The principal of my High School was a large, serious man named Mr. Snodgrass.
And, no, I am not making that up. As I was nearing graduation, Mr. Snodgrass tried to give me some helpful advice. "Perhaps," he said with gravitas, "you should go into Accounting. You know, to have something to fall back on if this whole art thing doesn't work out."
I think about this suggestion at odd times--once while scribing at the Pentagon in a vault/room five stories below ground; once while a CEO of a Fortune 50 company asks what business school I graduated from; and, once this week, while presenting to a graduate level class at the Carnegie Mellon Heinz School of Business.
The irony is that, professionally speaking, I am still doing what I did at age seventeen. Back in the Reagan 1980s, I was scribbling quotes from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life in the end pages of my English Lit book. These days, I'm doodling while people struggle with complex issues facing their organizations and the world at large.
During the lecture to the CMU students (using my trusty Neuland walls, of course!), I asked the group how they felt the school should teach Entrepreneurship, especially in the growing field of "social enterprise".
ABOVE: Tim Zak addresses his class on Social Enterprise at the Heinz School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Social Entrepreneurs are unique creatures. They have the usual chutzpah and gumption that marks that traditional bootstrapping self-starter Michael J. Fox businessman we all know and love from TVLand. However, they have the unusual talent of looking at massive social and systemic problems and seeing economic opportunity. They tend to create businesses that do well by doing good.
These B-School students were in the midst of exploring what the field requires of its practitioners.
I was there as the exotic guest, the "Art Guy". I was also there to expose them to different techniques and technologies that may be useful in exploring new markets, understanding system level complexities, mapping relationships and influences, building virtual and physical cohesiveness in teams, etc.
We looked at blogs, podcasting, mindmapping tools, information graphics and collaborative design events. The goal? To exposed the students to the mash-up of skills and tools my friends and clients are experimenting with to make stuff and make stuff happen.
At the end of the presentation, the teacher (Tim Zak, President of the Social Innovation Accelerator) asked the class what they thought students need to learn in order to succeed as entrepreneurs... either social or otherwise.
They pointed at the eight foot mural sprawling across the walls and answered: "We need to know how to do that!!"
Now, I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times the words creativity, innovation and collaboration came out of their mouths during the ensuing discussion.
Considering that this group represents the future leaders of our huge industrial/educational/political/business machine, it felt like maybe a sea change in the way we work is indeed possible. That is, if they see that there is a different way to work.
If only Mr. Snodgrass could see us now!
[To hear interviews with leading social entrepreneurs, check out Globeshakers with host, Tim Zak on the Conversations Network]
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