Social Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are essential drivers of innovation and progress. In the business world, they act as engines of growth, harnessing opportunity and innovation to fuel economic advancement. Social entrepreneurs act similarly, tapping inspiration and creativity, courage and fortitude, to seize opportunities that challenge and forever change established, but fundamentally inequitable systems.

Distinct from a business entrepreneur who sees value in the creation of new markets, the social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of transformational change that will benefit disadvantaged communities and ultimately society at large. Social entrepreneurs pioneer innovative and systemic approaches for meeting the needs of the marginalized, the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised – populations that lack the financial means or political clout to achieve lasting benefit on their own.

Throughout history, such individuals have introduced solutions to seemingly intractable social problems, fundamentally improving the lives of countless individuals by changing the way critical systems operate. Florence Nightingale and Maria Montessori offer two prominent historical examples. Muhammad Yunus, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, is a more recent example. He began offering microloans to impoverished people in Bangladesh in 1976, thereby empowering them to become economically self-sufficient and proving the microcredit model that has now been replicated around the world.

While social entrepreneurship isn’t a new concept, it has gained renewed currency in a world characterized by a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots. With this heightened visibility, social entrepreneurs at the forefront of the movement are distinguishing themselves from other social venture players in terms of ultimate impact.

One example is social entrepreneur Bunker Roy, who created the Barefoot College in rural communities in India to train illiterate and semiliterate men and women, whose lack of educational qualifications keeps them mired in poverty. Today Barefoot College graduates include teachers, health workers and architects who are improving communities across India, including 450 "barefoot" engineers who have installed and maintain solar-electrification systems in 547 villages that reach nearly 100,000 people.

Another example is Ann Cotton, who started the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) in 1993 to achieve the simple goal of ensuring an education for young girls in Africa whose families cannot afford school fees. By establishing a sustainable model that provides community support for girls to go to school, start businesses and return to their communities as leaders, CAMFED has broken the cycle of poverty for hundreds of thousands of young women in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania. In 2006 alone, more than 300,000 children benefited from education programs supported by a network of more than 5,100 young women who have themselves benefited from CAMFED-supported education and microfinance programs.

These and other social entrepreneurs are solution-minded pragmatists who are not afraid to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems. They recognize the extraordinary potential in the billions of poor people who inhabit the planet, and they are absolutely committed to helping them use their talents and abilities to achieve their potential. Social entrepreneurs use inspiration, creativity, courage, fortitude and, most importantly, direct action, to create a new reality – a new equilibrium – that results in enduring social benefit and a better future for everyone.

Think Like An Entrepreneur

You take the steps to put yourself out there, talk to other entrepreneurs about what opportunities are available, you do your due diligence and you end up finding the opportunity that you believe can take you where you want to be in life – whatever that may look like for you. You find out what it takes to get started including costs, what your next steps are, and have everything laid out in front of you and are ready to take the leap.

Then something happens. Your mind wanders and gets cluttered in endless chatter, and you get a severe case of the”what ifs”. You freeze, and end up going back to your safe life.

Crisis averted. What were you thinking anyway?

I’ll tell you what you were thinking – “There is no way that I have the time or resources to do this.”

It is that type of thinking that keeps many people stuck in their lives.

Successful entrepreneurs, regardless of the nature of their business, what their startup costs are or any other circumstance, employ an entirely different type of thinking – instead of thinking why they can’t do it, successful entrepreneurs think about how they can do it.

I hope you get that, because it is absolutely the biggest difference I see in those who make it and those who don’t.

The people who stay stuck can only see the obstacles in their way. They focus on anything and everything that could or might go wrong and they succumb to their fears. And they go back to what is comfortable for them.

Successful entrepreneurs know that being successful is all about being
uncomfortable. They see obstacles as challenges. They are busy figuring what stone they can turn and how they can move heaven and earth to get to where they want to go. know there will be challenges. However, successful entrepreneurs also know that their grit, determination, and desire to succeed can push them to overcome anything that comes in their path.

The key here is that you shouldn’t feel comfortable unless you are feeling uncomfortable. How can you grow if you keep doing the same thing, the “safe” thing?

You can’t.

Successful entrepreneurs do things that make them uncomfortable, and that make their palms sweat, because they know that the reward is absolutely worth whatever risk they are taking.

So the next time opportunity knocks at your door, open it wide. Welcome it. Treat it as your best friend.

Know that there will be challenges, as there are with anything worth having. But instead of being backed into a corner with your hands over your face, come out swinging.

