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Death is one of the harsh truths of our existence that we are least prepared for. Holding a service in memory of the deceased is a very old tradition that has undergone a lot of changes. Conventionally, a funeral service was conducted in church and the departed was bid farewell with readings from scriptures as well as a eulogy. But, the practice has witnessed significant change over time as a large number of people now desire to opt for a more personal service for their loved ones.

Conducting a funeral service just after the death of a loved one can be an extremely difficult task for any family. One of the myths about funeral services is that it is legally mandatory for the family of the deceased to arrange a service, but this is not true. Secondly, many people think that a service has to be conducted in a church, which is also a misconception. It is crucial to note that conventionally, such services were conducted in church but these days, with significance being attached to a personal touch, funeral services are being increasingly held in homes. Thirdly, such services do not mandate the presence of any clergy or priest or even a casket as a compulsory requirement.

But, for any such personal funeral service, you need to keep the deceased person in mind while making the preparations. The music to be played at the service must be soothing as well as from the favourites of the departed. You have the choice of playing audio records or engaging a live music band.

Some families prefer putting up the personal things of the deceased in a collage, for the persons assembled to reflect on his or her life. Address is extremely crucial in all funeral services inclusive of the personal ones. It could be a poem, a song or a personal speech that aptly describes the dead person.

Lastly, it is preferable to give the guests assembled at the service some kind of a memento that will make them remember the departed forever.

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Definitions of English words often change quite rapidly these days. In the not-too-distant past the definition of words was often set in concrete. Today the meaning can change in the blink of an eye. With new and faster ways to exchange ideas and with wider and more culturally, socially and educationally diverse groups connecting together – words are put back on the hard anvil of evolution and transformed into something new and more reflective of current life and living.

There is a growing significant movement happening global where consumers are asking businesses to look after the things they care about such as the environment and the less fortunate in society. The request is still mainly tacit and despite it being an ironic request it still signals we are in a time of great change. Consumers these days want their ‘toys’ but they don’t want the environment to be destroyed in the creation of these. They want cheap products but they do not want workers to be paid a pittance to create the cheap products.

There may not seem an answer to this complex puzzle and yet one actually exists. It exists in the reforging of a simple single word – GET. Today there is a new movement of people wanting to get but give at the same time and they are reforging its meaning into the word GIVE.

Every day automated email notices arrive from Google Alerts for two keywords – B1G1 and BOGO. I see all the new places these words are being used on the Internet. I can now see that the new meaning of these words is coming alive ‘poco a poco’ -little by little.

The B1G1 and BOGO acronyms both stand for Buy One GET One free. You buy one and you get given an extra one for free.

If you look on Wikipedia you will find these definitions for BOGO (there isn’t a definition yet for B1G1) -

* An acronym in the retail industry that stands for Buy One Get One. For example, you could say “Buy 1 DVD, Get 1 FREE!

* An acronym in slang British that stands for Britons Of Greek Origin or Greek Britons.

* Bogo, Cebu, a city in central Philippines.

* Norway, a village in Norway.

* Norway, a village in Norway.

* The mascot of the ITESM CEM.

* BogoMips, an unscientific measurement of CPU speed

* BogoMips, an unscientific measurement of CPU speed

BOGO light

There is an organisation in the USA called SunLight Solar founded by a gentleman called Mark Bent. He has created a special torch that not only is an amazing and robust solar-powered light; his company also gives a free torch to a family in need in developing nations for each one purchased. If you look on their website you will learn about their “BOGOlight”.

BOGOlight.com. – “The BoGo – our Buy one/Give one – program has successfully provided lights to many, many thousands of people in the developing world, changing lives because of your purchase and participation.”

Mark Bent turned the acronym upside down when he started to use the word as part of his product name. For him now and the thousands who buy his lights, BOGO now means Buy One GIVE One. Each person gets to give a light every time they buy one for themselves. So now with each sale, people who do not have the luxury of electricity can harness the power of the sun to support their lives.

There are many other well known and less well know businesses now doing Buy One Give One giving or transaction based giving as it is becoming known. Some of the famous ones are One Laptop Per Child and TOMS Shoes. Some of the less well-known ones (in the USA at least) are based in Australia, New Zealand and the UK – Maple Muesli, Blinds Couture, Earthstar Publishing, Figure 8 Body Chains, Honestly Women magazine, Sunsplash Homes and Thavibu Gallery based in Thailand are just a few special businesses that are leading the Buy One Give One movement in their parts of the world.

There are many Buy One Give One businesses now uniting under the common brand banner of Buy1GIVE1 managed by a Singapore based social enterprise which is becoming the home of transaction-based giving. Any business in the world can now integrate Buy One Give One giving with ease. It’s like a ‘CSR plug-in’ allowing a business to instantaneously start giving from each and every sale, starting from just 1 cent. It’s also no longer about giving an equivalent product to someone else. Instead it is about contributing to a project that resonates with a company’s activity. For example a restaurant can feed a child, a television retailer can give a cataract blind person the gift of sight (Get Vision-Give Vision), a magazine publisher can plant a tree every time they sell a subscription and a property developer can build a low-cost family home for those in need (Buy1BUILD1) – the list is simply endless.

