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Nick Temple
London, United Kingdom
Policy and Communications Director at the School for Social Entrepreneurs
Recent Activity
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Nick commented on the article |Hi Nat - good, provocative post as ever. And, having been suitably provoked....
I disagree: I actually think the opposite is true: there are countless agencies who focus on scale and disruptive impact, while few are there to enable social entrepreneurs + organisations to get there. The focus on scale can actually lead to fewer people coming into the movement (the "no-point-unless-I'm-Yunus" phenomenon which Marianne points out above), as it must only be for Stanford Alums, right? Who understand the language of VC and the like...
There's also continual mixing up between scale of impact + scale of organisation, and a continual overlooking that scaling something unproven / untested is potentially enormously unhelpful. As someone pointed out to me recently, Walmart was one store for 12 years....there are benefits to making mistakes while you're small / few.
This isn't about being anti-scale: of course, as you say, the problems are enormous. But some start with a small goal and it grows larger as they realise its potential; some start with "I'M GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD" and need to ground that in pragmatic reality; and some are happy to deliver a successful local solution: and if we have many of those, that's impact too.
The problem we've found in the UK isn't an ambition problem; it's a delivery problem: more reality, more evidence, more replication of proven work. Less rhetoric + ambitious words.
[Obviously, being British, it's handshakes + cups of tea, rather than Red Bulls + high fives ;0) ]
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Nick commented on the article |Good work! Hope that Jim F performed Gilbert + Sullivan as he did at OxfordJam :0)
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Nick commented on the article |Hi David - interesting post. There's a session at the forthcoming Skoll World Forum on government:social entrepreneurship, which will pull in examples + experience from US, Singapore, Canada and UK, so will be interesting to see what they make of the various ways government can support / facilitate / enable / contract with social entrepreneurs...and also, as you say, where can government still do it best.
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Nick commented on the article |Good call Nat, and delighted to say that a feasibility study in potentially bringing SSE to Toronto / Ontario was launched last week. I'm hopeful the SSE methodology can be part of the vibrant ecosystem over there. An exciting place at the moment.
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Nick commented on the article |Aside from self-promotion (which is de rigueur for social entrepreneurs) and SSE's moments of the decade (opening first UK franchise, opening first international franchise; supporting our 500th social entrepreneur; etc etc http://www.sse.org.uk), I'd suggest a few:
- David Bornstein's book How to Change the World
- First Skoll World Forum (in later years, I will say "I was there" etc....)
- Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize, even if it should have been Economics...
- Jamie Oliver launching Fifteen (big impact in UK)
- Cadbury's going Fair Trade (and Kit Kat!) + rise and rise of fairtrade generally (see Cafedirect, Starbucks etc)
Cheers - happy Xmas all.
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Nick commented on the article |Thanks for the mention for Shine 09, Nat; it was a great event and a good example of collaboration between a load of UK orgs to make a really practical event happen. I think that's me taking the photo in the photo, though first time I've been called a collaboration maven!
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Nick commented on the article |Yes and yes and thrice yes. Farmer's speech was the standout at Skoll, because a) it focused on rights and b) it pointed out that these "beneficiaries" or "users" or "clients" were also potential social entrepreneurs themselves...
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Nick commented on the article |Hi Nat; thanks for the link the other day: will return the favour soon.
Thought the <A href="http://astore.amazon.co.uk/schooforsocia-21">School for Social Entrepreneurs bookshop</A> might be of interest: most of it is international, rather than UK-specific. Am currently finishing Forces for Good, and waiting for Philanthrocapitalism to arrive on these shores.
Cheers -
Nick commented on the article |
Hi Nathaniel; thanks for the link the other day. Will repay the favour soon. In the meantime, feel free to check out the books in the <A href="http://astore.amazon.co.uk/schooforsocia-21">SSE bookshop</A>; most are international rather than UK-specific....I'm just finishing Forces for Good and waiting for Philanthrocapitalism to come out here!
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