innovation playground Idris Mootee

We Have Proved Once Again That Brand Marketing Can Drive Social Change, Further Customer Engagment And Build Brands. And Won A Gold Award For Best Financial Service Marketing.

Aviva Canada just announced winners to Aviva Community Fund with half a million dollars payout to programs across the country. This is the second year of a very successful campaign created to use brand to drive social change. The Aviva Community Fund, a unique competition designed to lead, empower and support positive change in communities across the country, was first launched in 09 when we presented the idea to the client.

The idea is an open source idea platform for people to submit and decide how to use the money to drive real social change and provide positive impact to their communities. We are grateful to our client's team who worked with us side by side and our design and development team working day and night to accommodate the evolving needs of the program. This is year two and we won a gold award for this campaign. Great work team!

The sustainable impact of the idea or campaign is another proof to show that the world has changed so much since the early days of advertising. The events of the last decade and the Internet has made us aware of the challenges around us.

Advertising has always been the primary mechanism to create awareness and build brand equity, but it is not a question of which 50% of the money is wasted, it is a question of why 80% of the money spent is not building brand equity and merely creating awarness?

Our research shows that 79% of consumers are willing to change the brands they buy or if they believe their actions contribute to making our world a better place, and over 67% would help a brand “promote” (by using Facebook or other social media) if a good cause were behind it and is credible. Also, 73% of consumers (under the age of 35) said it is their mission to contribute to a better society and environment.

Among all respondents, “helping others and contributing to their communities” was cited as the second-most important source of personal contentment, after “spending quality time with loved ones.” Over 54% respondents are not fully convinced that corporate social responsibility advertising is credible when they cannot associate that with real action. The power of PR is diminishing when the program is not designed to engage consumers. This study was part of our ongoing research to look at how social causes can help brands which are low involvement in nature to drive engagement.

One interesting take away point, 67% of consumers are comfortable with the idea that brands can support good causes and improve our societies and make money at the same time. When is Wall Street ready to factor in a second or third bottom line into their valuation of companies? It is time.

Social Technologies Are Changing Many Aspects Of The Future Of Enterprises. We Have Yet To Understand The Full Implications. But It Is Not Happening Fast.

I came across a recent article “Making Social Business Strategy Work” posted on AMA and I forgot who wrote it because I didn’t want to know. The title is bad enough but it managed to attract me to spend three minutes reading the article. The article was written by a ‘consultant’ obviously and advocating that formulating a sound social business strategy requires understanding the key factors driving current market opportunity which includes the following:

• The changing nature of work. We have shifted to an “always-on” culture, where definitions of where and how jobs get done have radically evolved. Time-shifting, hoteling, and telecommuting are increasingly accepted as life-style choices, not just cost-cutting tactics.
• A shift to cultures of public sharing. Social psychology tells us that humans harbor a fundamental need to connect. In more analog times, the public display of this inclination was a 6,000-card Rolodex on an executive’s desk. Maybe two. Today, professionals put their networks on display via LinkedIn.
• Evolution of personal technology. The Blackberry that most executives carry around in their pocket packs more computing power than many of the international business machines that helped them rise up through the corporate ranks. We are living in the midst of a perfect storm combining powerful hardware, fast networks, and robust applications, allowing productivity to skyrocket.

What is new here? Well the changing nature of work didn’t happen yesterday just in case the author didn’t realize. Since the days of Lotus Notes, VPN and laptops, people like me have been doing this for 20 years. The migration of Rolodex to Linkededin happened long time ago, did he just notice that? Let me check his total number of linkedin contacts and when he first joined Linkedin.

And the evolution of personal technologies ..ah Blackberry… it doesn’t do much other than allowing me to read word doc (barely), and I got my first Blackberry in 1999. I don’t think there are any drastic changes in the way I use my Blackberries (Yes, I am using two) – which are primarily used for reading and sending emails and making calls and sending a few texts. OK may be a few pics upload once in a while. What perfect storm?

If I was sitting in a boardroom and some dude showed up and asked me “What’s our Social Business Strategy?” I would probably kick him out of the room.

A business strategy is a business strategy, it is about scanning for shifts and looking deeper into needs of customers and signals for change. Then making the choice (and trade offs) of where and how to compete and then analyzing the capability and resource gaps to get to the future state. So we don’t need to call it ‘Social Business Strategy”. If we need to address any environmental shift, that's part of strategic planning. If we start doing this we will soon be asking whether we have “Business Strategy for Cloud Computing” or “Business Strategy for Social Change” or “iPad Business Strategy”.

