New Fish Fighter

I have really enjoyed Hugh's Fish Fight. I meant to watch the videos last year as one of my New Year's resolutions, so better late than never. Eager to explore The River Cottage Fish Book. I learned to skin fish tonight and must learn to cook more mackerel and sardines.

Exaggerating Truth To Be Effective?

...and another thing...

I was reminded of another video that got me a bit unsettled last year. I refreshed my memory and came across another thoughtful piece in The Guardian: Unwatchable: should charities use shock tactics to get attention?

It speaks about when it is and isn't OK, in the writer's opinion, to exaggerate, shock and make the general public uncomfortable. I'd guess there will never be a right answer to this. I agree with this statement: "Sometimes it can be tempting to prioritise effectiveness over truth. I know of campaigns that have deliberately exaggerated statistics and claims to provoke a reaction. It has sometimes worked, but in the long-term an untruthful strategy may well lose support and legitimacy."

How you convey "the truth" matters. In my last post on Kony 2012, I guess I was saying that I didn't like their message, but it provoked me to act (not buy posters, but get to work in my own way).

The makers of "Unwatchable" state:

We know we’ve made something which many are going to find disturbing and thought it was important to explain why we went to such lengths. The issue that hundreds of thousands are targeted by weaponised rape as a tactic of destroying communities to control mines has been with us for over a decade and still continues.

The last sentence doesn't answer an important question: who is using rape as a weapon? So the awareness-raising "truth" will make people more anti-mining rather than think about who uses rape and why they are able to get away with it. Mining companies have a huge responsibility to prevent their complicity, but the truth is that such violence doesn't just disappear if you even could set up a programme to mine only "rape free" minerals so tossing out your iPhone won't do anything. In short, this is a less effective campaign than Kony 2012, in my opinion, especially as it makes people less open to thinking about ways that natural resources present an opportunities for development.

And, the assumption that if you see wealthy white people getting raped means we should care seems like an "effective" tactic, but makes my stomach turn. Maybe that's just my displeasure with the way of the world rather than a comment on the film.

This video on "Why we made this?" is really worth watching. But I still don't change my opinion. And if you ask me, nothing can be more horrific than the story itself, told in graphic detail with no professional directors and filmmakers.

The (Sad) State of Socializing

It is pretty sad how rarely I have put thoughts up here. Also pretty sad to see the aftermath of the US election. My despondency is not so much about the size of the swing to Republications, but the growth moronic truisms that pass as debate these days.

Generally I love NPR, but they have been irritating me this week. This whole Tea Party thing is just plain anti-thinking and even NPR has been giving them a platform without challenging them sufficiently. For example, Tea Party Leaders Go Over Election Wins, Losses, we get the excellent commentary from Matt Kibbe, CEO of FreedomWorks, whose motto is "Lower Taxes, Less Government, More Freedom".

I really think that even before November 2nd, the Tea Party had defined this election by driving the issues that mattered in this debate. And virtually every Republican and most Democrats - certainly, the Democrats that won in battlegrounds like West Virginia - literally ran on the Tea Party agenda.

Ran on the Tea Party agenda? How about a question like, "Where can I find the Tea Party agenda?" Maybe www.freedomwork.org, where I can buy "Partner With Beck" and get my free copy of Rules for Patriots Handbook.

Another comment by Kibbe, this time in relation to Republicans willingness to "compromise".

If the question is government-run health care, I don't understand what the compromise would be between a bad idea and half a bad idea.

And the interviewer, Steve Inskeep, ignores the quip on "government-run health care" and just goes right to the next question.

Look, I got no problem with people like Kibbe being on NPR. In fact, let them on all the time, but please make them defend their moronic statements. Ask a follow on question. It's your job.

Sadly, also, is the fact the person most actively doing the job of the journalist is a comedian. It still is Jon Stewart who highlights the absurdity of our declining debate. Watch his interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News. Wallace doesn't even understand the point Stewart is making - that he too criticizes MSNBC, which he says is a pathetic attempt to fight Fox by being "double AA ball" partisan next to major league Fox when what is should do is get some "earned credibility" by becoming a "brand new journalistic organization".

Listen, Mr. Wallace, did you get it? Think...think...oh, no, right over your head and on to your talking points about the latest poll.

Where have all the good journalists gone?

Yunus on the Financial Crisis

The year started so OK for blogging...alas, I need to re-group, start again and remind myself why I (try to) blog. I will still give it a go, if only for the effort to share topics and ideas that keep me thinking.

I have reorganized the RSS feeds I follow. One of the better ones is the news feed on the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (British spelling!) site. I don't usually think through social change from a human rights angle, but really appreciate the collection of resources on this. I found several interesting leads in the past few days.

One was an article highlighting recent comments on the financial crisis by Muhammad Yunus, who was speaking at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture (and Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday). His comments realign my thoughts to some of the reasons I started this blog.

...Yunus noted that even if the problems springing from the global financial crisis were overcome, the world would still be left with some fundamental questions about the effectiveness of capitalism in tackling many other unresolved issues.

"There is only one concept of business in the whole world and that is the purpose of business is to make money."

He said the interpretation of the human being in this theory treated people as one dimensional human beings.

"Capitalism and the marketplace that has grown up around the theory make no room for the selfless dimensions of people ... what about starting a business on the base of selflessness?" he asked.

Yunus proposed a second type of business alongside the existing one, calling it "social business."

...

"Whenever I see a problem I start a company to solve that problem," Yunus said.

"If it's not social, then it's bad business."

Global X, blogging on Social Edge has some good videos. Whenever I am feeling like nothing really matters, this is a good place to go.

