Joel Thomas

Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel about global social entrepreneurship with Jim Johnson, Ryan Allis, Jim Thomas and Kari Leech.  The moderator, Dennis Whittle, founded Global Giving, a social venture which he has truly taken to scale.  About one hundred people attended for a lively conversation.

The power of the conversation did not center around defining social entrepreneurship, but rather the stories that each panelist had accumulated along their journeys.  Each could point to glorious successes and equally important massive debacles.  Strong currents emerged from the conversation:

Entrepreneurship is about not folding your tent.  Ryan didn’t quit when his burn rate was $1500/month, and he only had $10,000 in the bank.

It is about innovation:  we can’t just describe social injustices.  We need to find pragmatic solutions.  Kari Leech is designing a point-of-use water purifier.  It is no easy feat just to build the prototype, and when that is done, she will need to conduct field trials.  After that, a team will need to figure out the sales and distribution model.

Social Entrepreneurship requires a strong sense of social currency.  Jim Thomas of Africa Rising understands that a frameshift needs to happen in the way Americans view Africa.  Africa is a vibrant continent with vibrant resources.  The West’s role is as a catalyst, not the director of Africa’s development.

Social Entrepreneurship requires scale.  If you want to change the world, go to the root and change the pattern of production.  Nourish International has set out to engage the millennial generation in the issue of global poverty.  Any issue as big as global poverty will not budge with anything less than this kind of pattern changing move.

One woman in the audience asked if social entrepreneurship was new.

The answer is quite clear.  Social Entrepreneurs have existed throughout history.  Gandhi transformed the relationship between Britain and the entire Indian subcontinent into a more equitable one.  Susan B. Anthony ushered in women’s suffrage within the United States.  These were innovators who did not fold their tents and go home.  They understood social currency.  They understood scale!

So social entreprneurs have been around.  But the term, and the field that goes with it, is something new. The term was first used ~1980.  The field around it has since grown enormously, inerting itself in academic curricula around the US and world.  Indeed, I just had a friend return from study abroad in Brazil, where he studied social entrepreneurship at PUC-Rio university.  Crazy.

So what value does social entreprneurship offer?  And what IS it, Really?  For starters, I think it provides a framework for individuals to operate within.  There is comradery amongst commercial entrepreneurs.  There are also rules of trade and business, along with best practices which have build industries.  Social entrepreneurship hopes to achieve the same thing, but with a focus on building a more socially equitable world.  I have begun to define the framework that social entrepreneurship provides in a series of blogposts in the category, social entrepreneurship.  It wil be a fun, trailblazing journey, as the field has not yet fully defined itself.

There are plenty of social entrepreneurship organizations, and zillions of slightly different definitions zinging around universities, conferences and academic forums.  This is my first semi-formal attempt to consolidate the field conceptually.  The field already endeavors to consolidate and define itself (that’s what Ashoka, CASE and Stanford CSI are all trying to do).  My goal is to track what they and others are saying along the way and try to make a little sense of it all.  These posts will be stored in the Social Entrepreneurship on the right side of my blog.  I expect this will take quite a long time; however, I am excited to start!  Here is my general plan:

Step 1:  Identify the dominant schools of thought and categorize them.

Step 2: Identify the primary organizations associated with each school of thought

Step 3:  Encourage players in the field to accurately classify their activities.

Do you have any thoughts in this process?

Feel free to make suggestions to the process in general, or provide specific advice and/or research along the way.  In the meantime, I will begin by writing posts related to step 1 until I am satisfied with the major trends in the field.

My current strategy is to google ’social entrepreneurship’ and analyze the first 50 definitions I come across.  My assumption is that Google’s algorithm will correctly prioritize the most influential social entrepreneurship thought centers.  My concern around this is that it may exclude thought centers where English is not the primary language.  I may need to search for social entrepreneurship in other languages.  Thoughts?

I plan to implement a process check at 50.  If more research is needed, I will analyze more definitions.  If the definitions are consolidated within 2 schools of thought or less, I will move on.  If 3 or more schools of thought emerge, I will conduct more research.

We traditionally think of Republicans as proponents of small government and Democrats supporters of big government.  I did some number crunching of the budget increases introduced over the 4 year terms of our last four presidents.  Needless to say, I was a bit flummoxed by the results:

What does this mean?    Should we measure a government’s size by how much it taxes, or how much it spends?  Was Reagan a phony small government proponent?

Full data on government spending can be found here.  A synopsis can be found here.

Obama is ahead in just about every poll.  Red states are turning into battleground states, and battleground states are turning into blue states.  Obama has been scored higher in debates by Republican pundits.

But there is the ever dreaded Bradley Effect.  Although Obama is up in every poll, there is a concern that voters will still be unable to elect a black man.