Social technologies are slowly impacting organizations, on how people collaborate, share ideas and make decisions, but it is not a business strategy. And it is not about linkedin, Blackberries and Facebook.There are huge implications over the long term, but the article failed to illuminate the deeper implications.

The author talked about parsing signal from noise, articles like this is definitely all noise.

Corporations Should Create A New Role: 'Chief Social Engineer' Accountable For The Company Second Or Third Bottom Line.

Very crazy weeks with 8 key projects in critical phases and we're excited on every one of them. MIT Global Challenge is one of my favourite since day one as it is a great idea to bring the brighest minds of MIT alumnis to solve the world's wicked problems. There are no shortage of wicked problems, while we try to solve one, new ones are being created. And I think B-schools need to follow what MIT is doing. I think the true impact is how the MIT Global Challenge will inspire young students and aware of what challenges we are dealing with and true power of communities and purposes. B-schools need to start breeding a different generation of humanitic capitalists and not the old school i-bankers, we don't need more.

Another exciting one is Aviva Change Fund. The last one was a runaway success and this year we expect the same. Great client of ours that truly understand the how the world has changed and it takes real action to build an authentic brand. Building great brands and creating positive change is not mutually exclusive. And there is Recyclebank which we have a dedicated team working day and night for some really exciting change. And there is the Adopt a School project which has jsut come to an end with some fantastic results. 26,960 books raised for children in high-need elementary schools, far exceeding our client Indigo's initial goal. Everyone at IC are so excited about these projects. More to come next month.

Over the years I’ve seen many large multinationals developed a cowboy mentality, where greed, ego and arrogrant aggressiveness took over and they were living on capitalism horsebacks, especially during a long interrupted post war boom. US-dominated international financial order has experienced a series of crises as its flaws manifested and we see one after another-big industries failing. In fact, the current world financial crisis has once again exposed the flaws of the US version of extreme capitalism (I am also a capitalist make no mistake) and it went to the extreme.

Management theories were mostly invented during those period based on assumptions that now seems outdated and some of them were flawed in the first place. Instead of thinking about how we can create more sustainable and humanistic societies, we pushed the other buttons to drive things to the extreme and the world is widely polarized.

Innovation did not happen in areas of how to make business models sustainable and how to develop human capital and social equality as a differentiating competitive advantage, instead money and creativity were spent on how to expand new profits by using "financial technology innovations" to develop financial derivatives and establish a man(not many women)-made "virtual financial world". That world is virtual but the damage is not.

Take the subprime mortgage credits as a perfect example. They were integrated, split and repackaged into a series of securities-like commodities, which were then sold throughout the world as new virtual financial products after being split and repackaged again and again by downstream retailers. These money machines did not add value to societies. They simply push risks to the mass, which have no idea of what’s going on. The focus on short-term profit over long-term client shareholder and social/environmental value and the lack of consideration for the global impact of their decisions is causing us the pain for a long time.

Large multinationals often profess to have a higher moral vision (at least according to the annual reports) and to be pursuing a world with laudable goals of sustainable economies and environment. On the other hand, it is convenient to ignore the socially destructive behavior of those economies that rely heavily on governmental regulations and state-operated monopolistic enterprises. These economies have incurred extreme rates of poverty, repressed human rights, and excessive or even unreversible environmental damage. I want to see large multinational corporations starting or incubating social enterprises just as they incubate technology start-ups through their venture funds.

They need to play in this sandbox to prepare for a sea change and apply their scale and structural advantage to see what a social enterprise can do. I don’t know when we can see a first multi-national social enterprise with certain scale and scope. May be a first publicly traded social enterprise. That will be next birthday wish. Or my next or last career move?

I suggest every large organization should create a role for a Chief Social Engineer similar to the role of a CMO or CFO, his or her job is to identify systemic problems within the social systems and structures and responsibility for the second bottom line or call it the third if you wish. Just as a CFO is responsible for the financial bottom line, the CSE will be responsible for measuring the positive social impact bottom line. And I am not talking about the fuzzy CSR thing; I am talking about hard-core metrics that show social economic impact. And that should be part of the market valuation.

The Chief Social Engineer’s job (not a PR role for sure) is to create innovative path- breaking new ways to address social problems that are aligned with the corporation business strategy. I will consider taking that that job if GE hires me as the CSE. Or they can outsource that role to our Idea Couture, that's even better.

Developing Communities Of Purposes Will Soon Become The Strategic Mission Of CEOs' Offices.

