THE CHANGEMAKER HANDBOOK
Written and edited by Tim Curtis, Lauren Burke and Justin Lance 2015-16 3rd Edition
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Everyone can be a Changemaker! WELCOME TO THE CHANGEMAKER HANDBOOK How will you change your world? Everyone changes the world. Most do it without even realising. Some burn with a passion to right a wrong, others start by helping friends and family. Fundraising, charity work, volunteering, watching the news, attending events or picking up dropped litter, we even make our places of work better. Every action, big or small, changes the world- Changemaker is about doing that better. We can help you do good, better. The University of Northampton seeks to transform your life and inspire change in the communities in which you live and work. The University is the UK's leading University for Social Innovation and we were the first AshokaU accredited Changemaker Campus in the UK in 2013. These titles mean we have the support and drive and the resources of the entire University to help you to make the change you want to see. Here to help make change happen Every student has the chance to complete the Changemaker certificate as part of their degree no matter their subject. This helps you to reflect on the world about you and equip you to be able to tackle the problems we experience. The skills gained through the certificate; problem solving, empathy, team
working and integrity, are highly valued by employers. The certificate is unique to us in the UK and officially recognises the work you have done to change the world. All our students have the opportunity to make their own world that bit better by turning problems into solutions, working with employers, charities and even social enterprises.
The Changemaker handbook This handbook provides you with all the reading and exercises you need to be successful as a Changemaker. Just reading and thinking, however, is not the secret of success! You are expected to ACT on your reading and thinking. The handbook contains activities and tasks which are essential for you to build up a detailed picture of the social problem that you are planning on tackling so that you are able to complete the Social Venture Canvas in a productive way and provide a detailed reflective account of your journey. You will have Journals in your module NILE site, clearly labelled as the journal for each of the learning units. You are expected to complete the tasks and make regular entries into the journals AND make contributions to the journals being created by other participants. Be helpful and positive, and you will get help back.
Good luck!
Tim Curtis, Changemaker leader 1|Page
Written and Edited by Tim Curtis, Lauren Burke and Justin Lance with contributions by Shoshana Dzialoszynski and Oshie Shulman. Illustrations by Martyn Lorbiecki and Julie Rae-Clarke. Films by David Christian-Green Copyright: Tim Curtis, The University of Northampton. 2011-2015 Third Edition All Rights Reserved 2015. The University of Northampton Boughton Green Road Northampton NN2 7AL Northamptonshire United Kingdom www.northampton.ac.uk/changemaker ISBN: 978-1-326-04745-0
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Changemaker Assessed Activities
Contents
Building your social capital .......................... 30 Innovation and creativity ............................. 31
Assessed activities for Changemaker Certificate ......................................................3 What resources do I have available? .............3 What do I have to produce? ..........................3 Changemaker Tasks .......................................4 End of Unit Task 1 Understanding Changemaking ................................................4
Why social innovation? ................................ 32 What does creativity look like?.................... 33 Divergent thinking ....................................... 34 Summary of Unit 2 ................................ 37 End of Unit Task 2 Understanding yourself . 37 UNIT 3 Society & Social Problems .............. 39
End of Unit Task 2 Understanding yourself ...4
Introduction ................................................. 39
Task 3 Understanding social problems ..........4
Social Evils .................................................... 39
Task 4 Solving problems .................................4
Inequality ..................................................... 40
Task 5 Communicating yourself and your venture ...........................................................4
Wicked problems ......................................... 41
Task 6 Planning your venture.........................4
Tackling wicked issues ................................. 43
THE SOCIAL VENTURE CANVAS & EXTERNAL PEER FEEDBACK ..............................................5
Problems as opportunities ........................... 44
What would you do differently? External peer feedback .........................................................9
Water ........................................................ 45
UNIT 1 Introduction to Changemaking .......11 What is social enterprise for? ...................11 Social Innovation.......................................16 Social Entrepreneurship ...........................17 Effectuation ...........................................18 Social Enterprise ....................................18 Social justice ..........................................20 Developing a theory of social change. ..21 Summary of Unit 1 .......................................22 End of Unit Task 1 Understanding Changemaking ..............................................22 UNIT 2 Understanding yourself...................25 Introduction .................................................25 Who do you know? Social capital ................28
Perceptions .................................................. 42
