Innovative local group started by a former CMU grad - in response to Ketaki's project

http://thenewsexed.org/index.html

Hi all,
I've been following how this project has evolved in the past year or two. When Ketaki discussed her idea for peer-to-peer promise re: active intervention in case of sexual crimes, I was reminded of this. Founder Samantha Bushman is a former CMU Grad.
Sangeeta

Marketing and Inspiring !

After reading the article The dragon fly effect I was amazed at what creative marketing could do and read about determination and will power. The story of Alex Scott and her lemonade stand truly touched me. It just proves that with the right mix of determination (goal), attention, engagement and taking action can make any product excel. Reading these amazing stories, I could relate this to my work with Madura Microfinance (MMF) in India.

MMF works with poor women in rural parts of South India. These women are so poor that making a profit of a mere 20$ / month (Rs.800/-) is a big deal for them. The focus of MMF was women, because the company believed that only women can change a society. They lend loans of ranging from 20 to 100$ to women. Women, who have a particular skill or an idea for a business are only given loans. These women are then put into groups called self-help groups , to help them repay their monthly installments. So the challenge was to work on a marketing campaign to spread awareness of their loan products and organisation. We worked with print and television media catering to the villages. Spreading awareness by pointing to the success stories of women entrepreneurs. Taking the media to these villages and exposing them to life in the villages and the determination of these women to succeed created a huge impact on the media !

One women who was uneducated but able to start and run a successful business of rearing cows. Her husband did not work and soon seeing her succeed at what she did started to help her soon. She was happy that with the money she earned her children were able to go to school and be better educated ! I can say this organization enforced all four wings of the dragonfly effect.

Design thinking is one concept, which I hearing lately in many discussions, group presentations and in articles. This article also had a brief mention of design thinking. In one of my other classes we had a detailed study on P&G's effort to restructure the organisation based on design thinking and its principles. Design thinking focuses on the needs of the customer to design a product rather than creating a product and then targeting it to a specific audience. So, I was wondering would design thinking help in the formation of a product for a social enterprise ? What would be its advantages/ disadvantages?

Marketing a Social Venture.

This weeks article on a marketing strategies, positioning statement and competitor analysis had some great pointers in developing a marketing plan and strategy for a new venture. I wanted to try out some of the tips in the Harvard article on positioning and branding. Since the first time we submitted our concepts I have made some changes to the concept ideas based on the feedback I received in class.

Product offered:

Education workshops to children in age group 13 to 16 years, focusing on making children understand the science of Climate Change through the concepts of Physics and Chemistry. These workshops will have specially designed packages featuring cartoons, games and activities to make learning fun and interactive.

These workshops will be sponsored by Corporates as a part of the budget allocated for Corporate Social Responsibility activities.

Market Segmentation:

One of my market segments would be students in schools. Many schools in India still follow the Colonial British educational system, classes are taught on theoretical bases there is no practical knowledge of the concepts of Physics and chemistry. There is a large gap here. This is an opportunity for my organization to exploit. The customer benefits here will be

• Better understanding of physics and chemistry concepts, leading to an improvement in scores.
• This will in turn lead to an understanding of climate change and global warming, sparking an interest in environmental initiatives.
• Students will then take more care of the environment and also spread awareness among their social circle.

With more research on schools and children age groups , I should be able to focus the product on a particular age group and schools ( public schools, private schools). This will also help to form the target market of the product.

Positioning statement:

The positioning statement though only a line is really hard to develop because it involves answering some though questions

• Who are the customers? – School students in age group 13 to 16 years.
• Set of needs product fulfills? - Aids the learning of physics and chemistry by demonstrating basics of climate change.
• Why is the product the best option to satisfy the needs? – It is a fun and interactive way to learn with cartoons, games and activities.

Statement:

Our product is the most fun and interactive way to learn science among all other educational products because we re-define conventional teaching with cartoons, games and activities.

Competitor Analysis:

Possible competitors might be educational content providers – book publishers, and even tutors. I need to do a complete market research on these sectors.

One question I want to leave you with is, after such a detailed market researching, branding and positioning the product, is it possible the product might fail in the market? What are those uncertainties that me need to accommodate in the business plan to avoid failure?

Welcome to CMU's Social Innovation Incubator!

Social innovation ventures are organizations that directly address a social need through their products and services and derive their financially sustainability through market-based activities rather than indirectly through socially responsible business practices such as corporate philanthropy, equitable wages, or environmentally friendly operations or through the “unrelated business” activities done by non-profits.  Like any entrepreneurial activity, social ventures require creative ideas, meticulous planning, focused execution, and the flexibility to withstand unanticipated challenges and competitive responses.  However, unlike a typical business start-up, they consider positive social impacts to be at least as important as financial returns.  As a result, social ventures can be distinctly different from “pure” business start-ups in a variety of ways including measures of performance, sources of investment capital, organizational form, and the ongoing attraction of talent and support.

This course is for students interested in learning how to start a social innovation venture.  While some participants may ultimately become social entrepreneurs, the course content is applicable to a wide variety of contexts in the public, private, and social sectors.  For example, future policy mavens, corporate bigwigs, nonprofit moguls, and “do good” investors will all find something to take away from topics covered during the semester.  

Since starting almost anything requires substantial effort and the need for financially sustainable solutions addressing the world’s (region’s, nation’s,…) most vexing problems is substantial, the primary mantra for this course will be “go big or go home” (and have fun at the same time), both financially and in the degree of potential social impact delivered by proposed ventures.