(Credit:
Maple and Leek)
Twitter’s “suggested users” list is a Who’s Who of Twitter celebrities, featuring the likes of Al Gore, Lance Armstrong, Ashton Kutcher, John McCain, Martha Stewart, and others with millions of followers. The New York Times claimed that a spot on the list would guarantee 500,000 additional followers and reported that social media guru Jason Calacanis had offered $250,000 to be listed.
Last Friday, Twitter did something remarkable. It added a number of well-known social entrepreneurs and innovators to this list, among them Social Edge, Skoll Foundation, Kiva, Matt Flannery (Kiva co-founder), Acumen Fund, Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen Fund founder), charity: water, GOOD Magazine, Kjerstin Erickson (FORGE founder), and Room to Read. Not knowing what was going on, Kiva’s Flannery thought there was a spam attack and complained about the 500 new users a minute he was getting. But not for long.
Twitter’s move is huge, not only because it propels social entrepreneurs to enter mainstream but also because the microblogging service--THE trading floor for attention on the Web--has decided to give away some of the attention it attracts to promote good causes. Consider it the New Socialism: a redistribution of attention, not of material wealth. What’s even more remarkable is the reaction of one of the benefitting organizations, Social Edge, which immediately sent out a message to all its new users pointing them to a list of 100 other social entrepreneurs and innovators on Twitter. Give more than you take: that’s the power of meaningful marketing and exactly the kind of giving that makes companies thrive in the ‘share economy.' Good creates more good.
There are other, even more immediate ways in which Twitter can be used for doing good. My colleague Jacob Zukerman proposed it the other day, and I found the concept instantly compelling: instant social action, enabled by Twitter. Tweet Mobs for collective action. The idea is simple: Convert all the attention on Twitter into real-world action--in real-time. With some twitter users attracting more than a million followers, their social influence is significant--why not use it for social good, especially when you can “eventize” it by creating artificially scarce moments of real-time public collaboration?
The link between tweet and deed is not new on Twitter and exists in various formats (Mashable has provided a great overview): Cause-related fundraising (Tweet fund drives) via Twitter has been made popular by Twestival, Tweetsgiving,12for12k, Tweetathon, and others. An alternate concept is Twollars, a Twitter-based currency with no hard money value that allows users to pledge money to charity using Twitter. Describing itself as “a currency of appreciation for Twitter,” it effectively connects micro-payments with micro-blogging. (Speaking of currencies, PollyTrade links Twitter accounts to E*Trade account and allows brokers to trade stock via Twitter.) And there are Tweet-Ups--offline events initiated and organized via Twitter--but in this case, too, the tweet and the deed are asynchronous. Carrotmob, a congenial social media platform for social activism, uses Twitter, but it still requires a moment of translation as well: good will and a commitment to a cause can be immediately “socialized,” however, the output--the action--still occurs via intermediary.
All these formats do not convert instantly into offline action in the way Flash Mobs do. What if followers not only follow but do (in the best “Here Comes Everybody” style)? What if Blog Action Day became Twitter Action Minute? These Twitter Mobs or Smart Tweets would capitalize on the unique combination of peer pressure, presence, location-based eventization, and of course, sheer reach. The train wreck Sarah Lacy-Mark Zuckerberg interview at SXSW 2008 was a negative example of live-mobbing on Twitter, a disaster unfolding in real-time, amplified through the synchronous meta-conversation on Twitter. The #CNNfail campaign in response to CNN’s deficient coverage of the Iranian election, was another one. The enormous power of these real-time conversations is frightening, but it is also promising. The more optimistic equation goes like this: Attention = social capital = social action. What if a group of Twitter followers all picked up one piece of garbage from the street? What if they all gave food to a homeless person? What if they exchanged money, products, hugged a stranger, etc.? And so on. It’d be a real-time, real-world transaction that would be as swift as the transactions taking place at breathtaking pace every second in the highly virtual realm of international finance. A smart attention-to-action cascade. A Good Mob.
Maybe a fantasy--but a good one.
(Credit:
Sustainable Life Media)
The Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) Conference, a landmark gathering of top business and government leaders creating market-based solutions for social impact, is taking place September 1-3, at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center.
SOCAP brings together a unique mix of the world’s leading social innovators--traditional investors, impact investors, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, new media, NGO’s and non-profits, wealth managers, development agencies, venture capitalists, MBA students, and other groups interested in the growing opportunities of social capital--who are catalysts of change across the globe.
