SXSW's Biggest Party is All About Social Entrepreneurship

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-03-10 13:54:00 UTC
Topics:

If there's a church of web startups, then South By Southwest Interactive is its Mecca. Every spring, thousands of true believers (and super geeks) make the trek to Austin for an orgy of web2.0 demos, panels and -- if author Paul Carr is to believed -- an endless supply of stickers. This year, however, one of the biggest draws is a party all about social entrepreneurship.

A few months ago, perennial social entrepreneurship and social media guru Martin Montero began chomping on the idea of having a party for the social innovators at SXSWi. Parties, by all reports, are the lifeblood of the event, and when it comes to meeting new people and building community, far more important than the hundreds of panels that happen over the week.

Martin quickly grabbed a number of cosponsors like the Social Capital Markets conference, the Acumen Fund and more to join him in planning the "Good Capitalist" party, a celebration of social entrepreneurs who are reconnecting people, planet and profit.

After a week or so, over 300 people signed up, and the planners had to reserve the whole venue, instead of just a back room. After another week or so, RSVPs were past 500. Today, they've had to switch the venue entirely because they're up to almost 1,200 RSVPs.

This is reflective of a few things:

1. Social Entrepreneurship is small enough that the word gets out fast: The #socent social media-verse has been alive with blog, tweets and buzz about the event, meaning that more or less the whole field has heard about it at this point.

2. There is significant interest in social good outside the field: With 1,200 RSVPs, many from companies like Apple, Cisco and IBM according to the event planners, this party has clearly jumped beyond just an insider scene.

3. There is a growing overlap between the web and social startup worlds: People attracted to building web startups often reference "changing the world" as motivation for building whatever they're building. Many share a broadly progressive sense of values. Some -- like CauseWorld, mentioned earlier today in a post -- have even found business models that integrate nonprofit support at the very center of the enterprise.

If you're in Austin, I highly recommend the event. If you're anywhere, I highly recommend taking notice of the interest in the emerging social venture space.

Photo credit: Randy Stewart

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
PREVIOUS STORY:
A Mobile App That Lets You Check In For Charity
NEXT STORY:
Facing Forward: The End of the Social Entrepreneurship Blog on Change.org

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.