13 posts tagged “social enterprise”
(Crossposted from zBlog:~C4Chaos)
Business 2.0 asked 50 of the brightest minds in business how they do what they do. Check it out. Lots of golden nuggets in there.
Here's a list of my favorite quotes. Also added them to my Zaadz quotes tagged with how to succeed. Something to think about while working on that conscious capitalism thing :)
Sergey Brin
Co-founder, Google
Succeed With Simplicity
“We
are focused on features, not products. We eliminated future products
that would have made the complexity problem worse. We don't want to
have 20 different products that work in 20 different ways. I was
getting lost at our site keeping track of everything. I would rather
have a smaller set of products that have a shared set of features.”
Chris DeWolfe
Co-founder, Myspace
Keep Social Networks Social
“The key is to be true to your community's norms and values. You can't just force yourself on people and try to sell them something they don't want - that's good advice for marketers generally, but particularly on community-driven sites like MySpace. You have to find ways to add value to your members' lives while being consistent with your brand's identity.”
Rachael Ray
Chef, Author, and Entrepreneur
Turn Your Passion Into an Empire
“I've also learned that you can't be all things to all people. Whatever it is that you're successful at, that has to be the No. 1 goal.
Chad Hurley
Co-founder, YouTube
Give Your Startup a Fighting Chance
“As you start building the product, don't assume that you know all the answers. Listen to the community and adapt. We had a lot of our own ideas about how the service would evolve. Coming from PayPal and eBay, we saw YouTube as a powerful way to add video to auctions, but we didn't see anyone using our product that way, so we didn't add features to support it.”
Howard Schultz
Chairman, Starbucks
Dare to Be a Social Entrepreneur
“The
rules of engagement around building a brand have changed significantly
over the past 10 to 15 years. Where companies at one time could spread
their message through traditional marketing, consumers now seek an
enduring emotional connection with the companies they patronize. The
foundation of that connection is the most important characteristic of
building a world-class brand: trust. Trust with your people and trust
with your customers.”
Michael Scott
Regional Manager, Dunder-Mifflin Paper Co.
Avoid a Staff Mutiny (With Chocolate, if Necessary)
“Nowadays I find chocolate and/or chocolate-based snacks to be great motivators. Everyone loves chocolate. If someone has a lot of work to do, put a piece of fudge in a glass container (so they can see it) and let them know that if they accomplish their tasks, they can eat the fudge. You'll definitely get a reaction!”
Andre Agassi
Co-founder, Agassi Graf Development
Stage a Great Second Act
“You have to understand who you are and figure out a way to communicate it. It might be in a different industry, but it's about what pumps the blood through your veins, what makes you excited, what pushes your buttons. And then discovering the best way to communicate that, no matter how big or small; it's what you stand for, what you believe in, and what reflects who you are.”
Kevin Rose
Founder, Digg
Let the Users Run the Show
“Letting users control your site can be terrifying at first. From day one we were asking ourselves, “What is going to be on the front page today?” You have no idea what the system will produce. But stepping back and giving consumers control is what brought more and more people to the site. They have a sense of ownership and discovery at the same time. If you give users the tools to spread and share their interests with others, they will use them to promote what is important to them.”
Stephen Covey
Vice Chairman, FranklinCovey; Author, The 7 habits of Highly Effective People
Strive for Moral Authority
“Most
people define greatness through wealth and popularity and position in
the corner office. But what I call everyday greatness comes from
character and contribution.”
Muhammad Yunus
Founder, Grameen Bank; Winner, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
Seek Big Rewards in Small Ideas
“Business is about problem-solving, but it does not always have to be about maximizing profit. When I went into business, my interest was to figure out how to solve problems I see in front of me. That's why I looked at the poverty issue. I got involved in lots of things to address it, and one of them was money lending with loans and credits and savings accounts, and in the process I created Grameen Bank. So you can also have social objectives. Ask yourself these questions: Who are you? What kind of world do you want?”
Donald Trump
Chairman, Trump Organization
Obsess About Solutions, Not Problems
“The image of success is important, but even more important is the ability to focus on solutions instead of on problems. That way, you'll never be thinking like a loser, and you probably won't look like one either.”
Reed Hastings
Co-founder and CEO, Netflix
Turn Your Biggest Weakness Into Your Greatest Asset
“Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength.”
Craig Newmark
Founder and Chairman, Craigslist
Trust Your Customers and They'll Love You in Return
“We are a very open, very democratic site, which means we get all sorts of people. We do get some bad guys who are a few fries short of a Happy Meal. So we have to enlist the aid of our community to help us. The lesson implicit in this is that people will help you out and behave in a really good way. If you trust them, they will respond to that trust.”
