Last December, we launched on our Facebook page the game Social Business Youngsters, an app dedicated to people under 25 who wants to contribute to build a better world through social business initiatives.

The game is still going on, (until end of March) and almost 2000 people have already subscribed to be part of this innovative “call for projects”.

After several weeks, let’s have a look on the results !

What is blindingly obvious is that 2 countries are really implicated in submitting projects: France and Bangladesh. Sure, both countries are quite close to each other because of the initiative Grameen Danone Foods Ltd, but… are they becoming competitors? We need more weeks to shed light on this subject.

The other point is about Categories: it seems that social business youngsters are most interested in creating their own project or start-up than simply promoting or doing acamdecal studies about social business. Indeed, the category SB Create is the most declared by members of the game whereas SB Research and SB Promote are the less used. It inspires me one question: Where all the students writing a thesis on social business have gone? It’s time to take your chance !

Now, what can we say about the best schools involved in the game? Bangladesh is the star with 2 universities on the podium:
-    Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka

Young entrepreneurs are lucky, the Web has become a tool through which they can develop their project, perhaps with more ease and support than when they traded the tires.

Right now, it is not less than three opportunities given to them display their ambition.

The first is the game Social Business Youngsters, hosted on our Facebook page. The principle is simple: you submit a social business project, you put it the right  projects category (Social Business Promote / Research / Create), you build up your team and invite all your friends to collect the maximum votes. The only requirement for participation is to be under 25 years (to be a Youngster!).

You remember: in May 2011, following an contest during our now legendary General Community Meeting at the Carrousel du Louvre, we opened the doors of our beloved Facebook page to the blog team LeSocialBusiness.fr. For one week, the band animated the page our joy (the seventh and final principle of social business) but also with links all over the place for you to discover another perspective on social business.

Several months later, we are very pleased to welcome GirlzInWeb here for a week of Community Manager of the week, with many posts around the subject of social media for development.

Who are thesegirls ? GirlzInWeb association is what brings all the girlsof the web, not to advocateon genderbutto campaignon the skillsof allthose girlswho do not dare to step forward and are therefore much less visible in the media than the other sex.For almost two years, the association, whichclaims to havepassed the100members,works on thistidal wave, organizing eventsaround thedigital innovationsorthemesin whichGirlzInWebare illustrated. The latestdate, fromas recently aslast week, was a workshop where GirlzInWeb gathered 20other girls in the web, around the subject of the dark sideof digital PR. 

Created in 2007 through the project Grameen Danone in Bangladesh, danone.communities has now an extended playground : India, Senegal, France… Indeed, in 2011, 5 social business projects are on their way, with the support of danone.communities and its team.

The reputation of its action is quite wide but many people was used to tell: “It’s not easy to find information about the projects!”.  This comment meant that they did not know the website exists… and even they would have known it, the information was not clear enough.

In addition, the website has a register space that allows people to subscribe and become a member of the social business community… but people still used to say:”Okay, I’m part of the community as a register member of the website, but what does it mean, concretely?”.

When realizing these things had to be improved, danone.communities took the reins of its website to make it better and give it all meanings again.

Then, there were two challenges:

-         Communicating more clearly about the actions of danone.communities and the projects.

-         Giving more value to the community, online.

This week, discover how we decided to communicate more clearly about the actions of danone.communities and the projects !

The team who leads the blog Lesociabusiness.fr has won our General Community Meeting 2011 contest. This teams wins the following special blogpost here and the power of becoming the Community Manager of the Week on our Facebook Page, in May, from the 16th until the 22nd included. We are very happy to welcome Denis, Chrystel, Anaïs ... and their joy of talking social business ! Congratulations and thanks to them !

Lesocialbusiness.fr is, as its name suggests, a blog dedicated to social business at its large meaning.
Why “a large meaning” ? Because this full potential and emerging theme is the subject of multiple definitions, debates and other contradictions that often lead to sterile intellectual jousting.

Social entrepreneurship, social economy, innovative projects with high social impact, all these themes are celebrated on lesocialbusiness.fr! Supporters of Yunus as defenders of more moderated approach are invited to take part in this surge of humanity to reinvent an economy that brings together rather than exclude and which holds within it an ocean of solutions rather than many problems.

Lesocialbusiness.fr is run by three young activists who want to relay this message of hope for a renewed society. Anais, Chrystel and Denis met on the banks of CESEM Reims before continuing their journey in separate ways, without losing their original convictions and passions.

If you are on this website, this is because you are interested in danone.communities and social business.

Thank you for following us on this website since 2008 and especially on the blog, where we tell you the actions for the social business, set up by the community, the fans of social business and the team danone.communities.

To give these activities more visibility, and especially to encourage the enthusiasm of the communities, a new site is under construction.

Here are some views of it…

Be there in May !