Social Innovation Conversations

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For the MP3-friendly amongst you: Social Innovation Conversations,
a collaboration between the Center for Social Innovation at the
Stanford Graduate
School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of
Business, and the Pittsburgh Social Innovation Accelerator. They’ve
launched with a re-broadcast of some Globeshakers conversations hosted
by Tim Zak, including David Bornstein and Jed Emerson.

It’s a podcasting channel for what they call
"cross-sector and multidisciplinary learning for social change", which you might call "conversations with social entrepreneurs". You
can read their full mission on the site, but it’s basically about dissemination and promotion of social innovations, knowledge, skills and models employed by social entrepreneurs etc. All of which is to be encouraged.

Sign up as suits you, and join the conversation.

Entrepreneurs are born, not made? Second born maybe

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According to US-UK research, our genes determine whether we are more likely to be entrepreneurial / likely to become self-employed. About half of an individual’s propensity to become self-employed is apparently from genetic factors, with the other half being made up of chance events or random meetings (though presumably there are people more likely to seize opportunities and take those chances?).

How did they find this out? By using identical twins as a means of research:

“researchers looked at whether one twin being an entrepreneur increased the chance of their co-twin becoming an entrepreneur.By comparing the difference in similarity rates between
identical and non-identical twins they are able to establish the
importance of genetic and environmental factors. The similarity rate within the identical twins group was
greater than for the non-identical twin group which suggests that genes
are important.”

The professor behind the research, Tim Spector, said that “”The research is important for business schools and
employers who in the future could identify ways of selecting those who
were most likely to succeed.” The SSE already recruits on the basis of entrepreneurial characteristics, personal qualities, life experience and ‘knowing the market’ (aka being engaged with/understanding the community they are golden goose falsas aiming to serve), so perhaps we are heading this way already. DNA testing probably a little way off, though….

Oh, and lest we forget, if you are a second-born, you might be more likely to be a better entrepreneur: check out this article which interviews Ben Dattner, who has a doctorate in organisational and industrial  psychology. Snippet:

“Second-borns have a lot of the classic entrepreneur personality traits: they’re creative, risk-taking, flexible, and more likely to embrace new paradigms than first-borns are. They’re also more relationship-focused, more concerned about fairness and justice, less academic and more interested in the international scene than their older siblings”

Scottish social enterprise news

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The world of social enterprise and entrepreneurship in Scotland is covered so authoritatively, and with such panache, by Laurence DiMarco of Senscot (his Friday e-mail bulletin is often  a refreshing, personal update), that it hardly seems worth treading on the same ground. But, nevertheless, a couple of interesting pieces of news:

– Kibble Care have released a DVD training tool, entitled "Social Enterprise – Working Across Scotland" which is being delivered free, no less, to Scottish social enterprises and entrepreneurs

– [c/o Senscot] Gordon Brown is going to launch the Social Enterprises in Fife Directory at Brag Enterprises on June 23rd 2006, hosted by the Fife Social Enterprise Network. The SSE in Fife is also based at Brag, along with several Fellows, so I’m sure they will be in attendance too.

And news from further afield: the poster boy of Phillipine social enterprise, Illac Diaz

Can big business still be ethical?

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Interesting piece in the Guardian about whether ethical businesses can maintain their values and ethos when taken over by a large multinational (i.e. BodyShop and Loreal, Green & Blacks and Cadbury’s). The article, called When big business bites uses Ethical Consumer‘s ratings to argue that ethical credentials can be lost in a global behemoth that encompasses so many different strands, investments, stakeholders and so on. So Body Shop gets a low ‘ethiscore’ not only because it is part of a massive multinational and so forth, but also because Nestle own 26% of it (with all the baggage that brings).

The true test must be in the longer term: can these smaller businesses wield influence and clout from within that can change the culture of the organisations they find themselves in? Probably too early to say. And there should be questions that aren’t framed in simplistic ways: is it better for Green & Blacks to remain small (and beautiful?) or to expand to the point where new organic cocoa and fairtrade plantations are being demanded….already, their Maya Gold bar (the only one in their range that is fairtrade) is struggling to find enough organic/fairtrade beans, at least according to the Cadbury’s guy on Radio 5’s Business programme last weekend.

What is interesting is the convergence that the article ignores. It sees the world in terms of multinational corporates (big, bad and unethical) and small ethical businesses (small, lovely and social). But that is a world that is becoming increasingly blurred, as those more forward thinking organisations are not approaching CSR from a hand-outs/green-wash point of view, but from an "integral to our future" point of view. Unilever, for example, have done work with the Marine Stewardship Council, the recent You Buy U Give scheme for Sport Relief, and Ben & Jerry UK‘s impressive range of social/environmental activities. Not enough for them to be called a social enterprise, but more substantial than the ‘charity of the year’ stuff one sees elsewhere.

And can there ever be a multinational ethical business or social enterprise? Or will scale always end up compromising (or diluting) values, approach and ethical credentials? At least it seems that in the future we will get the chance to find out.

The perils and delights of public service delivery

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Public service delivery: those three words dominate the third sector’s relationship with government at present. Contracts to deliver education or health services (etc) clearly bring great opportunities for organisations, be they small community groups, or substantial social enterprises. But, in the manner of a swift SWOT analysis (or an OT analysis), contracts also bring threats or challenges.

Third Sector magazine’s supplement this week features "10 Ways to Better Contracts":

1) Make sure partnerships are beneficial to both parties
2) Share project risks fairly
3) Agree a reasonable timescale
4) Insist on full cost recovery
5) Make sure the bureaucracy is manageable
6) Agree only to projects that fit your mission statement
7) Highlight the added value you can provide
8) Maintain autonomy
9) Clarify staff roles
10) Monitor project progress

Later on they lay out a further six principles to help organisations on their way in this area. These are:

a) Know where to look
b) Full cost recovery
c) Use your charitable status to your advantage
d) Don’t feel intimidated
e) Know your limitations
f) Understand employment law

Some of these clearly align (4 and b, 7 and c, 3/5 and e) but I think they give a useful overview. Key ones from our experience both as an organisation, and helping others founding/running their organisations, are 5 and 6. The bureaucracy, particularly for smaller organisations, should not be underestimated, and can prove a significant administrative burden; partnership can ADD to these layers of bureaucracy as well. Avoiding mission drift is key: the temptation is always there to bend to fit contracts, which can skew or twist your core service and the way it is delivered. It can also take an organisation into areas where it has less expertise and experience. Being clear about where your expertise lies, and what parts of a contract (or method of approach) are most relevant to your organisation can lead to fruitful negotiations at the start of the process, rather than down the line.

Partnership is an interesting one as well: it can help form a coalition of parties whose skills and experience mesh well together, and provide smaller organisations with the ability to tender for bigger contracts than they could on their own. Successful partnerships should clearly add value, reduce unnecessary duplication and broaden reach (as we would argue our franchise system does for the SSE Network). But their are also significant risks: unclear governance, muddled purpose, blurred accountability, time-heavy meetings/administration, compatibility issues, dilution of activities and so on.

There’s much else to say here, and I would point people to ACEVO’s Full Cost Recovery site, NCVO’s work on the Compact and public services, and SEC’s pamphlets on public procurement for more useful information.