In November 2014, the RSA and online marketplace Etsy embarked on an 18-month research project – The Power of Small – which explores the rise of the micro-business community and considers what it means both economically and socially
The phenomenon throws up a number of important questions. What ‘types’ of microbusinesses are becoming more commonplace? What has caused the large increase in recent years? And what effect are they having on the economy and wider society?
The project is headed by Adam Lent, Director of the RSA’s Action and Research Centre. Adam recently ran a successful crowdfunding campaign to publish his book - Small is Powerful which argues that the small revolution must be embraced. A world where power and resources are shared out much more widely will deliver the fairer, stabler, wealthier world we want.
This week, Adam is joined by Director of RSA Global Natalie Nicholles in New York to strengthen the RSA’s international relationships around this project. Adam is speaking at Etsy’s HQ and will be discussing future opportunities with their leadership team in order to build on RSA’s work on micro-businesses and self-employment.
Adam and Natalie are also meeting Babson College, the No.1 social enterprise university in the US, and representatives from the Gifted Citzen Prize (a Mexican social enterprise competition that the RSA helped judge in 2014) to brainstorm areas of collaboration.
In addition to this, they will also meet with the Roosevelt Institute, for whom RSA Director of Education Joe Hallgarten and other members of the education team have written a policy memo on creative schools for a thriving economy. Finally, they will also be meeting with members of the RSA US Board of Trustees.
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Happy New Year to all. It is now January 6, 2016. Where do things stand?
Also may I suggest each entry is somehow automatically dated. "This week...." is confusing. I believe it refers to February 3rd, 2015......nearly a year ago.
Is there any reason why the minutes of all meetings of the US Board of Trustees should remain a secret? Surely they should be published and archived.
Robin 😊
I'm interested to know what progress has been made since 3rd February 2015 with the three outside organizations mentioned regarding the power of the small:
Etsy
Babson
Roosevelt Institute
We at startupready.net have been working helping what we call the business of one i.e. professional self employed people who have transitioning out of the corporate world. Our base hypotheses is that organisations are restructuring and this means a lot of professionals / knowledge workers who normally have spent their entire careers with one company are no longer doing so.
Dear Zufi:
As a self-employed professional, after many years as a member of several global consulting organizations, I provide evidence that your hypothesis is correct when applied to a cluster of organizations within one professional field.
How are things proceeding at startup ready.net?
Robin. Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts. I have just exited from startupready.net . My focus now is supporting a dance company scale their presence internationally. If ever at the RSA House it would be great to meet up for a coffee.