I like that quote - the title of this post - from this inverview with Laila Iskandar, especially since she is running a "for-profit/non-profit hybrid organization".

CID is a recognized pioneer in approaches which integrate private, public and civil society interests to create new and sustainable opportunities for growth. We take a holistic approach to business development and are committed to helping build healthy organizations that contribute to Egypt's development.

Let's MicroFranchise it!

Microfranchising - Building on Good Ideas

It is certainly not new (I learned that I should have been reading Nextbillion.net more carefully three years ago... their new look is great!), but diving into the topic of MicroFranchises today, I found some new ideas.

First, the BYU Economic Self-Reliance Center "broadly define MicroFranchises as small businesses that can easily be replicated by following proven marketing and operational concepts. The overall objective of MicroFranchising is to promote economic development by developing sound business models that can be replicated by entrepreneurs at the base of the pyramid; therefore, the start-up costs of MicroFranchises will be minimal. The key principle is replication, replicating success to scale."

This led me to another article I missed in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. This article, as an online PBS report on health care solutions, focuses on CFW Shops in Kenya.

I am still thinking through my reaction to this idea. It stirs up my interest in social marketing and social enterprise. I am very attracted to the idea that, at least in the CFW Shops, franchise owners are vetted, supported and trained. It seems to address the frequent criticism of Microfiance that its loans remain too small to really have an impact that money alone doesn't make an entrepreneur. On the other hand, the challenge of quality control seems to linger. Can you really take away a franchise in Kenya if the owner cuts corners in a time of crisis? (This is discussed in the PBS video.)

One graduate of BYU has set up a blog on microfranchising and the head of the Economic Self-Reliance Center, Jason Fairbourne, has written a book on the topic (cover above) and runs the university's wiki, which explains their MicroFranchise Toolkit.

"...first environmental activist group that 'the capitalists' DO like"

I am not ashamed to say I got there via The Economist. Carrotmob is thought-inducing and entertaining, somewhat cheeky, which always helps when pondering new ideas. Not sure what will induce all the other liquor stores in the video to change their light bulbs now, but know that I am thinking of it in a slightly different way, even if I don't find this anything like being INSPIR(RED) by Bono.

"Power From the People"

Just had a conversation with my wife about the potential for connecting energy producers, so as I troll through my backlog of nextbillion.net, I was excited to see this post on the potential to have kinetic energy production in the less developed world. Maybe she'd already read this. Ah, the trials of keeping up with the blogoshpere...a topic for another post.

Merry Green Shopping!

A NYT story dear to my confused and complex heart - A World Consumed by Guilt - it's complicated this holiday season...

So what can an unreformed consumer do in the face of green fashion that doesn’t always fit?

“Perfect doesn’t exist and we’re probably never going to get there,” said Leslie Hoffman, the executive director of Earth Pledge, a nonprofit group that promotes sustainable development and technologies. “We all make compromises every day. Making them with your eyes open instead of arbitrarily is the best piece of advice I could give.”

Listen to a good interview about...a lot!

(Via Paul) I listened to an interesting interview with Tim Smit, the founder of the Eden Project, on BBC's In Business (May 31, 2007). I appreciated this part (about 16:50) of the interview:

Peter Day: You think social entrepreneurs are thinking too small, don't you? This is a new or fairly new movement which has enormous possibilities.

Tim Smit: I think it's a new movement, but I think it's also a new philosophy of business and it irritates me that we define people as being social entrepreneurs when in fact our ambition should be to make all entrepreneurial activity social. The only distinction I can see between social entrepreneurship and ordinary entrepreneurship is the ultimate disposal of the surplus of profits and of course the philosophy behind the protocols of its management. But if you had a business...that was ethically sourcing its products; that was making a light a footprint as it could; that was treating its people well; that was trying to create products of social benefit or joy; after it had achieved all those things, I don't really care what it does with its surpluses or its profits.

More on the definitions follows. He cuts through some of the language that frustrates me.

He has some interesting rules he uses:
* Say good morning to 20 people before you start work.
* Read two books a year that people who know you think are outside your interest and review them for your colleagues. (A mid-year resolution, I think!)
* Make a speech once a year about why you like your work.
* You have to prepare a meal for 40 people you like working with. (Done because major decisions are made at night; "...the influences you bring to bear on your decision are wider than more narrow confines of what you might do if you just had your work hat on.")

Let's have a dinner party!

Going in development circles

This World Resources Institute post on Oxfam's latest report about Health, Water and Sanitation for All made me again ask myself if I think it's OK to charge for basic services such as water and basic health care.

Yes, it is OK, I think, and sometimes desirable. In places where the basic structure of tax collection and service provision do not work, you have to think outside the box and I think WRI and other blogs are pushing me to think more about well regulated business as a means to innovate and solve problems. Clearly, that shouldn’t open the flood gates to companies making a killing with basic services, but this question has to get beyond the "right" for everyone to have...health, water and sanitation. In theory, I think everyone should have these things, but it just isn't that easy. This kind of provision, if unregulated, leads to other sorts of exploitation. Certainly free aid is often diverted into commercial markets and I have heard stories of many hospitals charging just so the health workers can feed their own families. Keeping that in the shadows is like poison as the poor still don't get what they need and people who are just trying to get by end up being labeled corrupt.

What is harder to regulate, businesses with the potential to exploit or non-profits with the potential to give too much away and mix up the incentive structures? All in the tedious details, right?

I am going to read the Unilever case study from Indonesia. They were often mentioned in C. K. Prahalad's Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Anyone with insight on this?!