Many, if not all, primates share food. The extent to which they share outside of their immediate offspring (a behaviour known as parental investment) is varied and there is much speculation as to what complex social hierarchies are at work. According to Jaeggi and Van Schaik’s research, there are two key factors that have been identified that encourage proactive food sharing. Firstly, primates who are using “extractive foraging” are more likely to share. Essentially, tool use encourages sharing. For example, if I have a tool or a skill with that tool - perhaps I am a chimpanzee with a stick to extract termites - that you do not, I am more likely to share my termites with my offspring or other members of my group. It might be easy to overlay a very human feeling of pity or “feeling sorry” for the individual without the tool on the situation, but that would be a very human centric oversimplification. Contrary to initial logic, they also found that it doesn’t matter how high quality (nutrient rich, etc) the food is, just how comparatively hard it is to get. 

Secondly, and possibly less surprisingly, adults shared food with each other “in exchange” - though I think this term is an oversimplification - for companionship and to increase mating potential. Romance via fruit exchange. Though, as with humans, reciprocal altruism is not just about sex. On a broader level it helps to form coalitions and support among non-mating individual as well.

When we get over to the idea of humans-as-primates there are many more complexities that we, as humans, are privy to. As an academic I see the contents of JSTOR as some very hard-won academic brain food. Just one of the above referenced primate studies had Andrew King and his team following a group of 14 baboons through the Namib desert for almost two years. That is what I call one hell of a termite stick that most of us don’t have. It is easy to understand why one would want to share the results of a study that takes such an investment of time and resources. I also feel that sharing research like this helps bring us all together in our global understanding of ourselves and our world, or in other words, “form coalitions and support among non-mating individuals.” I believe Aaron Swartz did too.

I don’t know enough about Aaron as an individual to comment on the sad circumstances surrounding his death. I’m happy though, that this terrible news has sparked anew questions about internet piracy and access to information. There are plenty of good social and economic arguments for the widespread access to academic information. The most logical of which (to me) stems from the enormous investment governments make in their institutions of higher learning. Surveying the bylines of academic articles, you would be hard pressed to find an individual or institution who has not benefited from access to public or tax-based funding. From small subsidised student loans to large research and development grants, so much is aided by We the People, with a capital P, only to be put under lock and key in it’s metaphorical ivory tower, accessible only to the small-p-privileged to have access to it. By making millions of academic articles widely accessible, Aaron Swartz was practising his very own primate reciprocal altruism.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, under which Aaron was being prosecuted, was put in place in a vastly different era and under entirely different circumstances. While the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was being passed through Congress in 1986, I was playing Oregon Trail on my Apple IIe. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined the global state of computing today. Information is no longer something to be regulated through the machine on which it exists, computers are now merely the tools we use to form our world community and all the complex information in it. It is one hell of a termite stick, now lets start sharing.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

Related articles

• Anonymous attacks MIT websites after death of internet activist Aaron Swartz (guardian.co.uk)
• Academics Tweet Tribute To Aaron Swartz, Share Research With Internet In Honor Of Activist (huffingtonpost.com)
• MIT Probes Role in Case Leading to Web Activist’s Death (bloomberg.com)
• Aaron Swartz, freedom fighter (salon.com)

I think Laura Agustín’s post about Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky documentary (trailer below) is an interesting read. Read it here: “Kristof’s Paternalistic Smarm: the Soft Side of Imperialism redux”

I also had a hard time watching the PBS documentary. Aside from my general uneasiness when men talk to women about “how hard it must be for you,” media is a tricky thing. On one hand I think it’s a good thing that anyone (Kristof or Agustín) is telling that story, as skewed as the perspective may be. On the other hand… all the things she wrote about. 

The key is promoting discussion, which posts like this prove it accomplished, in some small way. What I really wish is that writers like Kristof were more explicit in their framing of the debate and that consumers of media would see documentaries as jumping boards for larger conversations, as opposed to passive media to be consumed and filed away as unbending truth.

