On Tuesday David Bornstein wrote a column in the New York Times entitled "The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur," in which he discusses "a key innovation" explaining why "in the field of social change, we're getting smarter." He describes this "innovation" as "the recognition of the role played by entrepreneurs in advancing positive social changes."
Not to confuse the term "entrepreneur" in the typical, businessperson sense, Mr. Bornstein emphasizes the "social" half of the term, suggesting that the success of social entrepreneurs " isn’t in the way they build ventures to deliver products or services, but in the way they connect people in new configurations and, in so doing, help people work together more effectively, influencing their career or life pathways."
Of this emerging movement--parallel and crossed with divisive and "misleading" political ideologies which force us to "choose between government and business" to solve anything--Mr. Bornstein points out "how much creative problem-solving is emerging from citizens scattered far and wide who are taking it upon themselves to fix things and who, in many cases, are outperforming traditional organizations or making systems work better."
I found this piece heartening on several levels. For one, I am glad to hear people are getting on with the business of building a smarter, more-just society despite the hand-wringing and governmental grid-lock these days in our nation's capital. Political football can be an exciting and passionate game, but games and partisanship will not satisfy the needs and aspirations our society today appears to have. In that light, thank goodness for those who didn't get the "politics-is-polar-nothing-is-happening" memo, and are getting to work on the thousand-and-one jobs which need doing.
On another level, I'm heartened by this piece because it suggests a "change-making potential" in all of us; that it isn't just about getting elected or becoming a high-level intellectual anymore, but that with increasing connectivity and a willingness to reach out to others, social entrepreneurs innovate by employing the talents, training, and experiences of potentially everyone. Increasingly it seems, the problems of our time are being solved, reviewed, and refined not by a few, but by the contributions and reflections of potentially millions and billions. There's a power there that, for better or worse, can hardly be ignored.
Toward the end of the first half of his column Mr. Bornstein writes, "because of the pace of change and the information revolution, more people are aware that institutions — especially governments and businesses — are failing to address big problems in the environment, the economy and education." Where in the past it might have taken decades or even centuries for enough people with the right mix of experience, leisure-time, and expertise to notice problems and take action, today it would appear this process of digesting historical narrative into problems and their causes is speeding up. On the one hand I think this is a positive development, because it may allow more time for societies to weigh facts and decide on an easier, more gradual remedy to the issue than in less time might have been possible (the issue of climate-change comes to mind here).
On the other hand, reducing our frame of reference in time may mean we notice problems without fully understanding the cause-and-effect relationships involved. Better science can help, and open forums of discussion and argument may improve efforts to isolate those relationships. But I wonder if the tendency to respond vigorously to any perceived "problem" may not by its pace and energy cause more harm to others than good. This may be the danger of increasing social entrepreneurship, since the problems they seek to solve are frequently quite complex (hence why traditional governments and businesses have difficulty approaching them, let alone solving them), as such, difficult to handle. There is a danger to letting some problems linger past the point of no return; yet there is also a danger of striking at one before it is fully understood. So in the end I'm quite encouraged by the emerging social entrepreneur movement, but I suspect we'll need a due sense of caution as we approach the numerous issues of our time.
Happy Thursday, friends :)
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