In times gone by, I used to scan through the SSE bookmarks on del.icio.us for what we had been noting and reading during a week gone by. Now, increasingly, it's looking back through the tweets on the SSE Twitter account as well. Anyway, here's a few of the more interesting links of relevance and interest: from last week:

– Probably the most read set of articles was McKinsey's selection on social entrepreneurship to coincide with the Skoll Forum. I found "It takes a network" the most interesting of those, particularly Raj Kumar's closing thought that:

"In time, the social-enterprise community may find that measuring scale
and impact at the network level (rather than at the level of the
individual enterprise) is a more accurate measure of the true scale of
social change and a better way for investors to gauge the return on
their social investment."

– SSE Fellow Junior Smart made the Independent's list of 100 People making Britain Happy

– Ben Metz wrote a challenging post on the Guardian blog ("Let's be honest about social enterprise") about how the UK should be more honest about what it's got wrong as well as right, and the need for a co-ordinated international approach. It also took at a few sideswipes along the way at some existing schemes, which prompted comments and other fall-out (which you can find on Ben's follow-up blog post). I don't agree with it all, but am inclined to agree with Rod Schwartz's comment ("If we are unable to look at ourselves critically we will be forever sub-par, inadequate and amateurish")

– More sessions up for the forthcoming SHINE unconference and also opportunities to volunteer; buy your tickets soon…..

– The Guardian and the Social Enterprise Coalition did some good work comparing the various 'social policy' and 'social enterprise' aspects of the manifestos; worth reading David Wilcox and Rob Greenland on the Conservatives' #bigsociety stuff especially, of which more soon.

– New nfpSynergy research found that small charities were more trusted and perceived as less wasteful than larger ones, though more likely to be amateurish.

– More business school graduates say they want a career with ethical / social purpose. Open to comments on whether this is a good or a bad thing :0)

That's all for now. Will leave you with this cartoon which some of you may find appropriate ;0)