Stanford Social Innovation Review Podcast

LaborVoices brings unprecedented transparency to supply chain management to improve social responsibility. In this short audio lecture, Dr. Kohl Gill, CEO of LaborVoices, Inc., discusses his company’s mobile technology platform. He uses crowdsourcing to let workers’ voices bring accountability to supply chain management. Dr. Gill believes that real time information drives improvement in workforce management from both a social responsibility and operational perspective. In this Social Innovation Conversations, Stanford University podcast, Dr. Gill shows how LaborVoices helps to create real-time, long-term relations and communication from supply chain executives to the factory floor. This supports accountability across all stakeholders, creates a better overall work environment, and improves social, environmental, and company performance. Dr. Kohl S. Gill is the CEO of LaborVoices, Inc., providing intelligence to global workers and supply chain executives. Dr. Gill served in the U.S. State Department, as the So

Ned Breslin kicks off the series by telling us where he draws his inspiration from and where he gets his perspective on social change from–punk rock. With a disregard for tradition and a fierce desire to challenge the norm, the punk rock ethos is the heartbeat of a story of social entrepreneurship. To the rise of social entrepreneurship, punk rock offers a narrative by breaking sideways in a world that tends to go straight ahead.  With the immensity of today’s global challenges, Ned argues that the story arc of punk, its relentless push for change, offers important insights into how social entrepreneurs operate everywhere, whether they like punk rock or not. Host Ned Breslin is the CEO of Water For People. Ned found himself working on a water project in northern Kenya in 1987 and never looked back. Twenty years later he moved back to the US to join Water For People as its Director of International Programs, eventually becoming CEO in 2009. He is a recipient of the 2011 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

Being sustainable at the core requires corporate social responsibility that thinks beyond just good works. In this audio lecture, Coca Cola Chief Administrative Officer, Alex Cummings, shares his company’s experience applying environmental sustainability as an essential element to sustainable business. Mr. Cummings relates how Coca Cola aims to double its business in a decade through social entrepreneurship. He describes how they are employing social enterprise to improve packaging and supply chain logistics. They use organic material in plastic bottles and empowering one-woman distribution companies in rural Africa. In this Social Innovation Conversations, Stanford University podcast, Cummings describes how, instead of philanthropic giving, strategic partnerships are used to strengthen corporate citizenship in local communities. Coca-Cola uses renewable resources and recycling projects to enhance environmental sustainability and international development.   https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/supply_chain_envi

Today’s model of consumerism does not prioritize the efficient use of resources throughout the supply chain. Consumers just don’t use the full lifetime of a product. In this talk, e-commerce social entrepreneur and former Walmart sustainability executive Andy Ruben emphasizes opportunities for efficient design, production, and reuse of consumer products, from the perspective of corporations and consumers. Speaking at the 2012 Global Supply Chain Management Forum, Ruben details ways to improve supply chain efficiency. He explains why he hopes this new model for product exchange will revolutionize the way we think about what we buy, and what we throw away.   https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/redefining_consumerism_innovations_in_product_sustainability

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are usually thought of as top-down, with the interests of company executives taking precedence over other workers. In this talk, CB Bhattacharya, a visiting Stanford professor and author of Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Social Value, examines why the traditional approach to CSR should be reexamined. Speaking at a seminar organized by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, he details how his research supports stakeholder-driven corporate social responsibility initiatives. He explains why this change from top-down to stakeholder-driven initiatives means higher returns for us all.   https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/corporate_responsibility_through_the_stakeholders_lens

“Poverty is not just about an economic challenge. Extreme poverty is a condition where families cannot make meaningful choices to determine their own future.” The role of Nuru is to put those choices back on the table. In this audio interview, Jonathan Chang speaks with Jake Harriman, Founder and CEO of Nuru International. Nuru works to raise awareness of poverty in the developed world. At the same time they foster self-sufficiency in remote rural communities in East Africa. From combat operations in Iraq to Stanford Business to rural Ethiopia, Harriman traces his personal path towards sustainable solutions to poverty. This show was recorded as part of the Impact Innovators series, in which we speak with some of the most important players in the world of impact investments.   https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/new_models_to_end_extreme_poverty

Human capital is the most valuable asset in the social sector. Developing an effective human capital strategy enables nonprofits to grow, scale, and achieve greater impact. In this audio lecture from the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Omidyar Network partner Sal Giambanco discusses how nonprofits can create a recruiting framework and demonstrate organizational value to employees. He explains how to attract and engage an excellent team. By sharing examples from his years of coaching nonprofit executives from around the world, he explores questions such as: How do you attract the right talent to your organization? How do you enable them to be successful? How do you build a talent pipeline to engage future leaders? In this lecture, Gimabanco discusses techniques a nonprofit can use to execute a successful human capital strategy. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/thinking_about_talent

Good leadership requires moving across boundaries of sector, race, ideology, class, and political affiliation. Instead of competing for resources or working in isolation, leaders should reach across divides to develop healthy networks of trust and collaboration. In this audio lecture from the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Rockwood Leadership Institute president Akaya Windwood discusses how we can get movements and sectors to work together to advance the common good. She shares specific approaches and tools for leaders to step out of their comfort zones. These enable a collective effort that builds mutually beneficial relationships. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/the_art_of_collaborative_leadership

