Last year, I had the chance to discover what happens when you crowdsource ideas for $1,000,000 to shape the future of a major metropolitan city, Los Angeles.  

In February of 2013, the Goldhirsh Foundation launched LA2050, a movement shaping and building the future of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a tale of two cities- breathtaking beauty, poisoning pollution, extraordinary wealth, dire poverty- the paradoxes abound.  

The LA2050 Report provided a snapshot of LA today across 8 indicators of wellbeing (arts & culture, education, environment, health, housing, income & employment, safety, social connectedness)  The LA2050 Report projected how LA might be in 2050 if things continued along the current trajectory. 

LA2050 sought to catalyze a different conversation- a new conversation- about how to bring Angelenos together to harness the creativity, passion and human capital to invent a new future for LA- a future that unleashes everyone's potential.  

LA2050's latest report: 

Unleashing the Potential of Los Angeles identifies themes and trends that emerged in the My LA2050 Grants Challenge. 

Highlights from the report:

1) Collaboration - overwhelmingly proposals came from partnerships and/or proposed partnerships to achieve social impact

2) Cross Indicator Themes emerged: 

1. Youth Engagement
2. Technology
3. Public Space
4. Pop up/Mobile
5. Design & Innovation
6. Transportation
7. The Sharing Economy
8. Social Enterprise & Artpreneurs
9. Storytelling 
10. LA2050 Amplifiers
    

3) Alternative Metrics for Impact: Appendix III

Appendix III shares interesting, innovative ways that projects proposed to evaluate their impact.  Measurement and evaluation are increasingly the focus in the impact sector. Better feedback leads to better results and identifying new metrics for impact may 

I attended a Lean Impact Workshop by Leanne Pittsford of Start Somewhere where we used the Javelin Board to practice the Lean method on a social impact project. 

Within an afternoon, we identified a problem with customers (as distinguished from problems without customers that are not as ideal for a lean business!), tested assumptions with customers and pitched a prototype idea with potential customers.  

The most valuable parts were: 

• thinking with a diverse group of people about how to apply the Lean method: who is the customer, what does the customer need, what is the riskiest assumption and determining what assumption to test 
• applying Leanne Pittsford's  method to build lean tests by getting clear on vision (belief), mission (what you want to do), strategies (how will you do it) and goals (specific what you want to do). 

I designed this Lean Workout by hacking exercises from Eugene Eric Kim's Changemaker Bootcamp Watercooler* and Leanne Pittsford's Lean for Social Good workshop. This Lean Workout was a prototype to see how these two approaches might complement each other in order to accelerate social impact.   

Renee Frissen (right) and I prototyped the Lean Workout with our social impact projects.  Renee founded a Netherlands-based social enterprise Social Tech and I kickstarted OpenQRS.  Erin Beitel (left), a rockstar Teach for America alum, budding digital diva and OpenQRS team member facilitated the Lean Workout.

Prototyping favors action over perfection. The goal is learning- even if it results in the "failure" of an idea. I learned about prototypes and human-centered design working on the product development team for two ehealth startups with David Karshmer who led IDEO's health care practice in the 90s. A rough prototype tested with real customers offers a rapid way to disprove bad ideas in order to get to great ideas faster. We tested every idea immediately with customers in order to iteratively design our product/service offerings.  The Lean method applies this rapid learning approach rigorously.  

I love the premise of Eugene Eric Kim's Changemaker Bootcamp: preparing for effective collaboration is akin to sports training and results from practice!  The Bootcamp workout model aligns with my sense of how to effectively build the capacity and skills for sustainable leadership, collaboration, and rigorous learning.  It struck me that the Bootcamp workout model might also lend itself well to learning-through-applying the Lean approach for social entrepreneurial problem solving.  

In the Lean for Social Good workshop, we didn't have a chance to apply the Lean method to our own initiatives.  I was curious to test how the approach would work if two social enterprise teams paired to work through the Lean method on their respective initiatives. My hypothesis was that having people external to one's project join in this thought process would yield better results, faster.  

1. How does the Lean method work when two companies pair up to apply Lean to their businesses
2. How does the Lean method work when applied to a social impact project?  What are the edge of its usefulness?  

• Many social impact projects have multiple customers (those that pay and those that benefit may or may not be the same).  How does that alter the model? 
  
• Lean is predicated on an environment where risk is possible and failure can be afforded.  Many social impact projects are risk averse due to funding concerns and/or sensitive issues.  How does this culture difference influence the application of lean in these organizations/contexts?

After a quick check in, we did some workouts on our respective projects. 

{Workout #1 Check In: presence, shared understanding}

I shared the OpenQRS story then presented the vision (belief), mission (what you want to do), strategies (how will you do it) and goals (specific what you want to do). 

{Workout #2 Listening: presentation skills; listening}

We adapted the 100 Question Workout from the Changemaker Bootcamp.  15 minutes of rapid fire question generation. One question per post it.   The questions revealed the gaps in storytelling, surfaced assumptions, forced clarity and generated new thinking about the project. 

