My goal was to make the information on this site more accessible and use it as an attempt to better articulate some of the ideas I have been wrestling with over the last two years. The current version is very much a draft (there are a few sections still needing text) and I would value your comments.

I will delete this blog in the next few weeks – and thank you for all those who subscribed to my erratic posts and provided feedback and support. You are more than welcome to subscribe to the new site - http://www.searchforTSI.com/blog/

Many thanks

Graham

1. School Reform in Detroit: Critical Lessons in Building Community Support

April 13th, 2011 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm (ET)

“The panel will explore the important role that civic leaders—both outside the public school system and within—can play in engaging and mobilizing the support of parents, neighbors and others in an effort to turn around an education system.” See details and register.

• Archon Fung (moderator) – Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship, Harvard Kennedy School
• Michael Tenbusch – Vice President, United Way for Southeastern Michigan
• Johnathon Matthews – Principal, Cody Academy of Public Leadership

2. Social Innovation as Economic Development: Incubate and Grow Social Enterprises in Your Community

April 19th, 2011 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm (ET)

“This webinar will explore the potential impact of, and lay out some key strategies for, supporting local social enterprises as a practical and effective means of encouraging business development, job growth and wealth creation”. See details and register.

• Anthony Williams (moderator) – William H. Bloomberg Lecturer in Public Management, Harvard Kennedy School; former two-term mayor of the District of Columbia
• Christopher Gergen - Co-founder and Executive Director, Bull City Forward
• Bo Menkiti – Founder and CEO, The Menkiti Group

To get a feel for the quality of these webinars check out previous events here.

“Seems a bit like throwing spaghetti at a wall to me, but I know you love a challenge.”

I wasn’t too sure what he meant but my response was to rattle off an email presenting an argument for social innovation – I threw in a definition, told him why I thought it was important and, for good measure, said that if social innovation was spaghetti then that was nothing compared to the subject he studied (true Christmas spirit there).

Over the last 48 hours I’ve thought more about my defensive response – what had the connection between spaghetti and social innovation triggered?

After googling the spaghetti phrase I better understood the challenge. Apparently good cooks are able to tell whether spaghetti is ready to serve if the pasta sticks to the wall – if it falls it needs more time (but you probably knew that already).  It’s a sort of trial and error method.

In spaghetti terms, social innovation is like hit or miss pasta and its cooks (practitioners and academics) are optimistically throwing it at the wall, publicly presenting sets of ideas and principles, without really knowing if any of the ideas will stick. I could picture two kitchens – one where social innovation is like avant-garde cuisine – cutting edge, experimental and inspirational – or a transport Café – where mutton is dressed as lamb, food is half-baked and disappointing.

It made me think about what would make social innovation “stick” – what would really ensure that a focus on solutions to tackle complex social problems would be worthy of academic study and practitioner interest.

My initial response was to cycle back to the problem of multiple definitions.  There is definitely a case in academia to apply some discipline here.  It’s time to put some boundaries around social innovation.

So social innovation is NOT:

1. A novel solution that just has social impacts – that’s every solution at some level.
2. A novel solution that just involves people in the process – that’s every solution too.
3. A novel solution for the benefit of a single organization (i.e. an HR practice) – labelling this as social innovation should be banned from academic publications! :)
4. A novel solution that is created by organizations in just one sector (public, private, voluntary/nonprofit).
5. A novel solution that is only created by special people such as social entrepreneurs.

None of these should stick.  I wanted to go further and talk about the intent/motivations of the innovators as well as the outcomes.  But then I thought about a comment written by one of my Committee members reading my draft literature review on social innovation.  He helpfully pointed out that the different approaches to social innovation are not necessarily incompatible and reflect the complexity of the ideas which are being explored.  To seek coherence too quickly in an emerging field can lose the essence of what makes it distinct.

Taking the cooking metaphor a little further – the emerging field of social innovation is like being in a kitchen where the recipe for social innovation is still uncertain and perhaps always will be. While there is definitely a case for articulating core ingredients (e.g., novel solutions that tackle social problems in ways that significantly shift the way the social problems are understood and managed), a wonderful part of social innovation is the openness to variety in how that might be approached and organized. Although the mixing and matching of different ingredients will sometimes produce something completely inedible, it can also produce something uniquely tasty.  The challenge for the field is to make this a process of creative refinement – learning from different combinations and exploring both success and failure.

Social innovation, like spaghetti, is probably always going to be a messy business.

One of the first references to “social innovation” dates back to 1826 – in Mignet’s book on the History of the French Revolution. So what? To know that someone used the term social innovation many years ago may seem more trivial than helpful to current discussions.  What may be interesting is tracking how the term “social innovation” has changed over time as perhaps the variety of expressions/users/contexts will generate new insights for researchers and practictioners.

