I have just finished a book that has provoked the most unusual vision: The Temple of Apollo. Intoxicating vapors rise from the earth’s deep chasms. The Oracle of Delphi unleashes an unbridled stream of murmurings. The holy priests wait below, open-mouthed, to reshape these cryptic invocations into enigmatic prophecies. Fire and brimstone kind of stuff.

No William Gibson book is this. No manga of ancient Greek mythology, but rather Michael Kinsley’s new book-birthed-by-blog, “Creative Capitalism, A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and other Economic Leaders.” So why the Delphic vision? Perhaps because this book is less a conversation (between the third richest man in the world and the richest man in the world) than a scramble by the modern day priests and priestesses of our economic system to make sense of the oracle-like proclamation by Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January of 2008.

It is in this 2,774 worded speech or that Gates, a self-proclaimed impatient optimist, launched his provocative, compelling and, to some, cryptic call for a world where “creative capitalism” takes its turn at addressing some of our most intractable and pressing global inequities.

From the get-go Gates stresses that technology innovation can only get us so far in tackling tough social problems. Efforts by governments, charities and the philanthropic world—even his own mighty and well-endowed foundation—can only get us so far. What’s needed is system innovation. Big, broad, burly system innovation. And the system he claims needs a substantial application of innovation is our free-market capitalist system—the system that, albeit now hobbled and in need of lifelines, served as his springboard into the rarified stratosphere of unprecedented personal wealth.

The most successful capitalist in the history of the world puts it this way:

“But to provide rapid improvement for the poor, we need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today. Such a system would have a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives for those who don’t fully benefit from market forces. To make the system sustainable, we need to use profit incentives whenever we can.”

Well, if there were profits in serving the poor, our capitalistic enterprises would have figured that out long ago. So Gates heralds the need for another market-based incentive to compel businesses to serve the poor: recognition. The thinking is as follows: recognition leads to enhanced reputation and visibility which appeals to customers (and investors) eager to reward companies doing good with their hard earned money. It also attracts the best talent, unarguably a company’s greatest asset, driven by a desire to find deeper purpose in work than serving solely at the altar of the bottomline. And as such, recognition becomes a valuable “proxy” for profit. And where profits are possible, recognition is icing on the cake.

The challenge, as Gates puts it, “is to design a system where market incentives, including profits and recognition, drive the change.” It is this new system that he calls Creative Capitalism which also provides a foundation where:

“…governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.”

Gates’ words seem particularly prescient in light of Obama’s inaugural address where he heralded a “new era of responsibility.” Hopefully Obama’s smooth but sharp eloquence will arm us with the fortitude to endure coming tough times. But more important, #44 stressed the necessity of joining imagination with common purpose to compel us forward:

“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.”

Gates raised a similar point when he wondered just what could happen if we started to think of a system that elegantly and powerfully joined sentiment (or concern, words that undoubtedly make hard-lined economists squirm) with self-interest, the high-octane fuel of our capitalistic engine. Both men call for a higher order of thinking and different brand of partnerships to deal with our problems: a purpose driven mash-up.

Gates briefly paints several scenarios of creative capitalism in action. He cites the vehicle of tiered pricing (or differential pricing where different classes of buyers are charged different prices for the same product); to enlightened and innovative government policy that create market incentives for businesses to engage in this sector (stimulus, say, to drive pharmaceuticals to develop drugs for unsexy diseases—like for TB instead of MPB, male pattern baldness); facilitating the access of businesses in the developing world into first world markets (aspects of fair trade initiatives); and more “commercial” endeavors like the Bono sponsored Project RED (the idea of consuming our way to a better world which has nevertheless funneled over $50m from wealthy westerns wanting GAP t-shirts and Armani suits to efforts to fight serious diseases).

All this talk of hybridizing and bastardizing sends Kinsley’s stable of thinkers—from Lawrence Summers to Richard Posener to Richard Reich—into a 307 page tailspin of discourse. The majority of the blog-length “chapters” reflect on the perils and pitfalls of mix-breeding pure capitalism which, many also argue, has done more than any other system to raise the quality of living around the world. (Even Gates admits “The world is getting better,” historically speaking and before qualifying this by saying but it’s not getting better fast enough—and for everyone.) It’s the rising tide lifts all boat concept. But the group goes on to wonder why should the entire capitalist system now do what Bill is advocating rather than what he did?

Fair point; but in many ways, debating this or parsing with a fine-toothed comb every “is” “should” and “could” of his speech misses the point—and really, the opportunity for a creative conversation around creative capitalism. I was shocked that there was essentially only one entry (“Creative Capitalism Has Its First Tool” by Loretta Michaels, a cofounder of HMS Wireless) that risked imagining “What if?” What would this all look like?

