The School for Social Entrepreneurs

Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship links from January 2011

It has been a busy start to the year, and it seems like that is the case for everyone. Certainly everyone I bump into seems to be working very hard indeed, as the end of March 2011 looms large....No different here at SSE (lots of work across the network, graduations, launches, new programmes and more). Which is partly by way of explanation for why blogging has been a bit infrequent (many thanks to current intern Ryan for filling in), and why this is the first round-up for a couple of months. Anyway, here are the most interesting and (hopefully) relevant links from the last month or so:

- My favourite post of the month was from Craig Dearden-Phillips, on how social enterprise is like religion: Losing my religion? The theology of social enterprise

- My favourite iPhone app of the month? The new one from Smarta

- Been interesting finding out more about Right to Request, and about the reality of where social enterprise meets public sector meets unions. David Floyd delves deeper into the unions / social enterprise issue

- I love lists, and so: the 9 new rules of branding your business online (from Inc.com) and 6 choices you need to make in social media (from HBR) and 20 start-ups to watch in 2011 (from Director mag)

- Interested in what happens to our forestry and waterways? Then Ben Metz's piece advocating for community ownership is a must-read (and just the start of a debate we will hear much more about)

- This doesn't strike me as anything particularly new, but apparently if becomes more interesting if different people (read mainstream business gurus) are saying it. So here's Michael Porter / Mark Kramer on 'creating shared value' (a new future for business). You can also check out the Peter Day interview with Porter for more detail.

- I was inspired by the quiet effectiveness of the Aspire Foundation (Owen Jarvis and Paul Funnell) and their work in Tower Hamlets.

- Muhammad Yunus has been in and out of court in Bangladesh: good round-up from earlier in the month here, but this is very fast-moving; see the latest on the BBC here

- Also internationally, British Columbia's government have established an Advisory Council on Social Entrepreneurship; marking exciting developments in Canada

- Liam Black guest-posts on Allison Ogden-Newton's blog: entertaining and relevant as ever on social enterprise and the dangers of the public service delivery agenda:

"under Labour – which let us not forget kick started the social enterprise sector which the coalition wants to co-opt. – there was plenty of money about. Intermediary bodies sprouted up everywhere and much horse shit and awful service poured forth!"

- A note on humble leadership fro the IoD: "The best CEOs are the ones you've never heard of"

- Ralph Lewis' article on relationships, belonging and servant leadership in the context of Big Society is fascinating

- Paul Harrod talks about his experience as a social entrepreneur and coming back from adversity

- And finally, I spent a bit of time between Xmas and New Year collating all the various videos by SSE schools and involving SSE students and Fellows. Check out the SSE Vimeo Channel and the SSE YouTube channel

Cheers!

What partnership and collaboration look like (in Maltby)

We've known for a while that SSE students build relationships and contacts and networks that are practically useful on the programme: indeed, that's a key outcome (our most recent data shows that 90% have kept in touch with contacts made during the course, and that these have helped in tangible ways; i.e. not networks for networks sake, but joint work, funding, volunteering, advice, introductions etc).We also know that partnerships form on the programme in different ways. Sometimes, though, it's difficult to track those outcomes and demonstrate the good work that emerges.

Three SSE Yorkshire Fellows, Jay, John and Justine, have partnered to work on an intergenerational project. They don't appear in this video themselves. But the results of their partnership and collaboration do; enjoy:

 

Why 'adapt’ is the new ‘nudge’ (and why that’s good for social entrepreneurs)

  I’ve written before about my love of podcasts, and how they can spark off new ideas or generate new thinking on the way to and from work. My current fave is More Or Less, the Radio 4 programme about statistics, numbers, and how they relate to the news events of the day (often to politics and policy).  This covers everything from the real value of the national debt to the comparative effectiveness of different contraceptives. It’s more interesting (and entertaining) than it sounds, and  it is particularly useful to have that rational discipline and questioning mindset when, like me, you are giving a lot of thought to an organisation’s measurement and evaluation.

I mention all this because the main man of More Or Less is Tim Harford, also known as the FT’s Undercover Economist (incidentally, the book of that name is a great intro to economic thinking and gives useful insights into pricing, costing, markets and much else besides).  He has a book being launched later this year called Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, and I’m looking forward to it to an almost indecent degree.

Why? Well, if you read my recent piece on how social entrepreneurs learn, or anything about SSE’s approach to learning, you’ll know that we are keen advocates of action learning or learning by doing. That the best learning comes from action, and that the most successful initiatives are not those with the perfect business plan, but those which learn from failures, mistakes and imperfections. That things get figured out on the frontline, not in back offices;  that it is not academic ‘experts’ who solve complex problems, but practitioners with experience; that solutions are often better generated from bottom-up action and adaptation than top-down planning and grand strategies.

Indeed, it is that flexibility, agility, and adaptability that is identifiable in the best social entrepreneur-led organisations around, explaining their ability to both continuously improve and innovate their product and service, and also their readiness to seize opportunities and utilise untapped resources. The blurb for Harford’s book resonates strongly with this, saying that ‘out’ go experts, plans and (top-down) leaders, and ‘in’ come adaptation, improvisation, failing and learning (and trying again). And it looks like he will apply that thinking to big problems (Iraq, global warming, terrorism) and ‘small’ ones equally (everyday decisions in life and business).