Then, we clustered the questions into themes. OpenQRS will use these questions as prompts for blog posts next month. 

{Workout #3 Asking Generative Questions: listening, synthesizing, critical and creative thinking}

We ended with a Q&A to get answers needed for feedback to refine the vision, mission, strategies and goals. Then we switched projects and we did a repeat of the same workout for Renee's.  


{Workout #4 Dialogue: listening, synthesizing, responding in real time}

While it was still fresh, we put Renee's project through the Javelin Board.  We discovered that her multi-prong approach to move forward meant that she had multiple potential customers.  A common feature of social impact projects is that the beneficiary is not always the same person who pays. Both are customers. Teasing out the different potential customers to determine a lean test was a great learning process. 

{Workout #5 Javelin: clarifying, refining, designing tests, getting out of the building, talking with customers}

Consistent with the Changemaker Bootcamp model that emphasizes these skills benefit from regular practice. Renee and I will continue our Lean Workouts in weekly check ins.  

Here is our weekly Lean Workout Agenda:
Check In 
1. My greatest success/win from last week:
2. My priority for the week is _____
3. My most inspiring moment last week was ______
4. Here's what I'm struggling with ______
5. _______ is on my 1 month horizon 
6. _______ is on my 3-6 month horizon 
7. Lean test from last week report back
8. Lean test for this week
9. (optional) My topic for 15 min brainstorm/open issue discussion

If requested, clarifying questions & reflections. 
Listener jots notes for the speaker.  
Repeat.

• The 100 Question Workout was a high yield activity and a highlight of the day. (Thanks Eugene for sharing it and Changemaker Bootcamp Alum Eugene Chan for telling me about it!)
• An external partner in this process surfaces assumptions and forces the implicit to be explicit
• Helping the other enterprise provides the opportunity for great insights on one's own project even when the businesses are completely different!
• A 3rd party process facilitator keeps the flow and provides a fresh perspective

Ideas for Future Iterations: 

• Add a 5 minute reflective discussion just after the pitch. The listeners "sensemake" what they heard immediately after the pitch. The speaker listens to how the listeners understood the project: the way they talk about it, what words stuck, what things were unclear and learn from the gaps, questions, interpretations. (Renee's suggestion- great idea!)
• Prompt participants to maintain a "cross learning" notebook/paper to jot down reflections for their project as they work on the other project.  Alternatively, build 3 min reflection breaks after each workout to capture ideas/lateral thinking from working on your own/the other project. 

• Clarified use of the Javelin Board
• Identified the multiple customers for a social impact project
• Trimmed the project to its bare essentials to an MVP that can be tested iteratively
• Surfaced critical riskiest assumptions that narrowed the focus for MVP testing

Here is our full agenda including our notes from the Lean for Social Good Summit (These are unedited and may include Dutch and English).

Grateful to Eugene and Leanne who inspired this Lean Workout!  For more in depth resources, please follow up with Leanne Pittsford of Start Somewhere and Eugene Eric Kim of the Changemaker Bootcamp and Faster than 20. 

*Disclaimer: I've not participated in the Changemaker Bootcamp. These activities reflect my interpretations of exercises from the Changemaker Bootcamp Watercooler.  

Have you done something similar?  I would love to hear your thoughts on this approach.

Recently, I had the opportunity to join an inspired group convened by visionary Bobby Fishkin to plan 
Visionaries & Revolutionaries Day (Saturday, Jan 25) on the closing weekend of the Dissident Futures Exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  

We generated 100++ ideas in a brainstorm. Refined these into an action packed schedule including scenario planning, climate change meme healing, mapping collages, vision boards, building utopias, a revolution booth, a hold up, performances and more! 

If you can't join in person, you can follow our tumblr of digital artifacts from V&R Day at Dissident Futures at YBCA. 

12:00 Kickoff 

“Make your mark, share your vision-- the start a revolution booth” led by Kyle Stewart & Kate Michi Ettinger [Lobby 12 - 6]

• Utopias: Lost & Found: Co-create the future of Utopias Lost and Found. Collaboratively create the future of society in the lobby of the YCBA. Use your imagination build your Utopia and watch your vision change between entering the show and exiting the building.

• Share your vision-- start a revolution: Share your vision for humanity and the revolution that will help us get there. In < 5 minutes create and publish your story, share it and find co-conspirators to ignite your revolution

“Break-down Barriers to Break-Out Your Revolution” Booth led by Tara Samiy, Marlena Zahm and Amanda Leitner 

• Drop in to create vision boards from 12 - 2 in Conf 1

1:00


“Stories of the Future-- a scenario-planning workshop” led by Lina Constantinovici 

• 2 Hr Workshop in YAAW that will develop vignettes for the 4:30 finale performance
  
  

“Hold up for CauseRoot: part of Worldwide Hold Up Day” led by Chris Geraghty & MakeSense Gangsters 

• 2 hr Workshop in Conf 1 ... More Details: FB Event for the CauseRoot Hold Up 

2:00


“Cut and paste your future: a collage” led by Bobby Fishkin & Maya Belitski 

• Drop into to collage a map of your future from 2-4ish 
  

3:00


“Climate Change Meme Healing” led by Lazlo Karafiath (90 minutes) 


