Antti Karjalainen
CIA used to be an abbreviation that was spoken of in the dark corridors of Kreml during the cold war, but in the cold January evening in Cardiff CIA was full of life. Cardiff International Arena (CIA) hosted the annual Social Enterprise Coalition conference, Voice10, about a week ago.
Given that Britain is struggling with one of the worst economic periods ever, and preparing for general election, the atmosphere in the conference of a rapidly emerging sector of British economy was fantastic. There is no party like the one thrown by social entrepreneurs. The conference hosted hundreds of delegates and was almost fully subscribed, as usual, including some delegates from Finland; around 100 enterprises had stands outside the main hall and keynote speakers from ministerial level. One did not get an impression of a struggling economic sector.
One of the highlights of the conference for me was Phillip Blonds’ presentation. The man that has been labelled as the ’Red Tory’. He presented his view on how the opportunity for Social Enterprise is really at hand. His case was based on the ways of doing business without costing for environmental or social impact has come the end of its due to people’s frustration and economic climate. In short greed is not very cool anymore. On other hand there is the argument that welfare state as a paternal system has also come to the end of its era. It’s financially unsustainable and it is not empowering people to look after themselves. Former he called the ’right problem’ and the latter ’the left problem’.
From the pressure of these two problems the social enterprise, or rather community powered business that offers public services, could emerge. He did not give many examples, but one could imagine a corner shop, which used to contribute to the community by providing milk and newspaper and an occasional chat with neighbours. Perhaps in the Blond era, the corner shop does all that but in addition it offers a place for occasional health visitor to pop in, or it could be taken over by the local nursery that uses the profit to fund child care for those less well off in the community. Or something much more imaginable where public service is provided in local ownership, governed locally and funded by mixture of revenues streams from contracts to business. Perhaps the most radical suggestion he made was that the red tape around public sector contracts should be scrapped and simplified significantly. Of course he said more and he said it in more sophisticated ways than I can recall here and it was enjoyable. I think his identification of the problem was intelligent and I’m sure he’s got a book in the pipeline, which I look forward to reading. A voice close to the possible future government supporting social enterprise is very welcome.
The difference to last year’s conference, Voice09, was that the organisations that provide support for Social Enterprises were more visible than before. For instance, my local is nursery is exploring the Social Enterprise route, and I had a chat with South-East of England Business and Community partnership network to make some contacts. There was an equivalent organisation present from virtually every part of the country. Of course this can mean that they have just found the Social Enterprise Coalition but more likely it means that the additional funds provided by the government to support SE has found its way to businesses. Another highlight was the launch of the Social Enterprise Mark (hence the bad pun in the title)- they are claiming that they will become as well known as the fairtrade brand. I have no doubt that they will, the idea is brilliant and hopefully consumers will starts to recognise it very soon (fair trade went in 8 years from 1 of 5 consumers recognising it to 7 out of 10 consumers).
The feeling I left the conference with was upbeat and slightly envious. There was a huge amount of social innovation in that room and many great ideas in various stages of execution. When will we see something like that in Finland? (Snif)
