• Race, women and subjectivity: who is at the center of your practice?

    December 6, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    Sara Suleri’s article “Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition” explores how marginal groups seek liberation in an arena of competing discourses. Suleri reimagines feminine and racial subjectivities and, at the same time, move away from the limiting binarisms of academia. Suleri dangerously questions the ways in which minority voices rely on race as an advantage in academia. How can women negotiate their personal identities and subjecthood? Who is allowed to speak about, and more importantly, for others? I found this piece to be helpful when it comes to either non-profits or social businesses that aim to support low-income women. As I’ve written elsewhere, intentions aren’t a good measure of outcomes (or anything else for that matter). Suleri seeks to upset the binaries by challenging the unspecificity of the term “postcolonial feminism.” She objects to the privileges given to voices of the “postcolonial Woman” and more generally, “racially encoded feminism.” Suleri goes as far to say that postcolonialism, in its feminist context, is “an almost obsolete signifier for the historicity of race.” Suleri refers to “the coloring of feminist discourse” to point to how understandings of postcoloniality, womanhood and race are blurred. In the way that Suleri suggests that feminist theory, language and discourse are not necessarily appropriate to apply to the racial subject, Senegalese film director Ousmane Sembène uses Africana womanism to specify the lived experiences of African women, namely, Faat Kiné, who negotiates masculine and Western ideologies in order to develop her own self-consciousness. The heroine in Faat Kiné undergoes a transformation in which she is not compelled to hold on to traditional African culture, but also does not need to replicate Western models of femininity and liberation in order to develop her own plural identity. In the same vein, Suleri disputes how feminist minority academics create divisive politics by regularly referring back to whiteness as the cradle of conceptual thought. It is important to know who is doing the work of social business, and more importantly, for what purpose. How do women of color fit into the predominately white world of social entrepreneurship? Suleri boldly claims that “feminist intellectuals like [bell] hooks misuse their status as minority voices by enacting strategies of belligerence that at this time are more divisive than informative.” By referring to “this time,” Suleri suggests that we are now over the issues that pit “us” versus “them” and that we must come together for a unified agenda. Moreover, Suleri speaks of a “political untouchability” that is granted to the Third World Woman grouping. Race allows for what Suleri calls a “claim to authenticity.” Certainly, racialized voices should not be posited as the “first narrative of what ethnically constructed woman is deemed to want,” as Suleri argues against. However, no one should claim to be the dominant speaker on behalf of others. Does Sembène’s Faat Kiné make him less “authentic” or credible because of his position as a male? While Suleri attempts to dismantle the way in which racial and postcolonial oppression is superficially celebrated, Sembène commemorates both Faat Kiné’s complex struggle and the everyday heroism of African women. Suleri argues that feminist academics like Trinh Minh-Ha and hooks use concepts framed within “North American academic terms.” But when literature about black and Third World Women is framed in those exact Western terms, how do you push against that? How can you deny the position and privilege? At the same time, we must not obsess over the racialized (or masculinized body in Sembène’s case) as the point of discourse, history and subjectivity. In many ways, the way in which Faat Kiné negotiates her identity between competing discourses, while not relying on whiteness or masculinity, is what Suleri is looking for in minority academics. Thus, the exploration of “what it means to articulate an ‘identity’ for a woman […] of color’” must be further explored. Both Suleri and Sembène’s critical analyses and disruptions of dichotomies are important in reimagining identities and subjectivities. With so many competing modes of thought, what is essential is that Third World Women seek progress on their own terms.