“Cut and paste your future: a collage” led by Bobby Fishkin & Maya Belitski (Ongoing drop in 2 - 4:30)



4:00

• YBCA special performance by Myra Melford and Ian Winters in the Galleries 4-5pm

4:30    Finale Performance: Visions of the Future in the Screening Room

• The day's public V&R activities will conclude with a performance of Visions of the Future, produced by Lina Constantinovici
  
• Followed by a tour of YBCA

Hashtag for the day: #V&RFutures
Follow our Tumblr for digital artifacts: vratybca.tumblr.com

You may RSVP on our FB event, or message an organizer to join the V&R guest list! Please bring co-conspirator friends! 

This public program is organized in conjunction with the group exhibition Dissident Futures which is currently on view at YBCA until February 2, 2014. Dissident Futures is an investigation into possible alternative futures, particularly those that question or overturn conventional notions of innovation in biological, social, environmental, and technological structures.

Visionaries and Revolutionaries is a creative community with members representing a diversity of disciplines, who come together to share the ways in which they solve social problems that they care about in imaginative ways. Through this series, social innovators can explore the intersection of their aspirations for world change and learn from each other's diverse backgrounds in art, science, and technology.

Schedule Confirmed.  For details on the workshops click on Read More.

On August 19th, Knight Foundation launched its latest Knight News Challenge, an open contest to win part of $2.2M for funding a project that responded to this health challenge: How can we harness data and information for the health of communities? 

This challenge presented the perfect catalyst to turn the idea shared in my TEDx: Integrity by Design from April 2013 at TEDxBarcelonaChange into a funded initiative. An enthusiastic team formed, and we submitted a proposal: OpenQRS: Open Source Tools to assure the Quality, Reliability and Safety of Health Care Devices on September 17th along with 650 other proposals!! 

We are humbled and excited by the enthusiasm since our submission posted.  The "applaud" and comments on the platform, tweets and FB posts, have been overwhelming.  Within a week, we have over 1000 views for our project. The Knight News Challenge reviewed the entries, and selected 39 semi-finalists. 

On a late dash from Manhattan to Newark, I checked my email every moment that I could ... on the train, on the tram, in the security line... awaiting the email announcing semi-finalists.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.  On the plane, one last look before powering down for the 5 hour flight to San Francisco. I checked again.  Nothing. I sent a text to a friend "We haven't heard anything from Knight yet.  It'll be a long 5 hrs."  I refreshed and found this message:

 \o/  We made it to the semifinals! With one week to refine our proposal, we got busy preparing this 30 second video and responses to their questions and  to feedback we had received from people.  On October 2nd, we submitted our refined proposal.  It's been an incredible journey, and we are excited to build on this momentum! 
 
Please check out our submission: bit.ly/openqrs  We welcome feedback to strengthen the proposal!  

We welcome feedback to strengthen the proposal,
please contact us at www.openqrs.org or @OpenQRS 

We are grateful to the Knight Foundation for this exciting opportunity to share our proposal publicly.  Generally, funding applications to foundations are internal, closed processes. Open contests like the Knight News Challenge fuel the democratization of ideas (enabling small projects or new initiatives the chance to be seen not only by the foundation but also by others), democratization of participation (allowing applications from an open pool of applicants rather than just "people in the know") and democratization of philanthropy (providing opportunities for others to discover and contribute to projects in ways beyond monetary).  Most importantly, they provide participants with an opportunity to find collaborators, contributors and additional funders; thereby, making the investment to participate in the challenge beneficial to the initiative regardless of whether they win the "purse."  

Open contests have critics. Valid concerns include that the voting system will be gamed by special interests or that the public may not have sufficient understanding of the issue to determine feasibility.  Knight News Challenge balances opening the door for new, small and under-resourced initiatives at the outset with a rigorous due diligence process informed by experts during the final phase.  This approach affords fresh ideas a chance to be discovered while only funding initiatives that demonstrate a responsible use of philanthropic investment.  Knight Foundation's leadership in "Open Contests" provides a framework for philanthropy to engage collaboratively with the public to identify and develop solutions to pressing social issues. 

We were thrilled to participate in the Knight News Challenge and 
we are grateful for the tremendous interest, support and enthusiasm!  

UPDATE: October 17: Although we were not selected as finalists, we are thrilled, grateful and enthusiastic about our experience with this open contest.  Following posting the project, OpenQRS gained two new phenomenal advisors for our project, Benjamin Stokes, co-founder of Games for Change and Rachel DeSain, Lead Consultant of Flaxworks specializing in emerging technology for health IT.  


A snapshot of our success from the Knight News Challenge:  in one month, we received over 2300 views of the project and 65 applause!  We are excited about interest from appropriate technology device makers and we will be hosting prototype QRSLab game sessions with these product teams over the next two months.  Stay tuned at www.openqrs.org and thanks for your support and interest! 