Believe in yourself and your ability to overcome anything that presents itself as an obstacle. Figure out how you are going to make yourself into the next success story instead of why you won’t become the next success story.

Teenager techie set for his fourth book release

One of India's youngest cyber wizards and "ethical hacker" Sahil Khan is now getting ready for the release of his fourth book. Sixteen-year-old Sahil has achieved a lot. He has invented nine computer games and written three books on computer sciences, making him one of the youngest people in the country to have published on the subject.

"My fourth book 'Tricks of Email Hacking' is ready for release this month," Sahil said.

Sahil, nicknamed 'Indian Einstein' by a section of the electronic media, invented nine computer games when he was 13 and wrote his first book on computer hacking a year later.

"When I made my first game at home I told mother, but she was not excited, thinking it would just be a petty thing. Later she realised when my teacher told her. Soon the school formally announced it and I got an award from Newspapers in Education (NIE)," Sahil said.

Sahil, a humble and soft-spoken teenager, did not attend any professional course in computer science and he also did not own a personal computer until recently. His first interaction with computers began when he learnt internet chatting with his father.

"Since then he got interested in gaming on computers and though we did not have enough money to buy a computer, soon somehow I managed to buy him a PC on instalments," said Sahil's mother Atiya Suleman.

Sahil, a student of Class 10 at Harcourt Butler Sr. Secondary School, however, doesn't bask in his achievements and feels that every person has some special quality which needs to be pursued at the right time. What are his plans for the future?

"For now my main focus is on board examinations and then I will try to get into an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and become a cyber expert of repute," Sahil said.

Sahil's first book "Hackers and Crackers", which was published by ABC, was launched by Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal.

The second part of "Hackers and Crackers" was published by Diamond Publications and was launched by Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury.

"We have published two editions of 'Hackers and Crackers' in 10 months. This is a very helpful book and we have been getting an overwhelming response; so now we are translating this book into Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Tamil. The other book 'The Anatomy of Computer Viruses' has been a favourite among people," said Narender Verma, owner of Diamond Publications.

Sahil has also come in for praise from computer experts.

"Sahil's books give great grounding for any common man to understand the problem of computer viruses and computer hacking. This book can be a great help for the readers to protect their computers from virus attacks and hacking. Computer viruses are, however, a very vast area of study which has a number of complex aspects and some of them are not included," said Ahmad Kamal, a lecturer in computer science at Jamia Millia University.

Sir Richard Branson in drag – Virgin America lands in Boston

Marketing genius, Branson, still manages to have fun!!!



Check out the video above and the photos below for all the delightful hoopla. Virgin will be flying three daily roundtrips between LA and Boston and two daily roundtrips between San Francisco and Boston with Wi-Fi on every flight and fares starting at $109.

Social Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Social Marketing

If you own or manage a small business, there’s no reason to feel inadequate if you don’t understand the need for social marketing. How would you? For many small businesses, the design and content of their website dates back to the days when businesses just wanted to have a site because they were told that it was important.

A “Webmaster” — as they were called back in those days — took your information and turned it into a website, and your involvement didn’t extend much beyond paying for it.

Those old “online brochure” websites sprang up everywhere during the late 1990s, and while you may have had a new design or two since then, it’s much more competitive now, isn’t it?

How Businesses Compete Online in the 21st Century

It’s already become clear that social marketing will be one of the most important factors in the online success of 21st century small businesses. If you’re determined to excel in your online competitive environment, you’ll begin to commit some of your time and creative energy to it. For small businesses and organizations, this commitment doesn’t need to involve significant financial outlay, but it will take time that is well spent.

A significant number of major corporations have already committed themselves to Web 2.0 Internet strategies. We’re talking about Bank of America, Boeing, FedEx, General Motors, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, and Wells Fargo, for example.

Many (but by no means all) large corporations have been aware of Web 2.0 — particularly social marketing — since the beginning of this century. Their marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals discovered some years ago that “offline marketing” can no longer take their companies where they need to go.

Small businesses don’t need to think about the whole range of Web 2.0 strategies, but you need to start understanding the basics of social marketing right now. A small business that wants a successful website cannot ignore social marketing, especially if you’re in a competitive business or market.

What Social Marketing Means for Businesses

Social marketing can drive much more traffic to your site than you could reasonably expect if you’re only concerned about search engine optimization.

Social marketing involves a long-term commitment to establishing and nurturing mutually-beneficial online relationships that will help you improve your products and services, strengthen your reputation, and drive traffic to your site that you may otherwise have to concede to your competitors.

