Today’s lecture was indeed interesting. Most people would confuse themselves between what is entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. In fact, they are very distinct from each other.  The way I look at it is by separating them into four different categories:

1. Social entrepreneurship

• Characteristics: opportunity sensing, out-of-the-box thinking, and determination
• identifying an unfortunate but stable equilibrium that causes the exclusion, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity that lacks the financial means or political clout.
• identifying an opportunity in this unjust equilibrium, developing a social value proposition, and bringing to bear inspiration, creativity, direct action, courage, and fortitude.
• Create a new, stable equilibrium that releases trapped potential or alleviates the suffering of the targeted group, and through imitation and the creation of a stable ecosystem around the new equilibrium ensuring a better future.
• Example: Muhammad Yunus – Microfinancing ( Grameen Bank),       Robert Redford – Sundance Film Festival 

1. Entrepreneurship (social enterprises)

• More business-like approach commercialised and has financial support, mostly ventures into new businesses or organizations.
• Though the products create a better service for the community and gives social benefits, it is still profit-oriented.
• Examples: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack – centralised computing system; Fred Smith – FedEx; Omidyar and Skoll – eBay; Ann and Mike Moore – Snugli

 

1. Social activism

• Motivator: unfortunate and stable equilibrium.
• Characteristics: inspiration, creativity, courage, fortitude BUT not direct action, it is indirect action.
• Social activists create change by influencing others like governments, NGOs, consumers, workers. May or may not create new ventures or organizations but outcome is the same as social entrepreneurs, that is improve existing system and create a new equilibrium.
• Example: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King

1. Social service provision

• Smaller scales – do not break out of their frame and give that big impact to the overall society. More towards local community.
• Sometimes same mission-driven that is to create common goodness to the community, but outcomes vary as social service provisions cannot create a new equilibrium to the problem altogether.

Brand Quiz Here’s a brand quiz that you can try to test yourself.

It is important for any business entity to separate and distinct itself from many other products out there in the market. This can be done in two ways:

1. PoP – Point of Parity: the similarities the products share, eg.type of goods/ service being offered
2. PoD – Point of Difference: the differenciation of the product to other similar products, eg. size,colour, packaging, logo, promotion

PoD and PoP are what determines value proposition. Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying customers is the source of sustainable value creation.

Why A Brand Matters. The article in Forbes about why brand is important is simple and clear text that conveys branding is important because:

• Carries message that a firm is trying to tell the consumers
• To attract consumer (logos, colours, size, images, fonts)
• Create brand positioning in consumers mind and thus capture the consumers loyalty
• To sell their product (the more appealing it seems, the more consumer will buy)

Positioning: A Battle of the Mind This link is one of the reading materials in our lecture, Positioning: The Battle of Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I found this extremely interesting. It talked about how different brand names were positioned in human mind and how we tend to relate or remember these names.

• Companies should capture the consumers mind by positioning their brand and be a brand leader. This is easier to sell more of the product and create a brand loyalty.
• Companies that enter a market with competition and dominant leaders should be a follower but differentiate the product from that of the leaders.
• Descriptive brand names tend to do better than coined ones. Example: Head n Shoulders for shampoo, People for gossip magazine, Close Up for toothpaste, Diehard for batteries rather than general names like Kodak or Xerox.
• The no-name trap. Using general names like IBM instead of International Business Machines or GM for General Electric could be confusing and is not encouraged unless the brand is already well established like GM for General Motors.
• The free-ride trap. Many companies are tempted to use the existing brand for a new product line being introduced which ends up being unpopular as the first already captured and being positioned in different part of the consumer minds. For example, Alka-Seltzer and Alka-Seltzer Plus are two different product lines but are looked at as the same but just a better version.

This YouTube video, taken from a TED Talk of Daniel Pink is definitely worth watching because it talks about different ways people are motivated and how we as human respond to incentives. We are all driven by intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. We respond to different types of reinforcement wither at work or daily life namely positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction. The video further looks into interesting researches and surveys on motivation.The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us