Category Archives: Reflection

Jun 05 2012
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Impact Investing, Philanthropy, Reflection

From Value to Worth – Why The Impact Investing “Asset Class” Debate Matters

Over two weeks ago, I posted a poll asking whether impact investing should be considered an “asset class”. The fact that the results currently come in at 60/40 (after many votes) in favor of NO asset class belies the considerable debate that has surrounded this topic both on this blog and other online forums. I am still a bit surprised about how many people have weighed in on a question that would appear to be mostly a technicality… but is it really just that?

Without being able to do justice to the many, many arguments constructed in favor and against the “asset class” question, I would like to take a moment to restate my understanding of what people have said on this topic. Then, in a broader sense, I hope to convert part of this controversy into something of meaning and, in typical fashion for this blog, will attempt to identify what really is at stake at the end of the day in dealing with this question.

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May 01 2012
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Reflection, Weekly Ponder

Weekly Ponder #9 – The Philosophical Blind Spot Of Technology or: “Cool! But What FOR?”

Weekly Ponder #9

The Philosophical Blind Spot Of Technology or: “Cool! But What FOR?”

If every person could be characterized by a single question that defines their interests or outlook on life, I feel sometimes that the word most appealing or fitting to the vast majority of our generation would be “what?” As a person who would mostly characterize his outlook on life with “why?” that would put me in the minority then, I suppose.

One area where this applies is our popular celebration of science and technology as that which makes us as a species the best and greatest since the dinosaurs died off. A little while back, I saw two TED talks, one by University of Pennsylvania professor Vijay Kumar, and one by Regina Dugan of DARPA. Both made me think about this topic of whats and whys. The first talk was essentially a celebration and discovery of nothing short of amazing technology that Kumar and his students had developed to show off little flying robots that could hover (like humming birds), fly formations with advanced AI, and even play the song from James Bond in their own band. The second talk was also about humming bird robots (that even looked like humming birds) and also about a new Mach-20 flying supersonic glider.

In both cases, my first impression was “wow!” My second was “why?” My third was “what for?” Not sure if in that order, actually…

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Apr 23 2012
11 Comments
Reflection, Social Enterprise, Weekly Ponder

The Importance of “Impact Offtakers” – Why Growth Is NOT The End Goal Of Social Enterprises

As a corporate strategy person, I totally get why traditional for-profit companies seek to grow: to make ever more money for their shareholders. Fine. But what I don’t get are social enterprises – however you define the term – when they talk about the “do-good equivalent” of the word “growth”, which is often referred to as “scale”. If the end goal of a for-profit corporation is to make as much money as possible (infinity + beyond $$$), what is the end goal of a nonprofit or for-profit social enterprise?

As a famous person once said: It’s the impact, stupid! And so the discussion becomes, in every single conference since the term “social enterprise” entered the mainstream a decade ago, about how we in fact can scale the impact of such organizations over time. A recent session during the 2012 Skoll World Forum, for example, was focused exclusively on the idea of how to envisage scaling beyond initial seed funding and “exit strategies” for social enterprises.

Although the panelists in this session touch on the subject, I feel not enough space in today’s literature is dedicated to a question that has somewhat plagued me for a long time – in fact, it has plagued me ever since I got interested in social enterprises.

The question is this: why the heck does everyone seem (so obsessively) to equate the scaling of impact with the scaling of the actual organization? In this post, allow me to make an argument for the importance of finding an “impact offtaker” as a critical scaling mechanism that supersedes that of organizational growth when it comes to social enterprises.

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Apr 09 2012
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Reflection, Social Entrepreneurship

Envy = Unhappiness or: The Importance of Generosity of Spirit among Social Innovators

We intuitively understand that we live in a society today where, more than ever before, everyone has the opportunity to be an innovator and a changemaker thanks to the marvels of technology and the interconnectedness it has brought us. That’s beautiful indeed. But this has come at a price, I would argue. Not all is well that seems well on the surface.

