5 thoughts from OxfordJam and the Skoll World Forum

Posted on April 22, 2010 by sse

I was lucky enough to spend some of last week up in Oxford while the Skoll World Forum and OxfordJam were going on. Alastair Wilson, SSE's CEO, was on the panel over at Skoll (you can check out the video of his session, Government + Social Entrepreneurs, over at the Skoll site along with the videos of all the other sessions), while I was over at the free 'fringe' event, OxfordJam, expertly organised on a shoestring budget and a whole load of effort by Ben Metz, Alise Kirtley and Amanda Jones (and friends!). You can find a lot of stuff on Twitter, Flickr and the rest by searching #swf10 and #oxfordjam

I was a bit in and out of the events, as I had to head back to London for meetings on a couple of days, but thought I'd chip in some thoughts from the few days:

1) After hours matters: I've talked about this before, but it is the conversations in bars, over dinners and so on where the 'whole person' comes out and trusted / new relationships are built. OxfordJam had dinners + an open mic session as really the flagship parts of the event, not the add-on. And it worked: I listened to a long podcast recently about Jim Fruchterman of Benetech (which was fascinating), but felt more able to have a conversation with him after seeing him sing Gilbert + Sullivan :0)

2) Honesty repays: The session I facilitated was about lessons learned from the replication of SSE; it always feels risky to open up about mistakes we made, whether that be about our first misfiring effort at codification (capturing what made SSE unique + special), moving from reactive to proactive in how we expanded, the robustness of the franchise package now (as opposed to then…) and so on. But the session went well: countless questions, and it felt like genuine learning shared, positive and negative. And, though it sometimes feels counter-intuitive, it helps build organisational credibility.

3) Action!: The sessions and workshops that appealed to me most over the few days were those that focused on practice: on transactions, deals, partnerships and action. Where people talked theoretically or ethereally about more conversations, more visiting and chatting, it just seemed like a nice way of perpetuating the status quo. Increasingly, I feel that things change through practice and action, and that effective policy and strategy and markets are created out of those..

4) Relationships and networks come through: This goes back to Ben and OxfordJam, but also to Nathaniel Whittemore (over at http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org) and team who organised a spontaneous TEDxVolcano in London for all the 'volcano refugees' from Skoll. Both relied heavily on personal relationships (the person's own 'brand', if you like) and also the ability to network effectively, via Facebook, e-mail, mobiles and, yes, Twitter. I'm not sure if I'd go as far as Peter Deitz to coin a new term (see this discussion about Social Interpreneurship), but I certainly think the nature of events has. And there are lessons for social entrepreneurs in building networks and relationships in an authentic way here as well.

5) No more heroes…: We've written here before about the myth of the heroic individual social entrepreneur, and critiqued Skoll, Ashoka, Schwab and others for perpetuating that myth in the past (as opposed to successful social entrepreneurs building effective teams, groups, networks and movements that support and sustain and scale their change). And, indeed, been critiqued for it ourselves at times. But I think that rhetoric did start to shift more at this event; yes, there were still awards for individuals (and there's no denying that there were some extraordinary people at both events), but the focus was much more predominantly on collaboration, partnerships and teams. Which, from the feedback I heard, made for a more thoughtful, real and mature series of outcomes.

Why the Social Entrepreneur Search is exciting…and worrying

Posted on March 8, 2010 by sse

The UK likes to position itself as a leader in social entrepreneurship, but in some areas I think we are way behind. Take the new Social Entrepreneur Search widgets in the US, which themselves come from the Social Entrepreneur API. For the non-geeks, an API is tech-speak for an 'application programming interface' which basically provides data or information that is open and available for others to use and do what they will with (as Social Actions put it, "The Social Entrepreneur API dataset is available for any website or
individual to search, syndicate, republish, or use to build web
applications, widgets, and search engines"). And so these new search widgets and engines have been developed from that data source.