On April 3, 2013, I gave my first TEDx: Integrity by Design at TEDxBarcelonaChange: Positive Disruption in Global Health
part of TEDxChange sponsored by the Gates Foundation

Join us as we build integrity by design to positively disrupt global health: http://www.integritybydesign.org

It was a humbling and brilliant experience. I am grateful to the #TEDxBarcelona team who hosted an outstanding, fun event and to my fellow TEDx speakers who inspired everyone! (Full speaker line up here: http://ow.ly/kAldv )

Thanks to our outstanding organizers Aurelie Salvaire Perrine Musset Johanna, rockstar coach Florian Mueck & the #TEDxBarcelonaChange team!  Very special thanks for ubuntu from my community whose contributions were invaluable. 

This post is one in a series of 5<5 posts that document pilot/prototype projects with the format 5 things that I wish someone had told me before I started in <5% of the time spent on the project.   

Cereal conversations was a 5 week pilot project to convene legal practitioners and strategy consultants at the intersection of law and business in the social enterprise sector.   

Background

In March 2011, I ran a HubLab on "For Profit or Not-for-Profit" with Inder Comer, Esq. at HubSOMA.  Intended for social entrepreneurs, the HubLab was also attended by lawyers, who often advised clients through this decision nexus.  Intrigued by this "unexpected" participant group, I kickstarted a "pilot" of breakfast conversations.  "Cereal conversations" gave legal practitioners at this nexus of law and enterprise for social impact a forum to discuss practice experiences and concerns.  Social enterprise law is largely unchartered legal terrain- full of "open" legal issues, which means that a court has not yet 'ruled' to decide the "law" on many issues that are emerging from social innovation.  Legal questions about liability and tax implications in the sharing economy, regulation of food production for microenterprise, employment status and compensation for passion equity, etc.  Typically, good legal advice steers a client away from uncertainty in favor of what is known, what is certain, and what is "settled" in the law.  Uncertainty is risky and potentially very expensive.  However, until people- clients and lawyers- push the edges of "certainty" into these open, untested areas- the status quo in business will not change.  

Cereal conversations brought practitioners together for peer learning and aimed to build a community of legal practitioners who want to push the edges of the law.  Drawing on a model from clinical medicine where clinicians make decisions even amidst uncertain outcomes based upon a bioethical, principled justification, I opined that perhaps a similar values-driven approach to decision making could govern and guide legal practitioners, provided that the involved parties gave fully informed consent to the risks.  My assumption was that if we built a community and developed a shared knowledge base, it would be sufficient to support legal practitioners ready to take this risky step to shift the status quo in how business operates.  My hope was to identify the key 'ingredients' necessary to seed a local legal community pf practice, to design a DIY 'cookbook' that other communities could use to kickstart local chapters globally, and to build a 'recipe' braintrust to which local practice groups could contribute that would inspire innovation in legal practices at the intersection of business for social impact. 

5 Things I Wish I Knew About Community Building Before I Started:

• 8am is too early for a meeting in San Francisco
• Building a community takes time.  5 times just gets things started.
• Meetings need to take place regularly.  To get work done- weekly is effective, to build community- monthly is sufficient. 
• Get a small group to share the organizing responsibility (2-3 is enough)
• For niche communities, keep the audience focused in order to maximize value to early participants. Here, it was more productive to have a majority of lawyers with only legally savvy strategy consultants, rather than a meeting with social entrepreneurs who seek information for their specific venture. 

Ultimately, cereal conversations was a prototype of a potential model.  It was a pilot test of assumptions.  The Bay Area group was the inaugural "Lucky Charms" group who pioneered the (ad)venture.  We learned a lot and we hope that the fruits of that learning shared here will strengthen the global community of legal practitioners active in this area. 

Why did we do it?

• To develop a community of practice to strengthen practice in the legal grey areas of this sector.
• To develop a format that provided value to satisfy the depth needed by legal eagles and practicality for social entrepreneurs
  
• To strengthen the social enterprise community's access to new paradigm approaches by engaging the legal community in conversations with social entrepreneurs, impact investors and business consultants.
• To kickstart a grassroots community generated knowledge commons on these emerging legal issues.
• To create a forum for collaboration and knowledge sharing among legal practitioners

Methods

What did we do?
A breakfast club to "Map the Terrain" and build an initial community of legal practitioners. In this 5 week pilot, we met over cereal for conversations to map the legal landscape at the intersection of business and social impact.  The topics that we covered included: the business judgment rule, new CA corporate forms, mapping issues, social enterprise partnerships, and alternative dispute resolution and conflict management in the socent sector.

Our short term aim was to have one concrete, practical project from each pilot.  Proposed projects included:  

• a model "founders/partnership agreement" for social entrepreneurs 
• a map/quick guide to identify how/when social impact focus may generate new/different legal issues
• a tactical considerations guide for the varying corporate forms
  
• an article on the role of ADR in social enterprise

Our long term aim was two-fold:
1. To develop a cookbook "how to start a SocEntStrategy community of practice in __(your area)__" 
2. To develop a grassroots, knowledge commons on these issues at the intersection of law, business and social impact

Our core commitment that all resources developed will be provided open access under a creative commons: attribution/non-commercial/share alike.  Any revenue generated from this initiative would be reinvested in the initiative's educational mission.

