Last week I ordered a wedding gift for my brother and sister in law from an artist whose work was posted on Etsy. I included a note with my order, mentioning that the set of pottery was meant as a gift and requesting that the pieces match. I immediately received a note from the potter assuring me that the pieces looked beautiful together and asking if I wanted her to send an accompanying card with the gift.

Dierdre, of Down to Earth Ceramics, has continued to provide me with incredible customer service. She refunded the difference between the shipping estimate and the actual shipping costs, she included a handwritten card with the gift, she checked in to ensure that the gift arrived on time and in tact, and sent me a handwritten note thanking me for my purchase.

My experience with Etsy and Down to Earth Ceramics has been so remarkable that I felt the need to mention it on my blog. It truly has been an example of fantastic service design.

I wanted to recap the Social Capital Markets conference with a few lessons that I heard repeatedly.

- Models can scale if they are profitable - profitability drives scalability.

- The economic situation hasn't yet impact the social investing space or the philanthropic sector to the same extent that it has affected the private sector. Everyone is holding their breath to see if the impact is delayed or if this sector is protected from it.

- Metrics and transparency are necessary for investors to be able to compare deals. No one has really figured out how to measure social impact.

- Social enterprises are aiming for profits, but not profit maximization.

- Investing for impact or social investing is real and it's here to stay.

- Social investing is still done at a small scale. This is due to a number of reasons, but a big one is that there aren't enough deals to be made.

- There's lots of excitement about the growth of investing for impact and the industry feels like it's finally coming together to collaborate and raise all boats.

This is the blog post I wrote for NextBillion.net.

Fully admitting my bias here, I did think the Design in the Developing World panel at SoCap was an especially interesting conversation between a top-notch set of designers and practitioners. Caroline Balerin launched the panel with the question "What would it look like to design for the other 90%?" I fully expected the panelists, who have traditionally designed products, to respond with something about appropriately designed technologies. I was pleasantly surprised to hear each of them respond with the need to design not only the products, but the systems around them.

Paul Polak noted that the design of tools is trivial compared to designing how to mass market them. Tim Brown followed up with the need for us to design the distribution channels, supply chains and marketing strategies to ensure they get to market and scale. "Breakthrough innovation in the developing world is happening by designing systems." Kristen Peterson built on this with a story about how Inveneo started by designing hardware, but realizing that wasn’t enough, has moved to building partnerships with local entrepreneurs who can distribute the IT services.

The second point, which was made by Paul Hudnut, was the importance of empathy and the need to speak to your customers in a way that makes sense to them. In his example, the fuel efficient motorcycles that Envirofit designed are appealing to its customers because they are faster and cheaper to run, not because they have lower emissions.



A major point of Paul Polak’s during the panel and in his book, Out of Poverty, was that design for the other 90% needs to be about the "ruthless pursuit of affordability." If we can design for people who make less than $1/day, the tools will scale. It’s not enough to cosmetically change existing technologies, rather, they must be designed for the needs of the customers. Tim Brown talked about the need for rapid "just enough" prototyping and close collaboration with customers to ensure that designs are appropriate and useful.

A point which echoed what I had heard throughout the conference was the need to take a business approach to designing for the poor. By showing that profits are possible, big business will be encouraged to enter the market and will start designing for the other 90%. Paul Hudnut emphasized this and mentioned that he’s most proud of the large factory in China that is manufacturing Environfit’s clean burning stoves, which is making it possible for them to be priced affordably enough to sell 10,000/month. Tim Brown added that "all progress has happened because of profit drivers." Philanthropy doesn’t have the potential to make systemic change or scale happen, but business does.

Finally, the panelists all emphasized the need to build local capacity. Kristen Peterson mentioned that designing a local delivery channel for installation and repair of IT solutions will allow for scale. Paul Polak and Tim Brown both emphasized the need to teach innovation and design thinking at universities worldwide. Paul’s plan is to create 100 Stanford and MIT-like design courses at universities, 50 of them in the developing world and Tim hopes to see the creation of design schools in India and Africa.

"Scale" was a frequently-used buzzword at the conference and the question of how to get good ideas to scale is one that remains on the table. We are now seeing how design can address issues of scale. Whether it’s by designing appropriate products or services for the other 90%, by designing the systems around these products or services, or by teaching the design thinking approach to social entrepreneurs and students, design certainly has a contribution to make to this sector and truly has the potential to help good ideas scale and create deep and lasting impact.

I've been an absolutely terrible blogger recently. It's always on my to do list, and somehow never happens. But today at the Social Capital Markets conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco, I was inspired to put down some thoughts.

First, the number of attendees at the conference is truly overwhelming. The organizers expected 250 - 300 and saw 500 people today. Every room was packed and the excitement about the interest in this event was overflowing. Not only are there alot of people at the conference, there's a great group of people. I've seen so many familiar faces, people from VisionSpring, Acumen Fund, the Skoll World Forum, and the University of Michigan BoP conference. It's been so much fun catching up with professional friends who I run into at these types of events a couple times a year.

Second, in such a horrible economic situation, there is still a real sense of optimism about social investing. I'm not sure we know if this is because the affects of the markets just haven't been felt on this sector yet, or if social capital markets truly are insulated from the financial troubles. At a time when all conversations about the future sound fairly negative, it's nice to be in a place where people are hopeful and encouraged by the changes they're seeing.

I'm blogging for Nextbillion.net tomorrow about the Design in the Developing World panel and will post that here. In the meantime, check out the other posts from the conference bloggers.