For fun I put in two other terms: social enterprise and social entrepreneurship!

The advantage of such innovation is that users are so close to the action.  They experience the product at first hand, understand how it works in practice and are the first to experience any problems. This ‘real-life’ knowledge is said to make them particularly well suited to develop new ideas.

In a recent article in the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship*, Peter Svensson and Lars Bengtsson (2010) draw on the idea of user driven innovation in the commercial sector and apply it to explore the organizing of social innovations.

Instead of users who have with issues with products, users are “people with social problems”.  Through this lens they explore two innovations in Stockholm, one shaped by “young criminals”, and the other by “disadvantaged mothers”.

Youth Violence & Social Isolation in Stockholm

In the mid 1990s the Swedish government commissioned a Foundation (Fryshuset), connected to the YMCA, to launch a campaign to reduce juvenile crime on public transport. They established project “Easy Street” that operates in Sweden’s three largest cities, employing over 150 people and involves over 1000 young people.  The seeds of this program, however, were sown a decade earlier in the summer of 1986 when Stockholm experienced riots between different groups of teenagers.

A local police officer invited well-known young criminals to explore the reasons behind the violence.  While initially suspicious of the officer’s motives, the youth provided crucial insights into what was leading to their social exclusion. Over time they developed an association called Non-Fighting Generation with the aim to inform kids about the legal consequences of violence and prevent aggression.  When the government came calling in the mid-1990s, the Foundation recruited past members of the Non-Fighting Generation who were instantly effective because of their immediate knowledge of the issues:

“Through their presence in the various trouble neighbourhoods, rapid acquisition of information, understanding of the problems’ backgrounds, street cred and relationships with potential young criminals, the organization’s members could take pre-emptive measures to mediate between gangs”

In addition to dealing with issues around youth engagement, the Foundation was also involved in supporting “disadvantaged, economically vulnerable single mothers with full-time jobs and little or no support at home”.  It was at a one-week summer camp for these mothers that new ideas emerged to support this group. The coming together of the group provided individuals with the space to speak with others who faced similar challenges. It also provided an opportunity for them to articulate their ‘real’ needs to Foundation workers.

“When the project leader asked a participant what she would most like to have in the world she received the surprising answer that the mother wanted to be able to take a bath for 15 minutes without being disturbed”.

This was a crucial turning point for the project leader, a single mother herself.  She began to look for ways to help sustain and increase the energy mothers need to care for their children. She also noticed that “many single mothers’ children rarely found real happiness in their families….the project’s aim would be to make certain the children would sometimes see their mothers happy”.

The solutions included setting up regular meetings to support and encourage as well as a ‘family coaching’ service to work on issues of self-esteem.  But perhaps the most important innovation was the development of a babysitting service. This service enabled mothers to be “reenergized by attending to their own needs for a while”.  The project has been incredibly successful. It went from 20 members in summer 2006 to 500 members by December 2008. The babysitting service is a commercial enterprise, selling services to the general public. The project employs 2 people, has 30 active babysitters, and over 200 mothers and children participate in each event.

User-Innovation: The Implications

Svensson and Bengtsson argue that several insights can be taken from these two cases:

1. The idea of user-innovation is applicable to social innovation. Users, people with social problems, do in fact have substantial knowledge about the causes and mechanisms of their problems and can generate new ideas. Their first-hand knowledge of their own problems makes them particularly suited.
2. Users can be catalysts in the innovation process – starting a process that more formal organizations can pick up…“users that self-organize into embryonic groups of individuals to solve their problems, and later this social network is adopted and further developed by the service providing organization”.  Of importance here are what the researchers call “prototype organizations” – organizations such as the summer camp and the Non-Fighting Generation association that helped ideas to develop.
3. Users are important for diffusing innovations because of their legitimacy amongst their peers. Users from socially excluded groups – such as young criminals and disadvantaged mothers – are more likely, Svensson and Bengtsson argue, to listen to those with shared experiences. That said, partnerships with service providers are critical to gain the external legitimacy to secure funding for programs.

My Back of the Envelope Thoughts

Let’s put to one side the sample size (two cases) and explore the implications of seeing users, people with social problems, as social innovators.

First, I think the emphasis on recognizing the situated knowledge of those most affected by social problems is a great one. But I am not sure that we need the idea of user-innovation from the commercial literature to get at it. The idea that the people most affected by social problems can be involved in innovation is a central idea in nonprofit and the social movement literature. If anything, the commercial sector has far more to learn about user engagement from the social sector than the other way round.  The literature on Participatory Action Research also provides another rich set of insights.

