No Small Change

In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly in favor of removing from the Constitution two references that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Though these seemed like small amendments, they were an impetus for real change: from terra nullius to land rights, and from assimilation to self-determination. Nearly 50 years later, there is a groundswell of support for our Indigenous heritage to be formally recognized in the Constitution. With the prospect of a new referendum in the near future, Frank Brennan considers how far Australians have come—and yet how much work lies ahead. He looks through the prism of history to examine what we can learn from our successes and failures since 1967, from the efforts of the Council of Aboriginal Affairs to the Gove land rights case and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. He also assesses the way forward: how the upcoming referendum might provide fresh momentum for governments and Indigenous Australians to negotiate better outcomes. Written by one of the most respected commentators on legal and human rights issues, this book makes a vital contribution to the understanding of Indigenous affairs. It will generate crucial debate on how Australians should acknowledge the history that for too long has gone unrecognized

A 13-point manifesto for a new financial services marketing model Anthony Thomson knows a thing or two about new and disruptive financial services, having co-founded and chaired first the ground-breaking Metro Bank and then the purely digital, app-based Atom Bank. And as a financial services marketing specialist for over 30 years, Lucian Camp has helped develop more new and innovative financial services propositions than anyone. Now they’ve put their heads together to write No Small Change, a passionate, opinionated and practical manifesto arguing that the fast-changing financial services world urgently needs to rethink the whole of its approach to marketing. Most of all, they propose that an increasingly digital, fintech-driven industry needs not just more marketing, but also better marketing to make sure it’s successfully identifying consumers’ real needs, and finding powerful and successful ways to engage with them. After detailing the forces of change that demand a new approach, the book then examines in 13 chapters what the key components of that new approach should look like. It takes a broad and multi-faceted perspective, exploring areas as diverse as the crisis of consumer trust, the ever-growing power of Big Data, the importance of leadership and corporate culture and the rapid advance in thinking based on Behavioural Economics. In developing these themes, the authors don’t pull their punches. The book is fiercely critical of some of the industry’s long-established marketing habits, providing compelling reasons why it’s time to abandon the practices that have given it a bad name. Marketers will applaud, but the book is also intended for a broader audience. Thomson and Camp challenge senior management in financial firms to appreciate the real value that marketers can bring to shaping the business agenda at the highest level, and not just to label marketing with that tired old phrase “the colouring-in department.” Rich in anecdotes, comments from leading industry figures, personal experiences on the part of both authors and findings from original research, No Small Change is an entertaining and rewarding read – and, at this point in the development of financial services, a timely and important one.

In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly in favor of removing from the Constitution two references that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Though these seemed like small amendments, they were an impetus for real change: from terra nullius to land rights, and from assimilation to self-determination. Nearly 50 years later, there is a groundswell of support for our Indigenous heritage to be formally recognized in the Constitution. With the prospect of a new referendum in the near future, Frank Brennan considers how far Australians have come—and yet how much work lies ahead. He looks through the prism of history to examine what we can learn from our successes and failures since 1967, from the efforts of the Council of Aboriginal Affairs to the Gove land rights case and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. He also assesses the way forward: how the upcoming referendum might provide fresh momentum for governments and Indigenous Australians to negotiate better outcomes. Written by one of the most respected commentators on legal and human rights issues, this book makes a vital contribution to the understanding of Indigenous affairs. It will generate crucial debate on how Australians should acknowledge the history that for too long has gone unrecognized

A 13-point manifesto for a new financial services marketing model Anthony Thomson knows a thing or two about new and disruptive financial services, having co-founded and chaired first the ground-breaking Metro Bank and then the purely digital, app-based Atom Bank. And as a financial services marketing specialist for over 30 years, Lucian Camp has helped develop more new and innovative financial services propositions than anyone. Now they’ve put their heads together to write No Small Change, a passionate, opinionated and practical manifesto arguing that the fast-changing financial services world urgently needs to rethink the whole of its approach to marketing. Most of all, they propose that an increasingly digital, fintech-driven industry needs not just more marketing, but also better marketing to make sure it’s successfully identifying consumers’ real needs, and finding powerful and successful ways to engage with them. After detailing the forces of change that demand a new approach, the book then examines in 13 chapters what the key components of that new approach should look like. It takes a broad and multi-faceted perspective, exploring areas as diverse as the crisis of consumer trust, the ever-growing power of Big Data, the importance of leadership and corporate culture and the rapid advance in thinking based on Behavioural Economics. In developing these themes, the authors don’t pull their punches. The book is fiercely critical of some of the industry’s long-established marketing habits, providing compelling reasons why it’s time to abandon the practices that have given it a bad name. Marketers will applaud, but the book is also intended for a broader audience. Thomson and Camp challenge senior management in financial firms to appreciate the real value that marketers can bring to shaping the business agenda at the highest level, and not just to label marketing with that tired old phrase “the colouring-in department.” Rich in anecdotes, comments from leading industry figures, personal experiences on the part of both authors and findings from original research, No Small Change is an entertaining and rewarding read – and, at this point in the development of financial services, a timely and important one.

