Big companies have obligations in the markets that they serve and do business in. In fact our perceptions of companies (As is obvious with Microsoft) are often colored not by what a company makes and sells but also by what it does. For example I know when I go into a Starbucks that anyone that is working over 20 hours a week there is getting health insurance. Does that influence my buying patterns and what I think of them as a company? You bet it does.
When I worked at IBM one of my favorite projects that I served as the design lead on was for a project called The IBM On Demand Community. This project worked to encourage IBM folks (both employees and IBM retirees) to volunteer in the communities they lived and worked in (and had the unanticipated benefit of encouraging people to apply those same efforts in communities that they DIDN"T work or live in too). Programmatically the IBM On Demand Community was about giving people tools and resources so that they could volunteer more effectively and productively. A main use of the program was to bootstrap efforts that were similar to Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Program.
Don Dodge cover's this program and what it will mean to the communities in which Microsoft's employees live and work in around the world.
“All human beings deserve a chance to achieve their full potential,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. “Bringing the benefits of technology to the next 5 billion people will require new products that meet the needs of underserved communities; creative, new business approaches that make technology more relevant, accessible and affordable; and close collaboration between local governments, educational institutions and community organizations.”
I'm encouraged when I see Microsoft couple efforts like this with our recent agreement to partner with Lenovo in China (Article is here but it's from the WSJ so you may have to have an account if you try to link to it within 7 days of this posting). Initiatives like this are what design thinking is all about and it indicates a broader understanding that philanthropy that is aligned with business and economics interests of communities can often have effects that are exponentially greater than Philanthropy alone.
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