I forget where we first heard the phrase (doubtless one of my fellow fellows will comment to remind me) but "Doing Good by Doing Well" was a phrase that we kept coming back to in our time at Babson. It reflects the idea that entrepreneurial activity in the traditional capitalist sense is not mutually exclusive with doing something that is good for the world and its inhabitants. Cleantech and pharmaceuticals are obvious examples of industries that can have a positive human impact while at the same time being good businesses. In pharmaceuticals it isn't always seen that way; Genzyme seem to be generally regarded as leaders in the field of making their therapies accessible to those who need them, while their larger counterparts are often demonised by press and politicians for the prices of their treatments.
I was reminded of "Doing Good by Doing Well" today by a high-tech startup with no obvious connection to the wellbeing of the world, but which seems to be an important part of the big political story of the day. Twitter (founded in 2006) is one of the channels for communications that seems to be surviving censorship by the authorities in Iran, enabling internal communications and broadcast of information to the outside world. It is interesting to me (a novice twitterati - http://twitter.com/iancyclops) how something I am really using only as a convenient shortcut to update my facebook status is changing the way the world communicates!
It is also interesting how the definition of infrastructure changes over time. When I did my undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Electronic Engineering we thought we knew what infrastructure was. It was electricity, gas, telephones, water, sewerage. You could extend it to the postal service, and it was widely recognised that supermarkets with their vast distribution networks were of national importance, but all these things have in common that they are functions either of government or of big business. Later we could add mobile phone networks to the definition of infrastructure, but it took a long time for the technology to emerge and when finally did it was in the hands of large, well capitalised companies that were either profitable or had clear paths to profit.
How has a social network that is regarded as trivial in the extreme by many (due to it's 140 character message format) come to be a vital part of the infrastructure for the Iranian population? So much so in fact, that it is having knock on effects for its suppliers, and for their other customers: http://blog.twitter.com/2009/06/down-time-rescheduled.html . To many this looks rather like the tail wagging the dog!
With more han $57 million in venture money invested in it Twitter will have a long journey to "Doing Well" and delivering ROI to its investors. It's newfound status as a piece of international ifrastructure seems likely to help with that, but it seems to be "Doing Good" along the way.
Ian
P.S. Of course this isn't the first time that non-infrastructure channels have been vital to international reporting. Amateur radio (a hobby of mine for many years, although now lapsed) has reported many international events, perhaps most famously in the Balkans when an amateur operator in Srebrenica broadcast about the atrocities taking place there. I will always remember listening to the BBC and hearing a scratchy voice in the background as another amateur in Sarajevo translated in heavily accented English: 'Please do something. Whatever you can. In the name of God, do something.'
I wonder what a comparison of reliability looks like between Twitter vs something traditional like USPS? The view last night, at an event for an audience of mobile app developers, was that you got far more downtime using traditional enterprise applications than using stuff in the cloud. I think it's really interesting how clicks seems to beat bricks, at least on this measure...
Well thought out contribution.... indeed the definitions of many a long held word meanings and beliefs are changing. Lots of food for thought here... I am going to come back to this post later as my reflections become clearer. Thank you.
The "doing good by doing well'' was the Jon Carsen's Family Education Network (and more recently Charity auctions market place) case study, if I recall correctly.
- Mubbasher.
Doing well - doing good is something which will stick with me for a very very long time. After working first hand in a venture that was about stopping kids from getting counterfeit medicines using a particular piece of technology, it never ceases to amaze me just how great the role technology can play in helping society at large.
This was a comment recently echoed by Carl J. Schramm, President of the Kauffman foundation in his commencement address to the University of Illinois. In his speech he calls for an army of entrepreneurs to step forwards. Importantly, he recognized that entrepreneurs are more likely to give back, just as he is doing, because entrepreneurs have that unique ability of being able to shape their future and then improve the world for others. Inspiring stuff.
I read an interesting article on BBC entitled 'Twitter hype punctured by study'.
The article was based on a Harvard study, that found that on Twitter, 10% of users generate 90% of content, as opposed to other online social networks where the top 10% of users generate 30%.
Another study this time by Nielsen Online, found that between Feb '08 to Feb '09 visitors grew from 475K to seven million, with the median number of lifetime tweets per user being one.
Time will tell if $57million was a good investment.
Hi David,
That's a really good point. Twitter is a broadcast medium as well as a social network though - and I wonder to what extent that biases the result?
Many of the feeds I subscribe to are high bandwidth news or information feeds that I consider valuable even though I don't interact with them.
Perhaps even though I currently use Twitter in that way, it is less "sticky" for me than other social networks I contribute more to. I guess I could quite easily switch to receiving that information on another channel.
A problem for any technology that shifts the paradigm is how you measure success... I suppose the ultimate answer is cold, hard cash, but that takes a long time to come through!
Very true Ian, the article does point to that "Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends". However with Twitter billing itself as a way to "communicate and stay connected" with "friends, family and co-workers" some might perceive the broadcast medium as a problem, is it one? Again time will tell.
Great topic of debate - and as someone who's relatively new to all this social media (and yes initially was a little sceptic of the hype) I have to admit I've turned that initial skepticism into embracing this new era of online communication.
The internet and applications like twitter are the 5th revolution in media and communications. 1. Print, 2. Telephone, 3. Film, 4. TV and now 5. the internet. We're already seeing it's impact on newsprint, there's starting to be an impact on telephones (e.g. Sykpe) and sites like Hulu/Netflix are now making inroads on even traditional film and TV....
But unlike the previous revolutions which introduced 1-1 conversations and then 1-many broadcasts, this time around (for the first time in history) the internet is doing both - connecting conversations with existing friends and opening the world up to get messages broadcast and in doing so starting conversations out to many many more. Just look what's happening in Iran currently, and what happened in China with Twitter on the anniversary of Tianamen square (they turned it off) because they authorities couldn't monitor the number of conversations taking place.
It's such an exciting time and it's taking hold on a truly global scale - so strikes me there has to be some fantastic opportunities (I wonder what will be the next Twitter)...??
Check out Clay Shirky, on the link below, talk about this exact same topic where he poses the question of not should be embrace this (it's already too late for that) but more how do we make best use of it.
www.ted.com/.../clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html
Thanks for all the feedbak guys!
Mubbasher - is quite right. The line I am misquoting is “to do well by doing good.” which was the ambition of Jon Carson of the Family Education Network.
I have a terrible memory for things like this - I remember ideas but not the exact quotation or it's originator!