Having worked for both Bezos and media companies I am intrigued by how Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post will pan out. 

There are broadly three scenarios, with both benign and tragic consequences. 

Firstly Bezos has made a vanity purchase to get him a seat at the Washington top table. He will be an absent owner with a gentle touch on the tiller. The journos will continue to do their jobs, happy in the knowledge that they have a rich and benign benefactor. This scenario is most likely wishful thinking.

Second scenario, Bezos pushes for efficiencies in the technology behind the Washington Post and introduces some quirky revenue streams, mostly connected to intelligent ads linked to Amazon products. In doing so a symbiotic creature thrives like a pilot fish swimming behind a shark. The sensitive creatives are largely protected from this revolution and continue to pump out world beating editorial. The media world look on with envy. 

Third scenario; Bezos is looking to turn The Washington Post into a media version of Amazon. In doing so he kills it. 

Now, having worked for Bezos, even as a junior marketing guy in Slough, I felt his bark. The overriding ethos is one of 'frugality' which means in practice that the toilets don't flush. The slim margins of online retail drove pedantry and panic. Cross continent conference calls had colleagues breaking down while a Seattle executive was screaming at them because a micro cell on a third page of a spread sheet had changed, and they didn't know why.  Meanwhile the monster was to grow at 30% YoY and 29% equalled failure, possibly loss of job. And it wasn't the commercial people who made stuff happen, it was more likely an engineer. Amazon is a tech company that happens to sell a ton of stuff. 

Turn this culture on a news organisation and it will break down, both institutionally and individually. 

I am all for innovation and transition, and wish Bezos well at cracking the online media code. But he needs to find some velvet gloves for those iron fists. 

Read Chris Hughes here and Felix Salmon here

I had the pleasure of being invited to a networky, drinks, reception thing at The South Bank Centre last night. It was organised by Diana Bird, whose father is the brains behind The Big Issue. Not surprisingly it was a pleasingly eclectic bunch of interesting characters, all of whom had a fascinating story to tell. 

The best story, however, came from the guest speaker Sam Roddick, who grew up in the mother of all kitchen start-ups, The Body Shop. On account of her mum being a teacher, much energy was devoted by the Body Shop into educating and inspiring their customers.  The rest is well documented. 

Despite her self deprecating protestations about not enjoying public speaking, Sam gave the most stimulating 10 minute business talk I have heard for a long time.  She went straight in at the deep end about her activism around sexuality, feminism (her father was a feminist, luckily), exploitation and pornography.  Sam then emphasised the need for businesses to indulge in politics. 

Wowsers - that struck me as more radical than her famous product line at Coco de Mer.  Businesses, especially start-ups, were meant to be all things to all people, politically asinine and sterile of controversy.  But then scratch under the surface and most businesses soon show some true colours. Google's 'Don't Be Evil' is a manifesto of sorts. The Rowntree's had Quaker qualities to promote, Jimmy Wales has come out on the right, Meg Whitman on the left.  

The cross over from business to politics is as old as both professions, but the idea that a business can have a campaigning, political bent strikes me as risky and radical.  I don't mean hug a tree CSR fluff, I mean pushing a controversial agenda.  

But why not? If my start up Ginjex has a mission it is to support the hard working self-employed small business people, and that has a plethora of political implications from tax to the EU. I am willing to take on their causes even if that doesn't please everyone all of the time. 

Either way I hope the business world throws up more Sam Roddicks and Diana Birds. 

Thanks for the invite Diana 

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