Who participated?
An open invitation was made to colleagues in this sector. We were generously hosted by HubSOMA. The SocEntStrategy Founding Alliance included:
Kate Michi Ettinger, Chef Converger of Cereal Conversations
Natalia Thurston, Social Venture Law Group 
Tony Lai, Law Gives
Inder Comar, Comar Law
Lina Constantinovici, President, Biomimicry Incubator


How? 
Doors open 7:45 (security can take awhile)
8 - 9 Legal Eagles Hour
30 min: in depth on legal topic + case presentation
20 min: discussion
10 min: map discussion and networking

9 - 9:30 Law for SocEnts
15 min: legal topic presented for Social Entrepreneurs
15 min: discussion

Results

• Of open invitation to 10 people directly and 10 people indirectly, we had a founding group of 5 people.  
  
• We met consistently for 5 weeks.  
  
• We shared knowledge, practice experience and developed a shared understanding of open issues within the sector.
  
• We identified opportunities for collaboration within the group; those collaborations continue to manifest.
  
• We experimented with and learned about technology that could support the group's work.  
• For details: Weekly Posts: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5  (currently in publication)

Learnings & Opportunities

1. There is a need for a community of practice among legal practitioners in this area.
2. The social enterprise ecosystem will benefit from having the legal community that serves it strengthened.
3. Building a community of practice takes time. Consistency is critical.  
4. Critical mass generates movement.  Self organization may be overrated. 
5. Engage one community at a time.  Clarity of purpose helps to respond to the diverse needs of why people show up.  If targeting lawyers, stick with lawyers to keep the focus on issues that yield value to attendees. 
6. Use the work products of the primary community to engage secondary communities.  
7. Choose technology that you can manage or have access to tech resources to administer the technology you want. 
8. 8am is too early for many people and does not accomodate the geographic diversity of SF Bay Area, where traffic prohibits participation by practitioners not in the specific location. 
9. Ideas take awhile to seed: People are ready now for an idea from 2 years ago that was prototyped 1 year ago.  
10. Business law and corporate structures are domestic/state law issues.  This invites a creative glocal solution to building this grassroots community. 
11. The effort to bring Cereal Conversations to Berlin resulted in identifying of a different doorway into the legal issues: case studies of pioneering social enterprises.  These case studies provide a simple framework through which to identify the open issues and to respond with how each could be addressed within one's jurisdiction.  These "Cases" become a common ground of understanding between geographic regions governed by different laws.  We are working to inspire the passion of the university students in law to explore social enterprise and business for social impact. 
12. The effort to bring Cereal Conversations to London/UK resulted in the idea of a legal "briefhack," by the brilliant Polina Hristova. The IDEA: One weekend at Hubs around the world. Gather local law students, attorneys and social entrepreneurs.  Have students interview social entrepreneurs to identify legal issues at the edges.  Students confer with social enterprise attorneys who review the cases collectively in a panel format.  The law students then "brief" the legal issues raised by the social enterprises.  The net result is law students have the "brief" as a work product to show future employers.  The social entrepreneurs have an understanding of the issues they need to address.  The attorneys deepen their practice around these open issues and contribute to building a the glocal knowledge base.   

Long Term Outcomes 

• Impact Law Forum, co-founded by Natalia Thurston of Social Venture Law Group and Zoe Hunton of Hunton Law, hosts a monthly meeting with speakers to strengthen the community of legal practitioners who work at the intersection of law and social enterprise. ILF rotates around the Bay Area.  

This post is one in a series of 5<5 posts that document pilot/prototype projects with the format 5 things that I wish someone had told me before I started in <5% of the time spent on the project.   

Background

Mission-driven and double/triple bottom lines demands accountability to multiple stakeholders.  Even with the best intentions and planning, most situations that one encounters in business cannot be predicted.  Doing "business" at the intersection of money and meaning requires navigating uncertainty and making tough decisions in complex conditions. 

SocEntEthics provides a framework to navigate these kinds of decisions by adopting an analogous approach to clinical medicine.  In medicine, physicians and clinical teams often face difficult decisions that require balancing benefits and harms, reconciling patient preferences and clinical options, and determining how best to proceed amidst uncertain outcomes.  Bioethical frameworks guide clinicians in navigating these difficult situations.  SocEntEthics empowers social entrepreneurs to create values-based frameworks and strategies to navigate uncertainties, to take effective action in complex situations and to negotiate values conflicts. 

