Reflection Journal #7

 Business and Social Issues

How do we address social issues? Is business important in addressing social issues? What business models are best in addressing social issues? These questions lead to more questions, but the reality is that a business model is developed to build a customer base and improve profit. Impact can be delivered in similar ways and business models like the lean start-up is extremely applicable to social issues. Lean start-ups get customer feedback from the start of their process and develops products based off customer input rather than starting with a business plan and product and then finding customers for the product. With social innovations, the customers are known, but the way to meet their needs are not always clear. Using the lean start-up model customer input can be used to help develop products that have true impact.



This video shows how Bio Lite is innovating and how they have used lean start-up business modeling to impact lives across the world.

https://youtu.be/mV1MRlhLnWQ

Bio Lite is a social business who sell efficient, energy producing stoves and solar panels to outdoorsmen and also develop products to address people's needs for energy access and clean cookstoves. They met with customers to find out what needs were there that they did not see. This led to meeting with women to determine how cookstoves are used. There were needs that included cultural traditions, taste of food, and ease of use that were used to develop the product. This was an essential step in their social impact. Involving the customers in the development stage helped BioLite avoid some of the pitfalls that other companies and governments experienced by providing products to address customer's needs that did not truly meet the needs that customers had.

Business skills can help me  help others in a variety of ways. Communication, writing and organization skills that benefit individuals in business also help people in other areas of life. Using the skills of organization, marketing and product development can help address social issues in more beneficial ways that simple donations or volunteer hours. These skills can help facilitate lasting change and development of organizations that make differences in addressing worldwide problems.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 11

Image
 IMPACT INVESTING Does how we invest our money really matter? Is it enough to know that our investments are making us money or is there more to consider? Enter-Impact Investing. The world's population of investors seems to be more aware of the needs of others and more interested that they use their money for good, especially if they are able to still make a profit on their investments. Impact investing does both. It allows financial resources to be used in ways that bring a social benefit while still having a return on the investment. This area of investing is a growing market as more and more individuals and companies recognize the importance of using their resources to positively impact the lives of their fellow man. This Ted Talk stood out to me. This is more than a trend and is impacting areas from environment to adequate childcare. What we do with our money matters, and we can become involved in social impact fairly easily by changing the way we invest to included Impact Inves...
Read more

Reflective Journal #2

Image
  The main ideas this week centered on being the change in our communities and in the world. What does this mean to me?   What is my role? These are two of the questions that the materials studied this week tried to answer or inspire internal searching to answer. Martin Luther said that any work could be a calling if in was done in service to mankind. John Calvin stated that we are all endowed with talents and gifts with an imperative that we should use them to serve our fellow men.  There are many heresies that are associated with being the change, including that it can happen if we are lucky, there is only one true calling for each of us, that bliss will come from our calling, that we will get praise of the world or that work gives life meaning but these are not true. The goal with being the change is how can we do good-better, in a self-sustaining way that can be scalable and replicable?  Everyone can be a part of being a change. Finding ways to contribute and how...
Read more