Conservation Entrepreneurship/Definition

ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Merriam’s Dictionary: en·tre·pre·neur noun

Etymology -- French, from Old French, from entreprendre to undertake

one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise

The word entrepreneurship literally is very broad, as defined above, and essentially refers to anyone who operates an enterprise. However, in common meaning there is usually a sense of innovation and speed - as shown by this excerpt from Prof. Bill Rossi of UF’s Center for Entrepeneurship and Innovation

Entrepreneurial activities are indeed creating the wealth of nations. A recent study of global entrepreneurship concludes that as much as one-third of differences in national economic growth in developed countries can be attributed to entrepreneurial activities.

There is no doubt that the emphasis on entrepreneurship in the United States has led to the prosperity of the past decade. In the United States, 600,000 to 800,000 companies are created each year representing 15 new companies for every existing 100 companies. At any point in time, 6 adults out of every 100 are actively pursuing the formation of a new business. In the past decade, all of the growth in employment has come from new companies that have experienced tremendous growth or from the formation of new companies.

''The entrepreneurial sector is unique in its culture and in its ways of doing business. Although the classic rules of economics and business still hold, working in this sector is different. Management structure is flat; work is done in informal teams brought together for opportunities; the focus is on capitalizing on new opportunities; and providing new and better products and services. The essence of the operation is speed- speed to find opportunities; speed to capitalize on opportunities.''

From the 9-11 Commission (“terrorist entrepreneurship”)

"No one exemplifies the model of the terrorist entrepreneur more clearly than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," the commission wrote. "Highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office or a terrorist safe house, KSM applied his imagination, technical aptitude and managerial skills to hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes. These ideas included conventional car bombing, political assassination, aircraft bombing, hijacking, reservoir poisoning and, ultimately, the use of aircraft as missiles guided by suicide operatives."

Mohammed also claims that he would have worked with any terrorist group, not just al Qaeda, and that he would have gone forward with the Sept. 11 attacks even if bin Laden had canceled them.

"KSM presents himself as an entrepreneur seeking venture capital and people," the commission report says. "He simply wanted al Qaeda to supply the money and operatives needed for the attack while retaining his independence."

The term "Conservation Entrepreneur" has not been widely used, but the term Social Entrepreneur is widely used. See for example: Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship - What is a social entrepreneur?

Assignment TWO is to become familiar with some social entrepreneurs. Two good sources for this are:
 * http://www.schwabfound.org/sf/SocialEntrepreneurs/Profiles/index.htm
 * http://www.fastcompany.com/social/2008/index.html

Other famous social entrepreneurs are:
 * Muhammud Yunus of Grameen Bank (see Grameen Bank including the criticism piece at Wikipedia)
 * Bill Drayton of Ashoka Foundation

Let's create a page called Conservation_Entrepreneurship/definition/social_entrepreneur_examples and have everyone post a 1-2 paragraph introduction to a Social Entrepreneur -- describe the person / enterprise and then make a brief analysis of the ""skills and characteristics"" that the person needed to bring to bear to be successful.