The School for Social Entrepreneurs

People, not pizza: reflections on social franchising

I’ve been fortunate enough over the last few months to design, recruit and deliver a social franchising programme for SSE, called Scaling to Success. It was aimed at social entrepreneurs and social enterprise leaders who had a proven model and were seeking to replicate it: and looking at a franchise-type approach to that replication. It was not “franchise is the answer” but more “a practical look at replication through the lens of franchising”; and the outcomes will hopefully also be very practical and implementable.

The programme was built around SSE principles (action learning, cohort of peers, practitioner-based content, diverse group etc), and we were fortunate to have some fascinating people and organisations take part, with people attending from right across the country: London, yes, but also Devon, Stoke, Yorkshire, Birmingham, Kent and Ireland (kudos to Dara for flying over…).

And we also got a great mix of people to come and speak and participate: from the worlds of funding (Big Lottery Fund, Esmee Fairbairn, Big Issue Invest), the charity sector (one great panel involved Tony Hawkhead of Groundwork, Paul Farmer of Mind, and Simon Blake of Brook), social entrepreneurs with franchising experience (Owen Jarvis, Colin Crooks, Simon McNeill Ritchie), and from the commercial world (Linklaters, Barclaycard, Tie Rack / Le Pain Quotidien, The Plant, and more). Many thanks to all who gave their time.

As the programme progressed, we worked as a group to try and extract as much learning as possible, and create a bit of ‘group memory’ for people to refer back to. I referred to this as ‘nuggets of learning’ in our first session and, given our franchising focus, the group had somewhat inevitably renamed this ‘McNuggets’ by the final day. There were countless such pieces of practical learning over the course of the programme, but here are five McNuggets that stood out to me:

• Franchisees (or local partners) are another set of social enterprise customers, in addition to beneficiaries/clients and funders/investors…
• …but don’t lose focus of the end user / customer through that intermediation
• The balance between flexibility and control in replication is often about the leader’s personality as much as the requirements of the organisation
• Going slow (or piloting properly) means you make most of your mistakes with fewer partners…
• ...but everyone (even the big commercial franchises) make plenty of mistakes, and they are surmountable

The differences are manifold between social and commercial franchising (incentives for good performance, sharing:protecting IP, types of franchisees, appropriate finance, etc) but I retain the belief that it is underused in the field. Providing as it does that balance between the social (propensity to share and partner) and the enterprising (a business that grows and trades and innovates).

And during the course of the programme, I think we found our strapline too.
Social franchising: growing the business of people, not pizza.

[Nick Temple can now also be found blogging at NickTemple.org]

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) ]

 

 

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! 

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)

SSE in Global Entrepreneurship Week

Yes, it is that time again for Global Entrepreneurship Week, which seems to get bigger and more global every year.

I've tried to work out where you can track SSE down all week, so here is a brief #GEW schedule, along with a few other recommended events.

-This Monday evening, our CEO Alastair Wilson will be chairing a panel as part of the JP Morgan Speaker Series, including social entrepreneurs Kresse Wesling (Elvis + Kresse) + Duncan Goose (Global Ethics / One Water). We also hope to pop along to the evening session at Good Deals. This morning, we were in attendance at the GEW launch at Google towers, and at the ResPublica launch of a new report on community assets they've written with the DTA

- Tuesday is primarily the Guardian Social Enterprise conference for SSE, where Alastair will be on one of the main panels, and I'll be running a 'clinic' dispensing some prescriptions on social impact measurement. Others will be at Good Deals for its second day....

You can also check out the Guardian's brand new social enterprise network which launched an hour ago, and has this fascinating (disclaimer: I wrote it) post on social franchising and much more good content besides

- Wednesday we are at our Hampshire franchise for 'Question Time', and also (hopefully) attending the very interesting looking Clore Social Leadership Inquiry amongst other regional events...

