Back in the swing of things on the blog front: two meetings cancelled / postponed today, and time therefore for a brief post rounding up some recent links and news of interest. Hope you like the recession/Obama cartoon (from gapingvoid, as ever). Roll on the inauguration. And kudos to intern Hannah, who has been blogging so proficiently that I got complimented for it….

– On that subject, interesting-ish article about whether non-profits should use volunteers / interns on their social media; comments are as interesting as the piece.

– Third Sector Minister Kevin Brennan in the Times on the opportunities for social enterprise in the current economic climate: Chance for social enterprise to be more enterprising

– Arch genius of social media / non-profits (or the godfather of social reporting, as I read recently) David Wilcox twittered (yes, I know..) today about this categorisation of conversations and dialogues and tools. If you facilitate or run workshops, this is interesting.

– Nat over at Change.org is bang on the money again: Investing in People Not Ideas

–The Paradox of Choice, also via David Wilcox; why more is, ultimately, less; to apply this policy in the world of web 2.0, read Beth Kanter's tips on How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media Efficiently

– Top 10 Green Books of 2008: another list for the list

– Two new posts from social enterprise ambassador Peter Holbrook: Losses and Life in 2009, and Enterprising Solutions; both worth reading.

– Are you going to Voice 09? SSE will be there. Word on the street is that there were some bursaries available…..though these may have gone by now

– Turkish Social Entrepreneur of the Year list

– The top 5 articles in Stanford Social Innovation Review from last year are pretty interesting; on performance, impact, social innovation…and Wal-Mart amongst others.

– And from the same magazine, what better way to start the year than with 10 Ways to Become a Better NonProfit Leader in 2009

– I've just reviewed Forces for Good for Social Enterprise Magazine; I'm lining up the Charismatic Organization next (subtitle: eight ways to grow a nonprofit that builds buzz, delights donors, and energizes employees; oh yes)

– Social Silicon Valleys: in Spain article from the Guardian. I've met

– Finally, and fairly randomly, enjoyed this article about how whisky is having to be rationed because the Chinese are drinking so much. On an overland train from Xian to Shanghai a year ago, I had a conversation with a Chinese guy where he recommended 'baijio' ("Chinese whisky"; aka hugely strong alcohol schnapps-y type thing, best mixed with snake's gall-bladder apparently) and asked what I'd recommend. My recommendation was Bruichladdich, which my new friend faithfully wrote down on his newspaper. I'd like to think, therefore, that I'm at least partly responsible for this Chinese whisky frenzy…..

There are, of course, a whole host of posts and articles predicting what we can expect in the year ahead: check out Nat’s take on Change.org for one. But repeating others has never stopped me before, so here’s my take (partially cribbed from other people’s posts) on what we might see in the next 12 months in the world of social entrepreneurship and enterprise. Who knows, we might even make this an annual thing to see if we were anywhere close to being right…..

1) Resilience: new favourite term of funders and policy-makers alike; the concept of resilient communities, as promulgated by Transition Towns, has only gained more credence in the current climate, and I think we’ll see it bandied around a fair bit. Rightly so, too, I reckon.

2) Partnership, collaboration and merger: where partnerships over the past five years have, at times, been partnerships of convenience put together simply to apply for a particular piece of funding, the recession will mean partnerships of necessity will be the order of the day.

3) Bang for buck: again, economically (and social impact-wise), it’s all going to be about value for money, particularly in public sector contracts; so added value will most likely need to be put into pound signs where possible (hello Mr SROI). To coin a phrase, the revolution will be monetised.

4) The Obama effect: while his grassroots web 2.0 movement building stuff will be the inspiration for a UK version (or twelve; who knows, one might take off), it may be that a U.S. Office for Social Innovation or a Social Entrepreneur agency (as touted in various documents and proposals) might be the more substantive influence on the sector.

5) Internationalisation: something which has grown in the last couple of years, with initiatives like the Social Enterprise World Forum and countless visits and exchanges; this will move from a network-y, sharing information, “you’re great, no you’re great” phase to more practical delivery partnerships and collaborative working.

6) Jobs and skills: with unemployment set to rise significantly (some are predicting over 3 million), an emphasis on job creation, skills for employment, and micro-entrepreneurship (aka self-employment) will come from government and trusts/foundations. Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise needs to place itself firmly and credibly in this space, because everyone else, from universities to private sector agencies, will be as well.

7) Mobiles: if last year (and the year before) was the year of the social network, we also started to see mobile phones (via twitter, qik et al) begin to impact. This could well be the year when “mobile apps for charity” is a phrase we see… or the year when Stephen Bubb starts to tweet. Which can only be a good thing.

