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Hello again, and thank you for taking the time to check out information I would like to share with you today.
As you know this class is called Social Entrepreneurship: A Grassroots Revolution,
and I would like to share some thoughts that I have about life, and how those thoughts about life relate to social entrepreneurship.
The outline of the issues today is... I would like to talk about types of problems social entrepreneurs address,
"primary" compared to "secondary" social entrepreneurship,
"passive" compared "active" contributors,
human nature, and how that human nature relates to social entrepreneurship,
and then, the fifth issue is a little bit vague, the title is: regardless of the path....
but first I want to make sure that everyone is aware of the MOOC web address.
This web site can provide either information or access to information, a route to any information that you might need about this MOOC.
Also, I would like to mention again the optional book. Some people like a hard copy (of) the written word tostudy from,
some you might find that to be useful but, this book is not required, it is not necessary to excel in this course.
So let us take a look at the issues,
The first one is: Types of problems social entrepreneurs address.
Social entrepreneurs can address any problem that, in some way, influences humans.
The classic examples are those problems that most of us recognize
such as... homelessness, abandoned children, drug and alcohol addicts, migrant worker difficulties and school dropouts.
A comprehensive list would include hundreds of examples. I find this to be an interesting part about social entrepreneurship, that there are so many opportunities for those of us who want to help people in need
Every direction we turn there are problems, and that is unfortunate... probably there are always going to be problems in our world, in our societies but to a social entrepreneur these are opportunities.
What is interesting is, that each of us as a social entrepreneur, we decide what issues or what categories of people we are most interested in.
You are going to decide if you become a social entrepreneur, you will decide the issue and the people with whom you work. I am not going to tell you or encourage you, to push in a certain direction.
Nobody else is going to.
The people with whom you work (with), if you become a social entrepreneur, will be the people you select .
And I think this is a nice strength of this area of study called "social entrepreneurship."
I like the idea that I am not going to be teaching continent in terms of who to help, of the types of people that...
I am not going to suggest type of people you should be working with; you are going to decide that.
What I am going to teaches is some skills; a set of tools that you might carry around like in a toolbox, and you decide what to bring out when, and you decide how to use that tool.
So, if you decide to be a social entrepreneur you are going to be in charge, you are going to chart your own course, and you are going to set your own direction.
Another issue under the topic of types of problems is, public versus private problems.
this is an area that fascinates me, this difference between,what I call the public, and the private problems.
Public problems are those that have quick, broad public awareness, those problems that are obvious to most people who open their eyes, those problems are all around us and most of us see them.
Examples of public problems include homelessness,abandoned children, poverty and a polluted environment.
Private problems are those that individuals suffer and that can remain hidden to most other people.
Examples of private problems include drug and alcohol addiction, depression, consideration of suicide, consideration of divorce, and abuse within the family.
Notice how these problems, in many cases, can be hidden.
An alcoholic, for example, might be able to manage that person's alcoholism, he or she may appear to be fine during the day, but in the evening have a real problem.
Many people who are depressed, they are able to keep the secret, and they fool people that there around because they act like they are okay even when they are deeply depressed.
The point here, on each of these, is that there is the potential for the individuals to be successful in hiding the existence of these problems.
These are what I call private problems.
Both public and private problems attract the attention of social entrepreneurs, and I have a special fascination for the private problems because many of them are around us, but we do not know it.
This intrigues me, to know that when I am in a group of people, that some of them are probably going to be suffering, some may be terribly suffering in their personal life, in some way.
What fascinates me is... so many of these people are acting normal, they are acting happy, they are acting like they have control over their lives and,
they are living a wonderful life, and and most people are close to that, probably,
most people, at a given time, do have control of their lives and their living a good life,
but at any given time there is a certain percentage of the people around me who are suffering, and yet they they hide that. So, I find that to be very interesting.
I would like if you would too... I would like to ask you to do something to sort of go into your mind, and to imagine that you were at a, maybe at an outdoor musical concert, or maybe it is a speech that somebody is giving, and lets say that there about about 300 people around you.
If you would not mind, please imagine that in your mind, and look around, and see the people who are close to you. Let us say people are pretty close together, there are people to each side of you, there some people in front, and some people in back of you, and so in your mind, look around and see these people if you do not mind.
Within the twenty people closest to you, at this outdoor gathering, these people who were smiling and clapping, what struggles are they facing?
What suffering lies behind some of those smiles? Who is battling an addiction? Who hides their depression?
What smiling married couple will be divorced in two years? Whose teenage child, not attending this gathering, is considering suicide at this moment?
these issues take the breath out of me.
there is often so much pain behind a smiling face, but we usually are not aware of that pain.
Which type of problem are you most excited in?
The public problems? Those that are there and anybody who opens their eyes, as they go about life, they see them they are aware of them.