Innovations from Africa ............................... 44
Technology ............................................... 45 Creativity to solve problems ........................ 46 Finding the right problems .......................... 47 Summary of Unit 3 ................................ 48 End of Unit Task 3 Understanding social problems ...................................................... 48 UNIT 4 Problem Solving .............................. 50 Triggers and Inspiration for innovation ..... 50 Crisis .......................................................... 50 Poor Performance: .................................... 51 New Technologies: .................................... 51 Efficiency Savings:..................................... 51 Root causes of social problems ................... 51 Detecting problems, not what people need 52 1|Page
Changemaker Assessed Activities
Open questions ............................................53
UNIT 6 Venture planning ............................ 77
The limits to success ....................................54
Introduction ................................................. 77
Redefine the problem: ..............................54
Goals and Objectives ................................... 77
Do not think it is solved: ...........................54
Goal........................................................... 77
No right or wrong answer: ........................54
Objective................................................... 77
You only get one shot: ..............................54
Process objectives .................................... 78
Solving a problem.........................................55
Outcome objectives.................................. 78
Start with the user: ...................................55
Planning to fail ............................................. 80
Visit the problem: .....................................55
Logic models ................................................ 81
Positive deviance: .....................................55
Social Venture Canvas.................................. 82
Investigate extremes: ...............................55
Bringing it all together ................................. 86
Rethinking .................................................56
Summary of Unit 6 ................................ 87
Rich pictures .................................................56
Where next? ................................................ 88
How to create your rich picture ...................57
Assessment criteria .................................. 89
Human centred design .................................59 Summary of Unit 4.................................61 End of Unit Task 4 Solving problems............61 UNIT 5 Communicating Your and Your Venture .........................................63 Why build your brand? .............................63 How brands work ......................................64 Personal branding essentials ....................65 Personal Branding case studies ................66 Your personal SWOT .................................67 Your Talents ..............................................67 Your Values ...............................................69 Telling your story ......................................70 Building your brand online .......................72 Personal branding and changemaking .....74 Sources .....................................................74 End of Unit Task 5 Communicating yourself and your venture..........................................75 2|Page
Changemaker Assessed Activities
Assessed activities for Changemaker Certificate What resources do I have available? You have 1. The Changemaker LifeHack survey as a warm up session- it will get you thinking about social and environmental issues and signpost you to existing University activities to get involved in 2. Briefing notes for each unit of study, containing formative exercises and tasks for you to work through in your own time 3. Links to additional reading material in the briefing notes and on the NILE site 4. News posted to the Changemaker Resource Centre 5. Meetings, discussion groups and group briefings, including facebook group
backed up by evidence based on questions for each section of the canvas.
Report on External Peer feedback You will be expected to create a public profile (either via a blog or a website- see details later) for the development of your social venture in the e-tivities of the Certificate and in the development of the Social Venture Canvas. You will be expected to present this information on pre-determined social media/crowdsourcing sites that provide external peer feedback and evaluation. You will be elicit feedback on your proposal from third parties and explain what you would do differently in the social venture, based on the feedback.
What do I have to produce? Each unit contains journals and exercises for you to use to collect your thoughts and observations as you work on your social venture. These are not graded. Your assessed work comprises: AS1-Social Venture Canvas AS2- External Peer Feedback Ex
60% 40%
Social Venture Canvas This is a poster-format product built around the investigation of a social problem, and acts to summarise the key thinking that leads to the proposed solution and how it is to be delivered and sustained. The poster will be 3|Page
Changemaker Assessed Activities
Changemaker Tasks Each Unit has a series of activities to help you engage with the material. They are not formally assessed by a tutor. At the end of each unit, however, you are expected to complete the following End of Unit Tasks and submit them for assessment. Peer assessment means that you work is reviewed by a fellow student, as well as an academic. Part of your tasks assessment is to review and provide feedback to at least two other participants as they work through their assignments.
