Eric Edelstein

One of the huge ingredients required for the success of any business is PASSION.

And the Sharks supporters showed their passion in full force today.

All you saw in the crowd was a mass of standing people wildly waving the black sharks flags with the Mr Price Logo.

So was I thinking about the victory of the Sharks over the Blues? Actually no…

What I was thinking about was how to create passion in people. Fanatical passion - not just showing up to support their team, not just buying merchandise (sharks shirts, sharks flags, sharks everything!), but for a large part of the game, standing up, waving the flags and screaming wildly!

Don’t get me wrong - I’ve done it as well…

I remember the Wimbledon tennis finals between Pat Rafter and Goran Simun Ivanisevic in 2001. We had camped on a field the entire night and managed to get into center court to watch the game (probably because the game on sunday was rained out, and it actually took place on the monday). I don’t think I could speak for 48 hours after that game I screamed so hard. And why did I scream? That I can’t tell you…

I didn’t have a particular favourite before the game, but I was swept up in the euphoria!

But after watching the Sharks supporters in Kingspark tonight, I wasn’t ONLY thinking how we can get entrepreneurs to have the passion I saw today!

I was ALSO thinking about our world problems - global warming, wars in Iraq and so many other areas around the world, genocides in Sudan, tradgedy in Zimbabwe, world poverty - the list goes on…

So how do you create the passion in the average citizen so that they feel compelled to make the world a better place?

Is it the right marketing, or does something else need to be done to create MASS MOMENTUM?

I remember hearing about a non-profit organisation that invites ordinary people together every Saturday in Cape Town to build houses for people. I can picture 30 or 40 THOUSAND people who were sitting in that stadium in Durban tonight using that energy for 2 HOURS to build houses in South Africa. Imagine that!