There are bigger issues at play about how we (the west, white people, media spectators, the internet) can participate in helping the people who want to be helped (from poverty, sex work, disease, low wages, you-name-it) without falling into centuries of our own unpleasant cultural muck in the process. In Epstein’s “The Invisible Cure,” she talks about the gross misuse of AIDS funding spent in eastern Africa creating western style hospitals, overhead, travel, and buying state of the art equipment - when the best care was given in homes and small scale centers with budget-limited control measures. It’s a similar problem faced with trafficking. How to help without some kind of culture translation? And who’s translation to trust?

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes and Research Associate at the Ethiopian Global Initiative. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

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In my role with Ethicodes I’m designing a mobile game-type app for ethical and sustainable consumption. In my professional life, I’ve been a designer and programmer for web and mobile. That means I have the unique experience of having been on both the management / programmer table. The work I do for Ethicodes can’t be done alone, and I’ll admit, there are (many) elements of programming that are better left to the specialists. In my juggling of these two worlds, I’ve come across the paradox of social enterprise technology. Most often it comes down to money, understanding and respect. Here’s some advice from both sides of the table.

Part I: Tips for Social Entrepreneurs

• Enthusiasm is contagious, but not that contagious. You are the idea guys, we all understand that. You are doing what you are doing because of a love of something - sustainable energy, or poverty alleviation, or accessible education - but don’t expect everyone to share your enthusiasm. And more importantly, don’t expect technology professionals to do what they do for free. It’s true, if you find the right person, with the right values and skillset you can get a lot done for very little money. But understand that this is very rare.
• Know what you are talking about (or find someone who does). A viable app, website or product includes a lot of moving parts. It is your job to plan and research which of those parts are needed. For example, if you are creating a web product you’ll need to know what platforms you are working on (Web, iOS, Android, etc.), what language you are working in (C+, XHTML, Flash, Ruby, etc.), and how users interact with it (login through Facebook or Twitter, create an account, etc.) to name a few.
• Rome wasn’t built in a day. In some cases you’ll have a product that gets developed and launched and doesn’t change ever, but only if you work at Microsoft. As a social entrepreneur you’re probably going to look for agile or iterative development, meaning you decide on a basic goal for a beta product and expand out from there based on a constant feedback loop. Don’t begin a programming request with “and then fireworks shoot out of the screen.” Decide what kind of core you need and worry about the bells and whistles later.
• Respect talents and time (and expect the same). If you are talking to a programmer, it’s because they are better at programming than you are. Contrary to popular beliefs, they are not kids geeking out in their parents garage anymore. They have invested a massive amount of their lives, and usually a lot of education, getting to know code. They would also be happier spending your meeting time watching Futurama. In order to respect their time and talent, be specific about what you want out of meetings and how long you will be there. If you are talking to a back end Ruby programmer, it’s a waste of everyone’s time talking about the UI and CSS, or worse yet, monetization and business practices.
• Know who you are talking to and what they can do. Again, if you are talking to a Ruby programmer, have a basic grasp of what that means and stick to it. If you are unsure what different roles, languages or processes are or what might be needed, get a technical project manager or ask around. Great tech products are not made by one person anymore, that hasn’t happened since 1998. Jut because you’ve found one programmer doesn’t mean you should expect them to do everything. In most cases they can’t and in all cases, they don’t want to.
• Appeal to desire to do good, but make it clear that you understand what the kind of commitment entails. You are asking for a lot of results, for what is usually - in the early startup days - not a lot of money. There are oodles of private companies with squillions of dollars looking for great programmers. Sell yourself as a growth opportunity and most importantly as an opportunity to try all the cutting edge stuff they wouldn’t have the freedom to play with in a big organization.
• Stock options, student ‘samples’ and hack-a-thons are lame. It’s not 2000 anymore. Developers see right through stock options and internships. Anyone who was around for the boom can paper their walls with useless stock options, and anyone who is younger than that has been in high enough demand since high school that a job that offers only these are laughable. I’ve also noticed an alarming trend toward requiring sample code tests for job applications. Code quality is important and should be tested before a hire, and third party tests like those offered at CodeEval are totally valid. However, when you request a sample that does exactly what a piece of your product is supposed to do, it is highly suspect. The same goes for design—when you are looking for someone to redesign your website and you require a “test” that forces someone to redesign your website before they are even hired, we are all on to you. Hack-a-thons—which are sometimes interesting meetups of like-minded individual, are also quickly becoming shorthand for “write my code for free.”
• Don’t steal code. This seems obvious, but it needs to be said. If you are using other people’s work without attribution or share-alike permission, you are undermining the people you are relying on most. If there is a bit of code that you think would be useful or modifiable, you’ll get surprisingly positive results by writing to the author (yes, coders are ‘authors’) and asking if they want to work with you.

