Liam's got issues: January 2011

I’m 50. The big Five Oh. I had expected it to be the Big Five Aaaagh but I’m remarkably Zen about it. Breathe. I’m in good health, have an amazing family and network of friends and, with talented business partners, a successful little company doing cool stuff. And, as I’m sure you’ll agree dear reader, have retained my boyish good looks.

Fundamentally I’m a pessimistic man. Expect the worst to happen, look for the downside to everything. Ongoing, endemic inequality, poverty, injustice, violence and exploitation. What more evidence do we need that this primate Homo Sapiens is simply a virus on the earth that will burn itself off through stupidity and greed? Hard to stand in the stinking slums of Dhaka watching kids scavenge amongst shit and garbage and come away with anything but contempt for a species that lets it happen. Pass the whiskey.

And yet over three decades my working life has always been kind of socially enterprising. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. Gramsci said that. I have been involved with - as employee, leader or founder – more than a dozen social ventures, all but three of which are alive and kicking. Furniture Resource Centre. Create. Bulky Bob’s. Cat’s Pyjamas. Fifteen. I know many of these enterprises have inspired and encouraged others to have a go or keep going.

My motivations – those I understand anyway - have always been mixed. Part genuine, often anger driven desire to change the world, part narcissism and ‘look at me aren’t I great’ posturing. Pleasing my mum and not becoming my father are in there somewhere too. Fairly typical of social entrepreneurs – at root there is always something about proving something to themselves or someone else. Scratch the surface and there is a broiling mess of impulses and mixed intentions.

Social enterprise? Still too much hype and not enough evidence. It’s like teenagers and sex. Everyone is talking about it but few are doing it. Or doing it right! The not for profit model social enterprise is not the new business paradigm and if there are solutions to the big challenges we face they won’t come from heroic individual social entrepreneurs no matter how many awards they get or how good they are at public speaking. It’s about networks, cross sector collaboration, unlikely alliances, much cleverer ways of channeling money and people. Or maybe it’s not.

So, on with the next five decades.

Contact him via thesamewavelength.com or via Twitter @LiamABlack