Just What Is a Social Entrepreneur?

In the current spring 2007 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, two Skoll Foundation leaders call for a more rigorous definition of social entrepreneurship in the lead article, “Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition.”

Sally Osberg, president and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, and Roger L. Martin, a foundation board member and dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, write: “We would argue that the definition of social entrepreneurship today is anything but clear. As a result, social entrepreneurship has become so inclusive that it now has an immense tent into which all manner of social beneficial activities fit.”

To read the article, click here.

Appreciative Inquiry in Action

Nina, here is another brilliant change tool that we are currently experimenting with at Pioneers of Change: Appreciative Inquiry

” Appreciative Inquiry is currently revolutionizing the field of organizational development”, writes University of Michigan Professor Robert Quinn, in his acclaimed book Change the World.

Within the Pioneers of Change Network Dialogue, Anne-Claire and me have been interviewing each other last week around the question:

Tell me about your most recent inspiring/meaningful/true conversation that you have had as a peak experience in the Pioneers of Change network?

Here are our stories:
ai-network-dialogue-anne-claire.doc
ai-network-dialogue-frauke-i.doc

And as a side product I just fine-tuned my personal vision a bit while I was writing my interview story and added “To develop and connect…” to my mission statement. Amazing!

Output Values Session

Values-Session

One of the main targets of every personal development effort is to make our values more conscious. Only when we know what is important to us can we live them out in a conscious matter, and take them as guides, rather than being inflicted by random circumstances we cannot control. There are in my opinion two different types of values.

I call the first type VALUES FOR PRINCIPLES. These values can guide us in our daily behaviour. They are for example: Living with love and humour, pride, or to strive for excellence. The six AIESEC values are other good examples for this type (strive for excellence, living diversity, acting sustainably, demonstrating integrity etc.)
From these values, we can derive rules, or rather PRINCIPLES.

The second type of values that we have in life point us to our GOALS. Examples: Save the environment, create a family and care for them, help people to live more conscious lives, fight poverty, save the whales etc. If we know these values inside of us, we can extract a purpose in life, or for some people, even a VISION.

These two types can be compared with different cultures. The differences are not clear-cut in each aspect, but it makes sense to understand the difference, because we need different approaches to get to them. Ask a German businessman working in China whether he sees a difference in getting things done in the two cultures!

How can we then get to the first type of values, our principles?

Here are some different methods as keywords. They cannot be explained in detail here. For more information on them, lets get in contact.

1. People I admire- analyse the people around you. What do you admire on some of them? Look at your friends- why are they your friends? Which attribute is it about them that you value?
2. Reflect: When have I been passionate in life? When did I do something creative and productive with this passion? What was the passion about? I like this exercise a lot, because it reminds us that we have all created something special for us with our passion in the past. We can do so again.
3. Values-list: there are lists with different types of values. What we can do here is to cut them down one by one, so that there are just a few left at the end.
4. There are also other exercises like the Abigale: A story about how a girl sleeps with a guy just to get to the man she loves…quite controversial. Nobody is obviously right in this story, which makes it fun to discuss it. It can be a good start in values-discussions. You can download this exercise along with others here: http://www.training-youth.net/INTEGRATION/TY/Publications/tkits/tkit4/content.pdf

Page 56.
5. Look at difficult decision you made in your past. Why did you make them? What were the principles you based your decision on?

These are some methods to get ourselves closer to our principles. What about the others, our goals?

1. Funeral- exercise: In this exercise, imagine you are at your own funeral. People that cared for you are holding speeches. What will they say about your character? What about the achievements you had in life?
2. News-scan: What kind of news are you most interested in when reading the papers or watching news? What strikes you to be most unjust? Collect the articles that you care about, and find out what it is that touches you in them.
3. Look at your own CV: Which of the things you did in the past were most important to you? Why? Which role did I play in there?
4. One of the easiest, but for me personally, most effective exercise: Sit down with a pen and paper (or a computer), and type this title: I dedicate my life to… then simply brainstorm. In the beginning, I wrote down the most obvious things. But when I continued and kept on writing, I eventually got to something that really touched me. This is when I knew: This is it.

These are just some methods, if you know more, please share. And if there are still questions, drop me a line. .-)

As a second step to the Principle-Values, I suggest to find out rules for everyday life. What can be my principles to ensure that I really live out these values? What does it mean for me to strive for excellence? Find out tangible rules for yourself. The question was asked how many values we should have. There is no universal answer to it. I believe that we should limit the number to the ones we can consciously follow. More important than the sheer number is the PRIORITY of the values. Values, in both cases, should have ranks. It makes decision-making in life a lot easier.
The second step to the Goal-Values then is to find out a Vision for our own lives: So what is it then that I want to dedicate my life to? Its not possible to be sure about it for the rest of our lives. But we can at least be as sure as we can be, for now.