Stay tuned next week for the other side of the table—Tips for Developers. I’d love to hear from other management / developers about experiences, tips, and frustrations in the comments.

Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes and Research Associate at the Ethiopian Global Initiative. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.

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I’ve had some rather embarrassing experiences recently, largely arising out my insistence on talking about ethical consumption/being a preachy little pain. Firstly, I’ve been in Munich for pleasure. I flew - I left my travel arranging late, and convinced myself that I’m such a Busy and Important Person that I couldn’t deal with the coach, (the coach is more expensive, and takes an eternity, and the train is prohibitively costly for me). This would not be so bad had I not been reminded by a friend that I told him off for flying from Italy in the very same year. I then flew back for similar reasons (EasyJet, my airline for these trips, used to offer the option of carbon-offsetting the trip in a handy button on one of the pages en route to purchase - where did it go?).

So, wrist-slapping central for me there. Here’s another gem: after years of reminding Apple users of their appalling human-rights record, I’ve finally got round to checking Ethical Consumer’s guide to mobile handsets. My (admittedly really annoying) Samsung scores a pathetic 5.5/20, compared to Apple’s 6.5. Not that 6.5 is especially impressive, but I’m clearly in no position to get holier-than-thou on the topic of phones. Thankfully, Acer Notebooks still trumped Apple Macbooks, and also got a Best Buy award for new laptops. If you’re wondering why no technology company scores higher than 11/20 with Ethical Consumer, check out WWF’s Jason Clay on resources and laptops for a starting point. I have also found Ethical Consumer’s summaries and introductions on the ethics of technology to be balanced (i.e. in line with my own point of view) and thought-provoking (i.e. with ideas new to my point of view).

Clearly, I am far from achieving my goal of making the most ethical use of the power and resources I am privileged to have access to. But if there is something to be said for harping on about ethics, it is that once you are public about your beliefs, there is an extra motivation to stick to them - that of saving face. It is partly with this in mind that I am embarking on a new project to be even more public about my consumption and my ethics. I will be attempting to keep track of the impact of my own consumption by giving myself points for buying things with a positive impact, and deducting points for buying things with a negative impact. I will then summarise the results once a month over on my personal blog at Tumblr.

Part of the inspiration for this came from Quantified Self, a website bringing together all sorts of people measuring data about themselves. Their tagline is “self knowledge through numbers”, and in spite of my unease about an obsession with numerical data as an end in itself, it seemed like at the very least it would generate some interesting food for thought: can we quantify ethics in a way which is useful or meaningful? Should we? What role will recording and communicating my results play on my own decisions and life, and will having a points system or other gamification-ey elements have any impact? Let the games begin.

Jack Dentith is the Social Impact Director at Ethicodes. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Jack has worked in research and development at several London based charities including the Facial Surgery Research Foundation. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. He lives in London.

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This week I’ve been reading “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter” by Tom Bissell. Bissell spends a lot of time looking at first-person shooters and the nuances of storytelling in open world games.

The whole point of any game is to be interactive. There is some reason for you to press a button or push a joystick left or right, whether it is to make sure the glowing Pong orb doesn’t fly away or to kill a zombie in Left 4 Dead. For various reasons, the standard video game priorities can be summed up as “Collect & Destroy”—that is, collect the things (coins, weapons, magic potions) that help you get towards a certain goal (the princess, the safe house, the next level) while simultaneously destroying anything that gets in the way (zombies, the Koopa Troopa, orange pixelated ghosts). This has made me think a lot about—at the risk of getting overly philosophical—what we want from our human experience.