8) Niches: the trend where we see expertise pulled in as a sub-contractor / deliverer for relatively small areas of work, or niche jobs; particularly relevant for start-up social entrepreneurs who should seek out those opportunities / unmet needs / markets.

9) Realism: the emphasis will be SMART, and the R will be the most important: realistic; from business plans to applications, from tenders to proposals, investors and funders will be looking for the credible, reliable and proven. Overblowing the trumpet not advised.

10) Investment (ready or not): two prongs to this point; the first is that there is much talk of ‘investment-readiness’ in the social entrepreneur world (or lack of therein), and 2009 will see agencies start to enter that space with vigour; the other aspect is that pressure will be put on trusts and foundations to maintain levels of investment even as their endowments go down, given the preceding decade of prosperity. We’ll see forward-thinking trusts do so.

All in all, lots to look forward to. SSE has much to look forward to, and we wish everyone, particularly SSE students and Fellows, a prosperous and successful new year.

Ok, a brief round-up of some useful links and info, having surfaced for air from various bits of writing. Sadly, no photos or film from the SSE Christmas do last night as yet (which ended with karaoke), but perhaps in the New Year…All I'll say is that there was a version of Hallelujah which won't be appearing on X Factor any time soon. On to more important things:

– Starting unbiasedly with ourselves, SSE has contributed the Social Entrepreneurship chapter to the Philanthropy UK Guide to Giving. I think it's a useful one-pager for people looking for an introduction to this world.

– Voice 09, SEC's big event, is coming together. Check out the details online…and probably see you in Birmingham.

– Piece in the Times today on celebrities and social enterprise which is interesting-ish

– Good report on tackling worklessness by Blackburne House CEO (and SEC Chair) Claire Dove which pushes the need for (socially) entrepreneurial mindsets and self-employment

– Rod Schwartz continues to kick CICs, this time calling for action to change some of the regulations in light of the rapidly decreasing interest rates

– You may well have read the report on the Social Enterprise Ambassador programme shake-up (with two asked to leave); there's an interesting post + comments over on Rob Greenland's blog where I've contributed a fair bit

– The Spark programme for homelessness / social enterprise projects is renewed and open to new applications

– Third Sector covers the social enterprise debate / identity project

– Lord Mawson responds to the Queen's Speech and uses the opportunity to talk social entrepreneurship

– SSE Australia is happening; see here and here for more info

– I found this post, entitled Kiva is a menace very good in terms of how what seems to be an "internet-based" idea that can easily be replicated is actually much more particular, not least of which is that their leadership (I've met both Flannery's on different occasions) are so bloody good. Essential reading for those who are doing a "It's like Kiva meets MoveOn" type project

– NESTA are doing some interesting things in social finance

– And Nathaniel Whittmore continues to write great content on the Change.org blog; let's back his Make Social Entrepreneurship Support part of the National Service Plan (US) idea

– Check out Robert Mulhall, a Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Fellow (we love SEI), talking about his work on Irish TV

Till next time…..

Basking in the Indian Summer here in Bethnal Green: here’s to it carrying on all weekend. And, of course, what better way to prepare for the weekend than with a round-up of news frmo the world of social entrepreneurship and enterprise….

– First up, there’s a downloadable pdf of the OTS "Is social enterprise at a crossroads?" research that I posted about yesterday: check it out on their website: Social enterprise: where next?

– Way back when (May), SSE was involved as a founding partner in the Shine Unconference; one interviewer who was there on day 1 was Alex Bellinger of SmallBizPod, and you can download and listen to the podcast at Social Entrepreneurs shine at Shine; it even features an interview with yours truly, but don’t let that put you off….

– If you prefer reading to listening (or you don’t have as long a commute as me), then this Harvard Business School article, the Coming Transformation of Social Enterprise might be interesting. Coming very much from an elite business school point of view, obviously, but some provocative stuff worth browsing about the "imagination deficit" in the sector…

– On a related theme to our recent monograph, Sustainable Paths to Community Development, the Development Trusts Association and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have been looking into the question "What role for community enterprises in tackling poverty?"

– Who are the leading entrepreneurial speakers? Find out (an opinion) here

– Andrew Mawson, author of The Social Entrepreneur, has been spreading the gospel in Australia

– Do you know how your council works? Urban Forum’s guide will tell you how….

– Some good recent Social Enterprise Ambassador posts by Daniel Heery and Chris Allwood

– Finally, I enjoyed this post by Rob Greenland about the "sloth"-like organisations working in regeneration, and the challenges of partnering with them. It might be familiar to some of you………..