Social Innovation - a career or a calling?

As models of social entrepreneurship continue to gain the attention of the mainstream business community, it seems that quite a potent debate has developed around who can or can not 'be' a social entrepreneur. And in this same vein, the development of social innovation-focused post-graduate business studies has added a layer to this discussion - can you teach someone to be a social entrepreneur? According to founder of Ashoka Bill Drayton (in Beyond Profit mag Fall 09 issue, p 30) there is one social entrepreneur for every ten million people.

This ratio puts direct emphasis on the 'visionary' social entrepreneurs like Muhammad Yunus, whose inherent revolutionary thinking is disruptive enough to change the patterns accepted as unchangeable by society. But this theory seems to overlook the contribution of the many others who must be involved in order to guarantee the breaking of the pattern at the core of business and its infrastructure.

This second factor would suggest that while a revolutionary is instrumental in setting the tone of leadership in this area, it is crucial to have as part of the team specialists who are willing to break the mould of their own thinking to develop new processes and infrastructure to support the entrepreneur's vision. This is where graduate business schools enter the equation. With the demand of students wanting more exposure to 'social entrepreneurship' in business practice, schools across the world have begun offering MBA programmes tailored to teaching students how they can be a social entrepreneur.

But if social innovation is inherent to a person's character, just like natural musical or sporting ability might be, is it actually possible to teach these skills in a classroom environment? And do we risk institutionalising and bringing bureaucracy to what should otherwise be founded on creativity and different thinking? With the growing concern that being involved in social innovation is like belonging to a particular club of certain individuals, and that you need an MBA qualification to get in (http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/social_enterprise_a_gated_community/), it is important to step back and focus on what is important about social innovation - the shift in thinking that can be achieved and communities who directly benefit from this revolutionary change. It shouldn't matter where social innovation comes from, so long as it can meet these objectives for positive effect.

As for learning how to 'do' social innovation? As Pamela Hartigan, Director of Said Business School's Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, believes, you can't 'teach' social entrepreneurship, but you can learn from being surrounded by like-minded people and learning off each other (http://ow.ly/yAPa). The most important thing about social entrepreneurship is action, and this can't be achieved by locking yourself in a library to study what should 'theoretically' be done. Studying the field will add to the richness of our collective experience, but can only be supplemented by those actively making change and learning from mistakes in practice. So whether it is innate in someone's character, or whether it is learning in an environment of entrepreneurs to hone your own craft , the most important thing about social entrepreneurship is collaboration - not just with other sectors, but within the field itself.

It may take one visionary person to get the ball rolling, but it will require a whole team of people with different skills to keep it moving in the right direction.