Faces of Social Entrepreneurship

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/09/magazine/0309-FACES_index.html

Above is a great artcile from the New York Times. The site is a slide show of four great examples of people who have sought to fill a societal need by starting their own organizations, with support from grant-giving nonprofits like Ashoka’s Youth Venture and Echoing Green.

‘‘Our generation is replacing signs and protests with individual actions,’’ says Kyle Taylor, 23, an advocate for the social-entrepreneur movement who started his own mentoring organization. ‘‘This is our civil rights movement and what will define our generation.’’

These are great examples of how a single person who thinks "big" can literally change the world with some determination and hard work. Each has proven that we all can find ways to improve the communities we live in and come from.

Pop! Tech Conference

In this article from business week Pop! Tech hosted a conference in Northport, Maine. This conference was designed as a weekend MBA seminar to teach these social entrepreneurial how the business portion of their non-profit organization needed to be run. The article said, "They had passion, which had taken them this far. But, they lacked entrepreneurial training. This became immediately apparent in the first session." These great entrepreneurial knew what to do to achieve the social goal they wanted but not how to manage the business aspect of the organization. This conference taught the entrepreneurial how to brand their product/service, how to determine the impact, and how to make connections.

I think this conference is a great opportunity for these entrepreneurial. Like the article states they have the passion that got them the idea to start everything but many where having problems and losing valuable resources dealing with the business portion of the organization. This seminar made these non-profit business owners see the real potential of their idea and the possibilities that still lie ahead.

LINK: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2008/id2008121_484292.htm

cyberwar in the homeland

you know those movies about hackers against a government. I remember this movie called "HACKERS". well anyway I read this article about cyber wars against the United States, I know it sounds out of mind but apparently hundred of this attacks occur every day in our nation; and all over the world.
thankfully, nations all over the world are getting together to fight back, also the present administration have seen that this threats are real and are putting resources and intelligence into it.

Corporate Responsibility in the new Economy

Many companies are struggling to keep the business going with these new economic times, but how can they still be corporate responsible without having a financial burden on the company. This article describes what many were talking about at the Business for Corporate Responsibility Conference in New York. They suggest that companies will "focus more than they used to on assessing and managing global risks such as energy security, climate change, and geopolitical conflicts." The article also says that companies are going to use this responsibility of the economy to differentiate their product and make it more appealing the earth cautious consumer. The article states, "In a brutal retail market, some will try to differentiate themselves by developing ethical supply chains to boost consumer confidence, or support micro-entrepreneurship to lift purchasing power in emerging economies."

I believe this is a great idea and what we will be seeing in the next couple of months. Many companies that have a lot of competitors are going to differentiate their product by saying it is more healthy for the planet. I think this is a great marketing tool and that it will work. It shows the company is taking responsibility for the environment. With these economic times this is a great idea to survive the tough part until the market stabilizes again.

LINK: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2008/gb2008128_757524.htm

Madoff Scandal

http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html

This article is about the Madoff scandal and talks about all the charities and schools that lost money because of this man's greed. He acted completely irresponsible and he damaged much of the goodwill provided many organizations ivested in him. Also the auditing company did not fullfill its regulations. As bad as I feel for the people who invested and lost money one must also be aware of anything that sounds too good to be true usually is. In their case they were recieving 10-12 percent returns for years (the early investors who did recieve money) which is much higher yields then normal. Pehaps these people put faith in the SEC and other government regulation programs to make sure everything that was going on was legit. Anyways nowadays everyone is trying a get rich quick scheme so investors should always be cautious and know exactly how their money is working for them. COMMENT.

Social Entrepreneurship

In class we discussed the topic of social entrepreneurship. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. A social entrepreneur is someone who makes our society a better place and will never take "no" for an answer. There were some examples discussed in class such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Clinton Foundation. According to Bill and Melinda Gates, "We created the Gates Foundation in 2000 because we believe in the principle that every human life has equal worth. The life of an impoverished child in a developing country is as precious as the life of a middle-class kid in a developed one." The foundation helps the poor and the sick all around the world. On the other hand, there's is the Bill Clinton Foundation. The William J. Clinton Foundation focuses on worldwide issues that demand urgent action, solutions, and measurable results such as global climate change, HIV/AIDS in the developing world, childhood obesity and economic opportunity in the United States, and economic development in Africa and Latin America. Both men have demonstrated to be true social entrepreneurs, they saw a problem and found solutions. For more information on both of these foundations, please visit the following websites:

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/about-the-clinton-foundation/

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx

A list of 100 best corporate citizens

http://www.business-ethics.com/node/75

Hey everyone, this site has a list of company named 100 best corporate citizens and also include a small summary on what policies have been put in place that helps the company be more ethically responsible. I was surprised to see Nike on the list but perhaps they have put policies in place to change some of the errors they have committed in the past.

