Friday round-up: enterprise, endowments and expansion

Quick social enterprise and social entrepreneurship round-up to end the week:

– Most interesting conversation of the week is over on Social Edge with the provocatively-titled debate 'Are the Only Innovations in Social Entrepreneurship Anglo-Saxon?'; kudos to Rod for kicking it off, and to others for some great comments

– On the eve of the OTS-DBERR, Byrne-Mandelson summit,, which I'll report on next week, a different taskforce recommends social enterprise staying where it is (and not returning to DBERR, or DTI as was); on balance, I think we'd agree with that….

– Other big news circulating is the Future Jobs Fund, and the intention to include charities and social enterprises amongst the deliverers; an example of the opportunities in this recession?

– Enjoyed 10 lessons from a failed start-up (if slightly techie)

A new kind of capitalism (Bill Gates / social entrepreneurship?) on BBC Business

– Umair Haque on the best business model in the world (short summary: "create something awesome"), which also introduces the neat powerpoint-busting presentation tool, Prezi.com

– I have to mention the Shine Unconference again: sessions are looking blindingly good: everyone from Bridges Ventures to Mother branding agency to What If to ourselves/UnLtd to policymakers to David Wilcox on collaboration to pitches for funding and much more….if you're anywhere near-ish to London next Friday/Saturday, you should get a ticket before they all go!

– More self-promotion: SSE plans global expansion article in Social Enterprise Mag, covering all the recent developments here at SSE towers…

– Craig Dearden-Phillips remains one of the most honest and articluate bloggers and writers out there; here's his recent take on the Art of Communication

– Two bits of news from the Office of the Third Sector of relevance: the targeted support fund (previously announced in the recession action plan) is open for business; arguably even more interesting is the local council created endowment fund in Essex

– I hesitate to do this but here's a link to How to Twitter for Social Entrepreneurship; I'll follow that up with a link to Rob Greenland's Three Things I Wish I'd Known post which includes "Sometimes the most entrepreneurial thing you can do is stop doing something"…..

Finally, I read somewhere this week: "A social entrepreneur can see the world in a grain of sand, heaven in a wild flower and hold infinity in the palm of his hand for eternity"; to which a few things occur to me: 1) hopefully a social entrepreneur can do stuff as well; 2) perhaps it might be 'her' hand as well? and 3) most social entrepreneurs at this point on a Friday are more interested in holding a glass of wine/beer in the palm of their hand (for as long as it lasts…).

Welcome to all the blog's new readers, especially those new SSE-ers in Sydney!

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2 thoughts on “Friday round-up: enterprise, endowments and expansion

  1. Nick
    Thanks for your VERY (and perhaps unfairly) kind words
    I thought it was good to discuss something a bit controversial, and I applaud Social Edge (http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/social-entrepreneurship/are-the-only-innovations-in-social-entrepreneurship-anglo-saxon#1241776780) in carrying it–there were however times I feared people took the title literally, rather, as you will appreciate, that I thought innovation came from all over but that we Anglo-Saxons behaved as if we had a monopoly.
    One commentator on the Social Edge discussion forum was Samantha Morshed, an English woman who now lives permanently in Bangladesh and has built a great business there, Hathay Bunano (www.hathaybunano.com) who has just begun our “ClearlySo in Bangladesh” blog (see http://www.clearlyso.com/bangladesh/). As you know, Nick, we desperately aspire to shine the light of attention onto social innovation in markets that get less attention (like the Balkans, Mozambique, Argentina, etc.)
    best regards, rod