Social Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

After the fundamentals are in place and your new business website has been launched, you have to make your “static” website come alive. There are now ways to get much more traffic on your site than you could ever expect if your only concern is search engine optimization. You can:

• establish or upgrade a blog that is associated with your company’s website and use it to strengthen your site’s position as a trusted authority.
  
  
• use your blog to let your customers collaborate with you as you expand and improve your products and services; their user-generated content — contributions including the comments and suggestions they add to your blog postings — can give you value as well as cash as they become part of a community that you establish.
  
  
• initiate and nurture online relationships with bloggers and others who are in a position to influence your target audiences because they specialize in the kinds of products and services you offer.
  
  
• submit your best website content and blog posts to social bookmarking and content-sharing sites — to share what you know about your products and services and to call attention to the authoritative information you’re offering.
  
  
• begin to participate in and contribute to social networking communities intelligently, creatively, generously, and honestly.

Entrepreneurs: Win cool prizes in Doing Business in Bathrobe Day Contest!

I wanted to let you know about a fun holiday I participate in every year called Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day. This is the 7th annual celebration of this awesome holiday celebrating the freedom and ingenuity of entrepreneurs around the globe!

Here’s how YOU can participate in this fun holiday!

1) Enter to win cool prizes
2) Submit their press release to your local paper and get free pr for your business
3) Send in pics of you working in your bathrobe. They’ll post it and give you a link back to your website.

Join the fun at www.businessinyourbathrobeday.com

The 100 Daily Must-Reads for Entrepreneurs

A compilation of 100 highly informative sites. Take a look at what they have to say and see how they can help you grow your business.

The Crossword Bookstore story

In the late-1980 s, a college student threw caution and a destined engineering degree to the winds and landed a job with the Landmark bookstore in Madras. He thought he would last there for all of three months. But as the line goes ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’ , and he went on to build one of India’s most successful bookstore chains. In the case of R Sriram, the former founder CEO of Crossword, fact is stranger than the fiction that lines the bookshelves at Crossword.

Today, the chain that he helped set up is perhaps India’s biggest book retailer . Before Crossword, there were well known bookshops — HigginBothams in Bangalore, Strand in Mumbai, Om in Delhi to name but a few. However none of them had a national presence.

The chain was born from the recognition of the fact that like many other categories in those days, even this had plenty of potential. Says Sriram, “Book retailing had served, underserved and unserved customers. We saw a huge opportunity in the underserved and unserved segments.” Today that goal has been achieved and standardisation is one of the biggest reasons for their success.

Sivaraman Balakrishnan, marketing head, Crossword points out that today a consumer irrespective of the city that he visits will be treated to the same shopping experience . He says, “Across formats our brand experience of educate, entertain and enlighten are the same.”

Back then, though, in a scenario where books were sold through outlets that were tiny and consumers bought them much like they bought medicines at drugstores (going with a prescription), there was a lot of ground to be covered. Attractive display was a far-fetched concept and the only bookstores that gave customers room to free their arms were the ones in five star hotels.

To be successful, therefore, a national chain would have to reinvent and remarket the very idea of a bookshop as consumers saw it. Luckily for Sriram, he found a backer for the concept in publishers India Book House putting the seed capital and more importantly give him real estate in the form of their vacant first floor office space in Mumbai at Mahalaxmi.

The name was supposed to be Crosswords , because it signifies fun and learning. However legend has it that a numerologist said that the name was unlucky and there was talk of a name change. Sriram though intervened and suggested the dropping of the ‘s’ , and so the name Crossword came into being. The store was launched on August 15 in 1992.

In many ways, right from its inception the chain broke the rules. The property was not on the ground floor, not easily accessible, no parking space and was a ‘U’ shaped space with many pillars. The entrepreneurs decided to look at the advantages rather than moan about the deficiencies . It was on the same street that housed iconic Mumbai stores like Amarsons and Benzer and hence likely to attract upmarket shoppers. It was decided that consumers would be treated to unique shopping experience in a shop that was trendy and hip. The bookstore decided to appeal to mothers and children.

It set up dedicated sections for children, a concept that was unheard of in the bookstores that were around. That risk paid off, with children contributing about 35 per cent of sales and 25 per cent of the volumes. The store also took some innovative steps like keeping the children’s section at the farther end of the store.

