The event opened with the George Bernard Shaw quote that inspired the institute’s moniker: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable persists in adapting the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man [and woman].” The social entrepreneurs who presented were young, impassioned, and confident they could make a difference. After spending weeks at the Unreasonable Institute in Boulder, CO to refine their models and write business plans, they came to San Francisco to solicit funding for their ventures. The issues they zoomed in on and the approaches they chose were drastically different, but a common energy threaded through all of the presentations.

As I listened to one pitch after another, my initial sense of being overwhelmed bloomed into a feeling of comfort–empowerment, even. It’s always a  relief to be reminded that I am just one tiny piece of this huge, motley army of people fighting to do something good, each chipping away at poverty or injustice from their own angle with their own weapon. Listening to the Unreasonable Fellows testified to the value of this community–though scrambling for capital from funders and validation from beneficiaries, they seem to have been most shaped by another audience: each other.

As social entrepreneurs, doing what we do often requires a tunnel-visioned focus on our own goals, and a single-minded devotion to our specific work–sometimes I feel like I don’t have the mental space to care about multiple sets of causes. That’s when it’s most valuable to look up and find camaraderie in the community sprung from all of these singular devotions. Whether in the snatches of conversation that float to my desk in Mission*Social, at the pitchfest or a similar social entrepreneurship event at the Hub, or in the orbit of blogs centered around development and social innovation, it’s always energizing to be reminded of the ways in which other people have decided to care and commit unreasonably.

In 2008, the State of Oregon opened a waiting list for enrollment in the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon’s public health insurance program for low-income adults. Over 85,000 people put their names on the list – many more than the state could afford to insure at the time. In these circumstances, the state decided that the fairest procedure was a random one: 35,000 individuals were randomly selected from the list to receive applications for the health plan.

Several researchers around the country, including Amy Finkelstein (MIT), Katherine Baicker (Harvard School of Public Health), and Bill Wright (Providence Health & Services in Portland, OR) realized that Oregon’s random selection procedure could serve as the basis for a randomized, controlled study of the effects of health insurance on a variety of outcomes –- health, access to healthcare, financial status, etc. Randomized, controlled experiments are considered the “gold standard” in medicine and the physical sciences, but are generally difficult to arrange in the social sciences. The events in Oregon were an unprecedented chance to apply these rigorous methods to the study of health insurance.

Read more about how DDD helped these researchers process close to 70,000 surveys.

Everyone involved was so thrilled with the success of the project that we threw an international, virtual party to celebrate, with our team in Cambodia, and CCS in Germany and Romania. When the project is completed, eight million pages of historical newspapers will have been converted from dusty hard copies in storage to searchable and accessible articles online.

Our European Sales Team Representative Ed McLean gave some perspective on our historical newspapers projects: “Digitized papers once buried deep in paper archives reveal incredible things – this process opens them up to be discovered not just today but also in many years’, decades’ or centuries’ time. It is a window into how we used to live.”

Learn more about DDD’s newspaper digitization services.

These were some of the observations heard during our annual management retreat as part an activity called “Open Space.”  The activity (also called an “unconference”) gave DDD managers the opportunity to raise the issues they felt were most important to tackle as we began to develop our annual business plan.

Managers from Phnom Penh, Battambang, Vientiane and New York pitched topics to their peers to create 15 different discussion sessions.  The discussions were rich and lively.  The topics ranged from “Improving the Experience of Entry Level Operators” to “Quality Monitoring and Automation”.  Managers demonstrated a keen understanding of DDD’s mission, and a passionate commitment to improving what we do. Many of the groups attracted a diverse set of participants representing several different teams across DDD—though some of these managers don’t normally have reason to collaborate, the discussion topics illuminated shared interests and unexpected synergies. Facilitators took detailed notes of the conversations for follow up and volunteers from each session stood up in front of the room to report the takeaways of their conversation back to the full group.

Open Space gave our managers the opportunity to raise concerns and make suggestions about how DDD can improve how we do business and better achieve our social mission. The chance to speak up to propose topics, to talk with peers about the issues that concern them most, and to report back to the full group was enormously empowering, and inspired all of us to action.  For many of our staff, it was the first time they spoke up about their own ideas in front of a large group of colleagues. It’s now up to DDD’s senior management team to decide how to integrate these ideas as they set priorities for the coming year.