Key Learnings

1. Finding leaders who have insight that good intentions may not be sufficient to navigate the uncertainty and value-laden decisions at the nexus of money and meaning is rare.  
2. It is JUICY when you meet someone who has the courage to build a vision of robust principled decision making into the operations of the enterprise/product from the outset! 
3. Selling "certifications" makes it easy for enterprises to justify budget allocation for this kind of capacity building and peer/social pressure may drive adoption that creates a viable market for the "certification" product.  Duly noted that the viable business here may not transform how decisions are made and/or cultivate the capacity to make deliberate decisions-- so buyers and sellers should be aware whether they are opting for an approach that satisfies "compliance" and "checklist" needs or whether they are baking change into the core of their operations.  
4. Waiting until integration of an ethics-driven framework is recognized as "necessary" may be too late.  A social mission enterprise that adopts a principled approach after things go wrong and/or after well into operations will have to fully integrate this approach throughout its operations and will need both bottom up engagement and top down commitment.  The effort and investment to rebuild trust and reformulate culture may be challenging and significant at this stage.
5. Open source methods and strategies provide a template and idea source, but every enterprise is unique with its own culture and benefits from building its own values-driven framework that suits its operations. 
6. At some point, when working through the "values" that underpin a socially-driven enterprise, there is a murky phase in the process.  It feels uncomfortable and nebulous.  People who like to "execute" get antsy.  This is a good time to take a break.  Normalize the inclination for "action" and "outcomes" and underscore the importance for the group to sit in the messiness of this uncertainty.  Go out for dinner, have drinks, take a walk, go on an outing to a museum. Tell people that it's normal to feel unresolved. Actually, it's essential. 

SocEntEthics Applied:

• Operations: Policy Advisory Board

A social enterprise recognized the importance of this issue for its pioneering venture from prior to launch.  A policy advisory board was formed to support the team navigate these "tough" decisions.  The policy advisory board included multi-disciplinary professionals who represented the diverse stakeholders and constituents of the enterprise.  All policy advisory board reports and methods will be shared with open source/cc license. (currently in publication)

• Operations: Conflict Management for Coworking Space

A social enterprise encountered challenging at a growth stage.  The enterprise chose to build a principled approach to conflict management into its operations. The team developed a set of principles to govern community engagement and invested in capacity building for staff and interns.  The methods and training resources will be shared under creative commons license. (currently in publication)


Original posts from Posterous at www.socentethics.com when this idea was initially launched can be found consolidated here. 

Have you ever experienced the confusion or frustration of having someone else define your identity for you?  Well, Global Culture Kids is a playground for you. 

Vision 
a playground for global culture kids! 
a place to play, learn, celebrate, explore...
a place to champion the awesome work by global culture kids!
... and whatever else emerges... 


It might unfold to look like a digital version of this... 

Some ideas could be....
Sandbox for community building sandcastles... 
Slides to champion projects by GCKs...
Swings to see a gallery of GCK work and projects... 
Teeter-totter for tips...
Picnic tables for parties ... 
......

The domain is bought... www.globalculturekids.org  ... would be great to get a real graphic artist on the team early, right?!  Who's on board to build a playground? 

Attribution this idea is a lifetime in the making, with countless people along the way who touched, inspired, healed and shared the journey... special shout out to my grandpa, Peter Maker, Eduardo Gonzalez, E Nathaniel Gates, Rhonda Magee, Marnie Keator, Sheila McKibben, Megumi Nishikura and the Hafu Film Project team, Edward Harren, Daniela Franchi, the poc community, the Plum Village community & Clarissa/Reika & the Hapa-Hafu Kitchen Project crew....  special kudos to awesomeness amplifier and web designer Morgan Sully for the nudge to action on this initiative. 

Special thanks to social impact catalyst Amy Chou for keeping SocEnt 101 Resources on Ideas that Impact up to date as of Jan 1, 2014.

On March 30, 2012... in cities around the world, designers and creatives met in teams to donate 8 hours overtime for a good cause as part of 8-i, a self-organizing event kickstarted by New Guard designers in the NLs in 2004... learn more about 8-i

We joined teams of creatives all over the world (Netherlands, Berlin, London, Vienna, New York, Rio) ... in an 8 hour sprint to solve a communications challenge.  San Francisco participated for the first time. Live from Studio 305 in the Best Foods Building, a team of creatives solved a communications challenge for the non-profit, InSTEDD (innovative support technologies for emergencies, disease and disaster). Learn more about InSTEDD's amazing tool suite at instedd.org

Thanks to rockstar SF Creative Team!

Betty Chen
Lina Constantinovici
Kinnari Desai
Brooke Estin (InSTEDD)
Kate Ettinger
Taema Mahinui
Benjamin Packard (Retainer Media)
Aviva Raskin (Bloxes)

After an afternoon visit with the fabulous Game Designer Marigo Raftopoulos, we cross-pollinated ideas at the intersection of games, fun and ethics... and identified this challenge: 

Awareness
Genuine
Integrity
Leadership
Excellence
Trustworthiness
Humility
Interdependence
Collaboration
Service

.... have other ideas for what guiding "principles" might apply? 

Step 1: Proposed Model Equation + Optional Equation Elements
Step 2: Player Modifies the Equation 
Step 3: Modifications reveal scenarios
Step 4: Player sets Equation
Step 5: Results 
Step 6: Loop back/Follow up for feedback & evolving equations (leave room for second and third thoughts...)