I was invited to speak to a group of busness incubators from all across US and Canada. My goal was to cut to the point to show them what is needed to qualify as a viable strategy for any start-up 1/ it must not be subject to the same economics as the dominant players, otherwise there is no reason the world needs another start-up. 2. it must answer to very specific customer unmet needs 3/ it must have a purpsoe. A strategy without a purpsoe is like a computer without an OS. I shared my 70 slides power point with them. Unfortunately not much time for interations as I needed to be back in the office.

Before you talk about game-chaning strategies, think what you propose to do would impact your busines model or the industry architecture? How you turn the strategic assets of big competitors into strategic liabilites and how to leverage your strategic agility so their scale advantage is disminishing. Large multinationals not only have challenges with their legacies, they also have a motivation and mobilization challenge. The cubicles and business processes are designed to reduce individual’s imagination to ‘zero’ and these incentives (bonus etc.) are hardly as powerful as other intrinsic motivation. Companies need a purpose or people won’t feel intrinsically motivated on the works that they perform beyond getting a pay check.

Communities of purpose are the business backbone of the 21st Century and this does not end with companies’ employees or suppliers, it also extends to customers. It has profound and far-reaching implications for how companies should be organized to benefit from how value is created and distributed. It makes many management theory looks outdated (and many are very outdated). Any start-up or large enterprise that can consistency maintain a community of purpose would unlock there the true potential of an organization. I think many social enterprises will have an advantage both in attracting talents and customers, and eventually capital markets.

And to clarify, when I say social enterprise I don’t mean just co-ops, or quasi non-profits, I mean privately owned companies with policies on corporate social responsibility as part of their business strategy. It is a particular type of business or value creating activity that sometimes gives rise to distinct organisation forms reflecting a commitment to a social cause working with stakeholders. It’s business objectives is still to mazimizse profits well still aligned with core values. Whereas conventional businesses distribute their profit among shareholders, in social enterprises the surplus (or a meaningful part of it) tends to go towards one or more social aims which the business has - for example education for the third world,women empwerment, environmental issues or for animal rights.

The question of what percentages of profits can be retained for future use? Or for redistrubution to shareholders?  Should they enjoy some kind of tax incentives? Can they be public? Can they acquire non-profit and turn them into for profit?  And do we need tp adapt a broader definition which is independent of any legal model. This latitudinarian definition could include not only companies limited by guarantee, and industrial and provident societies but also companies limited by shares, unincorporated associations, partnerships and sole traders. It is complicated.

What Is A Social Enterprise? There Is Still A Lot Of Debate?

Social enterprise is a hot idea. Being asocial entrepreneurship these days is way cooler than being a iBanker. I think we are only seeing the beginning of a long term trend, people realize it takes a new kind of enterprise to solve the world’s problem. And NGOs are not the solutions. Getting donations and acting as administrators are not adding enough value. They need to start thinking how to create value – here comes social enterprises.

We don't have a good definition of what is considered a social enterprise. Are they in the business of making money or a new kind of “non-profit?” Or “not-just-for-profit" company with a double or triple bottom-line? What’s the percentage of profit that they should retain in order to claim or to qualify as a social enterprise?

More questions: Who should be funding them and what is an acceptable rate of return? What kind of retained profit should they keep? Should they use the money to grow the business or given them out for social good (at the expense of the future growth of the enterprise)? What kind of social value must the enterprise create to be considered “social”? Is green considered “social”? Is healthcare in developed countries “social”?

Creating a start-up is hard enough? Creating a start-up with a social mission is harder? Creating a start-up that is profitable is not easy? And worrying about generating too much profit is an additional challenge. So what is the priority of a social enterprise? Should social enterprises be pushing for more efficiencies and economies of scale the same way as corporations do today? In that case, at what point it is at the expense of social good? All these questions warrant a lot of debates, no easy answers.

Social enterprises require creativity, passion, commitment and the right combination of investments and talents. I've seen a few interesting ideas from students' competition and here is one that I like.

MaloTraders: Founded by Temple University student Mohamed Ali Niang, MaloTraders' is in the business of  processing, storing, and marketing of rice for small-scale farmers in Mali. By making local production more competitive on the international market, MaloTrade is working to alleviate poverty. Malo Traders’ social mission is to alleviate poverty, combat food insecurity, and eradicate malnutrition in Mali.

They aim to accomplish their social mission by minimizing post-harvest losses of small-scale farmers utilizing modern technology, increasing profits of harvests by creating an efficient rice value chain, and fortifying rice with micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron, zinc, and folic acid. The plan is to create the first brand of Malian rice and adhere to international export quality standards. A social brand for rice, that’s a good idea.

