Beltway Diary: Changing Our World
By Caroline Casey
April 6, 2007
The Irish Times
We’re a disparate bunch, the Eisenhower Fellows – 25 people from countries including Chile, China, Finland, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan and India – who are in the US for two months to examine and refocus professional goals in the context of taking the lead in our various fields of business or society.
The purpose of the programme is to get emerging leaders from around the world to exchange ideas and experiences. It is funded by the Eisenhower Fellowship, a foundation established in 1953 and supported by private donations and endowments.
Despite the vast differences among fellows in background, career, culture, political beliefs and, in some cases, language, we have found a commonality – a sense of humour and an enormous ability to talk. This is no place for the shy and retiring.
For the next two months we will travel the length and breadth of the US, with a well-planned daily itinerary involving meetings with leaders related to our own areas of interest.
One of the areas I am working on is the field of social entrepreneurship. A relatively new term in Ireland, social entrepreneurs are to society what business is to an economy. They are the drivers of change. A year ago I first heard the term and subsequently found myself being described as a social entrepreneur. Instantly it made sense. Finally a job title with which I could identify.
So what is social entrepreneurship? In short, it marries business know-how with social reform. Like traditional entrepreneurship, there is no endgame. Rather than leaving problems for government or business sectors to solve, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and persuading societies to take new steps.
In essence social entrepreneurs apply the same skills as a business entrepreneur, but success is measured in social impact rather than financial gain alone. To truly understand a social entrepreneur you must fully understand entrepreneurship.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, and Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Price for his microcredit strategy, are just some of the better known social entrepreneurs.
With me on the Eisenhower fellowship are two other social entrepreneurs – David Ndii from Kenya, a co-founder of the Kenyan Leadership Institute, and Supinya Klangnarong from Thailand, a founder of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform.
After my first week here in Philadelphia, I made a whistle-stop 36-hour trip back to Dublin to speak at the Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, where Bill Drayton - the man who coined the term social entrepreneur – was the keynote speaker.
Mr Drayton is the founder of Ashoka, the global organisation identifying and investing in leading social entrepreneurs and helping them achieve maximum social impact.
What he highlighted was that a really good idea in the hands of a social entrepreneur can have an extraordinary impact and that social entrepreneurs are the engines of social change and role models for the citizen sector.
The turnout by so many Irish business leaders at the forum – many of whom have reached the pinnacle of corporate careers - demonstrates how acutely aware we are becoming of the need to strike the right balance between business and society and the interaction and contribution of people between both. We are now ready to build a sector that supports and encourages social entrepreneurship.
Beltway Diary: Go for it
By Caroline Casey
April 13, 2007
The Irish Times
‘I swear, at times, I don’t know why on earth I keep doing this.” Several heads nod vigorously in agreement while sipping mile-high-skinny-caramel-macchiato-decaf-strawberry lattes from Starbucks.
We rant about the good, bad and ugly of leadership, social and business entrepreneurship and trying to make things happen.
David Bornstein, with whom I am sharing a flight back to the US after a conference on social entrepreneurship in Dublin, has a theory. “You do it because in some ways you are arrogant. You believe that people really need to hear your point of view and because that view is disruptive, demanding change, you have to fight hard for it.”
I was stunned. Arrogant? Me? But David has a point.
There is something incredibly arrogant about believing you have to be listened to, about getting up after being kicked down, and fighting blindly to get what you want, but I would rather call it passion. The common thread that binds us, as Eisenhower fellows, is this passion and the ability to get things done. It seems to drive creativity.
Through endless conversations we unanimously agree, despite those ugly moments – when the funds don’t come, when you miss a deal, when your heart breaks with frustration that no one seems to get it - that giving up is never really an option. Each of us is a gambler, betting on the greatest currency of all - the belief it can change.
Whether it is Rabia Garib, who wants to promote a more positive image of Pakistan through technology, education and media, or Ratish Nanda from India, who believes urban planning in heritage areas and/or conservation precincts can lead to improved living standards, economic development and neighbourhood stability, the belief that things can change is what makes the change happen.
