ChainReaction08 – Gordon Brown just
arrived on stage, and is honoured to be here at the start of Global
Entrepreneurship Week

Gordon Brown – grew up in a school,
where there was no contact between business and the school – meant
that he never considered being an entrepreneur

Returning to the school, he was
impressed to find a program teaching entrepreneurial values

wants to reward people who generate
value, and take healthy risk, and don’t want to support people who
are taking unhealthy risks

Mayor of Dagenham, had Henry Ford
opening a plant in Dagenham. Mayor asked Ford if he would
contribute to opening of an old people’s home, and with no response,
ended up announcing it.. interesting story…

Mandela shared with gordon brown, he
climbed the mountain, the led to the ending of apartheid in south
africa

he said there is now a new mountain to
climb, finding solutions to the global challenges of poverty, and
there are ways of

Jane Tewson, Peter Jones, and Gordon
Brown on Panel discussion

This is the first financial crisis of
the global age, the first time there’s been a resources crisis and
it’s time to stop thinking of this as a country economy – but as a
global one..

Oil Crisis, people dying because of
lack of food

Oil Crisis – long term greater demand
of energy rising..

Food crisis – africa large land mass,
and is a net importer of food.

Reform of financial system – at a
global level

Global program to address food, and
invest in agriculture

Energy – growing demand, fuel costs,
being unaffordable, security challenge, and need for renewable
resources.

Need co-operation

unemployment, new deal based on
consultation based on young people

solutions to these chaallenges for our
global economy will generate more growth in the coming years, and
together we can work towards creating a better society..

Peter Jones

scarcity drives innovation – we are
able, and have to do a lot more with less. – Don’t lose sight of the
fact that scarcity drives innovation, it makes you want to do more,
with less..

About the inter-connectivity, and about
small businessess out there, not getting stuck on having a hard time,
and need to get out there more, contributing, more, csr programs, to
contribute to society…

Prime Minister Gordon Brown –

There’s many social enterprises in
prime ministers home consistuency, many innovative solutions for
government services are coming out from social enterprises like
nurses, or schools being taken over..

Trying to create a social enterprises
bank, to fund entrepreneurs. Social Enterprises show, to great
effect, that there’s a big contribution to be made

Enterprise based on hard work, effort,
and having the talent to use, and everyone should be encouraged, and
challenged to tap into their talent.

Question – 20% of participants are
under 21 – what would you say?

PJ – Self belief – opportunities
not just waiting to be found, but

you are the new way, the new crest of
what’s waiting to happen.. Go and make your dreams reality

Jane – seconds that – anything’s
possible. Don’t be afraid to ask, don’t be afraid to show you’re
vulnerabilities, just ask.

PM – discover your talent and use it
to the best effect – school motto – everybody does better
together – I will strive my utmost

Rise to the light

Anything is possible

Recognise that – aspire high, aim
high, you can prove anyone can make a difference

Edison, made the lightbulb, after 100
failures .. he said they were 100 steps to success..

Never be discouraged – use your
talent to the best effect – the global entrepreneurship week is
about that.. the global economy and social entrepreneurship week at
chain reaction is all about that..

I will strive my hardest…

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Chainreaction08 at session on scaling
technology’s with accenture’s david tomlinson

chris – salesforce.com

foundation

billion dollar business 3k employees

2-300 in uk

foundation launched when company was
launched

started, long before company was
profitable

1% model

1% of all time, money, and product,
donated, to charities non-profit charities

over 1k charities using salesforce in
their global community

2 very successful projects working with
accenture

accenture worked with kids company,
member of staff took accentures expertise and project management

adp – accenture development platform
– rolling out across many countries, sharing best practices

sales force – best of breed of
technology, accenture giving best of breed of expertise

grace, organisation partnering with
accenture

nurse from kenya, refugee

scale up number of nurses, able to
respond to community health issues. –

national council of kenya, sets
standard for nurses

accenture, looking at scaling up
capacity of nurses by scaling up, and

nurse remains working, and continues
studying.

