Who is Hoskins?

We used to play a game on long car journeys to the Orkney Islands, one invented by our dad to entertain us - a game of co-creation built around a mysterious character called Hoskins who always found himself in an adventure.

We would take it in turns to make up his adventures, each adding our own concepts of where his story should go next, what disasters might befall him and how he might escape them. I play Hoskins with my daughters now.

The best stories are always the ones where ideas are picked up and developed. The worst, where there are strong predetermined ideas of where the story should go - leading to inevitable conflict and the adventure getting stuck or coming to a premature end.

I decided to call the business Hoskins as I’ve found creating circular economy business models has a similar pattern of development. The best dialogues are those where there isn’t a strong predetermined plot, but where those involved can be playful (and sometimes off-the-wall, bold or outrageous) without fear of criticism and can see their ideas being picked up and developed by others in the team.