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Business, Ethics, Barcelona: Doing Good When You’re Not Doing So Well

I just returned from Barcelona (where every tourist now seems to be tracking the path of Woody Allen's Vicky and Christina…), attending a few sessions of the Doing Good and Doing Well Conference organized by IESE Business School and Net Impact, an organization that connects MBA students interested in social responsibility.

That a leading business school is dedicating an entire student-run conference to the topic of responsible business is remarkable (HEC Paris will do the same soon in May, also in collaboration with Net Impact) but not an isolated phenomenon. In the past few years, several top business schools, such as Yale, Duke, Harvard, and Stanford, as well as pioneers such as the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington State have begun to offer tailored programs to MBAs who want to marry traditional business skills with innovative approaches to solving social problems. Different from nonprofit curricula, which typically provide the fundamentals of fundraising and grant writing, these specific business school programs combine the finance and management training of a traditional MBA with electives that cover everything from how to get venture capital and invest in emerging markets to building sustainable energy sources. But conferences like IESE's indicate that social entrepreneurship is not yet fully integrated into all business school curricula and that it still needs the extra limelight. As long as not all business is social business, business that is not social will still find a safe harbor.

Business and ethics have of course been intertwined since the days of the Greek polis. Adam Smith, the spiritual father of the homo oeconomicus, wrote a "Theory of Moral Sentiments" before he wrote "The Wealth of Nations." And yet, business that is good for society has always been in need of being extrapolated through catchy labels (business ethics, CSR, corporate citizenship, social innovation, social entrepreneurship, etc.), invariably heralded as the Next Big Thing and slowly moving up the food chain from a window-dressing PR tool to a truly integral strategy driver. Recently, Fast Company coined the new, chic term "Ethonomics" and even made it one of the key pillars of its relaunched web site:

"We live in a world that's resource-constrained but ingenuity-rich. So an upstart generation of entrepreneurs – and innovators within the world's biggest companies – are founding businesses that are good for the world as well as the bottom line. They are practicing social change through urban revitalization, sustainable agriculture, green IT, alternative energy and online community-powered investing. Any business that claims to be truly sustainable and innovative should be increasingly efficient with energy and natural resources, transparent and accountable, and good on balance for people and other living things. Ethonomics is a hybrid of technology, design, and social responsibility, and at Fast Company we believe it is the future of business."

In Barcelona, this young upstart generation of entrepreneurs and innovators shared its ideas, seeking advice from those who had been in the field for some years. For example from Kyle Zimmer, the president and co-founder of First Book:

"Whenever you hit a point at which you feel you have no idea what you're doing (and if you don't reach that point quickly, you’re not moving fast enough), make a list with the ten most acclaimed experts able to answer your questions. And then call them one by one even if you have never met them or your list includes Bill Gates. It doesn't matter. Tell them your story and ask them for help. Some won’t call you back. In fact, I can pride myself with not having been called back by some of the most accomplished people in the world. But you’d be surprised how many will."

Jessica Jackley Flannery, co-founder and chief marketing officer of micro-lending marketplace Kiva, was another one of the veterans present, and her talk made most of the MBA students in the audience beam. Social entrepreneurs are simpaticos, of course, and you'd be hard pressed to find a MBA student these days who would not want to be a social innovator. Wall Street fame is so yesterday. Flannery epitomized the case for a new 'meaning' and emphasized the power of storytelling: "If we all understood each other's stories, the world would be a better place." Stories create empathy, and empathy breeds the solidarity needed for taking action. In light of the dire economic situation in developed countries, Flannery half-jokingly said she wouldn't be surprised if a young entrepreneur in Uganda were soon to lend money to a job-less banker in Manhattan. Globalization in reverse. In any case, innovative banking such as Kiva's is no longer only focused on helping developing economies. New web-enabled finance 2.0 models and infrastructures attempt to overcome the financial crisis in the US.

Entrepreneurs and innovators may be much needed these days, but "how can you be doing good when we are not doing so well?" the conference asked. With almost 14% unemployment in Spain, it was brutally aware of the need to discuss the creation of "Sustainable Value in a Downturn." Aside from the assumption that recessions can hold tremendous opportunity for any entrepreneur (as Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek point out), social entrepreneurs in particular seem to weather the current investment pullback rather well. The Skoll Foundation is currently conducting a survey, to be presented at the Skoll World Forum in March. Preliminary results indicate that most of the social entrepreneurs have been affected by the economic downturn in some way or other, but only 10% of the respondents say that they have been severely affected.