On the one hand, this is tremendously exciting. It's open, collaborative, innovative, connective and potentially helps match social entrepreneurs to investors / funders / journalists / other entrepreneurs in a way that is currently not possible in the closed and more clunky UK equivalents. [I'd include our own online SSE Fellows database in the 'clunky' category, which is currently searchable by field, by geography and by keyword etc, but is not in this kind of shape…yet]. It also opens up the possibility of taking this information and publishing it or syndicating it anywhere: potentially enormously powerful. Kudos goes to Social Actions, Social Edge, and the funders who've both funded the work and contributed the data.

So why worrying? Because the data for these 'vetted' social entrepreneurs only comes from a relatively small range of funders who fund fairly big scale, 'successful' social entrepreneurs (Skoll Foundation, Schwab Foundation, Echoing Green etc). What concerns me about that is that, as with the main Ashoka Fellows programme, the resources and connections and profile are often being diverted to those who need it, in many cases, the least: those who are already credible, sizeable, recognisable and well networked enough to attract funds, gain support and expand their work. Is the risk not of funnelling more resource to the well-resourced, rather than tapping the under-resourced and under-networked into this opportunity?

Partly, of course, I acknowledge that's for us to sort out: if I want SSE Fellows (or UnLtd wants its awardees) to be part of this, then we will have to invest in getting our data sorted for the API, and make the case. And I had that discussion with Social Edge about UK sources. There is also the question, though, of whether these would be considered 'vetted' or credible enough for the project (who judges that?). And yet we know from experience that social entrepreneurs want to discover peers like them (or just ahead of them), not just 'stars' (indeed these extraordinary, unachievable role models can actually deter new entrants), and that funders are interested in new (riskier) innovations, not just credible and mature success stories. Nat Whittemore on Change.org reckons the API / search won't be a supply of much funding, but we also know that those who feature in research, journalism, blogs and profiles end up getting more support and resource in the long run.

Dan Elitzer at Full Contact Philanthropy thinks the widget is potentially damaging because it "promotes the damaging mythology of the social entrepreneur" (a point with some validity that I've answered in the comments on that post), but I think the greater potential damage could come from scaling and championing the few, instead of including, inspiring, resourcing and connecting the many.

Openness and transparency, at breakfast, lunch and dinner

Posted on March 5, 2010 by sse

I was trying to work out how to capture a few different bits of learning from the week and various different meetings, and thought I'd do so via the theme of openness…and three meals.

1) First up, I met with David Gold and some of the Prospect-us team over dinner to discuss how to use social media effectively. Prospect-us are a third sector recruitment agency, and, alongside being their CEO, David is also a knowledgeable and supportive champion of SSE (and many SSE Fellows). It was great to meet some of his senior team and share our experience of using social media to achieve SSE's communication aims. Indeed, much of the conversation was about twitter, blogs, facebook, linkedin and the like being means to an end, not an end in themselves (something I made clear in my contribution to the excellent Social by Social guide), and the need to cut through the noise + measure impact / success.

Openness was also central to the conversation: how it was refreshing to be honest and transparent (which builds trust, which builds credibility); how it was about internal organisational culture, not just external web activity; about the limits of openness (i.e. how open and honest can you be on an organisational blog: needless to say, I have blogged about this…); and about the line between personal and organisational on web 2.0. Fascinating couple of hours for me (to reflect, and strategize retrospectively!), and hopefully for David and the team too.

2) Secondly, lunch at the Ideas Exchange run by Gordon D'Silva over at Training For Life. Whilst attracted by lunch at the great Hoxton Apprentice, of course, it was the content of the debate that was of more interest. Gordon is committed to sharing and openness and had invited people to learn from some of Training For Life's experiences over the last couple of years. As he said, to learn from the good and the bad; I'd agree with his acknowledgement that this sector is not always very good at sharing its mistakes and challenges as much as its success. This is natural, to a degree, but (as we see on SSE programmes day in day out), learning comes from doing things, getting things wrong, and learning from them. Kudos to Gordon both for sharing, and for challenging others to be open and share. And, actually, though counter-intuitive, sharing the reality of challenges doesn't necessarily impair an organisation's standing. In many cases, as mentioned above, it can build greater trust and greater credibility.

