The @SoCap09 Twitter stream from their recent conference got me thinking about the hype surrounding social enterprise. There is, no doubt, a lot of it. I’m guilty of contributing.
As I pondered the excitement I’ve witnessed in this sector, I was reminded of the changes that I’ve both experienced and read about in the technology sector. The analogy, I think, is incredibly telling. So before we dive in, a quick story…
For decades prior to the 1980s, “Information Technology” consisted of mainframes and supercomputers so large that they filled warehouses and so expensive that they were only accessible to major corporations and institutions.
The mid-1980s and Moore’s Law brought computers that were smaller and more affordable. PCs became ubiquitous, the internet began to take off, and corporations began investing massive amounts of money in rebuilding their organizations around a PC-enabled (known as “client-server”), internet-connected architecture that promised to increase workplace productivity by orders of magnitude.
Like the industrial revolution, we were on the verge of a new era that would bring even greater prosperity and forever change our world.
Not so fast. At first, the promised gains in productivity didn’t seem to be materializing. In 1987, Robert Solow, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, famously quipped, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” For awhile it looked like the IT revolution might just be a sham.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there. By the late 1990s, computers did finally seem to be having an impact on productivity. But why the lag? As it turns out, it takes organizations time to understand and adjust to new technologies in order to fully leverage their hyped-up potential. The idea of a “Technology Digestion Period” was born.
Perhaps as a result of watching people slowly digest new technologies, The Gartner Group (an IT research group and consultancy) created a beautiful thing called the Gartner Hype Cycle back in 1995.
Hype cycles “characterize the over-enthusiasm or ‘hype’ and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies…Hype Cycles also show how and when technologies move beyond the hype, offer practical benefits and become widely accepted.”
Here is one below for emerging technologies. Note the five phases listed at the bottom.
As it turns out, hype cycles are incredibly useful and readily transferable to other disciplines beyond IT. Here is one for public relations (unofficial, of course).
I’d like to suggest that we need to create one for social innovation, as well. We can do it together. Here is our blank page to start with.
- Where would you put the dot for microfinance? Perhaps on its way down from the “Peak of Inflated Expectations”?
- How about the dot for social or patient capital? That is probably right at the peak, yeah?
- Social impact metrics? On their way up the peak, maybe?
- Social entrepreneurship generally?
- What else am I missing?
Put your comments at the bottom and I’ll create a real Social Enterprise Hype Cycle to publish in the coming weeks.
The point here is that social enterprise as a space – as a movement – is young and immature. For the most part, we don’t really know what we’re doing yet or where we’ll end up.
I am a firm believer that we’ll reach the Plateau of Productivity and that social enterprise will, indeed, change our world. But in the meantime, beware the peaks and valleys! In particular, do not give up when we reach that Trough of Disillusionment. It’s coming – it’s only a matter of time – but we’ll need the continued help of each and every last one of you to realize this shared vision of a better world where business is a powerful force for positive change.
Contributor Profile: Mike Shoemaker
Mike is a graduate of St. Olaf College in Minnesota and a former Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. Mike currently manages strategic alliances for a global consulting firm, is a volunteer and advisor to The Ayllu Initiative, and blogs at Human Ventures.
Twitter: @soccapital
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Really interesting post, thanks for sharing.
When I see the “emerging tech hype cycle” my inclination is to question placement of items – what the hell is behavioral economics doing there? Idea management?! Cloud computing is so broad a term – how could we place it on a chart? Even with these issues, the PR chart looks like the gibberish in comparison. I could sit here all day and argue about what’s on this chart, and I venture my opinions would vary significantly with thousands of others who could do the same thing. Doing this exercise on something as contentious as social enterprise would magnify the arguments that will come. The Gartner charts might look “beautiful” and “elegant” but we should be very wary of such words when applied to inherently complex issues (see as an analogy Krugman’s argument in NYT “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong” as economists looked for elegant mathematics to model complex human behaviors).
BUT this all might be quibbling – I think what you are trying to do is still a valuable exercise if for nothing more than asking us all to think critically about where social enterprise is going, the potential “backlash” and disillusionment, what an “enlightened” public might do for social enterprise and what that might mean for the world and the people that inhabit it. You are absolutely right that we should “beware the peaks and valleys” – and do what we can to prepare for the valleys. I would argue that social impact metrics are things that can we can do to tprepare and bring us out of the trough of disillusionment as a stronger field. So let’s do it!
