Last week I spoke on a panel on shared value at HBS. I described Michael Porter's shared value in a previous post, "Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility and Shared Value":
"Corporate strategies must be adapted to service social needs. By combining the creation of economic value and serving social needs "shared value" is created. "For profit" companies are well suited to solve social problems while at the same time serving their shareholder's interest to maximize investor returns."
I now believe that shared value is basically a trivial idea. To forego social responsibility in favor of maximizing shareholder return is really just an excuse to be socially insensitive. Maximizing shareholder return is not some sort of mathematical certainty but rather the more practical but vague notion that company earnings have to match stock analyst earnings estimates (as a surrogate for shareholder "expectations"). Spending could support social objectives or income generating activities as long as the shareholder expectations are met. For example, no one criticizes Wal-Mart for annual charitable contributions in excess of $600 million.
This post was inspired by this story on opensource.com, "Reimagining capitalism—as principled, patient, and truly social". I do not agree that "capitalism degenerates into narrow self-interest without a strong ethical foundation". Companies make many social contributions such as job creation and tax payments regardless of ethical foundations. The more constructive objective would be to make businesses more aware of the good "business" opportunities that exist in solving social problems or serving the underserved.
Last week's lecture at the MIT Sloan School marked a significant change in my thinking about social entrepreneurship. I continue to believe that the word "social" and its normative connotations confuse the matter. Which has the greater social benefit:
A non-profit feeding 10,000 children in Africa
A company that creates 29,000 jobs
A for-profit that sells a device that reduces AIDS transmission for 7.5 million people per year
All three of the organizations provide significant social benefit and the last two are for-profit. One should pursue social entrepreneurship only if it has an economic benefit. Otherwise, one should do traditional for-profit entrepreneurship. In the end, it is achieving the objective that benefits the customer and society and not the business model--social or for-profit entrepreneurship--that is important.
To understand social entrepreneurship, portfolio theory helps. An investor has two choices:
Make an investment in a for-profit company at a market rate of return and make a separate donation for a "social" purpose from the proceeds of the return, or
Invest in a social entrepreneurship venture, receive a below market return because the investor knowingly transfers the additional return available to a recipient to benefit them (the "donation") through lower cost, greater features, etc. and effectively maximizes the value creation (the "social" benefit)
The question is why would someone opt for the second alternative, social entrepreneurship? The only rational reason for the investor to opt for social entrepreneurship is that there is greater efficiency in the "donation" through economies of scale, better management, additional services, etc. Otherwise the investor would just make the donation themselves. For example, OLPC provides a wide range of project services at nominal charge or for free that the investor could not duplicate by merely donating laptops.
In summary, the economics and efficiency of the venture determine whether social entrepreneurship is the best alternative. Otherwise the investor could create the same "social" benefits through a direct donation.
I recently gave a talk on social ventures, which included some trends that I see in this increasingly competitive space.
The number of non-profits in the U.S. is too large, over 1.5 million, which results in many incremental approaches and too few large scale ventures
Competition in social services is increasing as for-profits enter the space, driven by large market opportunities, Michael Porter's shared value and the popularity of social entrepreneurship.
The concept of "social" is becoming very cloudy as more and more people realize that objectives can be achieved without any consideration of the "do good" tag
The discussion of my ideas was very vigorous as the attendees basically stopped the speech to discuss some of the ideas. First time that ever happened. One idea that got a fairly thorough debate was the idea that non-profits should merge in order to reduce overheads and achieve larger scale. M&A in the non-profit world...what is this world coming to.
If you think this idea is far fetched, this story in Concurring Opinions talks about a "hostile takeover" of a foundation.
Of course, the best example of this merger concept may be that Warren Buffett put his billions in the Gates Foundation. Mr. Buffett understands capital efficiency and scale.
I have written frequently about the need to start entrepreneurship education at a much earlier age, perhaps as early as middle school. (Previous posts are here and here.) Two stories support this trend:
A prep school in Miami recently received an anonymous grant of $7 million to establish an entrepreneurship program
The related articles below talk about programs supported by the Kauffman Foundation and the University of Chicago. The quality of the people experimenting in this space and the exceptionally insightful early stage programs suggest that this trend should quickly become mainstream.
