Business unusual, yes, then what?

In October last year, I had begun my search for a grad project and sent out feelers to different people, when one of my faculty came back with a interesting lead. 'Would you be interested in working with Corporate X to understand how to bring renewable energy based light to the poor?', he propositioned. 'The focus is Africa', he added as an afterthought. I agreed faster than you can say Africa!
Corporate X knew from experience that this was not business as usual. It was tough sell even within the corporate kingdom, as most were not convinced by their enticing, 'We can make billions of dollars', kind of motherhood statements. They had some idea of what they were up against, geographically scattered 'customers', no real organized channels of distribution and the limited ability to purchase durable goods. Yet, most within the core project team wanted to make a difference by replacing dangerous kerosene lanterns and candles with a sustainable alternative. They also realized that profit may not be the driver in this venture and that they must have a longer-term vision for their involvement in this business. Corporate X, the MNC with a tiny team of social enterpreneurs?
So far so good.
'Lets get some real customer stories', the first step towards their lofty goal. A flurry of interviews, focus groups, house visits and field trips followed. 'People love our lights'! 'It is just what they need!' 'Get some products out there for testing!', were the thrilling first results. The mood in the corporate is buoyant, the management is pleased and the steam train is rushing ahead.
This is great, isn't it? Or is it?
Let me outline both sides of story and let you decide whether they will succeed or not.

Yes, Corporate X, indeed has the power to source, scale and supply millions of better products. They have the ability to set quality standards, educate their customers on usage and maintenance and help support local manufacturers and non-profits as partners in this venture.
Solar lanterns save money in the long run, are inherently safe and have the ability to provide brighter light. Installing community flood lights can cause a dramatic drop in crime levels in the area, making it safer for women and children to venture out at night. People liked the products they were shown and indicated they were willing to pay x amounts for it. They also hope to generate employment by empowering women enterpreneurs to act as agents within the community.
The company can customize their business plans and products to a certain degree for different countries or regions by getting community feedback for various plans. Considering the business structures of Corporate X, they need to scale up for this venture to be interesting to them in the long run. To scale, one also needs templates that can be applied in different situations, perhaps with small changes depending on culture.

On the other hand, Corporate X went in with a pre-determined idea of the people needed and the technology that could solve their problems. They asked the questions they thought were important and heard the answers they wanted to hear. Customer input was more a means to validate their own assumptions and ideas than to have a dialogue with these people. Perhaps, if the people around the table were citizens, setting their own agenda, rather than customers, we would have a very different picture. Perhaps they might have worked on promoting safer use of the 'big, bad' kerosene for both cooking and lighting? We don't know because we never asked.

Corporate X makes lighting products. They see an unfulfilled need and are looking to reach out to these people by selling them better products. Isn't that enough?
Or was the whole 'fortune at the bottom of the pyramid' a myth, when what may be needed really to address poverty cannot be scaled up and mass produced? A citizen movement and not a customer base?

The big question, are they likely to succeed with the current venture? (Write in quick, needed for thesis conclusion!)

What's in a name?

So I realized that one of the themes that interests the contributors of this blog ( and one which I dedicated my entire previous semester at the Institute of Design to...) is the social development aspect of design . It was mostly two projects, one that aimed at creating a sustainable local organic food production system in Chicago, and the other relating to social networking in the slums of Powai, India...that were responsible for hooking me to the subject (…stay tuned there will be more on those later…). A class that I took parallely and which significantly helped in shaping my opinions on the matter dealt with the subject of social entrepreneurship. And for a long time I was fascinated with the idea of an enterprise that creates both social and economic value for all stakeholders. And then I came across an article (an extremely tedious one, which I shall not recommend for light reading …) by Daniel Hjorth and Bjorn Bjerke on Public Entrepreneurship.
The authors view was that social entrepreneurship considers social problems as mainly economic problems that require a better management. And that very often it fails to consider the local history and culture by proposing a set template of solutions for widely varying cultures and values. The article proposes two shifts, one from social to public and the other from consumer to citizen. This new approach is taken as a shift from social entrepreneurship to public entrepreneurship.
In my opinion a shift is not really necessary. But creating a place for public entrepreneurship was. It is true that social entrepreneurship focuses on solving social problems through economic solutions, but that does not demean the concept. There are many problems that can be solved with better products and services that create social and economic value for both the entrepreneur as well as the society. Public entrepreneurship on the other hand though has obvious social benefits but might lack success in the absence of adequate incentives. I understand this problem as mainly that of the lack of incentives to bring about a change. Social entrepreneurs because they are external individuals and entities usually find their incentives in economic gains, while public entrepreneurship because it deals with citizen participation finds its incentives in other things important to a group of people.
Let me clarify the idea of public entrepreneurship with an example (…which will be appropriately nostalgic for the members of this blog…) let’s take you to Ahmedabad… to a small restaurant based on a unique philosophy - the Seva café. The concept of Seva is rooted in the philosophy of karma yoga, and the word essentially means “service without expectations of any kind”. It would be wrong to call this place a restaurant. In their own words it’s more of a home, and they don’t just offer you locally produced wholesome meals, they offer you an experience. But what’s most interesting about this cafe is the 'contribute as you wish' model on which they are based. This means you decide how much you pay for your meal at the end of your experience here (this generally tends to be a generous donation of course). But it also means that participation is considered a bigger contribution than mere donation. The money gifted at the end of the meal is essential for sustaining the cafe but the food is truly intended as a gift and an essential part of the cafe is volunteerism. People and families volunteer to cook food, buy vegetables, wash the dishes...and yes it works. It works because the culture supports it. People participate because of the existence of values that help them to understand the concept. I don’t know if this would be replicable anywhere else and even be as successful if it wasn’t Gujarat, the birthplace of Gandhi. It’s true that this structure does not fit into the traditional notions of social entrepreneurship …but at the same time I can’t help feeling the importance of its existence…what do you think?

Iss manch par aapka swagat hai.

Welkom, welkom. This blog was born from the need to know what everyone is up to and to be able to boast about one's friends' exotic adventures across the globe. Saat ladkiyaan, saat samundar paar types. Although we are all fully aware of how funny we are and like to lapse into witty poems, haikus and Bridget Jones' style diary entries, lets keep this forum for our trials and tribulations and revelations of the epiphanic kind during our attempts to be anything-but-a-designer.
(I tried hard to be professional in the intro, but I failed, knowing that it was us, after all)
Lets begin!