Innovation Needs To Expand To Include "Leadership And Management Innovation". Business Schools Need A Reset.

Here is our summer collection. Everybody like these. I guess the message is cool. I get people coming up and ask me where did I get those.  Rethinking management and leadership - one innovation that is less talked about is “Leadership and Management Innovation”, OK what does it mean?

Management practices have always circled around a narrow view of Return on Capital and that drives many of the key business decisions. Optimization of profits, financial capital and assets are an important part of executing a business strategy, but have we thought about how to innovate “leadership and management” itself. I mean new thinking around business strategy that provides additional bottom lines beyond just financial. Where money, purpose and systems are aligned.

Any CEOs who are only interested in maximizing short-term profits or trading hedge funds and companies are not the one that can steward organizations to a healthy and sustainable future. So what do we mean? Here are some examples.

There are cases of CEOs who have broken away from the norm of the “classical, narrow view of what investor accountability which is suffering from QRB (quarterly returns obsession). What they have been doing in innovating the very core of leadership and management and rethink the role of it. Here are some examples:

Founder and exCEO of Nike, Phil Knight, who responded to global protests by overhauling the company’s labor standards and then lobbied for other firms to be held to the same standards; Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, who sought to convince shareholders that legislation capping US carbon emissions is a smart business move; and Yvon Chouinard, founder and CEO of Patagonia who was the first to pledge 1% of annual sales to grassroots environmental organizations and the first major retail company to switch all its cotton clothing over to organic, the first to make fleece from recycled soda-pop bottles.

Each of these business leaders broke the rules of what their own organizations would have considered the right thing to do, and is not only profits, profits and profits. Leadership requires building a culture of “Integrity”, creating a brand with “Authenticity”, reinforcing purposes and values through “Communities”, encourage the organization’s decision-making style for “Transparency” and making sure key resource decisions need to consider “Sustainability” beyond just environmental.

Management needs to innovate itself the very idea of management and leadership. CEOs have larger responsibilities, not only creating a viable future for the organizations and return for shareholders; they need to be change makers of our future societies. Real change will not come from governments; it will be the multinationals that possess the power. My observation is that that the biggest constraints that business leaders facing are their “inability to value new types of “competitive advantage” and the true power of “sustainability” embedded in business strategy making.

Government and NGOs can advocate our social problems, clean water, climate change or obesity or women empowerment etc, but top business leaders are having a hard time interpreting, sense-making, translating them into business strategies, One day we wake up and realize “Sustainability has become the new Capitalism.”

On a different note, MIT Global Challenge is a wonderful idea towards solving many of our problems. In 2011 the global MIT community will be invited to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a world-changing institution. In the spirit of celebration, innovation and service, the MIT Global Challenge is launching a competition to involve the MIT community worldwide in innovative, multidisciplinary problem solving, reconnecting alumni with the spirit of invention and enterprise that pervades the Institute. Idea Couture is proud to be a partner to design and develop the platform which is an unique online space through where people can engage in an ongoing, interactive process to identify problems, propose solutions, reward the most innovative and workable ideas, and document experiences as the winning ideas are implemented in communities around the world. Our team is very excited to be on this project.

There are no shortage of global challenges. Some are really complex. For example, the inequality of the distribution of natural resources on the planet, especially of energy, gives rise to powerful structural tensions within the systems that try to resolve the problem locally with uncivilized methods. 

Another example is business as such. The obvious globalization of worldwide production all the more powerfully enters into conflict with the national character of political activity, when business in the lawless space of an international muddle acquires the forms of earlier, wild capitalism with all the terrible consequences for society and the environment. But the attempts of some public movements to stop the globalization of money flows are waste of effort: no one has the least chance of successfully resisting the laws of economic development. These are no simple challenge that simply throwing money at it can solve the problem or creating a new policy. It truly requires innovative thinking. Probably too much for the sunny weekend.

I am pleased to officially announce that Idea Couture is the proud sponsor of TED 2010 Toronto. We’re looking forward to connect with others in this exciting event. Expecting to see many cool people.

Off to the arrport to SF for a a few days. Back-to-back meetings but looking forward to meet up with old friends and colleagues.

With The World In Such A Mess. It's Time To Rethink, Reimagine And Preparing For A Reset.

No question many of us are upset, feeling restless and wondering how we have created such a big mess of this world. Countries are going bankrupt with Spain on the border of joining Greece. Countries’ (including UK and US) skyrocketing debt and deficits with politicians have absolutely no clue of how to deal with them and leave them to their grandchildren. The US immigration reform is not happening and forcing states like Arizona to take such drastic measures. We seem to have and continue to produce a generation of elected politicians who either don't know what is  right and wrong; or who simply don't have the intellectual ability to understand or solve these complex problems. They all promise the same thing – that they will do better than the other person and reform this or that. But as we see, they can't and won't. Hope is not a strategy.

