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April 18, 2007

Cultural Creatives: The New Innovators

Rebecca St. Martin has started a great network called the 'Cultural Creatives Network'. This periferal concept is now heading for business center stage - otherwise known as "Social Entreprenuership". Thank you Rebecca for helping to create the next level of innovator from a business perspective.

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Creativity & the Entrepreneurial Spirit

I doubt I've ever met an entrepreneur who wasn't also creative. Being able to envision a way out of the rat race alone requires creativity -- not to mention the creativity needed to manifest a new source of income.

But what is the relationship between the Creative Entrepreneur and the Cultural Creative Entrepreneur?

Qualities of an Entrepreneur

Robert T. Kiyosaki, author of Before You Quit Your Job, explores what qualities people need to successfully transition from employee to entrepreneur-- and from entrepreneur to business leader.

Kiyosaki's main ideas are:

1. A successful entrepreneur finds the right idea, the right people to act on the idea and the right money to leverage the project.
2. A successful entrepreneur operates from freedom and opportunity rather than security and resources.
3. The best time to answer the tough questions about starting a business is before starting the business. Some of these questions are:

a. How badly do I want my own business and why?
b. How much will I extend myself to succeed?
c. Am I afraid to fail? If so, how can I make this a strength?
d. Am I willing to educate myself on the essential components of a successful business?

An Entrepreneur Plus Cultural Creative Values = A Social Entrepreneur
Cultural Creative entrepreneurs, more often referred to as social entrepreneurs, are those entrepreneurs who focus on creating innovations and inventions that improve life for everyone.

Bill Drayton of Ashoka, an organization dedicated to supporting and promoting social entrepreneurship as well as transforming the face of social innovation, points out that social entrepreneurs "are not content just to give a fish...or to teach someone how to fish. [Social entrepreneurs] will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."

Continue reading "Cultural Creatives: The New Innovators" »

April 5, 2007

Innovation Emerges as Global Transformation and Action

One of inKNOWvate's guiding frameworks is the triad model for innovation that seeks to balance the outcomes of innovation. This triad seeks to balance social, technical, & organizational forms of innovation. Using this 3-lens perspective, one can balance and monitor effectiveness with efficiency in solutions that emerge. Below is one of the most prevailing applications of this model: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, which is becoming a hot movement in world of innovation.

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Growing Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble Problems

A growing array of apparently insoluble socio-economic, environmental, and governance challenges presses in on decision-makers — including climate change, the risk of global pandemics, the growing threat to natural resources like water and fisheries, and the ever-present issues of poverty and hunger. Growing Opportunity — the first in an annual series of surveys conducted by SustainAbility in partnership with The Skoll Foundation — explores the potential for more entrepreneurial solutions to such challenges.

Continue reading "Innovation Emerges as Global Transformation and Action" »