Once again, it's time to apply for the Acumen Fellows program. I was in the first class of fellows and highly recommend the program. My year in Kenya was fantastic and I learned so much about social enterprise, leadership, storytelling, and new ways of thinking. Please spread the word and apply online.

For anyone interested in social investing or social enterprise, I highly recommend attending the Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco October 13 - 15. For more information, visit the website.

Design21 wrote a nice feature piece about design for social impact and IDEO's efforts.

I'm doing the 3-Day Breast Cancer walk in about a month and am trying to meet my fundraising goal of $2,200. I'll walk 60 miles in 3 days.

I'm looking for a few more friends and contacts to sponsor me. Please consider giving http://08.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/SanF ... fr_id=1188

Thanks!

I received the email below from Catherine Casey, a current Acumen Fund fellow living in Nairobi. It's a great update on how things are going in Kenya. Enjoy!
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Dear friends,

It's winter in Nairobi, and the two suitcases of clothes I arrived with in November are no longer enough to keep me warm. I had no desire to spend $200 for a tacky coat in Woolworths, where prices are sky high because of import taxes, so last weekend I set out for Toi Market on the outskirts of the Kibera slum. I picked up a coffee at Java House in the 'mall' on Ngong Road, and made my way down the side streets to the market.

Toi has always fascinated me – with nearly 5,000 vendors, many of whom live in Kibera, it serves a rare mix of Nairobi's highest and lowest income residents. None of the vendors have formal business licenses, but they have developed community savings schemes to get small loans and band together in negotiations with the government. Customers come to buy staple foods, and search for bargain prices on used designer labels and classic old t-shirts with logos like "Mt. Pleasant Little League." It's an incredible place. Read More...

Last week, my colleague Aaron Sklar, and I presented our work on Design for Social Impact at Rockefeller Foundation. We were amazed by the turnout - design firms, consulting firms, NGOs, universities, the government, all came out to talk about how design can play a role in the social sector.

We're excited about the possibilities and about thinking about how we could mobilize the design industry to get more involved in addressing some of the world's largest problems. We've posted our work and hope to engage in more conversations about it. Check it out here.

IDEO's CEO, Tim Brown, wrote an article for June's Harvard Business Review. This is a great introduction to design thinking. The article is the third link from the top http://hbr.com

The short answer is you can donate some money for relief. Organizations I'd recommend are Doctors Without Borders or Foundation for the People of Burma. Both organizations are getting food and supplies into the country.

For a first-hand account from a friend of a colleague, Read More...

A few weeks ago, I was intrigued to learn that American Idol was hosting a 2 hour show - Idol Gives Back. I've never watched American Idol but thought it would be interested to see the profiles of the organizations they chose to raise money for and thought I might see some inspiring stories.

Sadly, I was extremely disappointed. The show was like a telethon or an NPR fundraiser. Every few minutes, a celebrity would appear and would beg for money and give the phone number five or six times. At one point, a woman came on and said, "If you don't call now, I'm going to go like this AHHHHH!!!" and repeated her screaming for two minutes.

After 15 minutes, I couldn't take it anymore and turned it off. Disappointed. With a budget like American Idol's and the staff to create compelling content, why can't they come up with interesting ways to get young people engaged in philanthropy? Why can't they show inspirational stories that inspire action? Couldn't we do a better job at getting people to care?

A friend recently started a management consulting firm and is giving away a pro bono project that has good social impact. Please see his note below and apply if you are interested.
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As you know, I started a management consultancy - Social Symmetry - a few months back to help organizations (public, private, nonprofit sectors) maximize their social impact. We are running an experiment that I thought IDEO may be interested in learning more about.

We recently announced an "Adopt a Client" initiative, where we'll donate some of our time, pro-bono, to help ANY organization work through a project that has a socially responsible mission or subtext (or, a project where the organization would like to introduce such a dimension). Our goal is to help these organizations realize the potential and opportunity of paying attention to two forgotten stakeholders: the environment where they operate, and the communities that they affect.

We're accepting submissions through our blog right now, and the winner will be selected democratically as well:
http://insearchofsymmetry.wordpress.com ... s-be-good/

It's a no-risk program for you, and we only benefit if we deliver a product that IDEO is satisfied with (since it is "free"). If you're interested, feel free to contact me directly or make a post in the comment section. You can also forward this along to someone else you think may be interested.

I remember my time at the Skoll World Forum last year as one of my favorite weeks during the fellowship. The opportunity to spend time with the fellows and share our stories, reconnect with Acumen Fund, and participate in inspiring conversations around social entrepreneurship was truly a magical experience. I was very excited to return this year and was even able to convince IDEO’s CEO, Tim Brown and Co-Creative Officer, June Fulton Suri, to join me.

The Forum did not let anyone down and the excitement I felt upon arrival has stayed with me since. The energy and optimism around social entrepreneurs and those supporting them is incredible. Participating in discussions about scale, microfranchising, and climate change were especially stimulating and the lens of culture, which was a focus of the forum this year, was a great addition to the many more economic-based conversations we tend to have in this field.

I was fortunate to lead a workshop with my colleagues from IDEO, Tim, Jane, and Aaron, about using empathy as a tool for social impact. The purpose of the workshop was to give a quick taste of the IDEO design process and teach a few observation techniques for social entrepreneurs trying to understand different cultural contexts. While IDEO workshops are always fun, the quality of the observations and ideas that come out of them is quite varied. Working with a group of 60 esteemed practitioners, we were very impressed by the depth of observations they noted and the innovativeness of ideas that they generated.

If in only two hours teams could come up with ideas like midwives on bikes, wandering microscopes, and health pods, just think of what they could do in a few weeks.

See the SocialEdge blog entry about the workshop.