Early takeaways from these programs:
Focus on individual empowerment and student-centric learning approaches
Make entrepreneurship an integral part of the curriculum or its own track
Make real world mentors an important part of the program (VC and PE folks are probably better than small business owners or corporate types)
Provide access to startup capital
If anyone needs an advisor on such a program or an easy to read book on developing a new business concept, you might look here.
I am fortunate to interact with a lot of people interested in computing, software and education. A group that is actively engaged in this area is the South Kent School, a college preparatory school for boys in Connecticut. Last fall they launched an iPad program for all their students, substituted e-books for almost all required texts and invested in proper teacher training. The program has caught the attention of Apple, Inkling and the entire northeast prep school community.
Now South Kent is offering a series of two-day residential workshops to help others understand how they built a successful 1:1 computer program using the iPad. Details on the workshops are here.
I am off this week to Taipei for business and Shanghai to judge the Hult Global Case Challenge. Students from around the world develop strategies to scale each of three social ventures. OLPC is one of the social ventures. The other two are Habitat for Humanity and Solar Aid. $1 million in seed capital goes to the winners.
Traveling with only an iPad, blogging will be more challenging than it should be. Therefore, below are some popular posts from SF to read until I return.
Yesterday I spoke at the Miami Philanthropy Forum. Very nice event with about 100 attendees. Thanks to Colleen Post for inviting me.
I spoke about what I call the "social venture checklist". Many socially oriented founders default to non-profit status, but I cautioned them to understand the tradeoffs before accepting this choice. When I asked the audience of non-profit managers why they chose non-profit nobody had an answer except to reference tax free contributions. See the Powerpoint below for better reasons. When I explained that non-profits are like stock brokers I had everyone's attention. Both organizations provide trustee services for low margin income.
Then I took them through a discussion of the for-profit choices:
Social entrepreneurship
"Capitalist Dog" entrepreneurship
The difference between the two types of entrepreneurship is that in social entrepreneurship one maximizes value creation and in traditional entrepreneurship one maximizes value capture (just the way Milton Friedman taught us). I also stressed that many social ventures assume that they have some higher normative status compared with for-profits. The lines that define "social" are actually quite unclear and any organization is better off to focus on economic consequences.
Knowledge@Wharton is reporting that this year Coca Cola will test the distribution of medicine through its normal channels as a means to help the poor in Zambia. Lack of available medicine is a major contributor to high fatality rates from diseases that no longer affect people in more developed countries.
In many developing countries physical distribution of goods is a real challenge. For example, in Peru it takes nine days for goods to reach remote areas. Coca Cola has solved this problem in many countries in order to make Coke available even in the most remote markets. In the Zambia test ColaLife, an unaffiliated UK non-profit, will pick up the medicine at the last Coke distribution point and use paid bicycle riders to carry the medicine to nearby clinics and hospitals. ColaLife initiated the program with Coca Cola.
Other organizations that distribute goods to the most remote parts of developing countries are the World Food Program (a UN agency), the local military and large local retailers. World Food Program distributes food to school children in many countries on a daily basis. In many developing countries the military is the only part of the government with physical distribution capabilities and they provide their own security. Security of high value products is an issue not to be overlooked. Large local retailers in Indonesia distributed foreign food aid during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.
One benefit of working in retail is an appreciation of the complexity of physical delivery of goods. This model in Zambia deserves to be duplicated.
I will be speaking at the Philanthropy Miami Forum on February 16. The event is from 12-6pm at the offices of Akerman Senterfitt, One SE Third Ave. Miami, FL 33131. More details are here and registration is here.
The event focuses on developing new, more effective strategies in social entrepreneurship and my presentation is in part based on the course in social entrepreneurship I taught at the MIT Sloan School in January. First slide is below:
“Altruism has a credibility problem in an industry that thrives on intense commercial competition”
I have been invited to give a lecture on the Austrian school of economics, public good and social justice. I have been thinking about public good and social justice for the last two years as I struggle with the issue of whether social entrepreneurship can scale. Much of the challenge comes from reconciling the role of the individual, government and free markets or capitalism.
Fortunately, I have gained much insight from the writings of Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel laureate economist and political philosopher. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises are the two intellectual giants of the Austrian school of economics. Their thoughts on the individual, government and free markets are very well explained in this article by Professor Linda C. Raeder, "The Liberalism/Conservatism Of Edmund Burke and F. A. Hayek: A Critical Comparison". Burke is an 18th century philosopher and political theorist.
