For Purpose/For Profit Orgs

Why Be Disruptive, When You Can Be Generative? Friday Afternoon with MakeLoveNotPorn

May 23, 2014

Tweet Some businesses aim to make money. Some businesses aim to disrupt their industries. The very best businesses aim even higher — to generate new opportunity for each and every stakeholder. It was Friday afternoon clean-up-my-office time. That ‘end of the year, has it come down to this?’-moment of reckoning. Maybe while I sort out piles and […]

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Are All Generative Businesses a Little Naughty? The case of MakeLoveNotPorn

April 3, 2014

Tweet No startup challenges our norms about ‘appropriate business’ more than MakeLoveNotPorn. MakeLoveNotPorn (MLNP) is a user-generated crowdsourced video platform that celebrates “real world sex”. MLNP is a legal, lucrative, and liberatory disruptor of the adult entertainment industry. It’s also a profoundly generative business. MLNP is generative not because it’s naughty, but because of how it’s […]

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Generativity, in General

March 28, 2014

Tweet The word ‘generative’ may be unfamiliar to many business people, but the quality of generativity is something we’ve sought in our companies and our work practices for a long time.   Something is generative when it’s able to create something new, something original, or something alive. A generative idea produces new ideas, a generative process […]

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Justin Bieber and The Boost Economy. Really.

September 5, 2012

Tweet Even pop stars are creating their own Boost economies. Yes, Justin Bieber is a pioneer of the New Economy.  According to this profile of Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, by the New Yorker’s Lizzie Widdecombe, there’s a whole Boost Economy built around the floppy-haired teen idol. The Bieber-Braun business network is a great demonstration of Boost […]

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Investigating The Boost Economy

May 24, 2012

Tweet For some time now, I’ve been trying to identify the thread that ties together all the different topics I write about here on AuthenticOrganizations. Other than the fact that they interest me, what is the underlying theme that links topics as different as: how social technologies change organizations, why meritocracies hurt women, action branding […]

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Is there a Business Model behind that Values Statement?

March 1, 2012

Tweet There are many fledgling businesses that have laudable intent and shaky commercial foundations.   This is a problem because, in an ideal world, the businesses that stand for values we share should also be able to sustain themselves as businesses. That’s the key premise underneath social entrepreneurship and conscious capitalism. Purpose-driven organizations need compelling values, but they also need […]

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Communities of Commerce: Where the Marketplace is also the Meaning Place

January 11, 2012

Tweet Networks of people and organizations are usually either “markets” or “communities”. It bothers us that networks fit one or the other model of working together, because we envision something more –something both market and community —  in one network. We are often disappointed when markets don’t exhibit a commitment to any values other than […]

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The “New” Crisis of Meaning?

October 4, 2011

Tweet What’s up with the word “new” in the phrase “meaning is the new motivator”? From all corners of the interwebz conversation about ‘business’, I see mention of this idea that meaning at work is something new, something that we have just begun to desire. Seriously. It seems to come as a surprise, or as […]

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Purpose is the Killer App: Why Organizations Need Social Business Tools

July 12, 2011

Tweet What will it really take to get organizations to adopt social media tools inside the enterprise? Mere numbers won’t compel us, so don’t count on ROI. The shiny object syndrome won’t hold our attention, so back off with the bells and whistles. And, please, don’t work on us with peer pressure. We’re above trying […]

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Make Distinctiveness Matter by Linking It To Organizational Purpose

June 14, 2011

Tweet Does it really matter if an organization is “distinctive”? When an organization’s distinctiveness (identity) is linked with the organization’s purpose (greater social goal), the organization’s unique qualities provide the unique resources needed to achieve that purpose. Organizational Distinctiveness is more than Positioning Managers often dismiss the concept of organizational “distinctiveness”, thinking that distinctiveness is […]

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