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• Design at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Segmenting the Base

  Jocelyn Ling 11:08 pm on July 18, 2011 | 6 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: BottomOfPyramid (4), design (5), finance (3), impact investing (10), innovation, social finance (7), sustainable (5)

  I cur­rently work in the finan­cial sec­tor, specif­i­cally asset man­age­ment — and although the nature of my work doesn’t really focus on the Bot­tom of the Pyra­mid (BoP), I’ve made it my per­sonal mis­sion apart from work to be absorb­ing, learn­ing, writ­ing, design­ing, dis­cussing, read­ing, and (insert other syn­onyms of pre­vi­ously listed adjec­tives here) issues at the BoP… and some­where in that dis­cov­ery have found a sweet spot in social enter­prises and impact investing.

  What I have been draw­ing on my cur­rent posi­tion and my research on the side is an inter­est­ing per­spec­tive from both ends of the spec­turm: cap­i­tal­ist vs. social. I did want to share today (com­ing from this dou­ble ended per­spec­tive) is my prac­ti­cal ide­al­ism and thoughts on answer­ing the ques­tion of: How can I design/frame/create solution(s) that would help the BoP improve their stan­dard of liv­ing. (I was also inspired by this post on OpenIDEO on design­ing for low-income communities)

  This ques­tion has been one that has been asked over and over again and I would like to throw my thoughts into the stir­ring pot par­tic­u­larly in the area of seg­ment­ing the BoP.  This would be Part 1 of X and I would like to pref­ace my thoughts by stat­ing that the most impor­tant piece in this design is design­ing the solu­tion around the terms of the BoP — tak­ing into account cul­ture, resources, coun­try mentality/beliefs, busi­ness envi­ron­ment and pol­i­tics. Any­thing that we design or cre­ate to help this seg­ment has to be very very good and on their terms in order to be sus­tain­able ( although now I won­der whether this is even pos­si­ble — after all cap­i­tal­ism is a bro­ken struc­ture in itself. But I digress!).

  
  photo credit: Jametiks

  I have nar­rowed it down into three ways to seg­ment the BoP:

  1) Liv­ing Standard:

  Those liv­ing at the BoP can be sliced into three main cat­e­gories: Low Income — $3-$5 a day; Subsistence — $1 — $3 a day; and Extreme poverty — Under $1 a day. Often, this ecosys­tem is over­looked and are lumped into one. Most aid, social enter­prises and busi­nesses only affect the Low Income por­tion of the seg­ment as they pro­vide afford­able ser­vices and prod­ucts that require a finan­cial exchange. If some busi­nesses are really lucky, they get to skim on the sur­face of the sub­sis­tence group with enough scale and good man­age­ment. Some social or local enter­prises man­age to hit this sec­ond group indi­rectly through local com­mu­nity or sup­ply chain engage­ment. As for those in extreme poverty, lack of nutri­tion, finances and lim­ited edu­ca­tion make them the most vul­ner­a­ble. This is where gov­ern­men­tal relief pro­grams and non-profits step in. So how can we design social busi­nesses that tar­get all three groups?

  I know some busi­nesses hope to achieve this by scale, but per­haps another way to look at it would be to design into the busi­ness struc­ture from the start a water­fall effect of each group help­ing to ele­vate the next as they are being given a hand up.

  2) Value-Creation

  Another way of seg­ment­ing the BoP is through value cre­ation: con­sumers, pro­duc­ers and co-producers. By under­stand­ing the roles we play in the pyra­mid, we can then under­stand the incen­tives that drive each group. Income, basic needs, mate­r­ial wants. The first two groups are self-explanatory. How­ever, the third requires more than just busi­ness struc­ture. It requires a shift in our per­spec­tive and approach and con­sid­er­ing the poor as equals in our shared human­ity. We are co-producers and the BoP are no longer receivers of what we give them. This third value-creation group is per­haps the most impor­tant as numer­ous busi­nesses have stum­bled by fail­ing to under­stand their role as a co-creator of value. All too often, they see their respon­si­bil­i­ties end with the pro­vi­sion of a ser­vice or prod­uct but really, their role is so much more.

