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Please find a summary below of one of the sessions at this year’s PSFK Conference.

“What would you do if you could do anything?”

What They Said: COMMON is a creative community for rapidly prototyping social ventures, all done under a unified and collaborative brand.  Launched in January 2011 by Alex Bogusky, Ana Bogusky, Rob Schuham and John Bielenberg, COMMON connects entrepreneurs, designers and creatives to accelerate socially beneficial businesses and ideas using the power of innovation.  Co-founders Schuham and Bielenberg spoke of the changing rules of business and their desire to unlock and share brand value with the community. They compared this to a mash up of Virgin (which has taken a set of brand values and has translated them across a variety of categories) and TEDx (which was designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue at the local level.)  Ultimately, this venture is about creating socially beneficial businesses and spreading the value they bring to all stakeholders.

What We Heard: Brands and ventures like COMMON are raising the bar for what corporations and capitalism mean today.  It reminds businesses that they have both an obligation and an opportunity to solve problems and find new solutions.

Talk by Rob Schuham and John Bielenberg, Common.