"A crisis is a terrible thing to waste," Paul Romer (now famously) said, and hopefully the current recession will not lead to a Great Depression but a "Great Disruption" (Paul Gilding) that requires us to build the foundation of our economy from the ground up. In his brilliant post on "How To Be a 21st Century Capitalist," Umar Haique writes that "Capital deepening is the foundation of next-generation value creation." By that he means "assets with intrinsic, durable, human value – not the lemons Wall Street was in the business of hawking. It is only by capitalizing the things we really value that the spark of value creation can be lit again." He predicts that "next-generation businesses will be built on next-generation assets:" "Yesterday's businesses were built on cash, factories, and IP - financial, physical, and intellectual capital. Next-generation businesses are built, instead, on human, social, natural, and cultural capital – to name just a few."

Kindle? Here Comes the Talking Book!

Everyone's talking about the new Kindle, but here's a product that may present an even more radical innovation in the e-book sector: The Talking Book, created and distributed by the non-profit Literacy Bridge, is a low cost audio player/recorder with special features for Knowledge Sharing and Literacy Learning. It was developed entirely by volunteers and costs less than $10. The device involves an ecosystem to produce and share locally relevant audio content, allowing users to record their own messages and distribute them within local networks through a device-to-device copying capability. Other features include slow play for reading practice and some interactive features (for educational lessons and games).

The man behind Literacy Bridge is former Microsoft program manager Cliff Schmidt, who studied artificial intelligence and spent much of his time thinking about how literacy can play a role in moving people out of poverty. Schmidt believes that in a country like Ghana having spoken information at hand will help people avoid lengthy trips to visit clinics or other offices. As a next step, he envisions using the Talking Books to reach women in Afghanistan (90% of whom are illiterate), but ideally the device could of course be used anywhere in the world.

While it may not have the media hype of the One Laptop per Child project (yet), the Talking Book may indeed yield greater impact. The thinking behind the device is compelling, and the opportunities that come with using commodity components to create a rich service are fascinating.

"A Better World by Design" Summons Change Agents from Various Sectors

"A Better World by Design" is a first-of-its-kind conference on "globally conscious design," as the organizers call it. Held at Brown University/RISD from November 7-9, it aims to generate innovative solutions to issues facing today's world, including extreme poverty, access to basic resources, and environmental degradation.

The conference wants to attract academics and professionals interested in learning and discussing ways in which user-centric and affordable technology can improve the world around us. It will bring together such far-ranging fields as social entrepreneurship, engineering, design, economics, development, and environmental studies in search of new opportunities for the private and voluntary sectors.

The organizers expect 300 attendees. Confirmed speakers include Bernard Amadei (Engineers Without Borders), Ken Banks (Kiwanja), Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity and Open Architecture Network), Denise DeLuca (Biomimicry Institute), Steve Glenn (LivingHomes), Erik Hersman (Afrigadget, White African, and Ushahidi), Paul Polak (International Development Enterprises and D-Rev), and others.

RenGen – A Generation of Cultural Consumers?

Isn't it interesting how trends are made? "One of the things I like about trends is that they seem so easy -- Blue is the color of 2008! GenY likes health food!" observes Stacey Gillar. Coupling the disparate ("Chic Trash"), pushing an already extreme concept to the extreme ("Radical Transparency"), or simply announcing the advent of something "new" ("Nouvelle Vague," "Nouveau Niche," etc.) are some of the flourishing categories. Or you simply repackage an old concept.

"RenGen," short for Renaissance Generation and the title of Patricia Martin's, well, trend-setting new book, falls under the latter. It is the latest in a long series of attempts to aggregate individuals into a cohesive stratum that is bigger than the sum of its members -- initially, based on socio-economic characteristics (Baby Boomers), and then increasingly also on attitudinal and behavioral traits (Generation X, Generation Y, Generation C).

The idea of the original historic renaissance, from which Martin derives her RenGen, has survived many trends. Reviving the philosophical impetus from ancient Greek philosophy, it believed that, per Wikipedia's definition, "it was possible to acquire a universal learning in order to develop one's potential, covering both the arts and the sciences." When someone is called a Renaissance Man today, it is meant that "he does not just have broad interests or a superficial knowledge of several fields, but better that his knowledge is rather profound, and often that he also has proficiency or accomplishments in (at least some of) these fields, and in some cases even at a level comparable to the proficiency or the accomplishments of an expert."