While ‘nudging’ focuses on influencing (and changing) behaviours, adapting is more fundamentally about encouraging action before planning, overcoming obstacles as they arise, changing approaches rapidly and, most of all, about shifting the culture of risk-aversity to one of risk-awareness and even risk-acceptance. And further accepting that there will be failures along the way.  It is an approach that makes most sense in a world in which contexts and circumstances shift rapidly, and in which the pace of society’s development (and life generally) seems to outpace the best-made plans of policymakers and theorists.

So 2010 might have been the year of ‘nudge’, but 2011 should be the year of ‘adapt’ (and the year after that....).

[NB - Some might then advocate for an ‘adapt’ unit at the heart of government, perhaps headed up by Tim Harford himself; but obviously that would be a top-down, strategic plan for adaptation with an expert at the centre...which wouldn’t really work at all :0) ]

 

 

Unintended outcomes and impact measurement

I had the pleasure of visiting the SSE programme in Wigan and Leigh last week, to facilitate an ‘introduction to social impact measurement’ session with the students on the programme. I do love that experience of arriving in on a train to a place you’ve never been before, wandering down the road to a building, following the signs....and finding an SSE programme there just like the ones across the network.

I think the session went pretty well: great to meet the students and their projects at different stages, and help them think about the story that lies behind their work (aka ‘theory of change’), what tools and methodologies to think about using, and how much time and resources to commit to evaluation at this stage of their work. I like the process because on the one hand it challenges you to put numbers and objectives to the activity you are thinking of doing (and to what tangible difference you hope to make), and on the other it forces you to take your head out of the day-to-day of delivery and think about the broader context and overall story. Both timely and relevant activities for early-stage social entrepreneurs as they plan, work on communications, and set up systems and processes.

In the course of the couple of hours, before heading across to Liverpool SSE’s steering group meeting, we discussed ‘unintended outcomes’ as well: being open and alive to positive and negative effects that might not have been part of the original plan. They told me of a perfect example (which I’m reporting second-hand): how one Liverpool SSE student became Facebook friends with another one on the programme; via that network and a couple of conversations, he identified that this SSE student lived near his ex-partner and, as a result, close to his son...who he hadn’t seen for almost 18 years. He was able to get back in touch, and, in an appropriate tying up of loose ends, his son then attended his father’s SSE graduation.

Unintended indeed, but a great outcome. :0)

A sociological look at the SSE

Hello everyone.  It's Ryan!

Today I wanted to discuss something that hit me the other day when I was sitting in on an SSE Taster Day.  Wale was talking about his business and the SSE...something he mentioned was how the SSE brings in all sorts of different people...different age groups, different backgrounds and ethnicities, and just people with different ideas overall.  He said that it is so important that the SSE keep doing this as this experience is so important in life because these people all bring something to you.  These different exposures not only make you a better and more cultured person, they bring new ideas, different approaches and perspectives to the table that wouldn't ever occur to you, as a student, without the exposure.  In the context of the SSE, it helps all the students to be better social entrepreneurs as it helps them open their mind to so many different ways of going about creating a business.

I thought this was interesting as I agree it’s also so important in life to be able to do this… it just opens your mind completely and you can never understand how it will change you until you are exposed.  For example, I can’t relate to a person living in bad areas until I have lived in bad areas or at least been exposed to the thoughts, the culture, and the people from these areas.  It brings this idea…you can’t judge anyone on anything because the reasons behind our actions are based on how we are raised and in what conditions.

With this in mind, it also brings up the importance of how the SSE recruits people from all over London.  There is an idea that was shared with me by someone on the staff and they said something along the lines of, "The people who know how to fix the worst areas of London are the people from the worst areas of London."  It's a thought that never even crossed my mind, yet makes so much sense in context, especially anthropologically.  

For example, it's great that people all over the world want to help refugees in Africa by making 'Westernized' schools and such, but perhaps this is the wrong approach.  If we were to do this the SSE way, we would go in and support people from Africa that have ideas on how to make Africa better instead of applying our own cultural needs to theirs.  It makes me think about the different ways I could help my own community at home... perhaps the people I would be best at helping are the homeless and less well-off people of the suburbs where I live, not necessarily the people from inner Chicago!

I hope you can understand my major 'brain dumping' here!  Thanks for reading!

Ryan

The next few days are looking up!

Hello everybody!  It's Ryan again.

I just wanted to mention a few things coming up this week that have me really excited!  

First, we have an SSE taster tomorrow!  We will be meeting some potential students to talk about what we do at the SSE!  Any opportunity for me to meet new social entrepreneurs is a great one in my book!  

Next, there is a visit to Happy Computers Ltd. that I will get to go along with!  I hope to gain some more insight as to what different people are doing to help their communities.

