Portal talk:Social entrepreneurship/Curriculum/General

Comments on the General section of the Curriculum:

Environment to stimulate social entrepreneurship
This appears primarily to focus on setting up individual entrepreneurs (or groups). Shouldn't there be a parallel section which looks at setting up an environment that stimulates the emergence of entrepreneurship?


 * A good point. Would it make sense to cover this under Resources for Educators? Kim 07:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Business plans vs social networks
(primarily Frances O'Brien)

Ending the student process with a "business plan" misses the point. Student activities may result in a variety of outputs including collaboration agreements, partnerships (formal or informal), social networks, etc. In some cases a business plan might be one of the outputs during the process.


 * The last item under "General" on the curriculum page is now simply "Putting it all together", and the page it links to has been edited to be more generic.

Coupled with this comment was the suggestion of having a module "Developing a business plan collaboratively". This has been added under Entrepreneurship/Business Management where it can be fleshed out later.

Begin with the end in mind
See discussion on Putting it All Together - instead of ending with a "business plan" what alternatives? Ktucker 13:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Appreciative Principles
Much of the work behind the scenes has been done with Appreciative Inquiry principles in mind. The approach/paradigm seems well matched to "Social Entrepreneurship" as it draws attention to what is working in a system and growing the life energy rather than "problems" which need to be solved. Requiring people to solve problems draws attention and energy towards the problems, making them bigger and sapping the energy of the people involved.

"problems" and "challenges"
The terminology may need further discussion and refinement. Some people are positively disposed towards "challenges" which are generally framed around "opportunities". Meeting the challenges requires mobilisation of the community - acknowledging the capabilities of its members. In line with the appreciative principles above, we refer to "challenges" to inspire action - rather than "problems" and other terms which draw attention to what seems to be missing or what is wrong with the community, its gaps and shortcomings (usually from an outsider's perspective).
 * How about "aspirations" instead of "needs"? Ktucker 22:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Added to issue tracker.

Asset-based Community Development (ABCD)
Teaching the Asset Based Approach to community development (ABCD) (Kretzmann & McKnight) was suggested, and has been added to the section on Understanding Developing Communities.

Understanding Developing Communities
Is this section needed?


 * It at least allows the Social Entrepreneurship field to develop on the foundations of Community-based learning and Services-based learning. Being able to connect with communities is key to stimulating and catalysing social/community-led innovation.

Evaluation and Valuation
For similar reasons the "Evaluation" section was re-labelled "Valuation". See Valuation and click on the discussion link.

Social Entrepreneurship vs Community Development
(by Susan Steinman)

It has been pointed out that these are not the same thing and that "defining communities may not be that important in SE context. But some community development projects can be regarded as social entrepreneurship projects and usually have a social entrepreneur leading it".

"... in understanding social entrepreneurship one could say that social entrepreneurship is NOT limited to ... [any] ... of these:


 * community development
 * social development
 * Non-profit organisations
 * Non-governmental organisations
 * businesses

BUT that you will find social entrpreneurs operating in all of these areas.

A useful resource as to what social entrepreneurship really entails is the book of David Bornstein "How to Change the World" and that of Marti & Mair: Social Entrepreneurship.

I do think that one should distinguish the concepts and although there is no clear definition of social entrepreneurship yet, the characteristics of a social entrepreneur is important in understanding it.

Going down the community development road is helpful, but the pillars of social entrepreneurship, according to Ashoka's Bill Drayton, could be missed and these are:


 * the social entrepreneur (SE) is an individual with a unique and innovative project/idea to solve a social problem
 * the SE possesses entrepreneurial skills and use these to bring about social change and is truly committed to solve the problem
 * the project must have wide social impact - beyond regional and national boundaries
 * must be replicable in other parts of the world with no or little adaptation
 * the social entrepreneur must be a person of integrity.

... [consider] ... bring[ing] in something like "Conceptual clarification - the relationship between Social Entrepreneurship and other similar phenomena."

This is actually very important and will provide better direction.


 * The Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship includes an activity to distinguish these terms, and there is a partial response to the above here.

Tools
Should each module have a section on tools? and provide links to tutorials - e.g. "Share Ideas" could refer to blogging (e.g. How to use Wordpress) and wikis (how to use WikiSpaces) ... and other [collaborative] tools (lists)