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09/29/11 - Expertise
Greetings,Recently, I attended a workshop by the OpEd Project on writing for influence. The first exercise was to fill in the following blanks: I am an expert in _____ because _____. The critiques that followed provided a brutal but useful study in how efficiently we make claims to authority. Day to day, we are asked to construct our expertise and determine which expertise to trust. She knows your business can work because she’s got an MBA; he lived in Mali with a tribe and therefore can evaluate programs in the developing world. These reference points are short cuts that help us sort out whom to trust. They do not necessarily ensure that the judgment or skill is useful or relevant. They are simply signals and cues.To be sure, someone with more experience and education is likely more prepared to do a particular piece of work. I acknowledge my particular tendencies to dismiss confident assertions of expertise with a sarcastic “really? (and then as an aside to myself…nice positioning of your authority.) Yet, my sarcasm is bolstered by the everyday experience of the doctor who misdiagnoses, of the lawyer who misjudges, the consultant who tells the time to the guy with the watch. Our knowledge is deeply fallible. Expertise is a cultural construction.In my dissertation for my PhD in American History at New York University I studied expertise in an early democracy. (Like my assertion of expert status?) I documented the role of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons in developing Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in the context of the broader prison reform movement. The central question was: Who gets to say how public institutions should be run? In the 1830’s, we did not yet have university systems to validate our knowledge, the professions of law and medicine were just emerging, and the moral authority of a state religion was thoroughly disrupted. What I found was that the language of the market dominated. Reformers threw around statistics about return and investment to bolster the claims of effectiveness and the sound design of the penitentiary. I marvel in the parallels today around quantitative metrics of impact and who claims the right to measure social benefit.We live in a knowledge economy where expert status equals power. Wielding the cues of schooling, title, or experience with confidence conveys authority. Credentials give access to expert power. But study after study shows that the access to this expert power is fully implicated in the realities of race, class and gender. It is not a level playing field.In our work on investing with a gender lens we’re taking on the gender part of this triumvirate. The initiative has two intertwined strategies, to create a community of investors committed to deploying capital with a gender lens and to develop a robust landscape of investment vehicles (across asset classes) for them to invest in. Considerable research demonstrates that a gender lens is smart investing and leads to increased social and financial returns (the higher return on equity of companies with more women board members and the gender dividend of increased earning power of women as two primary examples). But, this expert knowledge is not valued in financial realms. Shifting what is valued in financial calculations is, in part, a realignment of how expertise is perceived.We work in areas where expertise is contested. In making a socially responsible investment, is it the knowledge of how to achieve social impact or financial return that is more important? In this context, how do we measure long term value and risk? In setting priorities for a church, who has the most valuable input, a bishop or a lay person? Who knows best the value of a neighborhood, the banker or the local community leader? Personally, I revel in these moments where power and knowledge are disrupted. Perhaps it’s my personal story of a high school teacher who went on to start a venture fund. But more profoundly, it’s that these moments of disruption allow for new knowledge, new ideas.But, to get to and stay at the tables of power, requires access to the expert language. In a conversation with Patricia Farrar-Rivas of Veris Investments a few months back, she suggested a brilliant strategy. When financial language is thrown about, ask the person to define it. It’s amazing how we use jargon, like derivatives, that have very distant reference back to the real thing. Language has the power to exclude. Asking reveals that one is not “in the know.”A year or so back, one of the leaders of the Committee of 200 negotiating a complex merger was at the same Structure Lab was an African-American woman high school teacher spinning out a new program. In the beginning of the session, the teacher downplayed her knowledge, and named her alienation from the language of business. She said, “I won’t understand what you people are talking about.” She metaphorically stepped back from the table in a moment of paradoxical resistance and disempowerment. At the end, she came up to me and said she would never again say that she didn’t know… rather she would fake it with her Structure Lab cards and notes hidden in her lap. The woman from the Committee of 200 was standing near and added quietly “me too.”So next time you enter a conversation and wonder if you have the expertise, the authority to comment, know that they are making it up as well. They are wielding whatever tools they have at their disposal to construct their expertise. The power of these tools is real. But the power is always in flux as our culture, our history, our economic realities shifts what expertise we ascribe privilege and power. Find some delight in these moments of confusion, where we don’t know who has the right answers and question your own search for the expert with the right answers.Joy -
01/14/11 - Shaping Markets for Social Change
There is a delightful, if somewhat chaotic, pattern to January. We make our New Year’s resolutions, commit to annual budgets, decide on strategies for the coming year, and are hopeful that this time we get it all right. We never quite do. But grace means that we get to try again, next quarter or next year. Reveling in hope and basking in a healthy sense of doubt, we launch into our dreams for 2011. At Criterion, we’re starting this year with a clear, if somewhat pithy, focus on gender, church, and fish. We find this particular blend of work makes for delightful cocktail party chatter. These three areas reflect a set of serious projects that are helping us understand how to shape markets to create social change. This last phrase is becoming increasingly central to Criterion’s mission, combing our experience both with understanding complex systems and with living in the boundaries between business and social change. We’re looking forward to talking with you a good bit about ...continue reading -
