I had the pleasure of being centered front row as Jed Emerson gave his talk about blended value at the Net Impact Conference at Stanford Business School in 2005. It was a great learning and visual experience to see the connections on the powerpoint of how we can find balance in our values and economy.

Just over a year ago from that time, I was sitting in entreprenuerial management at Boston University in a class of international students and those who had financial bottomlines on their mind. And I remember asking the professor about measuring the social bottomline and what about metrics around CSR.

With my professor having a traditional way of doing business, the question about measuring corporate social responsibility as it relates to improving reputation and the financial bottomline sounded like an odd notion. Doing a joint program at Tufts University School of Medicine/Emerson College in health communication, I was particularly interested in the blended value, because I wish to find creative solutions to solve public health issues. 

Coming from Oklahoma where health care needs a facelift, I am passionate about building healthy communities and healthy families. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing and getting the result. And I wanted to do something different and learn from the other world--business--how to get the buy-in from the private sector to do more for their employees and customers. So I taking MBA classes was quintessential to my graduate education. Having an interdisclipinary mix of education and practical experience is paramount to developing innovative solutions to our national and local challenges.

And now the notion of blended value is very much real and tangible as highlighted by publications like the Stanford Social Innovation Revew magazine. We have been able to quantify and qualify the information and build a case.

So to Jed for putting the white paper on the internet to spark the discussion and entertain the notion of creating a balanced society and a balanced conscience and ultimately a balanced personal/professional lifestyle.