Notes from a Sustainopreneur | on Sustainability Entrepreneurship

[#1Mcc] Wikirank: Comparing Sustainopreneurship with affinity concepts

Today, I found the trend watch tool Wikirank through @mashable, and instantly - of course! - I had to compare Sustainopreneurship with some similar (but not same, I'll get back to that in the Concept Part of the book!) concepts. In a sense, it outsmarts the Pageview Statistics tool (found through Wikipedia Article History pages, where you also can subscribe through RSS for changes), with its 2.0-ish design features and compare 30-60-90 days, and also the option to compare other media streams such as Google News, Twitter and New York Times (nota bene: Twitter as a news service in this context!). In another sense, it only covers the maximum of three months back, rolling, whereas Pageview Statistics cover all calendar months in its archive, so both act complimentary.

Screenshot of comparison of Sustainopreneurship, Social Business, Social Enterprise - and the leader of the pack: Social Entrepreneurship. You can also click below to go to the comparison page in itself from the embedded graph and play around, and also to view intro paragraphs to each article in one page - that's cool too!

By the way, Sustainopreneurship is on its way to the fifth consecutive view-per-months record set - in steady growth! See earlier posting here "Googling Sustainopreneurship Part One". I will get back to Part Two, the Blog-o-sphere, soon (with pingbacks and trackbacks - be sure to add your voice in THAT coverage ;).

Sustainopreneurship, Social entrepreneurship, Social business, and Social enterprise on Wikirank

[book:chapters] Part IV Cases > Chapter 12 - Intro to Case Presentations

Outline > Part IV > Chapter 12

Introduction to the Case Presentations

This chapter introduces the part where one of the most significant addings beyond the master thesis, and beyond defining, testing and claiming the concept, has been done. It is one of the most important parts of future research; to do a systematic inquiry on cases and examples, illustrating the concept of sustainopreneurship. Along the years, I have stumbled upon alot of ventures that could be described as sustainopreneurial to some or full extent, with a sustainability innovation in the core of the venture and organizing.

In the chapter I explain how the choices of cases was done. Also how it has been structured and presented. Five main structuring criterias have been in play so far into the game of structuring this part - timeline/chronology, business area/innovation focus, geographical/socio-economical context, size of business/maturity and character of offering, all to be explained in the chapter. It also develops how the cases are presented, giving a template for the big and small ones in the case story cataloging.

The chapter describes the intended review of some strong case stories, not just in a static sense, but also in a dynamic by approaching key persons from the venturing team to have their story told on how the venture came about. Thus, to illustrate the creation, and their experiences through the process - and also their own view of the concept of sustainopreneurship. It's not possible to do this for all of the cases, rather to pick out a selected few. The underlying research introduced in the intro chapter to this part gets described, with a mix of qualitative interviewing and collecting narrations and stories, and some quantitative surveying of the view of the concept from the venture teams themselves.

Since this is a part of ongoing research, the final formulation of this chapter will not be done before the full book part has been researched and authored, so the structure of the book part and the chapters will certainly be changed over time.

(photo credit)

[book:chapters] Part III Chronicles > Chapter 7 - A Short Biography

Outline > Part III > Chapter 7

A short biography

A filtered and condensed bio relevant to the book topic will be given in this chapter, in an attempt to trace core events that led up to the first "ignition" in January 2000.

I will not dive into too much of personal and private details from my life, it will rather be a list of "key events" that have formed my view and led to the keen specific interest I have today. The roots of my commitments and passions. Another filtering mechanism in what stories to tell is the events directly related to sustainability through the decades with my direct experiences.

I will devote a special section on music, since it is a very special part of my life. A complimentary quest after my "self" will be done through my personal blog "Etwas Anders", where I will post separately and freely, with notes related to my "identity tags" - stories evolving there will be a special authoring experience, where the stories generated could be added in all "story-telling" chapters and parts of the book.

(Amazing-Photo Credits: Karin Johansson - thx, love :)

[book:chapters] Part II Concept > Chapter 4 - My Story On Sustainopreneurship

Outline > Part II > Chapter 4

My Story On Sustainopreneurship

Since the concept deals alot with my personal journey of discovery, a short summary on this discovery process is narrated - a story telling beginning with a "spark", an "ignition", back in January, year 2000 - some few days, right after the millennium shift. The full story will be told in Part III, the Chronicles, but enough is told here for the purpose to introduce the concept, and why I devote my energy and time - my commitment - so passionately to it.

