What's that for?

My son Francis, now 2 and a half, answers virtually everything I say to him at the moment with "What's that for?" Such as, earlier this week:

"Where's daddy going?"

"On the train."

"What's the train for?"

"To take daddy to London."

"What's London for?"

What a great question. Ten minutes later the poor lad wished he'd never asked.

It seems like some of the Social Enterprise Ambassadors are asking a similar question about the Ambassador programme. An article in Third Sector magazine quoted an un-named Ambassador as saying:

"There is a shared criticism that the scheme hasn't been focused enough or got ambassadors into the right places or levels."

As an interested observer I think it would be fair to say that at the very least the programme is taking time to find its feet. It's hard to answer the question "what's it for?" and I'm not sure that it's done a great deal yet to increase the profile of social enterprise. There certainly have been some successes - as Nick points out here - but it seems that there needs to be a bit more focus if the programme is to have a real impact.

Who knows why it's not quite working. When I gave the scheme a cautious welcome, I pointed to the power of a good story - and perhaps that's what we haven't had enough of yet.

Comments

[Mike Chitty]

I think that generally ambassadors are not widely held in high esteem. They usually have an evangelistic streak and tend operate primarily in a transmit/advocacy mode.

For me the term ambassador carries all sorts of connotations including imperialism, elitism and sophistry.

I would not expect and ambassador to be impartial - quite the opposite in fact.

So what if they were re-branded as SE Advocates? They would then be doing what it said on the tin.

[Rob Greenland]

Good point Mike. The transmit idea is pertinent. In this brave new world of blogs, relationship marketing, two-way communication with customers, viral marketing and all that, the idea of ambassadors does have something slightly old-fashioned about it, like old-style push marketing. A review of what they're doing is probably timely.

[David Floyd]

In general, the scheme seems slightly confused.

In terms of some of the very high profile Ambassadors, it's not really clear what they're supposed to be doing as Ambassadors that they wouldn't have been doing anyway.

In terms of the more up-and-coming people involved, it's unclear what the programme is offering to them that justifies them taking time out from running their extremely small businesses to promote social enterprise as a general concept.

£600K might not be the world's biggest budget for a government-sponsored promotional campaign but you'd think SEC would at least have been asked to come up some clear targets about what it might achieve.

[Nick Temple]

It's tricky for me to comment in specific terms, as a consortium partner. I would only repeat what I've written elsewhere:

- that it has taken time to bed down (ambassadors weren't appointed / launched till mid October) as a programme and a partnership

- that the big goals (foster a culture, raise awareness) set by government had to be broken down...and have been, by the group as a whole

- that there's been a balance of direction and co-creation (i.e. ambassadors wanted/asked to input/help shape the programme) which has taken time

- that there have been some successes, but there is much more to do...and it needs to be more targeted (this has formed the basis of all the planning going forward);

The only point I'd really disagree with from above is that it's unclear what the programme offers the 'up-and-coming' people; two things on this:

1) the programme was about people volunteering to give up a certain amount of time to promote / advocate for the social enterprise movement; not about what they would get out of it

2) nevertheless, there have clearly been beneficial side-benefits and outcomes for the ambassadors that has come with the legitimacy and credibility of the post; the vast majority will tell you that

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Other than that, it's somewhat inevitable that a group of social entrepreneurs will be a fairly lively group, but their diversity and passion is what makes this group what it is.

I'm looking forward to trying to help the programme make the most out of the next two years.

[Nick Temple]

And, Rob, imagine if I started a blog post saying the same about Leeds! Please pass on to Francis that he's welcome to come to stay in one of the finest cities in the world any time he likes. When he's older and stuff, obviously....

[Rob Greenland]

Thanks Nick, good to hear your perspective from the inside the programme.

Feel free to ask the same question about Leeds! As a city that appears to model its identity around shopping and clubbing, I think it'd be a legitimate question. Ask the same question about Liverpool (my real home town) and you might get the ten minute response. :-)

I'll pop Francis on the train this afternoon. He'll have a luggage label round his neck and some jam sandwiches under his hat.

[Martin Cooper]

Interesting reading the post and comments here. thanks for this blog!

Along with the new economics foundation, i'm working on the programme's evaluation.

As Nick mentioned, particularly with evaluating the longer term changes the programme is trying to bring about it's obviously early days, but one of the most interesting areas to me is the impact on those people who've previously never even heard of social enterprise. I think the point above about advocacy/ ambassadors is a fascinating one in that one of the (many) areas for the evaluation will be looking at the response to the Ambassadors from people who have attended events or talks they have given, and whether they take further action (whether it's thinking, reading something or starting up their own social enterprise) as a result.

So broadly, i'm looking forward to gathering some data to see if (and how) people respond to the idea and engagement of 'Ambassadors' or not (or both...)...

*cough* plug *cough*...a survey related to this can be found by clicking on the link top right of the Ambassadors home page: http://socialenterpriseambassadors.org

[Rob Greenland]

Thanks for the comment Martin. I'll be interested to read the evaluation - particularly how people have responded to the Ambassadors - and perhaps acted as a result. I'll have a look at your skilfully plugged survey.