The slideshare (embedded, below) from Netflix titled “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” has had half-a-million views, 1500 “favorites” and ~120 comments in the past two years. It’s hardly new. But does it identify Netflix as a sustainable venture?
For those of you less likely to flip through 128 slides (which you can do in about 10 minutes), here are some highlights, followed by observations and a couple big questions: Continue reading
While I more fully organize my thoughts from the overwhelmsion of the energy of 1,200 buzzing brains at last week’s Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP), I came across my photos of the topics from what many people find to be the most interesting day of the conference, Day 3.
After two days of an over-stuffed, mind-numbing agenda full of heady topics and full-tilt hobnobbing, roughly a third of the group returns for a day with the agenda collectively created by the participants. This process, called Open Space, was expertly facilitated by Jerry Michalski, and the session draws out the topics people want to discuss. From tightly huddled six-person intensives to ranging 40-person explorations, the day exemplifies the open source spirit of the community, a yin to the bustling yang of the previous 48 hours. The next three photos are images of the wall of topics that got discussed. Since each person had already presented their idea by standing up on a stage and speaking to the topic for something like 45 seconds, you’ll just get a snapshot of each discussion. For the full benefit, well, you had to be there. Nonetheless, this should provide a peek into what’s on the mind of the most collaborative third of the thought leaders at the edge of impact investing.
In just ten minutes, this video creatively and convincingly demonstrates the utter folly demonstrated by our common modern understanding of compensation and incentives in the workplace. (Thanks to new acquaintance Guillaume Gautherau for the recommendation!) Highlighting research done by economists from MIT, Carnegie Mellon and University of Chicago (hardly bastions of progressive thought), the video debunks the concept that more money makes people work harder. Leveraging the example of Linux, the thesis points to three primary motivations for the best and brightest people of our generation: autonomy, mastery and purpose.
The work is a collaboration between Daniel Pink, renown author and authority on modern workstyle, and RSAnimate, a division of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), a multidisciplinary cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress in the UK.
Progressives, social entrepreneurs, free-lancers, creatives and anyone else mindful of cultural transformation will find the video a great investment of 10 minutes (and if you haven’t seen the RSAnimate’s unique style, you’re in for a double treat).
This was the year that social entrepreneurship crossed into the IT geek consciousness of South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), with the advent of Good Capitalist party (info, report). Good Capitalist, attended by nearly 2000 people, by some reports, was created by social media / social entrepreneur crossover star-child Martin Montero, aka the ubiquitous @montero in the #socent world on Twitter. The party was celebrated with gusto by the social entrepreneurship community, heralding their acceptance by “the cool kids.”
Triple Pundit reported on a different angle of this intersection at SXSWi, and called it the “Big Green Disconnect” between tech and sustainability communities, saying “the few green related panels were under attended and often rudimentary,” suggesting that each community is talking a different language. Our friend and advisor Bill Shutkin had a similar, less politic rant over dinner a few weeks back, along the lines of “do we really need another Twitter app while our energy and financial systems are in crisis?.” Both comparisons were predated by Silicon Valley tech guru Tim O’Reilly’s call in 2008 to “work on something that matters,” where he beat a drum of “create more value than you extract.”
So, now the meme has been released, and some cool kids in technology (largely a comfortable-if-not-affluent crowd from a global perspective) think social entrepreneurship is the next big thing. Mostly, this is good. Right? Continue reading
Our great friends, the inspiring change agents at the Unreasonable Institute have been doing some excellent interviews with social entrepreneurs and impact investors on the SoCap blog ever since the event ended last August.
During what any humble, reflexively sarcastic entrepreneur would think of as a week with no other good interview candidates, we got an email from Teju Ravilochan, co-founder of Unreasonable, asking if we’d be game for the experience.
The results turn out pretty well, it seems (you might need to turn the volume up, or else the onboard speakers on this aging computer are loosing their umpf).
Since we last reported on the then-named Sustainable Business Model meetup we launched in Boulder last year, we have merged with the Boulder-based social entrepreneur meetup, and have hosted four session in our new, revised format.
Today, the re-named Sustainable Ventures meetup is consistently gathering between forty and fifty change agents (which we expect to grow) every two weeks in Denver and Boulder for an exchange of ideas, advice and learning that benefits everyone in the room. From non-profit staffers to clean-tech execs, and including investors, advisors and entrepreneurs, the sessions are providing a venue for advanced discussions about how to run a sustainable venture, regardless of sector.
More relevant than my perspective is the feedback from members that sheds light on the experience. When asked “why should others join this meetup group?”, Ashoka Fellow Lynn Price said, “To engage with individuals who dare to do what they think should be done – in a spirit of unselfish and supportive collaboration.” Kent McBride, founder and CEO of the Make The Difference Network adds, “if you want to be around people who intentionally use business to improve the quality of life on the planet, then this is the meetup for you.” Continue reading
The second meetup in our series on Sustainable Enterprise Models was designed in response to questions coming out of the first one, namely:
Why are we getting together to create another meetup?
What are we going to try to accomplish together?
What is the language of sustainable enterprise, and how can we ensure we have a similar frame of reference as we move forward?
We organized the session to allow participants to engage with one another, and not simply be “talked at” by another guru. This led to a diverse and wide-ranging discussion about what sustainable enterprise is really about, and how we want to engage an authentic and participatory discussion in our community. Continue reading
In a new report, Sustainable Economic Development, nuPOLIS partner James Nixon details the comprehensive approaches that that cities and regions are using to build sustainable green economies. The paper, developed for the newly launched nonprofit Urban Sustainability Associates consulting service, addresses what sustainable economic development is, why it matters, and how it is similar to and different from traditional economic development. It presents a set of sustainable economic development initiatives and programs for cities/regions, with descriptions of each initiative and program, along with possible delivery partners.
The heart of Nixon’s paper presents eight distinct Sustainable Economy Initiatives: Continue reading
Tonight, the Angel Capital Summit finished the first of three review cycles for the largest annual angel investing conference between New York and San Francisco. We’ll save the deeper analysis for later, but here is some aggregate data on the ~70 companies that reached the semi-finals, from the 190+ which applied to one of 30 partner groups: Continue reading
With the advent of the new Denver section, word came around (big tip o’ the hat to @BrettGreene) that HuffPo needed bloggers on the local scene. Now, a couple weeks later, I’m a published HuffPo blogger. I’ll be focusing on what I focus on in general — sustainable enterprise, impact investing and transformative IT, with a deeper recognition of all that’s happening in the Front Range of Colorado.
First post is about the GSSE at CSU, an awesome program that I strongly endorse. If you’d be so kind, please head over and write a quick comment, to raise the profile of the sustainable enterprise in Colorado on their radar.
