UPDATE [JULY2008]: Summarizing Progress of Sustainopreneurship and Personal Research Advancements

Hi, patient reader,

It has been along time since I fed this blog with some new really simple syndicated material. If there are some subscribers left, thank you for your endurance :).

My life has undergone some quite dramatic shifts on the private side, that made much of the stuff stand on a halt, and with my intention communicated in October last year (*phew!*) to post more regularly here in notes format, and move the academic heavy stuff to the iÆREAS blog just got postponed. But with recent stuff breaking through (also mostly on the private side !), I now feel confident to try to summarize what happened since last time. This bulleted list of events will be followed up with more extensive coverage in the more research-oriented iÆREAS blog at 300~500 words each entry, one separate posting per headline below, so this is just what happened, not so much the content. Links will be added in updates when respective blog article has been written.

The FSF Book - book chapter undergone last edits this past spring

The collaborative effort to publish an anthology on enterprising for local and regional development has undergone the last edits from the author group, and is now in the hands of a language checker, and will be published this Autumn, 2008. Working title for the book is "Bridging the functional and territorial view of entrepreneurship and regional development", where my contribution is named "Sustainopreneurship - Business with a Cause. The Promise of Creative Organizing for Sustainability", and is focused on a gross list of emerging research questions to deepen the understanding for and knowledge of sustainopreneurship. An abstract of the book chapter can be found at the publishing page of iÆREAS - http://iaereas.weebly.com/publishing.html. [UPDATE 20AUG2008]: The final language corrections and short bio now submitted, book is set to be printed and released in conjunction with the "Entrepreneurship Week" arranged by FSF 15-19 September 2008 in Sweden on tour, with kick-off and biggest event in beautiful Tylösand, Halmstad - "The 4th International Entrepreneurship Research Award Winner Conference".

FSF Young Researcher's Workshop, Jan 22, 2008

In January, in conjunction to the Small Enterprise Days in Örebro, preceding the big 500+ attendants event, was a little group of ~20 researchers gathered to present their current research projects. I contributed with three pages in paper and a powerpoint presentation on what prospective research I can do related to sustainopreneurship, and I got some decent advice and feedback to what would be viable and pragmatically researchable. The outcome of that workshop had a direct implication that I narrowed my gross list of research questions to a net list, focusing sustainability innovation case studies to increase the understanding of the core of the concept, more on this at the iÆREAS blog to come.

FSF Small Business and Enterprising Days, Jan 23-24, 2008

From that little and intimate context followed the biggest singular event related to recent advances of research on entrepreneurship and business development for the general public in Sweden, in Swedish "Småföretagsdagarna 2008". The conference took place in a big congress hall in Örebro, and besides the big plenary sessions there were also small, topical workshops in two-figure number to choose from. It was the first time Sustainopreneurship was mentioned to a larger group offline in a popular context focusing non-academians, when the FSF book was presented and introduced. Some of the authors had special presentations on their respective contribution. A small workshop was also held in conjunction to the big plenary session, where I got the chance to present my contribution to the book in a minute or so. In general to mention, the conference had many things related to social entrepreneurship, so the topic is increasing in attention.

One special thing to mention is that it got announced that my mentor, tutor and professor Bengt Johannisson (Växjö University/Jönköping International Business School) got awarded the FSF-NUTEK Award on Entrepreneurship research, as the first Swede to get it - once again, congratulations! I live-blogged about it here!

Slide presented by Åsa Lindholm-Dahlstrand, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Halmstad University.
The topics of the book edited by Bengt Johannisson and Åsa Lindholm-Dahlstrand.