Here are some other terms to add/place: impact investing, social capital markets, SRI, microinsurance
I’ll keep watching how this goes.
Great comments, Jake. Thanks so much. And thanks for the additional suggestions.
To your point, what makes the hype cycle “beautiful” is not the accuracy or truth it represents. My understanding is that, even when created by Gartner, they are merely meant to be illustrative and directional, rather than precise or perfect. They help provide perspective on how new “technologies” evolve and spark conversation and debate. This is exactly what I’d hope to accomplish with a SocEnt Hype Cycle.
Economists, as you and Krugman’s article note, have made the grave error of taking their “elegant” models too seriously. In sociology speak, they “reify” them. I think any honest economist will tell you that models are also, at best, illustrative, because they are incapable of representing the complexity of our world, particularly over the long-term. Nassim Taleb, while not an economist, does an amazing job of showing this in his book, The Black Swan.
[...] Is Social Enterprise Over-Hyped? (via SocialEarth) – Mike poses an interesting question regarding the hype that surrounds the social enterprise space, and asks where we really are in terms of sector development. He correlates the hype that surrounded the IT movement to that which currently surrounds the social enterprise movement. The graphical representation is the Gartner Hype Cycle, which was introduced in 1995 to describe the evolution of the technology sector. Hype cycles “characterize the over-enthusiasm or ‘hype’ and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies…Hype Cycles also show how and when technologies move beyond the hype, offer practical benefits and become widely accepted.” [...]
[...] Is Social Enterprise Over-Hyped? [...]
A great post and i agree with Jake that thinking about peaks and valleys is critical. That said, much of what is happening in the social enterprise space is very old. The current wave of interest has a lot to do with money. What is critical is our ability to “count” the social part of social enterprise. That said, anyone starting a business in Lagos or Kigali is a social entrepreneur because the work they are doing is critical to establishing a stable economy so does starting a business in the developing world count as a dot on a hype chart? Thanks again for the provoking frame for thinking about this work.
q Social Enterprise and entrepreneurial frame
Social Enterprise and Entrepreneur, though different terms, have been deciphered at different places in any English dictionary. But these English words, though coined by different persons at different times under different, back drops, are so inter-related in between and inter-dependent on each other that one can never be understood properly in exclusive isolation from the other or without their mutual reference. . ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT Two types of skills have been found to be of special importance to the process of technological innovation viz. technical skills, and marketing and managerial skills. Developing entrepreneurial skills among the persons with scientific and technical qualifications has been one possible approach for stimulating technological innovations for development. Entrepreneurship development programmes facilitate development of human resources for selfemployment by setting up small-scale industries
An indigenous infrastructure for science and technology is an essential prerequisite for innovation and bringing technological change for economic development. In addition, to labour and capital, innovation has become an essential element of economic growth, as it is a critical factor for the survival and growth of most industrial enterprises.
Science and technology contributes to the process of development by making innovations, discoveries and improvements in productivity. Developing an approach for human resource development for scientific and technological manpower for development would require an understanding of the skill/training implications at the various stages of the process of innovation, transfer of technology, and technological change. In particular, at the level of a firm, suitable training programmes and steps would be required to develop knowledge and skills at various stages of innovation. Technology means a way of doing things, more specifically, a way of increasing human capability to perform an activity. Technology transfer means the movement of a technological system from one place to another. The possible types of transfer are:
* Imitation
No modification. The technology is transferred from one environment to another where the new environment is so similar to the old that no modification to either the technology or its environments is required.
* Adaptation
Modify the technology. In this case, in order to be compatible with its new environment, modifications are made to the technology system.
The word Enterprise literally means to try for something, which remain still untried. Hence a strong willingness of a person or a group of persons to take up any venture with energy and initiative, assuming certain calculated risks, involved there in due to uncertainties, lays the foundation of any Enterprise.