And we are seeing no end to the two wars or do we have a plan to deal with the two mad men (in North Korea and in Iran). Climate change and men made disasters keep happening and financial reform is no where in sight, we can see a lot of talk and no action. And healthcare. Many wonder if there is anything we can do about this at all?

For many multi-national corporations, if you are making tons of money out of what you’re doing today, why border to create something new or change? For the once big mighty corporations, when you were making so much money out of oil, healthcare, pharma, financial services, why take any risks?

Can technologies save us? We hope that advances in science and technology will keep improving our lives in the years ahead but I don't think they can solve the problems that we have. But let’s not rely on future technologies; I think we have enough technologies around us to experiment with.

Here's an example: A bunch of MIT Media Lab's Next Billion Network folks worked in a project called "Can 4 Billion Cellphones Change the World for the Better?" The idea is to find new ways to harness the increasingly ubiquitous cellphone to help people in developing countries. They have ambition; their question is "can you make a cellphone change the world?"

Other cellphone applications for people in low-income countries are being developed by fellows at MIT's Legatum Center, whose director Iqbal Quadir was the founder of Bangladesh's GrameenPhone, a company that by introducing a low-cost cellphone service to Bangladesh starting in 1997 provided an early example of the power of mobile technologies to advance prosperity in the developing world.

One idea is to improve the delivery of health care in rural areas. Patients in a remote village have to spend a whole day or more traveling to the nearest clinic in order to be tested, diagnosed and receive treatment or a prescription drug for their health problems. But a new open-source software system developed by students who formed a nonprofit company called Moca could provide a faster way. I think this concept is not only for the developing world, it is a great way to lower our healthcare cost and improve quality too.

Nowadays we are all dealing with the hangover from the 60’s. Fifty years ago the concerns of design revolved around the improvement or performance of services and products, while today it is more about design solutions that challenge people to rethink our world, our environment.

We don't even need to look into the future, just look around us, there are plenty of technologies that allow us to change the world. just need more design thinking and imagination. Yes, we can use a few more smart people. Contact us if you're up to the challenge.

Global Ignite Week Kicked Off With Such Cool Energy. My Personal Best Is AfriGadget - A Grassroots Reporting Project On African Ingenuity.

The Global Ignite Week Toronto was such a stellar night last night and it was a pleasure to share the stage with so many cool people. Funny so many people asked me if I have practiced presenting given the format limitations, there was no practice for me. I think I've never done an Power Point practice for more than 15 years. I hardly gone through my slides once these days and typos is a problem for me. I guess I have always been a fast speaker. The people attending were all very cool from media to design and start-ups. The organizer Peter Horvath and Michele Perras did an amazing job. Good energy and I certainly recommend people to try the experience if you have not done so. There are so much creative energy in the place and everyone is eager to learn and share. And here are many IC folks there and many old friends exBlastees too.

The most interesting presentation for me personally is Steve Mugiri’s AfriGadget. He is a writer for a team blog AfriGadget that is about appropriate and ingenious application of tech in Africa. It is amazing how people use their imagination to create things with so little resources. Seeing people there bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges. We have seen enough the unfortunate side of Africa that is full of conflicts and sufferings. AfriGadget's objective is to find more stories of African ingenuity. The Grassroots Reporting Project is their plan to find, equip and train more AfriGadget reporters in the field throughout Africa. This is the CNN on Innovation in Africa!

Every time I think about challenges in Africa, I always think educational attainment, probably the important element in reducing poverty, has made some progress, especially at the primary level. But fewer than 75% of primary school-age children were enrolled in primary school in Chad, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and several other African countries. African countries have made little progress getting children to advance to secondary school. For all of sub-Saharan Africa, the average net enrollment for secondary school is just 28%. We need to find more effective ways to deliver education. We cannot afford the continuous widening of the gap.

One cool example Steve included in his presentation was Alfred Sirleaf, he is a blogger but like the blogger in this part of the world. There is no computer or Internet access. Guess what, Alfred is an analog blogger. He runs the "Daily News," a news hut in the middle of Monrovia, the capital of a Liberia, a country on the west coast of Africa. The lack of electricity or Internet connections doesn’t even faze him.