Exposing nurses to wider areas

within 5-7 yrs, over 2k nurses who are
trained..

scaling access to technology across
africa

young foundation

50yr track record – how to eliminate
and solve social problems, and creating organisations around the
world

open university, school for
entrepreneurs, education extra,

incubator of enterpises – condusct
research into what will scale up

three key lessons – focussing on
innovative things where paying customer is usually govt.

important to focus on effective demand
of what you’re doing, ,as well as building organisation demand and
capacity – if you don’t create something that other people want to
use.

2^nd learning – scaling
impact of what you’re doing, organisation growth is only one way of
scaling impact, diffusing ideas, easy if it’s simple, easily
understandable.

organisation growth – best suited
whre there are high barriers to entry, complexity, challenges to
market,

lastly – 3^rd learning,

when scaling organisation, shift the
culture and capabilites, from explorer mode to execution mode.

Everyone’s doing a bit of everything,
being the charismatic leader, personal connections with leader,
larger scale organisation needs more equality, efficiency. Person
running it is general manager type, rather than charismatic

governance is about checks and
balances.

Be able to fire the chief executive –
finding right balance between explorer, and growth mode.

Most good ideas are developed by very
innovative, highly creative, people, who get bogged down by admin

henry, gemini heads up

project rafiki, large online project
for schools,

objectives

education – comunication skills,
teamwork skills, it skills

bridging cultural, social and religious
deviides

global interconnect – understanding
how we’re all linked.

When we started the organisation, it
wasn’t possible to collaborate and connect, now with web 2.0 we can
have huge impact, with huge numbers of kids.

Fairtrade – example – talk live
into ghana with people in coffee fields

islamophibia, kids in iran, iraq,
palestine, tower hamlets – connecting directly

long term impact, on these kids, over a
long period of time – is ayone still going to be there in a years
time, in a few yars time..

the long term impact – friends with
people in 5 countries, change in career, because of it,

software path becomes easier –
because of people like salesforce, and accenture

can’t do it alone – looking to find
other organisations, who share the same vision

medecins san frontiers – links into
darfur, to see the horror happening there..

always draws in graph – x axis –
measureable impact

y-axis number of people you can impact

some very different examples, and
interesting ideas..

extension from chair – connecting to
theme of chain reaction – gathered in this building are hundreds of
people with ideas, for local level – how do we scale that up??

using tech we have, across different
countries, and different people, how do we scale up?

Use of technology, lessons learnt,
impact on your organisation.. questions opened up to audience..

Relates to simon – shifting from
explorer to execution mode…

finished pilot – huge success, but
finding challenge about going from explorer to execution, how to grow
the organisation in order to make it sustainable…

grant funded – from wellcome trust -
very few organisations that are grant funded find it hard to scale
up, can be quite hard, and expensive. Cheapest way to do it, is to
have members on board with the expertise already on board.

Gemini foundation, was grant fudned,
and had to move into a social enterprise model – suggestion start
with a business plan, be very focussed, and single aim

Director of Just Change –
experiencing similar challenge.. over 6 years, been using volunteers
to import and distribute tea.. setting up a location in luton – to
set up an office – but can’t go from small organisation to a
financially sustainable one that grows.

Chainreaction08 – scaling from a
grant funded organisation, to one that grows.. growing challenge

unltd – cliff – pilot project..

not yet – hope it will surface on the
crowdvine, or else try the connect desk, once you get here :)

salesforce – entrepreneur development
program – vision spring, organisation in india, sell quality eye
glasses at low cost

Tricia’s point – most business
schools, have programs with mba’s who place teams with third sector
- prime time, people who’ve retired from business.

As an organisation looking for
temporary funding – can also use loans, or

thepoint.com

zopa.com

pledgeback.com

Health launch, launchpad provides
funding, and intensive support, on business building side and of
building effective demand. Commissioners, can usualy make a 15,000
grant, without referring it up.