The basic objective of any Business Enterprise is to satisfy human needs and wants by way of providing Goods and Services, comprehensively termed as Products, through their distribution in exchange of money, a phrase coined under current economic system. Such business transaction must ensure to yield adequate surplus to generate profits, calculated as excess of returns over the operational and other expenses, incurred for the purpose of carrying on any business activities to achieve its desired objectives and the ultimate goal or a set of goals of the Enterprise.
As such the profit may be viewed as the foremost and the most important yardstick to measure the short-term results of performances of any business enterprise during a stipulated period of operating cycle(s) time. Thus the profits in terms of currency coins and the motive behind its maximization only just act as a parameter for its short-term operational success.
Thus it transpires that not just the profit and the profit motive but Emulation or Innovation defines universal parameter of the entrepreneurial functions for all times to come. Such functions, in turn, culminate into production activities of an Enterprise and its producibility to capture the customers and the consumers, since created, within its compass
Science and technology contributes to the process of development by making innovations, discoveries and improvements in productivity. Developing an approach for human resource development for scientific and technological manpower for development would require an understanding of the skill/training implications at the various stages of the process of innovation, transfer of technology, and technological change. In particular, at the level of a firm, suitable training programmes and steps would be required to develop knowledge and skills at various stages of innovation.
Emulation means imitating the techniques, methods, processes and procedures adopted by some other established business enterprise or enterprises of any country or abroad; while Innovation prompts to undertake researches to evolve something new by combining available resources, remaining still untapped, or, exploring the possibilities of alternative uses of resources, generated in any Enterprise in course of its operation but lying still idle. Such emulative or innovative efforts of permanent nature really count not only towards setting-up of a new Enterprise but also towards its survival by way of diversifying o modernizing or expanding activities of any on-going Enterprise to cope with the contemporary needs and wants of the people, arising out of socio-economic and socio-cultural progress of the human society under the currently globalize system of economy.
Satisfying the needs and wants of the people makes room for creation of customers and consumers, that is, people, rephrased in any economic system, and this being of perennial nature plays the most vital and highly dominant role in the long-term survival of any Business Enterprise. This leads to Creativity, which in turn, opens and doors for Emulation and /or Innovation.an Enterprise may be defined, in fine, to have thee vital and most importance parameters, viz.(i) creation of Market and Finalization of Marketing principles(ii)choice of Technology(material/machine/man)relating to production and productivity and (iii)finally profits(money). An Enterprise should therefore, be understood and explained in terms of 5M’s i.e. Market/Material/Machine/Man/Money and all together. The people set up business enterprise, for the people and of the people.
A project for any Enterprise should, therefore, take necessary cares for all those four predominant parameters of perennial nature and one of short term taken together, depending entirely upon the Entrepreneurial abilities and functions.
The new education policy emphasized education for developing competence in terms of knowledge and skills in relation to opportunities of employment in the context of a particular pattern and rate of development. It took cognizance of the problem of brain drain of the S&T personnel and stressed the need of more socially relevant technical education and undertaking research and development to couple it with the needs of the entrepreneurs. With a view to attract best talents in the science education, there is a national science talent search scheme which aims to pick best brains when young and provide them encouragement to take courses in the field of science and technology. Thus a project may be termed as the dynamic living element to bridge the gap, whenever arises in between the Enterprise and an Entrepreneur in course of establishing as well as running the same with commercial success.
Human resources are the key to the process of economic development. Any approach to develop human resources for development through science and technology should aim at the utilization of these resources for more productive activity. It should also facilitate the fullest possible development of skills and knowledge of the labour force relevant to such activity.
Technology means a way of doing things, more specifically, a way of increasing human capability to perform an activity. Technology transfer means the movement of a technological system from one place to another. The possible types of transfer are:
* Imitation
No modification. The technology is transferred from one environment to another where the new environment is so similar to the old that no modification to either the technology or its environments is required.
* Adoption
Modify the environment. When a firm or country is desirous of acquiring a new technology, it may have to modify existing systems in order to allow the new one to fit in.
Modify the technology. In this case, in order to be compatible with its new environment, modifications are made to the technology system.
MODIFY BOTH THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE TECHNOLOGY
In practice, none are simple alternatives. Even simple copying may require considerable knowledge, skills and support systems. In adopting new technology, workers may need to be retrained or even trained for the first time. For adaptation, the technology needs to be adapted to suit specific requirements.