This passion is reliant on moments of success. It is what we live for. We are addicted to those moments when we shift a person’s point of view, bag a fabulous funder, watch a vision become reality, but mostly when we experience the wonder of unexpected opportunity.
My first day in New York is a perfect example. At 10am I find myself sitting in front of a senior partner and global managing director in Ogilvy. I can hardly believe my luck as my half-hour meeting rolls into a two-hour discussion about how an idea I have been nursing for some time around media and disability could became a reality. I have come to this advertising guru and, right across the table from me, this man gets it! And, what’s more, he asks me back!
Later that evening I am eating a green curry with Shirlene, an art entrepreneur from Singapore, and Chien-Chi Chang, a Magnum photographer from Taiwan. As I launch my diatribe about disability representation in the media and arts, Chien gently pushes his recent book across the table. It is called The Chain, and is a shocking testimony of life at the Lung Fa Tang mental asylum in Taiwan. He gets it!
By the time we leave the restaurant, I have the support of someone I could not even have dared hope for.
Goodbyes said, smiles all around and flushed with excitement, we flag our cab and head uptown to a tiny jazz club on Broadway called Iridium. There we are mesmerised by the 92- year-old jazz legend and creator of the electric guitar, Les Paul.
By the time I get back to the hotel, with the Manhattan lights twinkling outside my window, I have to pinch myself. I may not have changed the world but I have seen the possibility of it.
We do what we do because we know we can change things; because our belief and courage are fuelled by the entirely unexpected moments of chance, where serendipity throws you a line and an idea you have could very possibly become a reality.
In the business of business, social change or just taking a risk, never forget: among the good, bad and ugly, the bloody marvelous exists too. And that, I have learnt, can come any time, any place. Just keep your eyes open.
Beltway Diary: Smart ways to change the world’s perception of disability
By Caroline Casey
April 20, 2007
The Irish Times
Seated at the back of a conference on social entrepreneurship run by the Berkley Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies at New York University’s Stern School of Business, I nearly fell off my chair. The speaker was outlining the results of a substantive piece of research on the social entrepreneur sector. A key finding was that social entrepreneurship is considered elitist and the luxury of MBA students from Ivy League colleges.
Sorry? Thinking about the Ashoka fellows I met in Europe, the recipients of the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland award and young social innovators, this profile seemed absurd.
Social entrepreneurship has been around since time began. These visionaries, doers and drivers of social change existed before this definition was popular. Now, especially in America, we see business schools like Harvard, Columbia and Berkley teaching social entrepreneurship, defining it and claiming it to be a new movement that will change the world. That’s one tall order.
But when Google runs a three-day conference on philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, as it did last week at its campus in Silicon Valley, and Klaus Schwab, president and founder of the World Economic Forum, creates a foundation for social entrepreneurs, it is evident that social entrepreneurship is being repositioned and reframed. I cannot help but be fascinated by this issue of positive framing.
No doubt about it, the US of A frames it better than anyone. Dr Bulent Yildiz, the Eisenhower fellow from Turkey, captured it best: “The Americans market better than anyone. And yet, what I have realised is that what we do in Turkey is just as good, if not better than the US. They just sell better.”
Bang on. The vice-president of operations often turns out to be the photocopier. In hotels, have you noticed that despite claiming to have 55 floors, they often start counting at 10?
Everything is fabulous, amazing, massive. Failures are opportunities. Challenges are key learnings. There is something to be said for it: positive framing means positive outcomes.
Jim Fruetcherman, one of the most renowned and successful social entrepreneurs I met, agrees, pointing out that Silicon Valley was not only successful for what it did, but how it sold its story to the world. This is how a small valley in California became the centre of the technology universe.
Faced in the last week with the horrible honest truth that disability projects are the least funded in comparison to all other issues, I began to question how disability was being framed in the US.
Who better to seek an expert opinion from than two fellow young global leaders of the World Economic Forum living in the US, and from the media – Tad Smith, chief executive of Reed Business, and Mathew Bishop, America business editor of the Economist. Their response was what I expected - disability is not considered sexy enough to compete.