As a result, parents accompanying children would end up viewing the entire range of offerings while taking children to the section . Also introduced was the concept of book reading sessions for kids. The investment has paid off and today the kids section has grown bigger and better . Says Sukanya Kripalu, CEO, Sukanya Consulting, a Mumbai-based brand consultancy, “With other avenues like television and gaming fighting for the child’s attention, there’s a feeling among mothers that reading has got compromised. By addressing concerns like these, the brand has become much more than a bookstore.”

It also was the first bookstore to have seating spaces where customers could actually sit and read an entire book with no questions asked — a welcome break from the surreptitious reading at bookstores that customers were used to. To ensure that customers spent more time, Crossword set up a coffee store within the outlet and also provided space for rest-rooms . And on the customer’s bill, it offered a term that surprised many: ‘Books once sold WILL be taken back’ .

Over the years more innovations have taken place such as free home delivery, flexible gift vouchers (consumers could get credits on the remaining amount of their gift vouchers) and a thriving loyalty program. As a conscious policy, the store does not offer discounts , other than at the time of its annual sale.

It further put its neck out with the ‘Sriram recommends’ (now called Crossword recommends ) section, wherein consumers could buy the book and avail of a refund if they did not like the book, no questions asked. Book reading sessions with authors have now become commonplace inside the store. All this summed up in creating a brand experience that could be solely associated with the brand. Now, with Shoppers Stop owning a majority stake in the chain, it’s now spread across 12 cities with 52 outlets in three formats.

So while it does have a national footprint, there is still some distance to go before it can emulate say a Barnes and Noble. “The concept and the execution have been good. The trick is how to bring scale to this model,” says Kripalu. Crossword for its part is innovating on store size to gain further ground. While the flagship store of Crossword in a city is above 12,000 sq ft, brand stores are in the 5,000-7 ,500 sq ft range and corner stores set at gas stations are in the 500-2 ,000 sq ft range. It has also chosen to set up a shopwithin-shop inside Shoppers Stop outlets .

Balakrishnan believes that the various formats help the brand get closer to consumers. He points out that a market like Mumbai has 17 Crossword’s , while Pune has 11 stores. Says Balakrishnan, “The formats make Crossword a neighbourhood store.” Market observers however feel that there is still some way to go. They argue that Crossword has to offer more than one flagship store in big markets like Mumbai as the belief is that the brand’s equity among customers shopping at the flagship store might be quite different from others shopping at the suburban outlets. One could also argue that in cities like Kolkata and Chennai, it’s Oxford and Landmark respectively which are the big boys of the bookworld. Either ways it would seem that we are a long way from reading the last word in this book saga.

Survey: Small Businesses Are Clueless About Cloud Computing

By Jason Rothbart

RackSpace recently published a survey on cloud hosting. The company asked 1500 small and mid-sized businesses in the US and UK what they knew about cloud hosting and if they intend to use it. The results of the survey may surprise you. One key finding was that there is a large gap between small and mid-sized businesses in their adoption of cloud hosting.

Mid-sized businesses knew significantly more about cloud services or were at least using them or planning to use them in the near future. Small businesses, on the other hand, were ill-informed, and 59% of those surveyed had no plans to use the cloud at all.

We spoke with Jonathan Bryce, co-founder of Mosso, a RackSpace company. He was surprised at this finding because, as he saw it, cloud computing is ideal for small businesses. The services are generally easy to get started with and don't require an IT staff or capital equipment. Also, small businesses usually have only one or two decision-makers, so the process should ostensibly be much easier than in larger companies.

Jonathan also noted that the hype surrounding the cloud (whether related to hosting, applications, computing, etc.) is confusing to people, particularly small-business owners. While I'm a little surprised at the size of the gap, small-business owners I know are not technically savvy and don't wake up in the morning wondering how they can cut costs by "leveraging the cloud." They keep things very simple and focus on the everyday tactical decisions to operate their business.

While cloud hosting would save them money, scale their business where needed, and remove headaches, these owners usually have other problems on their mind, like staying in business and keeping employees and customers happy.

Jonathan put his finger on how to change this trend. The small-business community needs more education on the specific solutions and benefits that the cloud provides. They need to see use cases and solutions that directly address their business needs if they are ever going to adopt it. For example, hosted application services probably wouldn't help them, but offering them a hosted billing and invoicing solution integrated with their purchasing system might grab their attention.

Small-business owners think in terms of what solves their problems (as we all should), and cloud providers like RackSpace will have to evolve towards offering specific solutions if they want to capture the small-business market.

(Cloud rack photo by Maximillian Dornseif.)