  When I was work­ing on the ground with an orphan­age in Soweto, South Africa one of the key lessons I took away was to always know where you are cre­at­ing value and to never try to be every­thing to every­one. You often find in brain­storm ses­sions that every­one always has a vision to be the hub, to offer every­thing — which is what I saw in this orphan­age. They wanted to help kids with nutri­tion, pro­vide money for edu­ca­tion, coun­selling and often you’ll find in devel­op­ment sec­tors, there will always be some­thing to do and to help in. Before you know it, you’ll be run­ning around try­ing to catch­ing all the falling pieces and won­der how you even got there in the first place. The key is know­ing where we can design value. It might only be in one area — and that’s ok!

  3) Need — Classification

  The final seg­men­ta­tion is by need, and really draws on the first two to set a base of what is required. Needs clas­si­fi­ca­tion breaks down into more macro pieces like: edu­ca­tion, nutri­tion, hous­ing, health, tech­nol­ogy. Because the BoP’s needs are many, a busi­ness who is seg­ment­ing by this sec­tor should enter a com­mu­nity by pro­vid­ing out­stand­ing under­stand­ing of value…and that value should be a hand up for sus­tain­abil­ity and empowerment.

  Seg­ment­ing by need also means that the business’s abil­ity to design the inter­sec­tion of social and com­er­cial value mat­ters even more. This is because design­ing needs, means part­ner­ships with other orga­ni­za­tions, gov­ern­ments or busi­nesses who might not have the same vision as we do.

  ***

  What’s excit­ing is that at the end of the day, a new future is slowly being designed and sculpted in both devel­op­ing and indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries explor­ing the Base of the Pyra­mid. Now it’s really up to us to make sure we’re design­ing it right with all the right pieces in mind.

   

• Designing a better world - together

  Jocelyn Ling 11:11 pm on July 6, 2011 | 4 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaboration (8), design (5), empowerment (7), impact (17), innovation

  I just spent the last 3 hours play­ing around OpenIDEO and it is absolutely fas­ci­nat­ing. Seri­ously. To the point that I lost track of time just read­ing con­cept after con­cept, explor­ing the inter­face and past chal­lenges. I had signed up in August last year, but never really got around to sit­ting down and tak­ing a crack at it. But now that I have… I really don’t know what I was wait­ing for!

  OpenIDEO is an online crowd­sourced plat­form “where peo­ple design bet­ter, together for social good.” It’s a beau­ti­fully designed con­cept which high­lights 5 prin­ci­ples — inclu­sive, community-centered, col­lab­o­ra­tive, opti­mistic and always in beta. My favourite prin­ci­ple is the last one because it really reflects con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, improve­ment and evo­lu­tion. Some­thing which most plat­forms do not tra­di­tion­ally announce — usu­ally plat­forms aim to be out of beta mode, sig­nalling “per­fec­tion.” It is founded by IDEO, a design and inno­va­tion firm that lever­ages design think­ing  to help orga­ni­za­tions inno­vate and grow.

  I love crowd­sourced plat­forms,but here’s why OpenIDEO really stood out for me:

  1) Lis­ten­ing — there’s some­thing to be said about com­mu­ni­ties design­ing for other com­mu­ni­ties. It has a low bar­rier to entry and your expe­ri­ences and input can help shape a bet­ter con­cept. Alot of crowd­sourc­ing plat­forms are one way high­ways rather than two ways. I appre­ci­ate the open­ness of the plat­form where I can sim­ple “applaud” an idea to cre­at­ing a con­cept. My involve­ment is as much as I want it to be. Sidenote: thought I would share a really inter­est­ing info­graphic on a com­par­i­son of ques­tions asked to #askobama on Tues­day which breaks down the per­cent of ques­tions asked for twit­ter vs. jour­nal­ists. This dis­par­ity in ques­tions asked only goes to show how impor­tant lis­ten­ing is to what peo­ple want to know and need.

   

   

  

  Pic­ture credit: Info­graphic taken from boston.com

  2) Design — Of course! Great job to the team who designed this web­site. They paid such great atten­tion to detail to the point where you would even had a lit­tle heart next to the num­ber of peo­ple who had applauded your com­ment. Shar­ing the love via great design! 