The RenGen, according to Martin's definition, is "a cultural movement created by the confluence of art, education, entertainment, and business." While the language is different, this still sounds strikingly similar to Da Vinci's generation. But wait, one thing is different with the new RenGen: "A powerful new player is at its center: the cultural consumer." Aha! That reminds one of Richard Florida's Creative Class or Tyler Brule's Monocle Magazine, both of which are built on the assumption that the human need for culture, defying all swan songs of cultural pessimism, ranks high in Maslow's pyramid, and that today's Renaissance Man is a multi-disciplinary multi-tasker who embraces several disciplines, ideas, and ideologies -- and can afford it. Confluence follows affluence. Culture, in a renaissance kind of way, is the opposite of Stephen Colbert's "truthiness;" it is the insight that any possible human expression will find its form, and that the values of religion, technology, commerce, and politics can be moderated by a truth-seeking collective identity. Cultural consumerism, in contrast, means that any possible human expression can become a product, and that the values of religion, technology, commerce, and politics can be consumed by a fun-seeking collective identity. The renaissance was a movement of like-minded individuals with shared values; the RenGen is a cohort of consumers with an affinity for similar purchases.

The trick with books like "RenGen" is that they create a vessel for a desired collective identity rather than examining it. They do so by addressing the aspirational ego of the reader: Who doesn't want to be a Renaissance Man or Woman? You enjoy reading the book because it articulates an unarticulated desire and provides a convenient frame for the irreconcilable contradictions of modern life. On the surface, the charm of the homo universalis lies in its very universal character: You're not really good at anything? No problem, then be a cultural consumer, ahem, sorry, Renaissance Man. Or, if that doesn’t work, just be a member of the RenGen!

From CONNECTING'07: Why We Fail

"We don't fail because we aim too high and fail. We fail because we aim too low and succeed."

The quote is from Sir Ken Robinson's moving plenary presentation this morning at the World Design Congress in San Francisco. To me, this was the secret keynote of the conference. More about the other sessions tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy Sir Ken Robinsons's 2006 TED talk on creativity and education:

College 2.0: UC Berkeley Goes YouTube

Several colleges have already been experimenting with online video for some years, albeit mostly as a sporadic effort. UC Berkeley is the first school now to be more serious about it: The university announced on Wednesday that it has begun posting entire course lectures on YouTube.

The school said that over 300 hours of videotaped courses will be available at youtube.com/ucberkeley. Berkeley said it will continue to expand the offering. The topics of study found on YouTube include chemistry, physics, biology, and even a lecture on search-engine technology given in 2005 by Google co-founder Sergey Brin (see above).

Don't you want to go back to school?

Asking the Right Questions?

It was Henry Kissinger who said that “if I give interviews, I expect the reporters to have the questions for my answers.” And I’m sure Cicero had something wise to say about the philosophical importance of questions, as well. John Hagel, who runs the wonderful Edge Perspectives blog and has just joined Deloitte & Touche with a mandate to establish a major new research center in Silicon Valley, puts it this way:

“It's appropriate to step back occasionally and reflect on what we don't know, rather than simply sharing what we know. In times of rapid change, asking the right questions is often as important as the answers – at least they help us figure out where we might start looking for answers. There is no shortage of questions – the key is to focus on questions that are not just intellectually interesting, but also where significant economic impact is at stake.”

Hence Hagel presents his preliminary research agenda as a set of questions including “What if there is no equilibrium?” “Are all ecosystems created equal?” “If the world is so flat, why are spikes becoming more prominent?” and “As L curves replace Bell curves, what are the most promising routes to the head?” Hagel also wonders how we can “measure success when so many of the rules are changing,” proposing new indicators such as return on attention (ROA), return on information (ROI) and return on skills (ROS). Anyway, read the full post. GREAT stuff.

From Edge Perspectives to Edge. Edge is an online forum for the world’s leading thinkers. In the spirit of the above, every year the Edge World Question Center sends out the so-called Edge question to its members. In 2006, the question was “What’s your most dangerous idea?”

“The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?”

The responses, varying from 50 words to multiple pages in length and now compiled into a book, are literally mind-boggling. Among the myriad provocative ideas are many neuro-scientific and bio-genetic assumptions (“We have no souls,” “Marionettes on Genetic String,” “The genetic basis of human behavior,” “Brains can become minds without bodies”) as well as meta-physical shockers (“We are entirely alone,” and “This is all there is”). My favorite idea, however, is the following: “The idea that we should all share our most dangerous ideas.”

Fair Vanity

I had the pleasure of visiting Vanity Fair’s offices in Berlin last week, a fancy loft that resembles an Apple store and is full of devils wearing Prada. Conde Nast is obviously putting a lot of money behind its latest national franchise (a weekly in Germany) but both the journalistic quality and the sales numbers of the German issue, which appears to be a mixed bag of tabloid, news magazine, and fashion guide, are disappointing so far.

