More optimism from the Edge

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The Edge asks an annual question each year (since 1998) to renowned thinkers, scientists, businessmen etc which always makes for fruitful, if slightly uneven, reading. In previous years, this has included "What’s your law?" and "What is your dangerous idea?". This year, it is "What are you optimistic about? Why?"

Some interesting people have been asked to provide answers, from Richard Dawkins to Brian Eno, from Steven Pinker to Clay Shirky, and from Cory Doctorow to Craig Venter. [their answers respectively, and massivly summarised, are: final scientific enlightenment, empowerment of people at grassroots, the decline of violence, evidence improving society, copyright openness, evidence-based decision making]. There’s lots more in there (often the ‘lesser-known’ names provide more interesting entries..), and more than I can write about, but worth a read as we start the New Year with hope and optimism.

A related future-thinking exercise has been going on on the WorldChanging blog, as they asked many of their contributors to respond to "Looking towards 2007: What’s Next?". There are some interesting social entrepreneur-related ones here (Jim Fruchterman, David Bornstein) but what stood out for me was that several of them basically said that there are enough solutions/inventions and certainly enough writing about them; we need to map them and use them. Or as Jeremy Faludi puts it, "in a nutshell, 2007 needs follow-through". Turning awareness into action: the strapline for 2007.

Optimism, links and learning for 2007

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After a slightly cynical last blog post of 2006 (albeit an attempt to raise a smile or two), this blog starts 2007 with relentless optimism coursing through its veins. Well, it could still be alcohol, but I’m pretty sure it’s optimism. So, here’s some great reading to start the year:

– firstly, Yahoo have been running this thing called Yahoo for Good! using ‘charity badges’ which are basically online donation widgets for your blog or website; they guaranteed to match fund the badge raising the most money up to December 31st to the tune of $50,000. The winner, by quite a distance, was the Sharing Foundation via Beth’s Blog, which raised pretty much $50,000 (at time of writing) from 745 donations: fantastic work, and outpunching the mighty Worldchanging as well in the top 10.

Charity badges (and a badge contest) are a great web fundraising idea, and I look forward to it being rolled out in the UK, by Yahoo or someone else: well done to all who took part.

–  next up, you can read 50 of the brightest minds in the business world detailing their advice for how to succeed in 2007 (at CNNMoney.com); this includes Sergey Brin on simplicity, Richard Branson on ‘how to say no’,  Stephen Covey on ‘striving for moral authority’, Muhammad Yunus on ‘big rewards from small ideas’, Malcolm Gladwell on ‘teamwork’ and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Howard Schultz (the Chairman of Starbucks) with ‘dare to be a social entrepreneur‘, although he’s really making a point about treating your people right, as well as your customers. Anyway, much inspiration for the year ahead here.

– Springwise are doing lots of top 10 business ideas of 2006 lists, including the top 10 eco business ideas of 2006, which includes Greentomato cars, the eco-cab firm in London (one of the directors, Jonny, is a friend of a friend, and they’ve had an amazing year), carbon offsets by SMS, and a ‘zen approach to the cleaning industry’….all good stuff

– I don’t know how I’ve managed to avoid blogging about it before, but Kiva is pretty outstanding as well; see this article on Salon for an intro/explanation (via Audeamus), or their founder’s blog on Social Edge

– also worth noting an article on Grist (a fine resource itself) by John Elkington and Mark Lee about what big business can learn from social and environmental entrepreneurs, which includes the marvellous description of Muhammad Yunus as the "social entrepreneur’s social entrepreneur" for the replication of his Grameen model…

– a top 8, just to break the rules, of lessons for those wishing to scale (from the Global Social Benefit Incubator)

– and finally, for those of you with book tokens to spare after the Xmas period, enjoy the Entrepeneur’s Holiday Bookshelf which has recommendations from business professors . I particularly enjoyed the recommendation of Moby Dick for its lessons of bad management: "It’s the story of an entrepreneur who violates the trust of all the
constituencies that support him…financial backers, employees, and
customers. It’s the original story of how not to do it"

Happy New Year.