Response to going from volunteer
sector, funding from venture capital funds

Demand side has been discussed –
what’s available on the supply side, to meet that demand

question for grace or henry – helps
out with project in south west uganda, witth e-learning, and

salesforce – have a microfinance
template, attract relationships with banks, and

Grace, iinfrastructure, electricity
isn’t there, connection to internet is on and off.. first thing,
nurses using paper based training, using cd’s. In training centres,
expanded from 37 to 105 computers.. – best options, for rural areas,
using different media, that will last regardless of the
infrastructure, nurses council of kenya

seems I’ve been typing away too much…
on the laptop – looks like I’m going to have to do more twittering
from the mobile..

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Given that’s it’s a packed and intense two days during Chain Reaction 08, and that the WiFi connection is sporadic, and non-responsive at times, it means that the social reporting, and real time updates from the event are a little more challenging to get out.

For now – I’m going to just share my unabridged notes, from the sessions that I attended, to give you a “flavour” – and I use the term very very loosely, of what’s been happening at the event..

I’ll be sure to revise this posting to a more detailed write up, after the event, once I get a bit more time, but for now – I just want to share what’s come out of the sessions so far..

So to start off, after some excellent ice-breakers, and welcomes to the room, and after an inspiring keynote from Jeremy Gilley, we broke off into different rooms.

I really wanted to sit in on the Collaboration for Social Change session, which was chaired by Stephen Howard from Business In The Community.

Here’s my notes, taken,in realtime, as the session took place – and I hope they give you a glimpse into some of the conversations that were happening, please ask any questions, or share your insights in the comments below.. For now, I can only apologise for the roughness of these next few blogposts..

Collaborating for Social Change

Steve Howard chaired session.

IBM

Microfinance infrastructure

kuda India – 100,000 microfinancing clients

collaborating internally – created opensource software for managing micro-financing organisations, working with grameen bank

royalmail

coming years, business might step backwards

– key theme, asking staff what they want to do, having staff express what they wanted to do

– people love engaging with community, unlocks talent, people have more contact with customers

– in offices where people are engaged, and doing more volunteer work, other metrics and scores are better

– royal mail support barnardos – aligns with values of staff, and what matters to them

– questions from audience – hiten shah – partnership working is difficult and mostly fails, would like to know key elements for success and pitfalls for failure

– partnerships take longer than expected – require a few years to properly be able to work together

– IBM – moved from “big things” to helping staff take small local action -

– RoyalMail did the same, focus on what people want to do locally, not national large corporate led strategies

– remove barriers, to make it easier for people to engage and participate in the programs

– homeless project, involved providing work for homeless – over 16hrs work, meant homeless lost their free housing

being open, with frank dialogue, with staff, not trying to control process, but empowering staff

– boss from Big Issue, sharing social entrepreneur model – challenging corporates to invest CSR budget in Big Issue Invest

– outsourcing CSR spend – to organisations that are more effective, prove return on investment, and show profit

chainreactiion08 – commercial organisation with a social purpose – the Royal Mail

– do we have shared interests? Having different positions? Should work together, where there are common aims

people with money want to give their money in a way that provides visible returns, leads to direct results

– leadership development in the “Third Sector”, what do we need to prepare the next generation to work across the sectors

– IBM-programs exist where leadership can be developed, and second staff to government

– RoyalMail – most organisations have secondment programs, had staff leave to join organisations and programs

-companies starting to bring in an external person into corporate trainings, so they can benefit

– royalmail – business learns from the experience too. Hugely benefits staff to be exposed to the environment

– question – salesforce gives 1% of time, what do corporates do?

– ideas and hours are logged internally, and IBM supports financially accordingly

– how do we take this idea to the other employers, to smaller businesses? Value of community contribution

– video message from allan gillespie, from goldman sachs – video stopped working

– allan gillespie – talks about social action – microsoft, building foundation years ago, burdened on africa poverty issues

– power of immunity, and immunisation – most poor communities only 25-35% get vaccines – people dying from preventable diseases

– prevent children suffering from diseases, kids can be educated, mothers can support family

– millenium development goals, monterey, california, creation by UN – 2000

chainreacction08 – goal 5 – reduction in preventable child deaths

– MS, gates, invested 1.5 billion – uk, and other european govts stepped up and also added to funds

france spain, italy, south africa, sweden, norway – funding secured over many years