If you are interested to better understand the philosophy of Joseph Schumpeter and Milton Friedman, the article will be very helpful. If you are looking for a way to understand "social" ventures in a way that is less normative or moral and more economics the article provides some insights.
Many have recently written on the end of the industrial age of mass production and the new economy that is emerging. Seth Godin's article is particularly good and another post from Business Insider is equally thoughtful. My first post on the subject, "A Future of Individuals", is here.
Most commentators agree that jobs in big business (and perhaps government) will be greatly reduced and that individuals will need to manage their economic survival much more aggressively. Few have offered plans for how to do this, so I share a few thoughts:
Ideas will be the product of the 21st century. Executable ideas will be the most valuable because they produce economic and social benefits. Pure theory in general will be less valuable because there is so much data and information available to quickly test theories.
Successful people will demonstrate great skill in using digital media to disseminate there ideas, whether it be e-books, blogs, webinars or old fashion conferences. Success may be more dependent on digital media skills than on the quality of ideas. Remember several people typically have a new idea at the same time. As the world becomes more connected greater access to information will spawn more ideas....and more entrepreneurship.
Qualifications will no longer be the exclusive domain of universities. The various approaches of online learning and app stores will create a much more "informal" system of recognition and certification that may become the norm. The lower cost of these offerings may accelerate the trend.
Entrepreneurship and self-employment are the strategies most likely to succeed if you are not inclined to do manual labor (which will always be required). Such approaches put the responsibility for your economic and social well being squarely in your own hands. Israel Kirzner explained entrepreneurship as "the asymetry of information" or in the vernacular as "a unique insight". As information proliferates and is more widely available the opportunities for an "asymetry" should increase greatly. This is perhaps the good news, but remember there will be a lot more people looking for these asymetries.
Solutions to social problems will increasingly be the "big market opportunity". The social problems are scaling much faster than the resources governments can bring to bear. While "do good" is popular today, in the future the slogan may be "it's a market, not a mission". C.K. Prahalad introduced this idea perhaps as early as 2002 in his book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid". Prahalad argued that market driven solutions could alleviate poverty and its related problems.
Capital organization has traditionally been viewed as silos: government, non-profits, Wall Street type capital markets. For many of the opportunities of the 21st century, I think this silo system will breakdown and different sources of capital will come together. Social entrepreneurship and certain investment theses at Deutsche Bank may be examples of this trend. Organizing capital in this multi-dimensional environment is a new and valuable skill which should spawn a new branch of the finacial industry. Doing this capital organizing at different requirement levels will generate a lot of new jobs in much the same way that investment banks of all sizes have proliferated in the last ten years.
"However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays." New York TimesNot just the manufacturing jobs but all the design, engineering and logistics jobs.
"In any democratic nation with the freedom of speech, information can never be as strongly regulated by the public as our food, water, and air. Yet information is just as vital to our survival as the other three things we consume. That’s why personal responsibility in an age of mostly free information is vital to individual and social health." Clay Johnson The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious ConsumptionfromBrain Pickings
“One of my central mathetic tenets is that the construction that takes place “in the head” often happens especially felicitously when it is supported by construction of a more public son “in the world” – a sand castle or a cake, a LEGO house or a corporation, a computer program, a poem, or a theory of the universe. Part of what I mean by “in the world” is that the product can be shown, discussed, examined, probed, and admired. It is out there.” Seymour Papert The Daily Papert
In a recent paper, "A conceptual overview of What We Know About Social Entrepreneurship", the authors (Brigitte Hoogendoorn, Enrico Pennings, Roy Thurik) describe four schools of thought on social entrepreneurship. These four schools demonstrate, in part, that there is no apparent academic consensus on the definition of social entrepreneurship. Given the lack of consensus, I will not bother to define each school of thought (read the paper), particularly given that I find all the definitions lacking.
Where I agree with the authors is in the following statement:
"The [four] approaches ... share one main commonality: their emphasis on the creation of social value. While it is a long-held belief that entrepreneurs contribute positively to society, it is motivation and the relative importance of social value creation (as opposed to economic value creation) that distinguishes social entrepreneurs from commercial entrepreneurs (Hoogendoorn, 2011)."