In early 2010, wondering whether there might be a way to bring together my work in health care ethics consultation-mediation with my prior love working in product/service design for e-health ventures (social enterprises before there was a social enterprise sector), I attended Unite for Sight's annual Global Health & Innovation Conference- a fantastic event overflowing with passionate social entrepreneurs doing great work around the world. 

Three questions emerged for deeper exploration:

1. Observation: Multi-stakeholder partnerships will be an increasing necessity to realize desired social impact.  In traditional corporate partnerships, there are lawyers advocating for their respective clients' interests when a partnership is established.  In non-profits, I surmised that failed partnerships meant an abrupt refocus and loss of the impact, since the use of donations for a lawsuit would not align with many non-profit's impact-focused missions.  

Idea: A partnership builder for multi-stakeholder partnerships for social impact would mediate the negotiation among the stakeholders to optimize the interest of the partnership.  The role of a partnership builder would be as advocate and nurturer of the partnership; the partnership builder would check in with the stakeholders to early troubleshoot any potential challenges and at the point of inevitable crisis, the partnership builder would mediate among the stakeholders to facilitate action and resolve disputes. With sufficient experience, a centralized resource, like creative commons for partnerships could be created, where DIY resources tools would exist for people to build their own multi-stakeholder partnerships.  This preventative conflict resolution approach benefits all stakeholders and enhances the likelihood of achieving the desired impact, and would most likely be deemed a worthwhile investment by a funder- whose interest is to see the partnership goals realized. 

Question(s): Would the stakeholders be interested in availing themselves of such a resource if it existed?  What sort of problems, if any, are any of these stakeholders already experiencing? Would it be possible to develop a niche practice for partnership builders?  What tools, skills, capacities would need to be developed to scale and democratize the practice?


2. Observations: In business every decision has implications.  Working at the intersection of meaning and money, the implications of business decisions often involve the targeted social impact.  

Question: Would there be an opportunity to laterally apply some of the relevant tools and learning of health care ethics (clinical and organizational) consultation-mediation in the context of the social enterprise sector? What are the relevant similarities and differences? Is the social enterprise market open and curious to receive this kind of resource or not?  


3. Observation: A large amount of impact investing money is being targeted at the "bottom of the pyramid."  Following the microfinance scandals, we know that sometimes these investor initiatives are not concerned about the interests of the poor.  New health care products and services are being deployed in areas where there are no existing regulatory frameworks to protect the human interests generally, and the vulnerable specifically.  

Question: Would there be an opportunity to work with social entrepreneurs who have health care products and services being deployed in developing markets where there are no regulatory frameworks?  How might we develop robust means to protect the human interests while not stifling innovation? How can people be empowered in the process of gaining access to health care products and services?


I spent 18 months on a learning journey to explore these questions.  The curriculum was emergent.  I determined the course as I went along, followed serendipity and learning opportunities.  I embarked on collaborations with people that persisted, some that failed.  I joined networks, worked on projects and hacked conditions to enable learning.  The learnings, ideas generated, connections made, unexpected discoveries and opportunities identified have iterated in conversations.  Now, I am making them concrete; I will synthesize my learnings from this deep dive inquiry into a series of posts with the aim that the report out encourages others to explore, stimulates discussion and inspires action.  

The topics explored cover multiple disciplines- some may be more or less relevant for the primary focus on this social enterprise focused blog. The timing coincides this month with an invitation and challenge from Steve Hopkins of the Squiggly Line- create a post for 30 days. Steve is one of the insightful, spunky people I met on the journey.  He is making the world epic! Follow him on Twitter (@stevehopkins) and to follow others writing for this challenge, check out  #b03 on Twitter. 


#b03 [Day 1]

This post is one in a series of posts that document pilot/prototype projects with the format 5 things that I wish someone had told me before I started in <5% of the time spent on the project.  This post also provides some context around the project, since it was a cornerstone project for me in the second half of 2011. 

In June 2011, Edward Harran and I embarkeded on a 6 month experiment. A deep dive collaboration across the Pacific Ocean. Eddie in Queensland. Kate in San Francisco.  Part mastermind for our personal projects and consulting gigs, part virtual praxis of a future of work digital innovation lab for a globally distributed team and part incubator of ideas. We set off to explore. 

Macroscope, coined by Eddie, reflects the "big picture" - multi/inter-disciplinary, systems perspective that we endeavored to sensemake in our lab.  Mindful. Playful. Creative. Engaged. Curious.  The aim was to make complex simple.  To bring big together with narrow in the sacred space of creative possibility between.  To transform the experience of chaos and mess into something sublime. Ultimately, we wanted to build a place to play with our creative potential and to hold a space that would allow the value of the spaces in between to emerge, unfold, expand...  with a macroscope perspective to unleash the potential for social impact.... and we wanted to live mindfully and productively working in a digitally-mediated global context.

