Selling or Connecting?

Social enterprises probably find it more difficult to translate what they are selling to customers. Why? Because, often times what you are selling is not a computer, sandwich, or care service. If you want to really connect with great customers and reach sustainability you need to take your business to next level and get out [...]

New Year, Customer Focus

Ahhh! A new year. A time to restart the engines, refocus the efforts and grow your enterprise to support your mission.

We often talk about not being everything to everyone because you likely end up being nothing to nobody. What’s also true is that you can make your message to specific or focus too specific that [...]

Irrational Exubarence? Or A Great Approach?

Too often, I meet people who consider optimism some kind of childish or naive behavior. It is somehow established in the British psyche that skepticism is directly correlated to intelligence. Ha!I was happy to see a coherent explanation of why optimism is really a good approach to problems and not simply some delusional behavior. Please [...]

Spending time with the DTA (Y&H)

I just spent 24 hours (or nearly) with a collection (13) of the largest Development Trusts in the Yorkshire & Humber. I came away more energised about the movement. I was in attendance as a partner (The Camberwell Project), so it did feel a bit like crashing a wedding with many of the attendees catching [...]

“The finalists tell Peter Brown how management skills can be put to a higher purpose”

Ok. It’s in the Independent, but it is the Association of MBAs. I hope that MBAs will find that social enterprise is also a way forward. The charity and ngo sectors have always attracted talent from traditionally private sector pools at top schools, but this kind of press may signal a broader movement to social [...]

Bootstrapping…for business

I am always looking for ways to outsmart the big guys and that usually involves some form of clever bootstrapping. (I think this may be a particularly American phrase; it means to do more with less!) Readers might find the Bootstrapping blog helpful. I just ran across it, so I am not yet singing its [...]

Who Knew? Jesus Rocks!

Wow! I actually had a great time at a fundraising event last night. And it was one of those 200+ people gigs I blogged about earlier. Why was it good? Because Tim, Mike, Joe and the entire crew at the Lighthouse Group understood that sitting for 3 hours while a programme crawls forward through endless [...]

Class Stratification Needs Drilling

Unlike other places around the world, it is actually getting more difficult to move across class boundaries in the England I think this is at the root of some of the most serious social problems today in England.
Take for instance the ASBO. Just imagine you are 17, white, living on a council estate. You [...]

Giving should be rewarded, right?

Giving should be rewarded. Err. Not?
I fall down on the side of reward. It is silly to think the very rich are simply going to give their money away for free and it is wrong to compare arts to aids. I do think the balls they throw (and I have been to a few) are [...]

Entrepreneurial Chutzpah!

If you want to break out on your own and make things happen, you have to have the faith and guts. Interesting vignette on this via acting in NYC. Many similarities to Social Entrepreneurship; it’s great to make money – but check to see if the money you are making is driving the value you [...]

Next Page »