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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).

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.

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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?

SI Camp - a tool for social entrepreneurship

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This weekend I'll be attending the first Australian Social Innovation Camp. On Saturday and Sunday, I'll be playing the role of a roving 'mentor', moving between the teams offering feedback, encouragement and advice where I can.

I also plan to do a lot of observing and listening, because I want to better understand the perceptions and expectations of participants of how they see the ideas from this weekend evolving into sustainable initiatives, that have a real social impact.

To give you some context - I've heard and read about Cheryl Kernot commenting on the state of social innovation in Australia on a number of occasions and I tend to agree with her that it is time to introduce a stronger vein of social entrepreneurship. While I've seen plenty of passion and goodwill in the SI Camp community for social good, I'm not quite sure we yet have enough entrepreneurship in the equation. This is broader issue than SI Camp itself and Kernot is quoted in this summary of a presentation at a recent mental health forum as saying (or words to the effect) that:

the social landscape is seeing huge social change away from reliance on charity and grants- much more about creative income generation. We need to let go of non-profit and profit distinction but how can we harness profits that put back into the social community, there needs to be a reassessment of “Not for Profit” terminology.

For me, the exciting thing about SI Camp is about using it as a tool for social entrepreneurship (and one that make use of the inherent attributes and capabilities of Web 2.0 technologies in a number of ways), rather than simply as an event where these ideas just become an expression of the good will that exists in the Web 2.0 community. A subtle, but important difference.

Photo Credit: From the Dignity in Care: Enabled by the Web (Set) CC-BY

Open Government, or just Reasonable Government?

It is much more usual for local government to operate from a position of, at best, indifference, or at worst active opposition to unregistered street gardens.

Yarra council, by contrast, had the prescience to totally reverse its negative stance (with the help of some popular opposition to help them change their minds), and to come out in support not merely of a single garden but of guerilla gardens across the municipality.

via newmatilda.com

I've had this story about guerilla gardening sitting open for a while on my computer. What I like about it is that as much as its win for the guerilla gardeners, its also a win for all kinds of civic 'hackers' (like the GovHack'ers). I think it also says that, and speaking from the relative comfort of Australia, that perhaps what we need in this country isn't so much open government in its most radical sense, but just some 'reasonable government' that won't block innovation, experimentation and volunteer action without a really good reason. Then interesting things can happen.

Hat tip to David Gravina.

SI Camp meetup in Wollongong

(download)

SI Camp Australia came to Wollongong tonight - the group photo above includes three Wollongong based 'techos' James Purser and Andrew Thornberry and David Holloway (aka Metaverse Journal).

My reply to Mr Gruen goes to Washington #gov2au

What is striking is that virtually all the progress in openness in government in the US over the years has not come directly from the government. It’s been prompted and fought for by civil society. The insiders are being dragged along by the work of the outsiders.

...

Of course Australia is not without its equivalents. Open Australia stands out for me, but there are plenty of others beavering away. I salute them. But if we’re going to match the world leader in this area (and there’s no reason why we couldn’t have a crack) we’re going to have to get quite a wriggle on.

via gov2.net.au

I tried to submit a reply, but I think it got caught in the spam filters (too many links!), so here it is in the meantime:

Nicholas - we made a similar point in Headshift's Rebooting Australia paper, which was included as part of the CPD's submission to the Taskforce:

The big question, though, is how to achieve this? Despite the presence of politicians on Twitter, Australia's public institutions are unchanged, and we are still left with a government designed for the 20th century. We also lack some of the catalysts for change, like MySociety (www.mysociety.org) in the UK, and our third-sector is woefully under-prepared to step up to an enhanced role... There are some positive signals. Initiatives like Open Australia (www.openaustralia.org) show that even if the government itself lacks the capability, then the Australian community is itself ready for the job of creating new people-powered structures and services.

While civic society does have an important role here, I think its also instructive to look at the sources of income for UKCOD (the parent organisation of MySociety) - the mix of government and non-government funding is quite apparent. NESTA is another UK at arms length organisation that is playing a role here too, although their scope is broader than Government 2.0.

Recognising this, I think its unfortunate that the (current) scope of the Taskforce doesn't really appear to accommodate this need to stimulate Government 2.0 *from the outside*. I don't know if its too late to change this?

BTW along with Open Australia, I think ASIX deserves a mention for bringing SI Camp to Australia.

Social Innovation Camp Scotland 2009 on film

via sicamp.org

Social Innovation Camp is taking place in Australia next March, with initial meetup events taking place around the country. But what exactly is Social Innovation Camp all about? Watch this video from SI Camp Scotland:

Social Innovation Camp (Sicamp)is an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age. The third Sicamp took place at Saltire Centre in Glasgow on Friday 19th June to 21st June 2009 and proved a huge success. Over 60 people joined in to turn six back-of-the-envelope ideas for web tools to change the world into real social start-ups complete with working software - all in under 48 hours. This video is a quick summary of what took place over the 48 hour period from beginning to end.