- Thursday is the biggie, obviously; Social Enterprise Day (#socentday for twitter fans), coming just after birthday but ahead of Xmas in priorities....schedule is a little interesting, to say the least, but SSE will be at Is the Big Society Working? for breakfast (with Nick Hurd MP, Steve Moore of Big Society Network and more), acting as a 'human #socent library' at DCLG over lunch / early afternoon, dipping into the UnLtdSocial event, before attempting to moderate a panel at the end of the day in front of LBS + HBS alumni (with Jonathan Jenkins, Liam Black and Chris Southworth from BIS: should be fun!) and much more across the country.

SSE will also be supporting SEC's efforts on the day to lobby and advocate for the social enterprise bill, which is teetering on the edge of being put into legislation. Go along and join in if you can, or attend the All Party-Parliamentary Group....

-Friday is far from the day after the night before, as we have not one but two SSE graduations happening that day, in Liverpool and Hampshire. Do get in touch with either school if you would like to come along....as we celebrate and recognise more social entrepreneurs joining the SSE Fellowship. Should be a fantastic way to end a busy Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Hope to see you around for real, or on social media...

Social enterprise and entrepreneurship links from August

Lots to do, lots to read, lots more to do....

My last post-holiday round-up seemed to go down well, so thought I'd do the same for August as I did for July. No particular rationale, just stuff I've found interesting or think might be relevant. Hope it is. Enjoy:

- The big hairy article of the month was in the Economist (I assume by Matthew Bishop), titled "Social innovation: let's hear those ideas" which covers how the US and UK governments are seeking to encourage social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Also includes cogent round-up of Big Society agenda to date.

- If you're interested in working out what the hell is happening with Local Enterprise Partnerships (*entire readership switches blogs*), then this round-up is the best place STILL to do so.

- Some interesting stuff written about the Big Society. Dai Powell of HCT's ("The clock is ticking on the Big Society") and Geoff Mulgan of Young Foundation's ("Can the Big Society be more than a slogan?") stood out for me, along with Craig Dearden-Phillips call for a constructive, engaged response See http://del.icio.us/SSE/bigsociety for more

- Twenty by Twenty: twenty essays on future of social enterprise, charity et al by good (as well as big) names

- Great social media decision-making guide for social entrepreneurs / non-profits from US experts Idealware

- Good piece in the New York Times about a social entrepreneur (don't be put off by the title): What Exactly Is A Social Entrepreneur?

- Giving is no longer a government preserve: interesting piece in the Telegraph touching on social entrepreneurship + big society

- Amanda Jones of RedButtonDesign in Director magazine on the trials and tribulations of raising funding/investment as a social enterprise

- Nice (Canadian) round-up of summer reading for social entrepreneurs which of course you can buy in the SSE bookstore

- Social enterprise start-up: 3 lessons to learn....by Involver

- Worry isn't work: Don't be Anxious! wise words from Dan Pallotta in Harvard Business Review; now if I could just follow his advice...

- Happy tale of a women's social enterprise (minicabs for women only) struggling, thriving and becoming the subject of a BBC comedy show

- Ten tips on elevator pitches; I think the Brits aren't as good at this stuff (myself included); I think we do escalator pitches....so will try and read 5 lessons from 150 start-up pitches as well

- Merger advice for small and medium orgs + collaboration advice from Bassac and others....

- ....and, for balance, an argument on DSC against merger: Total efficiency is the enemy of freedom

- Pollgate: the results of the storm in our own particular UK #socent teacup; but gratifying nonetheless!