The Third Sector and Social Enterprise in 2007

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I’ve been inspired by Rob Greenland’s spoof of what will happen to social enterprise in 2007, so have decided to have a go myself:

JANUARY: The New Year starts with a celebration as the first combined ‘Cooperative Community Interest Company Limited Liability Firm Trust Association by Guarantee with a trading arm’ is officially established. The social enterprise, thought to be the first to simultaneously hold more than eight legal structures at the same time, will focus on developing new acronyms for organisations in the third sector. Its first piece of work is its own name: COCOCOLILIFITAG or CocoLili, for short.

FEBRUARY: A flagship conference is held, attended by the great and good of the sector. Entitled "Definition not delivery: the importance of pontification", the event includes seminars on ‘Make meetings your entire life’, ‘Partnership as a route to entropy’, and ‘Keep it simple stupid: the art of doing nothing’. Five sub-committees are set up on the back of the event to research joint working, silo defining, and deciding what the committees’ names should be.

MARCH: Several luminaries of the sector are injured after a meeting room implodes after a consultation on how many consultations it takes to consult a consultant.

APRIL: The words ‘public service delivery’ are reported to have officially become a mantra for those who worship the god ‘Procurement’. Social enterprise employees and medium-sized charity workers are heard to be muttering the three-word incantation as they go about their business. Social psychologist Professor Timothy Snaffle said, "It’s extraordinary how those three words have become so central to these people’s lives in such a short time. We’ve also started to hear variations on the prayer involving the word ‘Compact’ and ‘commissioning documents’ ".

MAY: A branding consultation is held on what a fairtrade-type brand for social enterprise might look like.  Several days are spent sitting on strangely-shaped beanbags in a room with a blue-sky painted on…until it is decided that the logo should be a hand giving a thumbs-up. The Thumbs Up initiative is launched with a great fanfare, and several members of the public notice.

JUNE: Jamie Oliver is appointed as Shadow Minister for Social Entrepreneurs by David Cameron. A by-product of this is cookbook sales funding the party, ensuring the proportion of earned income allows the Conservative party to be called a social enterprise. Labour follows suit, reconstituting itself as a CIC.

JULY: During a heatwave, a social enterprise called ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’ cashes in with solar-powered mini-fans which go down a storm across the UK.

AUGUST: Confusion reigns as someone introduces a fourth bottom line. Financial, social and environmental are joined by ‘technological’. Social enterprises rapidly adjust their balanced scorecards to evaluate their technological return on investment (TROI), and the number of references to web 2.0 in business plans proliferates exponentially.

SEPTEMBER: Non-profit research experts ENC (Emperor’s New Clothes) release an evaluation which estimates the value of the sector’s values at £1.2bn. This contribution is said by commentators to be ‘undeniable’, ‘incalculable’, ‘immeasurable’ and ‘invaluable’ in subsequent commentary.

OCTOBER: At the Social Enterprise X-Factor finals, controversy reigns after it is revealed that one of the finalists is a registered charity. Louis Walsh is said to be "flabbergasted".

NOVEMBER: The NHS is now officially a social enterprise, after 50% of the PCTs changed into social firms. The government announces that the country should be proud of this amazing achievement, making the UK’s healthcare system the largest social enterprise this side of the Chinese army (which is a co-operative, of course) and the Indian railway (itself a development trust association).

DECEMBER: The Social Enterprise Awards To Outstanding First-class People And New Team Success awards are won by the NHS, with the Conservative party a close second. In his keynote speech, Muhammad Yunus says, "I have no idea what a keynote is, but I am delighted to be here and support these awards.  These fledgling institutions demonstrate the power that can be unleashed by social entrepreneurs in their communities. Now we must see if they can scale up".

Active Citizenship: a proud city

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SSE Fellow Mike Felse sends us news from Salford about an ongoing Active Citizenship project involving himself and SSE Fellow Bernadette Wright. Bernadette (aka Bernie) was the first woman in the UK to get the City & Guilds Active Citizenship Award during 2006.

You can read more about the City and Guilds Active Citizenship Qualifications here, or download the leaflet (pdf). Or listen to Mike on the video above….

Afruca and child trafficking

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Debbie Ariyo, the amazing social entrepreneur who founded and runs Afruca (Africans Unite Against Child Abuse), has sent us a link to their campaigning video on YouTube. We played the video at the recent Fellowship ceremony in London, at which Debbie’s cohort of students completed their programme.

It’s a powerful video that reminds us how the most vulnerable can be treated as a commodity; a message that carries particular weight at this time of year. Long may Afruca’s very necessary work continue.