It puts into context what we have achieved in Ireland through the O2 Ability Awards. I had not understood how far ahead of the game we were and how vital our positive framing has been to our success.
Because, let’s be honest, there’s nothing new about awards programmes. But it is not the making of the hamburger that is unique; it is how the hamburger is put together. So if we want to change the way the world perceives disability, we have to work on the framing. Without that, nothing will change.
Beltway Diary: Without Examples, How Can We Learn?
By Caroline Casey
April 27, 2007
The Irish Times
Eventually I found myself in the right lift heading for 29th floor. I am utterly confounded by how long it takes to get from the entrance of a skyscraper to the actual office in which you have a meeting. Endless security, the frustration of trying to find the one lift out of 12 that brings you to your desired floor and corridors full of identical doors with microscopic signage all contribute to delay.
Finding what I hope is the office of Draper Richards LP, I gingerly knock, open the door and gasp. It is a stunning San Francisco morning and the penthouse office is bursting with light, as sun pours through massive windows framed by the most amazing view of the bay. I stand, mesmerised when a voice asks: “Can I help?”
Moments later, coffee in hand, I am talking with William Draper III, one of America’s first venture capitalists and an incredibly nice man to boot. We quickly get into conversation about the ins and outs of philanthropy, foundations and where disability sits among it all!
When ‘Bill’ notes: “You see, we do things a little differently here. I don’t need the perfect business plan. I take risks where others don’t,” I want to jump up and shout “alleluia!” It’s taken more than 30 meetings in the last month to hear someone say this.
Why? Where have all the risk-takers gone? In our bid to ensure that the social entrepreneur sector becomes more professional, efficient, business like and sustainable, are we forgetting something – that which makes the social entrepreneur different?
Systematic transformational change demands “out of the box” thinking, which may push funders out of their comfort zone. But out of the comfort zone they must come. Now more than ever we need risk-takers to invest in risk-takers.
It goes without saying that social entrepreneurs need to be more businesslike, but they also need permission to fail.
Permission to fail is permission to try. Failure may be seen as deferred achievement, if we are willing to learn, and, let’s face it, it’s better to attempt to solve the problem than to do nothing.
Fear of failure can only inhibit the entrepreneurial spirit; therefore we need investors who are willing to take the risk in the hope of what can be achieved rather than what is guaranteed; people who are not frightened to fail. We need more “Bills”!
Gunvor Kronman from Finland is chief executive of the Swedish/Finish Cultural Foundation and a board member of the Finish Public Broadcasting Company. He believes that part of the problem is that there are not enough risk-taking role models.
I agree. Without examples, how can we learn? The risk-taker is as vital as the social entrepreneur in this extraordinary equation for social change and their role needs to be recognised too.
The upcoming Philanthropist of the Year awards run by the Community Foundation for Ireland could not come at a better time.
Faced with incredible social challenges we need risk-takers to unearth and support the mavericks. We need new models to challenge the old.
So, philanthropists, venture capitalists, foundations, entrepreneurs, don’t forget the risks you took to get where you got. You never know: among the pile of proposals that clutter your desk, the Bill Gates of social entrepreneurs could be smiling up at you.
Beltway Diary: Would Starbucks or Ryanair Have Been the Success Stories They Are in the 1960s?
By Caroline Casey
May 4, 2007
The Irish Times
It is not acceptable for us to say a problem is too big too solve, or a sector is too saturated, or that vast geographical mass and mind-blowing competition are reasons not to engage
It is 3am. There is little point in going to sleep as I will leave for the airport in two hours. I have learnt to make use of every minute because, as I have criss-crossed this enormous country, I have lost and gained more hours than I care to remember.
In the last three weeks I have rocketed between New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, Washington and here to Seattle with a 36-hour trip back to Ireland thrown into the mix.
It is not until you travel here that you truly understand the enormity of the US, and the dazzling diversity and incomprehensible choice that comes with it.