I realized once again on my flight back to the US why Vanity Fair is still a household name in magazine journalism. I bought this month’s special Africa issue, which was co-edited by Bono and is essentially the (Magazine) Red. Although the magazine’s editor, Graydon Carter, eventually shied away from giving in to Bono’s pledge to rename it “Fair Vanity,” the special edition – despite its serious cause -- is fun to read. From Bono’s “Message 2U” editorial (in which he calls U2 an “Irish post-punk combo”) to Chris Rock’s blasphemous “My trip to South Africa” travelogue, the contributions radiate a pleasant sense of self-irony and depict the world’s “forgotten continent” in bright colors and with an optimistic tone.

Naturally, this approach is controversial and has caused some harsh criticism. Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society writes: “The message of the cover is that Africa is important and sexy because important and sexy people care about it and are willing to lend their ‘talent’ and celebrity appeal to the ‘cause.’ This tends to piss off my friends who are begging the world to think of Africa less as a cause and more as a continent, particularly as a continent open for business. How hard would it have been for Vanity Fair to pair some of these well-meaning celebrities with actual Africans working to build businesses, repair hospitals and save forests?.... It’s possible - and quite likely - that some of these stories are excellent and worth reading. But the overall picture is the one that so many Africans find themselves fighting - Africa as basket case.”

To me, these accusations seem unfair. At the end of the day, it’s Vanity Fair, and with its African issue the magazine does what it does best: Celebrity-studded people journalism. It’s a diverse, riveting view on Africa that takes full advantage of what Bono calls “judo strategy” – winning a cause by leveraging the power of the enemy (that is, in this case, the blunt hedonism and consumerism of the Western World).” He says that they were trying to “bring some sex appeal to wanting to change the world. Well done.

Trash Talk: Two Weeks Without Garbage

A colleague of mine at frog design, Ashley Menger, is keeping a blog ("Trash Talk") about her experience of trying to live two weeks without garbage (or to produce as little garbage as possible). The main rule: Any trash she does create must be within five feet of her at all times. “The purpose of this project is to challenge our behavioral patterns and natural instincts to throw things away, developing a greater awareness of our individual contributions to the world’s landfills,” she says.

The blog tracks Ashley’s daily life and purchasing patterns with this new mindset, recording her progress, predicaments, substitutions, and solutions. Once Ashley has finished her two weeks (she's on day five now), the experience will be undertaken by another person at frog, in another studio - highlighting the differences in environmental consciousness across cities, environments, governments, and economies.

Core 77 loves” the hands-on effort with this project,” and I just like the fact that Ashley works in our Austin office and not in Palo Alto where I’m based....;)

Trust is a Leap of Faith

James G. March is one of the most renowned business scholars and one of the most influential patrons of what we today call “organizational behavior.” March considers organizations as social actors whose decision-making is not entirely rational, as Taylor and other neo-classic business theorists postulated, rather it is based on “bounded rationality,” tacit knowledge, and an ever-present ambiguity of available information.

This month’s Harvard Business Review includes a fascinating interview with March (“Ideas as Art”), and he has something remarkable to say about the concept of trust. Trust, in his eyes, is by definition an asymmetrical act; in fact, it is one that may not even be reciprocal. March argues that for trust to be anything but truly meaningful, you have to trust somebody who isn’t trustworthy: “If we trust only when trust is warranted, love only when love is returned, and learn only when learning is valuable, then we abandon an essential feature of our humanity.” In other words: Trust is a leap of faith.

“We justify actions by their consequences. But providing consequential justification is only a part of being human. It is an old issue, one with which Kant and Kierkegaard, among many others, struggled. I once taught a course on friendship that reinforced this idea for me. By the end of the course, a conspicuous difference had emerged between some of the students and me. They saw friendship as an exchange relationship: My friend is my friend because he or she is useful to me in one way or another. By contrast, I saw friendship as an arbitrary relationship: If you’re my friend, then there are various obligations that I have toward you, which have nothing to do with your behavior. We also talked about trust in that class. The students would say, 'Well, how can you trust people unless they are trustworthy?' So I asked them why they called that trust. It sounded to me like a calculated exchange. For trust to be anything truly meaningful, you have to trust somebody who isn’t trustworthy. Otherwise, it’s just a standard rational transaction.”

March ends with, “In the end, you know, we are very minor blips in a cosmic story. Aspirations for importance or significance are the illusions of the ignorant. All our hopes are minor, except to us; but some things matter because we choose to make them matter. What might make a difference to us, I think, is whether in our tiny roles, in our brief time, we inhabit life gently and add more beauty than ugliness.”