Essays: Feedback Loops + Insight into Value Chain Development

A partnership between Global Giving and Feedback Labs was announced in the form of an internship. This is an essay I wrote in response to the following prompt for the intern application:

CHOOSE ONE EXAMPLE OF A SERVICE THAT AFFECTS THE POOR IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY AND DESCRIBE HOW YOU WOULD DESIGN AN EXPERIMENT TO STUDY HOW FEEDBACK AFFECTS THE OUTCOMES.

The essay was supposed to be based off of the idea of feedback loops. Upon my research, I came across this article in Wired Magazine: Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops.

The article provided ample insight into the concept of feedback loops. According to Wired, a feedback loop involves four distinct stages:

1. Data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage. 
2. Relevance: the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in which it was captured but in a context that makes it emotionally resonant.  
3. Consequence: The information must illuminate one or more paths ahead. 
4. Action: There must be a clear moment when the individual can recalibrate a behavior, make a choice, and act. Then that action is measured, and the feedback loop can run once more, every action stimulating new behaviors that inch us closer to our goals.

The article goes into much deeper detail into the different facets of feedback loops. It is quite the interesting read. It inspired my mobile money platform based response essay below. You are welcome to take a look at what I came up with!

At the end of the essay, I also provide brief Author's notes as I wanted to have my essay reviewed before submission. About 1 year ago, I got in contact with a professional who has done a great deal of work in Value Chain Development (great stuff!) and it's role in new business model generation. The notes allude to her work. It's important that international development not only focus on new ideas and innovation such as feedback loops but also whether these concepts actually create value.

Looking at my fictional experiment through the lens of value creation could provide some insight into human-centered service/product design.

What do you think?

Beyond cutesy jewelry and Social Enterprise: Building off of Etsy’s creative economy

Many social enterprises aim to sell “marketable” items using labor from economically disadvantaged demographics. However, the crux of many of these business is that the so-called  “bottom of the pyramid” worker is depending on the Western consumer to accept services and goods from them so that they can have a livelihood.

The truth of the marketplace is that no one needs to buy 48 dollar baskets just because it’s going to help poor women. It is a noble idea indeed but I myself began to question this social enterprise practice of “buy for pity”. Tal Dehtiar of Oliberte Footwear became very hyper-sensitive to this trend when he first headed up a footwear line sourced and produced in Africa:

When we first started, I didn’t want to do the Africa angle,” he says, a seemingly strange statement about a company that markets the continent in its tagline. “Our first ad was very stereotypical Africa. It was a picture of an African face—a Maasi warrior. I hated it.” He stopped using the ad the following year. “We’ve gone from portraying a very stereotypical image of Africa to now selling pride instead of pity. But it’s a challenge, because some stores want the stereotypical Africa branding.
The balance,” says Dehtiar, “is how do I do the Africa angle without doing the part I hate: ‘Buy because you feel bad about Africa.

Dehtiar admits that he is still developing his business model but what may set him apart from the seemingly do-gooder social entrepreneur is that because he is not relying on simple marketing tropes he has the incentive to innovate. “When it comes to footwear,” Dehtiar says, “we don’t want people to think of Africa as the next China. We want them to think of it as the next Italy—think quality.” Perhaps Dehtiar is making the first step in acknowledging what really appeals to the “Western consumer”.

Patrick Hanlon writes in Forbes article Consumerism: From Mass To Micro-Consumer: “Just as China leaps forward to develop their 1.3 billion population into the largest mass consumer market in the world, paradoxically the USA lurches toward its next evolution of capitalist chic: micro-consumerism.”

Is the key to unlocking this rising micro-consumerism in the form of buzzwords such as  “mass customization” and “customer co-creation”? Stateside enterprises such as Etsy have already succeeded in developing these kinds of models for consumer value creation. Thousands of merchants are able to design, develop and sell their products to the specifications of their customers in bundles or in a single product. In order for social enterprises to be treated as more than another "do good invention" with niche marketing strategies, we must surrender to the fact that brands such as Oliberte are emerging market/developing country brands and they must fight for respect in the marketplace. This can be done also through innovative value creation.

Jack Hughes of Harvard Business Review writes about “What Value Creation Will Look Like in the Future”:

“Value creation in the future will be based on economies of creativity: mass customization and the high value of bringing a new product or service improvement to market; the ability to find a solution to a vexing customer problem; or, the way a new product or service is sold and delivered.”

We can provide jobs for economically disadvantaged women in Kenya or Ecuador. That’s great! But are we finding innovative ways to source materials? Why are you only selling/marketing your bracelets to people OUTSIDE of the country you are doing business in? Are there not potential business partners in the cities of Nairobi and Quito who would be willing to buy some aspect of your product and have you as a supplier?

“Social enterprise” is still a emerging field and only time will tell which directions it will go in but I believe we must err on the side of caution to prevent from it becoming another form of charity.