Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Wednesday 3rd February 2010 | 3 comments
It's easy to find references these days to the importance of business innovation. And it's true, creative thinking and innovation are critical if you want to surf the current waves of change in business.
But it's not just about commercial enterprise. I've been researching the field of social innovation for an article I'm writing for the Australian Financial Review BOSS magazine, and I have been wonderfully surprised by the number and quality of fresh, original ideas out there.
Social innovation is about finding better ways of tackling social problems and responding to unmet (and growing) community needs or opportunities. We often think that social issues such as housing or poverty or isolation are huge and intractable, but there is a thriving network of people who see it differently, who are prepared to tackle issues in bite-sized chunks, using innovative models or approaches.
Charles Leadbeater, innovation expert and author of We-Think says that the big social innovation challenges are in two areas:
He uses the analogy of a beach - in the old days it was the big boulders (government, large organizations ) who did stuff, but now all sorts of pebbles are doing their bit (a person making a video, a blog post, a one-to-one initiative to a local person - even individuals using Skype to teach English to someone in a country on the other side of the globe.
Of course, identifying the need for a fresh approach to these issues is hardly radical - what is fascinating though, is initiatives like the upcoming inaugural Australian Social Innovation Exchange (ASIX) camp in Sydney in March.
Ideas have been posted from all sorts of people for all sorts of initiatives - from better ways to distribute food, or online networks to organise impromptu sporting matches, or finding work experience for the disadvantaged, or connecting older people concerned about housing options, to setting up a local website where people can share stuff like ladders or weird power tools, the kind of things you might only use once a year.
Great ideas, and great to see them being facilitated in such a way.
Now, I'm off to set up a webpage for our street, and see if someone wants to use our dremel - and if I can 'borrow' some Spakfilla in return!
Tags: ideas, innovation, social
Hi Joanna :-)
Thanks for another gr8 post :-)
Had to leave a comment with this one. One may consider much of my background has been in this area...though I don't think of myself as a 'Social Innovator' per se...
My mate from days of old reckoned he was a 'Social Innovator' by leaving the coat-hanger in his shirt when he went out clubbing...or using froth tablets at fancy dress parties. :-P
As you probably know from our interaction on the Small Business Owner Blog ( http://mybrc.myobnet.com/ ), I'm in beginning to rebuild an apparently 'failed' very small business into a much larger enterprise called 'Pizza T-Reks'.
In the 'Pizza T-Reks' logo I use the term "The anti social enterprise...". Why? Well first of all it's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek tag-line in the spirit of the still extant core business 'noSh-it! Wood-FIred Pizza'.
Also, it could be argued that I'm attempting to build-upon and evolve current business and institutional traditions, axioms and practices with a kind of hybrid commercial-social enterprise to bridge the glaring divide between 'commercial for profit' and 'non-profit/not-for-profit' sectors.
e.g. I reckon if it's good enough for the Tax Office to get 5 million people to collect and process tax and pay for the privilege, then it's good enough to pay volunteers, communities and community-based orgs for the Tens and arguably Hundreds of $Billion worth of annual contributions that seemingly fall through the cracks in our national balance-sheets.
Another e.g. About 15 years ago I was at a National Housing Conference. Re: Community Housing Funding I made a case for 'Good Will'. It was met with jaw-hanging silence from the Ministers and 'Officials' present (the crowd was a tad more vocal and supportive :). At that time I used an example of a women's refuge that cost $400,000.00 p.a. to run. It 'processed' 8 women in a year. My question: How many women in similar situations do not use such institutions because of friendship in their own communities? In other words, a cup of tea over a neighbour's fence could/should be valued at about $10,000.00. Again! Jaw-hanging silence from officials...followed by 'appropriate rhetoric'.
In the 1995 Boyer Lectures, Eva Cox raised the issue of 'Social Capital'? Well WHERE IS IT? Volunteering is not 'Capital' until it is recognised and accounted for as Capital! I can't go to a bank and borrow volunteers...can I? No! They're free!...except for the cost!
I reckon that 'volunteering' is just a socially acceptable form of slavery! At least in an economic sense.
Now I'm not having a go at the fine folks that simply enjoy giving their energy out of the goodness of their hearts! I'm having a go at the cost of that energy being born by struggling communities and community-based orgs...and I'm having a go at 'an accepted culture' that not only devalues this but exploits it...which includes pretty much all of us one way or another. The work should be valued and accounted for so that it can generate more income...just like 'real' work...if not directly for the individuals who prefer not be paid, for the organisations and communities they work for.
And yes I know there are 'Tax Incentives' etc! Total token crap if you ask me! That crap simply reinforces the notion and fact that even in a modern 'civilised', 'developed' country, beggars yet cannot be choosers!
So I suppose at the end of the day, like many other well meaning folks I'm addressing values. But not just values in the philosophical sense...values in a practical, pecuniary sense.
You know, all of these good people are out there in endless 'eco', 'enviro', 'socio', organisations....most of them scattered and struggling to make it to their next AGM.
