Social innovation was once at the leading edge for social impact thinking and now seems stalled: what happened? This first of a two-part series builds on a piece I published on Medium and can be read here. Social Innovation was a term I used regularly to describe my field of interest. I loved how it …
Social Innovation’s Update: Part 1 – A Complicated History Read More »
Innovating is about doing something new to produce value and this introduces substantial challenges for strategy and evaluation. Without knowing what you can expect, it’s hard to know what you have…or where you’re going. Innovation is one of those terms that is used a lot without as much attention to what it means in specific …
Look around and one will notice a lot of talk about social enterprise and social impact. Look closer and you’ll find a lot more of the former and far less of the latter. There’s a Buddhist-inspired phrase that I find myself reflecting on often when traveling in the social innovation/entrepreneurship/enterprise/impact sphere: Do not confuse the …
Would we invest in something if we had little hard data to suggest what we could expect to gain from that investment? This is often the case with social programs, yet its a domain that has resisted the kind of data-driven approaches to investment that we’ve seen in other sectors and one theory is that we …
If You Build it is documentary about a social innovation project aimed at cultivating design skills with youth to tackle education and social issues in a economically challenged community in North Carolina. The well-intentioned, well-developed story is not unfamiliar to those interested in social innovation, but while inspiring to some these stories mask bigger questions …
“If You Build It..”: A Reflection on A Social Innovation Story Read More »
Earlier this week I has the pleasure of attending talks from Bryan Boyer from the Helsinki Design Lab and learning about the remarkable work they are doing in applying design to government and community life in Finland. While the focus of the audience for the talks was on their application of design thinking, I found myself …
I just read a great article from Frog Design that highlights 8 lessons for creating social impact. The lessons, quoted here, seem right on the money: 1. Undervalue Your Own Ideas. They may seem pretty clever to you, but chances are that they won’t work the way that you are imagining. Trust me on this …