– promise of funding used to secure loans to be paid off, across the program

– problems like refrigeration of vaccines with solar refrigerators, motorbikes, resources to make vaccines available

– 10 years – estimated 500 million children will be vaccinated, at least 10, 20 million children saved from death

– gates, un, gleneagles, uk, bank of england, city of london – chain of ripple to make change

– join leadership, government, politics, for sustainable success

– prof david grayson – chair of csr @ Cranfield Business School

– proposal asking businesses to see if a sustainable model for a new immunisation program might work

– fortuitious accident, that proposal landed on desk of banker at goldman sachs, who was looking for csr programs to engage with

– council for social action – need new ways of making change, collaborating

-key characteristics in paper which highlight what works in collaboration-pdf on council of social action website

these will not always be the right approach, takes great deal of time and energy to make programs work

requires significant investment from govt, business, and third sector

must have shared purpose, build deep relationships over time, for commitment to succeed

need for a common vocabulary, between business, govt and 3^rd sector

need capacity to engage with whats on offer, and to properly commit to the cause

extend collaboration common to business to partner with other organisations, new forms off collaboration

capacity for organisations to work with different types of

launch of a consulation – what are the determining critical factors?

-can you share what you’ve seen work? Different scales, different size?

– have the critical success factors been correctly identified?

– have key requirements that will lead to this success been identified?

– looking forward to getting more feedback on these ideas.

invitation to connect with BASAC that’s developing program for supporting community co-operation and participation

suggestion to connect the dots, connecting people together who are already doing amazing things

– unlocking talent, business response, how do we create a web based talent map of what’s already there??

– how do we take this challenge and make it simpler and easier for businesses to connect and collaborate

– ibm evangelists will offer advice, suggestions, find and ask for advice

royal mail – move away from evangelising, and making local connection

– learn across sectors, ripe environment of people who know how to use social networks

– simple actions, why so complicated?

– worldeka, more information, more networks

– suggestion of many ideas, diversity in nature, thriving on diversity

– royal mail – overarching aim is to make it easier and more accessible for businesses to participate, and engage

– not targetted at single solutions, or one solution, but many different solutions, and many different responses

– suggestion that firms make visible a choice to work because of csr, and make that visible

– talk about issues, not necessarily business

– choosing partners based on common values

– building brand and reputation, recruiting the best staff

– IBM actions were based on the values expressed through their staff jams

– tangible evidence from Legal and general research showing companies that implemented these values to outperform

– procurement from ethical suppliers, royal mail, constantly asked about what they’re doing on sustainability and social action

– companies genuinely interested in working with like minded organisations

– grad recruitment – if you’re not talking about work life, environment, you dont’ stand a chance

requires big change in mindset from organisations in civil society, and preparedness to work across sectors in new challenging ways

jeffery sachs – us against a common problem – not us and them anymore

how do we prevent stifling of ideas, increase cross-fertilisation of ideas

subject is more important than ever – need is greater than ever – feels too big to deal with alone

– individually we can help, collaboratively we can help even more

– stephen howard – ceo – business in the community – what can we take away? What difference can I make?

– the urgency has never been greater..

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Today (Monday 17th November 2008) marked the inauguration of Chain Reaction 08, a two day conference in London which “will bring together social leaders, community activists, policy makers, business leaders, young people and people like you from around the globe to share learning and to generate new ideas for social change, locally, nationally and globally.”

Today also marches the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week “the first worldwide celebration of enterprise, which aims to unleash young people’s enterprising ideas and address some of society’s biggest issues, from poverty reduction through to climate change.”

As the day ends in London, and all the delegates wind down, and finish up for the day, later, half way across the other side of the world, in San Francisco, there is another conversation about to begin, at The Global Summit where the question will be asked – “What will it take to build a sustainable future?”.  The Global Summit(TM) a world-wide partnership for a sustainable future, is laying the foundation for annual Summits across the globe. The Global Summit(TM) begins with a two-day symposium and culturally rich welcome reception. Outcomes include guiding principals for a sustainable world across six key social and economic sectors, a blue print for the world’s first global citizen voter platform and an online collaboration system that maximizes our collective impact. Learn more about this event by either reading this press release, or by visiting the website of the Empowerment works – the organisation responsible for putting on the event.