There is something very special happening these days as more and more people are switching to giving and what are known as ‘citizen brands’ as a part of their everyday experience. In the 2008 Goodpurpose study of global consumer attitudes it reveals that almost 68% of consumers would choose to remain loyal to a brand during an economic downturn if it supports a good cause. And 71% say that when they think about the economic downturn, they have either given the same or more time and money to good causes. This study also highlighted some other key points as well such as:

* 54% would promote a brand and its products if there was a good cause behind it.

* 52% of consumers globally are more likely to tell others of a brand when it supports a good charity cause over one that doesn’t.

* Consumers are now voicing a clear desire for marketers to associate their brands to social causes. 42% say that if two products or services were of a similar quality and price, commitment to a cause outranks factors like innovation, design and brand loyalty when selecting one brand over another.

Getting becoming Giving

In the minds of consumers, Buy One GIVE One is expected to replace Buy One GET One as the new global giving movement led by Buy1GIVE1 spreads. Certainly with the massive sales results and consumer demand shown for companies like BOGOlights, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and TOMS Shoes, this tide will continue to spread and grow.

I did a Google search on the 25 topmost key words connected with the keyword BOGO as an experiment to see what would show up. The results were interesting so I have displayed them below. You may notice that right now the word Give doesn’t show up. It will be interested to do this test again in twelve months time to see what changes. Consumers are now driving change and yes they want to receive free gifts (traditional B1G1/BOGO) but equally they also want to give to others or see others being given to.

Here are the results:

Free, photography, blogging, discount, networking, African, boots, groups, music, dallas, togo themes, wallpapers, buy, applications, skins, values, coupon, gift, sharing, shopping, pics, join, prose

Transactional or transaction-based giving

Unlike traditional charity giving, Buy One Give One giving is transactional in that every time you buy something, you give something. In the case of SunNight Solar they happen to give a physical light for every light sold. However, in most cases, Buy1GIVE1 associated businesses give in a different way. At Buy1GIVE1, giving can start from just USD 1c contribution per sale and go up to thousands of dollars in the case of Buy1BUILD1. At 1cent almost every business in the world can afford to give from each sale especially when they know 100% contributed goes to the cause.

The amount of money that is contributed isn’t the focus with Buy1GIVE1 transaction based giving. The focus instead is on the story and sharing the simple joy of giving. After all, if you think that 1c isn’t a lot to give and would not make much of a difference think again.

From its origins in Ethiopia, where the main coffee production is still from wild coffee tree forests, coffee consumption has spread throughout the world. Today Brazil is still by far the largest producer producing an average output of 28% of the world’s total coffee. Brazil produced enough coffee in 2006 to make 216 billion four hundred million – 216 400 000 000 – espresso coffees. If we calculate that across global production then we get a daily global consumption of around 2,117,416,830 cups of coffee. The figures are hard to find but let’s guess that 40% of the world’s coffee is sold in coffee shops then we would get that 846,966,732 cups are sold commercially each day globally. This would equate to about’5,485,714 cups in the USA alone seeing they purchase around 21.9% of the world’s coffee beans.

Now imagine that for every cup of coffee sold a child was given clean drinking water from its own well. It costs just 1cent per person per day to do this. Any coffee shop could afford to contribute this amount from the sale of a cup of coffee. Instead of clean water a coffee shop could contribute for the education of coffee farmers’ children, costing from 23cents per child per day. The options and stories are unlimited as well as the potential difference that Buy One Give One transactional giving can make to the lives of many.

Transactional giving is the story of the thousand-mile journey starting with that first single step. Digging a well costs a few thousand dollars so it’s a big barrier for communities in developing nations. However if you break the cost down it only takes the sale of a cup of coffee to give clean water to a single person for a day1. This is the power of transactional giving. It is like the compound interest of giving – a little turns into a lot very quickly.

So many companies are used to doing things on their own. Doing transactional giving is no different. A company can go out find a cause and start doing Buy One Give One giving. And yet they are missing the point when they do this. Buy1GIVE1 giving is about sharing the joy of giving and not trying to change the world. As soon as you step up and say you are going to change the world then the world will step up and challenge you. Within a heartbeat a company would experience the sharp scrutiny of the media inspecting their every move. And yet when a company steps up and says it is supporting what its customer want and joins with others in its industry to do that in a win-win way, the story is different. When companies choose to join together under a commonly recognised banner/brand they can have a powerful joint effect. The ripple that a single company creates is added to that of another and the ripple grows into a tidal wave that benefits so many. This is the power of giving and doing things together.

