Nov

13

Is Rosabeth Moss Kanter Really Championing Ethical Business and Social Enterprise?

November 13, 2008

I had the occasion to read the front page article of today’s Society Guardian. About 15 people called my attention to it, so I could hardly have missed it! The cover story is about Rosabeth Moss Kanter (RMK) who is positioned as a champion of ethical business and social enterprise. First my heart rose–here is a well-known author (17 books) and Harvard professor (oh, joy!) joining the cause. More voices like this jumping on the bandwagon and we may even have a bandwagon–but it was not to be. What RMK seems to be referring to in her new book (which I confess to not having read, but is discussed in the Guardian, and is only to be published next May) has little to do with social or ethical business or social enterprise, as we understand it here in the UK. As I began to comprehend the line she has taken, I felt more a sense of profound disappointment than elation. Let me tell you what I mean.
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Nov

2

Catalyst in Cairo

November 2, 2008

An erstwhile colleague of ours journeyed to Cairo, Egypt, and wrote a blog post about a meeting he had. One day we hope to do a “Catalyst in the Mideast” trip (any volunteers?), to go with our other “Catalyst in….” trips, but we decided to publish this one-off piece by Charles Kaye.

On a trip to Cairo this summer, I met a luminary of social entrepreneurship in the Arab world and beyond. At the second attempt, I thankfully remembered my passport.

An extraordinarily driven person, Raghda El-Ebrashi, was awarded the United Nations prize for Social Entrepreneurship in Egypt 2007. In the same year, she visited London to receive the “35 Under 35” award, set up by the World Business magazine, London, and the Shell Corporation. She was amongst 35 women from all corners of the globe, all under 35, who champion social business and impact through entrepreneurship. She has now won a string of awards, which appear not to interest her a great deal.
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Nov

1

Another Award, Another Cool Company: EaKo is a Winner!

November 1, 2008

Just a week ago, on 25 October, I posted about The Phone Coop, which won an award from some bank, I think it was RBS. Less than a week later Bank of Scotland announces its social entrepreneurs’ competition, and finally HSBC, towards the end of last week proclaims that EaKo has won its “Startup Stars Green Award” for its strong environmental credentials. I had once thought that there was a credit crisis and that banks were in trouble and in need of a Government bailout–now it looks like they are literally falling over themselves to hand out money (albeit small amounts, after all social businesses are not investment bankers getting their bonuses!) to social, ethical and environmental companies. I guess this is good news–it should silence critics who felt that such support was just a fad and would fall victim to the credit crisis. But let’s focus on EaKo, and not my cynical and silly weekend musings. It is an exceptional and interesting company, which I predict will not stay little for long!
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Oct

26

The New Era of Social Business and Investment (Part 3): Progress Needed on the Supply Side

October 26, 2008

In a recent article for the Guardian (see Society Guardian 8 October 2008) I suggested that if observers tried to “just peer beyond the wreckage of western financial systems,” they could “discern the outlines of the future”. We predicted that the end of the “financial services revolution”, would usher in a new era; that of Social Business and Investment. Much play has been given to the rising level of funds dedicated to social ethical and environmental businesses and enterprises, but rather less attention to the businesses themselves (the supply side). Unless the sector does so, this phenomenon will end in tears, we believe.
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Oct

25

The Phone Coop Deservedly Wins an Award: and raises some key issues

October 25, 2008

During the past week the Times Newspaper reported that The Phone Coop won the Social Enterprise of the Year at the annual Enterprising Solution Awards. We have known the CEO of The Phone Coop, Vivian Woodell, for a few years now and have great respect for him and his company–and would like to congratulate him publicly, having done so privately. The firm, based in Chipping Norton, is basically about getting its customers cheaper phone rates, as a cooperatively-owned firm, at the same time as it runs the business along very high social, ethical and environmental standards. However, I do not intend to analyse the company in great detail in this post. Rather, the firm’s victory raises a few points we think are critical and timely to make.
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Oct

14

The Beginning of a New Era: Part 2

October 14, 2008

In a blog post last month I reminisced about my days as a bank and financial services analyst and noted that the financial meltdown felt like the end of an era, but the beginning of another–that of social business and investment. Although this was somewhat of a personal story, the sort of reflections that men like me have on their careers when they pass 50 (!), it seems to have ellicited a response of sorts. I have had more inward emails on this theme than any other idea we have put forward over the past few years. Part of this is that the idea was picked up by the Guardian, which asked me to write an article for last week. Is it perhaps more?
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Oct

12

Pestering Email Highlights Two Key Issues for Social Businesses

October 12, 2008

A few weeks ago I received to this sort of pestering e-mail one gets a few of every single day. The e-mail, read, “we are so and so and we represent such and such–a nd could you please say something nice about them in your blog”, or words to that effect. I considered simply clicking on delete, but as I often do I read the e-mail briefly and thought it was professionally done (apart from a few spelling mistakes) and highlighted two key issues, which pertain particularly well to social business. For the sake of transparency, the company sending me the e-mail was called Propellernet, a search consultancy, and the firm which they were urging me to write about was called Aquaid.
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Sep

28

Social Business: The Dawn of a New Age (….I can recall the last one!)

September 28, 2008

Twenty five years ago, nearly to the day, I awoke to participate in PaineWebber’s first major conference on the financial services industry as part of the firm’s equity research team, which hosted the one-day session. This was to become the single most siginificant event of my early career. Nearly 600 people attended and the guest speakers included Don Regan, former CEO of Merrill Lynch and, at the time of the conference, Treasury Secretary under then President Ronald Reagan, and other industry notables.

(Fret not, I will eventually make this piece relevant to the blog’s subject!)
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Sep

23

Barack Obama, Social Enterprise and the Abuse of Language

September 23, 2008

The other day I was contacted by Social Enterprise Magazine regarding a story about Barack Obama in the context of Social Enterprise and its prospects in the USA. I was frankly puzzled by the call and when I was grilled by the journalist became progressively more confused. The article the journalist was writing seemed to be about how the right wing in the USA was attacking an investment scheme proposed by Obama as a “slush fund” for Democratic interests. The exact quote by Michelle Malkin on a right wing media website called Townhall.com was that the proposed Social Investment Fund Network would serve as a permanent, taxpayer-backed pipeline to Democratic partisan outfits masquerading as public-interest do-gooders’.

This seemed to take to new heights the normal idiocy which Us elections have become. I am no expert on Obama’s proposals and would prefer not to comment on the criticisms lobbied by Malkin, but believe there are a few important points which this story brings to the surface.
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Sep

7

“The White Man’s Burden”: A Fantastic Book!

September 7, 2008

What happens during the summer holidays is that we have the luxury of being able to read a bit more than normal. Unfortunately for blog readers, this means an excess of “book reviews”–many apologies. I had the good fortune to be urged to read the book in the title above, written by William Easterly, a professor at New York University, where he is one of the co-directors of the Development Research Institute. Although somewhat uncomfortable with this very politically incorrect title, as I carried it around the streets of New York, the book was one I was seriously disappointed to have finished, so enjoyable were its insights and vast array of helpful and frequently amusing anecdotes.

In simple terms the book explains why international development aid not only goes badly, in that it fails to achieve the objectives which are set, but frequently makes things worse. Such paradoxes are a favourite subject of mine, as readers of this blog will know, and Easterly is a master at drawing out some egregious examples. And the book deploys humour in great measure–too often a neglected charateristic in “serious” books on serious subjects. For observers of social business, I felt there were several gems.
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Nov

13