Innovators build the bridge as they walk on it, social innovation practitioners build the plane as they fly it.
For social innovation practitioners, there is little room for error. These practitioners are working on problems that affect people not products, and there is often very little room for error. Even more challenging for social innovators, is that no one has done what they are doing before. They are learning by doing. They are learning on the go.
The first thing to recognise is that social innovation is a bit of leap into the unknown. Very few of us are good at, or have experience working with uncertainty, but working towards innovation asks us to live in uncertainty, asks to live with maybe.
So what is social innovation?
Some people think social innovation is a fad or a buzzword, and others consider it to be a neoliberal approach to social change. Still others see it as yet another way for consultants to make money. No matter what you think of social innovation, it is a powerful lens from which to approach complex social problems. The field is still growing but has so much potential. In this blog series, I intend to take a substantive approach towards understanding the many dimensions of social innovation and collaboration.
According to the Webster, dictionary social is defined as being the interaction of the individual or the group while innovation is referred to as a new idea, method or device. If taken literally, social innovations would be defined as a new idea, method or device that profoundly changes the interactions of individuals or groups within a social system.
With these observations, social innovations should involve, at a minimum, changing the interactions of people and groups within a larger institutional system. An often cited definition by Francis Westley and her colleagues describes social innovation as “an initiative, product, process or program that profoundly changes the basic routines, resource and authority flows or beliefs of any social system. Successful social innovations have durability and broad impact”.
When we speak about complex social problems, we often speak from the perspective of technocrats – evaluators, policymakers, knowledge mobilisation officers or funders. Other times we are talking the language of academics and uses phrases like anti-oppression, social construction, post-colonialism or equity. Although these are valuable and ultimately contribute to the larger conversation, these approaches to thinking about complex social problems all to often address the who, what, why and when questions. They do not answer the how questions, and if they do, it is usually in the past tense. The missing question is often, what is the innovation that is going to lead to our desired outcome? Very rarely are our questions future facing.
Why does the social innovation lens matter?
One of the many advantages of adopting a social innovation lens, is that when you begin to ask the question what is the innovation that would lead to our desired outcome? The focus begins to move away from activities like a protest, nonprofit work, evaluation, fundraising, movement building, etc… and moves towards problem-solving and implementation. The social innovation lens asks us to play in a way that changes the game, and its rules. It asks us to play in a way that either eliminates or drastically reduces the effects of the complex social problems. If we become good at generating social innovations, then we will either need much smaller versions of nonprofits, social services providers or government services, or we won’t need them at all.
Most major organisation or companies usually have a corporate social responsibility mandate. Many funders have philanthropic missions which often involve addressing some stated social issue. The social innovation lens asks an organisation to move from how do we address a particular need, to how do we contribute to an activity that helps reduce or eliminate the identified social need. The social innovation lens has the potential to change the kinds of strategies organisations implement. Adopting a lens that focuses on how are we are going to change social relations, resource flows, or beliefs within social systems as the potential to change the system and its dynamics forever.
Originally published on Village Seed Solutions.