Everyone wins with Buy One Give One transaction based giving. The consumer wins – at no extra cost to themselves they have made a difference through their purchasing choices. The business wins in so many ways. And of course the charity cause wins because they are now able to receive small amounts from numerous sources aggregated and paid in a lump sum by Buy1GIVE1.

A new start – a new world – new thinking

If you go and check Wikipedia.com today for the word BOGO you should find that a new definition has been added. It’s time for a tide-change – a change from focusing on GETTING to working with GIVING. I added this small addition to Wikipedia’s BOGO definition: “… an acronym in the marketing industry that stands for Buy One GIVE One.”

Simply imagine our world where every time you go and buy something you give something automatically and seamlessly – giving a gift forward to someone in greater need than you. This is the simple joyful magic of transactional giving.

This is the world I want to be part of.

Just remember – you don’t ‘get’ giving till you get giving.

References:

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

http://www.buy1-give1free.com/index.php/Partnering/Worthy-cause-charity-projects.html

http://www.tesco.com/greenerliving/what_we_are_doing/ethical_clothing.page

http://www.tesco.com/greenerliving/what_we_are_doing/ethical_clothing.page

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee

http://www.dep.org.uk/globalexpress/13/page1.htm

http://www.coffeepoet.com/2007/09/

Footnotes: 1 The daily cost for clean well water per person is calculated by taking the average cost to dig a well then dividing that amount by its average expected life without major maintenance then divided it by the number of people in the community benefiting from the well on a daily basis.

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With shocking rise in levels of pollution and diminution of forest resources, people are increasingly becoming eco-friendly with great zeal. Using green office furniture is one of the latest steps in this regard and it can go a long way in building an eco friendly business.

An excellent way to sustain earth’s delicate ecology is to go for modular offices. As these offices have minimum material requirements, they don’t lead to several trees being cut down . Modular offices save not only the trees but also the funds that an organization has to invest for a new set up. Modular offices are much inexpensive than the conventional offices and as the area they cover is smaller, the rent comes out to be lower too.

An office that uses recycled or second hand furniture makes an excellent contribution towards environmental conservation. This type of furniture is suitable for any kind of office and requires only slight modifications to look as good as new. The economic slump has resulted in several businesses going out of work, and they are now selling off their furniture at throw away prices, and this chance can be lapped up by businesses looking to build a new office. Using such furniture saves trees from being felled and mines from being drilled to build new furniture.

There are ways to ensure that the furniture being used is green even if it is fresh from the factory. The new furniture should be produced from recyclable materials and must be created near the office site so that long-distance freight is not necessary, which otherwise can cause threateningly harmful emissions.

Never purchase furniture with foams whose manufacture has released deadly chemicals like CFCs into the atmosphere, which are notorious for depleting the ozone layer. The wood for the furniture must have come from trees, which can be re-sown and grown quickly, hence reducing the harm to the forests. Last but not the least, you must be frugal and buy only the necessary furniture that would satisfy your requirements.

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Since ancient times, flowers have been used as a gesture of kindness. We usually give them to those we care for. We give flowers to let them know how important they are, to show admiration, to celebrate an occasion, or even to sympathize. What we don’t know is that giving certain types of flowers, and even their colors, actually have meanings of their own.

The Language Of Flowers

During medieval and Renaissance times, flowers were often given moral meanings. This can be widely seen in art where saints are often portrayed with flowers that represent or symbolize their virtues. Liana DeGirolami Cheney stated in an edition of Sixteenth Century Journal that “some of the Christian symbols for Virginity or Chastity are the white rose, the myrtle, a vessel or vase, the lily, and the unicorn.”

Back in the Victorian era, flowers began to create or add emotion. The language of flowers, sometimes called floriography, began being used as a discreet form of communication. In the 18th century, sending messages in code using flowers became popular. Based on a Turkish secret language of flowers, known as Persian Salaam, a coded flower arrangement could be sent to profess feelings of attraction or even love.

A book entirely about flower meanings by Madame Charlotte de la Tour, “Le Language des Fleurs,” dates back to 1819. Another book was written in 1884, titled “Language of Flowers” by Kate Greenaway, and it is still being used nowadays.

Japan also has their variant of floriography, called “Hanakotoba.” Greeting cards made in Japan use the Hanakotoba code, and still apply the flower-language in popular culture such as in movies and animation, like the anime program “Wei Kreuz.”

Favorite Meanings Of Flowers

Purchase or borrow a dictionary of flowers to see the different meanings and interpretations of flowers. Some of the most well-known flowers and their significances are written below:

Buttercup – riches Pink carnations – a woman’s love Chrysanthemum – love in general Forget-me-not – true love Lavender – devotion, distrust Purple lilac – first emotion of love White lily – purity Peach blossom- long-life Red rose – true love Sunflower – pure and noble thoughts Yellow tulip – hopeless love

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