BEING A SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR – BUILDING A PLATFORM

Learning is one of the keys to staying interested in what you’re doing . . . which leads to greater awareness, better ability to communicate, and a more likely chance for success. People have asked me what I really do with Global Team Design. My answers have varied over the past while, but as I zero in more on what I want to spend my time on, it’s becoming clear to me that I’m becoming a social entrepreneur. It sounds vaguer than international nonprofit consultant and trainer, but it actually is where my passion is, and the contracts I’m getting are as a result of communicating this passion on to others when I speak to groups or meet with people.

What is a social entrepreneur? Entrepreneurs think outside the box, they like to build, they’re on the cutting edge and always pushing the envelope. They like action and are never satisfied until solutions are created to meet the needs of the problems they’re dealing with. They are competitive, sometimes lone rangers, but often attract a following because they are doing what they like and exude enthusiasm about it. In the business world, these are the people who create economic growth when what they’re doing is properly harnessed and focused. Social Entrepreneurs are much the same as business entrepreneurs, but rather than the focus be on economic growth, the focus is on social change.

The social zone I have a passion for and have chosen to work in is in the area of nations and people of wealth responding to international social needs. The trends are to respond in some way to global poverty, HIV/Aids, victims of war and natural disasters . . . The problem is that in our age of open sourcing and globalization, everyone has been given the opportunity to respond. This is a good thing, but like every program built that works in the open source world, it needs to start with a platform. Right now there is no solid/functional platform for people to build on when they have the desire to respond. Right now the platform is emotion and trend . . . which is very weak. It needs to be stronger, more developed and rooted in understanding and harsh reality.

I’m not sure where this is going to take me, but I’m sure that my role as a consultant is to simply start by giving people some tools to start building their foundation with. I don’t have all the answers, and I’m still learning like crazy – but I do know that a platform needs to be built if all of our culture’s emotion to respond is going to be harnessed and used in an effective way.