I must admit, I don’t usually like talks all that much. I go because there are some interesting speakers, or topics I hope to hear about, or people I’m meeting there, but all too often it’s the same theme you’ve heard fifty times before, the same ideas that you’ve read about, and the same high-minded ideals without any direct link to experience.  Which is why it was all the more amazing to hear Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of Acumen Fund, and Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, in conversation at Berkeley the other night (moderated by Stuart Davidson of Labrador Ventures).

The conversation flowed naturally, the wisdom and insights came out too rapidly to write down, and one could tell that the speakers on stage were truly and fully alive, engaged in purposeful endeavors. And, many of the issues they addressed are ones that we’ve been working on over the past year. For example, Tim Brown pointed out that for him “it’s not about the insights scaling, it’s about the ideas scaling” – Catapult has been figuring out how to properly think about scale, and this approach – use the local insights to get ideas that can then be tested elsewhere and spread – is much more along the lines of how we approach things. For Jacqueline, it was about creating a laboratory of things that are working, and scaling enough to be able to speak with authority to larger institutions and thereby effect greater change. Brown also mentioned that one of IDEO’s breakthroughs as they’ve developed in the social space has been to collaborate with NGO partners (Catapult’s model!) and transfer the skills to them instead of brainstorming in an office in New York.

A few of the other pearls from the talk (my apologies if they’re paraphrased or slightly misquoted – I was jotting down as fast as I could):

Novogratz: “Language precedes change” in reference to the growing adoption of the social investing lexicon

“You need to have not just patience, but wisdom” – in terms of properly applying patient capital to grow markets

Brown: “Intuition is the experience of being able to see patterns.” – on trusting one’s insights.

“It’s not that hard to have ideas. It’s not even that hard to make early prototypes. It’s really hard to take ideas out into the world, to make them stick.”

And finally, a perfect summary of what motivates all of us in this area:

Novogratz: ”Poverty is about do I, as a human being have opportunity and choice to make my own decisions and solve my own problems.”

“Dignity comes from choice and opportunity”