What was the outcome?  Open Space teams made recommendations such as:

•    Include more interactive activities in DDD’s English courses: skits, conversation, practice with native English speakers, extracurricular study tours, etc
•    All DDD staff should spend time working in entry level operator jobs.
•    Increase the number of Alumni activities and events that allow graduates to share their experiences.

About Open Space
Open Space is a way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired and productive meetings. Over the last 20+ years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.  In Open Space meetings, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?

The Young Leadership Program addresses a critical gap in today’s training for future leaders: The purpose of the program is to provide an experiential course which ultimately uses the inputs of relevant business practices to make a positive impact on society. The program provides experiential leadership development by combining a week of classroom-based learning (Module 1) — comprised of intense debate and discussions with well-known leaders from HSBC, Siemens, Sonepar etc — followed by a week of on-site work on a real-world project (Module 2). The goal is for your team to identify a business idea and capitalize on it to create either an investment opportunity or a business plan. We put in an average of 14-16 hours per day to complete the program objectives.

I was lucky to have a lot of opportunity to give my input from the perspective of a social enterprise. Particularly, I emphasized a major lesson my job has taught me: how critical our everyday decision making is, and how deeply it can affect the people and society around us. Since most of my teammates in the program came from a corporate background, my presence in the team did bring about a different perspective. Of course, I took this opportunity to share our experiences from DDD with everyone. Many of the participants had never heard of social enterprise before, but became interested in making our model part of the business plan we were developing.

During Module 2, we met up with many local government officials in China. We found that there were too many policies and regulations working against establishing a non-profit organization due to the Chinese economic system. Therefore, our initial business model changed from a social business model into two models: The first model is a commercial model that will use its profit to pay annual royalty fees to our second (social) business model in order to achieve the program objectives.

At end of the program, we completed the business plan on time and presented it at the investor conference. We were congratulated by our Chinese partner for our ability to come up with new ideas in such a short time, and they promised to look into adopting our ideas in order to achieve sustainability in their current business expansion.
During the reflection at the end of the program, I concluded my participation with appreciation of the GIFT Institute team, and I of course thanked my sponsor,Ms Annie Chen, who funded my trip and program cost in Hong Kong. I also requested that the GIFT Institute look into giving more opportunities to our local managers in DDD Laos and Cambodia to attend this program in the near future. I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in this program, and I appreciate that DDD encouraged me to learn more about leadership and to share our DDD stories during this two week program.

Lessons learned:
Diversity – I was assigned to a diverse team that consisted of people of more than 10 different nationalities, industries and backgrounds who were to accomplish the tasks set. Our openness to the views of others was tested. Diversity of the team was crucial for the team’s growth and development.

No passivity — Stepping up to be a leader is the key to success and self-realization; failure to do so, on the other hand, will not help me or my organization. An open mind and a high level of intellectual curiosity were essential to get the most out of this program. I learned to be more engaged and to always find a way to be effective.

Ability to communicate – Understanding the participants’ individual ability to communicate was really important in order to ensure that we were not weakened by language barriers during the program. It was clear that when the session was conducted in English, the native English speakers tended to be very dominant on the floor and most Chinese speakers remained quiet. This situation changed as we went to into Module 2, where most of the sessions involved Chinese speakers from the government and local companies. Suddenly the quiet Chinese participants became lively and participated in every debate and took the lead in all of Module 2. Some native English speakers suddenly became less dominant, although there was a translator who worked with us in every session. During the reflection, some of the English native speakers admitted they had felt insecure in most sessions and apologized to the Chinese participants for being ignorant during Module 1. It was interesting for me to observe these things, and the team was really great in acknowledging this lesson.

Welcome, Koji!

Two weeks ago, most of DDD’s senior management team and all six of our board members spent a day-and-a-half together in New York, discussing our budget and initiatives for the next fiscal year (which, for us, begins July 1st). We’re lucky to have an extremely committed board that’s devoted enough to DDD to travel to twice yearly two-day board meetings, one of them in Asia. They bring expertise in international business, technology start-ups, grassroots nonprofits and financial and investment prowess. (You can see bios of each of our boardmembers here.)

In a way, the evolution of our board meetings is a microcosm of the changes DDD has undergone as an organization. Our meetings started as an informal gathering of people passionate enough to want to show up. As a young start-up, we struggled to figure out how to get the most from our board and from our time together. Since then, we’ve steadily improved: board presentations slimmed down and got to the point; the goals for each meeting got clearer and we sharpened our agendas.

