BUS 274 Reflection Journal

  Summary: This week I learned about Lean Startup and Business Model Canvas.   I also learned about the differences between Nonprofit Organizations, Social Businesses, and Corporate Social Responsibility.   Response to a video: This week was the presentations on our social innovation organizations.   I learned the most from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) video on Burt’s Bees.   I do not think that I really understood what practicing CSR in a company really meant prior to this week.   Really, it seems to me that any company can be conscious of their impact on social, economic, and environmental issues.   I had not thought of that until I watched this presentation.   I also learned that Burt’s Bees does not just support human and honeybee health but they also give grants and donate money to nonprofit organizations, thus growing their business in a way where they are able to give back to society in monetary means.   This present...

Summary: This week I learned why and how businesses can help solve social problems as well as a model of how the social venture not only can solve social problems but in a sustainable way.   I learned about raising capital and what those capital sources are.   Lastly, I learned about a successful social entrepreneur in Vera Cordeiro and how grit, determination, and help from others can make an organization not just work but thrive.   Response to a reading: I loved reading about Vera Cordeiro and how Renascer came to be.   Being able to put together her upbringing, her need to help others and empathy in doing so made sense in how Renascer not only was formed but has grown throughout the years.   I also loved having another example of how great ideas are formed everyday but it’s the ones doing the actual work that get it done.   Cordeiro could not do it alone.   She had to have volunteers, donations, and later the help of McKinsey in being able to ...

Summary: This week I learned about the Theory of Change and how its end results come through our outputs that lead to outcomes and impacts.   I also learned how to measure and improve my social impacts by considering the path of action I take before jumping right in.   Lastly, I learned the importance of having a mission statement to work by and to have it centered around a verb and a target that leads to a desired outcome.   Response to reading: One of the readings this week got my attention as it pointed back to past readings.   The “ Measuring and Improving Social Impacts: A Guide for Nonprofits, Companies, and Impact Investors” provided a Social Impact Creation Cycle that asks questions that lead to maximizing social impact.   The first 2 questions reminded me of what I learned in week 2 in our readings.   The first question in the cycle, “What will you invest?” brought up the suggestion that you use your “expertise.”   In week 2 we read, “ W...

S ummary: This week I learned what design thinking and human-centered design is and how they could be used in social situations like eradicating poverty.   Models for design thinking can help pinpoint aspects of the process in which we get to a testing stage of our ideas that may help or stop the social issue.   Lastly, I learned that creative confidence, even when once lost at a time, can be learned or relearned. Response to video: Something that got my attention this week in my studies was from the video, “How to Build Your Creative Confidence” by David Kelley.   His Ted Talk was on discovering or rediscovering everyone’s creative confidence but what stood out to me was the role that fear had on hindering this confidence.   We can have empathy and we can use design thinking as well as prototyping, but if fear gets mixed in the process, our “creative juices” don’t flow as well.   Sometimes fear comes in the form of someone insulting your creative idea or fail...

  Summary: This week I learned how social innovation is about solutions.   Those solutions are found by figuring out problems that caused them in the first place.   This can be done through understanding wicked problems, using the 5 whys, and understanding analysis’ (root cause, cause and effect, and Fishbone). Response to readings: I found myself understanding a concept from another class because of this class!   In my Advocacy and Advertising class I was learning tips for effective client relationship management.   One of the tips did not sit right with me.   The tip was to help the company (the person or company that the brand name client was hiring for advertising means) to defend their creative work when the client decides not to go with the idea.   I understand defending one’s work, but I did not agree with the suggestion that if the client decided not to go with the idea, that they were “bullying” them.   That is a strong word to desc...

Summary: Like in the previous week, I learned what social innovation was but more in depth this week.  Social innovation works because of aspects within like the Economic Pyramid/Triangle, understanding the spectrum, and the role microfinance and impact investors play.  But before being able to use this information I need to know my talents, gifts, and callings in life as they will guide me in which direction to go in social innovation but also by using them, making my efforts successful.  I learned that even though not everyone can be a social entrepreneur, they can help in other ways to help a social cause in being a volunteer, donor, or advocate.  Response to a reading: In chapter 3 of “How to Change the World” by David Bornstein, a social entrepreneur in the book, Fabio Rosa, received an award for applying technology to benefit humanity.  In his acceptance speech he said, “I love technology.  I believe it is the principal force to bring change to humani...

Summary: I learned what was expected of me in this class through the orientation, syllabus, and links provided.  After I was fairly certain that I understood these things, I moved on to the icebreaker assignment.  Lastly came the topics of the week which were finding out what social innovation was through videos and links provided to study.  Response to a video and reading: Watching the video “Making a change through Social Entrepreneurship” and then reading “The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship” opened my eyes to supporting organizations that are for-profit.  I often support local and national non-profit organizations because they are non-profit.  The idea that someone would make money off of social issues did not feel right at all!  But when the part of the video introduced the idea that for-profits were not only for profit but for society, community, education, environment, and so forth I decided I better watch closely because BYU-Idaho surely w...