A recent Guardian article reminds us that social enterprise in deprived areas needs to be encouraged. On the whole, I agree with this article for 3 reasons:

1. Mixing of networks; bringing people outside the community into the challenging community is important to changing perceptions and creating real opportunities for those living in the community.

2. Raising of aspirations; bring the economy home. Stop making people travel to experience nice environments.

3. Change from inside out. If we work to add value to challenging areas, we are likely to bump into a few neighbours who then might bump into some more neighbours and everyone begins to realise they do give a damn about what happens around the block. This tipping point is likely impossible to reach using targeted, but not in situ, projects or social businesses.

In the end, location does matter.

The Long Jump

No, it’s not an English grammar lesson. Although the dangling participle remains that most annoying memory of the 10th grade.

Rather, it is a reminder to keep you mind on the future of achievement and not the present of the interesting. Derek Sivers points out brilliantly this conundrum.

I will only add that entrepreneurs should read my April post regarding getting back on track to understand what the ramifications of too much hubris around doing the interesting while jeopardising the future if only because others want you to or you want you to. Just read Sivers and you will be on the way to understanding why focus is not enough, you need the context of that focus to keep you living up to your artistry; delivering for the tribe.

Seth Godin is spot on (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/06/getting-funded-is-not-the-same-as-succeeding.html). How many times have you thought, “if I just get that loan or grant, we will be ok”? This is the classic self preservation trap. Where is the client in this thinking, where is the follow on graft? It’s not there bc we think the funding is the goal.

What would happen if we put more energy into finding more clients, driving the business forward, as you did before you had a chance of funding?

Next time you are trying to attract money, remember to put it into context; serving the client is the purpose, and the more clients you have, being served well, the better your chance for funding. If this is true, you will only need funding for the customer (to deliver a new service or better service), not you.

Obviously, many social enterprises require funding to be able to deliver the services in the first place. The mantra still applies; too many orgs are impressed with other orgs ability to get funding…this is a perverted way to look at funding. Be impressed with what they do for their clients, not the funding success. And what about your focus on your own funding? Same thing, think and sell the client experience. Avoid describing safeguarded jobs, things you can buy, etc. Rather, explain how funding makes the experience amazing for your client; perhaps describe how the service works without funding– is it delivered by others, will it perish, or can you deliver it at a different level? Don’t get stuck in “that’s the way we have always done it” mode.

Innovate, flex, and focus on the client experience. The funding will then become part of a healthy process and not the goal.

I was not much of a book reading in high school or university. I read what was necessary for class (most of the time!) and read lots of magazine articles to fill my thirst for education outside school. However, over the past 10 years, I have become obsessive about books. Why? Because great books deliver the excitement of magazine articles but with the depth of data and story that ensure resonance.

Entrepreneurs are always asking, “How do I do well in business?” or “Tell me the secret to success”. The answer to both of these questions in part is: learn. Be a data hound, talk to lots of people and read lots of books – if for nothing else than to expose yourself to different perspectives. This is the key to success.

Interestingly, my 7 books cross all topics (by accident) except finance. I have avoided adding a finance book here b/c I have an MBA and rely on professionals for the nitty gritty work in that area. If you are just starting up, I highly recommend taking a course on finance and in particular cash management/flow at your local college/university. Heck, use iTunes to go to a top university in the world for FREE or youtube. Do not rely solely on outside resources; get yourself up to speed with some education in the money area. This is a foundation needed PRIOR to reading these books.

To that end, my top 7 books for entrepreneurs, are as follows:

1. The Millionaire Next Door, by Stanley & Danko. Creating real value? Think the bling lifestyle is real wealth? Think again. This well researched book explains how the real millionaires create long lasting value and wealth. A treatise on personal goals, highly applicable to how you build your business.

2. The Puritan Gift, by Hopper & Hopper Life affirming book for me on how building value in society and business are not mutually exclusive and in fact it’s old news that we have all forgotten in favor of the quick buck. These guys lay down a whopping blueprint for building monster businesses that last because they are invested in their communities. This is not religious, Puritan refers to the starting point in history. Get off the destroying value train and go back to create a business of the future. (Business Management, Strategy)

3. Small Giants, by Bo Burlingham. If I had only read this in 2006! I read lots of pop business books. This is not one. This is a great little book, rather driver’s manual for entrepreneurs. Along the same theme, value is more important than hubris and in fact is more sustainable than growth for any reason. (Business Management, Strategy, Operations)