  • Learning from worker co-operatives

    November 30, 2012

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    0218-04By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    The Take, a documentary created by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein and the  Mondragon Cooperative, show examples of alternative business models located in the less-industrialized world. Let’s look at food co-ops, for instance. In North America, urban food co-ops are typically only available to the middle- and upper- classes. At the food co-op to which my family belongs, which is also worker-owned, you have to put in a particular number of hours each month. You can work as a cashier, write for the newsletter, organize meetings, etc. If you decide not to work, you have to pay a monthly fee. So, you need the time or the money to be able to participate in this program which offers fresh, organic, vegan and vegetarian foods, grass-fed beef, and free-range eggs at lower prices than a normal grocery store. Because the kind of co-op that I’m familiar with isn’t, in reality, open to everyone, I was blown away, especially by the documentary. However, I wondered about what sort of inner problems the co-op faced. The Take presented things as very democratic, but with democracy, isn’t there bound to be some infighting? That just seems like the reality of any group or decentralized democracy (or centralized, for that matter). It would have been beneficial to see how those workers worked through that. “Managing Without Managers” by Richard Semler presented an alternative business model that reminded me of the worker-owned cooperatives from The Take, for example. However, in Semco’s case, the workers were given control rather than took it themselves. A lot of the co-operatives (especially those in Argentina) rose out of a sort of revolution on a small-scale. Part of what is keeping the workers together is that they have an opposed force that they all unite against. Semco presents a different route to a similar goal. I found it interesting that Semler gauged Semco’s success on what multinationals it could sell to, meaning that its products are reliable and competitive. However, doesn’t this continue the same cycle of low-wage labour? And perhaps one day Semco will be bought out in part due to the extent to which it participates in an unequal global exchange. Maybe it’s a catch-22 because to survive as a business, you need to build relationships, cooperate and to use Semler’s words build your “international reputation,” but at the same time, some of those relationships are based on strong power relations. In Semler’s guide to stress management, I found it interesting how one of the myths was that no one else can do it better. I went to a conference last year and one session was about community work. The work should be able to be sustainable without the founder. You have to teach others to do what you do in order to sustain your mission.

  • Three women-focused hubs

    November 29, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    As previously discussed at length in a few blog posts this month, for instance, in posts called “For us, buy us: women, consumerism and social change” and “Women in social entrepreneurship,” the role of women in business can be an interesting one. Here, I decided to shed light on a few organizations that focus on young women, technology and business. Here are three gender-focused business incubators, networks and support groups mainly directed at young women: 1) Girls Who Code Ah, “Girls Who Code.” Even the name in itself sounds a bit cutting-edge, right? And maybe that’s a sad thing to say in itself. Much like the trend today in social entreprises, non-profits alike, Girls Who Code describes itself as a “movement.” But if we look beyond the trendy buzz language prominent in the giving world, it’s a simple idea that works to counter the fact that a minuscule percentage of women head fortunate 500 companies. “Girls Who Code is a new organization working to educate, inspire and equip 13- to 17-year-old girls with the skills and resources to pursue opportunities in technology and engineering,” the website writes. 2) Young Female Entrepreneurs Young Female Entrepreneurs is similar to Girls Who Code but it’s for an older crowd, that is, twenty- and thirty-somethings. It’s also more comprehensive in that it’s like a social network for young women who are starting and have started businesses of their own. They offer support, Twitter chats, blog posts, podcasts and live streams. But they’re not only online; IRL meet-ups are also key to the collaborative feeling. Lately the organization has received a bunch of good press. “Everything that Young Female Entrepreneurs does online is utilizing technology that young women already use,” Director Jennifer Donogh told Fast Co Exist. “It’s not crazy to ask them to jump onto Twitter, they’re already there. We have a topic, the YFE Twitter handle moderates the questions, and people connect and say, ‘Hey, we have similar interests, similar goals, and our businesses are serving similar audiences, let’s do some sort of joint venture.’” 3) WESST Enterprise Center WESST occupies an interesting position because it’s been around for over twenty years (since 1988) and thus didn’t necessarily use the language of “social entrepreneurship” to define itself an its goals. Here’s how the non-profit organization describes some of its work:

    Over a period that spans two decades, WESST has assisted a diverse roster of clients at every stage of business. Historically, we have focused on transforming people’s lives and creating a pathway out of poverty by helping low-income women and minorities achieve financial self-sufficiency through sustained self-employment. WESST is distinguished in New Mexico as the only organization offering long-term, comprehensive training, technical assistance and loans specifically targeted to low-income women and minorities.

    According to CNN Money, entrepreneurship in New Mexico has flourished because of a lack of high paid jobs in the area. All three of these organizations—Girls Who Code, Young Women Entrepreneurs and Enterprise Center—are responding to a similar need even if they’re responding to it in creatively different ways.