Some documentation on how I found the concept for the first time, how I instantly embraced it as a key descriptor and term for my action, is given. I found the concept some years after the first "ignition", in 2003. Beyond research of the first meanings given to the concept, a growing dissatisfaction with its current descriptions occurred. I describe how I went on to develop the concept and define it closer to the intuitive meaning I gave it from the first "glance". This induced some strong research activities from my side, and developing the definition in different versions, ending up finally in what is published at Wikipedia today.

A special sub-story is dedicated how the published works came into being, the key references to which the Wikipedia article got approved and keeping this neologism - sharing stories from the pain and glory of writing up what ends up in the archives so far. From the endless drafting and rewriting of the Master Thesis, from the first notes to its final draft, the process of the conference articles and how they went from their first draft and ended up in book chapters. A "behind the words" glimpse, in short.

[book:chapters] Part I Context > Chapter 2 - The Sustainability Challenge

Outline > Part I > Chapter 2

The Sustainability Challenge

The first chapter - key descriptor "the Sustainability Challenge" - introduces the wider context which is related to the sustainability agenda at large, where some short history and notes of the concept of sustainability and sustainable development is made. The full agenda of "sustainability-related problems" gets listed here;

• Poverty
• Water and Sanitation
• Health
• Education/illiteracy
• Sustainable production and consumption patterns
• Climate change and energy systems
• Chemicals
• Urbanization
• Ecosystems, biological diversity and land use
• Utilization of sea resources
• Food and agriculture
• Trade Justice
• Social stability, democracy and good governance
• Peace and Security

Key characteristics related to the "sustainability problems" are identified, and the demanding approach they induce is illustrated. Some of the core issues gets extra highlighted in sections - such as poverty, water and food security, illiteracy, HIV/AIDS, global warming/climate change. A core source for describing "the state of the world" will be some maps from GapMinder, debunking some myths with some visualized facts.

The Challenge - and the Traditional Response
An illustration of the institutions that is there to solve sustainability-related problems gets done, and some personal encounters and general reasons on why they mostly fall short to tackle the issues at hand. The character of the complex and intertwined cause-and-effect loops that surrounds the sustainability problems really demands "outside-the-box" thinking.

When presented earlier, this illustration has been attached with some short notes, and will now get a proper write-up, using the respective concept in the illustration as a departure to get into detail of the respective shortcomings within these established institutions to tackle the sustainability agenda - where a special focus will be on "siloizing" coming from narrow specialty focus, missing the "holistic picture".

[book:process] Writing four chapters from four parts in parallel - #causebizbook

In order to gain a decent dose of variations, interesting cross-over connections in between different streams of info, knowledge and sometimes hopefully distilled wisdom :), I am not here to write the book from one chapter to another. In fact, I am going to write a book with four chapters in parallel, from respective book part. See schedule below.

Explanations

Monday Kickoff
C = Chapter introduction (if more than one chapter gets introduced, separate blog posts). Introduces and summarizes the intended content and coverage of the chapter to be written. A set of new chapters are introduced every fourth week, so the intention is to finalize four chapters in four weeks.

<-S = Summary of week gone (major edits and events related to the book writing process).

S-> = Schedule for the week to come - some small preview - bulleted outlines of intended content in respective chapter to be written the week ahead

#1Mcc = Summary of key events in the parallel Conceptual Campaign - "Sustainopreneurship 1 Million Hits on Google" - http://1mcc.info. The hash refers to the #hashtag on Twitter to keep trace.

Tuesday to Friday Writing Labour and Publishing
P_c1 = Posting included in Chapter 1 (or the current chapter written on) - posted 9AM CET approx
P_c2 = Posting included in Chapter 2 (or the current chapter written on) - 11AM CET
P_c3 = Posting included in Chapter 3 (or the current chapter written on) - 2PM CET
P_c4 = Posting included in Chapter 4 (or the current chapter written on) - 5PM CET

You can also follow the development with noteworthy Twitter postings tagged #causebizbook.

