NextBillion is heading west – San Francisco, to be precise.  Francisco and I will be on the road this weekend – along with 600+ fellow attendees – in preparation for next week's Social Capital Markets conference, which runs Monday through Wednesday in the city by the bay.  We'll have full coverage here on NextBillion, including guest posts from a stable of experts.

I'm excited, and more than a little nostalgic.  After all, San Francisco was the site of another conference, Eradicating Poverty Through Profit, which helped launch the base of the pyramid concept into the mainstream back in 2004.  On Tuesday, I was on the phone with Justin DeKoszmovsky, SC Johnson's Manager for Strategic Sustainability – and one of the company's BoP champions.  Justin and I first met at Eradicating Poverty Through Profit – he as a Cornell MBA student volunteer, I as a conference staffer with the World Resources Institute.  When I mentioned the purpose of my San Francisco trip to him this week, Justin laughed and replied, "It's amazing how far the base of the pyramid sector has come in just four years."

Of course, there are miles to go before we sleep.  But the Social Capital Markets conference may mark an important milestone in the BoP and social investment spaces.

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Guest blogger Jenara Nerenberg is the Founder of BOP Source. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard University and lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, where she is a Columnist for a national business magazine and a Consultant on new media marketing.

Jenara was a Consultant to the Harvard Center for Health Communication and worked on cause-related marketing at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, bringing together leaders from YouthAIDS, MTV, and the academic community.

By Jenara Nerenberg

Manuel Bueno recently wrote a post about the need to go beyond basic needs business strategies to a more holistic approach when engaging the BoP in business. I thought I would take this idea up in the context of my own field, new media marketing. Below is what I think should be the marketing component of the next wave of economic and social value-driven businesses at the base of the pyramid, an area that I am currently working on at BOP Source.

Imagine the BoP using social networks. Think entrepreneurs, members of microfinance self-help groups, and villagers in remote areas of Nepal or Mongolia. Imagine listening to buzzing conversations of micro-entrepreneurs about their products, challenges, needs, ideas, and desires for collaboration.

Imagine an entrepreneur in the middle of her village who is literate with her elementary school education and who is now the chief ethnographer of her community, appointed by Nokia, Danone, Unilever, or any other large MNC.

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