Hypocrisy over social enterprise marks?

I recently learnt that RISE, the regional social enterprise partnership that developed and pioneered what’s tipped to become ‘the’ quality standard for social enterprise kite marks, hasn’t actually been award the standard itself, despite using the image prominently on its literature.

Looking into this area further, Social Firms UK, the national body who’ve developed the ‘Star Social Firms’ kite mark in partnership with SFEDI, haven’t actually been awarded it themselves either.

So what’s going on? Is it a case of ‘do as we say, but not as we do’ by the great and the good, or perhaps indicative of something else –is it a case that the criteria of these kite marks are too prescriptive and not able to fully recognise the diversity of our sector? (the national review of the social enterprise mark underway at the moment would seem to support this). Or perhaps its more to do with the desire that as a sector we get on with ‘doing’: a key criteria of these kite marks is in relation to trading, so are our networking/umbrella/apex bodies perhaps not entrepreneurial enough? (which harks back to my concern that their message is becoming ‘do as we say, but not as we do’).

Either way, this surely only contributes to confusion about social enterprise that many within and without our sector have about what we are…

the secret to success!

in my capacity as an advisor, trainer and consultant to various groups at various stages in their life, I'm often asked if there's a secret to success - is there something that you can do that will virtually guarantee that your group/enterprise/project will be a success.

well - there is one specific ' third sector/social enterprise trade secret', and here it is:

(if you're having trouble with the above, you can also watch this clip on you tube here)

is the traditional entrepreneur a thing of the past?

Small businesses are usually all about the individual entrepreneur - pursuing their vision in a way that they feel most appopriate and comfortable with.

But increasingly (and as reported in The Times) these small firms are forming co-operatives in order to better trade, better meet their needs, and ulimately prosper - are we therefore seeing the start of the end of the individual entrepreneur and the emergence of the 'group entreprenuer' using models forged with the social and co-operative economy?

It used to be that we looked to private business for tools to better 'raise our game', feels a bit strange that they're now looking to us for inspiration and supportive ideas and models...