Fred Wilson
Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
Build a Blog That Builds Your Business
“I also like to use a sensational headline. Many people read blogs in aggregators, which generally show only the headline. So you have to give people a reason to click through. Blogs need to be real and personal. Reading it should be like hanging out with you. I play music for my readers. I show them videos I like. I tell them what I did over the weekend. And I tell them what is happening in the technology, Internet, and VC markets.”
(Also posted on zPod:Starship Social Enterprise)
“People
can change their own lives, provided they have the right kind of
institutional support. They're not asking for charity, charity is no
solution to poverty. Poverty is the creation of opportunities like
everybody else has, not the poor people, so bring them to the poor
people, so that they can change their lives.”
Source: Nobel Peace Prize Interview with Muhammad Yunus after being awared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
 |  |
Congratulations to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2006 “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.”
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.
Read more…
This is a statement that the path towards peace is paved with conscious and compassionate economics. Here's to all the social entrepreneurs!
Kudos to all awardees of the Nobel Prize. Thanks for changing our worlds.
~C (for Change the world)
(via zPod:SSE)
Check out this awesome interview with Amory Lovins via Social Innovation Conversations. A must-hear :)
Amory Lovins is one of the globe’s most visionary thinkers. His focus is an issue of global proportions – the enormous potential of energy efficiency and renewable energy resources. As CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, he has already been credited with having done more than any other single individual to redefine the thinking around energy policy and to link it with environment, development and security issues. Lovins and his the team of researchers delight in challenging conventional wisdom by demonstrating advanced resource productivity that avoids depletion and pollution, and still shows a profit.
It’s not all thought and no action for Lovins. He has worked aggressively to move his ideas into widespread practice, chiefly via the private sector, spinning off several for-profit companies from the nonprofit he runs, RMI. Not surprisingly, he was chosen several years ago by the editors of The Wall Street Journal as one of the people most likely to change the face of world industry.
Related Book Readings via zBooks:Lists:Starship Social Enterprise:
Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security
(download here for FREE)BONUS VIDEO: Here's a link to a video of Amory Lovins presenting the Oil Endgame on MITWorld (found via Treehugger)
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
Part 1 is cool. But this Part 2 is just perfect of the Labor Day holiday...
(via zPod:Integral Institute)
Entrepreneurial Idealism and the Integral Model. Part 2. Right Bucks. Right Business. Right View.
”Brian Johnson is the co-Founder and Philosopher/CEO of social networking phenomenon Zaadz.com, a website which is one of Integral Institute’s esteemed “Integral Friends.”* A 32-year-old font of idealism-in-action, Brian is a rather extraordinary example of the passion, creativity, and drive of an emerging wave of integrally-oriented twenty- and thirty-somethings worldwide.
“Brian beings the conversation by mentioning his passion for “conscious capitalism,” and how the Zaadz “plan” as described on the site actually leads with capitalism, and then mentions the spiritual emphasis. He comments, “I deliberately do that… I’m trying to create a compelling ‘yes-and’ story here.” In other words, he’s trying to take a more integral perspective and show how capitalism and spirituality can not only coexist, but actually support each other. However, he continues, not everyone is so excited to see these two things come together, and certain camps have been particularly vocal in denouncing his entire approach, following a general “capitalist pig” theme.
As Ken comments, there are several different things going on here. To begin, even more fundamental than how one might feel about capitalism—or any of the economic systems available—is how one feels about money in general. Generally speaking, a strong negative view of money can be attributed to either 1. exclusively ascending types of spirituality or 2. the green altitude of development (types and altitude/levels being two of the five elements in the AQAL Approach, the others being quadrants, lines, and states).”NOTE: Integral Naked is a premium site. FIRST MONTH is FREE. Eavesdrop on the conversations you can hear nowhere else.
(also posted on zPod:Starship Social Enterprise)
P.S. Here's the link [PDF] to the Right Bucks essay that Ken Wilber wrote two decades ago. Happy (right) Labor Day!
(Crossposted from ~C4Chaos@Zaadz.com)
Earlier I posted a blog, Why Wal-Mart is Not That Evil. It featured an article by Michael Strong entitled, Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart. That article was also featured on zPod:FLOW. In just a few days, the article had gained some steam and attracted media attention, including being mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh program and steady rise on Digg, Nice.
However, my favorite part of the discussion is John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) and Michael Strong exchanging viewpoints on the topic of Wal-Mart in particular and conscious Capitalism in general. Check it out on zPod:FLOW, and feel free to join the discussion.
