Terrence McNally podcast

"I believe we can do better and I want to find out how."

Interview: BILL DRAYTON, founder/CEO, ASHOKA - INNOVATORS FOR THE PUBLIC

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December 31, 2008 08:32 AM PST

Aired 12/24/08

TERRY McNALLY on AIR AMERICA RADIO sitting in for RACHEL MADDOW and interviews BILL DRAYTON.

BILL DRAYTON has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship. He is the CEO and founder of ASHOKA, a global organization which selects individuals tackling society's most pressing problems with innovative, entrepreneurial solutions. Since 1981, ASHOKA has elected over 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. Through ASHOKA, DRAYTON has introduced the world to a fundamentally new model of how ideas can change social systems across the globe, improving the lives of millions.

As a management consultant with McKinsey & Co, he gained wide experience serving both public and private clients, and built his understanding of how organizations work. He also served briefly in the White House, and taught both law and management at Stanford Law School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is a graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale Universities.

Social entrepreneurs often seem to be possessed by their ideas, committing their lives to changing the direction of their field. They are both visionaries and ultimate realists, concerned with the practical implementation of their vision above all else.

Each social entrepreneur presents ideas that are user-friendly, understandable, ethical, and engage widespread support in order to maximize the number of local people that will stand up, seize their idea, and implement with it. In other words, every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers-a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything.

Over the past two decades, the citizen sector http://www.ashoka.org/citizensector has discovered what the business sector learned long ago: There is nothing as powerful as a new idea in the hands of a first-class entrepreneur.

Just as entrepreneurs change the face of business, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better. While a business entrepreneur might create entirely new industries, a social entrepreneur comes up with new solutions to social problems and then implements them on a large scale.

Learn more at http://ashoka.org

Podcast Summary

Features conversations with people who offer pieces of the puzzle of “a world that just might work” -- provocative approaches to business, environment, health, science, politics, media and culture. Guests have included Ken Burns, Deborah Tannen, Andrew Weil, Jeremy Rifkin, Arianna Huffington, Roger Ebert, Bill Joy, Alvin Toffler, Paul Krugman, Bill Maher, and Norman Lear.

About Terrence

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TERRENCE McNALLY, journalist and radio host, is also a consultant, speaker, writer, and coach to public agencies, foundations, non-profits, and responsible corporations. Terrenceâ€™s radio show Free Forum (KPFK 90.7fm, Los Angeles, streaming and podcasting at kpfk.org, in print at AlterNet.org) features conversations with people who offer pieces of the puzzle of â€œa world that just might workâ€ -- provocative approaches to business, environment, health, science, politics, media and culture. Guests have included Ken Burns, Deborah Tannen, Andrew Weil, Jeremy Rifkin, Arianna Huffington, Roger Ebert, Bill Joy, Alvin Toffler, Paul Krugman, Bill Maher, and Norman Lear. McNally speaks on strategic communications and the power of storytelling, as well as on issues of social responsibility and sustainable development. Speaking and training clients include American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, CERES, Friends Of The Earth, Glaxo Smith Kline (Patient Advocates), Greenpeace USA, Intel, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Herman Miller, NASA, NASD Investor Education Foundation, Nemours Foundation, US Climate Action Network, US Department of Agriculture, and Volunteers Of America. His organizational work encourages and focuses communication, creativity, and cooperation; resolves conflicts; clarifies and aligns vision, mission and objectives; and develops plans for effective action. Consulting clients include the Environmental Protection Agency, Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, Redefining Progress, Business for Social Responsibility, Global Green USA, Rhino Records, and Interface Flooring. A graduate of Harvard, where he won its highest academic award, he has also worked as a writer, producer, and director of documentaries ("Buckminster Fuller - World Man, World Game", BBCâ€™s 1992 Earth Summit special "Greenbucksâ€.) He co-wrote and produced Julie Brown's "Goddess In Progress", voted #4 mini-album of 1985 in the Village Voice National Music Critics Poll. Having acted in over a hundred films and television shows, McNally co-wrote and co-produced the musical comedy feature "Earth Girls Are Easy". Called by Time Magazine "the freshest thing to come out of the space program since Tangâ€, it is now being developed as a Broadway musical. Co-author with Hyla Cass MD of Kava: Nature's Answer to Stress, Anxiety, and Insomnia, Terrence is an annual participant at the Conference on World Affairs, a member of the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences, and has served on the boards of Earth Communications Office, Show Coalition, and Education 1st.

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