Craig Lefebvre’s latest post in response to the World Social Marketing Conference in Brighton calls for the establishment of a global social marketing association, made possible by ever-converging viewpoints amongst practitioners around the world.

Having just returned from the same conference, my observation on the unity of the social marketing community is more abstract, but equally central to the success of our endeavour. Talking with and listening to academics, practitioners and policy makers for the last two days, it struck me that the thread through it all is a genuine and passionate desire to change things for the better.

What’s more, this passion - palpable up and down the halls and corridors of the Brighton Hilton over the last two days - is contagious. As such, we’ve created another ‘magpie’ post - an ongrowing collection of inspirational words from inspirational people which we hope will help keep this fire burning far away from the white heat of the conference hall. Please feel to add to the collection through the comments box.

“I became involved in the poverty issue not as a policymaker or a researcher. I became involved because poverty was all around me, and I could not turn away from it. In 1974, I found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the university classroom, in the backdrop of a terrible famine in Bangladesh. Suddenly, I felt the emptiness of those theories in the face of crushing hunger and poverty. I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me, even if it was just one human being, to get through another day with a little more ease.”
Muhammad Yunus on the origins of the Grameen Bank