4. The Four Agreements, by Miguel Ruiz. Ok, you will probably think I am some hippy dude recommending this. I only started getting an interest in Yoga and I like sweets with the rest of you. I don’t go to church, I am not a member of a spiritual group. However, my dad introduced this book to me 10 years ago; it has since served as the foundation for how we run our companies. Powerfully simple thinking to keep your life and business authentic, positive, and helpful. (Leadership, HR)

5. Malcolm Gladwell. Ok, Malcolm is not a book, but the guy is amazing. He has written so many good books. I like Malcolm because he helps me to get or search out alternative perspectives to problems. Great writer to get your entrepreneurial brain ticking. Recommended book: Tipping Point. (Leadership, Innovation)

6. Seth Godin. And again, Seth is not a book, but he is a brilliant illustrator of uncommon sense. Subscribe to his blog. Read his book. Get real. Stop spamming, stop shouting; build a tribe. Recommended books: Tribes, The Dip. (Marketing, PR)

7. Presentation Zen / Slide:ology, by Garr Reynolds / by Nancy Duarte. These guys rock! I couldn’t really put one up on this list without the other. I am counting it as one recommendation as you need to get both books to make a whole. Garr gives you the essence of how to present and Nancy brings the technical bits in for you implement it. Garr’s blog is well worth following. (Marketing/Presentation)

All of these books have help shape the business person I am today. (A work in progress!). I am still amazed how many people have not read or even heard of these books. I do have one other book that should be on this list. We will call it the bonus book, but it is a fundamental read that I have asked my management team to read.

Bonus: (BUT NECESSARY): The E-Myth, by Gerber. This book is a foundation book for starting and growing a business. It has been around over 30 years and still sounds as fresh as the day it was published. Avoid this book at your peril. (Operations, Growth, Management)

Happy Reading!

That one word, focus, sums up the biggest missing element of our 5 year journey in social enterprise business. We have such high aspirations; £1b in value creation in 10 years, £1m venture fund in 3 years, and generally trying to hyper expand the sector. As a result, we *tricked* ourselves into thinking everything we started was related to a single vision. Sure, we had focus – just on too many separate things: SSE was social entrepreneurs, myCatalyst™ was entrepreneurs working in a regen area, Camberwell was the consulting force of all of this regen and social entrepreneurship and Shine, was the platform for it to all occur. Sound familiar? It should, nearly every social business setting off these days, is trying to start at least 2 ventures simultaneously – some as many as 5-6.

This is a big problem for social impact business in general, because it will inevitably lead to a combination of failures and worse – mediocre companies. Not a pretty picture. A relatively well known social impact business, in rocket ship mode at this moment, has taken the *trick* further, branding all of its ventures as a single business with simple channels. A great idea for a massive company with resources to burn on complementary or related services or products, but likely the kiss of death for a business in its relative infancy. The businesses it is starting are complicated and highly variable (cash-flow). I love that they are in rocket ship mode and I am desperate for them to succeed – because it is a good business doing good things – but, I dread the result when the rocket ship ejects  its last fuselage.

Why are social impact businesses starting so many simultaneous ventures? I am not sure, but I think it may have something to do with 3 things: because they see oppty everywhere (and it exists), because they get funding, and because they want to change the world FAST. For many it is down to funding opportunities; but an increasing number of new entrants are doing it because they can’t help themselves….that was us.

Is all this growth a bad or good thing? I am not saying we shouldn’t grow and grow quickly, social impact platforms that can scale. I am saying that it is nearly impossible to do that well if you are trying to grow more than one business at a time. It’s really exciting, everybody loves you and hates you at the same time – it feels like you know better – that the detractors are just curmudgeons. (and they probably are!) But, think about all the great companies now and historically. Each of them started with a laser focus on doing one thing extremely well. Only after they mastered this and developed the following needed to sustain the business did they start/buy new ventures. And, they would only engage in new ventures if they were DIRECTLY related to delivery of the core business. Even GE, which has several business units – actually operates as several companies – not one. And you are no GE.

My Plea: Grow your business, not your businesses.

What are we doing? Well, a failed partnership forced us to focus and consolidate our efforts. We are still ambitious about our growth plans for the next couple of years, but they are built on a new foundation as a result of focusing our efforts on single business: Shine.

Where does this leave Camberwell? Camberwell lives, but with a much reduced capacity. Excitingly, we are contracting our consultancy to Shine (meaning the Community Interest Company drives the business). We are only accepting projects that match our core business at Shine (creating exciting spaces for social change) with a director level resource dedicated to that function. This is not a business we are growing – its a service offering that allows us to share our core business principles.

