Tags
2016, 2020, 4G, 802.16m, administration, AI, Apple, Arthur D Little, back propagation algorithm, biofuel, Bureaucracy, business growth, Clayton Christensen, CLRM, Dean, eco-imagination, econometrics, Economic Growth, Education, eGovernment, energy efficiency, entrepreneurship, eVote, Facebook, foresight, fuzzy logic, GE, goodwill, Governor Patrick, greed, Harvard Business School, HBS, healthcare, Imagination, innovaion, Innovator's Dilemma, Inspiration, IPv6, Juliette Binoche, K-12 Performance, Leadership, marketing, micro-payment, Nitin Nohria, Pay for Performance, politics, Public, Reason to Believe, SaaS, Shoumen Datta, Sloan Management Review, software as a service, WiMax2
Earlier today (08.04.2011) the First Lady sent out an e-card for the masses to sign for President Obama’s 50th birthday. I grasped the opportunity to add this comment: Mr President – The education of a boy changes the life of a man. The education of a girl changes the destiny of the nation.
Today, was also the biggest intra-day drop in the history of the Dow Jones (512 points). Unfortunately, not a great birthday gift for President Obama. Conspiracy theorists may suggest that Wall Street engineered the drop on the President’s birthday to express its disapproval of the President’s plight to improve the quality of life for the ordinary 98% of Jane Doe and John Smith. An imminent credit downgrade may top off the birthday week.
For a bright spot in a bleak week, one may turn to the 20th anniversary of the first web page published on 6 August 1991 (http://info.cern.ch/) and also the sound “bite” from Matt Damon’s comments (yesterday) in favor of school teachers. But the news that house prices dropped by a third in several major US cities, may take the wind out of the sail. To add insult to injury, it appears that the real fiscal gap in the US may be more than $211 trillion (http://t.co/d8aCjKv) or 15 times the number ($14 trillion) floating in the media. USDA reports that 46 million Americans are currently using food stamps, that is, 15% of US citizens are on some form of social welfare.
Each economic indicator appears to deliver a blow. Blow by blow every child is left behind and their future may drown in the US public education quagmire. Leaders endowed with ambition and aspiration are hard to find (http://wp.me/p1z8d1-3), inspiration and inclination are barely hanging by a thread, mathematics and science are reduced to the lowest common denominator by a politically self-preserving educational system gone awry. Rather than “where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio” the town crier may wish to croon “where have you gone, Horatio Alger” to succinctly capture the national angst of the 98% Americans earning under $250,000 per annum.
Business growth, share price and housing demand are supposed to be statistically related with other key economic indicators. Education is the foundation for civilization yet selectively neglected, highly polarized and grossly inefficient. There is neither a quick fix nor an “innovator’s solution” for this colossal mess.
What if education was pursued mostly as an online business development by a group of conglomerates? Will it crimp Sue and Sally’s social growth? Could it disseminate the skills and knowledge we need to improve our global quality of life? Can it be profitable enough for investors to invest in altruism for profit (http://wp.me/p1z8d1-r) and worthy of corporate experimentation for social enrichment as a marketing tool to generate future customers as well as brand loyalty?
On 08.11.2011, Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Yunus took his appeal for “social business” to the US State Department (Building Social Business by Muhammad Yunus). Promoting “social business” as a global poverty eradication measure may not materialize without forging alliances with corporate behemoths who can (ethically) deliver the fundamental instruments to alleviate ignorance, improve education and boost workforce skills development. If the iconography of social business is “poverty” then it may be uncomfortable for the concept to sit well in corporate boardrooms.
The risks of “social business” require deep pockets and solemn commitment to assume the grave risks that leadership demands. An altruistic fixed-profit-for-profit (F2P2) business model for global public goods, such as, health, energy and education (H2E) may be a “disruptive innovation” in revenue modeling to be based on micro-payments in a pay-per-use business services (SaaS) concept. The latter may not be a “one shoe fits all” solution or a panacea but one of a few key mechanisms which may help transform, albeit in part, the concept of “social business” from a grand vision to an embryonic pragmatism for the masses.
Dr Yunus may be aware of the economic incentives and drivers necessary for a handful of ethical corporate leaders to adopt measures along the lines of social business and make it appear palatable to the shareholders. The altruistic distinction may be the use of the fixed-profit-for-profit (F2P2) revenue model but for organizations to engage in F2P2 they will require marketing incentives as a carrot for shareholders. The potential for Dr Yunus to make a difference and achieve or induce “social business” practices may not be due to the direct exercise of power on his part (speech at US State Department on 08.11.2011). He may be uniquely situated to serve the poor by infecting a few CEO’s with his enthusiasm, persuading them to reflect on his views, equipping them with his vast experience, sharing his sheer knowledge of hurdles to reduce mis-steps and enlisting their personal loyalty to this noble cause. The thrust of “social business” is ultimately about improving the standard of living, business development and global economic growth.