(Also posted on zPod:SSE)
Here's an eye-opening article about how all things are interrelated. Sometimes the picture looks ugly if we focus on one area. But sometimes we have to pull away to see a different story…
Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart
Between 1990 and 2002 more than 174 million people escaped poverty in China, about 1.2 million per month.[1] With an estimated $23 billion in Chinese exports in 2005 (out of a total of $713 billion in manufacturing exports),[2] Wal-Mart might well be single-handedly responsible for bringing about 38,000 people out of poverty in China each month, about 460,000 per year.
There are estimates that 70 percent of Wal-Mart's products are made in China.[3] One writer vividly suggests that “One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market.” [4] Even without considering the $263 billion in consumer savings that Wal-Mart provides for low-income Americans, or the millions lifted out of poverty by Wal-Mart in other developing nations, it is unlikely that there is any single organization on the planet that alleviates poverty so effectively for so many people.[5][6] Moreover, insofar as China's rapid manufacturing growth has been associated with a decline in its status as a global arms dealer, Wal-Mart has also done more than its share in contributing to global peace.
(via zPod:SSE)
Check out this podcast from SIConversations. Let it be your catalyst…
Cheryl Dorsey
President of Echoing Green
Investing in Worldwide Social Change
When emerging social entrepreneurs meet with Cheryl Dorsey, the president of Echoing Green, they not only get the benefits of talking to an accomplished physician with a masters in public policy from Harvard, a former White House Fellow, and a former business executive but they get an empathetic ear. In the early 1990’s she got a fellowship from Echoing Green to launch the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic medical and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods and, in 2002, Dorsey became the first Echoing Green Fellow selected to lead the organization in its nearly 20-year history.
Her daunting challenge—to continue to build on the impressive track record of one of the world’s leading investors and supporters of worldwide social change. Since 1987, Echoing Green has invested nearly $25 million in seed and start-up grants to more than 400 social entrepreneurs who have launched organizations in 30 countries on five continents to address issues related to education, youth development, health care, housing, the environment, and the arts, just to name a few. By providing a unique combination of funding and direct support for emerging social entrepreneurs, Dorsey and her team continue to seed the world with visionaries intent on fundamentally making the world a better place.
(Crossposted from ~C4Chaos's Blog)
“It's not to give people fish;
It's not to teach them how to fish;
It's to build a new and better fishing industry.”
Source: Bill Drayton on Ashoka's Social Entrepreneurship Series video.
As some of you may have noticed, I've recently taken interest in Social Enterprise. I believe that this fast growing citizen sector
will have (is already having) a crucial role on making a positive
impact on the world around us. This is the main reason why I started zPod:Starship Social Enterprise! (note: i just added the word Starship to make it sound hip and cool.).
Starship Social Enterprise
This is a pod devoted to discussions about Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship in general. Facts, hyperlink to facts and research, enlightened and intelligent conversations about social enterprise will be the main contents of this pod instead of ZERO-SUM debates.
The purpose of this group/pod is to be the most passionately informed and compassionately inspired discussion group/pod on the topic of Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship to raise the awareness of not only the general public but of our own awareness as well, so we can be the positive change we want to see in the world around us.
I invite everyone to JOIN so we can collectively learn together! For those who are new to the terms Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurs, check out this podcast interview with David Bornstein over at Globeshakers. It's very fluffy :)
In his book How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, author David Bornstein profiles several social entrepreneurs from around the world.
After extensive travels in Bangladesh, India, Brazil, North America and Eastern Europe, David Bornstein has emerged as a leading expert in the global rise of “social entrepreneurism.” In this program, host Tim Zak asks how we would even know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
"As community grows, change accelerates."
Continuing with my Social Enterprise theme...
Check out this hour-long video of Ashoka's Founder Bill Drayton
speaking at Google. Learn stories of people who went out there and
change the existing status quo for the better.
Video blurb: "Bill Drayton, Chairman and CEO of Ashoka:
Innovators for the Public and lifelong entrepreneur, helped build the
field of social entrepreneurship 25 years ago and remains committed to
shaping a dynamic, global citizen sector. He was recently selected as
one of America's Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard's Center for Public Leadership." Being the change is one thing, changing the world is another. Let's do them at the same time and see what gives :)
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
Check out this video overview of Ashoka's Social Entrepreneurship Series as narrated by Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka – a global nonprofit organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs. This video preview is a cool “introduction to remarkable leaders who offer practical wisdom garnered from lifetimes of innovation.”