The lessons for us is we often resort to modern tools or solutions when we are dealing with a particular problem. The best example is we rely too much on pharmaceuticals, whatever the problem is; we’re too quick to reach for a pharmaceutical solutions. Same with technologies for enterprise usage, buy a big software package and your problems will be solved. Alfred serves, as a reminder to the rest of us, that simple is often better, just because it works. How does it work? He has no funding, no Typepad, no Facebook and no computer or electricity. It is all about the ideas. The power of imagination and creativity at work.

He is a good recruiter, he uses creative ways to recruit people from around the city and country to report news to him. He uses his cell phone as the major point of connection between him and the 10,000 that read his blackboard daily. I think soon, he will be selling Google ads on his blog. Great site to check out. There are so many good stories. Another good one from the blog is the hacking culture in Africa. I think we do it for fun and they do it for necessity.

One post from Erik Hersman talked about the FLAP bag project, a collaborative effort by Timbuk2, Portable Light and Pop!Tech. Those folks ar AfriGadget are helping to field-test the bags that they designed have solar power and lighting on them, and get interviews of the individuals using them. Then they asked them if they could make something from their own materials, with their own designs, from it. Three days later they returned with some new designs. The local cloth use in Ghana was pretty and I think they can sell well at Best Buy.

Random Thoughts: From Aviva Community Fund To Positive Social Change To Women Empowerment.

I was so excited that our Aviva Community Program is getting such good response even before the official launch. It is a very important project for both our client and IC because it is something we truly believe in. It is about 1/ Empowering change in our communities while building brand 2/ Prove that social media is not a hype and if you use it right it is the most powerful communication medium 3/ Authenticity is the key ingredient of marketing, this program is about action and not just words. Check out the program here It is truly where "Marketing Innovation" meets "Social Innovation".

The idea is Aviva Canada will be introducing a nation-wide pilot positive social change competition supported by see a large-scale $500,000 donation put towards the fulfillment of positive community changes in neighborhoods across Canada. So far our metrics are indicating that this will be a super hit for an insurance company successfully social media to drive awareness and action for positive social change and brand awareness. Quick stats to date (before official launch): Ideas created: 800+ (see map below), Registered Users: 60,000+ Site Votes: 160,000+ Comments: 6,400+ Not to mention the crazy Facebook links.  Kudos to the client and the IC team John, Paul, Caroline, Jeff, Jackie, Claire, Cheesan, Andrew, Patrick, Ryan (did I miss anyone?). Lot of hard work, big thinking and flawless execution. Thank you team!

I received some interesting positive feedbacks and discussion on an earlier post this week titled “A Simple Life Or Green Living Are Not The Solutions. They Distract Us From The Real Number One Problem”. I’ve received a dozen of emails and some great comments /discussions from the linkedin group "Design For Social Change" which I'd like to share here:

Manuel Toscano, Design Principal, Zago NY

“There are many problems and many systems that can benefit from more design thinking, more involvement and support from the design community, but I wound't argue that it should start from one place, or in one way. I say this even while agreeing with you that empowering women (everywhere) is proven to be the social investment that brings the most significant returns.”

Jeremy Faludi. Green Design Strategist, SF

"I agree that nowhere near enough attention is given to this issue. The key is that it's not just a social issue--it's an environmental issue. Empowering women in developing countries is the only effective (and the only humane and responsible) way to stop the population bomb. Easing population pressure helps solve all the other environmental problems we have (all forms of resource depletion, and all forms of pollution). The fact that it's also pivotal in fixing a lot of social and economic problems is icing on the cake. I agree, it should be a very high priority. (Note, though: why is it all three of us who've talked about this so far are men?)”

Kara Pecknold, Design Researcher at Emily Carr Institute, Van

“I'll jump in as one female voice in this discussion. I'm sure there are others who could add additional ideas. I concur, we're past "green living. After working with a group of women in Rwanda, I would suggest that empowerment is definitely needed. Actually finding out what these women regard as empowerment is something else altogether. The "developing world" is a broad title and each country faces its own political, social and cultural realities that can affect this empowering. But talking to the people we perceive as needing it might be a step in the right direction. They likely have some good ideas to contribute to this conversation. “

Maz Kessler, Creative Director, NY

“Hi all - such a huge area for discussion, but extremely glad to see it surfaced here. there's definitely momentum building around an increasing awareness (at last!) of the benefits of investing in women globally, and what this brings to communities, regions and nations. This rapidly emerging awareness (hesitate to call it a movement yet...) has recently been given mainstream visibility in high-income countries through e.g. Nick Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn's book 'half the sky'... through the 'girl effect', through the NGO Women to Women, and eve ensler's work in DRC etc……as designers we can bring our creativity to communications and advocacy in high-income countries, as well as into advocacy and design projects in low-income countries (anyway, immense and great topic and yes I'm also female)”.