Starting tomorrow!

A short process note to finalize: New content is introduced in this blog, and can get feedback either through direct comment below, trackback from other blogs or in the book writing group over at "Sustainopreneur's Café", the community. Beyond that, when ready, the postings get copied and transferred to the book wiki for final editing. Then passing on to the layout phase with PDFs uploaded chapter by chapter, then part by part, and finally the full book to the book group on Scribd virtual document archive. Also described in the sidebar here with links.

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• UPDATE [26MARCH09 - 4.30PM CET]
The first blog post for all chapters respectively, now introduced separately in the blog beyond this, have been rescheduled to be lengthier posts - comparable to a pilot issue of a TV series - lengthier (~1200 words each), and giving more context, and beyond that 300 words a posting daily as announced above. Planned posting, rescheduled - tomorrow, Friday, March 27, timing as above.

• UPDATE [13APRIL - 2PM CEST]
Some few days beyond last update, Monday 23rd, I got 1. a posting on the community Sustainopreneur's Café in the book group sending me to reflect deeply on the publishing flow and structure, breaking this plan again, and 2. a phone call on Sunday night, March 29, from a friend suggesting me also to begin writing up my PhD Dissertation on my own, not to wait for a formal university affiliation. He's right, I know enough of the grips to get it done to actually do so - especially extending the already written academic material. I took this with me on the Baltic Sea for a Roundtrip to Riga, with just me, a notebook and the whole volume of the book I was contributing to, in order to revisit some of the chapters I did not see the last version of. This, I took with me to get a gross list of research questions getting it down to the net list of research coverage, now online in its own domain. The popular writing on http://sustainopreneurship-book.wikidot.com with a broader scope and just enough depth for implementable action for whatever stakeholder to contribute then will be going through the "academization" (as opposite process to "popularization"), turning things the other way around in an iterative loop. That research will be focusing the "what" aspect of Sustainopreneurship Research - deepening the conceptual understanding. Taking the reflective trip on the sea into the writing and outlining of the potential PhD dissertation was finalized April 7, and is found on http://sustainopreneurship-phd.wikidot.com. Last thing to reflect around was to find some elements of the internal organizing of my doing, by implementing a last component to my GTD system, ready this Easter weekend - now. Ready to roll out writing process tomorrow! Tweaking offering on how to contribute to the success of this project today, Monday. I'll be back!

[book:intro] In Part VIII. The Critical Mass? - of People and Energies

The final part of the book reasons around the meta-question that has been sticking around since summer in the midst of this decade -

"How can we innovate and interact in order to reach a critical mass of people and energies to create a sustainable world?"

It has acted as an open-questioned punch-line in three main publications placing a foundation for the popular book writing (as copied from the key reference - the Wikipedia article footnotes);

Abrahamsson, A. (2007a) Sustainopreneurship – Business with a Cause: Conceptualizing Entrepreneurship for Sustainability. [Master Thesis in Business Administration.] Växjö: Reports from Växjö University: Business administration and economics. http://www.diva-portal.org/vxu/abstract.xsql?dbid=125

Abrahamsson, A. (2007b), Researching Sustainopreneurship - conditions, concepts, approaches, arenas and questions. An invitation to authentic sustainability business forces. Paper presented at the 13th International Sustainable Development Research Conference, Mälardalens Högskola, Västerås, 10-12 June, 2007

Abrahamsson, A. (2008), Sustainopreneurship – Business with a Cause. The Promise of Creative Organizing for Sustainability. In “Bridging the Functional and Territorial Views on Regional Entrepreneurship and Development”, eds. Bengt Johannisson and Åsa Lindholm-Dahlstrand. Örebro: FSF (Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research). ISBN 91-89301-27-7. [summary of book]

Now, this question will be put first in the book (the Part 0. The Coverage), not last. In the book to become, in emergence. This is logical, since it is viewed as the premier element in order to be a part of the answer to the question, and the next step in the general process with sustainopreneurship applied and spread as a key contributor to create a sustainable world mobilizing people, energies, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship for sustainability.