It seems like this week could truly mark the beginning of a significant changing tide in the world we live in today.. I’ll be personally attending Chain Reaction 08, where I’ll be socially reporting on the event, via twitter, and blogging, as best I can.  At the same time two dear friends, fellow facilitators of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, and former colleagues from The Pachamama Alliance where I volunteered for 9 months will be attending The Global Summit in San Francisco.  We’re planning to organise a conference call, after both events, to find out about each others experiences of what was shared, and to find out threads between the two events, that we might be able to start weaving together, between the two gatherings, half a world away from each other..

I don’t know about how much virtual engagement will occur at The Global Summit, but we’ll have plenty of resources to engage people online, coming out of the conference, so please do connect into the conversations in whatever way you feel would work best!!

Whilst clarifiying a few details for The Global Summit, I’ve discovered a few more relevant happenings this week..

This week the following related events are also happening, or did already happen:

Governor’s Global Climate Summit, Nov 18th and 19th, 2008, in Beverly Hills, California,
convened by Governor Schwarzenegger

The G-20 Global Economic Summit, on Nov 15th and 16th, 2008, in DC, organised by President Bush.
You can also read the Full G-20 Declaration.

The first pan-European Town Meeting on Climate Change, 15th Nov, 2008, simultaneously in Florence, (Italy), Cornellà de Llobregat (Barcelona, Spain) and Poitiers (France), in the context of the IDEAL-EU project, one of the ongoing Preparatory Actions on eParticipation funded by the European Commission.

So it’ll be interesting to see with all this flurry of activity, what long term sustainable social change could come out of these programs? and what actually ends up coming out of all these meetings…

If you’d like to engage with Chain Reaction 08 – we’re deliberately including an online social element to the community interactions, and so would like to extend the invitation to everyone to join in, participate, and collaborate.

You can start by tagging everything you generate with the official tag of chainreaction08 – so everytime you blog, tweet, post a photo on flickr, or just generally include anything that you would like to include in the conversation, be sure to include that tag (except if you’re replying to something that’s been said in twitter, in which case the fact you’re replying will mean that the earlier part of the conversation, as well as your response will appear in the results :)  This applies to all people who are at the event, and watching from their homes too :)

On twitter, to search for a keyword, you can use http://search.twitter.com and put in the keyword terms for Chain Reaction 08.

A comprehensive query, that includes all related variations can be found by visiting http://tinyurl.com/5pu375 – this will provide you with a complete list of all posts on twitter relating to the London Chain Reaction 08 event. (The RSS Feed for this query can be found here).

For photos, everyone’s been asked to post them on flickr, and to use the keyword tag of chainreaction08 to make sure that they are visible to everyone who is looking for images from the event.  If you’d like to see the latest photos that have been uploaded, just visit here.  If you happen to attend the Chain Reaction 08 event, and have pictures that you’d like to share with the other participants, then I’d like to invite you to create your very own free flickr account, and post the photos you’ve taken during the course of the two days onto flickr, making sure that you tag all your photos with “chainreaction08” (without the quotes, of course!)

You can also find relevant blog posts, that will help weave a connection between the participants of Chain Reaction 08.  Again, if you want to have your blog appear to other people, make sure that when you post your blog, you include the tag chainreaction08, so that other people can find it, when they are looking for related content..

Fortunately, Google has integrated it’s video search into a single interface, that comes from multiple sources, so you can also find all videos from the event, that are shared on youtube and google video using the chainreaction08 tag.

There is also content being video’d and streamed directly online, throughout the event courtesy of David Wilcox, and Qik…

Then, most importantly, we also have an active online community at http://chain-reaction.crowdvine.com/ so if you don’t happen to have been able to join the event, live, or want to join in from a distance, the online community will undoubtedly be a rich resource, that connects people together long after chain reaction 08 is over, and perhaps by chain reaction 09, there’ll be an international dimension occurring simultaneously at the same time.

