I am playing Urgent Evoke (http://www.urgentevoke.com). My first task is to explain how to achieve Social Innovation, with real-life social change as a goal.
I develop creative interactive advertising campaigns - which are a lot about Social Innovation and modifying people’s behaviour. The same principles can be applied to change the way people do things - for a better world.
So, how to be a Social Innovator - to help change the world?
From http://designinafrica.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/innovation-in-africa-tips/ - the most relevant tip for me is “Don’t fight the culture”.
A Social Innovator finds new ways of doing something, with the goal of positive change, in the way members of a community relate to each other. To become effective, innovation must also become a process (or practice) so that the change will be adopted by the community, and become permanent.
Social innovation starts with changing the way people think and communicate. Financial, infrastructural, logistic changes come later - once there is a clear thought to follow and bring to life.
Therefore it makes sense that the first thing to do is to study how things are being done in a social context, to identify where opportunities for improvement may be. Understanding the local culture allows to create solutions with greater chance of being adopted, championed and established, for real change to take place.
Once the mindset is open to adopt new ways of doing things, increased productivity, proactivity, increasing of material and knowledge wealth is possible, and everything else follows.
“Don’t fight the culture” means to modify the behaviour of a community in a way which feels natural and easy to adopt. If you have the locals on your side, half the battle is won.
If in a social context it is natural for older children to teach younger ones, we can see how the process can be improved, amplified, and innovations can stem from that insight, while embracing the culture.
This applies if you seek to improve knowledge sharing in an African village - or communication in an online community of first-time mothers. Social Innovation is still a worthy goal of pursuing, and embracing the local culture is still a golden rule to go by.
Say it with a smile: to achieve social change, you need to embrace the local culture.
