The story of a social enterprise “One Mango Tree”

Last post I wrote about World Fair Trade day and People Tree, a Fair Trade fashion company from England. While we are at Fair Trade, I would like to write about another social enterprise “One Mango Tree” http://www.onemangotree.com . I was touched by their story and therefore would like to share it with you.

 

World Fair Trade Day May 9th: How far can we go?

Tomorrow is World Fair Trade Day and I would like to contribute to the celebration by writing this post. I remembered the first time I heard about “Fair Trade”; it was around 10 years ago. To look back at the 10 years’ development, I must say that we have achieved a lot even though there is a long way to go. As an “innocent” consumer 10 years ago, I didn’t know anything about Fair Trade and could hardly find any Fair Trade product in supermarkets. If there was any, then it was definitely either tea or coffee. Could it be that it was easier to start up a Fair Trade business with coffee? But no matter what, the situation is very different now. It is possible to buy not only Fair Trade foods but also other Fair Trade products like clothes, handicrafts etc. So how far can we go with the Fair Trade movement? Can we imagine Fair Trade furniture, Fair Trade electronics, Fair Trade luxuries etc.? Can we imagine the day that Fair Trade becomes such a standard where it won’t even be necessary to be marketed as “Fair Trade”? If yes, what will happen to our capitalistic society?

 

Beyond Good Intention- great review of international aids

I recently discovered the “Beyond Good Intention” project and I must admit that this is something that I’ve been looking for. “Beyond Good Intention” is a film series investigating the effectiveness of international aid. The project is made by Tori Hogan sharing with us her world- journey where she’s visiting different types of aid projects. What I really like about the film is that even though it is short, it is very focused and raised good questions about the effectiveness of international aid.

 

Social entrepreneur Bitten Hogh with “Thread of Yunnan”

Yesterday I was invited to a birthday party of a very good friend of mine. We had a wonderful time together, and the unexpected was that I met a woman named Bitten Hogh. She was one of the guests, Danish origin but has been living and working in China for 14 years. Through her and one of her colleagues who was also at the party, Jan, I got to know about their wonderful effort: Thread of Yunnan. It is a social project designed to raise the standard of living of countryside women in Yunnan Province, China, while raising their self-esteem and helping to preserve their traditional handicrafts. At the moment they have also a tea project and they are looking for distributors/ buyers etc. Please learn more about it by click on http://www.threadsofyunnan.com/

 

Corporate Social Responsibility versus Social Entrepreneurship- integration towards the balance?

Would it be wrong for me to say that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Entrepreneurship (SE) are two movements from two different sectors but it reflects one development? It reflects an integration of the business sector and the citizen sector; an attempt from both sectors to restore the balance in the development of our society.

 

How to transform information to knowledge and knowledge to wisdom?

In my previous post I have written about the interconnection between information, knowledge and wisdom. In this post, I would like to take it to a practical level and examine the actual actions that can be done in organizations. First of all, how do we turn information into knowledge?

 

What is “critical” in knowledge management?

Knowledge management is a concept that began to appear in academic journals in the 1980s. For some people, it can be a relatively new management concept. From my point of view, knowledge management is not new; it has always been there. Knowledge has always been sharing from generations to generations, from one human being to another. So the newness lies in the fact that it is first during the last 3 decades, managing knowledge becomes a conscious action that takes place in organizations. But unfortunately, in many cases, knowledge management has been about creating an IT system that extracts the “knowledge” or information from the employees, stores it and makes it accessible. That’s all?

I cannot help to flash back to all those martial movies that I used to love watching in the past.

 

Assumptions -what are yours?

Have you ever questioned yourself about the assumptions that you’re normally caring around with you? This could be related to any opinion, or just about people you meet or situations. I would say that most of us are not aware of our own assumptions, and sometimes what can hinder us to change are actually not lack of will or resources but our unawareness of these assumptions!

It was actually from school that I learned the importance of assumptions; and how we take them for “granted” and thereby never question their existence: what they do to our understanding of the world! An example: I took a class in Humanitarian Operations which was mostly about dealing with emergency relief situations.

 

The role of “break” in any-management

I would like to start this post by asking you to do something very simple. Please sit comfortably (or lay down if possible) and close your eyes, focusing on nothing else than your breath. Observe it, don’t try to breathe faster or slower; just let the breathing happen naturally….

What do you observe?

 

“Economic man” versus “Social Entrepreneurship”?

I remember when I started at business school for 12 years ago; one of the first things I learned was the notion of “economic man”. “Economic man” or “Homo economicus” is a concept viewing human as rational, self-interested actor who desires wealth and will act only upon his own interests to achieve his predetermined goals with the least possible cost. Many economic theories are based on this view of human beings which resulted in theories that are measurable and mostly concerns only with factors that can be rationalized. Factors that cannot be rationalized were “covered” by assumptions in order to make the model tangible. I remembered to have asked myself a question “Is that really so- that we only act from a rational point of view?”