enjoy. . .
http://sellingprint.blogspot.com/2009/02/looking-for-new-business-model.html

As I’ve indicated before, nowhere has the point about reforming the model of capitalism been made more than in Ukraine where for the last 5 years, our profit has been directed to deliver the ‘Marshall Plan’

So here’s Richard Branson to echo the point to the VIPs assembled.

http://pinchukfund.org/en/news/archive/2009/01/29/986.html

This might be endorsement, for being the change and all.

Thank you for keeping this discussion in mind. I look forward to following your leads.

Meanwhile, I am living the life of the semi-retired. Just the good luck of having got out of the game just before the roof caved.

As for the elites, either academic, philanthropic, business or poltical, I think they are going to have a bit of time coming up. Elites in the auto economy were built on superior information. My expectations is that elites in the Google-Mart economy are going to be based on excellence.

I think we are in for an interesting ride.

http://www.btbetterworld.com/pg/giving_young_people_a_voice/seen_and_heard_awards/casestudies/Speak_out.ikml

it’s a sharp contrast with the lifestyle of the philanthropic and academic elite.

I have to believe that someone else, someplace else is doing similar work. If you or anyone happens to know about such work, it would be great to hear about it.

If the tent dweller had anything to do with that, he should be very proud.

Right now, however something rather spontaneous has erupted among readers of Daily Kos, as so far hundreds have gathered with a view to collaborate on income generation. That tent dweller is there, in the thick of it.

http://kossacksnetworking.ning.com

Jeff

Thank you. I will look through the links to I learn more.

Im my humble opinion, I think the time that was not quite right in 1997 may be coming to pass. As American/Global financial institutions are being reinvented it seems that the next step here in the States will be GM and big Auto. From everything I’m hearing Obama’s team is preparing a “structured bankruptcy.”

The movement from a consumer society to a producer society has, I think, finally begun in earnest. As we know that last thing to change are the institutions that are supported by conventional wisdom and proximate incentives. With Obama’s election, I think our political system has begun that process.

Meanwhile, America has to create millions of jobs soon. The irony might be that the innovations at the periphery will come home to the metropole. It is only small,local businesses, like printers among others, that create jobs. Global corporations eliminate jobs.

For whatever it’s worth, I think non profit organizations are going to be under alot of pressure in the coming years. As are small businesses. It will be interesting to see what emerges from the tensions.

I can imagine non profits looking at some form of B corp or P-ECD as an alternative as the political heat is turned up. This may turn out to be the next big thing for non profit fundraising.

None that I know of as business as such. The Tomsk Initiative was to raise &6 million ‘investment’ to service a city of 600,000 with a microcredit bank. We’ve never been more than a small business ourselves.

B Corps sounds very much like the profit for purpose model of P-CED, they may differ in the ‘manifesto’ I hadn’t read about them until a few weeks ago. A similar concept of what’s know here in the UK as a Community Interest Company (CIC) was made available here as a form of incorporation within UK company law in 2005.

With regard to our overall focus on digital and economic inclusion, it also seems to have much in common with creative capitalism.

Speaking from my interpretation, which I hope corresponds with our founder’s I saw the power of the P-CED model in being able to seed similar businesses and support like minded others by means of procuring them as suppliers and serving them as customers.

In practice,I find there’s a disconnect between what today’s CSR delivers and my imagined self-propelling social economy because of brand consciousness, with corporations tending to be unwilling to engage with other than that which they can derive publicity.

A P-CED model is more than rendering profit to charity, it’s about investing in the needs of the community and there’s another advocate, totally unconnected to us with a People-Centered Model of Business (PC-MOB) which illustrates rather well how these connections can be made:

http://www.triplebottomline.com.pk/response.asp?id=1&sub_id=7

This as someone else put it rather succinctly recently is not a question of what we’re doing, but what we’re being.

