The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship took place last week at the Saïd Business School in Oxford, and was a great success thanks to the professionalism of the organisers, the support of the Skoll Foundation and, most importantly, the passion of the participants. Many thanks to all concerned for an inspirational few days, and for inviting me to speak on the subject of social software for social enterprise. Inevitably I did not get the chance to attend every session, but here are a few things that caught my attention (see also coverage at SocialEdge). I will post details of the social software session shortly.

The forum highlighted the huge opportunity that exists for all forms of social enterprise as the boundary between commercial and non-commercial worlds becomes more and more permeable. What both have in common is a process of value creation, whether social, financial or (increasingly) both, and they have a lot to learn from each other. The conference certainly reinvigorated my own desire to find the right balance between both sides of this spectrum, and to connect with others who want to do the same. As founding directors of the social enterprise Brixton Online, Livio and I are always concerned to get the balance right and ensure we deliver value above and beyond what the market can offer, and avoid the organisation become a self-perpetuating vehicle, as happens with many charities. At the same time, I look at other social enterprises we know well, such as Jason Pegler's award-winning mental health publishing venture Chipmunka, and can see so much potential for delivering social and business value at the same time.

The role of Social Entrepreneurs

Several speakers at the conference characterised social entrepreneurs as people who spot a problem, or a market failure in modern orthodoxy, and know how to bring people together to fix it. The existence of a wide range of problems to be solved is clearly not an issue, so the social 'opportunity' for social entrepreneurs is virtually limitless, but what surprised me was the size of the business opportunity as well. Bill Drayton quoted figures that suggested 7.4% of GDP in 2001/02 came from social enterprises in one form or another, and he estimated that the Treasury figures used in this calculation did not look at an estimated 150,000 unregistered citizens groups and organisations. Similarly, in Germany, he argued that since 1970, employment growth in the citizen sector has outstripped both government and business sectors. So, we could be looking at an area of the economy that constitutes up to 10% of GDP in some countries.

Bill talked about four main challenges in this area, and I believe that social software has something to offer in addressing each of them:

1. How do we close the perception gap and take social enterprise into the mainstream. The citizens sector is becoming more sexy and people seem interested. Also, business must understand that they face a panoply of low-cost competition from within the sector, which should help put it on peoples' radar.
2. How do we get empowered adults if we treat young people as powerless subjects? We need a civil rights movement for children. Young people want to be effective in society, and they can be the most powerful force for implementing change if we let them get involved and help solve their own problems. This can also have spin off benefits in education and performance.
3. How do we build an integrated global field of operation that enables co-ordination between millions of little groups and established businesses? We need to break down the mutual mistrust that has existed between social groups and business, and look for bridges between them wherever possible. In support of this, Bill quotes the example of small-scale farm irrigation providers in Mexico where addressing a social problem allowed the emergence of businesses that would otherwise have been uneconomic, but which had knock-on benefits for the local economy.
4. How do we build a value-based identity to create the fibre necessary for collective action? Bill argued that we should design faith/vision/purpose into organisations and return to it all the time, for example when employing or promoting people. The power of the entrepreneur in any sphere of activity is faith and self-belief and the ability to transmit this to others.

Value-driven social networks

Joel Podolny, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, picked up this theme of value-driven networks, arguing that social networks are the ends, not just the means, of constructing social enterprise, and that the role of social entrepreneurs needs to evolve from matchmaker to community guardian. His main observation, based on research into movements for social change, was that shared values and a sense of community-based identity are the most important success factors. A successful community of this kind needs to transform the identity of individuals who join it to some degree.

As an example of how important social network ties are when attempting collective action he quoted the 1987 Klandermans and Oegema study of peace demonstrations, which suggested that personal ties to another attendee was a significantly more important determinant of participation (4% of the sample took part) than declared support for the issue (75% of their sample).

Taking this further, he quotes the example of the 1964 Freedom Summer Project, which was a dangerous and ambitious civil rights action in Mississippi requiring a major commitment from participants plus intensive training. They found that of the applicants for the project, 55 were rejected as unsuitable, 720 accepted and took part and there were 229 no-shows. Looking into the influences at work in determining who showed up and who didn't, they found the presence of a pre-existing strong tie to another volunteer (perhaps as part of another community such as teachers, activists, etc.) made people 75% more likely to take part than others without such ties.

Joel drew from this the lesson that an individual's willingness to take part in bringing about social change depends on how much they are already part of a group or community that shares those values. Identity is crucial. Networks are not just conduits for information and resources; they also impact on identity, which helps pre-determine a likelihood of action. For social entrepreneurs, this means that to create a movement, they need to first create an identity based community rather than wait for a galvanising event that requires action. In terms of recruitment, this means they should recruit loyal reinforcers who share values over useful people who bring resources but don't share the core values.

