Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Resonse to The Case for a Definition: Crossing Sectors
Social Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurial work is built around the intuitions of one person. Often someone who is doing a project can’t fully fund it and must be creative to make “something out of nothing.” Entrepreneurial work is based on the personality and unique connections of one person, from which flows benefits that are as unique as that person’s network. A person with a local network engages resources that are usually overlooked by those less intimately involved in a locale and the results are often innovative and cost effective.
By necessity, entrepreneurs do problem solving while those with funds are not forced to be resourceful. Unique people who make use of underutilized resources can create value rather than just transfer it. Designers can function in this way, but they do not often have the chance – they are typically employed where they cannot become intimately involved in small-scale/locally significant projects.
Entrepreneurs create places where people are free to help themselves and work for value. Sometimes public programs are more like a charity when they fulfill entitlements. Entrepreneurial projects often offer better supply-side efficiency than public programs because they serve a smaller more specific constituency. Benefits are in better and quicker supply in a small amount. Public programs usually need to determine a best-fit benefit for many types of people, and smaller programs provide less-generic benefits for particular needs of fewer people.
The example in MILDMAY raises interesting points about what may drive social innovation:
1. The crucial decision to narrow the work from helping the young chronically sick to the young with AIDS helped them grow. They became specialists, and raised awareness through their specialty. This recalls one tactic in the IDEO booklet to stay focused and make choices - if there are multiple purposes, they could detract from each other. Perhaps entrepreneurs are better at social innovation because they can make an investment in one project.
2. Entrepreneurs work in niche markets and don’t have a lot of competition. In a specific locality or with a specific social group, it is possible to offer a tailored solution.
3. As entrepreneurs solve very particular social problems, funds are more readily donated because their project mission is so clear. Confident donors can become passionate donors, and may donate more.
“Another factor is involved (in the accomplishment of social innovation by entrepreneurs): all of these organizations adopt a complex, open and dynamic relationship with their users, partners, and funders.” Entrepreneurs are different from all other agents working to create social value because they act dynamically within a community. Design firms, Governments, and Corporations are not set up to make the same long-term investments, utilize unique networks, or take the same risks as entrepreneurs. When you have a hierarchy that overrides quick decision making as in large organizations, flexibility goes out the door. Management is a safety measure, that keeps an unexamined decision from slipping by, and it is important for many operations to have such a checks and balances system. This does not leave room for what makes many entrepreneurs successful, working outside of trends taking risks, and being quick to seize fleeting opportunity.
Entrepreneurial work is built around the intuitions of one person. Often someone who is doing a project can’t fully fund it and must be creative to make “something out of nothing.” Entrepreneurial work is based on the personality and unique connections of one person, from which flows benefits that are as unique as that person’s network. A person with a local network engages resources that are usually overlooked by those less intimately involved in a locale and the results are often innovative and cost effective.
By necessity, entrepreneurs do problem solving while those with funds are not forced to be resourceful. Unique people who make use of underutilized resources can create value rather than just transfer it. Designers can function in this way, but they do not often have the chance – they are typically employed where they cannot become intimately involved in small-scale/locally significant projects.
Entrepreneurs create places where people are free to help themselves and work for value. Sometimes public programs are more like a charity when they fulfill entitlements. Entrepreneurial projects often offer better supply-side efficiency than public programs because they serve a smaller more specific constituency. Benefits are in better and quicker supply in a small amount. Public programs usually need to determine a best-fit benefit for many types of people, and smaller programs provide less-generic benefits for particular needs of fewer people.
The example in MILDMAY raises interesting points about what may drive social innovation:
1. The crucial decision to narrow the work from helping the young chronically sick to the young with AIDS helped them grow. They became specialists, and raised awareness through their specialty. This recalls one tactic in the IDEO booklet to stay focused and make choices - if there are multiple purposes, they could detract from each other. Perhaps entrepreneurs are better at social innovation because they can make an investment in one project.
2. Entrepreneurs work in niche markets and don’t have a lot of competition. In a specific locality or with a specific social group, it is possible to offer a tailored solution.
3. As entrepreneurs solve very particular social problems, funds are more readily donated because their project mission is so clear. Confident donors can become passionate donors, and may donate more.
“Another factor is involved (in the accomplishment of social innovation by entrepreneurs): all of these organizations adopt a complex, open and dynamic relationship with their users, partners, and funders.” Entrepreneurs are different from all other agents working to create social value because they act dynamically within a community. Design firms, Governments, and Corporations are not set up to make the same long-term investments, utilize unique networks, or take the same risks as entrepreneurs. When you have a hierarchy that overrides quick decision making as in large organizations, flexibility goes out the door. Management is a safety measure, that keeps an unexamined decision from slipping by, and it is important for many operations to have such a checks and balances system. This does not leave room for what makes many entrepreneurs successful, working outside of trends taking risks, and being quick to seize fleeting opportunity.
Response to Paul Light
Entrepreneurs have a set of qualities that allow them to make a project succeed, and it is usually an innovative one. Why? Becasue individuals have unique identities and resources, working on a local scale that often involves drawing underutilized resources together to make an improvement on a specific community. These "local" problems, resources, and solutions are what make the project social and high-impact - concentrating the design brief allows the solution to be very tailored to the local community.
I think for these reasons, entrepreneurs have managed to work in a scale that allows for successful social innovation. But besides being in the right place at the right time, individuals are useful to the management system of any business. We can take the example of the presidency in our own government as an example. an overarching vision for any project keeps all of the parts of the projects aligned and moving in the same direction.
I think this means that individuals are integral, but perhaps not the identifying factor of social innovation. Perhaps the issue is in the description, not the structure.
I think for these reasons, entrepreneurs have managed to work in a scale that allows for successful social innovation. But besides being in the right place at the right time, individuals are useful to the management system of any business. We can take the example of the presidency in our own government as an example. an overarching vision for any project keeps all of the parts of the projects aligned and moving in the same direction.
I think this means that individuals are integral, but perhaps not the identifying factor of social innovation. Perhaps the issue is in the description, not the structure.
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