- Freeing the Social Entrepreneur: a piece in Stanford Social Innovation Review well worth reading, covering founder syndrome, leadership and much more

- Great video on the Homeless World Cup and its impact: warms the cockles and all that

- The Social Intrapreneur: a field guide for corporate changemakers.... ; well, those MBA-ers had to come up with something :0)

- Alex Nicholls says Social Entrepreneurship Is Growing Up on Dowser.org. Which I would heartily endorse. So I'll end with the good professor's words. Cheers:

”We're moving into a period of much more critical analysis of social entrepreneurship. We've ridden a wave of consensus; we're all hugging each other and patting ourselves on the back. There's been lots of money pouring into this and support from governments. I think all that's changing. We've had an economic calamity, governments are looking at austerity, foundations are pulling back, the media and others are getting more critical. I think we're going to have a critical decade for social entrepreneurship, and that's great. It's high time we looked at the stuff that's useful and does have impact and the stuff that has no impact at all, and I think we're going to have a big reality check. The hero-worshiping, self-congratulatory period's over. I don't see that as a challenge; I see it as a sign that we're growing up.”

Will a new toolbelt help social entrepreneurs?

The SE Toolbelt is an online information platform aiming to provide social entrepreneurs with practical resources that have been developed by their peers. It boasts 1000 or so items of various shapes and sizes on its data base, and these are grouped broadly by business topics and sectors. From the School’s point of view, you can imagine an ideal scenario where someone with a fledgling project could find a precedent, capitalise on pre-existing market research and a functioning business model, and adapt them to a new enterprise. More developed organisations could research approaches to scaling best practice or SROI in a format that is, in principle, an extension of, or addition to, the peer learning process.

Thumbing through the available materials, however, I’m sceptical of the claim that SE Toolbelt “brings a grassroots practitioner perspective to the fore”. The site is a library of business school-esque articles on topics from Marketing and External Communications to Risk Management – interesting in themselves, but part of the top-down academic approach that the site is hoping to challenge. It is easier to see a way for a collection of case studies to find their way into the SSE programme, supplementing live witness sessions with further examples.

At the moment though, most studies are based in North America, or hot beds of social enterprise in the developing world, particularly India. There is relatively little based in, or coming from the UK, which means students will always be dealing with a different legal system, funding structure, cultural and social context etc. But this doesn’t stop entrepreneurs in the UK getting involved, and it may be that as the site grows it will become increasingly relevant. Like any online platform, Toolbelt will be useful if it’s used.

[Richard is currently interning with SSE, helping on a wide variety of projects. You can also follow @SEToolbelt on Twitter]

Shine 2010: buy your tickets to the social entrepreneurs unconference

Been busy of late: usual end-of-year shenanigans here, with programmes graduating (see this article on London SSE), and new ones starting (see this article on SSE coming to Wigan and Leigh), a launch of an SSE feasibility study (with MaRS in Toronto), and lots of policy work (see the Social Entrepreneurs Manifesto) in the pre-election build-up.

Looking forward though, I'm very excited about this year's Shine 2010 unconference. Now entering its third year, Shine was set up by co-founders SSE, UnLtd, Ashoka and The Hub to create an event that was accessible, practical, dynamic and fun for grassroots + up-and-coming social entrepreneurs. No boring powerpoints, no long plenary sessions, no tedious speeches from sponsors, more questions and interaction, more peers + practitioners than experts, more networking, and more directly relevant stuff to help organisations move forward.

This year, from May 13th-15th is shaping up to be the biggest and best ever: but only with your help...and your presence. So buy your ticket below (about £50 for 3 days...and 2 parties!), and then click on the relevant links on the website to contribute your content, and shape your own programme. Like all the best things in life, you get out what you put in! Looking forward to seeing you all there; and follow http://twitter.com/SHINE_2010 for more updates.

Attendee Management by amiando

Connected: why different networks are crucial for social entrepreneurs

Was fascinated reading an article in the paper this weekend, entitled "Are your friends making you fat", which is all about research that demonstrates the influence of friends in your network on how you live and work. Like all the best books of this type, Connected seems at its heart to be based on a very obvious idea: that social networks affect our behaviour more powerfully than we tend to acknowledge. Be that in becoming obese, taking up (or quitting) smoking, or what we wear.