End of Unit Task 1 Understanding Changemaking The outcome of the first unit is to record investigations into social entrepreneurship and changemaking ………………….Page 22
End of Unit Task 2 Understanding yourself The objective of this unit is to understand personal assets and to develop social capital in social entrepreneurship…………….Page 37
Task 3 Understanding social problems The outcome of this unit is to be able to begin to explore social problems through research and personal experience. Page 48
Task 4 Solving problems The outcome of this unit is to distinguish the symptoms of social & environmental problems from their causes in order to design robust solutions…………….Page .61
Task 5 Communicating yourself and your venture The outcome of this unit is to provide students with an understanding of the value and importance, to themselves and to their careers, of personal branding….Page 75
Task 6 Planning your venture The objective of this unit is to plan the launch of a new venture and provide evidence of identifying and securing resources to deliver the plan……Page 87 When you have worked through these Units and completed the End of Unit Tasks, you will be in a position to complete the Social Venture Canvas, which is described next, and repeated at the end of the Handbook.
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The Social Venture Canvas
THE SOCIAL VENTURE CANVAS & EXTERNAL PEER FEEDBACK This is your final, summative, piece of work, which brings together all of the formative tasks you have been completing and recording in your Journals. Using these resources, work through Unit 5, and go back to your Changemaker LifeHack to update your profile, ready to populate the Social Venture Canvas. How to complete the final Social Venture Canvas
Firstly you need to only put bullet points on the Social Venture Canvas. (This is available separately on the NILE site as word document and can be downloaded and edited from here) You will be going into more detail about these points on the following page in the relevant sections. (if the diagram is too complicated, just type all your answers with the questions on page 5 onwards) Click on the image and type in the appropriate boxes. When going into more detail about the points on page 2 onwards remember that you need to be as specific as possible. The more detail you put in the better grade you will get. Submit your social venture information on any of the following crowd sourcing websites (which ever suits your purpose, and if they don’t, find your own) and elicit feedback from people outside your immediate network. Provide 3 examples of feedback that you have provided to fellow Changemaker participants’ exercises and activities Record the feedback and provide one page of A4 (max 1,000 words) indicating what you would do differently if you undertook the Changemaker Certificate again, based on the feedback you have received.
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The Social Venture Canvas
Crowdsourcing and external feedback sites http://www.changemakers.com/ This Changemakers community convenes and connects high-potential changemakers, and their ideas and resources, through the power of collaborative competitions and partner networks. Connect here with other social innovators, entrepreneurs, funders, connectors, thought leaders, communicators, citizen sector organizations, and citizens to accelerate lasting social change. https://www.indiegogo.com/ Indiegogo is a way for people all over the world to join forces to make ideas happen. Since 2008, millions of contributors have empowered hundreds of thousands of inventors, musicians, dogooders, filmmakers – and many more – to bring their dreams to life https://openideo.com/ OpenIDEO is a place where people design better, together for social good. It's an online platform for creative thinkers: the veteran designer and the new guy who just signed on, the critic and the MBA, the active participant and the curious lurker. Together, this makes up the creative guts of OpenIDEO. To become a place where good ideas gain momentum, OpenIDEO depends on participation — your inspirations and research, his comments, her ideas, our design process. It's these efforts, these big and small moments of sharing and collaboration, that make this platform a dynamic resource for tackling significant global challenges. https://www.kickstarter.com/ We’re a home for everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of projects, big and small, that are brought to life through the direct support of people like you. Since our launch in 2009, 6.5 million people have pledged $1 billion, funding 64,000 creative projects. Thousands of creative projects are raising funds on Kickstarter right now. http://www.crowdcube.com Founded in 2010, Crowdcube is the next generation of business investment. It is a new way to fund start-ups and business expansion by crowdfunding for equity, giving entrepreneurs a platform to connect with people and raise venture capital. By attracting lots of investors who invest smaller amounts of money into a person, company, product or idea you can bypass the traditional ways of raising venture finance.
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The Social Venture Canvas
Click on the image and type in the appropriate boxes (50words each)
Wider social issues
Key Partners
Key Activities
Key Resources
Venture/Solution
Impacts
Evidence
Social Problem Communicatio n Channels
Root Causes
Costs
Beneficiary Relationships
Incomes
Beneficiaries
Outcomes
Modified from Osterwalder et al (2010) by Curtis, T & Dzialoszynski, S
This is available as a separate word document downloadable and editable, from the NILE site
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The Social Venture Canvas
Provide a short paragraph to answer all the questions. Where relevant provide references in Harvard format.