Those are very important problems to address.
Or, another option is, what I call the private problems.
I have mentioned that those are the ones that especially fascinate me,
the ones that, in some ways are very individualistic, and yet, at a given time, many individuals are experiencing those types of problems, depression, consideration of suicide, and so forth.
Both types of problems are, to a social entrepreneur, exciting, both types of problems are opportunities.
It is amazing that there are so many problems around us, it is amazing that... translated that means, there are so many opportunities for us to assist people in need.
Another issue I would like to address is primary compared to secondary social entrepreneurship, and I would like to suggest the following distinction.
Let us call the first attempt of an innovative program, "primary social entrepreneurship".
This would be a situation where a person has sort of a revolutionary idea, a breakthrough idea that nobody's ever had,
and that person starts a project, to help people in need, using this very new idea. That is what I like to call primary social entrepreneurship.
And then, let us call the replications, in different locations, of existing projects, secondary social entrepreneurship.
these would be the projects that are copied, these would not be the original ideas, but these would take the original idea, the new idea, and try to apply that idea in another location, to start a project in another location.
Both types are very important, both types of entrepreneurship are very important.
I highly respect when a person is able to have a new idea, in some cases it is just a little break through, but a new twist, on maybe... on how to address an old problem, that would be the primary social entrepreneurship.
But, I also greatly respect those entrepreneurs who see an existing program that is working, that has documented success, that make... that would exist in location maybe different than this person is living, and that entrepreneurs thinking, "I would like to start a successful program like that", "I would like to do that here where I live", that's what I would call secondary social entrepreneurship.
That would be the replication of an existing project, and both projects are exciting.
It is very interesting that although, I highly respect these new ideas, and I attribute great prestige when a really hot, new idea emerges just as our society attributes high prestige to a business entrepreneur that has a really hot idea.
What is interesting is that the greatest good in society, in a society, and in the world is going to occur, not from the primary social entrepreneurship. The greatest good in terms of numbers of people is going to occur in the secondary social entrepreneurship because,
that first project, utilizing the new idea for the first time, that primary social entrepreneurship only occurs one time, that one project, and maybe 30 people are served or 100 people or 1000 people if it is a big project, that first project.
But think about the potential that secondary entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship has.
The replication may be a hundred or 500 projects, similar to that first one, maybe started in various parts of the world, and tens of thousands people, maybe even more than that, hundreds of thousands might be helped.
So, in a sense this is a simple point, but since I am very interested in social entrepreneurship sometimes I sit around and I just think about things and one other ideas across my mind is this distinction that I'm sharing with you a distinction between primary social entrepreneurship and secondary social entrepreneurship.
I would like to take this opportunity to to share a situation that I'm involved in right now.
I am working with an Indian tribe in Northern Nebraska, and this Indian tribe has a reservation.
For those of you in another country, if you are not from United States, you might not be familiar with "Indian reservations," but this is...a reservation is land that the Indian tribe owns,
and although in the past, in my society, Indians were forced to live on a reservation, today, no Indian is forced to live on their tribal reservation.
So, this tribe that I am working with in Northern Nebraska, it is a small tribe, and there are maybe about six to eight hundred people on this small reservation.
Well there is a high rate, on this reservation, there is a high rate of young people committing suicide, and so I have collaborated with some some of the leaders in this tribe, and we started a youth group,
and what we are doing is we are going to nature we are going out into the countryside, into the woods, into nature, we are camping out, we are gathering food from the land,
and we are doing several activities that I will not take the time to talk about right now, but what we are trying to do is help these youth in this tribe, the age categories about from 7 to 12.
We are trying to help them feel good about themselves, feel like they can accomplish what they want to accomplish, we are trying to help them feel good about the traditions of their tribe, the heritage of their tribe,
and the assumption that we make is that, if we can help these young people feel good about themselves, and about the heritage of their tribe that they are going to be much less likely to commit suicide or try to commit suicide as compared with people who do not have positive self-concepts.
My point here is that this is not an... I mean there is minor innovation here, but so far as I am aware this is the first project on and Indian tribe to of this type, and so I would classify this as primary social entrepreneurship.
If we happen to be successful in developing a model... in developing a model that can be repeated on other tribal reservations then there is a possibility that secondary social entrepreneurship might emerge.
I simply... I was looking for an opportunity to share some of the work that I am doing, and that that situation fits this point.
Another issue is "passive" contributors compared "active" contributors.
Some very meaningful contributions to projects can be made in a fairly passive manner, while other contributions involve considerable active participation.
Let us call passive contributions those that involve no physical or minimal physical activity, such as giving money.
Let us call active contributions those that involve a fair amount of physical activity, such as working with people in need or supervising such work.
Social entrepreneurship always involves active contributions, although passive contributions, such as monetary donations, are often very important.