Do you think the Bradley Effect will play a role in this election?

If so, do you think it will tilt the election towards McCain?

This seems to be the season to get into UNC Football.  We are now 4-1 and it looks like we may be ranked after our victory over 24th ranked UConn last night.  I was at that game and had a blast.  It was exhilirating to hear the deaftning roar of Kenan Stadium, inspiring to see Carolina blue being dawned in the tens of thousands, and envigorating to see our team absolutely obliterate an undefeated opponent.

There’s just one hanging problem in the back of mind:  I have not followed Carolina football for the last six years, and now I am in large part because the team is good.  I have to ask myself…

Am I a Fair Weather fan?

This is a new experience for me.  I followed the Philadelphia Eagles every week as they went 3 and 13 until they became a perennial powerhouse.  I’ve followed the UNC men’s soccer team for the last 4 seasons, through the good, the bad and the ugly.  I followed Carolina basketball in the dark years of Dougherty.

But I have not followed Carolina football since I went to a game against Floridate State in which we were hammered 37 - 0.  It was too painful, and football was not my favorite sport, so I turned to Men’s soccer.

Now, here we are, 5 years later, and I’m falling for UNC football.  I went to two tailgates yesterday, watched the game, and hugged random fans I had never met before.  We are now good, and I am now a fan.  I am, indeed a Fair Weather Fan.

And you know what?  It’s OK:  I just have to learn to live with it.  It is something that can change with time, if I continue to follow the team from here on out.  Also, while I may be a fairweather fan, I’m at least going to be a good fairweather fan.  I’ll learn the players’ names and positions, learn their stats, and even read about football in general.  I still don’t know what a tailback does, but that can change, right?

I look forward to a great season, and a great program being built over the next decade.

Go Heels!

I just finished watching the most uneven debate I’ve ever seen in which Senator Joe Biden clearly trumped Governor Palin.  After the debate, CNN hosted a panel of pundits to discuss the debate, and one by one, they lamely made neutral comments, stating vague pros and cons for each Vice Presidential candidate.  Then, a Republican stated that Palin won, a Democrat stated that Biden won and they all smiled as the program went to commercial.

Where is Cafferty when you need him?

But seriously, why were the CNN reporters so neutral?  Am I just that biased?  Was it really a close debate?  Or are they under strict orders to be completely neutral?

Do you know what your values are?  Really, do you?  Do you know which values are most important to you?

I attended a seminar today as part of Leadership Triangle, and found the following exercise quite helpful.    Review the values on this list.  Put a check mark next to all the values thatare important to you.  It may help to refer to your list of influences on the previous page.  If you think of values that are not listed, feel free to write them down.

Now, draw a circle around your top 15.  Next, underline your top ten.  Then, put a star by your top 5 or 3.  Clarity of values:  Ask:

• What am I doing?  What should I do?  What should I stop doing?

Being authentic means that our words and actions are in step.  Are you being authentic with yourself?  Are you being authentic with those around you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about value today.

There are a fair number of people who say that money does not have value, that it is neither good nor evil.  They say that it is simply a means of exchange.  But money does represent value.  Sure, paper money is just painted paper, but it still represents value, and therefore, the way in which people handle money represents their values.

If someone saves all of their money, they like to store the value they have produced for future use.  This means they like being secure.

If you take a job that pays high, it means that you want the ability to purchase things that money can buy.  There are two additional factors that could dissuade us from a high paying job.

One:  we know that money can’t buy everything.  For example, money may enable you to go out and do activities with people, but it won’t make friends for you.

Two:  earning money can come with a cost.  You may have to work longer hours.  You may not enjoy the work.  You may not be happy about what the work is doing for the world.

Yet people repeatedly choose less fun jobs that pay more over more fun jobs that pay less.

Questions:

Why do people choose jobs which they do not like?  Is it because of some pressure not to work for what they are passionate about (less money, social norms) or is it because they are not passionate about anything?  If it is some pressure not to work on what they are passionate about, what makes that pressure so great?  Are we not giving enough value to what we are passionate about?

In good conversation, I am often confronted with an argument that goes something like this:

“We do not know the future effects of our actions.  There are examples of actions done with the best of intentions which have produced the worst results.  Likewise, there are examples of actions done with the worst of intentions which have produced the best results.  How then, can we have confidence in our actions?”

What do you think about uncertainty?  Should we act at all when we are not 100% sure what results our actions will produce?

GSEC: Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition

Social Innovation Competition

Global Social Venture Competition

Social E-Challenge held by BASES at Stanford

Purdue Idea to Product for Social Entrepreneurship

The MIT Ideas Competition

Carolina Challenge

Duke Startup Challenge

William James Foundation

More Competitions