Bio
Phil Jones is a Senior Business Analyst for the Association of American Medical Colleges where the mission is to serve & lead the academic medicine community to improve the health of all. He is a part-time student at Carey Business School, an MS in Information Systems candidate who has completed the Competitive Intelligence graduate certificate program. Phil completed his BS in Information Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology and is a coordinator of the DC alumni chapter.
Phil is currently in the CityLab DC program. Much like in his daily work where he focuses on the intersection of people, process, and technology, Phil believes CityLab is an exciting opportunity to explore the myriad intersections between commercial, social, and non-profit enterprise afforded by the District's unique history, community, and national presence. A DC resident for six and a half years, he is very pleased to be engaging with the city he calls home to produce tangible value for the community along-side talented Carey peers.
Phil is currently in the CityLab DC program. Much like in his daily work where he focuses on the intersection of people, process, and technology, Phil believes CityLab is an exciting opportunity to explore the myriad intersections between commercial, social, and non-profit enterprise afforded by the District's unique history, community, and national presence. A DC resident for six and a half years, he is very pleased to be engaging with the city he calls home to produce tangible value for the community along-side talented Carey peers.
Social Value Creation Statement
I was attracted to Johns Hopkins Carey Business School because of its clearly stated mission, “Where business is taught with humanity in mind.” I had never seen the two concepts, business and humanity, as incompatible. Through firsthand experience as an employee and reading to fulfill a personal enthusiasm for business, I knew of examples where the two coexisted compatibly.
Yet, before enrolling in graduate school it was also clear that organizations operate from vastly different perspectives. On one hand, before coming to DC I had worked for a Big 5 consulting firm as an IT consultant where billable hours were a constant concern. On the other hand, I left my consulting gig to volunteer through an outstanding non-profit, WorldTeach, as an English teacher in South America. With a budget of about $5,000, WorldTeach was able to build volunteers into effective ESL teachers through extensive, on-going training and also provide in-country support. A couple of years later I made my way to the District and found work providing IT services to non-profits at Community IT Innovators, an employee-owned company that takes a broad view of corporate sustainability throughout its work. I've since moved on to new employment with a sizable mission-driven organization as a Senior Business Analyst. My role at the AAMC is essentially to provide internal business process and technology consulting services to help us leverage our IT investment for the greatest social impact.
In transitioning between employment environments, swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other, I also began to see a middle ground where the perspectives of a major company and a relatively small non-profit organization might intersect. Non-profits should operate more like business with greater focus on efficiency, business modeling and planning, and financial sustainability. Businesses should operate more like non-profits with an adept sense of stakeholder value and mission-driven product delivery.
Intersections
Intersections
It is the idea of the intersection that I find exciting: the collision of two mindsets that may result in a new way of thinking, seeing, communicating, or understanding. My early classes at Carey exposed and endeared me to John Elkinton’s concept of triple bottom line (TBL), which is a model for understanding the intersection of economic, social, and environmental concerns. (It is a bit more fun to summarize using the common phrase “People, planet, profit.”) I also soon came to appreciate Michael Porter’s publications on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social value creation. This work arguably seeks the intersection of shareholder value and stakeholder value. Moreover, Porter's model-based method of conveyance resonates with my efforts in business analysis and other past work experience such that he has become a key resource in advising my academic and professional work.
Aspirations Solely passion and excitement for these ideas, however, is not enough to be effective as a social value creator. It doesn’t take but a few group projects in grad school, or projects at a well-meaning but risk averse organization that have gone awry, to know that passion is only one component of successful delivery. As soon as good intentions meet the hazy, chaotic, mixed-bag of reality, tensions rise, weaknesses surface, and progress is rarely made easy. Thus an area of continued personal development is building the characteristics and skill sets to operate with poise and clarity despite challenges that daily life puts forth. A great vision underscored by the deepest excitement, if obfuscated by frustration and distraction, could easily end up amounting to a lot of wasted effort. I and those of us who hope to spread adoption of social value creation and triple bottom line have little energy to lose in this way, especially as we work to embody them and convince others of their importance in environments where the ideas are not yet fully appreciated. |
"It is the idea of the intersection that I find exciting: the collision of two mindsets that may result in a new way of thinking..." |
So it might be said that I aspire to inspire. Ultimately I hope to enact the concepts, to show that sustainable and responsible enterprise simply makes sense in action in any setting. Good ideas and hard work can be framed, implemented, and evaluated similarly whether at a company, non-profit, or government agency. When we come to see the intersection of these perspectives more clearly, I believe we will also find the crux of social value creation:
Any endeavor is strengthened by accounting for all impacts across people, planet, and profit in a balanced manner.