As I was reading an article, Online Tools Give Home-Based Firms Office-Style Services (touting free Web-based tools from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay), my mind scampered from these administrative-operational needs to the origination point of every entrepreneurial venture. This is the point where the entrepreneur meets THE idea.

This point is combustible. The match gets struck. It ignites. AN idea becomes THE idea. The person who carries THE idea forward becomes the entrepreneur. The entrepreurial opportunity successfully launches.

The process is the same regardless of the size or nature of the venture and, usually after a great deal of hard work, the entrepreneur reaps the reward (a distinguishing feature between entrepreneurial and non-profit ventures.) The feature that distinguishes the Social Entrepreneur is the unambiguous and inexorable benefit of THE idea to humanity. (For an interesting discussion on the fuzziness of this line, go to http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/social-entrepreneurship/defining-social-entrepreneurship/.)

Ideas that benefit humanity abound, but Social Entrepreneurs are rare. Why is that? Three of the many reasons are the need for expertise-experience, synchronicity (i.e. karma, fate, etc) of resources and events, and courage-perseverence. Networking through groups like this is an experiment. Can it be useful in creating a synergy of these three factors towards manifesting THE idea? Let's prove it can.

Ashoka (www.ashoka.com) offers some guidelines for the practical pursuit of a social entrepreneurial opportunity.
1. Identify the problem
2. Solve the problem with an idea that improves a system and/or invents a new approach; an idea that is
a. user-friendly,
b. understandable,
c. ethical, and
d. engages widespread support.
3. Maximize the number of local people who will stand up, seize the idea, and run with it. In their words, "Every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers."

For inspiration, here (http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=1610&srcid=1434) is the Webcast page for the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting going on through tomorrow (Sep 28, 2007).

For more inspiration ... and this is a pretty obvious suggestion ... see the inspiring and stunningly successful Grameenphone (http://www.grameenphone.com/) and the related Grameen Bank (http://www.grameen-info.org/). Remember ... Yunus started small; very, very small.