We launched the website for Chain Reaction
yesterday - an event to bring people who wouldn't otherwise meet,
together to change the world. The idea is that people passionate
about social change, from business, government and charity get together
to find new ways of being effective. It'll be on the 17th /18th November on the Southbank in London.
Our basic process is connect, collaborate and commit. If you'd like to be part of it, please log on and register. The focus is going is to be very much on the practical action to make these new ideas real. It won't be the usual plenary then workshop style. We're going to have a few speakers and activities to get the creative juices going. Then the focus is going to be on working on the best ideas that come out. They'll be specialists in strategy, brands, marketing, research, digital media, etc. Participants can choose what they want to get involved with, and then the groups around ideas can use all the resources available to get them going.
At the moment I'm trying to put together some of the technology we need. Basically we want people to be able to SMS their ideas in to a website (and screen behind the speaker) and then a way of voting on which people think best. If you have any contacts who could help us enable this, that'd be really useful.
Our basic process is connect, collaborate and commit. If you'd like to be part of it, please log on and register. The focus is going is to be very much on the practical action to make these new ideas real. It won't be the usual plenary then workshop style. We're going to have a few speakers and activities to get the creative juices going. Then the focus is going to be on working on the best ideas that come out. They'll be specialists in strategy, brands, marketing, research, digital media, etc. Participants can choose what they want to get involved with, and then the groups around ideas can use all the resources available to get them going.
At the moment I'm trying to put together some of the technology we need. Basically we want people to be able to SMS their ideas in to a website (and screen behind the speaker) and then a way of voting on which people think best. If you have any contacts who could help us enable this, that'd be really useful.
This was the question posed by a group of business people at an event by Business in the Community last week.
Well it was nice to be asked, but it got me thinking. What do social entrepreneurs want from our Corporate big brothers? Pro-bono (latin for freebie) support has certainly been crucial to the the start-up of Auction My Stuff, but even more importantly I reckon, is when we've been given the opportunity to bid for work, and show just how proffesional a social enterprise can be.
At the moment I'm looking around to see whether we should start a new social enterprise. There are lots of tempting distractions from the fundamental question 'can I sell something to make the world a bit better?'. Not least the Department of Health's £100m Social Enterprise Fund. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, in fact I think that social enterprises really need some simple sources of start-up finance. Just that it's so easy to let the grants skew you off course into creating something that isn't really sustainable.
So to go back to the question 'what do we want?' - well I think it's the chance to bid for work that we can create innovative and proffessional social enterprises around. I am more than aware that this isn't as simple as it sounds. Social enterprises tend to be small, young and poorly resorced - not exaclty you ideal supplier. However if big businesses and government is serious about supporting social enterprise, they need to identify some contracts that they feel can be better served by social enterprises and invite them to tender.
Well it was nice to be asked, but it got me thinking. What do social entrepreneurs want from our Corporate big brothers? Pro-bono (latin for freebie) support has certainly been crucial to the the start-up of Auction My Stuff, but even more importantly I reckon, is when we've been given the opportunity to bid for work, and show just how proffesional a social enterprise can be.
At the moment I'm looking around to see whether we should start a new social enterprise. There are lots of tempting distractions from the fundamental question 'can I sell something to make the world a bit better?'. Not least the Department of Health's £100m Social Enterprise Fund. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, in fact I think that social enterprises really need some simple sources of start-up finance. Just that it's so easy to let the grants skew you off course into creating something that isn't really sustainable.
So to go back to the question 'what do we want?' - well I think it's the chance to bid for work that we can create innovative and proffessional social enterprises around. I am more than aware that this isn't as simple as it sounds. Social enterprises tend to be small, young and poorly resorced - not exaclty you ideal supplier. However if big businesses and government is serious about supporting social enterprise, they need to identify some contracts that they feel can be better served by social enterprises and invite them to tender.
Jules shows HRH HTML
An exciting day at Auction My Stuff, as our young people discovered that I owned a suit!
An exciting day at Auction My Stuff, as our young people discovered that I owned a suit!
All is excitement at Auction My Stuff at the moment, as we are getting
ready for our first birthday. And not just because of the cake
(well actually mainly the cake, and the fact that we're still here to
eat it!), but we're having a special guest coming too. Much of
the buzz comes from the speculation as to who it might be, as for
security reasons I've been told I can't tell anyone who it is!
All everyone knows is that if they want to be here next Thursday, they
have to give in their name and address to be checked out! The
smart money seems to be on Madonna, but I don't know how many social
enterprises she visits!