Consider that in the same world, in a given community, for every single person that takes the initiative to write a book, start a company, or build anything else of meaning and value, there are hundreds if not thousands of others who stand by, observe, nod in public approval… and then, upon returning home, lay privately tormented and desperate.

Tormented by what?

Before we get there, consider this scenario: one day, any day, you read the news and blogs of whatever domain you happen to be a passionate follower of and you find the headlines about someone’s amazing invention, discovery, accomplishment or celebrated success. On top of this, imagine that this person is just around your age, even from the same country, had the same major in college and worked in the same industry.

What is your very first reaction? Are you:

A) Excited about the invention?

B) Happy that things are going well with the world, after all?

C) Hoping you could meet this person one day?

Likely, my guess is you would circle D) None of the Above. What else then? No matter how accomplished, rich, successful and pedigreed you are, it is likely possible that you experience to some degree a feeling that we commonly refer to as “envy”. This, if not admitted honestly, can then lead to further feelings of frustration, inadequacy, and even anger. The complete package, in the worst case, results in torment and despair.

Today, I would like to think about why this is, what’s at stake for changing this, and why the key to this may be the little discussed but essential notion of “generosity of spirit”.

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Apr 03 2012
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Reflection, Weekly Ponder

Weekly Ponder #8 – Rage Against the Ordinary: How To Save The World If I Have to Do Dishes?

Weekly Ponder #8

Rage Against the Ordinary: How To Save The World If I Have to Do Dishes?

Take this scenario: You are inspired. You want to change the world. Perhaps you already have an idea. Perhaps you are just waiting for something (you know that “signal”) until you can get ready to go. You are on the internet every day, reading news stories, learning about the success and daring leadership of other social innovators. That will be YOU one day, following your calling, maybe even becoming famous!

But then you realize it’s Sunday and your house is a mess. You haven’t cleaned up in a while, you haven’t taken out the trash, you haven’t cleaned the bathroom, you haven’t done much of anything actually, come to think of it. Why would you? Every moment counts! Every moment that you spend mopping or doing boring chores is a moment you cannot indulge in reading, e-mailing, and doing all those things that extraordinary people tend to do, right?

Did I forget to mention that you also have a day-job that starts tomorrow on that dreadful Monday and that means you have to wait every day for nightfall before you can come home and hit the internet again? Subtract the time in commute, the time you have to spend with the wife/husband and kids, maybe time for working out, eating dinner, washing clothes, etc. Before you know it’s very late already and you need to go to bed so you can wake up on time tomorrow to be on time for the office or class. But before you do this, you notice you are completely out of clean dishes and unless you do something now you won’t have a cereal bowl to eat out of tomorrow (and neither will your spouse and family).

For some of you, it sounds like Sophie’s Choice: wasting precious time with boring, ordinary work, that could otherwise be spent with EXTRA-ordinary work (to the betterment of humanity, etc.)… or not having dishes and go hungry tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Monday is edging ever closer and closer, while your despair grows.

Is this you? Do you suffer from “rage against the ordinary”? Today, I am pondering how to deal with this quite common condition among ambitious people like you.

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Mar 29 2012
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Reflection, Social Entrepreneurship

The Quest for Originality or: “Help! Everything Has Already Been Done!”

As easy to find as a needle in a haystack!As someone who did not grow up with a habit of inventing things, I wonder sometimes what it must be like to have that type of mind. It is less creativity that I’m referring to as much as the notion of originality. More precisely: how to cope and avoid going nuts when you cannot really come up with anything truly original!

Remember the time I was thinking about why we don’t consider more seriously the idea of social “replicaneurship” instead of the traditional “entrepreneurship”, in order to take some of that “wheel reinvention” habit out that we tend to see nowadays? At the time I wondered if sometimes we would be doing good enough if we could simply take well-conceived social change models that some brilliant person elsewhere had already come up with, say, microcredit, and simply replicate this idea in our own neighborhoods. Instead, what we tend to see is many people starting up their own social enterprise without much research about what has already been done, i.e., with little regard to existing best practices. Sometimes this wastes time, money, or both, or worse: it can create widespread confusion among the landscape of funders, beneficiaries and practitioners.

