Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
How would you define a "social enterprise"?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
8 Answers
Enterprise 2.0 was coined by Harvard Prof. Andrew McAfee, but the term got confused with the set of tools (software) such as activity streams, enterprise wikis, collaboration platforms rather than a more open, fluid, transparent approach to doing business.
To distinguish themselves from this technical label, companies such as Jive Software and then followed by IBM started to use the term Social Business (even though this still has a technical ring to it rather than something that reflects the way people interact in a business environment.
Salesforce.com then started using the term Social Enterprise to set themselves apart from other vendors.
This all is rather confusing to Europeans in particular, where we associate the Social Enterprise as an enterprise that provides social value as descibed by Ellen Brody and Steven Moody.
A company founded to do good in the world while maintaining a profit long term.
This is getting to be a hot topic in the nonprofit/NGO sector. In fact, lots of nonprofits these days consider themselves to be social enterprises, and some more traditional ones are creating "social enterprise" programs. Steven is correct; social enterprises are founded to do good in the world, while maintaining a profit. For the nonprofit sector, that "profit" is usually plowed back into the business for the purpose of extending goods and services to a larger audience, and is not re-distributed back to shareholders.
What makes this such an interesting issue is watching the way that so-called "social entrepreneurs" are mixing classic for-profit business disciplines with the nonprofit model. Broadly speaking, social entrepreneurs are more likely to embrace leading-edge uses of technology, business format, and product/service distribution. As someone who has consulted for nonprofits for the past twenty years, I see more rapid decision-making, and a higher level of risk taking, among these social enterprises than I have typically seen in the nonprofit world as a whole.
I'd love to hear from other people about this issue.
In five years no one will be using the term...
It's 2011-2012 buzz speak.
Mark, thanks for the background; I didn't know who had coined the term Enterprise 2.0. But I'm not at all surprised that Europeans find the term confusing when it's associated with enterprises providing social value. I disagree with Scott Schaffernoth; I think the term is going to remain strong in the North American nonprofit sector, where the whole concept is gathering steam.
On the other hand, technology companies are going to use it to mean "some kind of business that uses social media" while nonprofits are going to use it to mean "a business providing social value," and we'll all be thoroughly confused before this is over. But hey, what else is new?
I would define a 'Social Enterprise' as an organization that has embraced - and at least begun to act on - the idea that their customers, partners and other members of their ecosystem are able to freely interact with each other - and has chosen to participate in and learn from those interactions toward the goal of improving their relationships and business performance.
When I say 'embraced' I don't mean they've launched a blog or a Facebook page - it's a much deeper, cultural shift that many organizations have yet to truly adapt to. I love the way Nilofer Merchant defines it in this post - http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/rules_for_the_social_era.html
"The world has changed; how we create value has changed. Organizationally we have not. It will be wholly insufficient to put the word "social" in front of existing business models and expect things to change. Instead, we need to imagine the fundamental enterprise anew for the social era. Lean, adaptive, community-driven organizations, built for speed, will thrive."
I vote for Steven Moody’s definition and Ellen Bristol’s definition. And I add a third: a “social enterprise” is an organization that arranges, produces, and conducts actual or virtual gatherings of people with similar interests and concerns … it enables socialization. The events foster genuine human interaction, hobnobbing, “networking,” and the development of personal and business friendships.
Chris Selland is entirely correct about the need for inclusive business development. But I recommend against using the term “social enterprise” to describe that sort of organization. That’s because, unfortunately, the term has been co-opted by folks who happen to worship the social media, and the business evolution now underway deserves more than a buzzword.
Sidebar: Brielle first posted the question way back on Aug. 25 last year but no one answered. How come now?
Interesting that this question didn't get answered until yesterday. I missed the initial question altogether, but saw Steve Moody's reaction; my interest in the nonprofit sector was what persuaded me to respond. And Michael Brown, I really like your definition of the social enterprise as an organization that enables socialization, where the critical feature is "gatherings of people with similar interests and concerns."
Answer This Question