3) Finally (and we are going in reverse meal order), I attended a Social Innovator breakfast at NESTA where the Young Foundation were launching their newest publication and companion website: the Open Book of Social Innovation and www.socialinnovator.info As the name would suggest, this is a book of social innovation: of the processes, connections and methods by which social innovation is achieved. A superb piece of work, filled not only with great case studies and innovations from across the world, but also with insights into how successful social innovation is instigated, replicated and implemented. Whilst some of the speakers present at the breakfast were seemingly congenitally unable to stick to anything like their allotted time, Sophi Tranchell brought a welcome clarity and concision to proceedings, and urged those present not to be 'thinkers' but be 'doers' and find ways to implement and put ideas into practice.

Much food for thought (if you excuse the pun) from all three meals, and no doubt more to follow as I process and digest (!) it all. For me, transparency and openness is so important for social entrepreneurs (see the Transparency of Social Entrepreneurs), and for all new aspiring businesses, that it holds great interest and great relevance.

Top 10 podcasts for social entrepreneurs

Posted on December 3, 2009 by sse

Following on the back of the top 10 blogs for social entrepreneurs, I thought I might add to that with some podcast links. I've been travelling a bit of late (currently on my way to Leeds) which, in addition to the commute, has meant a fair amount of podcast listening. I'm retreading a bit of previous ground here (see Podcasts + Pendolinos, Recent Social Enterprise podcasting, and Podcasts and Audio Links), but there have been some decent additions to some old favourites….so here goes:

1) First up has to be Peter Day's World of Business which is consistently interesting about all aspects of business. And, when you consider that the last three episodes have featured employee-ownership, biofuels and entrepreneurship advice, it is also often of considerable relevance to social entrepreneurs

2) More specifically of this world is Social Innovation Conversations which is a US-based podcast affiliated to Stanford Social Innovation Review; mostly it is downloadable episodes of panels / speeches from events, but they are usually high quality people talking about relevant issues, so definitely worth a look through the archive

3) Evan Davis is best known for hosting Dragon's Den here, but I think his Bottom Line radio programme is great. Simple format (3 CEOs, 3 different companies, discussing few specific topics) and doesn't outstay its welcome. Has featured Divine Chocolate's Sophi Tranchell and Anne MacCaig of CafeDIrect previously.

4) SmallBizPod is the leading small business specific podcast, and Alex Bellinger does a terrific job with it, meeting entrepreneurs and raising issues that you don't find elsewhere. You can find a social enterprise specific section on the website with interviews from events and leading social entrepreneurs.

5) Echoing Green has been supporting social entrepreneurs for 20 years or so, and is one of the few support organisations to have ventured into podcasting. Its Be Bold podcast is about careers and is obviously pretty US-centric, but there's some good stuff here regardless: about people's motivations, about supporting oneself, about personal development and so forth.

6) Staying in the US, PRI do an occasional social entrepreneurship podcast, usually focused on international development work, and usually quite brief; but decent-enough

7) For a more cerebral take, and cutting-edge business thinking, try HBR's IdeaCast. Occasionally tiresome when it's just Harvard authors plugging Harvard books, but it's a good place for prompting new thinking and new ideas.

8) I've recently got into the Business podcast from the Guardian, which is pretty good + snappy about current business events + news; occasionally features ClearlySo supremo Rod Schwartz as well….

9) Some decent enough bitesize intro podcasts from Enterprising Non-profits in Canada (planning, value, what is social enterprise etc)

10) Brand new is the Ashoka Tech podcast, which has started with an episode on World Toilet Day (insert joke about starting at the bottom here….); bodes well, but too early to tell: one to keep an eye on.

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And if that's not enough for you, see our bookmarks for more, or check out the 100 best small business podcasts, although if you;ve got time to listen to all of those, then the business is probably going down the pan :0)

Working up the courage / energy to do twitter lists (twists?) at some point soon….

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