1. Wider social issues: What issues have you considered before you selected the ‘Social problem’ that you are addressing in this social venture canvas? How did you select this problem out of all the possible problems you could address? What voluntary experience have you used to explore these issues? 2. Research methodologies: What strategies did you use to gain background information on the social problem and the beneficiaries? What is your evidence that there is a social problem, and how it is experienced by the beneficiaries?
3. Social Problem: What is the core social problem that this social venture canvas is addressing? How do you know that you are addressing the right parts of the problems? What evidence is there that the problem exists? (literature review) How do your beneficiaries experience this problem? (research data) 4. Root Causes: What environmental and social factors contribute to this social problem existing?
What behaviours and norms allow the problem to persist? Express the complexity of the underlying issues 5. Beneficiaries: Who would benefit from your venture? How have they expressed their experiences & needs to you? What strategies do they already use to cope (what would they do if you didn’t intervene)? What assets & capabilities have they that you can build on? 6. Venture/Solution: What do you propose to do to address the root causes of the social problem? What are you actually going to do to solve the social problem? What are you already doing? How do you know that your solution will actually solve the social problem? 7. Beneficiary Relationships: How are you going to ensure that the beneficiaries are going to benefit from your venture? How are they involved in co-producing the benefits? 8. Communication Channels: How are you going to communicate with partners and beneficiaries? What channels are you going to use to get your message out there? 8|Page
The Social Venture Canvas
What social media and advertising are you going to use to make sure everyone knows about your good work? What (brand) will you use to make sure everyone recognises your work? 9. Key Activities: What will your day-to-day activities be? Who needs to do what to deliver your social venture? 10. Key Resources: What materials and resources do you need to deliver your social impact? Focus on the key necessities that allow you to deliver your key activities 11. Key Partners: Who do you need to work with to deliver your social venture? What help, advice, resources and networks will they be able to provide? 12. Costs: What are the big items of expenditure that you need to run your venture? What money have you already committed or spent? What do you need before you start? What are your ongoing running costs? What will you need to buy or improve to keep operating? 13. Incomes: How will this venture be financially sustainable? Are you going to sell products, charge for services or seek grants and charitable giving?
What are your start-up requirements, investment cash, grants etc? How much surplus do you expect to make for reinvestment and expansion? Will you need to create a return on investment for financial supporters? 14. Impacts What change in the world would you like to achieve from your social venture? How will you know that you are successful? 15. Outcomes When you have delivered your venture, how will the world be different?
What would you do differently? External peer feedback Finally, having put the details of your venture on one of the crowdfunding sites mentioned above (or one of your choosing), provide a maximum 1,000 report on what feedback you have received throughout the development process from peers at the University and from the crowdfunding site and explain what you would do differently about your venture if you were to repeat the Changemaker Certificate. Also, provide 3 examples of feedback that you have provided to fellow Changemaker participants’ exercises and activities
[The next page is the beginning of the handbook] 9|Page
UNIT 1 Introducing Changemaker
Click on the logo for a video introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLrbzne0EE
UNIT 1 Objectives This unit will provide you with a basic awareness of the concepts of ‘social entrepreneurship’, social innovation and changemaking, some case study examples and some ways in which you begin to explore different solutions to social problems. The objective of this unit is to be aware of social entrepreneurship, social innovation and changemaking The outcome of this unit is to record investigations into social entrepreneurship and changemaking
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UNIT 1 Introduction to Changemaking The starting point for the study of any topic is often to provide a definition, defining the key terms that we are studying. Changemaking is a term that covers three distinct areas of activity that we will be investigating in this Certificate, as well as practising in the real world. ‘Social enterprise’ is the most common term used in changemaking, but there is still a lot of debate about a definition for social enterprise. We will come back to definitions in a while, but first I want to ask a slightly different question.
FIGURE 1 A VENN DIAGRAM ABOUT HOW
DIFFERENT SECTORS CHANGE THE WORLD . 1
Activity 1.1 :
What is social enterprise for?
Think of three changes in the law that have changed the way in which the world worked.
This, I think is a better question than ‘what is social enterprise’. I think that the question makes our study of social enterprise, social innovation & changemaking purposeful. It seems to me that the PURPOSE of social enterprise is ‘making the world a slightly better place’. But there are lots of different ways of making the world a better place and this can just get messy and confusing. We need a way of sorting out what types of social change there are, and which type of social change ‘social enterprise’ fits into.
