Emily and Christine sourcing supplies for new designs

Welcome ceremony

Kids watching the welcome show

We hit the ground running in Kampala.  Full days of welcome parties, scouring Ugandan markets, and meeting with the co-op leadership to plan next steps.  Enjoy the photos.  More to come soon!

Today we’re launching our second annual Acholi Gras clearance sale!  And this time there’s a twist.  We’re donating 100% of the proceeds from this sale to Partners in Health for their relief efforts in Haiti.

So you get incredible discounts on last year’s line of Acholi Beads, and we’ll give 100% of what you spend to help the people suffering in the wake of Haiti’s earthquake.  We’re all about the win-win.

The people of Haiti are suffering many of the same difficulties that our partners in Uganda have been through - their homes are destroyed, they’ve seen loved ones killed, and now they’re displaced without enough food, water, or shelter.  We hurt with them, and we’re glad that our business has the potential to support their relief and recovery.

Shop the Acholi Gras sale here.

You're Invited to our Open House

Feel free to RSVP on facebook here.

Mama Esther - A Video Portrait from James Pearson on Vimeo.

Acholi Beads brings you a video portrait of one of our first bead makers, Mama Esther. After being attacked twice by the Lord’s Resistance Army, Esther fled with her family to Acholi Quarters. She struggled for more than a decade to support her family, until she found Acholi Beads.

For more info, visit http://acholibeads.com

Business is the most powerful force shaping our lives, so this chapter asks: How do we guide business to do more good and less harm?

I believe that this question is one of the great callings of our moment in history. If we can aim the unprecedented power of global business in the direction of progress, and I believe we can, then we might not only avert a number of potential crises, we will also make enormous improvements in the lives of billions of people…

read the rest now at jamestravels.com

Starting tonight at 7pm, Acholi Beads will be featured in a window display at internationally renowned retailer Fred Segal, courtesy of our friends at Falling Whistles.  They are hosting an incredible kick-off event tonight at the store.  If you are anywhere near LA, be there.  Details here: http://bit.ly/repHC

Special Acholi Beads, Falling Whistles joint hang tag.

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Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.  I don’t often use superlatives like ‘biggest,’ ‘best,’ or ‘most powerful,’ because they are usually wrong.  But today I’ll make three assertions, and they will all be superlative.  Although these can’t be definitively proven, there is evidence by the freighter-load to back them up, and it’s headed your way.

Assertions:
1 - Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.
2 - Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.
3 - Your business decisions are the most impactful part of your life.

Assertion # 1: Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.

Perhaps the biggest change in human culture since the advent of agriculture is happening right now - billions of people are moving from rural lands to cities, following the promise of prosperity offered by business.  In Africa and Asia 1 Million people per week are showing up in cities, looking for a future.  As people move off the farms and grazing lands that used to sustain them, they become consumers.  Business’s influence in the world grows with every new family that arrives on the outskirts of a city.

Some of business’s other accomplishments: The percentage of the world population living in extreme poverty has dropped by half since the early 80s.  The average person’s income in the world today is 50x more than it was in the late 1700s, at the kickoff of the Industrial (i.e. Business) Revolution, and that’s adjusted for inflation.  Today there are over 1 billion cars on the roads.  There are over 1 billion computers running Microsoft Windows.  There are over 1 billion people using the Internet.

Maybe bigger, we’re changing the composition of earth’s atmosphere, and the huge majority of that change comes from business - even the gases attributed to cattle are largely from industrial (i.e. business) farms.  With me now?  Let’s move on.

Assertion # 2: Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.

Look around you right now.  How many of the things that you see were made by a business?  …

[Read the rest at http://jamestravels.com]

If Acholi Beads becomes as big of a success as I believe it will be, it won’t be our success.  It will be the market’s success.  Acholi Beads’ success is testament to our customers and retailers, their belief that business should make the world better, not worse, and their desire to share a connection with a wonderful group of women on the far side of the world.

Our success here at Acholi Beads will be when NUPECA succeeds.  NUPECA is the co-operative of women that handmake every piece of Acholi Beads jewelry.  We helped these women to organize and found NUPECA, and our success will be turning the market success of Acholi Beads to the benefit of these great women.

NUPECA’s success is when the women, families, and communities involved thrive.  When their children have great education, their homes are rebuilt, and their communities are flourishing once again after two decades of war.

That’s how it works.  Success starts with you.  Let’s go there.

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Business will change the world. This isn’t a pitch or a proposal, this is a fact about the future. I am as sure of this as I am of the sun peeking over the eastern hills come morning.

The last 200 years plot a story of global transformation. Billions of people moved from subsistence farms to cities, where employment and education hold the chance for prosperity and wealth, and services like water and electricity promise comfort. Last year, for the first time in history, more people lived in cities than not, and the move is accelerating. By 2030 it is expected that 5 billion (5,000,000,000) people will live in urban areas and their slums and suburbs.

This is a massive cultural and geopolitical change… [Read the rest at http://jamestravels.com]

Socially Proactive Business is bigger than Acholi Beads.  In an effort to remove some of the barriers that people face in entering this sort of business, and also to invite discussion and advice, I’m open-sourcing our business model.  This continuing series, Open Circle, will share many of the challenges we have faced and the best practices we’ve established for making Acholi Beads successful on both sides of the world.

After choosing your partners and a local visionary, your choice of what product to make and sell is the next critical decision.  The key to choosing and developing a product is that it should stand on its own in the target market.  That is, regardless of the story behind it, people want to buy it because it’s just that attractive.

Acholi people, our partners in Acholi Beads, have a great sense of style.  The challenge is that it’s very different from American style, so how do we work with them to create jewelry that Americans love?  Here’s a quick plan that can help you identify and develop a great product that can be produced by people in a culture that is very different from the target culture.

1) Find a product you believe the American market will love, and that your partners will be able to produce, and bring it back to the States to test.  (If you can’t narrow it down to one product, bring five and see which works best.)  Ask your friends if they like it; get a booth at a local festival and try selling it; go to a local boutique and ask them if they’d like to stock it.  If it is a total bust, try something else, otherwise…

[Alternately, find a product that Americans already love that you believe your partners will be able to produce, like beanies.]

2) Use the feedback from the market to improve the product.  Consider designs, colors, and materials that will make it more attractive to the American market.  Be creative!  Don’t hem yourself into traditional designs.  Remember, the most important thing is to create a successful product.  Make new ones, sell them, and get more feedback, etc.

3) Give your partners in the developing world very specific design parameters.  Remember, they have never been to America so you are their only window through which to view the American market.  They want to make successful products, so teach them what Americans love.

4) Continually innovate with your partners.  Keep your product fresh and developing over time by changing colors or patterns and by introducing new designs.

5) Once you have a product that works, focus on it.  Get great at it.  Build a brand around it.  Don’t branch out to new products too soon.

Open Circle is written by James A. Pearson, and is an invitation to join Acholi Beads in using business for the benefit of those who need it most.  Email James here: james@acholibeads.com