The social entrepreneur looks to maximize value creation (relative importance). In the value creation-value capture framework, if one maximizes value creation then one foregoes maximizing value capture. Effectively, in social entrepreneurship value is transferred from the shareholders (in the for-profit model) by foregoing maximum profit in favor of creating more social value. In the non-profit model of social entrepreneurship, the cash position is reduced in favor of creating more social value.
Much of my thinking on social entrepreneurship is based on a paper by Felipe Santos, "A Positive Theory of Social Entrepreneurship". Santos is a Professor at INSEAD. One might argue that Santos represents a fifth school of thought on social entrepreneurship. Santos basically says that social entrepreneurship is the maximizing of value creation and satisficing for value capture. One foregoes value capture up to the point where cash flow or profit is self-sustaining in favor of creating more social value.
I prefer Santos definition because I think it forms the basis for a management approach to social entrepreneurship. More on this idea in my upcoming book.
Two friends sent me a link to this article from Huffington Post, "It's Harder to run a Non-profit than a Company". The article is written by Aaron Hurst, the founder of the Taproot Foundation and a two-time startup entrepreneur. Mr. Hurst's bio describes him as "a globally recognized social innovator and leading architect of the growing pro bono services movement". The article has an interesting theme but I disagree with several points. Hurst's points are below in bold, followed by my commentary.
You can't afford to pay the top price to attract top talent. The age old mantra is that non-profits have to have low salaries in order to maximize the money invested in social services. Essentially the non-profit takes advantage of people's desire to do good and therefore is able to secure staff at lower salaries. What is overlooked in this logic is the best people, presumably higher priced, are more efficient, require less staff and are able to develop more effective operating models. Net, net, the best people are cheaper because of the better results produced. Board members should be able to understand this logic, and if they cannot, you have the wrong Board. One other point, a lot of very good people are now looking for jobs. Many positions in non-profits can be staffed by high quality part-time workers who should be priced at attractive rates.
There is just as much competition but you are expected to not talk about it or openly engage in competitive behavior. I agree with Hurst here. Competition is fierce in social services not just from other non-profits competing for donations and targeting the same folks in need, but also increasingly from for-profit companies that find the same "markets" attractive. Again, refusing to recognize the competition is a legacy from the old days where many "do gooders" think of "business" as a dirty word. At a foundation I know well, the competition is Intel, Microsoft, HP, Dell and ten other for-profit companies. The foundation faces these competitors every day in government bids. These governments frequently discuss competitor offerings and the foundation positions themselves to focus on their non-profit status, superior product and history in child learning. The reality is that every product/service has competition and discussions of competition may foster greater clarity of mission with stakeholders.
Your board requires a lot more investment of your time and energy. Hurst is probably correct here, but I suggest that you separate board seats and donors. One way to achieve this separation may be to focus more on corporate donors and less on high net worth individuals. In my experience corporates are less likely to link donations to board seats.
There is no market for growth capital. I think Hurst has underestimated the growing number of investors and venture capitalists interested in social-based investing. Perhaps the business model he uses needs to change to a social entrepreneurship model rather than a donation model. Social entrepreneurship is not the perfect capital raising model but it provides a lot more flexibility in financing than relying only on donations.
You have more customers (stakeholders). I disagree here. As Hurst knows well, one should focus on the market served. Everybody else is secondary, although it may take some time for donors and staff to fully realize the benefits of such an approach.
Failure can lead to real impact on the lives of real people. If your company fails, you lose money. When you fail in a social sector endeavor, you've failed to improve our society and improve the lives of your fellow citizens. You've failed in realizing your vision of creating a better world. I would point out that when for-profit companies fail employee lives are disrupted and products and services that benefit society are also lost. The point here is that organizations should focus on their mission and not be confused by the notion of "doing good". Key performance indicators and the reported or realized results are what improve lives and "doing good" is just a part of the marketing message. It may be a powerful message but it is just a message.
Mr. Hurst's article appears to assume that non-profits rely almost exclusively on donations. I would point out that many social entrepreneurship ventures are also non-profits. A social entrepreneurship model may avoid many of the legacy issues of non-profits, such as board seats linked to donations, "business" as a dirty word and "doing good" as opposed to a results orientation. Perhaps Mr. Hurst just needs to bring more of his entrepreneurial experience to his management philosophy in social services. More on social entrepreneurship here and here.