1. 2. 3. [you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Did you think of:
There are at least three types of activities we could use to make the world a better place. We could:
Change the law Create a new product Volunteer.
The emancipation of women or African-Americans to get the vote? The creation of public health and education systems through government finances?
How is the world made better by these actions? 1
Each activity is here for you to develop your thoughts and skills.
The assessed End of Unit Tasks are described earlier in this booklet
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Activity 1.2: Think of three products that have fundamentally changed the world for better.
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Did you think of:
The vacuum cleaner and how it freed women (and servants) from constant house cleaning to be able to work and act as a consumer? The wind up radio and how it made public radio globally available really cheaply and with the need for access to mains electricity or expensive and environmentally damaging batteries? The mobile phone and how it has made communications in Africa very easy, allowing people to check whether a doctor is actually at a surgery before setting off on a long walk, or how Africans can now safely transfer money to each other entirely by mobile phone without the need for bank accounts?
These three different ways of changing the world can be categorised into three circles or domains of activity. Maths experts amongst you will recognise this diagram as a Venn diagram:
If we give generic names to our ‘changing the law’, ‘inventing a great product’ or volunteering activities, we can come up with different ‘sectors’ called Public, Private and Civil (or community). Typically, these sectors have been considered to be entirely separate. The government has always done government type things like making laws and providing health and education services (for example) and the private sector always gets on with ‘doing business’. Over the last twenty years or so, this separation seems to have reduced, to the point of overlapping. It is this overlap that seems to be the domain of action for social enterprise. Commentators like Charles Leadbeater, who began writing about this under the guise of the ‘social market’ in the late 1980s and became an advisor to the New Labour government in 1997, also thought that this overlapping model was important when he was trying to describe the social entrepreneur in 1997.
FIGURE 2 OVERLAPPING WAYS TO CHANGE THE WORLD
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This way of thinking about the different types of social change is actually quite widespread. Colleagues in other universities have spent time with people who are called social entrepreneurs asking them to explain what ‘social enterprise is’, and they consistently come up with the same model in their head. Figure 3 shows an example of their research taking from scribbles on bits of paper and tablecloths in cafes as those running social enterprises struggle to explain the idea.
Public/Private overlap Since the 1980’s in the UK, government agencies have been increasingly contracting private companies to provide public services. Most of the time this is a straightforward business activity like supplying photocopies or mobile phones, but it also increasingly involves delivering public services under contract to a government agency. This has involves a debate (a contestation) between a public service ethos and a business efficiency
Seanor, P., Bull, M. & Ridley-Duff, R. J. (2007) "Contradictions in Social Enterprise: Do they draw in straight lines or circles?" mentality. Commentators called the paper to 30th ISBE Conference, Glasgow, 7-9th November, Drawings and 10 influence of business and market8 dynamics
FIGURE 3 MENTAL MODELS OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE 2
If we keep on thinking about this ‘sectors’ approach we can think of types of social change that might happen in the parts of the Venn diagram that overlap with each other.
on the public sector New public management3. On the other hand, public service ethos has pushed back into the space with businesses being established that operate with a high ‘service ethic’. Public/Voluntary overlap The voluntary sector provided publicly valuable services long before the growth of 3
2
Seanor, P., Bull, M. & Ridley-Duff, R. J. (2007) "Contradictions in Social Enterprise: Do they draw in straight lines or circles?"
