Social Enterprise is a brand!

SUMMARY:
I would like to use the Social Enterprise Code as a tool for having open-door conversations among key members of the community of people actively involved in creating positive social and environmental change using business practices. I envision these conversations to leverage on the work already done by other social enterprise communities around the globe for these to serve as a baseline for having our own conversations. I am hopeful that these conversations will help us reach some (sometimes implicit) agreements with the direct objective of defining our brand and strategizing our positioning: clarifying our message and unifying our voice. I think that is our responsibility to present the social enterprise as an alternative to addressing social, economic and environmental challenges. I think that people will grab the Social Enterprise brand off the shelf because it is a good thing! It is a good thing for people; it is a good thing for profits; and it's a good thing for the planet.

FULL TEXT:

I think that we need a ‘Social Enterprise Code’ because we need to define our branding and our positioning. For that, a 'code' may come in handy as a way of developing shared terminology to be used as a unifying element.

We are a community of people actively involved in creating positive social and environmental change using business practices. That is a long concept to grasp onto! It is a complicated brand, hard to position.

It took 'us' (the community of people actively... - what I said) more than 10 years to begin to feel comfortable with being 'different' and to begin to put words and names to the concepts. The 'Social Enterprise' is a concept with a definition yet to be agreed upon. As a practitioner and within my circle, I have my own definition of what Social Enterprise means to me but other practitioners or funders or academics may think differently - which is great!

From an innovation standpoint, dissent is a critical element. From the perspective of building the movement, 'agreement' is the name of the game.

As a social entrepreneur, I think of 'building the movement' in terms of 'bringing it to market' ('it' being the 'social enterprise'). From that perspective, the how's, when's and who's need to be strategized. The good news is: our field is packed with strategic thinkers. Can you imagine the power of having the brains of all these extremely creative, amazingly determined and passionate strategic thinkers working together to strategize the best ways for bringing it to market? - 'It' being the 'social enterprise'.

But how do we use this intense brain power to effectively and promptly enact a strategy as it is being developed? Well, we talk about it; we discuss it; we collect input from pertinent parties; review it, and ’agree’ - even if it is implicitly - like a member of an association that implicitly agrees to the explicit agreements made by the association.

I don't think that we need to reach consensus in order to reach agreement. This is business! - Social business, but business after all. We need to work closer together and reach agreements as we keep on moving forward with our individual missions and organizations.

My proposal is that we use the tools that we have available to us to keep our conversations and agreements organized: the Internet. By collecting comments from key people interested in participating in the conversation, we will be having open-door discussions that will hopefully help us reach some agreements. It would be great, for example, if we could wordsmith a Social Enterprise Glossary of Terms so we can begin coding.

What then becomes critical is for these agreements to really disseminate to the rest of the community of people actively involved in creating positive social and environmental change using business practices. We need to make sure that we are all participating in the conversations: The Social Venture Network folks, the Skoll Foundation, the TED people, Social Earth, the Social Enterprise Alliance, The Hub, Ashoka, SOCAP, to mention just a few. Not only the gatherers, but also the doers, the funders, the academics and –critically important– the next generation – we are all part of this community of people actively involved in creating positive social and environmental change using business practices.

The goal is for all of us to become one voice, one brand! – A brand to which we all adhere, because we all agreed (sometimes implicitly). We need to strive to build a brand that is easy to recognize, easy to understand and easy to explain. We need to simplify and unify our voice and our message. It will be easier for the world to relate to us, and for us to relate to the world. We have a unique winner brand that has immediate implicit value: Social Enterprise.

As we define our branding, we will also begin to help define our positioning. Where do we fit in? How do we penetrate the market? Some social enterprise communities around the globe have already begun to engage in these conversations. I propose that we leverage on the work that has already been done and that we use it as a baseline for having our own conversations and reaching our own agreements. Read more about the work that has been done in other social enterprise communities around the globe.

So the whole 'code' deal is a proposal for organizing and documenting the conversations that may lead to reaching agreements as a community of people actively involved in creating positive social and environmental change using business practices. I'm hoping that we are able to quickly agree on a couple definitions, a few goals and that we let the conversations take us from there.

I often think of this process as a great opportunity for us, the community of people actively involved in creating positive social and environmental change using business practices, to create measurable social impact in addition to the work that we do every day.

It obviously is a huge opportunity for us to come out of our isolated trying-to-change-the-world-with-business space into a space in which we will be meeting, interacting, chatting and collaborating with other like-minded people who may be as interested as we are in changing the world with business.

But to be honest, at this stage of the game and with the state of things around us, I think is our responsibility to bring the social enterprise to market. We need to put it out there for people to grab off the shelf. Oh! And people grab it off the shelf, they will.

People will grab the Social Enterprise brand off the shelf because it is a good thing! It is a good thing for people; it is a good thing for profits; and it's a good thing for the planet.

People will grab it off the shelf because it will appeal to the student, to the consumer, to the legislator, to the funder, to the entrepreneur, to the employee, to the business partner, to us all!

And personally, I won't be offended if someone chooses not to grab the Social Enterprise. I think we need to bring it to market and build the movement off of it. I think it is our responsibility because we are doing it, we are actively contributing to the social enterprise apparatus - whatever that may be. We understand it a little better; and we've had the opportunity to test it, learn from it, observe it, think about it, fund it, discuss it, break it, glue it back together, reshape it, rethink it, and all of the things that we do and that we have been doing all this time.

My plan is to continue to explore ways in which I can contribute to this process. I invite you to join this exploration and begin to come out of your group's isolated trying-to-change-the-world-with-business space into a space in which you can meet, interact, chat and collaborate with other like-minded groups and people who may be as interested as you and I are in changing the world with business.