Games, in general, are not about real life. Of course, like any good book or movie, part of the reason for that is escapism. If I wanted to live my life, why would I do so on a Wii? But I think the major reason is just that real life is ultimately pretty boring—desperately slow moving and depressingly uneventful. Even real-life games like The Sims have to speed up time and create obstacles like peeing your pants or setting yourself on fire. Just like in literature, we can say that it is “conflict and drama” that make games interesting. But what we seek out in real life is usually avoiding conflict and drama at all costs. As it turns out, the easiest way to get to the safehouse, is to make sure you don’t encounter any zombies at all.

At Ethicodes I’m working on the logic and needs of a game in which the player is a coffee farmer. The goal, like your average zombie apocalypse game, is simply survival. But instead of battling zombies you are simply battling the current global trade economy. By far the easiest thing to do is to avoid all conflict, but in the current agricultural market, avoiding conflict, not fighting for every penny of that sale, means starving to death. Can we make not-starving-to-death as compelling a goal as reaching a zombie-proof bunker? Our lives may depend on it.

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For once I’m not sure I agree with my co-blogger Kris Gryte’s last post—Why Ethical Deals Send the Wrong Message. I mean, I do agree with it on all the fundamental levels, but I think there are some key points missing. As someone with a lot of marketing experience, I think Kris’ sentiment represents a Pie-in-the-Sky argument that isn’t necessarily realistic.

If consumers are even moderately aware of ethically sourced goods, I believe they are keeping all this in mind. For instance, if you are invested enough to be reading this blog, I’m confident you are already aware of the nuanced balance between fair trade and free trade and do your best on a purchase-by-purchase basis to do good. The challenge comes in moving the much larger portion of the consumer market away from the dark side.

Ultimately it is a language barrier. The larger market forces have created the language: daily deals, holiday sales, doorbusters, discounts and coupons, oh my! Sites like Groupon and Living Social use these linguistic gymnastics to stress one thing—that price is the most important thing consumers can base their purchasing decisions on. When ethical brands try to push the idea that (surprise) ethics, and real people and experiences behind the products might be more important, the message is quickly drowned out by the other 90% - Sale! Cheap! market noise. The market is shifting, there’s no doubt about that, but the ethical message is still no more than a whisper.

Understanding the larger language issue puts the marketers of ethical goods in an awkward spot. If they only focus on transparency and ethics, as Kris suggests, they are preaching to the choir, the portion of the market that is already listening very intently for that whisper of ethics. If they buy into a daily deal or push holiday sales, on Blissmo, EthicalDeal, ecomom, GreenDeals, and Fair Trade A Day, they are using the dominant language to possibly shift a tiny percentage of the market, who in turn, might start listening a little closer next time to the ethical message.

I absolutely agree with Kris’ message: 

So, as this holiday season comes to a close, let us step back, reflect, and realize the true impact of purchasing decisions. Think twice about that ethical ‘deal’, but rather spend your money consciously, wisely, and ethically, endeavoring to build a sustainable relationship between you, the good, and the producer who brought that good to life. What is not so important is how great a deal we offer or find, but doing our bit of good by remaining true to our core values and ensuring a brighter, greener, more transparent, and ethical future. 

But I’m sure if you are reading this, you were planning on doing that anyway.

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2011 has been a year of many things, including Daily Deals. Groupon filed for IPO and has over 100 million subscribers. The likes of LivingSocial, Eversave, SocialBuy, and BuyWithMe followed in hot pursuit.  According to market research firm Lab42, more than 660 deals sites exist online today.   Amidst the daily deal euphoria, several sites offer ‘ethical’ daily deals: Blissmo, EthicalDeal, ecomom,  GreenDeals, and Fair Trade A Day. The time seems right for ethical deals sites: a global recession combined with a growing consumer awareness of and desire for sustainable enterprise and ethical products. Ethical deals include a wide range of ethical products, such as Fairtrade and organic food and body care products marked at greatly reduced prices. And while finding great deals on ethical products seems like a win-win situation—a product at a reduced price and making the world a better place, while providing increased exposure to ethical brands and causes—we would do well to ask ourselves whether this is, in fact, the case.