Finally, on Friday, there will be a sort of fair at Wilkins South Cloisters at UCL where we will be getting a little publicity!  It sounds like there will be UCL students there buying/selling goods and it all sounds like great fun!  If you feel like stopping by, Im sure you could.

 

Cheers everyone!

The Life of an Intern

Hey everybody, it's Ryan the intern!  I just wanted to take a few minutes and write about my experience here at the SSE so far.

From day one, it has been fantastic working here.  I've never had an office job before, although I do have a bit of other work experience.  What I thought was going to be a month of being bored to death, cooped up in an office with a bunch of old people turned into being one of the most inspiring, exciting jobs with the greatest bunch of people I have ever worked with (and they aren't even old, or at least you can't tell)!!  

Business, for me, has always been something I've studied only because it seemed like a practical way to get a job in one of the worst economies that the USA (yes, I'm American so excuse my different spelling of words) has ever seen.  I don't know whether it's the English charm in this office, the fact that I feel like my work has meaning, or just the overall vibe in the office that we are all helping other people, but whatever it is, coming to work is a great part of my day and I'm sad to say I will have to leave at the end of the month to go back to school for my final semester before heading out into the real world.  That said, I must repeat the first thing I learned in this office and that was where the tea is.  How English! :)

Specifically, I'm working under Nick doing things like contacting the press, working back and forth with fellows and current students to finish up certain jobs, and organizing/analyzing (not analysing haha) data from evaluations and such.  It's been great fun as every day is a bit different, so it keeps me interested.  

Finally, it's just really interesting seeing how a non-for-profit works; it's neat how we have to go about different strategies to keep things working like obtaining grants and the like because the SSE doesn't rely on its program as its only source of income.  

Well, that's all from me for now.  I'll be back next Monday with another update of sorts, I'm sure.

Cheers! 

Hopes and wishes for 2011 for civil society

Social Investment Business have done an interesting powerpoint which shares the views of various sector leaders' wishes for 2011. Including (Sir) Stephen Bubb, Matthew Taylor from RSA, Rod Schwartz from ClearlySo, Julie McEver from Local Partnerships...and more. Including, first up, our own CEO Alastair Wilson....enjoy.

[You might also be interested in Third Sector's Austerity Panel's advice for the year ahead.]

Civil society wishes for 2011

View more presentations from thesocialinvest.

How social entrepreneurs learn from experience, 24-7

In between celebrating Ashes victory (making having an Australian franchise even more enjoyable than normal) and watching Series 8 of 24 (Jack Bauer very much a leadership role model), I managed to write a quick article for the Guardian Social Enterprise Network on how social entrepreneurs learn, expanding on the old question of "are entrepreneurs born or made?". You can read the whole piece here: Look back after you've leapt: how social entrepreneurs learn from experience

The title refers to one section, where I was explaining how the old proverb "look before you leap" didn't quite apply to entrepreneurs....the process being more like:

"It's key that you leap....definitely leap....
....but why don't you hear from some other people who who have already leapt and see how they landed....
....and then you won't leap in that way that landed them in a puddle...
....then learn a bit more about where to choose to leap first.....
....then get inspired by (and encouragement from) people around you also leaping...
...then Leap - and then look back and see how that went.....
...and how you might leap differently next time....
...and then look for the next leap that's needed."

Not necessarily the snappiest bit of writing ever, but a fair approximation of what 'progress' looks like for a lot of those we support; and which underlies the way our programmes and our approach to learning is structured.

And also what we look for in applicants: is prone to action, takes risk + responsibility, demonstrates persistence and commitment, seizes opportunity, utilises resources, has a sense of vision / direction, clear about mission/objectives and so forth. Entrepreneurial characteristics and traits, indeed, many of which are embodied by Jack Bauer himself. Told you he was a role model... :0)

January is here, and so are the new interns!

Social Entrepreneurs everywhere, my name is Ryan Trostrud and I am one of two new interns here at the School for Social Entrepreneurs all the way from Northfield, Minnesota.  Might I say, I am loving it here in the UK; it's my first time here and even though the weather is somewhat dreary, taking the tube to work every day sure beats brushing a foot and a half of snow off your car at 6:30 in the morning and sitting in traffic for 2 hours! 

But in all seriousness, it has been so inspiring meeting all of these great Brits and social entrepreneurs!  I think the best part of this whole job is being able to sit down with a fellow and listen to them tell you their story.  You can just tell by the way they talk about it that it is truly their love in life, almost as if this enterprise they have built is their own child... and this child is a star athlete, A+ student, and wonderful person all in one!  (I'm not sure if my metaphor translates perfectly into British culture but I'll go with it anyway)

So just to introduce myself a bit, I am a senior at St Olaf College which means I'm in my last year.  I've studied Sociology, Anthropology and Management Studies (which in my head is perfect for what I'm doing) and next year I hope to get into the marketing/communications part of business!  At the SSE, I'm working mostly under Nick Temple contacting some newspapers and working on getting the SSE's name out there!

As this set of classes starts to slow down, it becomes really busy around here.  That said, I am going to have to sign off for now, but I will be sure to keep you updated as things get even more hectic around here!

Cheers everyone!