For me, the article became more interesting when it started to talk about how the success of projects or initiatives might depend on different types of networks. For example, the article discusses the success of a broadway musical:

Christakis tells the story of a friend of his, Brian Uzzi, who has used the impact of social networks to analyse the success or otherwise of Broadway musicals. "He finds that if the key players – the director, costume designer, sound person, producer, etc – all worked together before, and everyone knows everyone else, then the show is a flop. He also finds that if you put together a group of people, who have never worked together before, the show is also a flop. But if you put together a group of people some of whom have worked together and some who haven't, then the show is a runaway critical success with enormous financial rewards."

This got me thinking about what I often say in presentations about SSE and why we attempt to put together a diverse group of social entrepreneurs in a cohort, and the importance of the network they develop in terms of resource, opportunity, support and experience. It's also worth reflecting on this when thinking about the type of organisation you build and the mix of skills + trust that is needed.

Later on in the piece, the researcher (Nicholas Christakis) discusses this in a different evolutionary context:

"If you want to hunt a mastodon," Christakis says, "it's really good if all your friends know each other because you can work closely together to kill it. But if you want to find a mastodon, it's much better if your friends don't know each other – because they'll all have the same information. If you don't know your friend's friend, the chances are he will be able to tap more distant regions of the network."

I think this is potentially fascinating from a social entrepreneur's point of view, and demonstrates why networks can be so important to success.

For example, in the early stages of researching and establishing a new organisation (or 'finding a mastodon' in this context), a social entrepreneur needs information, expertise, inspiration, support and knowledge from a variety of sources. That's when the cohort of like-minded, supportive people who don't know each other beforehand can come into play, along with the networks of witnesses and staff they come into contact with at SSE.

Then, when it's about running the organisation, and building and mobilising a community of support behind it (or 'killing the mastodon'), it is those who share the same mission + are part of the same group or team who can play a key role in making that happen. The ability and confidence of the social entrepreneur to build that community + team around them, and to 'bring people with them'  on the journey is then pivotal.

Get both of those networks right, and those mastodons won't have a chance there'll be plenty more successful entrepreneurs and organisations to be influenced by.

Russell L. Ackoff and the F-Laws of business

Since I recommended Peter Day's World of Business in my top 10 podcasts for social entrepreneurs, it's only become more relevant. In the past few weeks, the programme has covered the Salvation Army (once described by Peter Drucker as the most effective organisation in the world, in any sector), Project Alcatraz (or how a Venezuelan businessman became a social entrepreneur) and, most interestingly of all for me, the thoughts and learnings of the late Russell Ackoff, a management and business thinker.

Ackoff speaks much sense about a whole range of topics related to business and management, but I was particularly interested (given our work here at SSE) in his emphasis on learning. He's strong on the difference between teaching and learning (something which we still struggle at times to get across). He emphasises that an ability and willingness to learn are the keys to a successful organisation, and that one can only learn from doing something wrong (or making a mistake). Further, the best opportunities for learning come in the face of adversity or difficult times: perhaps we should reframe 2010 as "a great year of learning for the third sector". More seriously, this chimes exactly with our belief in learning-by-doing.

I particularly like his distinction between errors of commission and errors of omission. The former consist of doing something that should not have been done; the latter consist of not doing something that should have been done. Ackoff contends that errors of omission are much more serious, because they cannot be corrected or retrieved...they are lost opportunities; and that organisations fail more often because of what they do not do, rather than what they do. But this is not often reflected in practice, because it is only errors of commission (i.e. what has been done wrongly) that are recorded and noted, which tends to make people averse to risk and less prone to challenging the status quo. Which makes an entrepreneurial ethic all the more important in establishing, leading and working within an organisation.

I've added three Russell Ackoff books to the SSE bookshop:

Management f-Laws: how organisations really work

Turning Learning Right Side Up

A Little Book of f-Laws

You can also download a pdf of the latter for free from www.f-laws.com

Highly recommended.