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Welcome to the brave new world of social media gamification. The first challenge I took up after signing on to Empire Avenue was for World Wildlife Federation.

Will update about my experiences here once I get my head around it.

The guy who knows a lot about this, whom I trust more than a lot of sharks swimming around, is Alister Cameron. He writes about blogging and its power. He knows a lot..

Questions, given the context of this blog:

1. Will gamification add to the power of social marketing?
2. What kinds of unintended consequences might pop up?
3. How can I use gamification to make it a try part of the Haverin Books product, rather than simply a way of marketing and promotions?

Watch this space.

Here's the link if you want to join the experiment...

Books en primeur

The blueprint for this business is starting to diverge. There's the publishing stuff that I can do - that I love doing - but which takes experience and skill, and contacts. I already have a really distinct sense of where I could take that and what is the nature of the various risks associated with the different titles and products. This is a very personal business, but I don't know just how far one can go with being a writer and publisher and trying to design the business so you can sell it to someone else later. It's a bit like those intense hobby shops that live and die by their owners (Bernard Black, notably), but which are virtually worthless if you try a trade sale. Plus, you can't duplicate them. If I can, I will, but maybe putting off doing something just because you can't replicate and scale it isn't a good idea. It might be that the most important thing is to make a start and see what happens later.

With the social enterprise, I think I know where to take that one, too. It would be a community-owned frachise that makes money providing services that have traditionally almost no margin and are therefore usually very ably provided by volunteers or very shittily (new adverb) by operators who will tolerate impossibly narrow returns. I am thinking, for example, of the provision of school lunches or stationery supplies. More on that one later.

In the meantime, the publishing business could get off the ground by selling goods en primeur. Nobody would buy a caseload of the same title as they would wine, but they might buy a mixed case of product that they could on-sell at a profit. It is in this direction that Haverin Books needs to head. I am beginning to get my bearings and I now have a good feeling for which way is North.

How pure am I? Designing a social enterprise from the ground up

I do my best thinking when I'm on a little journey somewhere. When I was a teenager, it was those endless trips in my parents' car or on the train; as an adult, it's my habit of going for a good wander. Sometimes, the wander is in the car, sometimes, it's on foot. (Occasionally, very occasionally, it's on skis). Once upon a time, when I was younger, it was running.

Sometimes the goal is to come up with a solution to a specific problem, either of content (what do I want to write?) or of form (how should I design that project so it works?) In that case, I use a special rule: on the trip out, I can whinge and carry on all I like about the problem, but when I get to the point of turning around to come back, I must begin the journey of solving it, and when I arrive back, I must have solved it. The journey then has its own in-built deadline.

At other times, the job is too creative to be forced, and needs to be coaxed out. For this, window shopping often works, particularly in old-fashioned shopping strips. Sometimes in art galleries or museums.

Today, I took the dog for a walk in the town where we are planning to relocate, about twenty minutes away. (She was really excited and wanted to sniff everything; she was in such a happy mood she didn't even really notice the small fluffy dogs walking past, which she would normally try to inhale).

The problem I was prodding at today was: so what kind of organisational (and financial) structure would work?

The point is, I have cracked upon a little bit of the problem of the business model. It needs to be able to serve the needs of the community in providing a safe haven at work for people who are vulnerable in the world of work. But at the same time, I'm not helping anyone if my family goes broke. So how to mix the two?

Key entrepreneurial question - who is the ultimate 'natural owner'?

The first key strategic question about any entrepreneurial effort is, who is the natural owner of the business, once it is established and stable? The answer is, the community.

So the next question is, how can that be manifest? The old-fashioned way of doing something like this would be to simply give it away - put it in the hands of a responsible trustee of some kind and hope for the best. But how could the social enterprise be designed so that it has built-in longevity? (And... grudgingly, the possibility of being replicated?)

What if I used the idea used by the Bendigo Bank in its Community Bank franchises? (For readers unfamiliar with this, it's a system of franchising bank branches to communities, who operate them and have a board and shareholders in that particular branch). What if the enterprise was designed so that individuals in the community, plus local institutions and service providers, could own shares in it in just the same way? If so, should this be a co-op or a company?