  On a more seri­ous note on design though — I liked the fact that although there were sev­eral chal­lenges tied to a broader chal­lenge, the way the design was setup was so that con­cepts weren’t lost in the noise. Below is the cur­rent chal­lenge and we’re cur­rently in the con­cept­ing stage. The fea­tured con­cept ensures that the most pop­u­lar con­cept doesn’t just remain at the ‘top’ and the fil­ters at the bot­tom of the screen­shot ensure that each con­cept gets viewed. Get­ting proper expo­sure for each con­cept is impor­tant because I know sev­eral plat­forms that strug­gle to elim­i­nate the nat­ural bias of selec­tion by view­ing what you see first and foremost.

  

  3) Com­mu­nity — In a new plat­form, it really helps to have a frame of ref­er­ence on what to do. I really liked the fact they had a com­mu­nity tab that fea­tured their top con­trib­u­tors to the site. I was able to go into their pro­files and see what they have done and that def­i­nitely sped up my learn­ing process. OpenIDEO also inte­grated a design quo­tient into your pro­file, where it tracks pts on where and what you have con­tributed. I must admit it was very sat­is­fy­ing to see my points increase after con­tribut­ing to a con­cept. I now have 13 pts for collaboration!

  My only feed­back for the site at the moment would be in this sec­tion too. It would nice to expand the com­mu­nity sec­tion into one where I can search more than just the top con­trib­u­tors to the plat­form. The search func­tion on the RHS allows me to search for peo­ple but only if I know specif­i­cally who I want. It would be great to browse in what way peo­ple have con­tributed to the plat­form and con­nect with them. Although, for those inter­ested, there is an infor­mal  twit­ter list by one of OpenIDEO’s top con­tributer: @arjantupan/openideocommunity

  

  All in all, a great plat­form for an even greater cause. I highly rec­om­mend tak­ing this for a spin. If you do decide to cre­ate a con­cept, let me know and I would love to check it out!

   

• An Interview with SOCAP co-founder: Kevin Jones

  Jocelyn Ling 6:22 pm on July 2, 2011 | 0 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: collaboration (8), design (5), impact (17), impact investing (10), innovation, social finance (7)

  In the impact invest­ing space, one of my biggest areas of inter­est has been look­ing into ways on how to increase the momen­tum and main­stream inter­est in this area. What I have been dis­cov­er­ing is that the knowl­edge gap between social and finan­cial is alot wider than I ini­tially antic­i­pated it to be. On one end, we have peo­ple with huge hearts who are will­ing to give all their time and money for great causes, but not nec­es­sar­ily thor­oughly under­stand­ing what social finance/patient capital/impact invest­ing really is. I’ve had count­less of con­ver­sa­tions with indi­vid­u­als, par­tic­u­larly stu­dents, who want to gain expe­ri­ence in this area but unfor­tu­nately, demand is greater than sup­ply at the moment. On the other end, we have peo­ple who are focused on the profit ( and I’m not say­ing there is any­thing wrong with this) end of a busi­ness and strug­gle to take into account the social impact of their work because at the end of the day — it sim­ply takes away from the bot­tom line.

  What all these con­ver­sa­tions have given me though, is firstly an under­stand­ing that in order to con­tribute to the impact invest­ing space, I would have to know my own goals bet­ter, know my areas of inter­est and most of all, know what I have to give and gain by being in this space. It is sim­ply not enough to have the heart for this. I have to be hon­est — with myself and with what we are able to accom­plish. I have to know my lim­its and be hum­ble enough to admit what I actu­ally do and don’t know and do my best to learn what that social cap­i­tal con­tin­uum looks like. I want my ide­al­ism to be prac­ti­cal and actionable.