Two chapters focus on this "meta-process" and how to extend, expand, empower and energize it further. Especially modes of sharing best practices and knowledge across all kinds of borders is focused, and in formats appropriate, virtual/online as well as physical/offline.

Chapter 33 - Collapsing the Degrees of Separation: Where Are You?
This chapter focuses on how to create virtual attraction points using different social media tools such as communities, blogs, forums, microblogs, wikis and websites opening up for user-generated self-organized media formats for conversation and sharing of related text, videos, pictures, graphics and audio, peer to peer. This allows an increased speed of diffusion and transfer of content facilitating the process of collapsing the degrees of separation in between individuals, teams, social networks and communities of practice - all authentically sharing intentions to co-create a sustainable world focusing own sustanopreneurial practices. This increases the proximity and linkage in between ideas, innovations, projects, businesses and organizations generated with the aim to sustain the biosphere and its inhabitants with a holistic world-view and local applied action, and ultimately develop collaborative wisdom. This creates an immaterial gravitational force, and a positive feedback loop, taking us to the "tipping point" - the critical mass - for a transformational change, optimally in the end of business activity driving forces generally and making business activity the key driver to create a sustainable world.

Chapter 34 - Opening the Spaces: Creating Offline Arenas to Put Sustainopreneurship Into Play in Local and Regional Contexts
This chapter focuses two modes of creating arenas for sustainopreneurship applied: one temporary, one permanent. The temporary is the Open Space Technology meeting format to create one to three-day events where common passionate souls sharing vibrancy and attraction to answer the meta-question above. The permanent is to open up spaces to facilitate sustainopreneurial processes - local community centers called "MSZ's" - Micro Sustainopreneurial Zones - used by sustainopreneurs in early stage developments and offer a natural meeting spot combining the best of qualities of both the café and office in the same spot. A café for conversation in between enthisiasts, and an office with a possibility to rent in different time frames: per hour, per day, per week or per month - aimed at maximum six months in general and twelve months in exception to support sustainopreneurial ventures in becoming and ease up especially the obstacles reported by creating this enabling power environment.

Sourcing
These ideas have been covered in numerous of times in the publications above: in the Master Thesis (chapter 5), in the conference article (section 5), in the book chapter (section 8.6). Now an opportunity is created to extend the thoughts and get more into details on how-to aspects with newly written material - moving from one page summarized mentions to full chapters giving justice to the original ideas.

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With this book part presentation, all intended book parts have been introduced and summarized, and thus the full outline of this book. The next step is to take this walk-through-the-parts outline as a departure, and create a distilled book synopsis the grasp the essence of the book-in-becoming to attract co-creators. More on this in postings on the writing process categorized [book:process] in the subject headline (and syndicated to Twitter through Twitterfeed - a great way to keep you updated in the process to follow @sliceonline!).

[book:intro] In Part VII. The Communication - of Concept, Through Action

With the book so far going through the "what?" and "how?" aspects, this part ties back to the first part dealing mostly with the motivation for the conceptual framing - the "why?" part, connected with an anxious "when?" calling for action! We're approaching to tie it all together, to close the circle - or maybe spiral, in ever widening radius and height of growing knowledge and applied action in its name.

In the bottom line, in order to get leverage for the idea of making a sustainable world in general, and sustainopreneurship as one of many concepts to get us there in specific, it's all about communication. In this book part, this is focused - ideas on how to proliferate the concept and get more action in its name.

Chapter 30 - Inform, Communicate, Transfer - Conversing at Three Levels
In this chapter, I focus on some crucial thoughts, ideas and models to be aware in inter-personal conversations. Information is an exchange from mind to mind, intellectually. Communication is an exchange from mind and heart, to another mind and heart - and back. A dialogue. Transfer is an exchange from mind, heart and spirit - where in the end no separation is experienced in between the conversing agents - flow as one.

Chapter 31 - Communicating the Concept - Transfer the Idea?
When it comes to making the concept spreading with an increased awareness as a consequence, some specific challenges gets identified, and how the concept and the idea carried by it can get spread. A campaign on how to get one million hits on Google gets presented, and results of it so far - proactively using social media in all formats to get there. How to ignite a conversation in the social media spheres? How can the concept be translated - and maybe used with different terms, expressions and sayings to get different understanding levels in different cultural contexts? What about other languages than English?

