Fair trading, fair tracing

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As a brutally strong coffee sits before me, I cannot let fairtrade fortnight pass without mention. There’ve been plenty of supplements and recipes and articles flying around the media this week. Most interesting for me was probably this morning’s interview with Penny Newman, the CEO of CafeDirect (in the Guardian). Interesting for the insight it gives into how the company has grown and evolved, and for their plans for diversification (international, new products, not-at-home market). This suggests that the direct retail in supermarkets is not where they see fast growth lying…although their new branding and products look more like Nestle and Kenco than the more aspirational, high-end brand of old (Machu Picchu and the rest). Like the logo though.

Penny also mentions towards the end of the article that she would like to mentor more social entrepreneurs. Certainly, the SSE Fellows mentored by her have benefited enormously from her experience, so we hope we can broker more such relationships in the future.

A final, related note on an idea that I ran across via the Doors of Perception conference taking place in Delhi: Fair tracing. The core of the concept is to use digital tracing technology to enhance the credibility fo the fair trade model. It’s a brief glimpse into the future of supply chains:

"At each stage of the product’s journey, information may be added and/or
edited and, if the information is stored digitally on the internet, may
be of various multimedia types. The ability to access this rich
information at the point-of-sale will empower the consumer to make an
informed comparison between competing products before finalising
his/her purchase."

[Worldchanging has commented on the idea as well, which is worth a read.]

Wakefield caviar and caffeine fuel

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It’s not often that social enterprise is mentioned in parliamentary questions so it seems only fair to mention it when it does. Here Ed Miliband responds to some questions from MPs, referring to the social enterprise action plan, replica uhren Scaling New Heights. The reference to Wakefield caviar (which was surely a googlewhack till very recently) emerges because one of the MPs refers to a local environmental project in her area, with the Minister going on to say that

“She is right about the great work that social enterprises do in
reaching out to the most excluded people in our society. The key is
that the state should replique montre continue to fund public services adequately, and
not use social enterprises as an excuse to abdicate its responsibility
in that regard.”

And this is followed by:

“Much of the income for the third sector comes from local government. The key thing is culture change on the ground, so that commissioners understand the role that social enterprises can play”

Which all seemed very relevant, having been beavering away on an Office of the Third Sector application which focused on diversity and change at the grassroots. This explains the reference to ‘caffeine fuel’, on which all those writing funding application survive till the deadline, and also explains why this blog has been deathly silent for most of the week….

Social enterprise and entrepreneurs brief-ing

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Very brief, in fact…:

– 5 skills that will help your start-up

– Headshift write about SSE Fellow Paul Hodgkin: "precisely the sort of dynamic, values-driven social entrepreneur the third sector needs"…read the Guardian article yesterday in which Paul says his time at the SSE was "life-changing".

– What’s up with the triple bottom line? asks Zaadz. What indeed?

– MBAs, Charles Handy, New Philanthriopists…in Todd Hannula’s latest post

And finally,

– NESTA are blogging about innovation…worth tracking

Ethical business and business ethics…

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Social ROI blog updates us on the progress of the RED campaign, the big one that sells specially branded products (phones, credit cards etc) in order to raise money for AIDS charities. Apparently, it has only raised $11 million in the past year. Obviously that is a substantial amount of money, but given the companies/celebrities involved, it’s not really much at all. Particularly given the amount of money committed to international work on AIDS worldwide (in the many billions). I wonder how much might have been raised if all those companies and stars had donated 1% of their annual income instead of putting it on the consumer…..probably a little bit more.

Meanwhile, the private equity storm continues. As mentioned here previously, there are a few links with the social enterprise world, via Permira and Ronald Cohen/Apax (who founded Bridges Community Ventures/Unclaimed Assets), for example, so it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. Interesting because the primary issue seems to be around transparency and accountability to stakeholders, which is what social enterprise is, at least partly, all about. And because the backlash could be seen as part of a wider consumer and user-led movement demanding greater accountability and ethical backbone in companies. It could, of course, also be seen as old-fashioned union-led action against the paymasters. Take your pick…

Finally, it’s been difficult to open a paper without Sainsbury’s or M&S banging their fairtrade credentials drum…..and M&S has started up an ethical investment fund, which surely puts to bed any remaining questions about their commitment to this area. They clearly believe, simply, that this is the way forward…how many more will follow?

Social enterprise podcasts and downloads

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Normally Friday tends to be "round-up" day on this blog, meaning I would cover such delights as new research on social enterprise governance, my interesting meeting with Eli Malinsky from the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI Toronto?), the Acumen Fund talking about where it gets its applications from, and even, if I was immodest, Rob Greenland praising us on the Social Business blog.

But today is podcast Friday, so I’m going to attempt to round up some of the listening I’ve been doing on my "length-of-the-Central-Line" commute, both general podcasts to subscribe to, and individual episodes to download:

– First up has to be Social Innovation Conversations, which I’ve mentioned here before. Though sometimes just recordings of speeches, these are unfailingly interesting, even when skewed to the US side of things. Good shows recently include Diversity in Fundraising and Introducing the Encore Career which traces the rise of the Purpose Prize in the US. One from some time ago features David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World.

– Social Enterprise Coalition in the UK have rolled out some podcasts (with the help of an SSE Fellow I think?) as well recently: see Social Enterprise Voices, and also the audio excerpts from the Voice conference. If I had to choose, I’d listen to Tim Smit which is at least entertaining and dynamic….

– Better than listening to conference speeches after the event, though, are properly produced interviews and shows; one I ran across recently was SmallBizPod which has a nice unpretentious feel to it, and a relaxed informality which is endearing. Normally it is commercial business, but the last episode focused on social enterprise, even interviewing the marvellous Colin Crooks of GreenWorks. It’s a good introduction, particularly because the host is clearly learning as well….I hope for more on social enterprise soon (Alex, give me a call….!)

– I had high hopes of a Demos podcast of an interview with Tim Drake who’d written a book on ‘making a difference’, but found it low on quality and insight, and high on babble….still, if you want to know if you too are a ‘difference deliverer’, then try it out… (NB – maybe try the book instead; it was all just a bit too self-help-y navel-gazing for me…)

–  On a more academic plane, the INSEAD Knowledgecasts are pretty good, if commercial business-focused. No.2 is quite interesting on that  old chestnut "are entrepreneurs born or made?" and a programme that focuses on the first 100 days…

– the BBC have also hotted up their available downloads; for me it’s all about Mark Kermode’s film reviews, but (focus on work….) the In Business programme has also started to make programmes available for download. Most recently, and of direct interest, is a programme about Anil Gupta and his grassroots innovation network, HoneyBee. Amazing man, amanazing story. They also recently did a story on social enterprise, but this is only available to stream at present, so I haven’t listened to it yet (the curse of the open plan office)

– finally, Nick Booth at Podnosh and its Grassroots Channel, are doing some interesting community-related stuff in Birmingham; good for keeping the feet on (and an ear to) the ground, and Nick is also a web 2.0 wizard, so also features interesting pieces on online widgets and development, like this one from Beth Kanter on fundraising via the internet…

Happy listening, and do let me know of any other relevant podcasts. SSE’s podcast bookmarks are also available for perusal….