14th Annual International Sustainable Development Research Conference in New Delhi, 21-23 Sept, 2008 - Paper Accepted [UPDATE: But will not go to India]

After the hectic days in Örebro, I received an invitation from ISDRS (www.isdrs.org) and the annual conference I attended last year, and taking the advice from the workshop in Örebro as mentioned, I narrowed down the research formulation, and contributed with an abstract following the guidelines from Örebro. It suggests a deeper research on Sustainability Innovations, to systematize them in a general framework, and identifiying key dimensions on sustainability innovations. The paper introduces the SEEDS model as a way to guide us where to find key areas for sustainopreneurial applications. I got notified May 20, that my paper was accepted for a presentation. The abstract is available at http://iaereas.weebly.com/publishing.html. The title of the conference article is "Towards a deeper understanding of sustainopreneurship - identifying core dimensions and aspects of sustainability innovations". UPDATE [20AUG2008]: Due to lack of sufficient funding I will not contribute with the full paper and go to India this time.

Umeå University/Mälardalen University, Meta-theorizing the Sustainable Economy, in Umeå, June 10-11, 2008

In a workshop jointly arranged by Umeå University and Mälardalen University by Professor Peter Dobers, MDH and PhD Tommy Jensen, USBE/UMU, "Meta-Theorizing the Sustainable Economy", I got invited to present my works on Sustainopreneurship and future research. Mainly a powerpoint presentation and version of the intended conference article in India [UPDATE - 20AUG2008: The trip to India will not be there, see above], I went through the current state of ideas and thinking, and presented the tentative model to systematize the sustainability innovations. I will write about the feedback at the iÆREAS blog in a separate entry.

Included in the Ashoka University Network Handbook on Social Entrepreneurship Education and Research

One special recognition I got in March was to be included in the volume “Social Entrepreneurship Teaching Resources Handbook”, published by Ashoka's Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and edited by Debbi Brock (Berea College), Marina Kim (Global University Academy Program) and Susan Davis (Global Academy Chair), for faculty involved in teaching and/or research in social entrepreneurship. A first version of the Faculty Directory was published in August 2007.

Recommendation letter from professor Bengt Johannisson from March 17, 2008

In March, I also got a special testimonial and endorsement from my professor, Bengt Johannisson. It recognizes my capabilities both as a teacher, researcher and practitioner, and of course I am very grateful to get it. I will blog about it separately to give it respect. I hope it will be in support especially for finding teaching, mentoring and coaching opportunities as well as future research options. A jpeg preview is found here - click thumbnail to enlarge.

Future developments - iÆREAS build-up, conversation net-spots and Social Enterprise Category at Ki-work

The immediate future actions is to more systematically advance the iÆREAS venture focusing research, educating and learning related to sustainopreneurship, especially focusing membership recruitment, and let the conversation be stimulated through the community related. As for now, there are three spots online mainly focused;

Sustainopreneur's Café - Community at Ning - http://sustainopreneurship.ning.com
Sustainopreneur's Square - Facebook Group (mainly for updates and newsletters) - http://groups.to/sustainopreneurship
Sustainopreneur's Directory - LinkedIn Group - search the LinkedIn Groups directory for tag 'sustainopreneurship' and then apply through here!

To advance the setup of the ÆREAS organization, a dedicated Ki-work project has been set up at http://www.ki-work.com/ki-project/aereas/. It is in need of 150 Founding Members in its interim stage, aiming at constitution third quarter 2009. Ki-work will also be the main window for the freelancing and consultancy I do through SLICE, see http://www.ki-work./ki-profile/andersabrahamsson.

[UPDATE 20AUG2008]: There is a need for sustainopreneurship applied, in a wider sense for the whole business community, and since this post was written, I have been appointed Category Leader for the Ki-work virtual platform for online freelancers in the Social Enterprise business category - http://www.ki-work.com/ki-category/socialenterprise - where an immediate need is to recruit 75 Category Experts for my business category is needed. See the project page here - http://www.ki-work.com/ki-project/ki-category-social-enterprise-experts!

For all publications so far, see http://www.scribd.com/groups/view/14181-sustainopreneurship-research.

For current SLICE projects, see http://projects.slice.nu. The action map on a general level has also been updated significantly, see http://actionmap.andersabrahamsson.info.