Lessons From The 2022 Social Enterprise World Forum
Last week, five of our team went to Brisbane for the 2022 Social Enterprise World Forum, a conference with 2,700 attendees in-person and online.
We’ve had a great week, but more because of who we spoke to rather than what we learnt in the workshops.
Here’s a summary of what we talked about…
Plod Along
I finally met Tom Allen and the Impact Boom team, who run several startup programs and have recorded over 300 podcast interviews with changemakers.
In a very lame flex, I walked up to Tom and said “Hi, I’m Isaac from Episode 36”.
Tom was asking everyone the same question – what’s the biggest learning you’ve had in your social impact journey?
I went for something non-cliché:
“Some of the best advice I heard years ago from a social entrepreneur in Thailand; plod along. He said too many well intentioned people burn themselves out, striving for perfection and optimisation. My favourite people here this week are the ones who have kept going for a decade, buying themselves time to learn and improve. Impact doesn’t come from perfection, it comes from longevity.”
Content Creation Strategies
One thing we all had in common in the marketing workshop was that the only people who consistently posted content did so because they had an annual strategy.
That means themes, different styles of post, batched content, and a sense of the bigger picture.
It works, not because of the strategy itself but because they didn’t have to think of fresh ideas every week.
Even if you don’t batch all of the content, you should batch the ideas for the content, which is often the trickiest part.
If you have a note on your phone with 20+ post ideas, you’re able to assemble one of them even when you’re having an exhausting week.
That might not be the greatest post, but it keeps your momentum going.
Automating Customer Journeys
This one is a good idea that I’m not yet doing but really should – thinking through the new customer journey and setting up automations to make it a smooth and inviting experience.
Why not create welcome emails for newsletter signups?
Why not schedule the next three updates or reminders?
Why not design a process that keeps people engaged while they’re still enthusiastic?
The answer to these is: because that sounds mentally draining.
A true reason, but a lame reason.
There’s almost zero cost, and it might boost engagement rates.
I’m basically posting this here to keep myself accountable.
Bulldozers Get The Job Done, But Don’t Get The Next Job
One panel session was on failure, and so a panelist shared the feedback they’d heard from their team, who described the panelist as “a bulldozer”; someone who pushes hard to get their way, no matter the resistance.
We all know (or have worked for) bulldozers, and they’re not always fun.
But this insight stuck with me; “Bulldozers get the job done, but they don’t get invited to do the next job”.
You can force people into doing things your way.
They might not outwardly object or put up a fight, but the next time they’re in a position of power, they’re unlikely to bring you back.
Very few people are happy to be bulldozed more than once if they can help it.
Personally, I’m usually of wary of people who admit that they’ve bullied people, as this is an extraordinarily hard habit to break and I suspect they are likely to do the same thing again when stressed.
But I appreciated the honesty this person showed, they’d genuinely learned from their 360 review and were actively trying to improve how they led their organisation.
Things Happen From You, Not Just To You
That same CEO said “I’ve learned that things don’t only happen to you, they mostly happen from you. When something bad happens, I’ve learned to ask “What role have I played in this?””.
It’s a similar theme to Jocko Willink’s book Extreme Ownership – the idea that we should look for how we contributed to what happened to us, even if it’s what we tolerated or times where we chose not to move or not to speak up.
It’s much cleaner to put 100% of the blame on a villain, but in the vast majority of cases, I’ve been at least 5-30% responsible for my own grievances.
That doesn’t excuse what has happened, but it might explain what happened.
Planning To Death
Paul Barbaro from IPA was talking about differing approaches to failure and experimentation in new social enterprises. He said “When you have a commercial entity in a not-for-profit, the commercial entity will dive in and fail fast. The not-for-profit will plan to death and miss the opportunity”
It got a big laugh from the room, and certainly resonated with my experiences.
That might be because:
· Not-for-profits have a low risk tolerance
· Not-for-profits fear being accused of misspending their money
· Not-for-profits are more likely staffed by project managers than entrepreneurs
· Not-for-profit staff don’t have skin in the game, both in terms of limited upside and limited downside.
· Not-for-profit business managers like linear processes and predictable timelines
· Not-for-profits use metrics far fuzzier than commercial entities – dollars might be cold and ruthless, but they are at least comparable to each other ($200 is better than $100, but is feeding 200 people better than creating housing for 100 vulnerable people?)
Perhaps a happy medium could come from the 80/20 rule – the NFP managers doing the 20% of the planning that reduces 80% of the risks, then starts running rapid market testing?
Are We Trying To Reach Scale Or Achieve A Tipping Point?
This was actually a question from the audience, that was then deflected and ignored by the panel on stage.
I think that’s because they were on stage because they were scaling up, but maybe aren’t close to reaching a tipping point.
They might seem similar, but scale means big and efficient, whereas tipping point means a collective shift.
Tipping points are important in our field because it takes great energy to reach them, but then momentum takes over.
