Erb Perspective Blog

This post appeared in GreenBiz on February 23, 2012

by Nate Springer
Nathan Springer’s passion and profession is building better business through sustainability. He tweets on best practices as @nate_springer. He is a 2011 Erb Institute alum.

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur — someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.

Few issues have more potential to enhance impact outside of the enterprise than human rights and water. Working conditions in factories are as top of mind for electronics today as they were for apparel ten years ago, while water scarcity is an exponentially increasing risk for any industry with assets or supply in arid regions of India, Africa, and the Middle East. According to the Ford Motor Company’s Dave Berdish, Ford is a leader of positive impact for both. Continue reading →

This post appeared in GreenBiz on February 7, 2012

by Nate Springer
Nathan Springer’s passion and profession is building better business through sustainability. He tweets on best practices as @nate_springer. He is a 2011 Erb Institute alum.

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur — someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.

Social intrapreneurship is not a leisure activity. The one theme among the people who make positive change within companies is not about the importance of CEO support, sophisticated strategy, or fancy tools. The tie that binds social intrapreneurs is that building momentum is hard and requires persistence, patience, and creativity.

Continue reading →

This post appeared in GreenBiz on January 30, 2012

by Nate Springer
Nathan Springer’s passion and profession is building better business through sustainability. He tweets on best practices as @nate_springer. He is a 2011 Erb Institute alum.

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth article in a seven-week series by Nathan Springer that will chronicle in-depth the lessons from a course at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business on how to become a social intrapreneur — someone who makes change for good from within the enterprise.

In the year after protestors toppled entire governments across the Middle East while others successfully occupied the global economic agenda for months, observers ask: have social media unlocked the door to widespread mobilization?

This is the fourth in a series following a class taught at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan on social intrapreneurs and it builds on last week’s article about navigating networks. Professor Jerry Davis and former student Chris White introduce students to tools and tactics that can mobilize allies in the most recent class. Continue reading →