Social Capitalism - The New Company Model

You have a challenge. Your company cannot find technology folks fast enough. The market is very competitive and you don't have the brand recognition of a Google or Facebook. Another business challenge is that you have a company that sits in a very competitive market, you are brand new and no one knows who you are. What do you do? In the case of the company with a talent challenge, you create a cartoon. For the company launching into a competitive market, you give away shoes for free, when someone buys a pair.

I call this way of doing business (or really anything) as the 3 Point Benefit Methodology. It's a simple methodology, where you look at a solution from a 3 point benefit perspective. Does your solution benefit the professionals you are targeting, the community, and your company?

Here's an example - your company is having a hard time finding technology talent because the market is competitive and it doesn't have a recognized tech brand like Google or Facebook. What do you do? You think about the folks you are trying to recruit, the community they are in, and then provide them with value. Value to help them get better in their own job, enhance their professional experience, or somehow impact a problem that they are passionate about.

I noticed a need for more female engineers in tech (who hasn't talked about this lately). Instead of just focusing on recruiting more woman, I wanted to create a stronger community of female engineers. I took a look at the media landscape and realized that at a very young age, there was no computer science hero for girls. So what did I do? I created a cartoon concept called Ella the Engineer. The goal with Ella is not to only create a fun cartoon with a coding hero at its center, but help influence girls into learning more about coding and computer science. It's clear that this initiative would have a small short-term effect, but I was looking to create more value in the tech community.

3 Point Benefit Model

In the case of Ella, I wanted to create value for the individual recruits (specifically female engineers), impact the community for the long-term, and eventually help our company brand ourselves tech and a great place for female engineers.

In terms of business, you can look at organizations like Tom's Shoes. In Tom's case, they focused their business strategy on a 3 point benefit. When someone buys a pair of shoes, they help a person in need - they call it "One for One". Tom's Shoes provides a benefit to the consumer (individual), the community and the company itself. It's a brand new model where business meets social effort, but its foundation is based on the 3 point benefit methodology. If you have ever walked the streets of New York, you will see the familiar blue logo on the back of many shoes.

Whether you are a new entrepreneur or solving a current problem in your organization, can the 3 Point Benefit methodology help you to solve some of your most challenging business problems?