The views expressed here are my personal views and do not represent the views of any organization with whom I am affiliated.
One of the most valuable things I learned in business school (over 30 years ago) was the "Smart Man" theory. The theory says that when you cannot figure out something, assume the other person is very smart. An application of the theory follows.
There are two trends that are increasingly shaping the future:
Non-government agencies are increasingly addressing the major social problems; NGOs, non-profits and social entrepreneurship ventures are all examples
Entrepreneurship and its little brother self-employment are increasingly being used as the means to develop and manage economic well being; entrepreneurship is now being taught in high schools and is one of the most popular subjects at many universities
What do these two trends have in common? Smart Man Answer: In each case the traditional role of the government is being supplanted by a more viable alternative.
In the case of social problems, private capital is being mobilized to address issues that can no longer be ignored. Porter's "shared value" is one example of this thinking. Another example is a foundation in Nicaragua that has undertaken the role of modernizing primary school education.
In the case of the popularity of entrepreneurship, what is recognized at the most fundamental level is that entrepreneurship allows one to control their life to the maximum allowed. One is no longer dependent on a government (or corporations) for their well being.
What do these thoughts suggest about the future? The role of government can be reduced because the people have recognized and started organizing for a world in which big governments do not solve every problem. On an international level this idea would suggest, as some have said, that cities will replace federal governments as the major political and social force. Every trip overseas, I see state and city governments taking on the role historically filled by a federal government.
The irony is that such a world closely approximates a Jeffersonian democracy of limited government. We are going back to an idea that was crafted and communicated over 200 years ago. Why do I insert the idea of democracy? Mobilizing private capital for social issues and entrepreneurship both rely on individual empowerment and the unencumbered freedom to act, which eventually will produce a democracy.
I have written about why I teach here and here. I spoke at the University of San Diego last week and received the email below.
"Mr. Hacker,
Yesterday was my best day in business school. That sound you heard halfway through the class was my paradigm completely shattering after learning what OLPC is doing, its impact, and its potential. I hope you realize you are spreading more than just education to the children, you are spreading enormous hope to the adults.
As I mentioned as you were leaving, I got excited about OLPC for a number of reasons: 1) Doing something good in the world, something that truly matters, is what I did in the Marine Corps and I am determined to continue doing so in my professional career, 2) I taught Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy and I have seen the inherent power of education, 3) productive education from the ground up, can reduce the amount of conflict in our world resulting in, ideally, sending fewer and fewer people (on all sides) into harm's way, and 4) my daughter is two years old and I am absolutely focused on making, and leaving, a better world for her.
Before yesterday, I thought it would be a cold day in heck before I considered doing anything with a nonprofit. Today, I can't think of anything I would be more excited to be part of. If there is a way I can get involved with OLPC, please let me know."
HOO RAAH! OLPC can always use a "few good men" or women.
One of the concepts I teach in my entrepreneurship class is that a new business concept is really just a hypothesis until annual revenues reach about $10 million. Too many entrepreneurs lock on to an initial idea of who their customer is and run out of cash before they find a customer base of sufficient size to sustain the company. By considering a new business concept a hypothesis I am trying to encourage my students to be more flexible in their thinking, to realize that their initial thinking may be wrong and to be on the lookout for a better market for their product.
In 2005 I helped raise the initial Series A venture capital for a location-based services company--LOC-AID. LOC-AID originally planned to target the large carriers and offer them location-based games, geo-fencing products and related consumer apps. The longer term strategy was to provide a gateway for consumers to share their location regardless of the cell carrier they used (in 2005 this sharing was not possible). Neither of these strategies appear to have ever worked, but in building the gateway LOC-AID found its customer and market. It was neither the consumer nor the cell carriers.
Read Write Mobilereports that LOC-AID is now one of the largest providers of location-based information. Their customer base is now financial institutions and other firms that use location as an additional way to verify security. For example, a credit card is presented to a merchant in San Francisco but the card holder's cell phone location shows that they are in NYC. FRAUD ALERT. LOC-AID's gateway to all the carriers provides a location on almost all cell phones in the U.S. for financial institutions. Other examples are in the RWM story.