  • Optimism and social entrepreneurship

    November 24, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    Earlier this month, Alison Craiglow Hokenberry, a contributing editor at Ashoka Changemakers, wrote an article for the Huffington Post’s Business Canada section called “How Your Small Business Can Grow Big Ideas“. In it, she writes:

    Readers with even a passing understanding of the term social entrepreneurship understand that it’s about big ideas in small packages that have the potential to effect enormous social change. Social entrepreneurship is about the regional and global impact that can be unleashed if start-up solutions to stubborn, often heartbreaking local problems are given the support to grow, scale-up, and spread around the world.

    Call it the power of small. If small is powerful, what’s the force and fuel that can turn it into something big? How can the local impact of a social solution become a world-changing enterprise?

    But is the insular community of social entrepreneurship too optimistic? Why are things like this written? For clicks? For inspiration? Much of this conversation revolves around scaling social businesses, which is a huge challenge for many small businesses, both inside and outside of the social entrepreneurship worlds. Ashoka’s recent competition called “The Power of Small” works on supporting “entrepreneurs strengthening local economies.” There’s such thing, I think, as too much positivity. At the same time, however, I think one of the biggest takeaways from Hokenberry’s article is the importance of seeking our mentors. She writes and draws from leaders including two of Ashoka’s The Power of Small judges, Joanna Harries, director of international expansion at Endeavor, and Rob Henning, co-founder of ESPartners:

    “Having access to advisors or people who can provide you with resources, people who can give you a key bit of advice at the right moment that’s going to be the difference between going down a path that would lead to failure and one that’s going to lead to success because they have been through it before — that’s critical,” Harries said.

    “Role models are very, very important,” Henning added. “The [entrepreneurs] that are really smart ask, ‘where are the role models in my economy and my peer group?’ They realize that they need help, and they go and talk to people and ask for advice.”

    Harries acknowledged that finding role models can be a challenge for time-strapped entrepreneurs. “Connecting the dots to mentors is sometimes difficult when you’re an entrepreneur so that you’re running a mile a minute and you don’t really have time to step back, or take a strategic view, or see the bigger picture.”

    Henning said that open competitions like The Power of Small also represent a significant opportunity to learn from others. “A big value of competitions such as these is that they allow entrepreneurs to see the progression of businesses to scaling up, and to learn from that.”

    Through my many interviews with social entrepreneur, I found that a majority of people thrive on the networks and community that they have worked to build. But recently, however, I talked to a women social entrepreneur who thought that sometimes these networks that are set up, that is, official organizations that foster mentor support don’t offer as much resources as they could. It all depends on the mentor-mentee relationship, of course. The bottom line is that there is no one-size-fits-all panacea to finding success as a social entrepreneur. Maybe a billion small ideas can help create change, but at the same time, structural change is the key to sustainability. The New York Times Opinionator blog turned the spotlight on “The Rise of Social Entrepreneur” in a piece by David Bornstein. He closes with a the potential he sees in social entrepreneurship, an optimistic potential that is echoed by the community at large:

    We don’t know where the best ideas will come from any more than we know where the next Google will arise. The emergence of social entrepreneurship reflects this uncertainty — as well as a major new opportunity: the fact that the capacity and motivation needed to solve problems is now widely dispersed. The question is, how do we find, elicit, nurture and harness the talents of millions of potential change-makers for the greatest good? It’s not just a question for would-be social entrepreneurs. It’s relevant for policy makers, managers, educators, parents — and ourselves. Many of us have little idea of our own change-making potential. We may be in for a surprise.

