Social Innovation for a Network Society

Social Innovation 2011A Curated Conversation onBuilding Network Society@FredGarnett London Knowledge Lab& OpenRSA…

Social InnovationBuilding the Network Society;Nick Jankel, Oliver Ashton, David RobertsTessy Briton, Catherine Howe, Tom PhillipsRoxanne Commutiny, Malcolm Forbes, Ed AndertonPhilippa Young, Lucy Innovation, Nicola MillsonDavid Wilcox, Alice 00, Generative Innovations3 Big Ideas on Social InnovationLinks to Resources

An Internet of PeopleMoving from Hierarchies to NetworksBen Hammersley in his British Council Lecture 2011 said our national problem is the inability to build Network Society with hierarchical thinkersCan Social Innovation in the UK solve this problem? Here are some thoughts

Issue 1Do we have the right Social Structures? What Social Structures might help in creating innovation processes for a Network Society?

Nick Jankel-WonderBuild a Maverick NetworkRSA fellows in the 18th Century had “the temporal and emotional freedom to think, meet, talk and co-create The Enlightenment.” However it now seems now you need to be an institutional ‘maverick’ to become innovation. He calls for a network of ‘Mavericks Anonymous’ like the one in Silicon Valley, which can be responsive to disruptive change.

Ollie Ashton - ThundrBumpIn an “Innovation Society”…an innovation society begins with education to seed diversity and cross pollinate curricula, changing industrial management structure into an innovation landscape for a post-industrial era.We can learn from government-funded Bletchley Park & think about how the Victorians became an innovation society

David Roberts - SalfordBy creating “societal innovations”…Societal Innovation is about asking and finding ways forward to the challenges of work, worklessness, and how we are to make meaning from our work.It asks how can the future look for young people and those currently not engaged in meaningful work. It investigates ways in which work and working practices can accommodate all in society.

Issue 2Do we have the right communication processes? How might we talk more effectively to each other in a Network Society?

Tessy Britton – Thriving Too As good decisions come from pooled knowledge Citizens don’t know everything and nor do local authorities but good decisions come out of blending those two together. There are necessary levels of activism & unnecessary levels of activism, and those normally come about through bad decisions. I think that we need to start to think much more about pulling on the imagination of citizens and local authorities alike through consultations

Catherine Howe – public-i& making policy formation agile..Agile approaches focus on the plan & not the objective, working in iterative evidence based cycles. Agile assumes complexity some of the affordances of network society; real time information, transparency & collaboration to deliver outcomes within each iteration.We work in an open, networked and highly agile environment. Would more agile policy making deliver more innovative policy?

Tom Phillips - #Gov20But delivery targets block agile policyLocal authorities are pressured to turn pilot innovations into mainstream practice often well ahead of evaluation. Fear of failure & the unknown coupled with "good process" rather than "good outcomes" & “what we are doing” gets more airtime than “why we need to do it”.So we perpetuate services that are just good enough, remaining slow and excessively cautious in their reaction to innovation

Issue 3Can failure help us redefine what we do? Is Failure the necessary precursor to social innovation?

Roxanne - CommutinyFailure is ‘the dark heart of success’A symbiotic relationship which can be positively directed towards learning; reflectively gathering experience-based wisdom to inform future decisions and behaviour.Learning from failure builds trust, resilience & social capital. It supports collaboration, mutuality & cognitive surplus. In people, facing failure stimulates creativity. In organisations it supports innovation and improvement. In society it leads to social progress.

Malcolm Forbes - Regenesys& Redefine institutions as social enterprisesRing fence a Robin Hood tax as a social innovation and enterprise fund with key objectives to support the development of local community networks, action, volunteers etc.Each local bank branch would be given responsibilities to ensure the social resilience of their local area and running an open process to provide the funding to assist this.

Ed Anderton - Nominet& bringing empathy to new connectionsCan empathy can be generated and sustained between the individuals whose involvement is required for social innovation to consistently flourish: community members, authorities local and national, investors/funders, businesses, media (social or otherwise).Individuals adopt roles which tend to create distance rather than encourage connection in a culture of abstract analysis and emotional distancing

Issue 4Change comes from the margins Where can we start small and so grow the next generation?

Philippa Young - FishtankBuild experience platforms like…Fishtank brings together a filmmaker, social issue, and a team of people with no (or little) prior experience of filmmaking. Together they will produce a film.Using guerrilla filmmaking strategies they will collaborate, travel with purpose, connect to an issue, learn new skills and participate in the creative process to create something that others can learn from.

Lucy - Innovation…and charities as social innovatorsInnovation has become a buzzword that has lost its meaning.How can charities get better at driving innovation, overcoming the barriers of lack of resource, lack of long term vision and fear of taking risks in new product and idea development in case they are accused of ‘wasting’ donors money.

Nicola Millson – Carbon& address key green innovation issuesCan the current level of green innovation shift us towards a more sustainable world? Are new products, services, behaviours or business models – truly making a difference?A systemic change framework that evaluates innovation programmes against characteristics required for systemic change could help. These characteristics are: aligned, balanced, learning, engaged and impactful.

Issue 5We need new forms of social reportingHow can we tell new stories about the new?

David Wilcox – Social ReporterNew ways of telling new stories…Social innovation reporters connect conversation and people from different fields using a mix of media, surfacing stories as they go.They spot new opportunities, help make sense of possibilities, and build networks to make them happen

Alice – 00:/Build the future today in collaboration hubs…Hub Westminster is extraordinary. A great space for creative collaborations, in the heart of London.Full of people aspiring to change their bit of the world holding events bringing new ideas together collaboratively

Fred Garnett - LKL& creating ‘generative innovations’Innovation is a heutagogic process enabling us to move out of our comfort zone & play with how we do things as part of an ongoing collaborative processWe need to develop ‘open platforms’ for innovation; new hubs & new communities which develop ‘generative innovations’

Social InnovationSo we have three big ideas on social innovationNew Networks for sharing ideasNew forms of public consultation and agile conversations with emerging ideasNew platforms of practical opportunities to build network society collaboratively

Education InnovationMore information on Educational InnovationBIS Public Sector Innovation BlogTEL Research CommunitiesTEL ProjectsALT-TEL Review for BIS

http://a0.twimg.com	2
http://paper.li	2
http://us-w1.rockmelt.com	1
https://twitter.com	1

Social Innovation for a Network Society

by London Knowledge Lab

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

4 Embeds 6

Statistics

Social Innovation for a Network Society Presentation Transcript