From the Living Room to the World: Social Business Unpacked (Part 5 of 8)

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Hi, this is Tony McWilliams, and I’m here with my daughter.

Hi, and I’m Lindey Duckworth, and I’m with my dad.

Okay, what is Social Business 3.0 then? The term was initially coined by David Bornstein. David Bornstein said in his book on social business, Social Business 3.0 looks beyond institutions to the change-making potential of all people and their interactions. It recognizes that social entrepreneurship is contagious and enables more people at every age to think and behave like changemakers and to help them work together powerfully in teams and in teams of teams.

That’s a very dynamic quote.

It is. There’s a lot of insight and implication in there, starting with the fact that it looks beyond institutions.

Yeah, that’s where I got. As a matter of fact, Sam said institutions don’t change the world. He said people movements change the world. And actually, David Bornstein agrees with that. David Bornstein went on to say what he calls the emergence of the citizen sector. These are people who have departed from the top-down, centralized, problem-solving model and instead harness creative problem solvers far and wide. So it’s people movements that are going to make the difference.

And so whatever you do with Social Business 3.0, there has to be room for people, lots and lots of people. And if you make room for the people, and hopefully if they’re people like you and me who love mission, who love to see lives turned around, who love to see quality of life enhancements, who love to see rescue and the saving of lives, then those are the kinds of people who can make a big difference and become heroes to their generation.

Yeah, I think a lot of times people get distracted, companies, I could see companies getting distracted. It’s processes over people sometimes, or it’s product over people sometimes. There is this continual diminishing of the person in a lot of business. Something that can take you into the future, that can take you into someone’s life and change that life.

And I use the term save a life. I don’t think that’s overstated. Lives everywhere need saving. If you can bring to market, if you will, something that is legacy-minded and has a long-term focus on saving lives, you have tapped something incredible.