  • Politicizing affect

    November 21, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    How do you escape? Work? Reading? Or maybe love? Have you ever thought about how the ubiquitous feminist phrase “the personal is political” and how it affects professional life? The following is a look at affect theory—a field in which tremendous value can be drawn for social entrepreneurship—and equality. In the article “The politics of love: Women’s liberation and feeling differently,” Victoria Hesford explores the phrase “the personal is political,” which has helped (and, in some ways, hindered) the women’s liberation movement. The “motto” stems from the idea that personal struggles are in fact political struggles, and underlying the phrase is a focus of systemic oppression that creates inequalities in the more personal realms of life, for example in the home or in a relationship. It involves a turn inwards, a refocusing on intimacy, sexuality and love. Love is typically considered to be outside of the political sphere and more of a private aspect of life. Hesford notes key feminists, like Kate Millett who, during the 1970s, encouraged an expansion of the political sphere, one included sexual relationships, romantic love and intimacy. Hesford considers the conception of how love gives us reason to live, and creates something of a sphere of escapism. Similarly, Berlant and Warner explore how love has come to be a “refuge from politics,” in the sense that domesticity and heterosexual normative relationships are then considered “pre-political.” What are the consequences of thinking of heterosexual love as a haven from the public sphere? Who is left out of the equation? The strict distinction between public and private reflects the inequalities of those who are considered privileged enough to engage in politics and those who are not. Feminist politics, at least in its roots, took to examining how the idea of “politics as something you do in public” had debilitating effects that had on women’s political lives (or non-political lives) because they were exiled from the public sphere and confined to domesticity which was considered (and to some extent, still is) as apolitical or nonpolitical. Hesford argues that “the personal is political” has become and empty phrase that essentializes, individualizes and further privileges white middle-class women. How then is the personal transformed to the political? How is intimacy related to political life? Through an analysis of how literature disrupts the binary of personal versus political and public versus private, Hesford  explores how Doris Lessing’s writing makes a call to language and discourse to examine political action. Hesford writes, “While political discourse is portrayed as a highly artificial and obfuscating language, emotions become the propulsive force in the novels.” This made me look at how emotional language is seen as something easier to articulate for most women, something almost “innate.” But, both political and personal discourse is learned. Emotions are given more primacy during the early stages of life, but are subsequently repressed and get fragmented. For example, work and politics remains a space where emotional language is quelled, in exchange for a more “reasonable” language. Hesford recognizes that the problem still exists, of “how a politicization of feeling converts into an effective propulsive force for collective political action.” What is important is to keep open that “critical space” for engaging in discussion on emotions and politics.

  • For us, buy us: women, consumerism and social change

    November 18, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    Due to the nature of my current projects for Social Business, I have been thinking quite a bit about women’s position and role in and round social entrepreneurship. This blog post more generally spans a greater trend, that is, women as consumers and creators of consumer products. Women shop. There have even countless studies about women and their viability as a marketing demographic.

     In North America, we are exposed to a plethora of images, ads, media and messaging. A lot of it is directed at women. Buy this lipstick. Buy these diapers for your baby. This cleaning product is safest for your family. Lose weight by incorporating probiotics and antioxidants into your diet. How, then, do social entrepreneurship and consumerism (and advertising for consumerism) fit into the picture? (I’ve written more thoroughly about “The problems with so-called ‘conscious consumerism'” in the past if you’re interested to read that.) Clayton Reeves for Gaebler Ventures writes more positively about of consumerism “as a movement” and offers the following advice for entrepreneurs: A holistic approach that can avoid any of the common pitfalls of unethical marketing can save your company the hassle of dealing with customer complaints. Also, having a happy customer base will only create more growth opportunities for the company.

    So, ignore trends in consumerism at your own peril. It’s a phenomenon that can impact your organization’s bottomline profits – for better or worse depending on your response.

     Of course, what I’m saying nothing new in the grand scheme of things. But what I’m interested in is how social business captures this kind of messaging. Do they? Does it work? What are the implications? Many social good products are targeted at women.

     In social entrepreneurship, there’s more to it than mere advertising and messaging. Gender is often built into the business model itself. And most often with those darn good intentions in mind. For Canadian social entrepreneur Barb Stegemann, her mission and means by which she seeks making it happen are explicit. Her aim through her social business The 7 Virtues is to harness North American women’s buying power in order to foster social change in less-industrialized countries. The idea for her business sprouted from her book, The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen. In the United Kingdom, “Social enterprises are a natural home for female entrepreneurs and have more women on their boards than FTSE 100 companies. A quarter of social enterprises are owned by women, almost double the number of those running small private businesses,” according to Social Enterprise UK. Here is what I’ve been hinting at all along when it comes to the proliferation of women-focused for-profit social good products: are women more giving? Or just better shoppers? And perhaps more interestingly, does it matter? Certainly probably not to the social businesses profiting (socially and financially). But it says something about the rest of us and the state of buying to give.