In 6 months, we cogenerated amazing ideas that continue to live in us- expressed from time to time in posts and projects.  We honed a vision for Macroscope Labs* (mL) from future of work ideas, such as the world's first Center for the Emerging _____  and a research proposal to pilot and analyze the innovation value of an Ecosystem Diplomatic Corps (Ecosystem Diplomats explained)... to systems issues that we frame-worked* such as Macroscope Playhouse and Macroscope Compass... to finding a home base for our shared personal narratives as "context chameleons"* and knowmads.  

Eddie brought the knowmads idea fully to life from concept to a brilliant presentation delivered at TEDxBrisbane.  It was an epic achievement and an ideal culmination of our journey together in the Macroscope Labs experiment.

• No one will understand what you are doing.  (They'll think you are nuts.) You may not understand what you are doing. (You may wonder if you are crazy)  When it's over, no one, including yourself, will understand what you did or why it mattered. And yet, it is most important that you do it.  Experiments are our learning way into the future. You will learn and the people you work/play with will learn. However, don't expect anyone in the current world of work to understand and/or to value your skills from an experiment about the future of work- now that is nuts!  

          Take home: Don't let the present judge the future.  Let the future judge the past. 

• While the future is full of possibility, we still live in the present. A lot can happen with alternative, complementary and gift currencies/economies, yet one needs money to live in the present.  TimeBank, for example, still needs about 30% of the value they generate in dollars in order to fund their own operations.  Think about yourself as the TimeBank, make sure that you have enough to cover your basic survival needs in the present before embarking on the future.  Future-focused projects take time to build traction and attract the kind of funding that they need to sustain themselves on an ongoing basis.  Long enough for the present to catch up with that future horizon on which you are operating.  As with any new business, there is a period of time until you have a steady cash flow; likely wise, with a new technology, one has to be adequately prepared to "cross the chasm," the period of time between when an small pocket of early adopters discover and endorse the product until it grows to a steady early market of mainstream users. Think of future-focused projects as both a new business and a new technology and prepare accordingly. Bring extra reserves to cross the chasm between you and the Oasis, it may be like crossing the Sahara.... and that's fun as long as you are prepared!

          Take home: Feet in the present, eye on the future... and mind the Chasm!

• If you know that you want to leave signposts for others, be sure to have a documentation strategy.  If you want to make things beautiful, be sure to have a designer on your team.  If you want to do things quick and dirty, know how to explain the vision simply and to scaffold the context accessibly, because people may not 'get' the messy version.  If the goals that you have don't align with the skills that you have on the team, then shift the goals to play to the strengths of your team or get the skills. Alignment on this is mission critical. My hunch: skill set for the future worker will be radically different; people will need to know how to communicate simply and effectively in writing, code and drawing. 

          Take home: Know your audience and get the right team- diverse skills sets with varying pockets of depth, 
           what you don't know, you learn rapidly, and eager to do what needs to be done for the project's success. 
 

• Before you start and along the way, identify a means for you to demonstrate what you learned, what skills you developed, what learning you gained.  When a job/role does not fit in the present, it is hard for people in the present to understand how to interpret what was undertaken.  Some ideas on how to approach that are outlined in a 5*5 Systematic Approach to move from Idea to Pilot and from 5 years ago, I posted a seed {idea post} for the BeWell, WorkWell tool for soft skills development. More recently, a seed {idea post} for a learning journey tool, which would enable people to identify and demonstrate soft skill learning under emergent conditions. 

          Take home: Prepare to document what you are learning at the outset.  Remember to do it along the way! 

• On the journey to the future, other people will emerge around you who seem to be doing the same thing.  Celebrate that! Celebrate them!  Team up. When possible an open knowledge framework enables you to engage more people and grow more rapidly.  Share your learnings. If they don't want to play, then let it go and celebrate them anyway!  It will take many people trying, many times in order for one team to break through the wall of the present.  Be happy that you are one of those pushing the wall, and be confident that whether you are that one or not, your initiative contributes to launching a new direction.  Those who rise quickly, do so by standing on the shoulders of those who came before.  There are always those who came before.  Find them and learn from them.   Most 'lauded' inventors didn't actually invent what they are known for, they made an vital improvement that took the invention to a new level of market accessibility.  

          Take home: Celebrate others! Open source everything possible. Seek out those who preceded and learn from them.

• Never underestimate the power of in person

*We had all of these domain names.  My registrations glitched on the renew, and so they are released- all available. Go do something interesting and build on our ideas.  Give us a shout out when you do so that we can amplify your work! 

Thought contributors:  With immense gratitude to and for Eddie Harran,  my brilliant collaborator, awesome ideas instigator, cherished friend, mindful mate and hapatwin.  Thanks to David Hood and the Gathering '11 energy for pulling Eddie and me to Melbourne where we sealed the deal on mL. Never underestimate the power of in person. 

In January 2011, after a journey that included an adventure into New York City after Newark had a power outage and closed all flights amidst a snowstorm, I arrived in Scotland for the first time. I spent two fascinating weeks learning about the various Scotland Projects of the International Futures Forum.  The full report is included here.  A series of posts featuring each individual project precedes this post.  Comments and feedback welcome!