Growing up in big cities and having lived and worked in Boston, London, Toronto, LA, HK, Milan, the women empowerment thing was never under my radar screen. I worked with some of the smartest and well educated women and it never came to my mind this is such a big issue in the developing worlds. I always thought we were making good progress. While a lot of progress has been made in the last 20 years improving women's health and education, women in the developing world are still at the periphery of the economy, marginalized in segregated low-paying jobs, or practically barred from education and work opportunities. The situations are different country to country but the problem is still very serious as a whole.

I am very interested in what innovation is needed to make the change. Social innovation that links to empowering women is what I am talking about. An example, in 1999, 35 women on the isolated island of Char Montaz in Bangladesh discovered they could make a huge difference in their community by going into business (none of them have MBAs no surprise). Taking a lot of criticism since they were breaking society's rules by working outside the home and that’s a big deal there. They later got funding from the World Bank and the UN Development Program, and assistance from a local non-governmental organization Prokaushali Sangsad Ltd.

They started to build battery-powered direct current lamps to replace kerosene lanterns widely used in local homes—a known source of indoor air pollution. And as they mastered lamp construction, they also learned about quality control, business development and marketing. Soon, their critics were their customers. Within two years, they were bringing low-cost light and clean power to over 1,200 households, shops, and boats, and 300 businesses. Shops stayed open longer, children spent more time on school work at home, and incomes increased by 30 percent. My point is, this is not just a moral or a human rights or a political issue, it's deep down also an economic issue as well as global climate change issue.

Hope everyone have a very scary weekend.

Creative Capitalism + Social Innovation = New Social Enterprises That Make Money And Change The World.

We need more (and more innovative) social enterprises and I really want to see a top tier MBA programs with specialization in Social Enterprises. Call it B-school needs S-school. There are so many problems out there and sometimes we feel we are almost giving up. Our capitalist system is not adjusting well to these shocks. It is almost pointless for these endless debates on how things got to this point and who is to blame. The point remains: We've got to change it—and change it fast – and change it for the better.

The last thing we want to replace these problems with a set of newer problems, I’ve seen in many case when smart people think they have a solution, but they are simply migrating the problems. There is hope. The good surprise is that business—the same institutions that bear a fair amount of the responsibility for the current situation—is also the most potent force for bringing change. No government alone can make that happen. Businesses are powerful, if we can align the forces. There are hundreds of social enterprises are doing exactly that.

Who invented the social enterprise? Or the better idea is how do we reinvent social enterprises so they can be good business and good citizens. Not good business and bad citizens or bad business good citizens. Peter Drucker argued that in this post-capitalist society (not sure I agree with that tern), managers must learn to negotiate a new environment with a different set of work rules and career expectations. Businesses exist to serve social purposes, they have to function in ways that make sense to the society in which they are situated – and in the case of multinational corporations, they often have to function in ways that make sense across more than one society, at a deep level.

Social enterprises can change the world for the much, much better. If social entrepreneurs can navigate around the challenges and become some of the most popular brands of the world. For now, they need to improve the odds and make sure that they can proof that it works. I am very convinced that the concept works, it is just exceptional challenges that needed to be overcome. Some realities. I don’t know the success rate of social enterprises. I don’t think it is higher or lower than the average business. Like any business, social enterprises fail—because businesses fail. But how come social enterprise didn’t scale—like many other businesses with successful business models?

The way I see it, it is not uncommon that traditional social enterprises did not attract the best and the brightest entrepreneurs, many are into the mission and not interested in the business. The other reason is there is a lack of appetite or aspiration for them to take it global or to a larger scale. And then there is the question of capital availability and time frame to achieve scale. Too many are forced to think survival, rather than innovation and growth. There needs to be series ambitions to make sure the social enterprises is leverage its mission and commitment to changing the world and transform our future. That’s a big mission. And it is not mutually exclusive to pursue the mission and not ignoring the competitive dynamics of the industry that you operate in. What’s the best example? Here is one.

Rubicon Programs is a $16mm social enterprise n SF focusing on helping with employment. It started initially as a drop-in center in Richmond, California, for very low-income people with severe disabilities. Their first social enterprises were very small programs that were seen more providing with some training than anything else. Today Rubicon has evolved into an organization that today serves low-income, homeless and mentally disabled people in the businesses, housing and services it provides. About one-third of the people currently served have a mental health disability, so its original focus is still a part, but not the largest part, of what Rubicon does. It is a one-stop shop for those trying to escape poverty. It not only helps clients find homes and jobs but also offers career, mental heath, and family counseling, as well as technological training and money-management programs.