At first glance, such an environment is daunting for a fledging organisation to survive, grow and succeed or a small voice to be heard and, yet, we know it happens. The question is how?
Well, from my oversimplified standpoint it seems to be all about standing out and, whether a politician, business person, academic or social entrepreneur, the same rule applies.
While choice can be wonderful, according to Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice , “unlimited choice” can “produce genuine suffering”.
Tell me about it! Last week, dying of a head cold - hardly surprising considering all the air miles - I headed for Walgreens to find salvation.
Faced with mile-long aisles packed several feet high with every imaginable concoction of cold and flu medicine, I froze, mouth flapping, unable to choose. Eventually, I grabbed the brightest and most dangerous looking box with the biggest writing and fled! So the moral of the story - packaging and presentation are paramount!
Would Starbucks or Ryanair have been the success stories they are in the 1960s? Would the hit show 24 have inspired such ground-swelling popularity had it not been able to capitalise and tap into the collective national psyche of post 9/11?
This also explains the explosive success of one of the most famous ice-cream brands in the world – Ben and Jerry’s. I mean it is still only ice-cream but it’s amazing what a round carton, funky packaging and daft names can do for a bottom line.
Up here in Seattle, standing out is all about flying fish and the power of people. Visitors from all over the world flock to see the infamous fishmongers of Seattle Pike Place Fish market throwing fish around, having fun with customers while making a fortune at the same time.
The company has been so successful it is used as a case study in business schools and universities. It has produced four books, along with best-selling training DVDs. Who would have thought it – fishmongers defining organisational success just because they are different.
Yesterday, Miles Hilton Barber, my travelling companion from Around the World in 80 Ways, called to say he reached Australia after flying a microlight from London to Sydney. He is blind. Now one of the world’s best-paid speakers, Miles has proved that being different is his greatest asset and key to his success.
Isn’t it strange that we spend so much of our life trying to be the same as everyone else and yet the true success stories are defined by those few who break the mould, stand out and are only blind to limits.
This philosophy enabled one of the world’s most successful social entrepreneurs, John Wood, to leave his highly-successful career in Microsoft and establish Room to Read whose mission is to provide educational access to 10 million children in the developing world. Only six years since its inception, the organisation has been able to impact on the lives of over 1.2 million children by constructing 287 schools and establishing over 3,600 libraries.
It is, therefore, not acceptable for us to say a problem is too big too solve, or a sector is too saturated, or that vast geographical mass and mind-blowing competition are reasons not to engage. That is just too easy a get-out clause. If we believed that we would never have put a man on the moon or be eating an ice-cream called Chunky Monkey or attempting to eliminate poverty.
It is possible; it is just how you go about it. But be warned: before you go flinging fish in the air, you at least have to believe they can fly!
Beltway Diary: Diversity Dollars
By Caroline Casey
May 11, 2007
The Irish Times
Walking through the doors that wonderful smell of fresh coffee wafts around me. I rush toward the lift resisting the temptation to grab the obligatory latte and head up to reception. I am in Starbucks headquarters and I am in heaven. Google has nothing on this place!
From the moment I step inside the pulsing centre of this coffee empire, I cannot help but be impressed. The enormous office has the bright and airy interior of a New York warehouse loft with winding staircases linking floors. Comfy couches are nestled in cosy spaces, kitchen areas filled with every imaginable coffee and gorgeous pastries on various shelves around the building.
The atmosphere is warm, friendly and relaxed as its chief executive Howard Shultz chats among his team - his extraordinarily diverse team.
In the two hours I spend in Starbucks it is apparent that diversity is not about coffee flavours, but about skills, people and abilities. And when I say diversity, I mean it in the broadest sense of the word.
As I move through the building I am aware of a myriad of accents, skin colours and disabilities. Men, women, young, old, flamboyant, reserved, glamorous, casual - this is a place I want to work!