A good example of how successful this can be is CRY, an Indian NGO that raises funds in India and overseas for poverty projects. They have 85% brand awareness in major Indian cities and have touched 1.25m children's lives by focusing on raising funds and building a network of brokerage between funders and projects, rather than service delivery. In its early days, Joel says the founder of CRY wanted to pull in people with business knowledge and professionalism, but volunteers resented this. Instead of involving consultants, he professionalised the network from the inside using trusted people who shared his values, and this worked very well.

The idea that you can create social and business value at the same time by connecting people for common good is very much of the world of social software and social network practitioners and thinkers we inhabit. But the Skoll forum was particularly refreshing in that it demonstrated how a strong desire to create social value can mobilise such a powerful network, compared to the self-serving culture of the popularity contest that is sometimes a feature of the blogosphere. Slavish popularity "networking" in the business sense will get you so far; but network building around shared values and a common purpose is, i think, more sustainable.

Social Enterprise and the media

Finally, another area that the conference covered, and where common values have arguably become less and less important over time, is mainstream media and its relationship to social enterprise. Jeff Skoll is trying to involve Hollywood and big media in supporting social enterprise, which is why Sir Ben Kingsley was there, and also why the Skoll Foundation has sponsored the release of a series of TV shows called New Heroes that tells the stories of social entrepreneurs and their impact. On the final day, Will Hutton chaired a session consisting of presentations by Michael Hastings, head of Corporate Social Responsibility at the BBC, and Pat Mitchell, Chair of PBS in the United States.

Will Hutton remarked that major media are currently a voice for social conservatism not social change, for example in the UK recent attacks on asylum seekers have coincided with media campaigns against them. However, there is huge positive potential in two areas:

1. the rise of the net and narrowcast creating of proxy communities can support social enterprise; and,
2. the role of public broadcasters that have a purpose to create public value, offer diversity and develop citizenship. They can and should give a voice to organisations who are pushing for social change.

Michael Hastings quoted the recent Jamie Oliver story, where just four TV programmes led to breakfast with the PM and prompted the a Secretary of State to launch a new initiative backed by £280m funding. This shows how the major media can sometimes accelerate social change. The BBC is proud of its record in promoting good causes with its push strategy. Comic Relief has raised £400m over five years through airwave campaigns; Children in Need has been going for 25 years and raised over £30m last year alone; and, between them, they account for the two biggest Friday night audiences of the year on UK TV and they make the BBC the biggest contributor to UK charities. He also cites the example of the World Service trust, who have done good HIV/AIDS public health awareness work, media training in the Balkans, and will soon launch a project to create a continent-wide broadcasting system.

Michael summarised the role of the public broadcaster in this respect as: choose themes and issues that resonate - use mass media to throw a spotlight onto them and use partnerships with charities and other actors to let them engage - back the politicians into a corner and then see what happens!

Pat Mitchell, who receives a hero's welcome just for existing, admits to BBC envy and emphasises that what PBS can do in post-Fox America is much more limited. She explains that public broadcasting in the US was an afterthought following the creation of ABC, NBC and CBS - in the late 60's the government agreed to set aside some spectrum for the public good, but there was not the will to resource it like UK, France, Japan etc. In common with many social enterprises, therefore, they must build financial capital to create social capital. Her main theme is how PBS, prohibited from campaigning and raising money for good causes, can instead provide links and eyeballs to other organisations by using broadcast to raise the profile of good causes and provide follow-up educational and information resources. As a public-private hybrid that receives just 15% of its funding from government (<$1 per citizen annually), PBS's entire production schedule of 3,000 hours of original programming per year costs less than the promotional budget for a single show on some commercial networks.

She argues that the USA has the most choice in media but the lowest diversity of content - more news but less insight - and the media are on the verge of irrelevance, "having raced to the bottom of taste and value." Yet we need informed and engaged citizenry now more than ever. She quotes the role of radio in spreading hate in Rwanda, as did the major media in Yugoslavia immediately before the war there; but at the same time there are many positives, and she cites the role of radio in mobilising the vote in Afghanistan's elections as an example, or better still the work of Witness. For Pat and PBS, it is about finding the intersections between public and private interest, and the New Heroes TV series mentioned earlier, with its links to other campaigns and fundraising activities, is a model for how they will try to do these things in the future:

If we get the intersections right, then we are only limited by our imagination.

Conclusion

The key themes of the conference were very encouraging: social network as ends not means; the importance of shared values and identity in networking; the role of media in opening up a spotlight that online social networks can follow-up; bridging business and social value creation; and, more generally, new thinking about the role of social entrepreneurs. I have no doubt that social software ideas and some recent developments in social networking thinking have a great deal to offer this sector, as they play to the strengths of social enterprise, and can assist in the development of new types of hybrid organisation that are more scalable than previously. There are many ways to get started, and I hope the conference encouraged a few people to dip their toes in the water and start to operate online with the same imagination as they do in the real world.

Thanks again to the organisers for some much-needed inspiration!