Action Research | Social Entrepreneurship: Engineering a Movement

Data Analysis 638D from Pepperdine Malt on Vimeo.

INTRO

This Action Research seeks to implement collaborative learning technologies for humanitarian objectives among a geographically dispersed community of practice. Specifically, the movement aims to foster education, empower women, protect the environment and expand social services in Pandytown on the Bay Islands of Honduras.

The Research Question:
How can I optimize collaborative learning technologies and engage social entrepreneurship among my geographically distributed …

From Haiti With Love from M. Scott Mortensen on Vimeo.

Literature Review

I have worked as a humanitarian for over twenty years in the United States, Russia, Thailand, Haiti, Honduras, Fiji and Mexico. One thing I have discovered throughout my journeys is that charity alone cannot resolve massive global problems like poverty, inequality and environmental degradation. Generous donations may alleviate suffering but they rarely alter the underlying crisis. To create lasting social …

3rd Annual Community Service Fair from M. Scott Mortensen on Vimeo.

Cycle 1

Identify Changemakers
Our projects in Pandytown, Honduras were very specific. However, our individual roles and responsibilities were nebulous at best. As an informal research activity we established a booth at the 3rd Annual Community Service Fair hosted by Oaks Christian High School in Thousand Oaks, CA. Through this event we were able to establish roles for Pandytown Youth Ambassadors who possessed …

Cross-cultural Collaboration from M. Scott Mortensen on Vimeo.

Cycle 2

Unite Team members
As our social network grew, we needed a centralized technology that could facilitate communication, enhance collaboration and archive our collective history. For this purpose we created an outward facing, PHP-based, video-blog. Coupled with a simple Facebook group that quickly grew to include nearly 500 members our resources could now be mobilized at a moment’s notice.

Intro > Literature …

Pandytown Pendant: Raffle from M. Scott Mortensen on Vimeo.

Cycle 3

Engage community
The question was posed as an experiment in phenomenology, “How can an online community help empower a real community?” Our social projects in Pandytown included equipping the Youth Center with computers & internet, beginning a micro-enterprise business for local women and finishing construction on the freshwater well. Anyone who donated $50 dollars to these causes was (and is) automatically …

Who are you? What do you want? from M. Scott Mortensen on Vimeo.

Final Reflection

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. –Werner Heisenberg
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle not only earned him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1932 but it also kicked logical positivism out of the halls of academia. In the research setting, Heisenberg’s discovery meant that the observer was no longer …