tables with lighting and table decorations to give the impression of being underwater.

The entertainment (other than the band) was a group of 5 men with stuffed nemo like fish on poles that waggled when they walked. This caused much discussion at our table – trying to work out how the guys came up with the idea – and how they would pitch their entertainment to business owners “let’s get five very serious guys in black and get them to waggle fish at people”.

Fish on Sticks

These guys took their job very very seriously. Only one smiled the whole night of waggling – the rest just quietly walked around with their fish in a school. The fish school periodically would stop at a table and swarm the guests or the table centre piece and then quietly move on their way. Not a word was spoken by the fish wagglers.

We tried to work out what hourly rate you would pay fish wagglers, and how you could possibly find them on Google. But then we decided that sometimes creativity just has to be enjoyed – there is no other purpose. They had the ultimate small business niche.

The fish wagglers were no different to the industrial estate creator – they had the same spark of creativity and the same passion – they just applied their creativity differently. Where does your spark of creativity do you have in your business?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance writer