Second, it might have been helpful for the researchers to further explore the differences of user-driven innovation ideas in the commercial sector cf the social sector, for example, the complexity of the social problems, issues of stigma facing some users etc.  So for example, making modifications to a mountain bike seems a quite different task than organizing a drug user group.

Third, I am not sure I completely buy the idea that simply being closer to a social problem means that a person is more knowledgeable about its solutions. The researchers describe it as “full access to knowledge”. I am not sure how you can argue this when knowledge is filtered, constructed, and often contested. While users are more knowledgeable about the impact of a social problem in their lives, I am not sure if complex social problems are necessarily easy to ‘untangle’ or even that they just impact one group. For example, who are the ‘users’ for the problem of climate change or when it comes to mental illness (patients or their carers etc)?

Fourth, are there some potential costs in adopting a user-driven model? The focus on the user as the source of solutions could avoid recognizing the systemic issues that need to be tackled.  So while babysitting is a great service for single mothers it could shift responsibility and attention away from policy-makers whose child-care and welfare policies may significantly contribute to social hardship.

Fifth, the case studies reveal the importance of mediators and translators – people able to connect users and agencies.  The police officer and the project leader were critical in facilitating and recognizing the importance of listening to and interpreting the experiences of youth and single mothers. This seems an interesting avenue to explore – the role of connectors who are able to develop solutions that have legitimacy in the world of the users and their organizations. The researchers also raise the importance of ‘safe’ spaces and organizations – i.e. summer camps and associations – that seem to provide crucial opportunities to explore and experiment.

Sixth, is there something qualitatively different about social innovation cf commercial innovation? For social innovation the innovation may be as much in the process as the outcome, in contrast to commercial innovations that are measured by a clear endpoint (product/service that can be sold).  If we adopt the researcher’s definition of social innovation that draws on the idea of Moulaert et al. (2005), who approach social innovation as a way to increase social inclusion, then perhaps the assessment of user-involvement in social innovation should focus less on their contribution to generating novel solutions (ie babysitting) and more on how the participation of socially excluded groups impacts their exclusion – their life chances and broader societal attitudes. In these cases, users seem important sources of innovation but it is unclear how over time they continue to be involved and whether there have been any long term implications of this participation.

It would be great to read a follow-up paper!

* Users’ Influence in Social-service Innovations: Two Swedish Case Studies
Peter Svensson; Lars Bengtsson
Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Volume 1, Issue 2, 01 October 2010, Pages 190 – 212
The URL to  it is: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a927106706~db=all

The case for a new paradigm: Recognizing the Social Capital Market

The reason that social change, Saul argues, should be a central business concern is that there is an emerging market for tackling social problems, which he terms the “Social Capital Market”, that is potentially worth billions even trillions.

“Social change may be the last untapped business market. It is home to some of the largest profit pools today: the uninsured, delivering alternative sources of energy, eliminating food deserts, alleviating poverty, and eradicating disease.”

Saul writes “simply put, social change has become a valuable economic commodity: people are willing to pay for it, sacrifice for it, invest in it, and work for it”.  But there is a problem.  Even businesses that have expressed interest in social issues may be working with the wrong paradigm. The current approach, Saul argues, is based on a ‘social contract’ model where businesses engage in social issues as a way to “give back”.  The downside of this approach is that not only have businesses failed to realise the potential of the emerging Social Capital Market but many approach social change with an inbuilt conservatism – social problems are approached as risk management issues rather than as something to be solved. The solution, Saul argues, is to engage in social innovation, innovations that deliver financial returns by tackling social problems.

Social Innovation Inc and 5 Strategies: No longer running on the fumes of goodwill

The big “Aha!” about social innovation is that if you can hook directly into a company’s business engine, the resources, level of commitment, and ultimately social impact will be much greater than when you’re running on the fumes of goodwill.

Saul defines social innovation as “Strategies that are specifically designed to generate economic value through positive social change”.  The implication is that social innovation should be a core business activity that is:

focused primarily on driving business value – leveraging the machinery of business to solve social problems… it is not about putting profits second, or doing good and hoping that it adds up to something beneficial for the business.  It is a more direct linkage, forged by intentionally putting positive social change in the way of the business.

