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Sydney’s inaugural Social Innovation BarCamp

via katecarruthers.com

I was disappointed that I couldn't make this SI BarCamp in Sydney over the weekend, but from the photo stream it looks like they had a successful day! Headshift's Kate Carruthers was one of the co-unorganisers, along with Michelle Williams (who I met through the Social Innovation Camp process earlier in the year).

Are we ready for social innovation as a new form of public-private partnership?

via economist.com

At interesting article from the Economist about the new wave of civic engagement we call social innovation. The article is heavily focused on the UK and US experience, but touches on some common issues around the drivers for social innovation, why it differs from past approaches and the new models that are appearing to address the challenge of social innovation ventures for achieving sustainability and impact.

Rather than focusing on the volunteerism aspects I've typically seen highlighted here in Australia (i.e. a few activists and technologists getting together to build a Web-based solution to a community problem in their spare time), the Economist describes social innovation as a new form of public-private partnership:

It differs from the fashion in the past couple of decades for contracting out the delivery of public services to businesses and non-profit groups in order to cut costs, in that it aims to do more than save a few dollars or pounds—although that is part of its attraction. The idea is to transform the way public services are provided, by tapping the ingenuity of people in the private sector, especially social entrepreneurs.

However, the article points out that "so far the enthusiasm for social entrepreneurship has run ahead of its effects". One of the new models for dealing with that problem is the concept of a social-impact bond, which provides funding, but only costs public money if the social innovation achieves its social impact goals. This is necessary so that social innovation can actually achieve the scale and impact it needs to make a difference to the community.

Still, this doesn't mean that there isn't an important role for volunteers in social innovation - they mention Participle in the UK, who are attempting to "redesign the welfare state 'bottom up'" with pilot projects like the Southwark Circle. BTW the most recent Tech Weekly podcast from the Guardian includes an interview with Participle's Charles Leadbeater. Listen from about the 26 minute mark.

Unfortunately as read this article I could only reflect that the social innovation conversation here in Australia is still very immature. While I am hearing some people in the Australian Government 2.0 community talk about related social innovation methods like service design, we are still very much focused on the issue of upgrading government rather than exploring the possibility of creating new kinds of public-private partnerships (and the mechanisms that will support them) that really could transform the effectiveness of public and community services.

Streetfilms - Social Innovation for the Urban Environment

via streetfilms.org

This is just one of many great films on the Streetfilms site.

Streetfilms has its roots in tackling transportation issues in NYC, but has grown and expanded to cover "complex issues like bus rapid transit, parking policy, police enforcement and the spatial inequity of the way our streets are divided" around the world, including Australia. These films are intended to both educate the public and influence policy makers by introducing them to new approaches and methods for making our urban environment more people and community friendly.

I think its also a great example of using rich media and the Web to help spread social innovation stories. Hat tip to Grant Young.

What we need is open innovation for social good, not social media

I really haven't a chance to fully reflect on the Social Innovation Camp experience (yeah, that was back at the beginning of March!) other than a resolution that if I get to take part next time, I'll be picking a team and rolling up my sleeves so I can dive in and really contribute something substantial. I did end up helping out one project with a bit of emergency 'wire-storming' (i.e. collaborative wireframing, under time pressure using Balsamiq Mockups), but even just with my super user skills (as opposed to being a real hard core geek) I've realised that I could probably still have helped out more with actually developing a working prototype. This is based on the fact that what I saw at SI Camp was that rather than coding from the ground up, I saw the teams that were able to deliver working prototypes accelerate the development process by using tools like Drupal, Django, MediaWiki, and Pligg.

In this respect, while good ideas are important, I think the real benefit of the SI Camp approach is about testing those ideas in practice. In fact, allowing people to have the opportunity to play with an idea (rather than simply thinking or planning it) is an important step in the design process. This doesn't mean that the prototyping process was entirely perfect or that we saw enough iterations of each idea this time around at SI Camp, however I'm confident this will improve with experience. In the end, my biggest take away from the event at this point was that the design process itself - rather than the social innovation ideas that came from it - has great value.

I actually think it would be interesting to now take the SI Camp concept and apply it in a more targeted way, to solve a specific need. Right now I'm reading the UK's NESTA report on their open innovation approach, called the Corporate Connect programme. This isn't restricted to the non-profit or government sector, although their open innovation ideas can perhaps surprisingly be applied equally to both the commercial and non-commercial sectors.

Two case studies in the NESTA report stand out:

* Cancer Research UK ran an open innovation competition to crowd source ideas for new fund raising ventures, where the winning ideas themselves received seed funding from the charity to get started; and
* Tesco (a UK supermarket chain) organised a 'T-Jam' to bring customers and external software developers together to design new online shopping applications.

I know you are probably thinking, what's the link between Social Innovation Camp and these ideas? Well, both these ideas used Web 2.0 approaches as part of an innovation process that either created a social innovation (Cancer Research UK) or encouraged the use of a public good (Tesco's shopping API - T-Jam, just like GovHack). Social good takes many different forms, but what has changed is the tools and techniques we have at hand to help those new ideas emerge. 

While on the topic of creating 'social good', this brings me to the Digital Citizens event I attended last night, about Social Media for Social Good. Personally, and while I wouldn't criticise the event overall or the calibre of their panel (who had great experiences to share), I left feeling that I wanted more breadth in the discussion about creating social good beyond using social media for communication. It was of course primarily a digital agency and PR crowd at this event, so to an extent this was to be expected.

However, as someone from the non-profit sector commented to the organisers as they passed around a collection bucket, they don't want donations... they want to tap more effectively into the ideas and experiences of the people in the room. This doesn't change the fact that social media is affecting how the non-profit sector engages with the media, its supporters and the people they assist or support (and @KaraLee_'s experiences with Headspace is a good example of how to do it right). But I think there is scope, as 'digital citizens' exploring this world that is emerging, to look beyond Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and YouTube.

To quote the NESTA report:

Open innovation represents – in part at least – a re-invention of the organisational models that we have come to take for granted. In a networked world where knowledge is becoming like water, it is no longer possible to ring-fence what we know or have invented and to create new value through internal means alone. Rather our networks and partnerships are increasingly becoming the key to value creation, above and beyond our inventive ability as organisations. 

Perhaps a better topic to discuss might be open innovation for social good?

My interview with Anne Faulkner from UK online centres at BarCamp Canberra 2010

via vimeo.com

It was a really pleasant surprise to find Anne Faulkner, from the UK's online centres, here in Australian and attending BarCamp Canberra 2010. Anne is a champion for digital inclusion in the UK and does it in a way that I don't think I've seen anyone do here in Australia just yet.

Anne Faulkner, Head of Policy and Business Development for the UK online centres network, kindly agreed to share her observations from BarCamp Canberra 2010 about the differences between the UK and Australia in terms of social innovation and digital inclusion.