Chapter 32 - Communicating through Action - Transfer the Spirit?
Action speaks louder than words, so if communicating the idea through conceptual campaigning is good, it is viewed that having more ventures calling themselves sustainopreneurial, and applying the spirit into (inter)action is far better. It points to the next level - words are only words, it is action that counts. Concrete next steps on how to get more sustainopreneurial ventures to tell stories about, inspiring further venturing in its name is introduced.

Sourcing
Much of the material is to be written from scratch, where many thought figures and notes in these lines have been shared in different contexts. Some core references related to the keywords in this chapter will get reviewed to support the arguments.

[book:intro] In Part VI. The Challenges Identified and Met

In the sixth part of the book, I dedicate five chapters on challenges for sustainopreneurs to be met, and how to make it easier to meet them. If the fifth part deepens the "what?" aspect of sustainopreneurship, the sixth is dealt deeply with the "how?". In the chapters, departing from a process model built up, commonly reported obstacles are reported, enablers are listed, social media for sustainopreneurs is dedicated a special chapter due to its facilitating power, and finally a powerful encouragement to wake up the sustainopreneur within you is ending the chapter - "get into the flow"!

Chapter 25 - The Sustainopreneurial Process - a Model
To grasp key elements of the sustainopreneurial process a model is built up to discuss important aspects relevant on the "sustainopreneur's becoming" - from Inspiration leading to the Ignition, further on to the Institutionalization. It identifies the process flow key components, its forces - and counter-forces.

Chapter 26 - Obstacles - Resistance is an Asset
A common misconception, especially within supportive forces for entrepreneurial processes in general and policy-makers in particular, is that you should make it as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to realize their venture. First out, there will always be challenges - that's a part of life. No pain, no gain. Second, resistance and overcoming obstacles only sharpens the edge of the deeds, actually making the process more successful in the end - so a set of barriers to break, sometimes with a battering ram, only leverages the results in the end. Still, some key obstacles for sustainopreneurs needs to be mentioned in particular, grasping the nature of them. One is communicating the nature of the venture and how to promote/market it, second is how to find the "right people" and all key stakeholders making it happen, third is how to deal with the constant struggle of financing the venture.

Chapter 27 - Enablers - Empower Your Flow
In order to meet the mentioned three key challenges, some "battering rams" are given and how to deal with them. First, branding and identity-making is mentioned as a means to overcome the communication barrier, esepcially in the context of Internet. Second is networking to get the key stakeholders. Third is a widening of the "financing" concept to get alternative views and unorthodox means for the realization - resourcing. Here, a special focus is set on "financial bootstrapping", and how to get means when you lack access to formal third-party financing. A final note is on the use - and abuse - of business plans in this context, where an alternative mapping of your business is recommended.

Chapter 28 - Social Media for Sustainopreneurs - From Idea to Realization Through Virtualization
An unstoppable force has been created with Internet, now soon coming to 40 years of age. Of more recent date, following the creation of the WWW halfway from first login back in 1969 up until now, a phenomenon named social media has turned much upside down of "old rules" for business, organizing and media/communication. This is an immense possibility for sustainopreneurs in all aspects of the challenges, and in order to outline the power of different social media domains - blogs, microblogs, wikis, communities etc. - an integrated model to grasp the flow of realizing your venture through virtualization is presented, and how these tool domains within social media can work for and with you.

Chapter 29 - Get Into The Flow!
Up until now, alot of stories, concepts, tools, domains and knowledge has been delivered. Time to move from words to action! Since this book is primarily here to focus on the conceptualization and its development, and share knowledge, the main focus is on the ideas and practical experiences so far made. A sequel to this book is already intended which is far more hands-on and practical, for every DIY Sustainopreneur to have as a travelling companion and guide. Action speaks louder than words! To precede this practically oriented handbook are the key concepts to translate it into the practical, with four sections: Upgrade Your YouFlow, Leverage Your WeFlow, Enact Your HowFlow and Synchronize Your NowFlow. This forms the conceptual ground and outline for the DIY book, not titled yet - theme "Your Sustainopreneurial Venture?". A key driving force in this flow is the fact you constantly get energy to meet and raise to the challenge through experienced meaning inrealizing a sustainopreneurial venture.

