Flynn Coleman argues that entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to drive social impact. He references Dan Pink's shift from the information age to the conceptual age, discusses Pia Mancini's work, and explores how giving and positive psychology shape entrepreneurial decision-making.
Chapters
So let's get ready to rock it. So everyone's here, or do you even have a choice, for Changing the World: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Social Impact?
Yes.
Yes, are we all here for that?
Yeah.
OK, cool. So I'll get into my story a little bit as we go down the road, and there'll be time for questions later. But I'm just going to get started if that works for everyone. How's that sound?
Yeah.
OK. So here we go. So first, to welcome everyone, I'm so excited to be here. I'm going to welcome you all with a quote from one of my favorite children's books authors, Roald Dahl, who says, Somewhere inside of all of us is the power to change the world. So shall we get into it? Okay. So before I get started and I start talking, I want to ask you, what do you think of when you think of the word social impact? So just shout it out. Anything you think of when you think of the word social impact.
Influence.
Influence. Okay, awesome.
People.
People. Yes, awesome. Setting an example.
Cool.
Disruption. Awesome. Money. Yes. Better life experience for all of us. For others. For others. Beautifully said. Awesome.
Anyone else? Significance.
Say that again.
Significance.
Significance. Love it.
Yes.
Sharing.
Sharing.
Awesome. Anyone else?
Connecting people.
Connecting people. Wow. This is like masterclass.
Anyone else?
Empowering others. Improving the lives of others. Cool. Did you say empowerment?
Awesome. Retention.
Retention? Yeah. Like customer retention?
Yeah.
Right on. Okay, we're going to talk about that. Cool. Anyone else? Getting right down to it. I like it. Anyone else?
Future vision.
Future vision. Beautifully said. I love this.
Anyone else? Global.
Say that again.
Global. Yeah.
Okay.
Perfect.
Anything else? This is a really good start.
Equality.
Equality? Yeah, right on. Okay, cool. Anyone else? All right, well, that's an amazing start. So as you can see, we're going to start to unwrap a lot of those ideas about what we think about when we think about the word social impact. So even just right off the bat, think about, you know, when you hear a word, how loaded it is with meaning already. So can we think about ways to even move past that when we're thinking about this idea moving forward? So Pia Mancini says that Social change is not going to come from just knowing more information, but from doing something with it. So first of all, does anyone know who Pia Mancini is?
No.
You should.
She's Italian.
Yeah, she's Italian. She's awesome. She gave a great TED Talk. She works at the intersection of the internet and democracy. And I work a lot at the intersection of technology and human rights and social impact. So she, of course you've probably never heard of her, but she has this extraordinary talk and this extraordinary idea. So the whole idea is that social change, social impact is not going to come from just having more information. So we're going to get into this a little bit more, but what age are we in right now? So does anyone know what age we're in right now? The information, the digital age, the technology age, right? So, but we're actually moving into a different age. Is anyone familiar with Dan Pink? If you're not, you should be. He wrote— he's actually also a lawyer, he's a journalist, he's done a couple of great TED Talks. But he makes this argument, I do too, and a lot of others do, that while we're currently in the technology or the digital or the information age, We're actually moving into a new age. And so social impact, that's really great, and if you're here to change the world and you're here to do social good, social impact, I'm a human rights lawyer, this is my life's work, that's all really great. But if you're only also here to start a business, to be successful, to be profitable, there's actually kind of urgent economic reasons for us to be thinking about things beyond just having information. So the idea is that Dan Pink says we're moving into what's called the conceptual age. So before, the people with the information had the power, right? Accountants, lawyers, doctors, politicians. But what's happened with information now? It's everywhere, right? So what's actually happened is we're moving into a different age where it's not about just having information. You can get that anywhere. It's what you do with it. Can you be creative with it? Can you conceptualize it? Can you curate it? Can you create something new? So whether you're here about social impact, whether you're here to change the world, or whether you're here to start a really profitable business, There are actually urgent economic reasons for us to be operating at our full conceptual capacity. Not just about information anymore. It's what we do with it and it's how we get creative with it. So entrepreneurship lovers are born for this. So when we're talking about changing the world, social impact, innovation, creativity, the cool thing is that if you love startups and you love entrepreneurship, which you probably all in these beanbag chairs do, right? Am I right? You're actually born for this type of work. So what do I mean by that? So the very same things it takes to be a great entrepreneur, being resourceful, being able to creatively solve problems, being able to do a lot with a little, right, being really creative, really innovative, these are the same skills that it takes to make an impact. So if you love entrepreneurship, if you love startup life, if you love technology, if you love creating new things, which I imagine most if not all of you in this room do, these are actually the very same skills that it takes to make a dent in the universe, to have an impact, to create social impact. It's the very same set of skills. So you're already born for this. So that's the good news. You're basically halfway there.
Okay.
So why does social impact matter? Well, I'll let you answer that in a second. But there's a few reasons why it matters. So the first thing, of course, is social impact matters because it's actually good for business. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about kind of the increasing ways that social impact is really good for business. The other reason social impact matters is it's actually good for you. So it turns out that being generous, giving back, helping others boosts our immune system. It helps us live longer. Is anyone familiar with positive psychology?
Yeah.
Right, okay. So you might have learned a little bit in your curriculum, but the idea is that doing good actually boosts our immune system. It makes us happier, makes us healthier. Like, we literally live longer when we're good people. And the third of many reasons why it matters is that when we talk about social impact, and you've probably heard a lot of buzzwords, we live in a town of buzzwords, right? Human capital, social capital, social impact, returns on investment. We're actually— there really is no such thing as social impact. When we're talking about impact, we're talking about people. We're talking about people's lives. We're talking about environments, communities, families, and people. So it's important to remember when we kind of throw around all these fancy buzzwords that we're talking about actual people, really just like us. So those are some of the reasons that it matters. And Jane Goodall, the very famous primatologist, says that what you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. So this is critical, because there actually is no such thing as not making a difference. Every decision we make— so I teach a lot about decision theory and making decisions. So how many decisions do you think you make in a day? 100, 1,000, 1,500, right? We're making decisions all the time. So the only question is, what difference are we going to make? There's no not making a difference. There's no standing still. There's no being neutral. So the only question in life is which path are you going to take because no matter what, it's going to make a difference. And that's important to think about because no matter what you do, you're going to, you're going to be making a difference. The only question is what kind.