Tipping points will be different for each industry, but it reminds us that getting 10x bigger might not actually give you what you want, if you’re hoping to make the problem obsolete rather than to run a large company in a tough market.
Your Reputation Precedes You
I might not do names for this one.
I was really excited to meet someone who I hadn’t seen for twelve years, who was influential in my social enterprise journey.
We had a great chat.
The next day I met someone else and said “Oh I met Firstname Lastname yesterday, it had been twelve years!”
They then said “Oh, you mean Firstname Lastname the misogynist?”
Yikes.
Turns out, people might have a reason to think that Firstname Lastname is hard to work with, and treats women differently to men, and I’m inclined to believe them.
Here’s my point – your business card is way less important than what people say about you, irrespective of whether or not the claim is fair.
Perception is reality, and if I’ve heard that someone is a misogynist before I meet them, that definitely influences how I process everything they then say or do.
It’s also one of the only forms of punishment we have in society for rudeness, or perceived rudeness.
What You Know vs What You Do
One of the most frustrating moments during any form of adult education is when you repeatedly hear good advice that you’ve heard several times before, but haven’t put into practice.
It’s frustrating because you know it already, but you aren’t seeing the benefits of the advice.
You’re torn between wanting new advice, or being bored, or suspecting that the advice doesn’t work, or wishing you’d have implemented it properly.
That’s a big jumble of regret, boredom and aspiration, not a pleasant combination to sit with in a workshop.
I think the first step is to name the difference between the two; “yes I knew that already, no I haven’t tried it”.
Secondly, it helps to think about why you didn’t try it; “I knew that and didn’t try it because it wasn’t a priority, or I was trying a different approach, or it was too early in our journey”.
Nobody expects you to have constantly done the best practices all the time, but in return you can’t get upset at hearing the same good advice over again.
Cliches are often cliches because they work.
If You Don’t Want Questions, Don’t Do Q&A
A small but not petty gripe here, but I’m not alone.
If you are a speaker or are on a panel, and you don’t actually want to take questions from the audience, don’t give a microphone to the audience.
If you want to filter questions, get people to text them or tweet them, then you or a moderator can pick and choose.
If you just want to talk and can be genuinely interesting, we’d rather you take the full allotment of time, then talk to people afterwards.
Q&A isn’t essential, and only works when both parties are genuinely enthusiastic.
The Industry Hasn’t Had Breakthroughs, But It’s A Great Community Of Practice
Maybe I went to the wrong sessions or spoke to the wrong people, but it feels like our industry is in a similar place to where it’s been for the last five years.
I’m OK with that, but there’s a distinct absence of breakthroughs – nobody has found a better way of working that will change the field.
What I am reassured about is the quality of the community – there are more good people than ever working in the industry, who are genuinely friendly and welcoming.
Running a social enterprise is incredibly difficult, and it’s still a great industry to work in.
I’d pick that over huge success stories in a room full of jerks.
We’ve Been Four Different Businesses In 10 Years
The more I tell the TDi story, the more I see four distinct eras and business models.
We haven’t been the same company for 10 years, it’s been different teams playing in different arenas.
Roughly speaking:
1st iteration – an incubator for investment readiness, and a series of capital raises
(Bessi, Paul, Isaac, Jo, David C, Rachel, Trudi, Reed)
2nd iteration – a multi-city accelerator program for early-mid stage social enterprises
(Bessi, Annie, Anna, Ishani, Isobel, Caroline, Ben, Meagan, Ash, Georgia, Kelly, Andrea, Biz, David N, Karen, Isaac)
3rd iteration – customised accelerator programs overseas and with First Nations businesses
(Annie, Anna, Shannon, Liv, Meagan, Isaac, Erin, Carlo, Elisa, Amber)
4th iteration – online coaching and train-the-trainer during COVID lockdown
(Annie, Anna, Shannon, Erin, Isaac, Carlo, Anne, Elisa)
Now we’re moving into a 5th iteration, with a different team (adding Bree, Kylie-Lee, Kristi), different strategy and likely a different business model.
We’ve been a lot of things to a lot of people, and have a varied track record based on when our alumni worked with us.
I’m not embarrassed by that, but it affects how you process feedback and how you explain our work when people say they’ve heard of us.
Which Bit Is The Hard Bit?
Here’s a suggested rule for any presenter: if you’re going to speak on a topic, you should talk about which part is the hard part.
What’s the hard part of growth?
What’s the hard part of outcomes measurement?
What’s the hard part of brand building?
What’s the hard part of creating a community?
I guarantee you, that’s what the audience is there to hear.
The straightforward parts are obvious, and you’ve likely succeeded because you got through the hard part.
If the hard part is obvious but hard, talk about that.
If the hard part is surprising or needs something counter-intuitive, talk about that.
I’m not sure I’ll get to go to the next SEWF in Amsterdam, but it was a great week in Brisbane.
Thanks to all the organisers and attendees, we missed you all during lockdown, it’s so good to be back.