I've been to the 'Australian Social Innovation Exchange' and all the linked/affiliated sites/orgs. I've read through pages and pages of ideas from great people...and I can't find ONE that doesn't rely on Volunteers!
You know I love 'Grass Roots' orgs and people...God knows I've been involved with them for years. But I'm so hoping that soon they will break through the topsoil into the light of day and become 'Grass' orgs.
For years I've heard and seen the adage, 'change always comes from the 'grass roots'. Yeh! Well maybe it did when there was only 1/2 a billion people in a pre-industrial world?
How do you reckon those same old dynamics will fair against global law makers with all of the money, all of the guns and military robots? - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html
Don't you reckon it would take a global uprising? Are 'Grass Roots' orgs able to organise effectively on such a scale? And what would be the cost (in money, human-rights violations and lives)? And what would be the 'carbon-footprint'?
And I'm not saying that my ideas are new....I'm just gathering and focusing and translating the great work of many of these great people/orgs that I have researched over the years into a project.
We already have 'the answers'...we need to 'actually' apply them with the appropriate values, integrity and economies of scale. We need to design inclusively e.g. we need to design so that corruption is included and 'actually' minimised, instead of hoping it will just go away. (Barry Schwartz addresses this far better than I can - http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/462 )
Here are a few examples of projects and ideas that I'm using and building on:
http://www.natcap.org/ (This is a must read book...China has read it and now they are using it :-).
http://www.oilendgame.com/index.html
http://www.villagehomesdavis.org/
http://www.interfaceglobal.com/ & http://www.interfaceraise.com/
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/475
http://www.biomimicry.net/
http://www.keyline.com.au/ & http://www.amazon.com/dp/1438225784/
http://permaculture.org.au/
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Take+Action
http://www.transitiontowns.org/
The bottom line? How much is a human life 'actually' worth? How much is genuine human endeavour 'actually' worth?
In a world where it costs less to transport a live human on-call across town than it does to transport a parcel the same size across town over night...I'm wondering?
Thanks Joanna...that's my 2 Bobs worth for now :-)
Cheers
Stephen G
Wow, Stephen - thanks for your (as usual) pertinent and insightful comments....and for doing all my research on my story for me :)
Seriously, though, I always remember a sticker I saw many years ago which said 'The world will be a sane place when school programs are fully funded and it's the Department of Defence that has to hold a lamington drive to pay for its warships and missiles' or words to similar effect.
I will ask some questions about how much these social innovation initiatives rely on volunteers when I start interviewing people next week - will keep you posted!
Thanks, Stephen
You're most welcome Joanna...I'm glad that my rant was useful :-)
Yep! I remember that sticker too...it was also a poster. Though, I think that sticker was specifically aimed at the US. Our guys over here use the US's disposables.
Also of interest to me is the use of our Defence guys in community projects in peace-times...something I had a bit to do with a few years ago...and to their credit they are doing it more and more.
Oh! You're interviewing? Good! Ask them what they expect to gain from trying to leverage the current 'Social Media' trend, via pseudo-association and keywords?
It really breaks my heart to see so many so called "Social Innovators' that seem to think that Social Innovation is coming up with a new web-widget!!! They only seem to direct their 'innovations' to the web...WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING???
It seems to me that it is nothing more than a marketing campaign used to syphon funding away from the yet massive proportion of the population that DOESN'T HAVE WEB ACCESS!
Current figures vary: Wolfram Alpha reckons that only 1/7 (i.e. @ 14%), of the world population are using the WWW. Whereas Internet World Stats ( http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm ) reckon that about 25% are. But have a look at the regional breakdowns. Of that 25% about 42% are in Asia. Our region i.e. Oceania is only 1.2% of that 25%.
It surprises me how people that spend a lot of time on the web seem to assume that everyone has access.
'Social Innovation' and/or 'Social Enterprise' seems to be leaning far more toward finding innovative ways to make more money out of Socialising....and they are using the poultry amount of funding that is made available for 'actual' community' projects that are supposed to help THE PEOPLE on the ground that NEED HELP NOW?
How the bluddy Hell does a Google Map Plug-in put food on the table of a single mother of 3 in bluddy Bullamakanka? Oh! Well, it provides quicker and access to better inform decision makers and policy analysts and managers of aid programs??? For Christ Sake! Not only are these people already getting highly paid, they have been making decisions and writing bluddy policy for 100 years and even the President of United States publicly admitted the following just after the Global Financial Crisis (yet another one by the way):
“…nothing less than the final verdict on an Economic Philosophy that has completely failed.” (Barak Obama – 2008)
This is why I'm always bangin' on about enculturated 'vested interests' and prescription drugs...it seems that even the most well-meaning people are incapable of seeing what's right in front of them....why? Because they are blind? No! Because they are walking 'side-effects' and they'll have to find new jobs to support their habits and Medicare!
I reckon a lot of these people are frantically connecting dots while completely missing the point!
Ooh! I had another bit of a rant their didn't I? :-)
I'm not the least bit sorry :-)
Thanks Joanna and I hope your interviews are interesting :-)
Cheers
Stephen G