flipping through some ninety plus channels on my wall-mounted room television on a recent evening of my recuperation at the Life Care Center and came across this Indian gentleman speaking softly. I left it on that channel for a rest from the shouting, laughter, tussling kind of programs that I'd passed by. Amazingly, the simple content of his talking started coming through to me and I was fascinated. M. Yunus was saying that entrepreneurs were coming to him for advice on setting up social businesses not to achieve personal gain but to pursue social goals. He gave an example of shoe makers who wanted to provide strong but inexpensive shoes to anyone, anywhere. He told them to set up a mission statement first. Another example was a company (I think it was Dannon) who made yogart and wanted to make the product available to the poor people of a specific country that they felt could heal many of their children's health problems. M. Yunus suggested they come up with an edible container. Here's a quote from the end of the book's preface that gave me a hopeful feeling about this planet:
"... People are not one-dimensional entities; they are excitingly multi-dimensional. The emotions, beliefs, proiorities, and behaviour patterns can best be compared to the millions of shades we can produce from the three primary colors. Even the most famous capitalists share a wide range of interests and drives, which is why tycoons from Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers to Bill Gates have ultimately turned away from the game of profit to focus on higher objectives.
"The presence of our muti-dimensional personalities means that not every business should be bound to serve the single objective of profit maximization.
"And this is where the new concept of social business comes in."