01/21/10 - Greeting the New Year
Happy new year! 2010 has kicked off and I greet this new year with a renewed sense of the challenges we face and of the potential we imagine. As we at Criterion Ventures seek solutions and look for strength, it is fitting to share three directions in the coming year that are shaping our sense of the possible: Community organizing as market formation. We know we can use markets to scale social change. But at times we assume markets are invisible hands moving goods and services. The reality is that enabling functional markets, as microfinance has taught us, is a very local activity. Markets are built one transaction at a time through the trust of individuals who believe the exchange is valid. We find this trust shaken in the US healthcare system, particularly in what we call the cash market in healthcare . To rebuild our healthcare system we need more than national reforms, we need to rebuild very local markets based in trust. To rebuild these community ...continue reading -
12/17/09 - Holiday Musings
As guests arrive for the holiday season, I am thinking a lot about family structures and how we do invitation. Questions like: How is family defined? What do we want our holiday experience to bring? Who is best to play host or provide the food? How will gifts be given and received? Which traditions will we honor and create anew? Families are wonderful, complicated and dynamic examples of systems or structures. And, even within our families, the invitations we offer and accept inform what is possible and what we create. How we invite family into our holidays is akin to how we invite people into our vision for social change. The invitation is not just to come and listen, but to come and be a part of creating something. Constituencies form around needs and issues; innovators gather believers and supporters; and structure transforms these gatherings into effective entities -a new company, a non-profit effort, a government project, etc. It is through relationships that ...continue reading -
12/09/09 - Lil Wayne, Not. The Structure Lab Rap.
That thing, that thing, that thing. That thing, that thing, that thing. You a social venture dude, but you don’t know what to do. Trying to set it up right, there's so much to figure out that's new. Capital formation, exit strategy. Mission insurance, now what's it gonna be? Getting straight your vision, that's surely hard enough. Damn, how on earth can you put it together tough? Now know that you gotta friend, who always be on your side. We at Criterion Ventures, gonna help to ease your ride. It’s Structure Labs we doin, hybrid structures we'll lay out. There’s twenty now to choose from, that's what this all about. C3s, joint ventures, LLCs. Steward councils, L3Cs we'll all be shoutin out. We gonna lay it out in a happenin day-long gig, so you can figure out just how you can go big. Help you get your money, your mission and your ease. And set it up so you never gotta sell your venture to the sleaze. I mean what's the point of all this do-gooder sh*t? If ...continue reading -
12/07/09 - The Accelerators
Criterion Ventures represents a certain breed of social change organizations that shape markets, builds fields, and accelerate social change. Organizations like Criterion play the role of connective tissue, we step into the boundaries between sectors, between the lines of established approaches to social change. We use networks of relationships to manage intersections across traditional boundaries. As a result of playing in the margins, we are able to find the unexpected synergies, spark innovation through unique connection, reframe issues and advance the market. You may know the type but we find you can’t quite define the category. We are accelerators, facilitators, mavens, network weavers, intermediaries, connectors. Criterion is working with several colleagues to define this field-building, market formation role. What are the sustainable business models for this role: consulting, technical assistance, brokering transactions, conferences, gifts and grants? Which work in ...continue reading -
11/24/09 - Through the Kaleidoscope
Our world is a Kaleidoscope. With a twist and a new way of viewing the seeming chaos, we find the thing, the person, the place, the idea, the pattern that can create systemic change. A little confusing at times, but ever beautiful. At Criterion, we identify, examine and solve systemic social problems on a large scale by launching social ventures, for clients or on our own. We work across disciplines and sectors with large nonprofits, faith-based institutions, foundations and individuals to develop solutions in areas like impact investing, social enterprise, women’s philanthropy, aging, healthcare, education, energy, poverty and more. It is a jumble of inspiring people, ideas, and innovations that shape, color and define our world. We've just launched a new communication, Kaleidoscope. We’re adding this to keep us better connected to you and your interests, help to share the incredible stories of real impact on the ground and offer opportunities for you to participate in our vision ...continue reading -
11/17/09 - Authentic Invitation
Dec 14, 2011 Posted by Anna Cash Add your commentAn invitation is a promise: if you participate you can expect these outcomes. Buy this and you can trust the product. Sign on to this and your name will be used for good. From the very beginning of Criterion, the promise we have made as we invite people to view, shape and shift our colorful world is a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship for greater good. It is through careful invitation and hospitality that Criterion brings together the people and organizations that can change the world. We insure that the invitation is authentic. The ancient definition of hospitality is about welcoming the stranger, knowing that the stranger will challenge and change you. Criterion places invitation at the heart of our work because we believe fundamentally that social change is a process done by connected networks of caring individuals. Our network isn’t comprised of a single market, it’s an open network where we have real conversations with people about inspiration, ...continue reading
