[UgaBYTES] EATLF- Social enterprise and how to sustain telecentres

[Peter Burgess]

Dear Colleagues

The problem of "mission drift" is everywhere. One of the reasons why a
profit focus in a market driven economy is considered to be the "best"
is that the capital market part of this system keeps management very
much focused on the profit performance, and there is rather little
mission drift.

The problem with this system is that profit is in play and social
value is not. Profit that destroys social value is rated a good as
profit that creates social value. In my view this is obscene, but it
is the way the market system works with the metrics that are common in
the financial markets.

There are moves to include a social dimension in the metrics that are
used to think about corporate performance ... but they have a long way
to go. At the moment, in my view they are still almost totally
irrelevant. This has to change ... but it will take time.

Mission drift is everywhere. In the bigger organizations of the relief
and development sector ... the UN, the World Bank, etc ... it can be
argued that the main mission is for the staff to keep their jobs until
they retire with full pension benefits ... and all decisions are going
to have that focus more than getting the best possible results for
relief and development progress.

In a telecentre, mission drift that results in a very profitable
telecentre should probably be applauded ... and then someone else
should go into business and offer a little more social value and
service ... and then see what happens. It is called competition ...
and is very effective in keeping consumers getting the best possible
value for money.

I would prefer the consumer to be the determinant of telecentre
performance and not a regulatory or oversight organization. Two
telecentres in a community is very much better for the community than
just one ... the rules of monopoly still apply, and competition is a
good antidote to monopoly abuse.

Peter Burgess

On 10/24/07, Nalwoga Sarah Mpagi <sarah at ugabytes.org> wrote:
> Dear collegues,
> I would like to thank all those who have made this discussion lively.  I
> understand social enterprise to be about systems, structures and people.
> How do we engage all these to come up with a social enterprise idea that
> would still render us/telecentres relevant to the communities we serve
> without a mission drift, of purely becoming profit oriented?
>
> I would to a certain degree agree with Jose when he said >> empowering the
> social entrepreneur you empower the social enterprise. << However, social
> enterprise is more than that, like Loic explains.  It is about focusing on
> the entire telecentre/organization.  To focus on individuals without
> knowing what your systems and structures are; may not be a concrete plan
> to social enterprising. In addition to people involved in the
> telecentre/organization, we look at the systems and structures as well,
> how they can support the social enterprise idea, and see what can be
> improved, done or not, as we focusing on the available market with in the
> community the telecentre intends to serve.
>
> With people, we look at the abilities and inabilities of whether the
> social enterprise can be done or not with the available staff. In other
> words, a SWOT analysis may be conducted, to check the abilities of the
> telecentre/organization, as to how opportunities can be exploited.
>
> Cheers
> Sarah Nalwoga

____________
Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
www.tr-ac-net.org
IMMC - The Integrated Malaria Management Consortium Inc.
www.IMMConsortium.org
917 432 1191 or 212 772 6918  peterbnyc at gmail.com