The second of 6 episodes talking to the founding sponsors of the Tech4Good South West relaunch, to explore their interest in tech for good and their hopes and ambitions for the TechforGood South West network.
This episode is in conversation with Joanna Randall, Founding Director of Purplefish and a bronze sponsor of Tech4Good South West.
"Whilst growth, profit -making, investment, that's all good because it does benefit economies and society as a whole. I don't think we can be naive to think that we are benefiting everybody. With all of this incredible amount of skills, talent, knowledge, research, all of this amazing work that's going on in the region, we must make sure that we're thinking about what benefits we can bring, to everybody"
"I'm really excited about with Tech for Good Southwest is that we can come together from all aspects and all areas of life."
Transcript
Tech4Good South West (00:03.374)
Welcome to the Tech for Good South West podcast brought to you by Annie, Alicia and Ariel. Tech for Good South West has relaunched and we are on a mission to build momentum for the Tech for Good movement across the South West. Our podcast focuses on conversations with charities, investors, startups and initiatives to share their stories, challenges and successes. Our next few episodes are focused on our founding sponsors and their hopes and ambitions for the Tech for Good movement.
Tech4Good South West (00:35.256)
Hello and welcome to the Tech for Good Southwest podcast. I'm Ariel Tai and super excited today to be talking to one of our sponsors, Joanna Randall from Purplefish. So good to be speaking to you today. Hi, Ariel. If you can start by please introducing yourself and tell us a bit about your organization. So what does Purplefish do?
Yes, so I am the founding director of Purple Fish and we are a full service communications and marketing agency based in Bristol, but we work throughout the UK and internationally. We do specialise in the technology sector that does involve all sorts of things. It may be managing a company's reputation, building a brand, doing launches, managing social media.
media relations, all sorts of stuff. So basically putting companies out into the wider world, giving them a great profile, whether that's to promote products and services or attract staff. We've been going for about 12 years, I think, and we're a B Corp agency. We certified a couple of years ago and less than two months ago, we became fully employee owned.
So although we are a profit -making business and we'll continue to do that, we are very much involved in ourselves as a company, making sure that we can have a positive impact on the world and yeah, the B Corp status and being employee -owned is part of that journey. Well, congratulations on that. I know that going through the B Corp is quite a process. So that's really great. And also becoming employee -owned as well. It must have been.
quite a big process for you to go through. What's your interest, Joanna, in Tech for Good? So, Purplefish's interest in Tech for Good really is, it's very much part of our own DNA and it reflects our own values. So, we really wanted to get involved because we work a lot in the technology sector and most of that will be working for private and commercial companies.
Tech4Good South West (02:43.086)
We do also do work with not -for -profits as well and quite a lot of advisory work with startups. And I suppose over the years, what I've really felt is that there can be a bit of a disconnect sometimes in that technology is growing exponentially and we're living in a very much online first world, but that online first world isn't necessarily including everybody.
I really believe personally that technology is amazing and it's completely revolutioning our lives, every area of our lives. We do a lot of work in the mobile telecoms sector. We represent Mobile UK. They're the representative body for the mobile network operators in the UK and they do a lot of work around digital inclusion and focusing on the digital divide. And that got us really interested in actually
what is the purpose of technology? So understanding what technology can do to enhance people's lives is really important. But I do feel there needs to be an intention around doing that. So understanding and being introduced to the Tech for Good Southwest community was really exciting for us because it spoke to a lot of the things that I think we as a business really believe in.
That's really great. And actually coming on now to the Tech for Good Southwest community, the network, really excited to have you on board as a sponsor. What do you hope the network will be able to achieve? I suppose, what are your hopes and ambitions for the Tech for Good Southwest network? So I think for me being part of this, it's all about community. There are quite a lot of business networks already that we're involved with and I've always done quite a lot of that sort of participation, I suppose, in our local business community. So for me, what I'm really excited about with Tech for Good Southwest is that we can come together from all aspects and all areas of life really. So whether that be academia, not -for -profits, public sector, and private companies. But I think under that banner and that theme of technology for good,
Tech4Good South West (05:02.062)
And being able to have those discussions, share ideas, offer advice to one another, make introductions, I think personally that's a really exciting prospect. I'm really looking forward to meeting lots of new, very interesting, very inspirational people and hopefully playing a proactive role in building that community because I think, you know, what's been done so far.
is fantastic and I'd really love to see it grow. I think the potential is there and it's very exciting. Yeah, we are very excited too and really excited as well that you are going to be playing a proactive role and supporting us with a campaign. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah, of course. So we've been working with Annie and the team to think about the messaging and the positioning of Tech for Good Southwest.
I think being able to explain what it stands for is really important. So we've been supporting with advice and offering perspective and any help that we can on that side of things. And part of that has evolved into a campaign called One Small Thing, which we are looking forward to launching over the next few weeks.
What that campaign is designed to do, I suppose, is to galvanize a bit of action, partly because, and I know Annie also believes this, you know, we can talk about things quite a lot, but actually things don't change if we don't take some action. So the One Small Thing campaign is designed to encourage people, whether that's members, whether that's people who might be interested in being part of the Tech for Good Southwest community, to commit to doing one thing.
Now that one thing could take on all sorts of forms. It could be offering advice, it could be mentoring. If it's a company that has some spare space in its office, it could be offering some space to perhaps a startup or a not -for -profit, all sorts of things. So it's not necessarily about cash and investment, although that is also important. It's about being creative about the actions that we can take.
Tech4Good South West (07:17.326)
And what we're going to try to do with this campaign is to, as I say, galvanize that interest and create some momentum, encourage people to commit to doing something and then being able to harness all of that collective action throughout the next year. So this campaign is really about galvanizing action and there's so much momentum building up at the moment across the Southwest. There is this power in convening. So, yeah, why is it so important and why is it so important now?
The Southwest is known as a technology powerhouse, which is great. There is an awful lot of innovation going on here. There are an enormous amount of startups. We're well served by incubator hubs. There is a fair amount of investment focus on the technology sector. And I think generally the technology sector and perhaps the business community in general is focused on growth, fast growth, for -profit, investment returns and kind of, you know, there's always the headlines around what's going to be the next unicorn. So that's one element of the tech sector. I think we're in danger if we don't embed some social conscience into the way that we're working.
We are in this technology online first world and there's a danger that we can create technology, build new platforms, harness the power of digital, but without stopping to think about some of the important questions of our day, which could be around exclusion, it can be around skills, it can be around not having access to funding for underrepresented groups.
There's all sorts of dangers, I suppose, if we just focus on the growth and the profit that we will exclude. And that exclusion will lead to people not being able to access and benefit from technology. So I think it's really important to ensure that we don't have a siloed sector in the South West. And that's why I think this community is important.
Tech4Good South West (09:41.966)
Whilst growth, profit -making, investment, that's all good because it does benefit economies and society as a whole. I don't think we can be naive to think that we are benefiting everybody. And with all of this incredible amount of skills, talent, knowledge, research, all of this amazing stuff that's going on in the region, we must make sure that we're thinking about what benefits we can bring to everybody.
So that's really why I think coming together is really important with that singular message about benefiting everybody.
Wow, what a way to end Joanna, like so exciting speaking to you, but so great that you've brought us back to why it is so important and that real value based stuff. So thank you so much. It's been great to speak to you and we look forward to having you involved on this journey.
Thank you very much.