632 Baltimore peeps shared their thoughts about how to make the city better in a survey by the visionary and cool Warnock Foundation. Perhaps when they started the survey, they had an intention to go into publishing absolutely cool and inspiring news about social innovators in Baltimore making things better, or not – we aren’t quite sure. What we do know is they took the findings of the survey and published it – hence the bright light in an often dismal sea of negativity when it comes to media in and about Baltimore – called The Baltimore Social Innovation Journal .
What is The Baltimore Social Innovation Journal?
To be honest – we weren’t quite sure when we first looked at it, the web site takes a bit of a long time to load and though it looks pretty and we think the work being done is awesome…it wasn’t easy to figure out at first glance. It is a very engaging and dynamic visually heavy site that oozes positive goodness, a veritable buffet of digital media and captures your attention if you take the time to scroll down…but to be honest, we found ourselves having to search around to find out more what the gist of this new fangled journal was. If we just lost our “cool kids” badge for admitting as such – so be it. We’re ok with that, and honestly we’re more interested in helping you discover things than being a card carrying member of any club. No offense meant to anyone reading this in saying that.
We found these articles helpful, perhaps you will as well.
According to Technical.ly Baltimore’s article Warnock Foundation Founding Executive Director Olga E. Maltseva said she hoped it would showcase ““new ways to deal with old problems.” Read the entire article here.
Citybizlist.com essentially published what you find on the web site – but for some reason we found it easier to scroll through and read? Maybe you will – maybe you won’t but to see their article – click here.
What Weekly, whose publishers actually worked on producing the journal under Baltimore based woman business owner, and entrepreneur, CEO of What Works Studio & Co-Founder of What Weekly Brooke Hall Allen’s leadership shared this article about it.
Why is this important to Maryland’s Women in Business?
Ladies, if you’ve been working so hard you have not gotten the point that change is in the air (and we aren’t talking about the “Polar Vortex” of late…) you are at a professional disadvantage. Whether you are a business owner, professional, start-up owner, or even dedicated employee – keeping your finger on the pulse of change is critical to maintaining a competitive edge.
Positive, attention grabbing and focused initiatives like Baltimore Social Innovation Journal are bound to stimulate the local economy and facilitate more venues and resources for social innovation and social entrepreneurship overall. Can you connect the dots here? Good positive things mean new areas of opportunity and potential growth and benefit for all who are part of the business eco-system, not to mention our community. That’s not just smart, it’s good business.
Not sure what either of those terms (“social innovation” and “social entrepreneurship” mean?
No worries – We’ve looked them up for you.
“Social Innovation” as defined by wikipedia is as follows…
Social innovation refers to new strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations that meet social needs of all kinds — from working conditions and education to community development and health — that extend and strengthen civil society.
Best definition we’ve found of “Social Entpreneurship”…
It wasn’t easy to find a really great definition of this quickly with an initial, quick search. However, we particularly like Monika Mitchell’s 5 point definition that appeared in the Huffington Post – The 5 P’s of Social Entrepreneurship. See if that helps bring you up to speed.
Speaking of Social enterprise – we have to mention briefly – Social Enterprise Breakfast. Like this “social entrepreneurship” vibe and along the lines of the ethos of the Baltimore Social Enterprise; Social Enterprise Breakfast is a great local venue to find out more and social entrepreneurship and innovation. Their events are fun, affordable (FREE) and a great, refreshing way to get connected with other like minded folks who believe it is possible to do good, make a difference AND make decent money at it.
To find out more about Social Enterprise Breakfast in Baltimore click here but be warned, if you’re only looking purely for lead generation, and/or just to collect business cards – this is not the place for you; and that’s actually why WE like it. Hope to see you there. Feel free to share your thoughts and resources regarding the blossoming social enterprise and innovation movement below in the comments – we’re better together and we invite you to continue the discussion.