Where does this leave SSE Yorkshire and Humber? We spun this off in spring 2010 and Amalia and team continue to move it  forward with FOCUS. Graduation of the second cohort is just around the corner.

Where does that leave myCatalyst™? We have significantly simplified the offering and merged its operations with Shine. This makes so much sense, it’s amazing it took us 3 years to realise that without the appropriate resources and dedication to it as a single business – it was really better off as part of the Shine ecosystem. It is now growing rapidly as the platform is now working better than ever.

And finally, where does that leave Shine? With a focused and amazing team. Sweating everyday to deliver a fantastic experience for our clients. It’s still not where we want it to be (we have high expectations), but we are shipping, and improving all the time. The goal; raising aspirations and creating opportunities – is important. And we now have a real chance of achieving it because we have FOCUS.

Are you running too many businesses? Have you lost focus on a single objective? Are you going to be able to deliver the best ever in your category?

Maybe what we need to solve big problems is a little more levity. When you take everything, at all times, so seriously, you probably alienate 75% of your potential supporters. This is a great example of bringing attention and making people think about a serious issue in a funny way. Mr. Colbert reigns in the audience and exposes the ridiculous dogmas by pointing to related issues. BTW: this hearing before Congress would not have made the last page of the Agricultural News Daily if not for the humorous address by Colbert, but with his approach, the issue is getting a new look and perhaps–dare say–a solution.

Ever notice that the public sector, while probably the slowest movers in society, are also the most impatient? This is probably why so many organisations simply fill the damn forms in and focus their energy on appeasing the beast. We are attempting to create sustainable solutions to social and economic problems, and I think this has given us the mojo to buck the system a bit. Because if we are successful in creating a sustainable solution, outputs will not be a problem – they will be perpetual.

What if the non-economically sustainable organisation (voluntary organisation), doing fantastic work for the public sector, decided to focus on meaningful change they believed in…instead of form filling to survive? They may not survive. But, is that a bad thing? We might be better off if more of these organisations focused on real change and then dissolved v. not much change, but lots of cost.

This probably already happens to some extent, but it is not heralded and therefore not copied. We need to do a better job of shouting about the exceptional non-economically sustainable work happening in this big society. Not only because others may copy the approach, but because they may replicate the work. That would be a good thing. It’s probably not happening because the lizard brain is winning.

After 5 years or pushing forward the Shine concept, it is starting to feel like others are seeing the potential of the model to transform society. Or at least  they are speaking in the same language. Our flagship model is both pushing forward to success in the worst economy and balancing on the head of a pin as we ride through the second dip. Recognition of the model could not come at a better time as we battle through 2010 with a great team now in place.

We have learned a ton over the past 3 years while developing and operating Shine. More on that later…

What’s really exciting, at the moment, is the way in which the Big Society may be realised with a Shine (or Hillside, or Priory Campus, or fill in the blank) at the heart of the movement. Lablets to be precise! According to Asheem Singh. Lablets to drive economy and return investment at a local level, while feeding best practice through the regional/national Labs.  Importantly, this needs to be linked to investment and support because future Shines are not going to spring up around the community motivators like so many wildflowers exposed to the sun. How will the government support or even make this investment? I am betting the process looks much like the framework outlined in The Venture Society by Asheem Singh @ ResPublica. Recommended reading that helps clarify both the structure and potential of the Big Society Vision.

They came, they saw, they  conquered. Our first cohort of social entrepreneurs have graduated! Congratulations to the 17 newly minted Fellows.

We couldn’t be more proud, as this was a 4 year old dream realised for Camberwell. I can still remember our first conversation with Nick (SSE HQ) at a cafe in Islington. Chris and I were desperate to bring the program to Yorkshire and spark social entrepreneurs in the region. Chrissie followed this up with some serious graft to put the financial package together, calling in many favors and inspiring more than a few people to support the program.

Amalia, David, and Jennie took the management reigns and really made it happen. It was clear from the Fellow’s presentations on graduation day; something really cool happened this year. We were treated to presentations from a range of social businesses; from a local community niche business to a Deutsche Bank backed clothing designer.

SSE Yorkshire and Humber now looks to the future as the management team takes the concept forward on their own as an independently incorporated entity. Chris is serving as a board member, but Amalia will lead the charge into 2010/11. If the last year is anything to go by, we should expect loads from the team and the next cohort of Fellows. We look forward to seeing the new cohort around Shine this year and watching the social businesses evolve. I hope the new Fellows won’t be strangers to Shine and that your businesses thrive under your leadership.

Good luck to all the new Fellows and best wishes to Amalia and team at SSE Yorkshires and Humber!