Whether we are struggling to generate fresh ideas or staring at problems with no solutions in sight, the spark of creative genius often seems out of reach. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Stanford Professor Tina Seelig discusses how we can unlock our creative genius through a set of tools and conditions we each have in our control—our “innovation engine.” Based on real-world examples and a dozen years of experience teaching courses on creativity and entrepreneurship in the Stanford School of Engineering, Seelig challenges traditional assumptions about creativity to show us how we can seek out the right resources and environment to fuel our innovation engines. She contends that just as the scientific method demystifies the process of discovery, there is a formal process for unlocking the pathway to innovation. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/a_crash_course_on_creativity

While branding has been traditionally perceived as a tool for fundraising and public relations, nonprofits can take a new approach to brand management that effectively drives their mission and maximizes impact. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Harvard researcher Nathalie Kylander challenges traditional branding principles and proposes a new framework for developing a more strategic brand. By examining the concepts of brand democracy and brand affinity, Kylander discusses how a strategic brand can create greater social impact and tighter organizational cohesion. She examines what successful branding looks like in the nonprofit sector and how the rise of social media and technological change can drive the development of a clear, strong, well-managed brand. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/the_critical_role_of_the_strategic_brand

What exactly is the new “social economy,” how did it come about, and what are its implications for nonprofit management? In this audio lecture, philanthropy, policy, and technology researchers Lucy Bernholz and Rob Reich explore some possible answers to these questions. Evaluating the changes that the social economy has created, Bernholz and Reich focus on new options that are available for both doers and donors. Speaking at Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, the two analyze the impact that this new economy is having on nonprofit management and how social leaders can adapt. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/new_skills_for_the_new_social_economy

How can smaller and local nonprofits dramatically increase their impact? In this audio lecture, Heather McLeod Grant, senior consultant at the Monitor Institute and co-author of Local Forces for Good, shares ideas and case studies of high-impact small and local nonprofits, and how these organizations have leveraged outside forces and agencies to great success. Speaking from Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, McLeod Grant analyzes how many smaller nonprofits managed not only to survive the economic downturn, but also to thrive during that time. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/creating_forces_for_good_in_nonprofit_management

Nonprofit management is presented with the challenge of adjusting to constant developments in technology and social media. To cope, leaders learn to use a network mindset. In this audio lecture, author and social media guru Beth Kanter presents ways nonprofit organizations can develop a networking mindset. These hard-won lessons are based on her own and others’ experiences within nonprofits and successful social media campaigns. Speaking at the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Kanter focuses on best practices for utilizing professional relationships and the steps organizations can take to develop a network model. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/network_mindsets_in_nonprofit_management

How can a tsumami early warning system save lives? In this university podcast, Ridwan Djamaluddin, Indonesia’s deputy chairman for natural resources development, speaks on how the government of Indonesia is relying on technology to deal with climate and weather threats. The work, he says, is not just about creating better detection instruments but also about getting information to flow to those who need it more efficiently. Djamaluddin spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/connection_technology_to_save_lives

How do we transform our existing system into one that fosters sustainable economic growth? Entrepreneurship concentrating on scientific collaborations and innovations is the ticket, says Paul Kedrosky of the Kauffman Foundation in this university podcast. He argues that highly trained engineers, physicists and other professionals who have been sucked up by Wall Street need to return to their own domains and work more entrepreneurially. The way to more innovation and connectivity, he argues, is to let more ideas “collide” to create more impact. Kedrosky spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/entrepreneurship_in_service_to_economic_growth

Mobile and home-based technologies could help stretch limited funds and create sustainable healthcare for all. That’s the assertion of Eric Dishman, director of health innovation at Intel, in this university podcast. Estimating that there is a $500 billion opportunity for health IT in developing markets, particularly via non-governmental organizations, he argues that using technology strategically could help developing countries avoid the inefficient, high-cost, error-prone infrastructure of the United States. Dishman spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/mobile_technology_for_healthcare

Twenty years have passed since the 1992 Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that made sustainable development a priority for the UN. In this university podcast, Michael Jones, Google’s chief technology advocate, discusses how connection technologies are now being used to support sustainable development. “Information is not a mirror to reflect the world but a hammer with which to shape it,” he says, urging his audience to think big. Jones spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/info_technology_and_sustainable_development

How can we strike a balance between environmental sustainability and economic realities? In this university podcast, aquatic filmmaker and oceanographic explorer Fabien Cousteau discusses the problem of the failing health of our planet as it relates to climate change, over-consumption of natural resources, and pollution. He offers glimpses of a public policy platform grounded by his strong belief that environmental discipline can be the basis for innovative solutions that strike a balance between regional and global environmental problems and the realities of market economies. Cousteau spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.   https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/environmental_sustainability_economic_realities

How can we use technology to support sustainable development? In this university podcast, media expert Tim O’Reilly discusses notions of collective intelligence, man-machine symbiosis, and real-time feedback loops from sensors to provide a context for understanding the role of tools like FrontlineSMS, Ushahidi, Crowdflower, Samasource in powering the future. He considers Google’s autonomous vehicle and unpacks the technology behind it to provide deeper insight into where technology is taking us. O’Reilly delivered his remarks at the USRio+2.0 Conference hosted at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/technology_and_environmental_sustainability

Twenty years after the first Rio Earth Summit, the world’s most vexing sustainability problems around health, environment, agriculture and economic growth haven’t changed. But technologies have –– and they could provide critical and innovative solutions. In this university podcast, Maura O’Neill, chief innovation officer at USAID, addresses international ministers from developing countries, technology experts, and NGO professionals convened by the U.S. State Department and the Stanford Graduate School of Business to discuss how connection technologies can support sustainable development, and what USAID is doing to support those initiatives. O’Neill delivered her remarks at the USRio+2.0 Conference hosted by Stanford. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/technology_and_international_development