In No Small Change, Tessa Hebb examines the ability of pension funds, now the largest single driver of financial markets around the world, to use their ownership position to change corporate practices for the sake of the bottom line and, perhaps, change the world for the better in the process. Pension funds are not the new moral conscience of the twenty-first century, but they are significant owners of today's corporations. Because pension funds have to pay out benefits over many decades, they are increasingly concerned about the long-term value of the stocks they hold in their portfolios. Risks posed by climate change can have a huge impact on future returns. To lower the risks associated with an uncertain future, pension funds are engaging corporations and using their influence to raise the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards of companies. At its best, Hebb finds, corporate engagement offers a long-term view of value that both promotes higher ESG standards and adds share value, thus providing long-term benefits to future pension beneficiaries. At its worst it may divert the attention of pension fund officials from their primary responsibility of ensuring the retirement benefits of their members. This book weighs the influence of corporate engagement on firms in an effort to see how the potential from this newly emerging force is being realized.

A new movement is afoot that promises to save the world by applying the magic of the market to the challenges of social change. But in this hard-hitting, controversial exposé, Michael Edwards shows that business is ill-equipped to attack the causes of poverty, inequality, violence, and discrimination. Achieving fundamental social transformation requires cooperation rather than competition, collective action more than individual effort, and support for long-term, systemic solutions instead of immediate results. With a vested interest in the status quo, business can promise only limited advances: small change. It's time to turn away from the false promise of the market and reassert the independence of global citizen action.

Eight years after they overthrew Churchill and led Britain into a separate peace with Hitler, the upper-crust families of the ?Farthing set? are gathered for a weekend retreat. Among them is estranged Farthing scion Lucy Kahn, who can't understand why her and her husband David's presence was so forcefully requested. Then the country-house idyll is interrupted when the eminent Sir James Thirkie is found murdered - with a yellow Star of David pinned to his chest. Lucy begins to realize that her Jewish husband is about to be framed for the crime - an outcome that would be convenient for altogether too many of the various political machinations underway in Parliament in the coming week. But whoever's behind the murder, and the frame-up, didn't reckon on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being a man with very private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts and underdogs - and prone to look beyond the obvious as a result. As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out - a way fraught with peril in a darkening world.

The Big Problem of Small Change offers the first credible and analytically sound explanation of how a problem that dogged monetary authorities for hundreds of years was finally solved. Two leading economists, Thomas Sargent and François Velde, examine the evolution of Western European economies through the lens of one of the classic problems of monetary history--the recurring scarcity and depreciation of small change. Through penetrating and clearly worded analysis, they tell the story of how monetary technologies, doctrines, and practices evolved from 1300 to 1850; of how the "standard formula" was devised to address an age-old dilemma without causing inflation. One big problem had long plagued commodity money (that is, money literally worth its weight in gold): governments were hard-pressed to provide a steady supply of small change because of its high costs of production. The ensuing shortages hampered trade and, paradoxically, resulted in inflation and depreciation of small change. After centuries of technological progress that limited counterfeiting, in the nineteenth century governments replaced the small change in use until then with fiat money (money not literally equal to the value claimed for it)--ensuring a secure flow of small change. But this was not all. By solving this problem, suggest Sargent and Velde, modern European states laid the intellectual and practical basis for the diverse forms of money that make the world go round today. This keenly argued, richly imaginative, and attractively illustrated study presents a comprehensive history and theory of small change. The authors skillfully convey the intuition that underlies their rigorous analysis. All those intrigued by monetary history will recognize this book for the standard that it is.