Liam Black, from Wavelength, made an interesting comment on Tuesday's post about local food. I'd suggested that the woman in the photo was probably thinking that I was some kind of freak. Liam replied:
"Face it she's right - you are some kind of freak!! But in a good way. You give a shit about important stuff and you say interesting things. That puts you in a very small group indeed Mr Greenland. Why are you demotivated and what are you going to do about that??"
I've been wondering how to promote myself for a while. Liam's solved the problem. "Hello, my name's Rob Greenland, and I'm a freak who gives a shit about important stuff." That'd get Theo and Duncan's attention.
I'm more interested in his question though. "Why are you demotivated and what are you going to do about that?" In the original post I'd said that I'd been out on my bike, partly to stimulate my brain a bit as I wasn't getting the stimulus from the work I was doing.
If you read this blog regularly you'll hopefully appreciate that I aim to be pretty honest about things. There's clearly a risk in me basically questioning whether I'm doing the right thing, given that I earn a living out of the things that I do. But I believe that in being honest good discussions open up - like the one that Liam's started here.
I wrote this in my first blog post of 2009:
...If social business is really something that I want to make a living out of long-term, I have to do things that I think create change.... If this reads as much as a memo to self as a blog post, that's because it is. If you see me chasing money and not creating much change this year, buy all means point me to this blog post.
I don't think I've chased the money, and I've done a fair bit of thinking about what I want to do longer term. I'm still not completely sure what that is - but I'm pretty clear that I don't want to just continue doing what I've done for the past four years.
I've mainly focused on third sector social enterprise stuff - helping third sector organisations to become more enterprising. I think - hope - that I've done some useful work. Yet I've been part of, and become increasingly sceptical of, a social enterprise support industry that at times has felt like the enterprise arm of the UK Government. Don't get me wrong, I'm keen on finding different organisations to deliver public services, and I also like to see organisations find ways to sustain what they do. But I came into this to do more than that.
I won't be jumping into the sea, Reggie Perrin style, with my old social enterprise clothes in a heap on the beach. But I'm keen to explore different ways to create social change - not just in the third sector. I'm not sure what that will be yet, but I think you need to free up space in your life if you want to explore different things. If I continue to work 100% on what I do now (and it seems that there's still plenty of work out there for me) then I'll never get round to doing something different.
Does any of this matter to anyone other than me? I think it does. I don't think I'm alone in being increasingly sceptical about a lot of what goes on in this country under the banner of social enterprise. I'll let Liam speak for himself, but I think his move - into a private company (heaven forbid), working with, yes you guessed it, private companies (alongside social enterprises), is an interesting one. He seems to believe that that's where he can help to create most change.
So Liam, thanks for the question, it was a good one!
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