>The first three weeks in October I was lucky to speak in panels at three different conferences. It was a lot of traveling and a lot of exchanging business cards. We got in touch with amazing people from all walks of life and also got exposure for Frogtek’s adventure. Throughout these conferences I could see how the topic of social entrepreneurship has grown tremendously, jumping from a field of study in business schools to infecting mainstream thinking.
First I attended SoCap in beautiful San Francisco. This is the pre-eminent conference for the industry where more than 1300 attendees gathered to listen to the leaders in the field and to connect with each other. The Fort Mason center, next to Alcatraz, provided a fantastic setting for the buzz and hopeful energy from all corners of the world. It was truly impressive to see what the industry can put together, a clear coming of age in my view.
From San Francisco I flew to New York, just in time to participate in the Social Enterprise Conference organized by Columbia Business School, my alma mater. Since the first one I attended in 2006, the conference has moved from small classrooms all the way to the largest auditorium on campus. I’d be surprised if it’s not the largest conference of the year. A phenomenal success story, riding the student increasing interest to attract world-class speakers and even corporate sponsors.
And finally I went to New Orleans for the Daily Beast‘s Innovators Summit. This conference had a more mainstream focus with panels about the US economy and the growth of China and India. But the venue was chosen to highlight New Orleans’ fantastic rebound after the levee’s breakdown, led to a large part by a vanguard of social entrepreneurs. The mayor even offered his city as an example of fertile ecosystem for social innovators.
Actually, social entrepreneurs of all stripes featured prominently next to heavy-hitters like General McChrystal, Vinod Khosla and Barry Diller. And Echoing Green was a co-host, with our President Cheryl Dorsey intervening on stage at several points, including two panels with Fellows. The spillover was so infectious that the Daily Beast may choose Social Innovation as the anchor theme for their next conference.
Stringing the three conferences together, we can observe three distinct stages in the development of the field. First, the few initial practitioners triggered a tsunami of interest from business school professors and students, so the first conferences were organized at Columbia, Harvard and the like. Gradually the segment grew and captured talent and attention, to the point that the launch of the professional-focused SoCap in 2008 was a resounding success. And now the new ways of doing business are infecting the mainstream parts of the economy, with cutting-edge publications like the Daily Beast acting as vectors.
The future thus shines bright for the field. Hopefully it’ll catch up with its hype and won’t disappoint all the pragmatic idealists building the industry one conference at a time…
