Social Entrepreneurship or CSR

Coming from a marketing background, I always thought that social entrepreneurship is related to marketing, to my surprise it is not, social entrepreneurship is not at all related to corporate social responsibility, which is an element of evolved marketing.

To make you understand Corporate Social Responsibility, is the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large, please note the key terms being businesses and society, businesses primary missions are profit making, but they do so while considering the society, therefore the society well being is their secondary mission.

Social entrepreneurship on the other hand is the use of entrepreneurial skills to solve social problems, is the recognition of a social problem and the uses of entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a social venture to achieve a desired change. The primary mission of social entrepreneurship is society well being.

Looking back home in Kenya one name has become a key ingredient whenever we speak of social entrepreneurship, ie the late Prof. Wangari Maathai, the founder of Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. Her primary mission was the well being of the society and she even won Nobel peace prize in 2004 for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

With such a statement, "when I see Uhuru Park and contemplate its meaning, I feel compelled to fight for it so that my grandchildren may share that dream and that joy of freedom as they one day walk there.”Wangari Muta Maathai, you truly understand social entrepreneurship.

Conclusion, social entrepreneurship is very different from CSR, but an individual can use CSR on his social venture, in comparison  a company, cannot be a social venture for as long as the primary mission is profit making.

Lesson Two - Advantages of Data Centers

Doing my round of research on Data Centers, I have managed to get a blog that fully explains Data Centers, so without any delete or additions, I give credit to John

In today's fiercely competitive environment, any business - small, medium or large - can succeed only if it maintains business continuity, which in turn, is mostly dependent on automated data handling systems. In the wake of recent natural and other calamities, companies have increased their investments in highly secure storage and retrieval systems for their data.

For companies whose core business is not IT, it makes better business sense to outsource the storage and maintenance of these systems. This strategy allows them to save time and money while harnessing the power of IT as a force multiplier for their core business.

What is a data center? 
A data center is simply a room that facilitates the storage and management, of servers and other computing equipment of any company in a precision-controlled environment. But for small and medium businesses, an in-house data center is an expensive proposition in many ways: 

• High initial investment in space and equipment
• High day-to-day management costs
• Hiring and retaining personnel to maintain the data center
• High cost of upgrading technology and acquiring newer services

In this scenario, it becomes far more economical to outsource this service to a colocation data center.

What is colocation? 
A colocation (also known less popularly as 'co-location') data center is a facility where the servers and other computing equipment belonging to different companies share space. Each company's equipment is physically secured in a wire cage or cabinet with high security locking systems.

Why colocation? 
Colocation offers businesses several advantages with regard to time and money. 

• You don't have to worry about recurring capital costs if you are upgrading since you can rent more space (or give up space if you are downsizing)
• You are saved the expense of hiring and training your own personnel to operate and maintain your systems. If you have to upgrade, having your own personnel means additional training costs or paying outside consultants.

Who uses colocation data centers? 
The answer is: almost any company whose business continuity is dependent on smooth access to flow of data and for whom system downtime is not an option. 

• Web-based e-commerce companies use the colocation data center facilities to ensure a safe environment for their equipment, plus economical and redundant connections to the Internet
• Major non-IT entrepreneurs use the facility for economic data storage and management, as well as safety from disasters
• Telecommunication companies use colocation data center facilities to exchange traffic with other telcos and also to provide reliable access to potential clients

Facilities at Colocation Data Centers 
Colocation data centers offer physical space on lease to customers for housing their servers and other computing devices. You install your servers and/or other telecommunication equipment in the physical space leased from the data center. The leased space is typically comprised of either full cabinets or portions of a cabinet measured in Rack Units or RU (1RU corresponds to 1.75 vertical inches of space). Much larger spaces, like a caged section of a room or complete private rooms or suites, are also available depending on your requirements.

All leased space is supported by: 

• Precision-controlled air-conditioning systems with incorporated redundancy
• 24x7 power back-up systems for all equipment to ensure zero downtime or minimal disruption in operations due to power failure
• High-capacity, reliable power generators
• State-of-the-art fire detection and suppression systems to guard against potential losses due to fire
• Sophisticated onsite security through surveillance cameras and advanced biometric systems to prevent unauthorized entry
• Networking equipment including state-of-the-art, fully redundant high-end switches and routers, BGP4 routing for optimal path selection and full redundancy, etc

Most colocation centers also offer SLAs (service level agreements) to support a host of computer and networking services like server reboots, software updates, hardware repairs / replacements, disaster recovery, etc.

Advantages of colocation 

• Financial Gains: Small and medium companies have a lot to gain by opting for colocation. For one, there is an enormous amount of money to be saved (between 25%-75%) on infrastructure, technology and human resources. This leaves them free to concentrate on their core business areas.
• Better Connectivity: Acquiring and maintaining a T1 line or a fiber optic line to connect your networks is an expensive proposition. Moreover, if your ISP turns out to be unreliable, you could lose valuable business. Provisioning a T1 or fiber optic line at a colocation data center is economical and most centers support multiple ISPs through fiber optic lines or VSAT. Also, colocating mission critical servers at data centers with fully redundant network connections ensures that business critical applications will always run smoothly.
• Easy disaster recovery: Data centers also create disaster recovery sites. In the event of a snag with the primary server, the entire network automatically switches to an alternate mirrored site within a few minutes. So outsourcing disaster recovery also costs much less than what it would to set it up in-house.
• Improved Network security: Most data centers offer state-of-the-art network security, including fully updated firewalls / IDS applications to detect and prevent unauthorized intrusions into their clients' systems. They employ qualified technical personnel with certifications like CCNA and MCSE to monitor the networks 24X7 and alert clients of any potential trouble.