Business arguments for daily deals sites follow along a couple lines:

1. Consumers are price sensitive; by offering products at discounted prices, consumers will funnel toward similar products (substitutes) marked at the lowest price, thus congregating on a daily deal site, increasing sales revenue (by volume) and advertising revenue (eyes and clicks).
2. Daily deals are like promotional offers; by offering products at discounted prices, consumers will attain increased brand awareness. Once consumers find out just how great the brand/product is, they will become return customers. This helps lower customer acquisition costs, such as costs associated with traditional media outlays, and proposes to increase brand loyalty.
3. Daily deals provide new and exciting opportunities (at reduced risk) for consumers; by purchasing discounted products at new/unfamiliar retailers, consumer switching costs decrease. When prices are comparable, consumers favor brands with whom they are familiar, both in terms of quality and message; buying from an unknown brand is simply too risky an outlay when purchasing from a known brand is a ‘sure thing’. The threshold needed to overcome brand inertia is lowered through a daily deal, thus helping competitors offering daily deals gain increased market share.

Overcoming the price sensitivity barrier seems particularly salient for ethical goods, where the number one obstacle consumers generally report as to why they do not buy ethically is price. In an industry where retailers such as WholeFoods and trendy boutiques selling ethical wares are price point anchors, consumers expect ethical goods to be more expensive than commodity counterparts, even when, in many segments, ethical products are competitively priced. Hence, ethical product daily deals sites propose to help ethical retailers by helping them compete on price with hopes that, once the customer stops by, she will be swayed by the retailer’s story and message and purchase more of the retailer’s products marked at premium prices. So far so good.

But part of the message entailed in ethical products is the concept of transparency. An ethical retailer’s message is not only that a marked price is transparently broken down into components, such as Fairtrade wages, social premium, supply-chain costs, and retailer overhead, but also that, either explicitly or implicitly, that the commodities we buy in store cost not just the sum total of their sticker price. Commodities have externalities which are not adequately captured at the point of purchase. The real cost of commodities is only captured when we include environmental costs associated with waste generated during production and consumption, health costs associated with exposure to harmful toxins and processes, political costs associated with unrest attributable to inequality, and much more. When these costs—past, present, and future—are captured in a price tag, no longer are bananas $1, but $5 or $10 or more. The same goes for other commodities. We pay for commodities not just at the till, but in our taxes, our health, and our happiness.

While, on-the-surface, ethical daily deal sites are about ethical brand promotion and raising awareness, the focus is on price, price, price. Consider Fair Trade A Day’s landing page: classic anchoring strategies are used to convince consumers that they are getting a great deal on price. By stating the ‘original’ retail price, marking it out, and then listing the discounted price, Fair Trade A Day anchors consumers as to the inherent value of the product, making the discount price seem like a ‘steal’. Yes, a consumer can view product details and the ‘story’, but this is not the principle aspect which is influencing consumer decision, especially as the description and story are secondary, primarily used as support for the original retail price and further support the notion of a ‘steal’. Similar strategies are employed at Blissmo, EthicalDeal, and others.

If ethical products are about the story, the message, mission, and meaning, and the people, ethical retailers who participate on daily deal sites do themselves a disservice. Here, the end of getting consumers to an ethical retailer’s site does not justify the means. Using these sites and promoting them only serves to create the wrong expectations in consumer minds by reinforcing the supremacy of price, particularly the sticker price. The more important battle to be won is not about getting consumers to you (an ethical retailer’s site) so you can wow them, but about educating and promoting consumer understanding as to why ethical products are priced as they are—the battle is one over transparency and mindsets.

A consumer is moved to spend more on ethical products to ensure positive impact because ethical consumers understand that products are not commodities, but stories and represent entire ecosystems, a web of connections touching many families, villages, and lives. As such, stories cannot captured by price tags, but are experiences to be recounted, relived, and remembered. In effect, these products are priceless. By creating deal sites, we cheapen ethical goods and dilute, confuse, and make ambiguous the message. High end brands do not offer sales and discounts for a reason: nearly 20% of people view a business less favorably after running a daily deal. And ultimately, this cost  re-establishing consumer price point anchors, convincing consumers of brand quality, and reorienting consumers to focus on factors other than price is a steep mountain to climb.