Last year’s conference gathered more than 650 leading global investors and entrepreneurs from 26 countries. This year’s conference from September 1-3 in San Francisco is sold out again and features speakers from the Skoll Foundation, Participant Productions, Food Inc, GRITtv, LINKtv, Invisible Children, Global Giving, the World Economic Forum, Virgance, Kiva, Change.org, Ushahidi, McKinsey, The Economist, and many others. The opening keynote will be given by Sonal Shah, director of the White House Office for Social Innovation.
“SOCAP09 is the premier event that puts the flow of capital to social good into a context,” says Founder Kevin Jones. “In these turbulent times, social innovators in the public and private sectors, from foundations to social venture funds to development agencies to grassroots Web 2.0 activists, are working together to build a new economic foundation for the world. With our expert speakers, high-impact sessions, and exciting networking events, SOCAP09 is an essential gathering for anyone interested in the burgeoning field of social capital.”
We will be there, too, and will report back. You can also follow the conference online via:
Twitter: @socap09,#socap09
That a leading business school is dedicating an entire student-run conference to the topic of responsible business is remarkable (HEC Paris will do the same soon in May, also in collaboration with Net Impact) but not an isolated phenomenon. In the past few years, several top business schools, such as Yale, Duke, Harvard, and Stanford, as well as pioneers such as the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington State have begun to offer tailored programs to MBAs who want to marry traditional business skills with innovative approaches to solving social problems. Different from nonprofit curricula, which typically provide the fundamentals of fundraising and grant writing, these specific business school programs combine the finance and management training of a traditional MBA with electives that address topics such as venture capital and investing in emerging markets. But conferences like IESE's indicate that social entrepreneurship is not yet fully integrated into all business school curricula and that it still needs the extra limelight. As long as not all business is social business, business that is not social will still find a safe harbor.
Business and ethics have of course been intertwined since the days of the Greek polis. Adam Smith, the spiritual father of the homo oeconomicus, wrote a "Theory of Moral Sentiments" before he wrote "The Wealth of Nations." And yet, business that is good for society has always been in need of being extrapolated through catchy labels (business ethics, CSR, corporate citizenship, social innovation, social entrepreneurship, etc.), invariably heralded as the Next Big Thing and slowly moving up the food chain from a window-dressing PR tool to a truly integral strategy driver. Recently, Fast Company coined the new, chic term "Ethonomics" and even made it one of the key pillars of its relaunched web site:
"We live in a world that's resource-constrained but ingenuity-rich. So an upstart generation of entrepreneurs - and innovators within the world's biggest companies - are founding businesses that are good for the world as well as the bottom line. They are practicing social change through urban revitalization, sustainable agriculture, green IT, alternative energy and online community-powered investing. Any business that claims to be truly sustainable and innovative should be increasingly efficient with energy and natural resources, transparent and accountable, and good on balance for people and other living things. Ethonomics is a hybrid of technology, design, and social responsibility, and at Fast Company we believe it is the future of business."
In Barcelona, this young upstart generation of entrepreneurs and innovators shared its ideas, seeking advice from those who had been in the field for some years. For example from Kyle Zimmer, the president and co-founder of First Book:
"Whenever you hit a point at which you feel you have no idea what you're doing (and if you don't reach that point quickly, you're not moving fast enough), make a list with the ten most acclaimed experts able to answer your questions. And then call them one by one even if you have never met them or your list includes Bill Gates. It doesn't matter. Tell them your story and ask them for help. Some won't call you back. In fact, I can pride myself with not having been called back by some of the most accomplished people in the world. But you'd be surprised how many will."
Jessica Jackley Flannery, co-founder and chief marketing officer of micro-lending marketplace Kiva, was another one of the veterans present, and her talk made most of the MBA students in the audience beam. Social entrepreneurs are simpaticos, of course, and you'd be hard pressed to find a MBA student these days who would not want to be a social innovator. Wall Street fame is so yesterday. Flannery epitomized the case for a new 'meaning' and emphasized the power of storytelling: "If we all understood each other's stories, the world would be a better place." Stories create empathy, and empathy breeds the solidarity needed for taking action. In light of the dire economic situation in developed countries, Flannery half-jokingly said she wouldn't be surprised if a young entrepreneur in Uganda were soon to lend money to a job-less banker in Manhattan. Globalization in reverse. In any case, innovative banking such as Kiva's is no longer only focused on helping developing economies. New web-enabled finance 2.0 models and infrastructures attempt to overcome the financial crisis in the US.