In the wake of disasters like 9/11 and other natural disasters, depending on a single office to keep business-critical applications running is risky. Most companies are now taking steps to plan for such events by implementing a disaster recovery plans that include colocation facilities inside internet data centers. Data centers provide the best data management, system maintenance and up-to-date security services without the issues that accompany owning and operating a similar facility.

By utilizing collocation services in a data center facility, you will realize an immediate benefit in terms of costs saving and improved redundancy.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Tourloukis

Lesson One -Case study, benefits accrued from data center consolidation

Data center consolidation is a popular strategy showing powerful economic characteristics. Major organizations are reaping the benefits of consolidation, as shown by the following examples:

• Hewlett Packard is cutting its 85 global data centers down to six--three of which will be mirrored disaster recovery sites. HP expects this move to save the company $1 billion annually.
   
• IBM is consolidating 3,900 servers into 30 virtualized mainframes running under Linux. The company anticipates an 80% reduction in energy usage while significantly shrinking its current 8 million square feet of data center space.
   
• Microsoft is well along in its data center consolidation efforts, producing a savings of $23.2 million--a 40% cut in its pre-consolidation spending levels.
   
• Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is moving 100 stand-alone servers onto five IBM Regatta Unix servers. This effort eliminated the need to add 50 more stand-alone servers next year to handle increased processing demands.

source : http://www.computereconomics.com

Marketing, In my Opinion ......

During my time in between high school and college, that time when you are really confused on what you want in life, I got an  opportunity to work for Coca-Cola as their temporary marketing researcher, that is when I placed my foot down and decided am going to study marketing.

True to my belief, 8+ years down the line am still in the marketing field, but much concentration on sales, I love commissions that come with sales compared to marketing, I call it "commission possible", back to the real issue, after consuming so much information about marketing, both from an external examiner (by external I mean international certifications) to internal (local) examiners, I thought I knew it all on marketing.

My first marketing gig I did was as a marketing manager, this was after staying in technical department for a longer period of time, thus I was not only confused but overwhelmed, this is when I realized that the first statements that were made by my lecturer, "marketing is all about passing information to clients, to make them know you, like you and trust you. These three things made me develop marketing in my opinion.

As marketing personnel, whether new in the system or an old school, looking for fresh and innovative ways, these three key ingredients should be your basis for success, in my opinion. I shall focus on each to make you the marketer, understand marketing in a simpler perspective;

Make customers know you.

These is a continuous process, it not only involves startups or new products, as marketers we all strive at outdoing competition, whenever, competitors develop new USP's you have to let your customers "know" about your new and improved USP's.

How do we ensure the market knows about us, simple now use what the lecturers taught you in school to do promotion, TV ads, newspaper ads, field activations, radio ads etc., that way the market shall know about you.

Make customers like you

After customers have known you, you do not wish again to incur costs making them to know about your improved USP's, this is where liking comes in, make the client like you in order to avoid their need for alternatives.

So how do you make the customers like you, simple, after sales service, quick warranty solutions, send simple thank you notes( now you can simply use sms ,check sematime.com to learn more) treat the client as the king, give them the chair, tea, parking space etc. imagine Facebook has a like button, twitter with follow, so why not create such pages and make customers like you? clients are like small babies, they love small things, in return you have a long term customer, more business more money.

Make the customer trust you.

A customer may know you or even like you but you are not always sure if they trust you, trust is always built after a longer period of time one spends in a relationship, "shup" I have already spilt the marketing activities, yes, customer relationship management, comes in here, do beyond the obvious, be the shoulder to lean on when the client cries, and most importantly be proactive, i.e. anticipate the likely problems that may face the customer and have solutions at hand, even a simple user guide can work the trick.

These guys this is real marketing not the one of 4P's, in my opinion, work out through this simple guides and you shall have a winning marketing campaign.

My petition to Government to scrap off August in Kenya

It is with sad sorrow to do these, as me and millions of Kenyans celebrate our birthdays on this month, thus it should really be memorable, of course for me it has always been memorable, with birthday cake and sweets each month, thanks to mum who bakes cakes, sorry to me am minus four very important teeth.

For the last three decades I have really enjoyed August, but 2012 has made me change my mind after the carjacking event, thus I shall focus on the events surrounding August in Kenya and also include August 2012.

August 1982 - Coup d’état - this was the ugliest moment on the Kenyan history for those who were around will tell you, it is the moment when the economy came to a standstill.

August 22 1978 - the death of our founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta the first president of the republic of Kenya, in Mombasa.

August 1998 The bomb blast occurred in Nairobi.

August 1990 Alexander Muge , Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Eldoret was Murdered.

August 1992 Masinde Muliro passed on.

August 2003 Hon Kijana Wamalwa vice president of the republic of Kenya dies.

Today, Martin Shikuku, Josephine Michuki, 52 dead in Tana river, 4 dead in Maasai Mara and others in Northern Kenya.

As I publish these blog on the first day of September am glad August is all over.