I am leaning towards a company, but one which has explicit values about re-investing any profits back into its operations, and pays dividends in the form of services rather than cash. Shareholders could come and go, trading their shares in if they moved out of the community, or buying some if they became a supporter/partner.

So where does that leave me and my family? How can I set it up so it provides this social good without creating an inherent conflict of interest built in to it?

What do I want out of it? Do I want to make a profit when I exit, so I can go and start something else? Do I explain to the initial board that, unlike the other shareholders, I need to take dividends in cash? How do we value the shares?

How pure am I?

Clearly, this blog has a way to go. Stay tuned.

Getting your elders and betters to inadvertently goad you into action

I had a contact request from a former client recently (Mark Smith) (Hi!), whose business (Nexstep) I used to find very inspiring, and whose colleagues at the business also inspired me.

So I fixed up my Linkedin account to better reflect what I'm up to, including all this Haverin Books plotting and planning.

This is an expansion of what I wrote:

I am putting together a crowdfunding proposal for two product groups directly in my area of expertise. But I am taking my time over it as I want the company to be sustainable, and, therefore, the financial side needs to be sustainable. (Read - I am being a bit of a scaredy-cat).

Even though it will start out as crowd-funded, I would like to attract more serious, committed funding in the future and so do not want the venture to look like the first horse in the second race at Randwick or Flemington. (Read, I want to be taken seriously, even though I have called the business Haverin Books. Oh well).

These are the products I want to start with:
1. tourism souvenirs tailored to specific towns and their events - main market tourist information centres and cafes. Most VICs and tourist towns carry either old-fashioned, unattractive souvenirs or very trendy but non-location-specific souvenirs
2.a book for single mothers about looking after their legal and financial affairs - main market social services organisations' clients

Both publications will have some freebie (and almost-freebie) side-products eg an app or online resource. Most resources for women are difficult to read for women who are time-poor and some of whom have not had the education to fight back when necessary (not understanding why lawyers say things in certain ways is an example of such barriers).

These are the human beings I want to start it with: long-term unemployed single mums (or dads). The team will:
1) turn over in a controlled manner, fairly frequently, because the goal is to support people in a workplace whilst they train for something they want to be in the wider world. Sort of like a half-way house for 'homeless workers'. There it is. I buried the lead.
2) as much as is legally and ethically possible, provide extra support compared to normal workplaces (eg going to see a counsellor would not raise an eyebrow or be taken out of personal leave)
3) this is going to require buy-in from a social service agency of some sort as I will need a partner with this kind of expertise.
4) this will also require partnership with a vociational training organisation of some kind.
5) the traineeships would be things like customer service, bookkeeping, graphic design or its precursor.
6) provide a radical model for what's possible in terms of workplace flexibility. For example, install a washing machine and dryer in the back room? Provide old fridges and freezers in the back room so workers can either trade backyard or homemade food or simply get online grocery deliveries. ie incorporate things that give families back some time, where it does not really impact on the business (who's going to care if an employee is away from her desk for the 2 minutes it takes to transfer washing?).

So you can instantly see the problem. The product and the workforce do not, at the moment, match. But I will keep at this idea until I can out the puzzle together correctly. Thus this blog.

This business is based on the idea that disadvantage is not necessarily caused by lack of intelligence or ability. Down the road from where I live, there is Wesley Fire and Clay, which has re-invented what we might have once called a sheltered workshop into something vibrant and enmeshed in its community, which interacts with the public at fairs and markets.

This business is based on the principle that there are many talented, thoughtful, energetic women (and men), who just need a bit of support whilst they train, in addition to learning the skills they don't teach you at TAFE or uni: how to be both a commited, loving parent and a skilled, valuable worker at the same time, with minimal conflict between the two.

Note: there is another business that could be built along these lines but I don't have the skills to start or run it: a cafe that has a catering arm that provides healthy school lunches to schools which don't have their own canteens.

So this is classic Jenny MacKinnon. Couldn't just yearn for a healthy business that makes money. Turns her back on the obsession with growth/replicatability. Wants instead the 'replicability' to be about spreading personal growth and dignity rather than increasing EBITDA. And I don't care if someone rips off my idea - in fact, wouldn't it be fantastic?