In that sense, the problem was that people sometimes overestimate the importance of originality to create breakthroughs and/or attain fame.

Today, I am pondering what we should do when we actually DO seek originality… but can’t find it because thanks to the Internet, you can find your awesome idea already done just about fourteen times over – five years ago, that is – maybe even by a guy or girl living in the town next to you!

Oh, the angst, the frustration!

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Mar 17 2012
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Forum, Reflection, Social Entrepreneurship, Weekly Ponder

Weekly Ponder #7 – The Nature of Ambition: How Serious Should We Take Ourselves?

Weekly Ponder #7

The Nature of Ambition: How Serious Should We Take Ourselves?

Last week, we concluded some thoughts on the nature of ego and the way it affects different individuals’ approach to social entrepreneurship. While we tend to speak of ego usually negatively, I pointed out that at best, it serves as a basic motivating force for us to spring to action – even if some may not like the inherent “selfish” motivation.

Today, my thoughts have been circling around this idea of motivation and its big brother – ambition. Specifically, I have been wondering about how we can reconcile the notion of ambition, which deals by definition with the future, with the notion of being at peace and content with the present. Think about all the Buddhist teachings that encourage us to reject attachment, desire and expectations, in order to diminish or avoid suffering.

I suspect that there is a good number of people in the do-good and social entrepreneurship space today that would identify with Buddhist teachings (or perhaps, not?). If so, would it be ignorant of me to think that if you are a social entrepreneur or consider yourself active in this “social” sector, you probably have a considerable amount of ambition?

And if that is the case, do you have some advice for the Good Generation on how to balance forward-looking “ambition” with present-focused Buddhism? Can you have both? Answering this question may be a non-trivial component of the quest for happiness for many folks out there in the field, fighting the good battle.

What’s further at stake seems to be this: at a time when we keep saying that we need more and more people to engage, to strive, to change the world, we are implicitly saying that we need more people to follow the call of their ambition to make their dreams a reality. Where, then, does this leave us?

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Mar 15 2012
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Reflection, Sustainability

Pascal’s Wager And The Path To Sustainability – Optimism vs. Fear (which motivates best?)

Key Questions in this Post:

  • Do we need more optimism to overcome the sustainability challenge of our planet?
  • Or do we need more fear and crisis to change our ways more radically?

This week I watched two talks from TED 2012 from two very different men painting two very different pictures of the future.

First was a talk called “The Earth is full” by Paul Gilding, a writer, activist and advisor on sustainability. As the title would suggest, it deals with how we are running out of resources, that we are overcrowding the planet, and that we are making too much stuff. In short, Gilding’s message is that we can’t keep up our economic growth and count on the resources to be there to support it – and us – way into the future. More likely, we will start feeling the pain perhaps already in our lifetime as we reach these limits. Two words you could probably use to accurately describe this talk would be “alarmist” and “pessimistic”.

Second was a talk called “Abundance is our future” by Peter Diamandis, Chairman of Singularity University and leader of the X Prize Foundation (cash prize for great inventions). His was the exact opposite of Gilding’s. Literally. Diamandis argues that we should be optimistic because human ingenuity, technology and a true abundance of resources will help us overcome all obstacles no matter what. He argues that we are really exaggerating the issue of resource consumption and that just like with Moore’s Law, we will be amazed by what our technology will allow us to do, like harvesting the sun’s energy and making undrinkable water drinkable. And healthcare? No problem, using cell phones we will soon be able to have point of care diagnostics that will allow emerging country people to alarm the CDC of coming pandemics. Two words to describe this talk would be “heady” and “optimistic”.

Question #1: which talk do you think I liked better? Put differently: which one did I hate (infinitely) more?

