It's not often that you get to witness our society changing before your eyes. Last week I had the extraordinary opportunity to do just that. The place I saw this change was, oddly enough, not in our country, but in Argentina. And odder still, it was on a trip with a private company in the prosaic and dare I say "pedestrian" business of selling shoes. The company is called TOMS Shoes and this trip to the rural Misiones region of Argentina was another in a long series of the company's "shoe drops," in which they give away shoes to people in need. This trip was particularly special because during the course of this trip, TOMS gave away its millionth pair of shoes. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that TOMS paid for my trip and expenses.)
So what is a for profit company doing giving away a million shoes, you might ask? TOMS business model is simple: for every pair of shoes you buy, they give one pair away. TOMS calls their model -- appropriately -- One for One. And the name TOMS is taken from the word "tomorrow," as part of the idea that if you buy a pair of TOMS shoes today, a pair is given away tomorrow. TOMS is a new kind of business that fits into the much-hyped "social entrepreneurship" model. This term, and others variants on this theme, have become catchphrases in the business community and on college campuses, where courses and even majors with these names have sprouted from the Ivies to community colleges. in the past few years.
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