Boston, J., J. Martin, J. Pallot, and P. Walsh. Public Management:
The New Zealand Model, Oxford University Press, UK, 1996
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the welfare state (which started emerging in Germany in the 1870s and in Britain in the 1930s). Religious groups, communities, families and individuals have provided social care and poverty relief for centuries. By 1939 in the UK, the vast network of friendly societies and industrial and provident societies institutions run by local councils were nationalised into a single and (in theory) nationally consistent system. This didn’t mean the end of the voluntary sectorthere is still much that the state cannot do, or cannot afford to do. There are many issues that are just not considered important enough for governments to provide, and these fall to voluntary sector organisations. By the 1980s however, government departments, particularly local authorities were given the opportunity to provide funds to voluntary sector organisations, first through open and flexible ‘service level agreements’ and then through competitive tendering and contracting processes. This has meant that some charities have increased the amount of work that they do under contract to the government. This has increased, overall, from 4% of income to 12% of income in twelve years4, whilst donations and other income has stayed more or less the same. Private/voluntary overlap Philanthropy, in its modern usage, is the giving of spare money, time or resources from a business to voluntary good cause. Some very wealthy people give away very large amounts of money- Warren Buffet, an American businessman has committed to give 99% of his personal US$ 46 billion away 4 UK Civil Society Almanac 2012
to charities, mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for healthcare projects around the world. Other companies engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. These CSR activities are projects and initiatives that help communities but are not directly related to the core purpose of the company. These activities are concerned with developing good relationships with ‘stakeholders’, people who have a stake in the good behaviour of a company, which is different from ‘shareholders’, who own and receive a portion of the profits of a company. This has shifted as more voluntary organisations have begun trading as part of their charitable objectives. An obvious example is a charity clothes shop. People donate their spare clothes for free, and the charity shop sells them for a modest price to raise money for other activities. This isn’t the same as the government contract, because the person spending the money in the charity shop is a retail customer rather than a commissioner of services. Right in the middle In the centre of the diagram, when the Venn diagram circles get close enough, is a part where the three sectors overlap. This is where most commentators point to when they talk about social enterprise- as an activity that incorporates5 a public service ethos, voluntary sector activism and the marketplace behaviours of a private company. Social enterprises exist across the range of these overlapping areas, but ‘social
5
Note that the term ‘incorporate’ also means to form a Company. Did you spot my pun?! Groan.
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enterprise’ can be seen more clearly in the very middle of this model. Case-study It is tempting to provide some big and famous social enterprise case-studies to illustrate my points at this point. I could mention Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation or the mutually owned John Lewis Partnership but they are complicated businesses.
been looking at. The people who benefit from her proposed business are:
Activity 1.3: Let's keep it simple for the moment. Watch this recent film of a student presenting to class then try and answer the question below". http://tinyurl.com/p4vs8sg What do you think is the social problem Abi is trying to address?
Parents and children (voluntary sector) by creating better homework outcomes Schools and government (public sector) by helping teachers overcome barriers to homework setting and completion, and She will be running a (private sector) company earning its own income and therefore not reliant on government grants or philanthropic giving, although she may make use of these sources of funds to start and grow.
Abi's way of making the world a little better is not something that schools can achieve on their own. It’s not something that parents or pupils can solve on their own, and it would not be right to make lots of private profit out of the poorest parents or least able to help themselves. Breaking it down
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Abi is responding to an experience she had and which affected her directly. This is often the case with social entrepreneurs. Her younger brother was struggling with his homework and her mum found herself unable to help him understand the skill that lay behind the homework. Abi’s example was ‘annotating’ a film script. Her solution exists right in the middle of the model we have
What this case study allows us to do is to break down our understanding of the ‘social enterprise’ idea into three parts. Remember that the PURPOSE of social enterprise is ‘to make the world a better place’, in other words to create social change for the better. •
•
•
Social Innovation o ideas to change the way society works Social Entrepreneurship o the processes of getting the idea ready to be delivered Social Enterprise o the venture that emerges from the innovation 15 | P a g e
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Social Innovation If our understanding of the term ‘social’ is ‘to make the world a better place’, then innovation can be understood to be introducing something new into the world to achieve that goal, however we describe ‘better’. Joseph Schumpeter (19346), perhaps the first theorist on entrepreneurship and innovation, describes five features of social innovation 1. The introduction of a new product or an improved version of an existing product 2. The introduction of an improved method of production 3. The development of a new market (or entry into an existing market for a new player) 4. The development of a new source of supply or supply chain 5. The more efficient or effective organisation of any public, private or civil sector. So, innovation can happen with respect to a product or a service, or the way in which that product or service is manufactured or provided within a company. It can happen in the ‘marketplace’ -that set of relations made between companies selling goods and customers buying them. It can extend to the way in which the materials are supplied to the marketplace, or even the way in which that market is configured- the practices and norms that characterise the marketplace. These changes are dynamically described by Schumpeter as ‘creative destruction’. 6
