Name: Sam Conniff
Age: 31
Business: Livity/LIVE
Role: Co-founder
Where: Started in Brixton, London

The founder of a socially responsible youth marketing agency tells us why he wasn’t cut out for university…

How do Livity and LIVE work?

LIVE is a not-for-profit youth training programme, where a group of 21-year-olds participate in a fully functioning office creating magazines, websites, running a record label, making films and TV.

Livity is a socially responsible marketing agency that helps big brands, charities and government departments connect with a young audience. They want young people’s input into their work and campaigns etc., and we can provide that because we have 100 or so teenagers working in of our office sharing their thoughts, beliefs, ideas and ideals with us and our clients.

 
What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I've always wanted to do everything. When I was shown how to make explosives from cleaning products, I wanted to become a scientist. At one point I also started a band at school because I wanted to be a musician or a singer.

Then I decided to be a politician after coming second in the school’s mock general election. I campaigned under a stop cruelty to animals banner, using my sister’s hamster to win over the 11-year-old girls’ vote.

It's never stopped. I love what I do now, but I'm still not completely sure that I formally have decided what I want to be. But, I always knew I wanted to enjoy whatever I did and that it needed to mean something to me, something that I'd be proud of and to do something that made a difference.

What subjects did you like at school?

History was easily my favourite. I've always liked the idea of how big time is, the thought that in the grand scheme of things our little window of existence on earth is gone in a blink, helps put life into perspective and reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

Then at the same time, such a sense of time being short also makes me want to do everything I can with every incredible minute we’re lucky enough to have in this amazing place.

What did you do after school?

Uni wasn't really an option I looked at seriously at that time. You could say that I hadn’t quite made the most of all that education had to offer me. I would treat it differently now, but then I was just hungry to get some practical experience. I didn’t spend enough time researching what university can really offer.

My heart was set on getting to work, so my university was really the next few years of work experience where I tried out every job under the sun that I thought I’d like, that might be useful, or fun. I was a designer for a while, then a chef, bar manager, window dresser. I also tried sales, events and band management and loads more, including being a market trader. All of which led quite organically to setting up my first business, Don't Panic.
 

How did the idea of LIVE and Livity come about?

Don't Panic had evolved from being a flyer distribution service, into a design and distribution company and was expanding. Our client base had grown from nightclubs and record labels to big brands and media agencies.

As our success grew, the idea of starting our own marketing agency to rival all the agencies we were working for was obvious. But, over time I had become less convinced of the world's need for a new flavour of chewing gum, fizzy drink or console game and so didn’t really want to promote them.

I started thinking about what would happen if we tried to use this massively influential form of communication to do something useful? To communicate the messages that young people could benefit from? Livity and LIVE was mine and my friend Michelle Clothiers’ answer to that question.

What are your ambitions?

We want to expand our offering with the business. We want to establish LIVE as an international model, and are underway with discussions around the UK, in Europe and the States.

What are your thoughts on social enterprise and its benefits?

I believe social enterprise is the model for all future business, but I don’t think its rocket science or anything new. Social enterprise is just a new name for what has an incredibly strong history, that goes back to before the industrial revolution.

The likes of John Ruskin and other successful industrialists also understood that business needs to have a holistic viewpoint on its overall impact, on its staff, their community, society and environment as a whole.

Do you think people are becoming more socially aware?

I think there is a paradigm shift going on in human consciousness, currently seen more clearly in things like the growing global awareness of the environmental crisis. We are all waking up to some big issues and the part we have to play in solving them.

It is my hope that we are increasingly coming to accept that it is everyone’s responsibility to look after our society, whether we do that through our individual efforts, orthrough our economic endeavours. We believe enterprise and businessare the key influences that can make a significant and lasting positive difference.

What are the challenges of working in a social enterprise?

To factor in the triple bottom line of financial with social and environmental concerns, is at times a challenge. But like all challenges, the harder it is, the more rewarding it is when achieved.

We also occasionally have to say 'no' to doing what could be very lucrative work, because it’s with companies who we feel are doing the wrong kind of business.

What would your advice be to young people starting out in social enterprise?

Get on with it. If you’ve got an idea, and you want to do it, think it through, talk it through and then just get out there and get it started.

Just keep to that idea, that belief and that principle. While a business plan is essential, I think we need to strip back business language a bit. You don’t always need a 100 page plan filled with analysis and you don't always need millions of pounds financing - do what you can with what you’ve got. If you remain true to your idea and work hard, you'll get there.

Would you ever work in a traditional business now?

Not if I wanted to continue to enjoy myself as much as I do and have the reward of feeling like I’ve got a chance to make a tangible difference to the world.

I believe that what we do at Livity and LIVE partly represents the traditional business model of the future. I think a sense of social responsibility will be as traditional one day.

www.livity.co.uk