Entrepreneurs and innovators may be much needed these days, but "how can you be doing good when we are not doing so well?" the conference asked. With almost 14% unemployment in Spain, it was brutally aware of the need to discuss the creation of "Sustainable Value in a Downturn." Aside from the assumption that recessions can hold tremendous opportunity for any entrepreneur (as Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek point out), social entrepreneurs in particular seem to weather the current investment pullback rather well. The Skoll Foundation is currently conducting a survey, to be presented at the Skoll World Forum in March. Preliminary results indicate that most of the social entrepreneurs have been affected by the economic downturn in some way or other, but only 10% of the respondents say that they have been severely affected.
"A crisis is a terrible thing to waste," Paul Romer (now famously) said, and hopefully the current recession will not lead to a Great Depression but a "Great Disruption" (Paul Gilding) that requires us to build the foundation of our economy from the ground up. In his brilliant post on "How To Be a 21st Century Capitalist," Umar Haique writes that "Capital deepening is the foundation of next-generation value creation." By that he means "assets with intrinsic, durable, human value - not the lemons Wall Street was in the business of hawking. It is only by capitalizing the things we really value that the spark of value creation can be lit again." He predicts that "next-generation businesses will be built on next-generation assets:" "Yesterday's businesses were built on cash, factories, and IP - financial, physical, and intellectual capital. Next-generation businesses are built, instead, on human, social, natural, and cultural capital - to name just a few."
(Credit:
Fairtradesports)
Here's an innovative approach to facilitating social innovation: a "collaborative competition" leveraging sports.
Ashoka's Changemakers and Nike have partnered to open a worldwide search for projects that use the transformative power of sport to promote social change. Ashoka is a citizen-sector support system for social entrepreneurs. Changemakers is building the world's first global online "open source" community competing to surface the best social solutions, and then collaborating to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions.
Changemakers invited users worldwide to submit innovations to what it calls a "collaborative competition" -- an "interactive solicitation to identify and develop innovative, workable solutions to the world's most entrenched social problems." Competition entries were posted online and made available for anyone to view and collaborate with by providing new ideas, asking insightful questions, and providing connections to new resources. Pro bono crowdsourcing!
Out of 382 submissions, the finalists have now been chosen by a high-profile jury, including Nawal El Moutawakel, member of the International Olympic Committee; Joan Laporta, president of F.C. Barcelona; Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF; Mel Young, founder of the Homeless World Cup; Mark Parker, president & CEO of Nike, Inc.; and Sheila Johnson, businesswoman, philanthropist, and CARE ambassador.
The final winners, however, will be determined by you.
You have until March 3 to vote for your three favorite social projects.
That's quite a statement. From Apple to Target -- the understanding of design as holistic innovation driver and change agent has long become business mainstream. Notwithstanding the debate about whether designers should think like business people or business people should think like designers -- nowadays most business executives and designers will readily agree on the importance of design as an interdisciplinary vanguard that has the ability to address major societal and political problems: "Stop drunk-driving. Build better elementary schools. Develop environmentally sustainable offerings. (...) We use design thinking to tackle hard social problems," states the d-school's mission statement. And it seems as if there's a secret band between the school's founder, Hasso Plattner ("Design has to start with the user"), and Plato ("The good is the beautiful").
Now, of course you can have some valid reservations against "design thinking." The first one is semantic. As a marketer I understand the benefits of branding, but nonetheless I have always found the term "design thinking" somewhat unfortunate because it is essentially a pleonasm. If you define design as the "transformation of existing conditions into preferred ones," as Herbert Simon did, design is inherently an act of thinking. In other words: How can you design without thinking? Design is by definition transformational and has always been. But that's just a semantic reservation.
The second one is more substantial. The main pillars of design thinking -- systemic view; interdisciplinary approach; human-centric, ethnographic research; democratization of creativity; and a pragmatic can-do attitude -- can without doubt offer a valuable tool set for many businesses that want to ideate off the beaten path in their product and service innovations. But despite the high level of sophistication that many design firms (and corporations) have reached in employing these methodologies, jazzing up design as the world's foremost problem solver may indeed not do the discipline a favor. I, for my part, am the first to admit to feel a certain relief when the New York Times Magazine features design that is simply "good" (lower case) but, sorry, lacks the ambition to change the world.