Put even more succinctly: “social innovation is about innovating creative, market-based solutions to social problems that result in high growth, profitable business opportunities”. Through this lens, Saul offers five different strategies for businesses interested in social innovation:

1. Create revenues from submarket products and services – tapping into needs not currently served by the market that are currently almost exclusively served by nonprofits and governments.  (Saul’s example – the work of Wellpoint to create an insurance product for uninsured young adults in the US).
2. Enter markets through backdoor channels – access markets that were previously considered impenetrable because of ‘social’ barriers  (Saul’s example – Tesco opening small outlets offering healthier ready-to-eat meals and fresh produce in US “food deserts” – areas underserved by grocery chain stores).
3. Build emotional bond with customers – social change efforts as a way of developing a brand to secure customer loyalty.  (Saul’s example –  OfficeMax’s a Day Made Better service to provide stationery supplies to teachers in schools who had previous paid for school supplies out of their own pocket).
4. Develop new pipelines for talent – invest in the future workforce. (Saul’s example – Hartford Insurance Company investing in local school programs).
5. Influence policy through reverse lobbying – lobbying government on social changes that directly impact the success of the core business. (Saul’s example – Safeway supporting the policy of Universal Health Care).

Thoughts

In many ways I find Saul’s argument refreshing. The proposition is a simple one – businesses are about making money and they can do this by engaging in social change projects.  The examples provide supporting evidence – that well-known companies such as Walmart, Tesco, Wellpoint and McDonalds can engage in social projects such as make medicines more affordable, provide healthy foods, insure the un-insured, and provide care for orphans – and at the same time make significant financial returns. There is also no need to fret about finding ways to measure such social change as the standard business metrics will do. There is also no need to create new types of organizations such as social enterprises or deal with the challenges of hybrid organizations – business can just integrate social innovation into existing structures.  In addition there is also no need to worry about which social problems to tackle – just the ones that the business can leverage for economic gain. And businesses need not be embarrassed by their approach.  They can unapologetically engage in social issues as their motives are transparent to all. It is hard not to be positive about the prospect of some of the largest businesses on the planet using their resources to tackle social problems.

But…Saul in his last few pages, however, does identify some of the problems of viewing social innovation purely through a business lens.  I wish that he had explored this a little further. He makes a passing reference to the fact that some social problems may have been directly caused by business activity. Even when the economic motivation for engagement in social problems might not be compelling, the moral one might certainly be.  Saul also mentions that some social problems don’t appear to have market potential (e.g., racism, youth violence, institution building, civic participation, gay rights, abortion and guns) but it is unclear what would be done about these except that they should be tackled by government. He also talks about participation with governments (not particularly nonprofits) but he doesn’t explore how their different sets of values might interact.  For example, while it might be liberating to know that businesses are tackling social problems for financial gain, how might that effect partnerships with others who have engaged without obvious benefits. His use of the term ‘social capital’ market is probably the most jarring for those who view social innovation more in terms of participation where social capital refers to social ties and the quality of  relationships that is lost by a purely economic focus.  As Sasha Dichter reminded me today in his blog:

One of the biggest problems about looking at everything through an economic lens is that you inevitably place more value on the things that are easy to count and easy to measure.

But Saul’s book is aimed at business readers. This book is targeted at middle and senior managers in business and Saul’s objective is to persuade them that there is a market here and that existing approaches are inadequate – doing well by doing good no longer cuts it. The focus on economic returns should certainly catch the attention of corporate leaders and company boards. Saul argues that the timing is right for social innovation:

“We are living in a profound, strategic moment. The world has never before faced greater social ills – poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease, lack of education, poor health care, threats to bio-diversity – the list is overwhelming.  At the same time, business has never before been so empowered to solve these problems.

What company in the land could afford to ignore social innovation when it could lead to new markets, opportunities in existing ones, the creation of new profitable partnerships and higher levels of customer loyalty…and at the same time offer a chance to make a significant social impact. If that gets businesses to the table who are interested in seriously tackling social problems then I’m all for it :)

“Fascinating article about the inspiring impact of YouthBuild and College Summit. Not sure, however, if I completely buy the idea that governments simply need to unleash the “superpower” of individuals/organizations, particularly those in nonprofits. First, I’m not convinced that social innovators generally, and nonprofits in particular, are waiting ready for when governments engage. The diversity of nonprofit missions/capabilities/size alone mean that their “superpowers” are not only limited but often contested. Education is full of nonprofits with very different philosophies/goals which become an issue when talking about scaling up.

Second, I am also not convinced that many nonprofits have latent superpowers if considered in terms of a novel solution with national implications. There is no evidence in the nonprofit literature to suggest that nonprofits are inherently innovative and their strength is often in solving a very local and particular set of problems.

Where I agree with you is that in all sectors too much is expected and made of certain individuals. The collective aspect of social innovation can be lost amongst overly heroic stories of social entrepreneurship. It might be helpful to explore “superpowers” of social innovation in terms of participation and organizing structures.