Question #2 (prize question): what is more powerful to get us to act towards a more sustainable future – fear and despair from the first video, or inspiration and hope from the second video?

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Mar 04 2012
2 Comments
Reflection, Social Entrepreneurship

Me, Myself and I – The Role of Ego in Social Entrepreneurship (Part 2)

Key Questions in this Post:

  • How does ego act as a driving force behind some of today’s social entrepreneurs?
  • What are the contributing and inhibiting effects of ego on progress in social innovation?

Last time, I got interested in thinking about the role of ego in social entrepreneurship based on a tangentially related idea in Weekly Ponder #5, where I wondered why so many (social) changemakers tended to prefer to reinvent the wheel on social business models instead of more actively replicating successful other ones. One interesting thought was how much ego had to do with this tendency instead of other reasons. At the time, it felt useful to think a little bit more about this. But in order to do so, we had to spend some time pondering the nature of ego itself before we could make sense of it in the context of social entrepreneurship.

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about some basic definitions we wanted to use to discuss the pros and cons of having a strong ego, mostly from the broad perspective of how a healthy or unhealthy ego can contribute or take away from our general happiness. We also started to talk about why the discussion of ego might be timely. I believe it’s not just timely but necessary to understand that in the domain of social innovation and entrepreneurship, there exist some deep-seated cultural and attitudinal differences between people who came into the space from the charity/NGO space and those who came from the “business” world. For all the talk and excitement about what can be achieved when the two come together, we woefully neglect to talk about all the interesting differences we encounter between these well-meaning people – and from which we can arguably learn a lot.

And one of these differences, finally, is in my contention that while some (smaller) group of people are driven by a “purer” sense of altruism, many more are likely driven to an important degree by ego to engage in activities that are supposed to have the same outcome – the service to others. What happens when you look at two ways of motivation for the same good cause? How does this play out in various settings?

This I would like to at least touch on in this Part 2.

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Feb 24 2012
5 Comments
Reflection, Social Entrepreneurship

Me, Myself and I – The Role of Ego in Social Entrepreneurship (Part 1)

Key Questions in this Post:

  • What is the nature of ego and how can it affect our happiness?
  • How does ego differ as a major force of motivation to “do good” from more conventional philanthropy or altruism?

In Weekly Ponder #5 I asked the question why so many changemakers seem to prefer reinventing the wheel rather than to replicate existing ideas in closer collaboration with (and knowledge of) those that came before them. I wondered why so many people feel they need to start social enterprises (just like in the world of NGOs) with their own brands, their own way of doing things, oftentimes without having researched much of what has already been done. Inevitably, the suspicion of ego as a driving force came up in some of the ensuing conversations I was part of in various online forums.

Ah, ego. I love this topic. I love to admire people who use it for productive contribution to the world. At the same time, I love to hate people who get carried away with themselves (and showing it), get in the way of others’ (more important) work and in the end, not achieving much anyway in the process. Pricks. In a way, ego is that 800 pound gorilla in the room that few people talk about when it comes to social innovation and entrepreneurs. Yet it probably has a central place at the table when especially some of the more recent social entrepreneurs with roots from the business world decide to make their mark on the world. I have not seen many studies or surveys on the role that ego plays in pushing the social sector forward… or inhibiting it from promoting the social change we supposedly all seek. So I thought I’d think about it a little here.

Today, drawing from my personal interactions with a host of do-gooders from the camps of investors, entrepreneurs and consultants, I want to first spend some time reflecting on the nature of ego itself and its contribution to our happiness. What are signs of a healthy or unhealthy ego? What’s at stake and why is this a potential hotly contested (but not openly debated) topic in social entrepreneurship?

On another day, in Part 2 of this article, I will then start thinking about the practical role that ego plays in both its positive and negative influences on the motivation and behavior of social changemakers - and try to distill what we in the Good Generation can learn from this in our own quests to make the world a better place… without being pricks.

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