Diversity has confused me since my arrival in the US - in different places it means different things. There is no universal yardstick. At the annual diversity conferences run by the Conference Board in New York the multiplicity of diversity was probed with case studies from Campbell’s Soup, IBM, PepsiCo and Dow.
Yet academics view it differently. Walter Benn Michael’s highly-publicised book The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality defines diversity in the parameters of race.
At a series of discussions on diversity in philanthropy at the Council of Foundations’ annual meeting in Seattle, diversity centred on gender and race. Sitting there I itched to ask – but what about sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, economic background? Before I knew it, my hand shot up in the air and when I asked how disability was defined in the US, a ripple of laughter murmured through the room.
Mortified, face burning, I cursed myself for being such an eejit. But when the answer came I realised they had not been laughing at me, they were laughing with me. I had asked the one question no one is able to answer. Exactly how do we define diversity?
There seems no answer except that businesses love diversity because it is beginning to impact the balance sheet. In the US the diversity industry is worth $10 billion – training, magazines, awards, I could go on! But the profit and hype have an audience. There is a reason that diversity is gaining traction. Whether people got into this business because it was an opportunity to look good, they are now in an industry which will define the most successful organisations of the future.
When I asked Starbucks how and why it believes in diversity the answer is simple. It had to. With up to 400 positions a day to fill, the search for talent made it necessary. As the US ages, and replacement levels plummet, 10 million jobs will not be filled in five years time if business does not look outside its traditional recruitment pools. During meetings with Microsoft and Google, I hear the same story.
Finally, necessity is the mother of invention. Diversity makes business sense. As ecosystems need diversity to thrive so does business. But it is the business of diversity that has begun to turn this tide - there’s nothing like a healthy bottom line to make a point.
Beltway Diary: Read My Lips, You Don’t Know Texas
By Caroline Casey
May 18, 2007
The Irish Times
‘Why on earth do you want to go to Texas?” “Why not?” I replied. “Because it is nothing like the rest of America,” I was warned. I didn’t like to point out that this was exactly why I wanted to go after seven weeks of city life. That and, of course, I have always wanted to be a cowgirl. As a teenager I had dreamed of being an elephant handler, a biker chick, an entrepreneur and cowgirl! Until last week, biker chick and cowgirl remained outstanding.
Faced with the daunting implications of a visually impaired girl on a Harley, a bemused Eisenhower organisation chose the lesser of two evils and sent me deep into the heart of Texas to unleash the cowgirl within.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I discovered when I jammed the business suit to the bottom of my case and pulled on the worn jeans.
Texas makes a fool out of those who think they know better. It teaches you the perils of shallow judgment. Behind endless humble facades I discovered extraordinary achievements and contradictions that warned the naive that in business it never serves you well to make assumptions.
In south Texas, I was welcomed by cowboys, ranchers, entrepreneurs, oil tycoons, historians, philanthropists, community workers and stockbrokers. I hung out at campfires and rodeos, rode through the Bandera hills, drank iced tea with billionaires, chowed down on a chicken steak (which is in fact beef) with a man who makes water, had heated discussions about business and the economy, swam in rivers and rediscovered the magic of adventure.
The landscape was achingly beautiful, the sky huge. People were open, warm and friendly and the weather and space utterly intoxicating.
And yet so many people write off this extraordinary place, not willing to see beyond its politics and conservative outlook. What a missed opportunity - for business, tourism, a better life and for America itself.
South Texas is a diamond in the rough. It amazes me that as impatient investors scramble to make good on property in Florida, down south a buoyant land market is producing astonishing returns on investments.
Too often we are distracted by ill-informed assumptions and find ourselves missing opportunities. We assume that success looks and feels the same to everyone and that we should all want the same thing.
Talking with a cowboy over a breakfast fit to give you a heart attack, I learnt how easily we can get it wrong. The man I had assumed was just a cowboy turned out to be the owner and brains behind a multimillion-dollar motorbike business.