You highlight the importance of creating generative connections between individuals and organizations. Yet this type of participation requires organizing structures that ensure the focus is kept on the social problem/solution in ways that transcend organizational differences. (Government support can clearly have “kryptonite” effects – and you highlight a number of the challenges – but equally nonprofits can bring their own challenges to the table).

Perhaps if “superpowers” are to be found it is in those individuals/organizations that can play crucial bridging roles while at the same time diminishing their need for credit. Perhaps we need more Clark Kents?!”

Scanning the web over the last month – a few things stand out.

1. Article in The American Prospect – “Is giving away money – and lots of it – realy the best way to change the world?” – a look at the Gates Foundation and its approach to solving social problems.

2. Examples for Ashoka – Prison football program in Indonsia to open up discussions about HIV and Crowd-Sourcing Patient Knowledge.

3. Investing in Social Growth – Young Foundation Report exploring whether interest in the “Big Society” idea can be translated into action.

4. Social Innovation Inc – a new book that places social innovation at the heart of good business.

5.The Feast Conference (October 15th) – a TED Talks style focus on social innovation.

6. Notable absence of published research…just one conference paper defined social innovation as an “organizational capability”…”that consists of four resources: strategic orientation, product-market improvement, flexible work & organising smarter”. Social innovation in this context is connected to organizational performance and employee absenteeism.  This just highlights the variety of ways in which social innovation as a term is used.

1. A couple of posts on what makes social innovation distinct – one by Tim Draimin (Social Innovation Generation) on the demise of Corporate Social Responsibility and heralding its replacement – Corporate Social Innovation – and another by Adil Abrar that sees social innovation as the “new rave“.

2. Lots on social innovation and technology (esp internet) as usual.  A quick scan – Social Innovation Clouds – an article on how governments can use technology to engage citizens to achieve “network-powered social innovation”, an interview with Charles Leadbeater in The Guardian, and a new crowdsourcing platform – OpenIDEO – where your contributions can build your personal DQ which has nothing to do with Dairy Queen :) (all explained in their promo video).

3. Some blogs to check out – eg Conversations for a Better World, to The Gates Notes and IDE

6. And some research articles:

This research explores an area of Montreal adjusting to change in the garment industry.  Montreal had for many years been a centre for the garment industry in North America but in recent years has struggled to compete with products produced more cheaply in emerging economies.

The researchers identified the importance of “community economic development corporations” (CEDCs) that encouraged the development of a new working model.  These organizations facilitated the move from a focus on production to one focused on design. Providing ideas, resources and networks CEDCs were able to encourage a new cadre of fashion designers. CEDCs could enable the sharing of resources and knowledge.  The effect was to produce a cluster of independently operating businesses in an area of the city that gained benefits from close proximity.

It raised a couple of questions for me.  First, about the importance of “connector” organizations, the forms that they can take and for how long.

The importance of  “connector/bridging” organizations in facilitatating social change has long been identified (eg, Brown, 1991*) as a way of connecting diverse interests and actors to tackle complex social problems. In my mind I often have the image of formal inter-agency collaborations – working committees on particular social issues – but they needn’t look this way.  Mumford (2002**), in his case study on Benjamin Franklin, highlighted the importance of “gentleman clubs” as playing a key connecting role and in my own research on the establishment of North America’s first supervised injection site, a key bridging role was played by a group that had an informal weekly lunch time meeting. Over lunch representatives from diverse agencies were given the space to explore issues and ideas away from the constraints of their “home” organizations. But I wonder whether connector organizations may need to take different forms at different times and may in fact need to have an inbuilt expiration date. The researchers in Montreal provide a very positive account of the benefits of the CEDCs but I wonder how over time these organizations work to reduce a self-serving bias.

My second question is around whether proximity to other innovators necessarily leads to further social innovation.  While the research on Montreal highlights all the positive benefits from clustering, I can imagine that there might be challenges and difficulties. While it may generate lots of ideas it could also lead to conflict and risk aversion – those in a cluster may prefer to copy each other for reasons of legitimacy rather than risk standing out from the crowd.  Also how does the connector organization deal with those in the cluster who have competing and perhaps contradictory ideas? It makes me wonder how important the role of competition and collaboration are to social innovation and the role they might play in different stages in the creation, development and diffusion of social innovations.

To find out more about CEDCs and the garment industry in Montreal click here

* Brown, L. D. 1991. Bridging organizations and sustainable development. Human Relations, 44(8), 807-831.

**Mumford, M. D. (2002). Social Innovation: Ten Cases From Benjamin Franklin. Creativity Research Journal, 14(2), 253-266.