It was this lone entry that focused on the current experimentation around the practical (and legally essential) design of viable corporate structures to support the effort to blend for-profit activities with social enterprise endeavors. Michaels highlights the emerging L3C  idea that would create “charity hybrids.” These low-profit, limited liability corporations would be designed to attract private investment and philanthropic capital (leveraging the now complicated-to-execute Program Related Investments) for ventures designed primarily for social benefit and then for profit concern. This would not only allow a different class of investors to participate in social enterprises (individuals, government agencies, pension and endowment investments); but it would also allow foundations to make investments in these ventures via loans, equity purchases and the such. And unlike a charity, an L3C would be free to distribute profits, after taxes, to owners and investors. This experimentation has a ways to go to smooth out the ruffles and most likely there’s not one-size-fits-all application; but L3Cs have already made it into some states laws.

There is similar activity and experimentation in the realm of B Corps  spearheaded by organizations spanning the spectrum from Method  to Monitor. B Corps, although granted no special tax status, expands the legal language so that directors of organizations can consider the welfare of stakeholders (employees, customers, community and the environment) and not just shareholders in making decisions.

And then there’s Muhammad Yunus  of Grameen Bank  fame who is proselytizing for a new form of “social business.” In his recent book, “Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism,” Yunus not only envisions a world where the free market can help to solve problems of poverty, hunger and inequality; but he discusses Grameen’s powerful partnership with Danone Foods to create a social business to produce affordable and nutritious yogurt for malnourished children in Bangladesh. To Yunus, social businesses are not charities. They are businesses that have to recover their full costs while achieving their social objectives. The company can earn a profit; but the investors, after recouping their original investment, take no more. The company is cause driven not profit-driven—and financially sustainable while doing it. A discussion among Kinsley’s court deconstructing existing experimentation in the realm of “creative capitalism,” however it’s defined, would have been a lot more interesting.

In any event, marching through a commentary on each entry would weary me and most likely bore you. So I’ll refrain. But there are many provocative questions or ideas peppered throughout. To illuminate but a few:

• Michael Kremer , a professor at Harvard, (“You Can Make Profits and Save the Poor”) suggests using advance market commitments (AMCs) to allow several sponsors to commit to help finance purchases of a needed products (such as vaccines, etc) if developers agree to cap the long-run price of the product.

• Nancy Koehn,  a professor at Harvard Business School, (“Gates: The Right Place at the Right Time”) gives a historical perspective and claims that there are 5 powerful forces working on the system of global capitalism that are already pushing it along the path Gates outlines. From resources to the rise of millennials, changing corporate forms to the catalyst of transparency, she sees “young enterprises” starting to exert (or position) themselves for change in this arena.

• Esther Duflo, the professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT, (“What Makes Creative Capitalism Hard?”) gives an open-eyed assessment of the challenges: mainly how the “warm glow” of recognition risks being tied to no actual benefit. But she offers a solution around aligning public recognition and social value—and stresses the need for companies to “rigorously assess” the impact of their projects and publish these so we can actually, as a system, start to learn what initiatives make for success, or for failure. She also suggests that we creatively experiment with different forms. Some we will get  right. Some we won’t. But we’ll learn and refine and redevelop: a process well understood by designers. In essence, she calls for a “social sector” R&D lab. What a great idea.

While all this might seem like ho-hum semantic square-dancing for academics and theoreticians, it’s an issue a group at Continuum has been exploring for ourselves. As a global company, we feel an increasing global responsibility. (To Milton Friedman-ites, I understand that Friedman, in his seminal 1970 essay “The Social Responsibility of Business,” argues that a corporation is an“artificial person” unable to have responsibilities in even a vague sense.) So I’ll just say the people of Continuum feel a global responsibility. And more than a few of us are haunted by the perplexing distribution of our industry’s general focus and intent—where 90% of the world’s design talent is focused on addressing the needs of the richest 10% of the world.

And galvanized by the work we did with Rockefeller Foundation  this summer and the issues we began to explore with a group of leading design professionals, we are still asking the question of how design firms can move from intermittent cases of engagement with the social sector to a more systematic approach that unleashes and leverages the power of our talents on some of the world’s most intractable problems.

Ultimately, how can we help design our own version of creative capitalism that will allow us to join our imagination to a common purpose—without designing ourselves right into bankruptcy?

If you’re at all interested in this conversation, here’s the link to Gates speech and Kinsley’s blog.

And if so provoked, apply your own creative thinking to what a creative capitalism could look like and send me a note. I’d like to know.