andreasw | The Pope and the CEO

The Minds On The Margin Are Not Marginal Minds

If you don’t know TED, check it out. They present short talks by various experts that I often find intelligent and inspiring. A recent one that I liked was by Anil Gupta, a great promoter of entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging markets. His talk hits the nail on the head with regards to how we should approach the issue of poverty. There is a difference between the issue and specific people. When we focus on poverty, we can easily lose sight of the fact that we’re dealing with individuals, with specific human persons. In our effort to fight poverty, we make the individuals anonymous and abstract their lives. Anil explains how he realized that in pursuing the issue of poverty, he actually ignored the individual person who lives in poverty. He realized that fighting in poverty professionally, he ended up taking advantage of specific poor persons rather than adding value for them. This recognition is at the core of what is wrong with economic development. He shows a few examples of various innovators at India Innovates, a great website that promotes innovation and entrepreneurship. Also check out Anil’s Honey Bee Network, a site that he started with the aim to… Read more
Microfinance – The State of the Industry in 2010

MicroRate has just published their annual report on the State of Microfinance Investment. The MicroRate 2010 MIV Survey reflects an important aspect of their efforts. Micro Investment Vehicles (MIVs) are the financial intermediaries which channel investor money from developing countries to microfinance institutions in frontier economies. Using the definition of MicroRate there are 86 MIVs currently in operation around the world; 78 completed the survey. These investment vehicles meet three criteria: They are an independent legal entity; Multiple investors can participate; They maintain a focus on microfinance investing. The report is completed based on information from MIV survey participants. Two summary findings stand out from the survey. One: Though MIVs grew rapidly over the past five years, that growth slowed in 2009 to 22% (from 29% in 2008). Two: The supply of investment money available outstripped the demand coming from microfinance institutions in developing nations. This created a surplus of funds, supplied by investors, with no place to go. The result is that MIV managers find themselves looking for places to put the extra cash. This trend was accelerated for at least two reasons. First, MFIs appear to have shifted their borrowing preferences and have looked initially for local funds.… Read more
Excerpt from Terry Eagleton’s book Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate

Eagleton’s book has many sections that I’d love to post here, but this is a particularly good point that he makes: “Postmodernism is allergic to the idea of certainty, and makes a great deal of theoretical fuss over this rather modest everyday notion. As such, it is in some ways the flip side of fundamentalism… Some postmodern thought suspects that all certainty is authoritarian. It is nervous of people who sound passionately committed to what they say. In this, it represents among other things, an excessive reaction to fascism and Stalin-ism. The totalitarian politics of the twentieth century did not only launch an assault on truth in their own time; they also helped to undermine the idea of truth for future generations. The line between holding certain noxious kinds of belief, and holding strong beliefs at all, then becomes dangerously unclear. Conviction itself is condemned as dogmatic.” It’s striking to see how much our deeply held ideas about life have been shaped by historical events over half a century ago. As Bergson said, we can feel “the presence of the past” in every moment. But the best part of all of this is the fact that these anti-progress, anti-evolutionary, anti-conviction… Read more
Rules of Thumb

“Rules of Thumb” is a great book by Alan Webber. I always loved FastCompany Magazine (which he edited and launched), and this is very much done in this same spirit. He gives us 52 rules of thumb that he came up with, and at the end of each rule he answers the question: “So What?” …Which is coincidentally (or not?) my favorite marketing question. His rules are somewhat random and capture a lot of common sense, and we can’t ever hear enough of that: Rule 1 is “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Relax” Rule 3 is “Ask the Last Question First” Rule 37 is “All Money is Not Created Equal” Rule 52 is “Stay Alert! There are Teachers Everywhere” They’re well worth reading… HarperCollins has a cool website that lets you browse the book before you buy it.
The 99 Percent

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” — Thomas Edison Behance’s think-tank 99% tries to help people with ideas to make things happen. Hence their use of Edison’s motto mentioned above. Any entrepreneur can empathize with this: the idea is the easy part, in its implementation is where success or failure lurk around every corner. Their site has a wide selection of how-to and inspiring articles on the topic, and of course offers Behance’s products and services that target creative professionals. It’s all done in a very pleasant and useful manner. They also feature a book called “Making Ideas Happen,” by Behance Founder/CEO Scott Belsky, which (based on what I’ve read on the site and the press reviews) I will add to my reading list. Their team-blog is also a great source for inspiration and ideas.
The New Recruits

A new movie came out this summer called “The New Recruits.” It documents the story of a group of social entrepreneurs who set out to create businesses in some of the world’s toughest places to effect social change. This is going to be an interesting movie to watch (I haven’t seen it, just the trailer). The cool trivia on this documentary is that none other than the Rainn Wilson aka Dwight Shrute of The Office narrates the whole thing! Don’t miss it!