  • Women in social entrepreneurship

    November 17, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    The worlds of business and entrepreneurship, like most worlds or the world, are exclusionary for women. Women find it harder to advance in business and in entrepreneurship, harder to find resources and financial support. What do we make of programs like Young Female Entrepreneurs and Girls Who Code? What are the impacts of these types of support systems, programs and women-only incubators? One question I have, as someone who has been writing about social businesses for over two years is this: are there more women or men starting social businesses? SocialBusiness.org is working on an ebook about women who have started their own social businesses and certainly, there are many in a breadth of different industries. Some of them cite their gender as a problem and some do not. It’s possible also that some may not be able to discern any disadvantages they may have had as women, that is, the relationship may not be visible. I struggle with the desire to represent women and their efforts but not consider “women” as a genre in itself. In a similar vein, a New York City music artist, Le1F, recently gave an interview to the Toronto-based weekly newspaper, Now Magazine and said that “queer rap” isn’t a genre even if he is indeed a queer rapper. Women-only art shows are common as well. But more than that, are they necessary toward creating a more equal society? So while marginalized groups need exposure because of the dominance of men in a lot of industries, is there another way to group people, as critics and writers tend to do? A way that validates the work they do in and of itself? We seem to think it’s okay to target people in less-industrialized countries on the basis of their gender. Solar Sister, which works in sub-Saharan Africa, and Skateistan, which works in Kabul, Afghanistan are two examples of this. And of course, the dual hyper visibility and invisibility of women in the Third World means that there are a slew of studies on how improving the lives of girls and women is the panacea to “development.” Think of the Girl Effect. I’m in no means discrediting this type of research but I wonder what impact this has on women in the industrialized world. What kind of businesses do women start? How do they differ from men? What are the societal improvements that can occur with financially supporting women entrepreneurs over men? Allyson Hewitt wrote an opinion piece for SEE Change magazine on the role of women in social entrepreneurship. I’ll end with her words, which elucidates the challenges and also offers some sense of optimism:

    Are women uniquely positioned to take on these complex leadership challenges? I believe we are, but it won’t be easy. As a student of women’s studies in the 1980s, I really thought so many of our battles had been won, and there is no contesting the fact that significant progress has been made, but every now and then we are struck by reports from journalists, police officers or the judiciary condemning women who are victims of rape or sexual assault. We are reminded that we can’t take anything for granted, that our positions as leaders must continually be earned, that there are many who would ascribe to us a certain role in society – not necessarily a role we see for ourselves.  We need to name these and confront them. We need to take the power that will allow us to redefine success.

    There are many tools and resources available to support social entrepreneurs but there is still a lot to do. We need to create an enabling and regulatory and legislative framework; we need to increase access to capital (from grants to loans and even equity); and we need to promote a world that understands sustainability as having embedded financial, social and environmental components.

  • How random is kindness?

    November 10, 2012

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    By Senior Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    People participate in “acts of kindness” every day. Whether or not I see in while I’m on my daily grind, there are some things that do make me stop and think, wow. Just last week, during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, I was walking in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, which was still without power at this time. It was Halloween, but it didn’t feel like it (despite that I feel too old and apathetic for Halloween). This family, however, was dressed up to the max. A young girl had a bucket of candy and was handing out to whoever. I smiled and thanked her and munched on a childhood-favorite candy of mine, red licorice. A small, thing, yes. It would have been a nice act regardless, but because the neighborhood was going through a power outage, the sense of community anxiety was high. The small things, right? They were not, of course, alone. The Huffington Post published a “Random Acts of Kindness After Hurricane Sandy” slideshow: “No power or water, fuel shortages and limited transportation has made life pretty darn difficult for the East Coast. But it’s usually in times of need that the best of mankind emerges. And so, we’ve been seeing wonderful examples of human kindness and generosity over the last few days — from free pizza in the beleaguered East Villageto a little girl setting up a charging station in Hoboken.” How are these small things, these brief smiles and sometimes anonymous acts, recognized, if at all? Should they be? Kindness in the media often acts as something relegated to a small, local news channel, akin sometimes to the high school “Athlete of the Week.” In a way, these  programs are an attempt to counter the amount of sensational violence, crime, war, etc. in the news media. Thanks to the proliferation of blogs — and the resulting proliferation of every single kind of blog imaginable — there are websites and Tumblrs galore that focus solely on the kind and generous things that everyday people do. I mean, it’s no surprise that Oprah has her 35 Little Acts of Kindness feature. These types of guides exist as if we don’t know how to be nice to other people. And perhaps niceness is an overstatement, a lot of the times, it’s simply the decent thing to do. There are organizations and social businesses that focus exclusively on giving recognition and appreciation to people who volunteer their time or do small things to make a moment for someone. I recently talked with a founder of a social business who said that a lot of volunteers don’t necessarily want public recognition or appreciation. Do people participate in acts of kindness for others? To gain recognition? To make themselves feel like better, more generous people? To feel part of a community? I’m sure there are many, many reasons why people do what they do and I’m not sure so-called “random” acts of kindness are that at all.