Any assistance to a social entrepreneurship project, on which we are working, is appreciated.
This course is emphasizing active contribution, that is what social entrepreneurs are, we are active contributors.
But I...in this presentation I wanted to make a distinction between active and passive.
The more passive contributors are very valuable, and when if a donation is made a, monetary donation, or well... let us just talk about that.
If a monetary donation is made we need to give those people attention, and great appreciation because, for just about all social entrepreneurship projects, money is necessary to help serve the people we want to serve.
But I wanted to mention that social entrepreneurship involves that active type of contribution, that active type of participation.
I would now like to talk about human nature, or some aspects of human nature, and how they relate to social entrepreneurship.
How does being human relate to becoming a social entrepreneur?
I make four assumptions about normally functioning humans that relate to social entrepreneurship.
Here my assumptions:
I believe that we all have goodness within us,
that we all have a desire to help others about whom we care,
that we all have a passion to make a positive difference in life,
and that we all have amazing energy.
So I would like to take a look at those fairly quickly, each individually, the first one being goodness.
I believe goodness is within all of us, and I assume that even people who engage in unspeakable or terrible acts have some goodness within them.
Even if we see no goodness, I assume it is there.
I might be wrong, there may be some people that have no goodness inside of them but, I do not believe I am wrong, I it is a belief that I have, it is an assumption that I make, and if I am wrong I do not want to know that I am wrong.
This belief, to me, is very important, it is a part of what drives me; the belief that everybody has goodness inside of them. This belief is a part of what helps me get out of bed every day, it is a part of what helps me face each day, and be excited about each day and want to...
One of the things I... one of the things I like for all of us to do, to try to do as social entrepreneurs, and I guess just as human beings is to try to help bring the goodness that is in all of us, to bring as much of that out as as we can
Just a thought, it is just one of my thoughts.
A second assumption I make is, that all normally functioning humans have a desire to help others.
Selfishness is a survival mechanism, and although we are all selfish I believe we all have an interest in helping some others.
Of course, we select the people we want to help.
All people do not want to help all other people, but I assume that all people want to help some other people.
A third assumption I make about all normally functioning humans is that, we all have within us, it might be deep, and it might be hidden, but we all have a passion to make a difference.
I assume that all people have a interest in making the world better.
Now, what other people consider to be "better" may not be what we consider to be "better," but I assume the motivation is there.
Although people want to make a positive difference in the world, I think many people are not sure have how to do that.
One of the intense of this course is to provide a path for making a positive difference.
A fourth assumption I make about normally functioning human beings, is that we all have unbelievable energy within us. Again, this might be hidden in many of us, but I believe it's there.
The human being is amazing. Our fascinating culture, with its complex technology, is an illustration of human energy.
Even people we see around us, who are behaving in a lazy manner, have amazing energy.
Lazy people show little energy, but I believe that that energy is there, I believe it is in all of us.
Some people have may need help activating that unbelievable energy.
Some people may need help learning how to dream for themselves, to envision the potential that they have but, an assumption I make is that all people, even those that do not show it right now have unbelievable energy.
So to repeat my beliefs, I believe we all have goodness, we all have a desire to help others, we all have passion to make a difference, and I believe we all have amazing energy within us.
If all normally functioning people, have all these characteristics, than just about anybody can be a social entrepreneur.
The peaceful, social revolution that I am wanting to promote, in this course, can relate to almost everybody in the world, and although all people will not become social entrepreneurs, I believe that there are few people who are excluded from this exciting opportunity.
So this last point that I want to talk about today, with this vague heading, Regardless of the Path....
Some people have been on an unfortunate path, some people have been a drug dealer, some people have been a ***, some people have been terribly addicted, it does not matter what path people have been on, the path that lies in front of all of us can be clean and good.
Whatever path a person has been on in the past is a good background for becoming a social entrepreneur
Even those who have walked an unhealthy path have much to offer.
In fact, maybe I should say, especially those who have walked an unhealthy path have much to offer.
People who have experienced serious problems in life, although they may have been very sad experiences when they were happening, if for those people who overcome those problems, and who are now healthy, what amazing depth of understanding they have for the problem or problems that they experienced.
A person who was a drug dealer, or a ***, or was terribly addicted to something, or who has attempted suicide, or...I could go on and on with the examples.
These people bring much to the social entrepreneurship table, they understand things better, they understand the problem they experienced better then those of us who have not experienced that problem.
What is fascinating to me is that the door is so wide, inviting virtually any person to become a social entrepreneur
There is a peaceful revolution sweeping the world right now.
The door is open to nearly all of us to become social entrepreneurs.
If the time is not right for you now, that is okay, you will know when the time is right.
Thank you for taking the time today to listen to the words that I have wanted to share.
I hope that you found something of some usefulness.
I will look forward to talking with you later.
Bye