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The social entrepreneurs change the world

The private, public and non-profit sectors are currently experiencing both internal and external pressures to change. As a result, a new sector is emerging: the fourth sector or "for benefit" businesses. Or as the American journalist David Bornstein calls them - the social entrepreneurs.

In connection with his recently published book "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas" David Bornstein has visited 60 social entrepreneurs worldwide and based on these visits drawn a profile of the new sector.

The social entrepreneurs appear to be a mixed bag of small and large organisations that work with very different subjects and problems. What the best of them hold in common, though, is that they have developed tools and strategies which are so unique and at the same time operational that they transform the ways of thinking and operating within their respective fields. Many of them are indeed masters of many of the skills that business venture capitalists value the most.

In an interview in the Danish weekly paper Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen in April this year Bornstein explains how the social entrepreneurs will play the important role of being a kind of "society's department for research & development - a place, where both state and businesses can find new solutions to some of the problems that they themselves have fought with in vain for years and years".

What the individuals that Bornstein portrays have in common is, among other things, the fact that they at some point of their lives have dedicated their life to solving a specific problem, thereby precluding themselves from other career moves. Whether their motives have been either charity and compassion, social indignation or something third, ethics play a very crucial role in their lives and work.

Hence, the best entrepreneurs are more engaged in creating actual societal changes rather than in gaining personal recognition, and are masters in combining and transforming resources and tools from different worlds creatively into whole, valuable solutions that create lasting societal changes.

You can read more about the book on www.howtochangetheworld.org

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Danish report on the fourth sector

Lizette Jensen and Karen Høeg from the company Vanebryderne [The Habitbreakers] have recently completed the first Danish academic paper on the fourth sector.

The report is very clear and well-written, and provides a good introduction to the concept through its treatment of subjects such as: the background for the emergence of the fourth sector, definition, identity, characteristics, relations to the outside world, what fourth sector companies need, their ways of organising and working, profiling etc.

The report (available in Danish) can be ordered by sending an e-mail to keh@vanebryderne.dk

You can read more about Vanebryderne and the fourth sector on www.fjerdesektor.dk

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Successful conference on working with joy

Speaking about entrepreneurs and the fourth sector, a Danish example of the kind - "Projekt Arbejdsglæde" [Project Working With Joy] - held their first conference on working with joy 27th of May. And the conference was without doubt a great success. There were 116 positive and committed participants from all sections of the Danish business community, excellent speakers and workshops, and a high activity level.

The Danish national radio P1 covered the conference with a report from the event along with an interview of the founder of "Projekt Arbejdsglæde", Alexander Kjerulf.

You can hear the radio interview and find various conference materials on www.arbejdsglaede.nu

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Column about talk in Berlingske BusinessKarriere

In her weekly column about Family and Career in Berlingske BusinessKarriere Kirsten Stendevad last month published an article based on my talk "Holistic leadership - in the middle of a paradigm shift". You can read the article here.


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The future leadership model in Børsen Ledelseshåndboger

My prize winning essay from the Danish business magazine Berlingske Tidendes Nyhedsmagasin's prize essay competition "How should Denmark be led?" has now been published in a shortened version under the title "Fremtidens ledelsesmodel for vækst og velfærd" [The future leadership model for growth and welfare] in Børsen Ledelseshåndboger, Strategi & Ledelse, 3/2004.

Main editor and professor Steen Hildebrandt writes in his introduction:

"A very interesting article, which provides both an overview of where we stand with regard to leadership in Denmark today together with an observation of the current development trends."

You can read the shortened version here.

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Tania Ellis :: Skt. Peders Straede 24 :: 1453 Copenhagen :: Tlf 26252295 :: te@taniaellis.dk :: www.taniaellis.dk