Looking forward to discussions, Thu Phong.

Beyond Conversation Week

Would you like to attend a World Café on World Peace in the Frauenkirche in Dresden?

Or have some meaningful conversation about engaging your public in a City Museum?

How about seeing the future unfold in Dresden on May 03-05, 2007?

World Café European Gathering-Dresden 2007
Experience the power of conversations that matter

Participants from all over the world are expected to come to Dresden to attend the 1st World Café European Gathering to be held on May 3-5 2007. Three days of engaging World Café dialogues will be offered in which the participants will be able to experience numerous World Cafés first-hand, gain Know-How about the World Café process as well as be introduced to the emerging network of the World Café Europe and worldwide.

The Gathering is the result of a planning effort of over 25 dedicated World-Café hosts from all over Europe. The design of this event has been inspired by the wish to provide a “minds-on” opportunity to experience World Café “Best Practice”. As a result, the Gathering will be totally interactive in character in order to enable the participants to personally experience the principles of creative and effective World Café conversations.

More info

The program

Taking Social Innovations to Scale

“In spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible. This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future . Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don’t need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and
commitment that lead to broad-based change.”

write Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze in Shambhala Institute’s Fieldnotes

Conversation Café

If you want to host a world-café kind of event, like we did in Wuppertal, have a look at this video about Conversation Café . It’s in cooperation with Dropping Knowledge. I will check out what I need to do to hold an event in Amsterdam!

AIESEC Alumni who IMAGINEd: Marcus Orlovsky

Much of this idealism will fade once the realities of the business world kick in, says Marcus Orlovsky, a British entrepreneur who volunteers much of his time to AIESEC and other student organizations. Orlovsky says that too often he has seen young people with great potential turn into cogs in a corporate machine, so involved in some insignificant project, that they lose their vision of what’s really important.

“The first 10 years after they leave school are crucial,” he says. This is when, coming from leadership positions, they have to readjust to entry-level positions and work their way up the corporate ladder.

Despite the pessimistic model, Orlovski continues to devote as many as 80 days a year to talking to students about the necessity of keeping their priorities straight. He still believes that AIESEC plays an important role in shaping more socially-aware business people for the future.

Marcus is a founder member and director of Bryanston Square. He is passionate about helping the world of education create better learning environments where young people can set out on their journey to achieving their goals. To this end he focuses on both the design of buildings and the way teaching and learning take place.

Marcus is active in both the public and private sector: he works with individual schools to help them formulate and articulate their visions; he advises Authorities and architects on how to design the best possible buildings for their budget and seek out new funding solutions; and collaborates with national institutions such as the National College for School Leadership on programmes like ‘Building Schools for the Future’.

markus_orlovsky_speech.pdf

learning-places-for-architects.pdf

Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs

In Anja’s and Alex’s presentation on SE, Alex recommended the booklet “Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs” by the Schwab Foundation. Here it is as a pdf file:

final_brochure2006.pdf

Secondly, the Schwab Foundation had a SE Summit in Switzerland in January:

se_summit2007_report.pdf

And finally, I love Google, the Schwab Foundation gave an AIESEC workshop in 2004:

aiesec10032004onlineversion.pdf

U-Process: Presencing

In addition to Sofia’s posting here are some more reference documents on the U-Process from my knowledge database:

u-process_social_technology.pdf

theoryu.pdf

why-we-need-the-u.pdf

By the way, AIESEC International has just run their International Presidents Meeting on the U-Process.

Facilitator’s Guide to Imagine Reflection Session U-Process /Collective Intelligence Workshop

Dear Imaginers,

At last this guide is ready. I have attempted to create a ‘one size fits all’ version, which aims to cover most practical aspects as well as some of the concepts behind this workshop design.

In this guide are also references for further reading

Please feel free to give feedback. The idea is that this was meant to be a helpful guide, that had concrete starting points for someone who wanted to run it, as well as some of the ‘big-picture context.

Download the facilitator’s guide here:

U-Process and Collective Intelligence Workshop Facilitation Guide

In my foundation training on facilitation, back when I was working at British Airways, the external consultant who trained us said about the references he gave us:” take these and go beyond.”

So please do!

Thanks again Stefan for highlighting the creative commons concept so accessibly. I have put this guide under a CC license. (My first use of this! It feels good ;-))

“We live in a time in which most people believe there is not much inside them, only what teachers, parents and others have put there.” Michel Cassou and Stewart Cubley, authors of Life, Painting and Passion