All that being pointed out though, Alix Rule's article does have one major shortcoming: Her judgment itself lacks the very modesty that she finds missing in "design thinking." It disregards the impact of incrementalism, of those baby-steps and micro-innovations which may not quite fulfill the lofty ambitions of the most vocal design thinkers, but may, nonetheless, instigate change on a mundane, practical level. By improving product and service experiences through more participatory, human-centered, and integrated design (and business!) decisions, designers are playing a pivotal role in transforming individual and collective attitudes and behaviors. Whether it can be credited to the hype around a maybe overbearing "design thinking" or not, this brand of "good" design is already a de facto political force: and given its power to constantly evolve things and affect people in their daily lives -- isn't it ultimately a revolutionary one?
(Credit:
Wilmanet)
It's been a lackluster soccer season so far, especially in my favorite league, the Spanish Primera Division. The performances of the two top teams, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona (Barca), have been inconsistent, and while both have displayed some exceptional skills in their best matches, the passion, the surprise, and the big drama, all of which crucial elements of soccer's unique appeal, have been largely missing.
There is hope that this will change on Sunday when the two archrivals battle each other for the first time this season, in the derby of derbies, "El Clįsico," which is historically loaded with enourmous psychological, cultural, and political significance. This edition is a special of specials: Madrid is leading the table with four points ahead of second-placed Barca, and the upcoming clash, the last game of the first half of the season, can potentially give Real a comfortable seven point cushion over Barca during the winter break.
Innovation is rare
Looking back to the past Clįsicos and looking forward to the encounter on Sunday, I have been wondering what can make the difference when two equally star-studded teams compete. I think I have found the answer: innovation. The more innovative team won the past games, and the more innovative team will win this time. This hypothesis is as simple as it is challenging. Soccer is often used as a metaphor to describe innovation in a business context ("meaningful innovation is like scoring a goal in soccer -- it doesn't happen often, but is always a hallmark that differentiates the winning team"). But what does innovation actually mean in soccer?
First of all, if you examine the history of soccer for groundbreaking, "game-changing" innovations, you realize they have been scarce; by and large the game hasn't changed much. Some innovations resulted from a changing of the rules (on the macro-innovation level, if you will). Most of them, however, were truly driven by either organizational or individual excellence: for example, the position of the "Libero," the "sweeper" before the goal-keeper, who, freed from marking a direct opponent, was mandated with opening a team's game from deep in its own territory (German legend Franz Beckenbauer perfected this role in the 70s); the allure of the "playmaker" (personified by the French Michel Platini in the 80s); the introduction of a three-man defense row in the 90s; the "Sweeper-Keeper" performing the defensive actions of a libero; the increased importance of the "6," the central defensive midfielder; and the Dutch "Total Football" concept with its fluid, attacking 4-5-1 and 3-2-5 formations.
Total Football
As in business and academia, innovation takes place in soccer on both the collective and individual levels. And it is deeply rooted in culture. Starting in their youth education, great teams establish a distinct style which sets them apart from mediocre ones. Almost always, these styles have been shaped by a city's, a region's, or a nation's history. Ajax Amsterdam and the Dutch school of "Total Football," considered by many to be the most sophisticated and most influential soccer philosophy in recent times, can be traced back to historical, geographical, and socio-cultural factors, as can the Dutch refusal to win the "big one" (the Netherlands' national team never won a final at any of the international championships). Total Football was the first multi-disciplinary approach to playing soccer and implied that all players can play in all positions and have comparable levels of fitness, technical ability, and awareness. It is focused on the creation of space on offense and the destruction of space on defense. The result is maximum flexibility, a strong element of surprise, and the ability to exert pressure on any of the opponent's moves, at any time during the game. Besides Ajax, a number of British clubs including Arsenal London and Manchester United have embraced and refined Total Football, and so has FC Barcelona, with its strong tradition of Dutch coaches and players.
In stark contrast, the so-called "catenaccio" (literally translated, "door-bolt"), a rather static, defensive-minded tactic, is the hallmark of most Italian clubs. Some contend this goes all the way back to the Roman Empire and its poise to defend its borders, but I'm not sure if I buy into this explanation: even the Roman Empire, in order to become an empire, had to conquer territory first, no? In any case, the point is that soccer tactics and styles, and herein lies one parallel to business innovation, are inexorably linked to culture (to learn more about the cultural -- and religious -- underpinnings of soccer, read "How Soccer Explains the World" by Franklin Foer).