Additionally, the ethical product industry stands in a difficult position: on the one hand, ethical producers are instructing consumers to make more conscious purchasing decisions, going to great lengths to educate consumers on how their purchases affect the world. On the other hand, ethical producers are nudging consumers to consume, consume, consume; this is especially the case when participating on daily deals sites where various pressures are used to convince the consumer to buy now (e.g., timers, tickers, limited supplies, flashing lights, etc.). Ultimately, ethical retailers confuse the message by tapping into the same deal euphoria of buy, buy, buy (just do so ethically) and then from the same mouth preach the benefits of less consumption and champion the mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle. We need to ask ourselves whether what is desired is an ethical consumer economy, or an ethical sustainable economy. The two are not equivalent.

Part of ensuring sustainability is not ending consumption, but rather ensuring consumers make fewer and more conscious purchasing decisions. Yes, so what if ethical products may be more expensive and consumers may have less disposable income as a result; is this necessarily a bad thing?!

By requiring consumers to pay the real cost of goods, transparently and ethically, we facilitate sustainable ethical consumption, where the emphasis is not on quantity, but on quality, on buying goods which we really want and need and where value transcends function by the relationships forged between consumers and producers.

As consumers, we would do well to ask ourselves not ‘where can I find something I do not need at the lowest price (and, if thinking ethically, with the least harm done)’, but ‘what do I really need, and what is really important?’ The idea is to buy less and buy wisely.

Ethical retailers would do well to ask themselves not ‘how can I maximize profits in the short term and benefit only my stakeholders’, but ‘how do I ensure the creation of a value economy, an economy which is sustainable and one in which consumption and production do not end, but where both consumption and production are to the benefit of all, both now and in the future?’  The idea is to co-create more with all stakeholders and produce wisely.

So, as this holiday season comes to a close, let us step back, reflect, and realize the true impact of purchasing decisions. Think twice about that ethical ‘deal’, but rather spend your money consciously, wisely, and ethically, endeavoring to build a sustainable relationship between you, the good, and the producer who brought that good to life. What is not so important is how great a deal we offer or find, but doing our bit of good by remaining true to our core values and ensuring a brighter, greener, more transparent, and ethical future.

Kristofer Gryte is the Founder and CEO of Emaji. He is a philosopher, scientist, and all-around techie who has developed an integrated software package for robust, automated data analysis. Outside of his research, he helps consult a Kenyan MFI on improving operations. He is currently a DPhil candidate at Oxford University mining data and using statistical analysis to study DNA-protein dynamics. He lives in London.

Related articles

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While we are up to our ears in data that says that consumers will pay a premium for ethical products and that the majority consider ethical factors in their purchase decision making, the still sliver sized penetration that ethical products (such as fair trade, organic, post-recycled packaging etc.) have achieved in conventional markets suggests otherwise.  It’s time to face the fact that consumers skew themselves greener or more ethical than their actual purchase decisions belie in these surveys.  So what can we do to spur not just ethical attitudes, but ethical purchasing behavior?

Dara O’Rourke of The Good Guide says a lot in this article about the complexities of ethical consumption.  He breaks down the barriers that the modern consumer has to adopting ethical consumption like this:

1. Habitual purchasing

2. Sophisticated marketing by conventional producers

3. Lack of good information to make an ethical choice

This is a great place to start.  There are many entrepreneurs and start-ups trying to solve this problem right now — but which ones will be able to come up with really great solutions to these barriers remains to be seen.

Over the next several weeks, I will be reviewing different start-ups within this framework: which of these barriers are they addressing and how well.  At the end of these reviews, it will be interesting to draw out any themes that will reveal the trends, strengths of and opportunities in the world of social entrepreneurship focused on ethical consumerism today.

If you know of a start-up that you would like to see reviewed let me know.

‘Til then!

Maria Konizeski is a Business Strategist specializing in consulting for social ventures and digital initiatives brings a wealth of insight into both the competitive advantages and challenges of the social start-up and the current state of the digital market.

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