Butterfly Works is an inspiration-driven social solution and design agency. Operating as a “business with a social aim, the organisation has a mixed financial structure, coming from government subsidies and paid assignments. The profit gained is invested in developing new social projects. Currently Butterfly Works is developing new projects with a social business model built in.

Emer Beamer is one of the three founders of Butterfly Works, together with Ineke Aquarius and Hester Ezra. The team develops a wide range of cross media programs and events on topics ranging from conflict prevention to human rights to inventing in low tech environments. In the short interview which I conducted, Emer said that her main motivation is “to design meaningful experiences for people - experiences which motivate to the extent that they lead to new events and actions, to a positive chain of events and sustainable changes”. Below is our interview, in a summarised format:

1.      What is the uniqueness of butterfly works? What is your mission?

The overall mission of Butterfly Works is to ‘Liberate the maker’ in individuals everywhere. We do this with the mission that individuals claim the power over their own life and initiate, as well as bring to fruit their personal potential. This overall vision leads to a series of strategies, projects, programs, platforms, events and publications which enable others to make the personal contribution which they as a unique individual have, to offer the world.

2. Do you position yourself as working in the field of “social entrepreneurship”? Why?

Yes, because we believe that a combination of social aims, design and business concepts are the most sustainable in the long run. We would like to see acts of social good moving away from the 'charity' space and into mainstream accepted ways of doing business.

2.  Social entrepreneurship mainly concerns solving social problems by people who take their own initiative to improve areas that they believe are missing or not working.  It is a new concept and requires increasing awareness and education to get more people involved. What in your view are the most effective tools and methods to raise public awareness?

In short: inspiration by example.

3.  Social entrepreneurs are active in the areas such as: children health, climate crisis, problems with pollution, human rights, literacy in poor areas and others. Arts, culture and creative industries are rarely mentioned in the literature and world practice on social entrepreneurship. What on your opinion is the impact of social entrepreneurship on the cultural sector?

At Butterfly Works our departing point is design, this includes all aspects of our working processes from the interaction with people and systems to the products and solutions we co-create.  We envisage the momentum of creative industries as a valid approach to creating wealth for those now living in poverty.

5. The power of social networking and mobile communications is widely used to spread innovative new ideas and drive engagement in social change. What forms of social entrepreneurship are taking advantage of the existence of the new technology? Could you give examples of online spaces for social entrepreneurship and comment their usefulness?

 The usual suspects of twitter, facebook and ning are fine tools to explore, present and inform both oneself and others in the social entrepreneurship issue space by selecting who you follow, invite and join.

For example we often have lively discussions on facebook with our counterparts in Kenya regarding the approach of new programs in the pipeline.

6. In the current situation of a global financial crisis - does the new phenomena “social entrepreneurship” provide new opportunities and business models for the cultural sector?

I suspect the crisis has been good for green banks and some sustainable businesses, as they prove that their holistic approach is more crisis proof than quick and dirty business concepts. However for the cultural sector where the social entrepreneurship models are in an earlier stage of development it is hard to say if it is a set back or an opportunity. As an optimist I'm quite convinced that the tide has turned, that clients and audiences want quality, they want the story behind the product. They want to see the people who worked on what they consume. Thus as we develop more ways to make the production chains accessible and visible for consumers they will be willing to pay / invest in fair approaches. This is combined with the shift towards open business models and connected media where it is possible for small cultural producers to market their wares and concepts. I believe that the market albeit small is growing for those with creative approaches and will continue to do so.

Follow up Butterfly Works discussions on facebook: 

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21726556217

and on Twitter:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21726556217

Read also the interview with Eva Moe, Swedish Knowledge Foundation, as part of LabforCulture Research in Focus on social entrepreneurship.

Image: Return to Sender, India, 2007. source: www.butterflyworks.org