A number of years ago, I saw a sequence of five fools.
The simple fool knows nothing and must learn everything.
After touching the hot burner the first time, his simplicity begins to
evaporate. He has no clue about money.
The rebellious fool is sure that authority figures are
stupid. After a love in with the faux freedom of the tramp, this fool returns
and submits. He feels the bite of no
money.
The partying fool is a harder case. Often sustained by a
wealthy parent or a welfare entitlement, this person lives a brassy, indulgent
lifestyle until the money runs out. Then he weeps and grasps and swears. His money came easy and went easy.
A mocking fool has a power that is often irresistible.
“Capping” (capitalizing) on other’s misfortunes or eccentricities, this fool is
king of the playground and talkshow, an irrepressible and puckish comedian, quick
to spin lies into truth and drive the honest away under a hail of laughter. Wickedly
biting when confronted, this fool usually ends up in some prison of life. He may have a lot of money, but it is very
bitter.
The committed fool is the toughest bird. Smart, diligent,
patient and conniving, he ascends to roosts of power, using other fools to achieve
his “divine” ends. Seemingly infallible, he rots away in private, living a
public lie. Here is the hippie professor, the embedded lawyer, the career
politician/lobbyist, the uber rich movie or corporate jet setter. This fool trades in taxes, grants, stocks,
commodities, pleasures, carbon credits, and the souls of men. He profits smartly
in war or peace, in socialism or capitalism, and proudly mocks life after death
to his own peril.
A couple of days ago, I went to a conference designed to
empower entrepreneurs.
Mark Burnett was there to keynote his rags to riches
story. Did you know that the producer of “Survivor”, “The Voice”, “Apprentice” and the recent co-producer with Roma Downey
of the surprise major hit mini-series, “The Bible”spent the first two years of
life in America as a nanny to a Hollywood millionaire. How is that for an
entrepreneurial cocoon? His first business was selling t-shirts after renting a
few feet of fence space on a California beach.
I was invited to this conference
by a local business tycoon who loves to make and give money. He has embedded a passion
for excellence and giving in his sons, one of whom spent years in southern
Europe, helping survivors of the recent ethnic wars to regain a livelihood. The
son helped families build very low cost greenhouses, and then apply cutting
edge plant technologies to grow food ahead of season for hungry urban markets.
For me, the most interesting insight of this conference
for me was not Mark Burnett. Rather, it was a presentation of a less known
social change businessman, examining a major world phenomenon, cocooning and accelerating
entrepreneurs in markets of war or poverty torn nations.
Is the United States a poverty torn nation? It appears to
be coming such. At any rate, entrepreneurial acceleration is a hot topic
everywhere. For example, groups like UnitingCreatives (Bellingham) have as a core component the acceleration of
entrepreneurs. I asked John Priddy, CEO of Priddy Brothers and chairman of Full Circle Exchange his opinion of
university driven entrepreneurial incubators.
Full Circle Exchange “…empower(s)women and whole communities to rise above poverty through economic
opportunities that are sustainable and dignified". The case in point?
Rwanda. A country that saw millions of fathers wiped out in a few months of
genocidal warfare in the early 1990’s, Rwanda became a nation of widows and
orphans.
Full Circle Exchange partnered years ago with two Rwandan
sisters whose passion, after God and family, was business and social change.
Today, 4000+ women in 52 cooperatives produce quality crafts for world markets.
Supported by retailers like WalMart and Macy’s,
FCE has brought hope and sustainable living back to Rwanda.
Seed money separates two competing models of
entrepreneurial acceleration. University/non profit based
entrepreneurial accelerators live and die by grants and donations,
where significant funds are diverted to the salaries of professors/facilitators
and their corporate supply line. Tax or donor based, this model is usually big
and splashy, inefficient and regularly inscrutable.
Market supported, business
profit funded entrepreneurial accelerators provide small loans to individual
cash strapped entrepreneurs themselves (not their “teachers”). Loans not paid
back can be written off as charitable gifts. Accelerator overhead is much
smaller, and quick, quiet independence of new entrepreneurs is the focus of
training, not reports to donors by the trainers. Evaluation is constant, and
failed ideas are very quickly scrapped.
What about co-op or church driven entrepreneurial
social change accelerators? I finish with this story. A Whatcom County church
was approached by a local businessman who wanted to have a community garden.
The produce would be given to the local food bank. Dozens of volunteers signed
up to man the greenhouses. The reality? The businessman and three helpers
currently do most of the work.
I asked the businessman, why not treat the volunteers as
budding entrepreneurs? Why use a donor model? After growing a “loan” of lettuce
plugs, why not allow young helpers to share some produce with the food bank,
convert the rest to cash, paying back the loan, giving some cash away, and taking
some cash home? Is that “dirt-y” money? (Pun intended).
Co-ops and churches operate with a segregated, manager:supporter
based model. Buyers or donors feel good when they buy or give, but cross
discipline insights come much harder and slower. The scalpel of change is
easily “lost” by elected managers and ministers.
On the other hand, market supported social change activists
check profits constantly, and with that momentum, intimately and frequently
measure the social benefits they are providing. Entrepreneurs see profit checks
and balances as keys to growth, not disturbances to equilibrium. They drive
hard to give a hand up, not a hand-out.
Note One: not all entrepreneurs have huge profit margins.
Social change businessmen often have much less glamorous bottom lines than
large scale urban village property developers.
Note Two: federal
and state “nanny-state” minor work laws significantly limit youthful exposure
to entrepreneurs. Up with sitting under professors. Down with working beside
entrepreneurs. Does Froebel’s “play alone is a child’s work” model actually
lower our quality of life? Is the communitarian, urban lifestyle an advance or a regression? Does social
equity flourish in well watered communitarian hot houses, or in rough,
independent resource areas?
Note Three: A new idea is benefit corporations. Are they
good? If solely driven by entrepreneurs, probably. If, as is more likely, a tool
for non-profits to fleece entrepreneurs and to feather the nests of
public:private partners, probably not. There are reasons for policies limiting
insider trading and no-bid government contracts.
What do you think? Are professors indispensable to social
improvement and entrepreneurial acceleration? Do non-profit environmental community
organizers really provide the best community model? Are all businessmen greedy,
polluting scum? How should these sectors be balanced off in public policy? Is
the protection of welfare agencies the first priority in government
legislation? Does proposed legislation fill the coffers of the predatorial
“committed fools” described above?
I know what I think. That is why we push our children to see
wisdom and folly in “money” at all levels, to challenge BOTH non-profit
environmental activists AND businessmen, and to change culture as entrepreneurs
first, and then, maybe as college professors, co-op leaders, social service
case managers or religious ministers.
-- JK
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