The scientific and technical human resources participate in the process of technological innovation both as generator of ideas and new research (through the R&D enterprise) as well as vehicles of technological change and diffusion of technologies for economic development.
Education including training and practical experience learning by doing, is one of the most effective means of transferring technology industry should be worked out at the operating levels.
Training should provide the necessary skills required to cope with the technical complexities of the imported machines. Full details of training programmes need to be specified in contracts covering their duration, qualification requirements, number of persons and the period
· Economic services development planning and surveys of economic and industrial potential.
· Management services to review and evaluate objectives and goals of a particular project etc.
· Training programmes to train the local work force to take over and operate equipment.
q ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
q Two types of skills have been found to be of special importance to the process of technological innovation viz. technical skills, and marketing and managerial skills. Developing entrepreneurial skills among the persons with scientific and technical qualifications has been one possible approach for stimulating technological innovations for development. Entrepreneurship development programmes facilitate development of human resources for selfemployment by setting up small-scale industries)
q Application of science and technology for the improvement of standards of living of those engaged in traditional activities, particularly, household technologies. The potential impact on employment was considered an important criterion in the choice of technologies. In the decentralized sector, it emphasized to diversify labour, take steps to reduce drudgery and upgrade technologies relevant to the cottage, village and small industries sector.
q In late eighties, the new education policy emphasized education for developing competence in terms of knowledge and skills in relation to opportunities of employment in the context of a particular pattern and rate of development. It took cognizance of the problem of brain drain of the S&T personnel and stressed the need of more socially relevant technical education and undertaking research and development to couple it with the needs of the entrepreneurs. With a view to attract best talents in the science education, there is a national science talent search scheme which aims to pick best brains when young and provide them encouragement to take courses in the field of science and technology.
q NEED TO SOCIALIZE MSME
q With forming communities with poor marginal farmers who resides at rural areas and projects and its relevance for the present day for promotion of livelihoods
q Economics for the voiceless marginalized poor develops through empowerment. , Methodology to achieve and to reach set objectives for bettering the economic social conditions of poor transforming voiceless and marginalized poor peoples as strong, powerful, asset owners and agents for change through good new self governance system, working with a bottom up approach on the lines –for the people by the people and to the PEOPLE FOR PROJECTS.. The women by forming self help groups with the help of governments, NGOC, banks MNC’S so formed and developed:
q The salient revolution that had swept the world by poor destitute voiceless forming into women self help for their credit needs formed and stormed a New era new history a new space and a new approach for the government compelling for following a new methodology for any governments for involving poor peoples in planning managing and running their own institutions initiatives for bettering their life’s. CAPACITY TO CREATE WEALTH:
q “ Where people capable of optimal utilization of the limited scare resources by creating enterprenuralship awareness by building business systems, building governance capacity among poor, building transaction governance through transparency, access, contractual obligations.”
q Women are critical for development of entrepreneurs through self-help group CAPACITY TO CREATE WEALTH:
q
q Create knowledge for them
q Create small information base for them
q Create distribution network for them
q Create incentive structure for them
q Create first generation entrepreneurs.
q Co- Create Wealth/ Rural Income
q Co-Create rural/ urban links.
q Co-Create mass based systems as partners.
q Co-create network to journey for utilization with new product, process and services.
q Create small entrepreneurs within a big entrepreneurial frame.
Think big, start small and scale fast through BOPP entrepreneurs
Female work force dominates in selected manufacturing. Moreover, the recent trends show that women are increasingly taking up challenges and deeper involvement in micro enterprises, small-scale household cottage industries, and other business activities in the informal sector. This expansion of women’s participation in income and employment generating activities contributes to national income and family welfare and at the same time empowers women both economically and socially – access to income earning opportunities, enhances women’s status both at home and in the community.
The reasons for such increased women’s participation in economic activities are manifold. Poverty is one major factor, other include spread of literacy and education, late marriages and decline in fertility, rising cost of living and economic pressure, improvement in transport and communication, privatization and opening up of economies, and advocacy and concretization for mainstreaming women into the overall socio-economic development in the countries. Women’s record of performance as managers of micro-enterprises is noteworthy especially on one account; they have proven them self’s creditworthy and dependable borrowers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and elsewhere.