Voice 08 - first thoughts

Lots to talk about and think about after going to the Voice 08 conference in Liverpool yesterday. I won't write it down all at once - no doubt some themes will emerge in conversations with people over the next few days. But here are my first thoughts.

First of all I'm glad I went. In case you're wondering (after my previous post) by a roundabout route I ended up with a discounted ticket - so off I went to Liverpool. I found it quite stimulating and met some good people. I also heard some good speakers - I particularly liked Simon Fenton-Jones from Streetshine and Vivian Woodell from The Phone Co-op. Both told good stories with a refreshing degree of openness.

But I have to say that overall it just didn't do it for me. The word that keeps going round my head as I think about it is corporate.

Let me share a little cameo with you to explain. I went to the workshop about engaging with corporates (why we need to call them "corporates" I don't know). Youngish social entrepreneur asks panel how his social enterprise which works with people with mental health problems can engage with businesses beyond the usual "paint your common room" relationship. Good question I thought.

I made some assumptions about him and his organisation from the way he framed his question. He's probably a bit more activist than entrepreneur. His social enterprise is probably more social than enterprise, and is probably quite small.

Over to you panel. Panel aren't quite sure, but high-profile entrepreneur in the audience steps in with an answer, which I'll paraphrase.

"Get your lawyer onto it. Brand alignment is crucial. Take nothing for granted. Get a contract. Get buy-in from the very top so that if your contact is replaced by a total gob**ite you're not screwed."

High profile entrepreneur is followed by high profile social investor, whose answer, again, I'll paraphrase.

"Think differently. WE are the new corporates. It's not about us and them. It's about US - together."

That cameo summed up for me the whole problem of Voice - and I could assume - the direction of travel of the Coalition. The day was primarily about one brand of social enterprise - the big, ballsy corporate-lite brand. If you'd arrived at the day not knowing what it was about, you'd think you'd turned up at a conference about corporate social responsibility.

How can I argue with businesses like Belu or Divine Chocolate? Or with Accenture's clearly sincere engagement with social business? I can't - but what I can argue with is a conference which is about this thing we call "the movement" focusing largely on one (albeit very exciting) part of the movement. And if the conference had been branded as such - "Voice 08 - all about the big-hitters" - that would be fine. But it wasn't. It had no real theme, so the one that emerged in my mind was a "big is beautiful" one.

I heard nothing about the part of the sector that I work with most - voluntary sector organisations making that painful transition into becoming more socially enterprising. It's as if that part of the movement is the elderly aunt at the family get-together who's a bit deaf, usually says the wrong thing, but who won't bother us if we sit her over there in the corner next to the buffet.

When Clare Dove took over as Chair of the Social Enterprise Coalition, she said that she wanted to:

"....close the current gap between political rhetoric and the reality on the ground."

Because of Clare's background at Blackburne House, I took what she said to mean that she wanted to reach out beyond the sector's politically attractive big hitters to the thousands of individuals and organisations who are struggling to make sense of social enterprise in a politically-charged environment. It's unfair to judge her on her first big gig, but I didn't see much yesterday to dissuade me that the Coalition - and to some extent the movement - is running off with its new-found corporate friends and is forgetting where it's come from.

Comments

[Nick Temple]

Blogging on Voice shortly, Rob, but certainly agree with you on some of this. Glad you liked Simon F-J; he's an SSE Fellow, and doing a great job on a really tough project.

[Tom Barden]

I love the description of the voluntary sector's relationship to social enterprise as being like an embarrassing elderly aunt that we're all slightly ashamed of.

Asking the voluntary sector, even the forward-thinking and entrepreneurial bits of it, to suddenly switch to hi-octane business corporatism with a social twist is a little bit like refusing to contact said aunt until she learns to use Facebook!

[Rob Greenland]

Thanks for your comments Tom. I think that's a good point - there are lots of different ways to be more enterprising - and there's a broad range of social enterprise activity. The important thing is to start on the journey - and for some that starting point will be a long way away from a lot of the examples on offer at Voice. That doesn't mean that they're not valid - it just means that they're not necessarily the greatest examples for everyone.

[Rob Dark]

If the politically attractive big hitters you describe are the pinnacle of the social enterprise pyramid it is great they have an arena where they can parade and strut, even social enterprises should have their show grounds and their best in breed awards.
Maybe its time that the voluntary sector off shoots looked to regroup and find ways to support each other and create events and structures that can reflect the needs of the grass roots aunty brigade!!