Angel Macias

New Business Structures of 2009

This article is very scary to me. It is explaining that this year (2009) the structure of many companies will be changing and many positions that have once had power will be unless this new year. For example, Human Resourse Mangers will not be a big deal because very few companies are hiring and they have shifted their ideas that people do not necessarily need talet to perform a job, so the complex selection process are useless. Another position that will lose power is Marketing Director, this year the budget will be so tight that very few dollars will be used in advertising and therefore, less power to the marketing directors. The last position mentioned, and the most important for our class is involving corporate social responsibility. The article said, "as for the corporate-social-responsibility supremo, he will be told to take a gap year indefinitely." This article suggests that the person involved with social responsibility will just disapper altogether. The only position the article said will gain power is the Cheif Financial Officer, he will be moving into the nice corner office but he will have people asking for miracles on the books to make the companies look the best posible. So this year for the CFO's will be a very difficult one.

This article has been a huge eye opener and very scary to think about especailly since I will be graduating in the next couple of months. I do understand that the economic situation has drastically changed and it has shown no sign of getting better but seeing all these positions go from very important to useless is still hard to absorb. The only thing we can do right now is hope for the best.

LINK: http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12494665

Obama against Wall Street Executives

In this article from the New York Times, Obama calls the executives of wall street "Irresponsible" and "Shameful." This is due to the millions of dollars executives received in bonuses on top of their huge salaries. This money came from the bail out the government had given these financial institutions to prevent their collapse.

This entire article shows how these financial institutions have NO social corporate responsibility.Obama stated, “We all need to take responsibility, and this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves their customary lavish bonuses. As I said last week, that’s the height of irresponsibility. That’s shameful. And that’s exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else.” Here Obama states how social corporate responsibility is not important to these firms and it is not part of their culture. This exact issue is what has brought the economy to where it is today.

Obama reacted to this news by including in the new bailout package a cap salary for executives of $500,000 and any bonuses will have to come from the stocks and not cash. This I believe is the best idea, that way the executives can not use tax payers dollars to continue the same habits that cause the big problem in the first place. These executives need to learn that they need to change their way of doing business and first they need to take responsibility for the damage they have already done, and secondly they need to fix and restructure their entire organization.


LINK: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/obama-announces-new-rules-on-executive-compensation/?scp=4&sq=corporate%20social%20responsibility&st=cse

how to save your newspaper... if you want of course

Hello everybody, hope your Monday was better than mine. Anyways my father came back for his trip so I should have more time to invest in the class.
Today I got my Time Magazine in the mail. The front page of this week’s edition (February 16, 2009) reads “How to save your NEWSPAPER”. I went right to it (know that I have time to read).
In essence it talks about how newspapers and magazines around the United States are going to a very bad time, trying to adapt to the new technologies in a way that produces a profit for them.

You’ve heard the stories of newspaper companies filing for bankruptcy and all that. The article also talks about how the new generations of readers are so accustomed to the idea that what they see or read online is free.
I for one have always thought that “There is not such a thing as a free meal”, but at the same time I always believed that just like Google newspapers online got paid by advertisement; but it seems that this is not the case, and that in fact newspapers, magazines, are in some kind of limbo where they haven’t found that something that helps them get paid reasonably for the content they provide.

The author (Walter Issacson) offers a very simple solution; micropayments, in summary you pay for what you read, the problem with his idea (in my opinion) is that he is relying on a technology that is not around the corner, in the sense that;
There would be the necessity of a standard accepted by everyone, for this kind of transaction.
It would have to work on every device where the consumer wants to get his or her content (iphone, palm, Linux, PC).

Therefore, I thought of a different solution, which relies on technology that exists now. How about if providers get together and come up with a device like the kindle, subsidized down to let’s say…99 (I’ll buy it) with an anywhere-download-capability (like the kindle). Where I pay for wait I read… say $.05-$.10 per article, this way, the user feels he or she is being charged fairly, and on the side of the content provider it can focus its resources better on articles and topics that the market says are valuable. And at the end of the month the user gets charged on his credit card, PayPal account, whatever.

In conclusion I think that valuable content should be rewarded, and that newspapers, and Magazines are very important for communities, whether they are electronic or on paper, they offer first and foremost the service of journalism that helps uncover the injustices and heroes of our world.

What is your take on online content??

Do you think it should be free???

What do you think of my idea??


Please comment. :)

Linked In

Hey everyone, this is my linked in profile ao if you would like to become part of my network or just check out my profile, here it is.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/11/4b0/891

Sustainable Development through Lessons

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7042/is_9_128/ai_n28128668/pg_1

This article is a perfect example of what I was talking about in class and what the teacher asked me to blog about. This article is an example of how the proverb "When you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, when you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime," can be applied perfectly when discussing how to help underdeveloped societies. When speaking about sustainable development one is implying helping a society survive on it owns while being environmentally responsible.
The article is about The Ugandan church and how they created a project in various underdeveloped parts of Africa. The key philosophy of the project is simple: give a cow to a family that proves it can care for it. Also the cow they give the family, once the demonstrate they can provide for the cow, is pregnant which means that the family can benefit formt he offspring of the cow as well. James Mutayitwako says "Some of the most satisfying results can be seen in the families' health because of the improved nutrition."
Read the article and tell me what you think. I would love to get some feedback.