The business of the poor must be aimed at lifting the poor on to a higher economic level which we refer to as middle-class for lack of a better word. You can feed the poor Dannon yogurt as nourishment but once their healthy bodies are on that rung of the middle-class ladder and they have acquired the purchasing power then they better buy Dannon yogurt and not the home-grown generic brand from the corner store. Dannon’s social business investment practitioners will demand brand loyalty as a return for their F2P2 social business investment. Creating new markets is an incentive necessary for corporate investment if social business is expected to serve as a principle of economic transformation. The social business of education may be a pre-requisite (explore http://www.mediafire.com/view/?9k7xobgwkixgd4l).
The principle of F2P2 underscores the need for profit in this altruistic approach, no matter how little. It is naïve to believe that philanthropists will drive social business, successfully. Building sustainable social infra-structure is far more effective in the long term compared to band-aid contributions to put out the fire. Having said that, one must hasten to add, that the latter is necessary and often urgent in humanitarian situations but is not a substitute for change which will grow roots (The Elusive Quest for Growth by William Easterly, MIT Press, 2001).
At least one global vaccination program driven by one of the world’s most powerful philanthropic foundations is an example of quid pro quo in the context of profit. The financial donation for the vaccination program is partly used to purchase the vaccine from the for-profit companies spawned from investments made by the philanthropic organization or its umbrella
groups.
Social activists will cry “greed” but rational thinkers, hopefully, will respect the quintessential need for such quid pro quo in order to help the poor out of poverty. To use the uncomfortable word “greed” when talking about social business may be heretic but anything less than “greed” merely masquerades as a transparent camouflage. Hence, greed must precede the practice of “social business” or expectation of altruism irrespective of the oxymoronic semantics.
Greed was recently denounced (http://t.co/v4J00op) even in the temple of profitability, aka, Harvard Business School (HBS). It was assumed that the appointment of a person of Indian origin as the Dean of Harvard Business School was a signal or may segue to soft edges or an initiation to transform the cultivation of “greed” which is a prized commodity at Harvard Business School and in the business world, in general. One may wonder if this iconography draws from another Indian, Mahatma Gandhi.
The appointment of the HBS Dean by the HBS Committee must reflect an explicit recognition of the candidate’s zeal to uphold, amplify and strengthen the existing, roaring and immensely profitable Harvard culture. In addition, the candidate must have documented an abundance of promise to drive such qualities to the zenith in order to impress the select members of the Committee to gain such an august appointment. It is likely that the candidate may have even surpassed the Harvard Brahmins in the special ethos which is the focus of the recent article.
By comparing the appointment of the Dean of HBS to the election of President Obama, in my limited opinion, the author of the article (http://t.co/v4J00op) insulted, on so many levels, those of us who comprise the 98% of the Americans who earn under $250,000 per annum. The article could have served a better purpose or as an elevated beacon if it didn’t involve the President, albeit, by analogy.
Also, a distinction that is perhaps not mandatory or necessary but may offer a sense of balance, particularly when pointing fingers. The HBS Dean, Professor Nitin Nohria, is no stranger to the trials and tribulations of the masses, the “social business” of the poor and the responsibility of the chosen few to give voice to the voiceless. What Professor Nitin Nohria chooses to pursue in his professional capacity may be distinct from his personal views, his humanity and conscience. HBS is expected to shake off the ordinary and chaperone the extra-ordinary in order to enable them to arrive at the luminous summit. Outsiders incessantly pontificate about HBS, MIT Sloan, and Booth because it is well nigh impossible to ignore the products of these schools that continue to shape global economies through their boom and bust cycles. It may be nice to have all things equal but that is a fallacy, paradox and un-scientific. Nothing may flow unless there is a gradient.
It is the task of Harvard Business School to inculcate in the students the values which will eventually increase shareholder value, in their respective
organizations. It is precisely that “value” which has given us philanthropy on the scale of Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, the Late Margaret Cargill, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Lucille Packard Foundation, GE Foundation, HHMI, Marc Benioff and so many others. Greed is the reason why corporate behemoths and their leaders are able to lend an altruistic ear to Dr Yunus and his “social business” drumbeat (http://lnkd.in/rRKd5r) increasingly reiterated in all three of his related books.
Greed has its rightful place in the House of Profitable Extremists (HOPE). HBS’s greed may be the blessing we need to function as the catalyst for global benevolence. Not every type of “greed” manifests or morphs as “giving” in the same way that all saints are not sufficiently saintly. Without greed and the inequality it fosters, there may not be any “HOPE” for philanthropy or giving. One must hope that HBS and its culture of greed deserve protection, preservation and promotion by the appointment of Deans who are capable of such leadership because they will eventually create givers from takers.
Greed is an instrument of goodwill.
Paradoxes such as these may drive new paradigms, for example, altruistic fixed-profit-for-profit (F2P2) business model for global public goods, such as, health, energy and education (H2E) based on “micro” concepts in healthcare (http://wp.me/p1z8d1-r), non-fossil carbon-conscious renewable liquid energy (http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/62251) and education, as long as we have the IMAGINATION (http://www.mediafire.com/view/?9k7xobgwkixgd4l) to undertake for-profit experiments such as social business to reflect social corporate responsibility for the global community. But, the community must not choose to forget that all businesses must be for profit. (Updated 8/13).
About the author http://lnkd.in/Zb5SiT
Email to shoumendatta [at] gmail [dot] com
IMAGINATIONwww.mediafire.com/view/?9k7xobgwkixgd4l