Targeted marketing and innovation support
for knowledge organizations

Welcome to Targeted marketing and innovation support: for knowledge organizations. As an innovation professional, you have received this quarterly newsletter because you have either participated in a Calibre activity or you have requested information from us or from one of our associates on marketing and innovation support. Subscribers get discounts to Calibre events and regular free work tools. If you do not wish to receive our innovation alerts, please unsubscribe below.

Economic crisis spawns new business models, brokers

At the recent Global Social Venture Symposium and Competition hosted by Thammasat University in Bangkok (18-20 March 2008), a panel of financial and business experts pointed to the growth of support for microfinance and increased funding of social ventures as evidence that a new model of business practice may be emerging. They suggested that the excessive focus on  personal wealth accumulation many believe contributed to the global economic crisis is being repudiated in many circles in favor of deeper thinking about the implications of business practice and its impact on the market. 

Nathaniel Manning, representative of the Clinton Initiative, said than, in contrast to many philanthropic initiatives dependent upon donations, investment funding for commercial and non-profit ventures with demonstrated social benefits continues to be healthy. KIVA pioneer, Brooke Estin, said web support for personal microfinance continues to be attractive to many private individuals, some investing as little as $25. She reported that the innovative microfinanace broker (see link below) has invested over US$70M in 7 years, with a repayment rate by loan recipients of 98%. 

Sarinee Achavanuntakul, former investment banker and now a Bangkok-based finance journalist, reported that a study on Thai village banks has revealed that, in Thailand, microfinance bankers have discovered that many villagers responded well to Thai monks and temples who have accepted a role as volunteer financial intermediaries. All panelist agreed that government support and alignment with governement strategy is critical to encourage innovative investment models.
 

Milan workshop focuses on 'Ten great ideas for marketing innovation'

In recent months, many established businesses, some of them icons in the business world, have stumbled over internal and external obstacles, including poor planning, weak innovation cultures, entrenched and unsustainable business practices, low consumer confidence, and, in some cases, lamentable professional ethics. The business media has made it abundantly clear that many of these businesses have stumbled too seriously to ever recover their stride.

Executive teams concerned by these developments are looking for inspiration, new directions and more resourceful partners. With the pressure on knowledge organizations to come up with new ideas to help business partners reinvent industrial innovation, it has never been more important to have skillful and creative knowledge and innovation managers in our emerging businesses, universities and research organizations.

‘Ten Great Ideas for Marketing Innovations’ is a workshop scheduled over two half-days (14 and 15 May 2009), hosted jointly by TII, ProTon Europe, and NetVal Italy, and offered by the innovation management veteran agency, Calibre Communications. The workshop brings together exciting new business development trends and innovation management best practice. Soundly researched methodological insights are illustrated by case studies of how these practices have been successfully applied in knowledge organizations in Europe, Australia, and the United States.

Enthusiastically received by participants at a recent prestigious Stanford Ventures Program Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education as offering ‘one of the most useful essential skills frameworks we have seen’, this workshop will help your staff and organization improve internal and external innovation management, with insights delivered in a fun, enjoyable, and practical manner. Highlights of the workshop and registration details can be viewed at the following link:

For more information, see: http://www.tii.org/2009Workshop_Milano

Sharp sites

• Learn more about KIVA, the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world at www.kiva.org. The site also has a comprehensive list of micrifinance institutions working throughout the world.
• Rice University in Houston is hosting a competition for young entrepreneurs April 16-18. Learn more at: http://alliance.rice.edu/alliance/RBPC.asp
• The Global Social Venture Business Plan Competition for MBA students will be held in Berkeley 23-24 April. The GSVC, hosted by UC Berkeley Haas Business School, has been preceded by regional competitions hosted by regional partners, Thammasat University, London Business School, and the Indian School of Business. Learn more at: http://www.gsvc.org

International MBA course encourages SE Asian social entrepreneurship

Thammasat Unversity (Bangkok, Thailand, through its International MBA program and its sponorship of a regional social venture competition, works with young business professionals who are keen to build corporate and social entrepreneurial companies in the highly entrepreneurial but politically complex S.E. Asia region.

A module of the 2009 social and corporate entrepreneurship course was taught by Judith Mercure, Calibre Communications Principal. Fourteen bright young entrepreneurs applied a mix of job tools to help hypothetical 'intraprises' achieve the six Key Success Indicators experts most commonly associate with successful intraprises: creative and disciplined ideation; strategic clarity; intensive environmental scanning; effective teams and open, quality communication; process and product innovation; and effective handoffs and launches. For more information about the course and student capabilities, see www.bus.tu.ac.th/imba