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Connecting the dots

Jeff Trexler | Wednesday 1st July 2009

One of the most famous studies in network theory is Mark Granovetter's The Strength of Weak Ties, which used a job search to demonstrate how minimal connections can be more useful than connections with which you have a lot in common. This basic principle is one reason why my work tends to focus on aspects of social enterprise that tend not to be Topic Number 1 in the do-gooder chat-o-sphere.

Here, for example, are a few of the stories that intrigued me today:

Dairy Queen's Girl Scout Cookie shake: The G-Scouts can get away with not paying Unrelated Business Income Tax on their cookie biz because the enterprise is not "regularly carried on," as we say in the tax gig. So how can they get away with branded Blizzards? 'Cuz there's also an exception for licensing.

Still, however clever the tax strategy, the commercial is pretty creepy, no?

The Pirate Bay sells out for charity: The Pirate Bay is one of the world's leading sites for, shall we say, questionably legal file sharing, yet it is also a nonprofit organization. When I heard that TPB was sold to another firm for around 8 million dollars, I wondered if the nonprofit talk had been abandoned--but no, the money will be dedicated to a charitable purpose, just like what happens with the sale, say, of nonprofit hospitals.

Go here to translate the above into pirate speak, if you're so inclined.

It's Michael Jackson Showtime at the Apollo: A charity memorializes a commercial artist, but we tend not to see it as commercial opportunism or a diversion from its charitable mission--an intriguing & instructive example of transformative social enterprise.

Score nonprofit marijuana on Twitter: With Artists for Access and a heap load of Popeyes Chicken for when the munchies kick in, I'd say that pretty much proves Twitter's social utility.

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