  All that being said, I believe that one of the biggest ways to advance this space is to be as open as pos­si­ble about dis­cov­er­ies that we know. From per­for­mance met­rics to new ini­tia­tives. The impact invest­ing space needs to reach a mass tip­ping point before it can truly hit main­stream and although we are pick­ing up momen­tum, we’re not there yet. One of the forums that I admire and has pro­vided a great plat­form for this shar­ing of ideas is Social Cap­i­tal Mar­kets — an annual con­fer­ence in San Fran that con­nects global inno­va­tors, investors and entre­pre­neurs. They recently expanded into Europe this year and I had the priv­i­lege of cov­er­ing some pre-conference sto­ries for them. Below is an inter­view I had with SOCAP co-founder Kevin Jones for SOCAP Europe orig­i­nally writ­ten for socialearth.org a cou­ple weeks ago. I do hope to meet him in per­son one day and really admire his tenac­ity and pas­sion for this space. You can view the orig­i­nal post here. Also, Check out the move­ment that SOCAP has been cre­at­ing here.

  

  ***

  In my last post on SOCAP Europe, I wrote about the space, the need and the move­ment for social cap­i­tal mar­kets. Since, I had the oppor­tu­nity to inter­view Kevin Jones, the co-founder and con­vener of SOCAP Mar­kets. A remark­able vision­ary, here is what he has to say about his take on SOCAP, a 10 year vision and his number-one advice to social entrepreneurs:

  

  Q: I love the fact that SOCAP is tak­ing on a more inter­na­tional scene by hav­ing one in Europe this year. Can you shed some light on the devel­op­ment trends that you are start­ing to see on an inter­na­tional scale and how this would impact us here in North America?

  A: The biggest trend is toward impact invest­ing being taken seri­ously by main­stream finance.  At SOCAP Europe, we will have large $100 mil­lion plus fund of funds announc­ing they are inte­grat­ing impact invest­ing into their port­fo­lios, two banks, one large and main­stream, abn amro, and one deeply mis­sion aligned, tri­o­dos are on board as spon­sors. Pen­sion funds are also at the table. The issue for impact invest­ing is going main­stream and avoid­ing los­ing their mis­sion, what I call avoid­ing mis­sion risk, the ben and jerry’s prob­lem. Avoid­ing a micro­fi­nance scenario.

  Another big thing is that renew­able energy in the devel­op­ing world is becom­ing a clearly investable sec­tor. A new, not pub­lished yet report by McK­in­sey com­mis­sioned by mid-year pegs that poten­tial at $6.5 bil­lion. The upside to renew­able energy is that it is a pub­lic good, in places like rural Africa and rural India; you are remov­ing kerosene lamps that kill 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple a year through indoor air pol­lu­tion, cut­ting power costs by around 1/3 and doing it at high mar­gin.  Unlike micro­fi­nance which became a deriv­a­tive and allowed investors to demand an unrea­son­able return on their equity to the point that it exploited the poor in some places, there is no chance to sat­u­rate the rural African vil­lage mar­ket with life sav­ing elec­tric­ity that enhances a family’s abil­ity to be pro­duc­tive. The report pegs that mar­ket size at $6.5 bil­lion, but it will be a week before we can use that figure.

  Q: You’ve been in the social investing/enterprise space for a while now, and noted in one of your more recent inter­views on how the space is con­tin­u­ing to grow on both ends of the spec­trum. What do you believe is the biggest barrier/challenge for this environment?

  A: What is the biggest chal­lenge? It’s still mind­set, the inher­ited cul­tural frame in which peo­ple think about invest­ing. They feel jus­ti­fied think­ing only about finan­cial return on their money and then they do good in giv­ing. On the other hand, I am really encour­aged by new research from NESTA that says 39% of folks in the U.K. would take a lower finan­cial return if they could invest along­side what they believe, for causes they care about. and that the per­cent­age goes up dra­mat­i­cally for peo­ple under 40.

  That said, there will be fail­ures, and peo­ple should be ready for them. Not just scams like three cups of tea seems to be, but things go wrong. So hopes could be dashed, etc. if peo­ple are naive. We are work­ing on the tough­est prob­lems of the world. In new ways, with new tools, but they are still the things that put us all at risk.

  Q: SOCAP is a con­fer­ence that brings together the inter­sec­tion of money and mean­ing. How does this con­fer­ence fit into the pic­ture of bridg­ing the gap between for-profit and non­profit and where do you see the ideal form of col­lab­o­ra­tion between these two groups?