Jeff

An FY, 2 questions and a comment:
FYI,
I blog in the commercial printing world with a focus on biz development and education. As you can imagine the waves of creative destruction are swallowing many printing companies. There is a muted discussion about new “business models” that is in fact a discussion about how to get more customers.

Question 1:
Is there any experience you can share of going small businesses up to $5 million gross, facing the destruction of their business models and moving towards the P-CED approach.

Question 2:
How does P-CED relate to G corps. On first reading they seem very similar. Is it merely an organizational difference or are there significant differences in concepts?

Comment:
I was especially intrigued by the notion of P-CED’s instead of American non profits. It has long been my belief that the no tax paying status of many non profits has been a shield behind which the incentives are truly dysfunctional.

“The P-CED concept is to create new businesses that do things differently from their inception, and perhaps modify existing businesses that want to do it. This business model entails doing exactly the same things by which any business is set up and conducted in the free-market system of economics. The only difference is this: that at least fifty percent of profits go to stimulate a given local economy, instead of going to private hands. In effect, the business would operate in much the same manner as a non-profit organization. The only restrictions are the normal terms and conditions of free-enterprise. If a corporation wants to donate a portion of profits to its local community, it can do so, be it one percent, five percent, or even fifty percent. There is no one to protest or dictate otherwise, except a board of directors and stockholders. This is not a small consideration, since most boards and stockholders would object. But, if an arrangement has been made with said stockholders and directors such that this direction of profits is entirely the point, then no one will object. The corporate charter can require that these monies be directed into community development funds, such as a permanent, irrevocable trust fund. The trust fund, in turn, would be under the oversight of a board of directors made up of employees and community leaders. ”

From there, it led to leveraging a development initiative and microfinance bank in Russia, yeilding 10,000 new businesses in the city of Tomsk.

In this regard, it succeeded as a bottom up approach where the preceding Harvard (HIID) Initiative in the Defense Enterprise Fund had floundered.

I took over the core operating revenue generation function in 2004, applying the P-CED model to a small software business. In October 2006 we delivered the ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine as a blueprint for microeconomic development and social enterprise. To-date it has prompted from the US, the creation of the East Europe Foundation with Ukraine adopting 3 key recommendations as policy in childcare reform.

The original paper about digital and economic inclusion was published on the web, free to use as an idea virus in 1997.

http://www.p-ced.com/about/history/

The rest is described on the same site.

Jeff

Robert Reich, in Supercapitalsim, makes a compelling argument that CSR is doomed to fail. Corporations are expected to make profits. The responsibility is to increase shareholder value. The good ones take a long term view. The less good ones take a short term view to pop the stock price. But in either case, there is no real incentive for the corporations, as opposed to the people in the corporations to act in any other way.

My opinion is that non profits have an even more complicated problem. With no outcome measure, mission become obfuscated with proximate incentives for the directors, board and the people who work there.

The focus on fund raising is just one example of time away from task. The educational institutions that are hedge funds or money machines from student revenues are other exmaple.

IMHO, B corps are a very, very promising approach. The key element is the writing into the articles of incorporation. Well done. And very good luck.

I’m in the rather unusual position of a small business owner supplying much larger corporations and have now doubt that while corporations showcase at the board level, the majority will be doing their best to delay paying their suppliers on time. This may well enhance the corporate image, but in these times of difficulty in particular they threaten the existence of many a small business and those it employs.

In 1957 John Spedan Lewis claimed that the (then) present state of affairs was a perversion of capitalism, when there were millionaires while there were still slums, my bet would be on him turning in his grave at what he might observe today.

In terms of social business and it’s performance metrics, Peter Burgess of the Transparency and Accountability network has made a brave start.

Jeff

Allan

I’d wanted to discuss the application of similar ideas, which brought microfinance to Russia nearly a decade ago, but the group was far too exclusive. One contributor, I think Clive Crook, commented later in the FT, which again, was rather selective in the comments accepted for publication.

I read ideas bring re-branded, re-dismissed, but seemingly little hope of reaching MDGs by 2015.

Jeff