Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Social enterprise on tv, web, next door

What are two of the hottest ideas of 2007?

How about social enterprise and online videos? In the civil sector, 2007 might go down as the year social entrepreneurs went mainstream. As for every sector, 2007 is the year YouTube went from 0 to 100 million users and $1.65 billion and made everyone a video star.

Now these two big ideas have come together. No less a respected force than PBS has launched a (very worthwhile) new series on social enterprise. Its part of the regular programming of NOW. It was, almost predictably, launched with a YouTube video. PBS has also built out a very useful and engaging web site, a blog called Better World and a contest to nominate a social enterpreneur (entries accepted until June 8).

PBS is not the only source of online video about social entrepreneurs. SocialEdge, a project of the Skoll Foundation, which has played a crucial role in bringing attention and resources to social enterprise, also has blogs, videos, and podcasts. And because old and new can happily coexist, my local NPR station (radio equivalent of PBS) is brought to me by "listeners like me and SocialEdge, an online community for social entrepreneurs."

Fora.tv covers social enterprise from a variety of viewpoints, including that of The Institute of OneWorldHealth, the relationship between social enterprise and democracy, and from the perspectives of individual social entrepreneurs.

Even the venerable Harvard Business School is presenting its work on social enterprise by streaming video. The University of Michigan has a video archive on social enterprise. The Social Enterprise Reporter has a video and radio archive.

A search for "social enterprise" on YouTube brings up 75 videos. A Google video search finds another 29. These are definitely two trends that fit each other. Video helps spread the ideas of social enterprise, makes it personal, engaging, and - as in the case of organizations such as Witness - can also be a tool for the enterprise itself.

Next thing you know, there will be a social enterprise video game. Whats that? There is already? Of course there is, its called Village.



2 comments:

Michael Hoffman said...

Don't forget DoGooderTV , a site focused on short-form content produced by nonprofits.

Anonymous said...

And of course there is the launch of SE TV itself (link below). The momentum behind SE and it's coming of age this year has been quite remarkable.

http://www.socialenterprise.tv/