For the social entrepreneur and social enterprise aficionado, there are two main event seasons: the cluster around October / November (Good Deals, Social Business, Global Entrepreneurship Week etc), and the end of March extravaganza of the Skoll World Forum, its fringe Oxford Jam and (this year), Voice 11. A few reflections on the events of last week, then… Continue reading
Just a quick note to say that the SSE London graduation is today for the Block and Weekly Groups, with around 40 social entrepreneurs joining the ever-growing SSE Fellowship. You can see the formal press release here, along with links to the relevant social entrepreneurs.
Or, for the glossy full print experience, download the pdf of the graduation booklet:
Stories of Change 2010-11 (large pdf)
Arguably the most exciting news is that the entrepreneurs today will be congratulated by Peter Day, Radio 4 and podcasting legend who many consider one of the wisest and most insightful commentators on business in all its aspects.
I’ve been fortunate enough over the last few months to design, recruit and deliver a social franchising programme for SSE, called Scaling to Success. It was aimed at social entrepreneurs and social enterprise leaders who had a proven model and were seeking to replicate it: and looking at a franchise-type approach to that replication. It was not “franchise is the answer” but more “a practical look at replication through the lens of franchising”; and the outcomes will hopefully also be very practical and implementable. Continue reading
It is a time of significant change in the world of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, where markets shift, cuts take hold, and new opportunities beckon from the horizon. And as available finance becomes constrained, so the focus rightly becomes cost effectiveness. Sadly, in the case of many local authorities, the emphasis has been on the ‘cost’ (and offloading those that are easiest) rather than the ‘effectiveness’ part of the proposition. Matthew Pike makes this point in a recent Guardian article, citing the short-term view of local authorities and the problems this is storing up for the future. Continue reading
It has been a busy start to the year, and it seems like that is the case for everyone. Certainly everyone I bump into seems to be working very hard indeed, as the end of March 2011 looms large….No different here at SSE (lots of work across the network, graduations, launches, new programmes and more). Which is partly by way of explanation for why blogging has been a bit infrequent (many thanks to current intern Ryan for filling in), and why this is the first round-up for a couple of months. Anyway, here are the most interesting and (hopefully) relevant links from the last month or so: Continue reading