Wanted: Entrepreneurs
And yet, only a few soccer pundits would dispute that the most critical innovation in soccer occurs on the individual level. While some herald the "star is the team" philosophy and praise the power of the collective, it is more plausible to uphold the "whole is more than the sum of its parts" argument precisely because some of the parts, that is, certain individuals, are better than others. Although there are attempts underway to "crowd-source" soccer, the difference between win and loss is still marked by the quality of individuals -- players, coaches, and, not to forget, referees.
Players and coaches are chased with tons of cash not merely because they are stars who are able to turn the game into a spectacle and thus add invaluable charisma and entertainment to a club's brand, but also because their individual decisions, be they strategic (coach) or opportunistic (player), decide over fortune and misfortune. Both coach and player are risk-taking entrepreneurs, and the more creativity they exhibit, the more freedom they're typically given. Ironically, buying risk-takers is a measure for clubs to minimize risk and manage the inherent volatility of their success. The impact of coach and player is significant but their tools of influence are somewhat different. In the long-term, the coach can create a competitive culture that propels creativity and innovation, build confidence and team spirit; on the immediate match level, he can alter the formation and line-up, and make adjustments and substitutions during the game. But can his genius or lucky hand re-invent a team or truly innovate the game?
Ultimately, the most visible and arguably most impactful innovation lies in the feet of the players. Notwithstanding the team's culture, strategic formation, and tactical fitness, innovation on a micro-level is still the biggest competitive advantage, and it is engrained in soccer's DNA: Paul B. Paulus and Bernard Arjan Nijstad argue in their book "Group Creativity: Innovation Through Collaboration" that soccer offers more opportunities for creativity and innovation than baseball and other U.S. sports because the team's task is more "hierarchical, less sequential, and less cyclical." Furthermore, soccer players can innovate their game in every game. Here's what Barcelona's Ronaldinho, FIFA World Player of the Year in 2004 and 2005 and the most marketable player in the world, generating $57.8m annually, says: "The important thing is to keep on innovating and finding a way to surprise. You always look to surprise, with dribbling, a new move, a new pass. (...) As long as I believe I have the creativity for that, that's what I'll try and do. I'm never going to lose my characteristics because that's what I know how to do. I want to mix everything that is innovative with the same things as always. Perhaps the fans expect me to do all the tricks, the opponents as well. If you don't innovate, they all take the ball away from you. I believe it's important to innovate in order to avoid repetition."
Playtime
When El Clįsico kicks off, keep all that in mind. Admire the poetic and sometimes melancholic Total Football of Barca, and respect the prosaic, rather efficient style of Real Madrid. And watch how a few players will decide the game. Soccer can be researched, carefully planned, and strategically devised -- however, the most beautiful thing about this "beautiful game" is the fact that there is no lag between idea and implementation. Creativity can be immediately applied and has to be found on the pitch again and again. Every match is a blank slate. There is no history, only anticipation. Nothing is ever the same. This is what business leaders can learn from soccer: Innovation is, literally, a "play," and the best players will win.
(Credit:
SuperGreen Boards)
My colleague Hunter Smith of frog design has used his entrepreneurial spirit to launch a budding start-up based on his two greatest passions: eco-design and skateboarding. Hunter's company, aptly named SuperGreen Boards, employs some of the most advanced eco-friendly technologies for producing custom longboards, slalom, and speedboards.
SuperGreen Boards uses bamboo, which is not only beautiful, strong, and flexible but is also sustainably harvested. Maple wood, known as the gold standard for skateboards because of its strength under the pressure of the rider, takes a minimum of 100 years to mature before it can be used. Bamboo, in comparison, takes only five years for a stalk to mature, converts eight times more CO2, and is 17% harder than maple. Adding even more strength to the board, Hunter uses a fiberglass alternative made entirely of finely woven strands of bamboo fiber, and bonds it to the board using very low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) epoxy. In the next few months, Hunter is hoping to convert from low VOC to a soy-based epoxy as the technologies become available.
Hunter says: "I'm delighted to see skaters adopt a green mentality and a desire to preserve the Earth for future generations. I am proud to provide boards for down-to-earth, eco-conscious riders with an eye for style."
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