"The Power of Unreasonable People" by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan

Social and environmental entrepreneurs are often seen to be unreasonable in the world. The focus of conventional business world is all about profits. However, the power of unreasonable people is truly inspiring. The power of these people is illustrated through examples of the three models: Leveraged Nonprofit Venture, Hybrid Nonprofit Ventures, and Social Business Ventures. All of the ventures bring social transformation by focusing on unprivileged groups. In one of the examples, I thought the Christopher Columbus’s La Fageda case was very intriguing. Columbus, who was a psychiatrist, had a desire to work with the mentally ill. He saw a need in caring for the mentally ill patients in a better way- to have them feel a sense of purpose in the world. His immediate solution was to provide the ill people with real jobs in a real company, which led him to establish a successful dairy farm, La Fageda. La Fageda is a thriving business that is fully staffed with mentally ill people. The mentally ill are no longer viewed as “patients,” which is a disempowering term; they earn their living by contributing to one of their country’s leading dairy companies and are proud of the fact. (48) There are myriad of social and environmental needs that leaves are much to be desired. Social models that succeed will certainly have a strong impact on the society. It will increase prosperity, end poverty, improve the quality of life, and promote the healthy and longevity of the world population at an unprecedented rate. (54)

Sketch Models

Brainstorm

Concept Sketches

Team Ergonomics

Areas of Social Need

Three areas of social need that I am interested in...

1. Homeless community.
In urban cities, people are alive there. Some people seem busy going to meetings, people sitting at a coffee shop, leisurely reading books, talking, waiting, shopping, just living their lives. However, I always spot homeless people, or addictives among the crowd. Often I see them reaching their hand out for help, for some money, or some food. In addition to that, I see them neglecting themselves from the crowd and hiding in shadows. In narrow streets, I notice them collecting cans, rummaging through dumpsters, or putting drug into their body. What is it that these people could not be accepted by society? What were their daily lives like? I volunteered serving food at homeless shelter once. I had preconceptions and some fear towards them at first, however as I engaged in conversations with them, it was intriguing to hear their life stories. How they became homeless, stories about their families, their previous jobs, or unfortunate happenings in their lives. I am interested in how I can utilize my skills to help the homeless community not just serving them food or providing place to sleep overnight. Perhaps, providing a service that can allow homeless to engage in activities, education, find their hope and bring happiness in their lives.

http://www.providencerescuemission.org/

2. Refugees.
I once watched documentary on North Koreans, on how escape their country to live better lives. I am not sure what is happening in U.S, but I am interested in finding out and learning more about refugees in U.S. I believe they need social services and care in adjusting to the new environment and culture.

3. Art Education for children or people with disability.
http://www.vsartsri.org/

Design Exercise

Reading Responses

Designing Sustainability. Agogino
The focus of the Design for Sustainability course was on innovation processes for sustainable products. The course constituted of students from the University of California at Berkeley (UCB), the National University of Mexico (UNAM), and the California College of the Arts (CCA). This course not only allowed students to engage in a project to be aware of and focus on the global perspective of sustainability, but also allowed students to work in multidisciplinary teams. In addition, the three-semester product development program enabled students to further develop their solutions to market. In most cases, I see that projects that students propose or has concocted ends as the course ends. To have a course which enables students to involve in multidisciplinary teams and establish their projects into a business is an excellent learning experience.


Metrics for Measuring Ideation Effectiveness. Shah, et al
How do you measure, or why do you measure the effectiveness of an ideation? It was very intriguing to see how the author scientifically categorized the important factors of measuring an ideation. Four separate effectiveness measures proposed were novelty, variety, quality and quantity of the ideas. Despite the fact that the author delved into a unique topic to investigate, the over all measuring of creativity methods were hard to comprehend. I thought it was frustrating and restricting. I began to wonder if these measuring methods were necessary. Shouldn't ideas be open as possible?

Creativity as a Design Criterion. Christiaans
“Although the judging of designs is daily practice in real life, playing an important role in decisions about production and in the awarding of prizes, no controlled experiments have been found to confirm this assumption.”

Controlled experiments were conducted to determine creativity as a design criterion. However, the end result divulges that the validity of the creativity measurement is very difficult and questionable. The judgments by people with different levels of design expertise contradict to those with homogeneous group of judges. I could see the varying results due to different level of agreement and involvement of the judges.

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

The Meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship” J. Gregory Dees
Say, Schumpeter, Drucker, and Stevenson described entrepreneurs as the innovation, change, value creation, and the pursuit of opportunity. Conventional entrepreneurs seek for an opportunity to create value and bring it into the existing market. In contrast, Social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs with a social mission. Mission-related impact becomes the central criterion, not wealth creation. Although social entrepreneurs have the same fundamental structure that of a traditional entrepreneur, they value social improvements, public goods and harms, benefit for people who are in poverty. I can see that entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs are both fulfilling the needs and improving people’s lives. However, they are fulfilled in different light.

The challenges facing the social entrepreneurs, such as value creation, sustaining the impact, correctly assessing the needs and values of the people, were very informative. I understand that persistence, communication of an idea, and indication of value creation are essential traits for social entrepreneurs.


Reshaping Social Entrepreneurship. Paul Light
“A social entrepreneur is an individual, group, network, organization, or alliance of organizations that seek sustainable, large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas in what or how governments, nonprofits, and business do to address significant social problems.”
The article helped me define and understand the meaning of social entrepreneur. The reading illustrated how people, society, and media viewed social entrepreneurs. It included how people had wrong perception towards social entrepreneurs and emphasized that it is not about focusing the work of an individual.


Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition.
Roger L. Martin and Sally Osberg
“Interest in social entrepreneurship transcends the phenomenon of popularity and fascination with people. Social entrepreneurship signals the imperative to drive social change and it is that potential payoff, with its lasting, transformational benefit to society that sets the field and its practitioners apart.”

“In the pure form, the successful social entrepreneur takes direct action and generates a new sustained equilibrium." (p.38)

The comparison and example of illustrated cases certainly helped me to clearly distinguish social entrepreneur from the entrepreneur. It seemed to be more in depth example of the first article. Examples of contemporary entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs, Pierre Omidyar, and Fred Smith's stories are compared with social entrepreneurs such as Victoria Hale, and Robert Redford.