Hi everyone,
So after a whirlwind couple of days in Johannesburg (see previous blogpost to catch up) and ahead of the workshop we are doing tomorrow at Jozihub I thought this would be a good time to summarise what has happened. Also so those who want to initiate and drive similar process elsewhere can see how we are doing it.
Edgeryders: presentation at Swedish Ambassador’s residence in South Africa
The presentation resonated with both CEOs of Swedish Corporations in South Africa and Director of operations for MISTRA (Insitute for Strategic Reflection). My impression is that it was percieved as credible, engaging and clear as 1) the CEO of Ericsson in SA validated the process even mentioning a case study of their investment into mobile phones 2) A CEO of another company asked me how they would build this for their organisation and clients 3) The Director of operations for Mistra approached me and booked a meeting to take place tomorrow to explore how we might work together.
Key: Solid information and facilitation in an environment of trust- The presentation took place in a private lunch held at the Swedish Ambassador’s residence and the Ambassador briefed me well about the perspective, priorities and percieved difficulties of the CEOs in the room ahead of the meeting. During the lunch he ensured everyone introduced themselves to one another, and then introduced the two participants the Director of Mistra and myself and how he thought our work was relevant to the other participants. After the presentation I got a lot of feedback from the rest of the Embassy staff and they made me aware of the dynamics in the room of which I was not aware. In this case they were positive, but note to self: important to get better at reading rooms and subtle signals- how to learn?
Follow up: In order to be able to deliver what generates revenue, we have to take into account the cost of maintaining the social and technical platform that keeps the community going and thriving. In addition third party technology services this includes the invisible work that goes into outreach (events like LOTE and the work of preparing and executing this week in South Africa) etc. So far a small number of people have been covering these expenses out of our own savings but this is not sustainable in the long run and anyway it’s time we all started experimenting with the Edgeryders Social Enterprise. It’s a new way of working so those interested need to test it and share our experiences so we can improve the model and become better together.
We need to follow up the meetings last week, and the workshop tomorrow with an entry-point offer. And make it clear that developing a solid project proposal is a participatory process that requires those who wish to access the benefits to share the costs of making happen (they pay us a retainer/ for set deliverables/ to sponsor an unMonastery). Does the entry-point offer need to be different for the corporates and for the foundations/think tanks? I think so as they have different priorities and different constraints for what they can invest financial and time resources into (size, timeline, process etc). Below is a start, please feel free to add your own proposals or suggestions…