  A: SOCAP is about bring­ing all the resources into the mar­ket and using what’s appro­pri­ate to get the job done. Many if not most social enter­prises often start out need­ing dona­tions or sub­si­dies, or as a non profit work­ing on a prob­lem, a way to pay for the mis­sion with­out rely­ing only on pro­gram money from a foun­da­tion cre­ates the need for earned income that then grows into a social enter­prise that could be investable as they work out the model.  But the mar­ket does not solve all prob­lems. Take malaria: the young moth­ers and chil­dren one to five who com­prise 80% of the nearly 3 mil­lion who die every year in Sub-Saharan Africa (some say 1 mil­lion) do not have and are  not likely soon to have the money to buy insec­ti­cide treated nets. So they need to be subsidized.

  SOCAP is about using gifts and grants where they are appro­pri­ate and when they are appro­pri­ate and sub­si­dies that go away over time when that is the way to go, soft debt from mis­sion focused, often non profit lenders like a Root Cap­i­tal or E+Co when its appro­pri­ate and fast mov­ing, cat­alytic ven­ture cap­i­tal like equity from an impact invest­ment fund where it is the answer. SOCAP is a big tent event where peo­ple who work in silos come together to get more done than they could alone or work­ing with the peo­ple they already know or run into in their reg­u­lar course of work. It’s the gath­er­ing that incor­po­rates giv­ing and invest­ing as twin forces for good for a world that needs all the help it can get.

  Q: What is your 10 year vision for the social enterprise/impact invest­ing space?

  A: What is my 10-year vision… that mix­ing your money with your mean­ing will be the way most peo­ple think about invest­ing. That a mind­shift has taken place. That boomers will con­tribute to the efforts of mil­len­ni­als who want to change the world they have inher­ited from us.

  Q: What is your #1 advice to social entrepreneurs/enterprises?

  Start. Do it now. Fail fast, and fail smart. If you are not relent­less, you will not make it. this needs to be not just your peace corps stint. This has to be the way you approach the world. When I started good cap­i­tal six years ago, I went to the smartest investor in this space that I knew. He told me and Tim, my partner:

  - Our idea was wrong
  – Our plan was flawed
  – We were the wrong guys
  – Our chances for fail­ure were high
  – And he did not want his name asso­ci­ated with us.

  Peo­ple tell you that all the time when you are an entre­pre­neur, the more dis­rup­tive your approach the more likely smart guys will give you that reac­tion. and they may be right. Your idea may be wrong, your plan flawed, you might be the wrong guy. But if you need to do this, if its baked into who you are that this is the way you approach the world, and what needs to be done, you will do it any­way. Not every­one should be an entre­pre­neur. Most peo­ple should be employ­ees or help the vision­ary reach her goals. It takes a cer­tain level of insan­ity to go against the com­mon wis­dom. If you are afflicted with too much san­ity you won’t sur­vive as an entrepreneur.

  Q: And just for fun: What is your favorite quote?

  A: Prob­a­bly one from Dirty Harry, “A man has to know his limitations.”

  ***

  For more infor­ma­tion about Kevin and SOCAP Europe, visit europe.socialcapitalmarkets.net.

   

   

• "This is your Life" Manifesto

  Jocelyn Ling 5:09 pm on June 19, 2011 | 0 comments Permalink | Reply
  Tags: change (17), design (5), impact (17), innovation, inspiration (12), women (5)

  I recently dis­cov­ered http://www.holstee.com — kick­ass prod­ucts, sus­tain­ably made, with a social impact and loved the con­cept!! And then, I came across the company’s man­i­festo and was totally blown away not only by how awe­some it was as a man­i­festo, but the fact that that Hol­stee IS their man­i­festo. Their prod­ucts are all sus­tain­able and beau­ti­ful — “design[ed] and curates[ed] with the hope that each prod­uct and its inher­ent story inspires oth­ers to fol­low their dream.”

  Sim­ply Wonder-full.

  

  P/s: I also love the Alpaca Reversible hat! Made in Peru by a group of women to improve their family’s income.