In the last year, we’ve undergone a process of assessing how our board engages with DDD. The result of this evaluation cycle was the creation of several board committees to offer targeted input in different areas of the organization. These committees meet more frequently, so that the board’s exposure to DDD–and to the issues they’re individually interested in shaping–is more regular.

In addition, this assessment process helped us identify what kind of expertise and experience we need more of on the board. As we look to add new members, the dialogue at Social Edge on “How to Build a Board” is particularly timely. We’re excited by our most recent board development: the addition of Koji Osawa!

Addy: A police man or a soldier. It is not a popular job here, but there is still a lot of competition, because they are government jobs, which means a permanent position and stable income.
Thipkesone: I wanted to become a doctor, but I couldn’t pass the test to get into the university.

Where did you grow up, and what is your family like?

Thongsouk: I grew up in Viengkeo Village. My family is very poor and has a very difficult life. All my siblings only finished high school; they didn’t have a chance to study further. Now they work in the factories and restaurants, at very low paid jobs.
Odai: My family is poor. We tried to get a loan so I could study at the university, but we couldn’t. We also owe money to all our relatives.

What did your family say, when you told them you were going to work at DDD?

Odai: They were very happy and proud of me, because I will be able to finish school and take care of myself. I will generate income and support my family.

What is the best thing about working for DDD?

Thipkesone: It is very different than other places. Here you get a chance to get real experience, and the other half of the day you can go to school.
Addy: The best thing is that I can improve myself and have a better life. Now I have access to healthcare and other benefits in life.

What are your plans and dreams for the future?

Thongsouk: I study accounting at college and I want to become an accountant. Because DDD invested in my career I have job opportunities now.
Odai: I am going to IT school and I want to be an IT manager. I have built my experience and general knowledge at DDD.

What do you think your life would be like if you didn’t work at DDD?

Thongsouk: I think I would be weaving at home with my mother.
Addy: I would still be working at the gas station, where I worked before I joined DDD.
Thipkesone: I would be at home with my mother, selling dried food in front of our house.
Odai: Before I came here, I worked as a waiter. It was very low pay. I can’t imagine my life without DDD.

Social enterprises are considered part of the third sector, or the civic sector, placed between the public and private sector. However, in developing countries where the public sector is sometimes non-existent or very weak, other agents of change like social enterprises often provide most of the social infrastructure a country needs in order to advance – even if they don’t have the legislative support to do so.

The realization that social entrepreneurship might be the key to the advancement of the developing world has only emerged in the past decade or so. A key contribution to the social entrepreneurship movement is David Bornstein’s How to Change the World, a book that turned a spotlight onto social innovation and examples of how the model could effect profound change. Now, Bornstein has founded and launched a new website, www.dowser.org, which aims to showcase more stories of change happening around the world right now.

Partly, Bornstein’s motivation is that while social entrepreneurship does yield social change around the world, the change is generally hidden. Moreover, he and his well-written team focus on solutions rather than problems; through a number of case studies, they are exploring who is solving what and how.

DDD is excited to be profiled on Dowser.org via an interview with our CEO, Jeremy Hockenstein. We look forward to following the Dowser.org team as they showcase more examples of positive change, and hope that their efforts will help pave the road for better conditions for social enterprises, in all corners of the world.

291 Kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh, the centrally located capital of Cambodia, DDD’s Battambang office opened in late 2003 with only 10 data entry operators. It was a very rare job opportunity, and it was hard to believe that it could happen in such a hard time in this rural province of the country. We shared an office with small and medium enterprises. To scale our social mission to to empower disadvantaged youth through education and on-the-job training, DDD Battambang moved to a second independent office building in mid 2004, with the capacity to accommodate around 120 employees. That was just a temporary office since our ambition to provide better and greater opportunities to disadvantaged people in Battambang was still alive and strong. We finally moved into a new, nice, larger office building not far away from the previous building to the South.

On the first day in the new office building, April 5, 2010, there were 110 people working there. It was a very exciting moment to see everyone working together in a larger and more widely accessible office environment. Our management – from the General Manager to team leaders – all began as data entry operators and worked hard to develop a stronger team and expand our program to accommodate more disadvantaged people in Battambang and elsewhere in Cambodia. We look forward to growing our office staff with 60 new operators by June 2011.