I had a similar experience when I met what appeared to be a very ordinary yet friendly man and his wife at a “breaking of the ground” ceremony for a medical centre in Bandera. Twenty-four hours later they hosted me at their 7,200-acre exotic ranch complete with camels and kangaroos. This was no ordinary farmer but an entrepreneur who has made his fortune in the oil and gas business after establishing an underwater welding company.
You never can tell what lies beneath the surface and you should never assume you do.
I think I needed to be a cowgirl, if only for a few days, just to be reminded that success is not always packaged as we imagine and our ability to succeed requires us not to judge others but to take a look at ourselves. I will never forget those few days in Texas, whizzing through the stunning countryside in a massive pick-up truck, cowboy boots perched on a dashboard, singing to my heart’s content. In those days I remembered who I was.
As I got up to mount my horse after breakfast, the motorbike genius called after me. “Young lady, let me tell you something. Success will come, but only if you know who you are, because if you don’t know who you are, you will never know what you could be.” Wise words indeed.
Beltway Diary: Making a Difference
By Caroline Casey
May 25, 2007
The Irish Times
One by one, the audience began to stand as I walked back to my seat. When I needed to most, I had done it; I had pulled the rabbit out of the hat. I had no idea how because, as usual, I had not prepared what I was going to say, despite the fact that Gen Colin Powell and Lee Hamilton were the guests of honour in a room filled with 250 leading chief executives and philanthropists.
From behind me, my Indian colleague, Ratish, whispered in my ear: “You see, blondie; it’s never over until the fat lady sings.” How right he was.
For the rest of the evening, every chief executive and influencer I had wanted to meet in the preceding two months came up, introduced themselves and issued invitations.
Who would have guessed it? After such a rocky start, when so few people were willing to meet me, unsure as they were of the disability business case, I now held a pile of influential business cards in my hands.
It has been an extraordinary two months and it is now coming to an end.
I have been tested and stretched; I have relearnt the art of love-bombing, framing and backdoor manipulation. What began as a sorry tale of self-pity has ended in something far more powerful.
Before the fellowship began, I am ashamed to admit, but subconsciously I had been avoiding going to the next level. Scared of starting all over again, frightened to death of failure I believe now that I was skirting the issue of expansion.
It wasn’t until everything that I stood for or believed in was being rejected or misunderstood that I was challenged to take stock and face the demons.
Did I really have what it took to attempt to go the next round? Did I still believe in what I was doing? Was I willing to make the sacrifices it was going to take? I remember the night I made the decision that, no matter what, whether I failed or succeeded, I wanted at least to try.
I was in Phoenix and had phoned my parents, needing desperately to be reassured.
On cue and in harmony they said what I did and did not want to hear. “Nothing worth doing is easy, Caroline. Just because it is hard, does not mean it is time to give up. It is time to work harder” .
When we ended our conversation and my hotel room filled with silence, I sat and looked into space.
I thought about all the mantras I preach - never give up, the darkest hour is before dawn and failure is an opportunity to learn.
I went back through my bank of memories and reminded myself of all the people I had met in the last seven years - business people, people with disabilities, social entrepreneurs, dreamers and adventurers.
I thought about the 23 other fellows that I had met on this Eisenhower programme and, for one moment, I imagined walking away from it all, settling for an easier life, a life not fraught with fears of funding, haggling, risk-taking, cajoling and convincing people, begging and badgering. It could be so much easier.
And the moment I thought of walking away I held firm. It was not an option. We were making a difference and if we could do it in Ireland, why couldn’t we do it elsewhere.
All of us, whether in business or in our personal lives, go through moments like these. Moments when we are brought to our knees. I believe these moments are more valuable than any success because they remind us why we do what we do, they spur us on to be better and reinvigorate that all essential passion.
On Friday morning I had my last meeting of the fellowship in the penthouse offices of a venture capitalist on Park Avenue, New York.
After chatting for a while, the man sitting opposite me smiled. “Of course we will help, Caroline, but why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
If only you knew, I thought. Instead, I leaned forward and smiled. “I wasn’t ready,” I replied, “but I am now”.
Contact Caroline Casey at eisenhower@theaislingfoundation.org
Series concludes