  • Sweating the small stuff

    November 8, 2012

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    By Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a saying that gets tossed around quite a bit. How do you decide what’s important and what’s not and to what degree? For social entrepreneurs and CEOs of small businesses, there’s often an added element to this because micro-managing sometimes becomes second nature due to the ways in which their professional lives dip into a wide range of the business’ activities from human resources to business development and social media. It’s no surprise, then, that a book like the 1996 bestseller, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… And It’s All Small Stuff, gained so much traction (not to mention the general popularity of self-help literature). But perhaps there’s a different way to look at the so-called small stuff. Vini Bhansali of the International Development Exchange seems to think so. iOnPoverty illuminated this in their newsletter released at the beginning of the month: “Vini shared that one of her first jobs after college was doing in-depth research for a city government in Texas. By sweating the small stuff during her research and ensuring accurate findings, Vini was able to save the city millions of dollars each year – money that was applied to insurance coverage for those who couldn’t afford it. ‘That was a huge lesson for me,’ Vini says. The details matter – and can impact social change beyond what you might imagine.” Is there a balance to be had? Personality matters, I think. It’s important to not only know yourself and how you work but understand how your teammates work as well. What is their individual working style? I know that I can get caught up in teeny-tiny details and merely my acknowledgement of this leads to a more effective and productive working style. But it’s a work in progress. In start-up environments, there’s often an emphasis on getting things done and learning from failure. Perfection isn’t always possible and nor is it always strived for. “Go, go, go” is the name of the game, that is, speediness is privileged. At the same time, however, Vini Bhansali makes a good point. “There is power in the details – in the nerdy, boring work,” she said in the video. I’m sure most editors and writers (like me) would agree. But where social enterprise is concerned, good, solid and maybe most importantly, accurate measurement can create positive social and economic outcomes.

  • Attracting social enterprise talent

    November 6, 2012

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    By Senior Editor of SocialBusiness.org

    What does the age demographic in your social enterprise look like? Old? Young? Somewhere in between? Perhaps if you’re a young social entrepreneur yourself, you’ve attracted people through your college network and kept the team looking quite like you. And vice versa perhaps. I recently interviewed a powerhouse duo (women) who are running a global social business that’s still very much in start-up phase despite its successes. They—one of them the founder and the other the vice president of business development—argued that sometimes being further along in your career can have an enormous impact on the way you operate your business. I mean, you’ve lived and learned more so that argument is one that exists in any profession. And on the other side, young people supposedly have more energy, vitality and a willingness to try new things. At the end of October, the Stanford Social Innovation Review published a short piece called “Hiring Talent for the Social Enterprise Means Going Young: A Look at the Prospects and Perils of Building the Right Team.” The argument of the article, which was written by David Batstone, a University of San Francisco professor of business management, relies on the assumption that social enterprises are distinct, especially in terms of recruiting talent. Batstone writes:

    Truthfully, just about every social enterprise will turn to a younger staff to some degree. The budget line available for salaries will lead a start up in this direction, but equally significant is the fact that recent university graduates possess the technical and media skills that a social enterprise needs. The most important reason of all, however, is that it is much easier to hardwire strategy and skills into an open, inquiring mind than it is to teach an old dog new tricks. Nowhere in business is this lesson more true than in the world of social enterprise. Learning to “speak” hybrid and “act” hybrid comes with immersion. Think of it as the children of first-generation immigrants. They do not identify themselves as coming from an old world or a new world, but the world of their own making.

    Maybe it’s impossible to say that “such and such” is the right age to hire for a social enterprise, however, what Batstone argues is that establishing a learning culture is what’s key to the progress of a hybrid. Many professionals—young and old—don’t know how to navigate social enterprise right off the bat. Years of experience don’t change that and neither do recent years of school. What’s more important is how talent can work in start-up culture, that is, by themselves and also for themselves.