Why Boris Libois became the Ki Work category leaderin Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Ki-work webinar , 25

of November 2008

***1. Karl Goldfield, Ki-Work Vice-president for sales and marketing : OK, so Boris, whatexactly is CSR ?

Boris Libois : CSR is the acronym of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. In French, we speak of “Business and Society Responsibility”. How business may take in charge its non legalobligations towards society as a whole ? CSR helps companies to bridge the gap between theirbusiness interests and the society interests.CSR is a voluntary way of acting. It may be cumulative with legal constraints. But usually thecompanies are driven by a specific interest to achieve. In other words : CSR must be compliantboth with legal obligations and competitive advantages.CSR covers a lot of topics related to the day-to-day business life. Some companies will havemore affinities with corporate governance and human resources. Others with energyefficiency or community involvement. But both of them engage themselves in the direction of more CSR by conciliating business objectives and society objectives.

2. Ki-work : Why is it important ?

Boris Libois : There is a general thinking that we have to take care of our global and localenvironment. An involvement in CSR can reinforce the emotional link between employees,customers and companies.I address CSR from a social entrepreneurial point of view. The challenge is : “Prospering withresponsibility”. CSR is important to achieve the sustainable development of companies inrespect of all their stakeholders interests. This means : workers, providers, clients,customers, neighbours, natural resources and shareholders.You never made any money without taking into account your environment, human, social ornatural. The way you take it into consideration may evolve from a defensive point of view to aprospective way of thinking and acting. What kind of interactions do I want to build with mypartners as to make it profitable for both of us, in a middle and long term ?

3. Ki-work : Why did you decide to start down this path ?

Boris Libois : I want to bring my expertise to society.Ethics and business are deeply connected. How CSR may be a business opportunity to build acompetitive advantage in a global world and not only a constrained cost to comply with moralobligations under social pressures ?I know enough from a theoretical point of view about the link between business and ethics. Ispent about 7 years in scientific work. I have a Phd in philosophy and an executive master inmanagement. I wrote two books (in French) on freedom of information and philosophicalchallenges of public communication.I also learned enough form a regulatory point of view. I spent 10 years in public affairs,especially in regional and local government administrations and independent agencies. Thesebodies are in charge of open governance and legal regulation of electronic media networks,services and applications.I feel me ready to bring an added value to enterprises, customers and providers of services,based on the way I will develop and implement a CSR concept.

4. Ki-work : What triggered you to become an open networker ?

Boris Libois : I'm living and working in Brussels, the small capital city (1,5 million inhabitants)of a no man's land (Belgium, 10 millions inhabitants), somewhere in Europe, stuck betweenGermany, France, United Kingdom and The Netherlands. Living in a small but complexcountry helps being open to understand our global world.I always have been interested by social and political use and impact of media systems (press,broadcasting and telecommunications) and information and communication technologies. I'mnow using the professional social networks, like Ki-work, LinkedIn, Xing or Viadeo, to build acommunity of sustainable development professionals providing me future collaborativeresources to work within this business solution.I am convinced I can link the right expert to the right company, being a mediator in themiddle connecting people that would never have thought to work together. A kind of “CSRbroker”, facilitating the CSR professional market and promoting innovative partnerships, atB2B level, between stakeholders and companies.

5. Ki-work : So, you use Linkedin to network, do you find it limiting ? How so ?

Boris Libois : LinkedIn is a useful utility but it is slowly becoming a commodity. I'm usingLinkedIn to get new professional resources and to track them moving forward and growingup. But LinkedIn is still stuck in a combination of a broadcast model (one-to-all) and atelegraph model (one-to-one). It is not yet a community partnership built on cooperationprocesses.LinkedIn is a open marketplace following a loyalty and fidelity approach. It is important butnot enough to build trusted projects. To be inclusive, you have to achieve the appropriatebalance between openness and closeness. To be efficient, you have to launch a businesssolution grounded on trust.Mature network applications as LinkedIn are too open to really differentiate themselves fromon-line marketing. Take a look at the LinkedIn groups : they are full of spammers ! It is killingsocial media.

6. Ki-work : How do you see the CSR community benefiting from Web 2.0 connections ?

Boris Libois : The benefits of Web 2.0 for the independent experts are an easier access tolarge CSR projects posted by companies and lower commercial expenses to find new incomes.The second advantage is to make CSR experts brand, skills and services more visible and thusmore valuable for them.With the Web 2.0, the stakeholders and civil society also have access to large and sharedresources.But the problem remains for the companies implementing CSR projects : how to secure their“immaterial resources” supply chain ? (human capital, knowledge, intellectual property,information system, corporate governance, organisational patterns, etc.) How to access, atany time and place, to the best CSR experts available on a specific topic at an affordable price?

7. Ki-work : So, what inspired you to join ki work as a category leader ?

Boris Libois : Ki-work category experts and leaders (as I am for the CSR category) are the self-produced energy of the sustainable development of this collaborative platform. If your areself-motivated to build your marketplace category and/or certified network, it will be your