Take Rubicom Bakery as an example, they produce a range of delicious cakes and tarts. The high-quality and handcrafted products are baked from "scratch" recipes and use only the best of ingredients including fresh-grated carrots, Maine blueberries, real butter and Dutch chocolate. We use absolutely no preservatives and our products include no transfats. The bakery also serves as a unique training center, preparing people for employment with Rubicon or other employers. Job training, counseling, and peer support provided in a dedicated baking workshop, classroom with audio-visual capacities, and a job search center with computer terminals help participants develop their work and life skills. Everything integrated, almost like the Cornell School of Hotel Management. There is even an online store too.

Social Enterprises Will Become The Next Big Global Brands. But Not All Socal Enterprises Are The Same.

Let me make a prediction, 10 of the top 100 most popular brands in 5 years time will be Social Enterprise Brands. What are they? They are a new form of organizations. We see more and more development of a mixed economy of companies coming together to further progress on social, economic & environmental well being. Expect to plenty of innovation where Social Technologies meet Social Enterprises.

What exactly is a social enterprise? A social enterprise is a BUSINESS with primarily social objectives whose profits are reinvested for that purpose in the business or the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximize profit for shareholders. But it doesn’t mean that they are not maximizing their effort to create competitive advantages to create economical value in additional to social value. There are many ways to do this but they should not just means non-profits business:

1. Create economic value in the form of profits and use 100% of that to benefit larger purposes. Often include community-based services such as community banking etc.
2. Create economic value by emphasizing double or triple bottom line and use that as a core element of the business model such as value based goods/services esp. fair trade etc. A business that, beyond the profit motive, has a social mission built into their business model or strategy.
3. Create economic value in the form transforming current business model to include social components in a meaningful way.
4. Create value in terms of jobs and some revenue to sustain operations by specifically targeting groups with challenges and to provide training and job opportunities (this employment model is closer to non-profit).

I don’t think Social Enterprises should compete based on lower cost (salaries or subsidized rent etc.). They cannot just rely on a lower cost structure and compete with for-profit businesses with a lower quality product/services, but instead they need to focus on creating innovative business model that allows them to compete just as any regular businesses.

They should not just exist to provide jobs, that’s a pure non-profit’s role, they should be creating value by developing human capital and skilled labor just as regular businesses. The model of many employment-based social enterprise is not 100% Social Enterprises. They provide employment opportunities and job training to its target populations or "clients," that are people with high barriers to employment such as disabled, homeless, at-risk youth, and ex-offenders.

Generally this model is predicated on the appropriateness of jobs it creates for its clients, regarding skills development, and consistency with clients' capabilities and limitations, as well as its commercial viability. This model is usually embedded: the social program is the business, its mission centers on creating employment opportunities for clients. I hope to see the more innovative Social Enterprises that can take this further by innovating more and be able to produce a decent return on capital deployed. It needs to move away from a traditional non-profit model to becoming a doubled-bottom line Social Ventures.

There should be a commitment to both investors and the capacity of individuals and communities to help themselves. Social Enterprises should empower communities and build social capital; you CANNOT take financial capital out of the equation. Not sure if you think this makes any sense to you.

Scott Griffith (CEO, Zipcar) was asked the question by Qn (A Yale School of Management publication) on as the CEO of a social enterprise, how does he make the call when his social goals and profit motive conflict? This is his response:

“Just by the nature of our business model, the social benefits are accruing as we grow. Most of our members don't own cars. As a result of that, every car we put on, we know through surveys, takes about 20 personal cars away, because people choose not to buy a car or they sell a car. “

“That 20-for-1 ratio also benefits household discretionary income. Through surveys we know that between $6,000 and $7,000 a year of transportation spending comes back into the household after they've spent on Zipcar. A clear social and economic benefit to the community that accrues as that happens. “

“As a lot of the economists will tell you, any time you start to pay for something per unit as opposed to a fixed cost, you get much smarter about how you spend your money. So as you transition car transportation from a fixed cost, being car ownership, to a variable or a unit cost, like Zipcar, people get a lot smarter about grouping their trips. And they just make the trade-off: Should I walk? Should I take public transit? Should I use the Zipcar? Their vehicle miles traveled get cut in half. The big purchasing driver, in our case, is economics. That's the steak, and the sizzle is the social good that comes with it, and the sense that they're doing something good for the environment and for the community as a result of their behavior shift toward Zipcar.”