The social sector is big business. In the U.S. alone, 1.5 million nonprofits and similar organizations have revenues of $700 billion and control assets of $2 trillion. This would seem a sufficient “arsenal to tackle problems in crucial areas such as education, poverty, and health care.” But in fact it isn’t; their efforts haven’t solved targeted issues.

Four Harvard professors, authors of a recent casebook called Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector, believe that new models and new ways of thinking based on social entrepreneurship will enable “organizations to create more value with their limited resources and tap additional resources not directly under their control.”

Social entrepreneurship is defined here as “innovative, social value-creating activity that can occur within or across the nonprofit, government, or business sectors. … [F]undamental to this definition is that the drive for social entrepreneurship is primarily to create social value, rather than personal or shareholder wealth.”

These experts advocate a network approach, which requires that leaders focus on mobilizing resources inside and outside the organization to create social value. “Social entrepreneurs who have innovated using network approaches are in many ways ahead of the curve, even relative to leaders in other fields.”

“Social entrepreneurs stay relentlessly focused on their missions and seek to continually innovate…” To build successful networks, they must be willing to relinquish control and “share recognition with their partners to advance the mission, not their organizations.” Incremental changes in existing activities won’t meet the challenge. Essential to success is a fundamental transformation in the way the organization does business.

The article notes, by the way, that MBA interest in social entrepreneurship has increased dramatically in recent years, and is expected to continue. (I wonder how many current and aspiring library directors have or are working toward MBAs?)
(Sean Silverthorne, Putting Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector, HBS Working Knowledge, Feb. 4, 2008.)

The Existential Necessity of Midlife Change

As life expectancy increases, many people will need to make major changes in middle age, often starting a second career. The middle years can offer “unprecedented opportunity for inner growth,” but first we need to get beyond these two myths:

Myth 1. Midlife marks the onset of decline. While problems certainly arise in middle age, the fact is that most middle-aged executives “have gained a freedom that only self-knowledge can impart, and they relish unprecedented opportunities for personal growth.”

Myth 2. Midlife as magical transformation. Midlife transitions “must be rooted in realism.” Contrary to popular self-help books, magical transformations don’t happen. “To make successful transitions, executives must stay open to the possibilities their experience qualifies them for but remain realistic about what they can achieve.”

When people are in danger of losing their job or just simply lose heart, hanging on for dear life isn’t the right strategy. The authors of this article urge readers to “start thinking about alternatives that suit their abilities and personalities when they still have two or three productive decades ahead of them. In this way, they can discover the possibilities that will allow them to work much longer…”
(Carlo Strenger and Arie Ruttenberg, “The Existential Necessity of Midlife Change”, Harvard Business Review, February, 2008. Available on EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier or from HarvardBusiness for $6.50.)

Why Someone May Hate Your Ideas

This is from a blog by Eric Schnell at Ohio State University’s Prior Health Sciences Library, who got it from Casual Fridays blog.

This sure makes it clear why some of my most brilliant ideas haven’t been accepted!

1. You took a leap, but didn’t build a bridge. Our minds wander down paths and make leaps from one idea to the next very quickly. Your idea makes perfect sense to you because of the path you followed internally. If you don’t take everyone else down that path, it probably won’t make sense to them.

2. Your idea had no tether. Your idea may be exciting, but if it isn’t tied to the purpose, budget and/or deadline… it’s floating away like a helium balloon without a string.

3. You told a song. Some ideas just can’t be spoken. They have to be experienced differently. Don’t expect people to see or hear what is in your head. Make it real to them.

4. You have no relational equity. Maybe you’re new and need to “earn your stripes.” Do you have a track record for presenting poor ideas? This is a big and difficult hurdle to cross. Find someone with relational equity and get them to champion your idea.

5. You tossed an egg instead of a bird. You tossed it out there too early. Given time, it would have flown. Unless you have a VERY forgiving environment, a premature idea won’t survive. Be more patient.

6. Too many thorns around the rose. Maybe it was a good idea, but when criticism arose, you got defensive. Maybe you didn’t show any flexibility when suggestions were offered. Be willing to give in to peripheral changes …

7. You assumed you knew it all. This is a huge mistake that happens way too often. Don’t be presumptuous. Maybe your idea has been tried before. Maybe there’s more information that would help you come up with better ideas. Perhaps your idea won’t work, but be willing to let it bring new ideas out of others. You don’t have to CREATE all the ideas, just RECOGNIZE the good ones.
(Casual Fridays, via The Medium is the Message blog, Jan. 25, 2008.)

Transformation of the Digital World

John Blossom’s summary of the Software and Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) recent Information Industry Summit provides some useful insights for library leaders. Here are a few excerpts from his notes:

Transformative technologies. More content is “available from more people and organizations for more audiences than ever before and the ability to monetize content in more contexts than ever before is truly unprecedented.” While this is great for publishers and other organizations that are a part of this transformation, it’s a serious challenge to those “who are locked into older cost structures and … are slow to adapt to new opportunities…”

User-generated content. The “more user-generated content there is, the less [people] read a paper and go to the movies.” “User-generated videos are creating their own cultural icons quickly, inexpensively and with a different kind of focus.”

Social media. Another “chapter of disintermediation” may be unfolding for publishers. A survey of SIIA publishers revealed that they are beginning to embrace social media with “much of the same confusion, fear and skills gap that existed when they first faced the Web.” While traditional publishers may remain relevant, many of the gains are moving toward publishers who have most aggressively deployed social media technologies that put content where audiences want it.

Search as an editorial tool. Panelists from Thomson Corporation, Financial Times Search, HighBeam, and Connotate discussed new forms of high-value content aggregation. These companies are focusing on applications that can fit into people’s workflows. Users “need content in their workflow,” and they need “to be able to embed that information in any page.” Metadata is key to all this. “Keyword search is so yesterday.” “You don’t have metadata, you won’t get there.”

Google. David Eun, Google’s VP Content Partnerships, said “value now comes from ubiquity, not scarcity.” The old business model was false scarcity, but now companies that succeed embrace ubiquity. The “Internet has grown faster than any previous medium.” It took 45 years for TV to reach a billion dollars in revenue; it took the Internet 3 years. There’s an exabyte of new content every year, enough content to fill 150,000 Library of Congresses. At Google they focus first on the user, not technology. Innovation at Google is from the bottom-up; “not one product comes from a senior executive. … We always say don’t present me with a problem, present me with a problem with a possible answer.”

Technology’s impact. We overestimate technology’s impact on consumer behavior in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term.
(John Blossom, ContentBlogger, Jan. 31, 2008.)

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