A couple of other points to note:
We presented LOC-AID to over 20 leading Silicon Valley VCs, who all passed, before finding a lead investor on the east coast
The consumer is not the only market for all of this modern technology; B2B applications can be large markets if you are flexible enough in your thinking to find the new opportunities
Harvard Business School produces a lot of high quality research, frequently distributed through their own publications such as Harvard Business Review. Some of it is thought provoking and some of it is seminal work in the field. Examples of seminal work would include the early work of Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen.
The article states that market capitalism may breakdown within the next 25 years and become disfunctional for the following reasons:
Increasing inequality in wealth distribution
Increasing immigration to rich countries
Fragile financial systems
Climate change and environmental degradation
Continuing degradation in education and healthcare
Increasing government corruption that disrupts free markets
The traditional protectors--business, government and international institutions--can no longer manage the problems
While this analysis may appear to just be the liberal thinking of a few academics, the near collapse of world financial markets in 2008 suggests to me that the professors should not be ignored.
The proposed solution is "the creation of entities that can organize large-scale collective action" that disrupt markets through innovative solutions. Implicit in this proposal is rejection of the idea that only governments are responsible for collective action. The historical black and white distinction between government and businesses in determining the "public interest" must be loosened. According to the article, many business leaders are afraid to wade into the area of the public interest, perhaps more comfortable operating only on the basis of self-interest. The authors conclude that capitalism may be lost if business leaders cannot change to take a more active role in the "public interest".
The seminal idea is to develop a framework that facilitates this change in business thinking to embrace the public good without abandoning responsibilities to shareholders. Some may think of Porter's "shared value" as a solution, but I think his approach is merely incrementalism. Rather than starting from Porter's perspective of competitive advantage, the framework needs to start by defining the public good. Economists have argued about the definition of public good for centuries, but businesses rarely discuss the theme. We do not need to reconcile the views of Hayek, Friedman and Keynes. Perhaps all we need is a definition that businesses can accept and an HBS framework that helps CEOs to understand the issues and act to solve the wide ranging problems before it is too late. A thoughtful discussion of the public good would also probably lead to a re-definition of the role of government and a more effective and smaller style of government. That would be a daunting task but maybe business could frame the issue in terms of the public good. My thoughts on public good are here.
Note: Porter's "shared value", the article discussed above and the work of Christensen and others at HBS in education indicate a new trend at HBS which has not been much in evidence in HBS publications for the 30 years I have been a reader. Simply put, I think the professors at HBS are encouraging capitalists to take over many of the traditional roles of government or at least to pursue profitable opportunities that previously were government responsibilities. I very much like that idea if my interpretation is correct.
Just a reminder that this archive of articles on entrepreneurship is updated frequently. The original post and the link to the archive are below. Recently the articles have been on strategy and the customer value proposition.
"I have shared the articles here that I send to my entrepreneurship students during the semester. Will add articles during the remainder of the semester and in future semesters. The mix is mostly blog posts and videos. Naturally it is a bit eclectic and reflects my interest in design as a model for innovation, social entrepreneurship and venture capital amongst other topics.
I used Evernote to make the articles available. Evernote is excellent for organizing large amounts of information."
This week I spoke in Mexico City in Spanish about One Laptop per Child to USEM (Spanish link; English link). USEM is an organization of business owners that use Christian principles for social good and has 26 chapters throughout Mexico. The members support a wide range of social projects related to children, family, education, entrepreneurship and the environment. It is especially enjoyable to speak to like minded people and I would like to thank USEM for the opportunity to speak to their members.
The members of USEM recognize that to achieve social change there are three requirements:
the will to make a meaningful change
the capital to carry out the program
the scale to make a significant difference
Implicit in my three requirements for social change is a recognition by USEM that the private sector cannot wait for the government to address all the social issues.
USEM is the Mexico branch of Uniapac, a worldwide organization of business owners in 25 countries devoted to social change through Christian principles.
My second book deals with social entrepreneurship and uses examples from my time with OLPC . After Grameen Bank, OLPC may be the next largest company using the social entrepreneurship model. Social entrepreneurship is in its infancy as a concept and deserves further explanation. The need is all the more important now that Michael Porter's concept of "shared value" is getting so much publicity. I am about 3/4 of the way through writing the book and should finish it this summer or as soon as I stop traveling nearly every week.
I am also thinking about a third book on assumptions and their role in innovation. Anyone interested in helping with the research should contact me.