If I happen to have missed any resources, please add them into the comments section below, and I’ll be sure to update this page, to properly reflect all the resources, and references relating to ChainReaction08, so that everyone can benefit from knowing where to find everything related and relevant to a matter dear to our hearts.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

LinkedIn has recently made the move from being just a network tool, to adding applications to the platform.  Much akin to the Applications, now a mainstay of the Facebook platform, and long seen as a way for developers to infiltrate the existing trust networks that exist on the inside of Online Social Networks, LinkedIn, has made good on it’s promise of working with OpenSocial, and launched it’s first set of apps.

In that lucky grouping are Huddle, a London based startup, that leads the way, with being the first European startup to be represented in LinkedIn.  With over 30 million professionals using LinkedIn, Huddle are strategically positioning themselves well ahead of 37 Signals, with their BaseCamp offering.

In fact, when it comes to online project management, Huddle have probably beaten everyone else in the web space, given that most of the 30 million professionals on LinkedIn, probably haven’t gone deliberately looking for services that would offer such tools..

I know recently I discovered the Action Method, approach to tasking and project management, but only since I took an active interest in finding better tools to get this job done… Now it’ll be interesting to see what sort of an impact the OpenSocial integration is going to have with other services that equally integrate with OpenSocial, and will start to be offered through existing online social networks, such as LinkedIn and Plaxo..  Let’s just hope that what happens is that only the best tools rise to the top!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Just discovered g2i – gateway2investment, which is an investment readiness programme for London based companies looking for equity investment, to assist with rapid growth.

As an entrepreneur, with a company in London, looking for investment, if you’re innovative, and looking to grow the company with an equity investment, then g2i might be able to help.  I happened to discover it when reading the comments in an article that talked about Huddle, and how they were a part of a group who went out to Silicon Valley, called Web Mission 08.  The g2i appears to offer training, advice, support and mentoring, aimed at helping companies develop their pitches, their propositions, and their teams, in order to become “investor ready”.  They only target specific sectors, so before you go off all chirpy, make sure that you’re at least in one of the following industries:

• Design & Creative
• Life Sciences
• Emerging Technologies
• Energy & Environment
• ICT
• Food & Drink
• Value Added Manufacturing
• Retail

It actually looks like a pretty broad range, so hopefully you’ll be able to find a way to fit into one of those categories.  I guess, aside from getting you ready for investors, the real benefit with g2i, is their network of investors, VC’s and business angels, which means they’ll be able to help you brush up on your pitch, and then help you walk through the door to the folks with money most suited to what you’re offering.

Seems like a win win situation to me!  They have a great summary of the g2i journey, graphically depicting the different stages, and what’s on offer..

You can also read more about the g2i team, which is comprised of Grant Thornton UK LLP, Library House, E-Synergy, The Innovatory, Quotec, and Pembrige Partners LLP.

Altogether, g2i looks like a great outfit to go through, to help shape up the business, and get things rolling, especially if you’re during the growth phase of your company, and need the equity injection to help grow the business.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Now it’ll be interesting to see which of them becomes the first to start twittering??

For now, I think the sorry state of big business, in the world of online social media is nothing more than an opportunity to be educated, informed, and to grow, as business starts to understand what it means to be a part of the new face of the internet.

You can start to see some of the big Fortune 500 that are blogging on a wiki that’s been set up, to help track this information.  Begun as a collaboration between Chris Anderson (of Wired Magazine), and Ross Mayfield (of Social Text) the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki aims to pull together reviews of the blogs put out there by the Fortune 500.  I may, in time start to contribute to that wiki, as it’s touching upon the impact of web 2.0 media in the modern business world.  For now, I’ll leave you with a question.. What would the world look like if large business actually took the time to talk to it’s customers??

WePC.com aims to go one step further and involve customers in creating the product.. but lets talk more about that another other day!

Related posts:

1. Time to Focus My Diverse Interests So, it’s been a long time since I’ve written on...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.