The chapter also wants to show and make a claim that there is a sustainopreneur residing in everyone potentially - contrarian to the "entrepreneur as hero" dominant picture, this ending chapter of "how" part of the book also has as a purpose to dedramatize entrepreneurship for sustainability and lift up "everydayness entrepreneurship" as a means to create a sustainable world.

Sourcing
The first chapter in this part on the process model, emerges from this model made some years back, but who never has been written up. Obstacles and enablers are partly from own earlier made research, partly from secondary sources, and is developed further with new research and development. This research is especially done through dialogue with key members of the sustainopreneurial teams from the case studies in the fourth part. The social media section departs from notes made earlier, on a model not even made with digital graphics yet. The sections in getting into the flow and encouraging you to set up your own sustainopreneurial venture is developed from a whole new set of conceptual work, from spring 2008 and onwards, and have yet to see its reflective write-up.

[book:intro] In Part V. The Contemplations Done

Beyond the major input in parts I. to IV., comes a more analytical and reflective part, where the material from these earlier parts will be contemplated in this first out of four parts V. to VIII.

The contemplation is focusing the build-up of generic models related to the concept, where the aim is an increased understanding of the concept, especially focusing sustainability innovations - the core of sustainopreneurship. It also covers in what forms value can be delivered in different kinds of sustainopreneurial ventures. A special chapter is dedicated to the whole plethora of concepts in the big area of "the business case of sustainability" and how the concept adds value in this context and how it is positioned towards the rest of the major concepts in this area. The final chapter wraps up with a pointer towards complimentary concepts to the main one, following a work of further conceptualization needs to be done to enrich the vocabulary.

Chapter 20 - The SEEDS Model - emphasized sustainopreneurial areas
This introduces a model capturing the key areas of suggested abundance of sustainopreneurial business ideas to realize. SEEDS stands for Strengthening of Health, Education, Entrepreneurship, Digital Unification and Sustainable Distributed Energy and Mobility. The observant blog reader may note that this was the structure to present the cases, with chapters 15-19 (see the post before this). It goes beyond and discusses integration and synergy in between areas, when sustainability innovations from all areas are present in the same local context.

Chapter 21 - Sustainability Innovations - a framing model
Departing from a discussions on the innovation concept in this chapter, some major and dominant dimensions are identified making it possible to categorize different innovations by some key aspects. Some key sources from the sustainability area is complimenting this review. Together, they lead to a model presented on how to frame sustainability innovations, where especially the consequences of the innovation is the judging criteria to call it a 'sustainability innovation'. A sample from the case stories are used to test and illustrate the framework in action.

Chapter 22 - Forms of value created
This chapter discusses the different values that can be created from the offerings coming from sustainopreneurial ventures - products/services/events/experiences. Using the case story materials as examples, it sets to inspire that sustainopreneurial value can be created in many forms, and discusses the varying effect of ecological and social footprints in between material and immaterial offerings.

Chapter 23 - Sustainopreneurship and the Business Case of Sustainability
Using a frame developed by Hart and Millstein, that helped to sort out the major buzzwords associated with the "business case of sustainability" agenda, the sustainopreneurship concept is positioned and sorted as well in this frame. This discussion is also aligned with the chapter on the emergence of "sustainability in business" in Part I, and points to some future directions.

Chapter 24 - Future conceptual development - enriching the vocabulary?
The final chapter in the contempletative part points out some candidates focused in future follow-up volumes, where different areas are in need of specific concepts with sustainopreneurship applied in specific contextual areas, such as financing, marketing, organizing and accounting to name a few. E. g. "sustainability venture capital" is suggested as a concept to enrich and focus the need for risk capital investing specifically in sustainopreneurial ventures.

Sourcing
This part relies heavily on new research not done before, where only tentative models have been introduced in earlier works suggesting future research, without further written work to back these models up. The major work is analytical and reflective, and has the purpose to extract key insights delivered from the rich input given from the eariler parts and chapters from the book.

In short: If parts I. to IV. provides Input, parts V to VIII delivers Output.