Schumpeter, J. (1934), The Theory of Economic Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This term is important because it highlights that the changes that occur in a system like a marketplace is not planned, or always a good thing. In fact, these cycles of change can be very destructive. Schumpeter suggested (19427) that companies, products, market rules and even social relations between people are destroyed and eliminated as capitalism crashes around the world trying to find new places to operate (Harvey, 20108), tearing down the old ways (social relations) in which communities organise themselves (Berman, 19879), even changing the ways in which communities relate to each other across the world in constantly changing flows (Castells 198910). So, the theorists tell us that the capitalist system is constantly changing, and it changes the rules of the game constantly. These changes are not always good, but those who write about social innovation suggest that good things can be created out of the rubble of the last set of social relations. The internet is a good example of this sort of shift in social relations brought about by an innovation. Before the internet, people had to relate to each other with the relatively slow means of letters, faxes, and flying around the world to meet each other in person. Now, with Skype, Facebook and email we can communicate face-to-face across the globe from our homes. This has created new products, like the mobile phone, and then the smart phone and the tablet computer, all straight out of science fiction movies like Star Trek. It has created products 7
Schumpeter, J. (1942), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Cambridge, MA: Harper and Row: New York. 8 Harvey, David (2010). The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism. London: Profile Books. p. 85 9 Berman, Marshall (1987). All That is Solid Melts into Air. p. 99 10 Castells, Manuel (1996, second edition, 2000). The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. I. Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell
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that even geeks didn’t imagine, like the $4bn a year market in mobile phone ringtone downloads, that wasn’t invented until 1997. It’s not necessary to be the first to create an innovation (Rogers 196211) and there are number of methods that can be used to develop an innovative approach as an individual and as an organisation12. These processes can be called social entrepreneurship.
If you thought of people like Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Lakshmi Mittal, Simon Cowell, Anita Roddick, Theo Paphitis, Warren Buffet you are on the right lines. When it comes to characteristics, you probably thought of:
Social Entrepreneurship We see a lot of entrepreneurs on television these days and we have a number of expectations of what they are and what they can do. Activity 1.4: Think of some famous entrepreneurs that you have heard of and note down a number of characteristics that you think make them entrepreneurs.
In fact the list can extend to hundreds of characteristics. A quick check on the internet will show you thousands of websites claiming to have found the magic three, five, seven or ten important characteristics of an entrepreneur. This is because these are based on a psychological understanding of what an entrepreneur is. Of the thousands of academic papers13 studying this, a few traits are commonly raised: 1. a desire for significant achievements, mastering of skills, control, or high standards, 2. self-directed competence to complete tasks and reach goals, 3. innovativeness, 4. ability to tolerate high levels of stress, 5. the need to have control over one's life and work activity, and, and 6. the ability to anticipate change and adapt with low levels of support or training.
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
11
Rogers, E. (1962), Diffusion of Innovation, New York, NY: Free Press. 12
http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/assets/features/the_open_b ook_of_social_innovation Accessed 22 Jan 2014
Risk taker Aggressive Passionate Calm Interested in money
13
Andreas Rauch, Michael Frese (2007) Let's put the person back into entrepreneurship research: A meta-analysis on the relationship between business owners' personality traits, business creation, and success European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Vol. 16, Iss. 4,
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Entrepreneurship isn’t something that only heroic individuals do. These characteristics can be learnt about, and fostered in particular environments. These characteristics may pre-dispose someone to be innovative, but don’t guarantee such behaviour. So, the entrepreneur identifies a problem, identifies a possible solution and then implements the solution. Further to this, an innovative social entrepreneur doesn’t passively spot a social problem, or identify a solution that already exists. Instead, the entrepreneur seems to almost ‘create’ an opportunity through the following activities14:
Activity 1.5: Watch this film http://bigthink.com/videos/saras-sarasvathyexplains-the-entrepreneurial-method and make notes on what you think are the key activities that entrepreneurs employ. Also make a note of the behaviours that that you think you already practice and the behaviours you could do with some more experience with. NOTES
Questioning Observing Experimenting Networking the results
Importantly, they don’t do this once. They do it lots of times, in very small steps. In reality, entrepreneurs are not heros and superhumans; they don’t take risks. Instead, they take small steps and keep checking and modifying their ideas as they go along.
Effectuation [you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
According to entrepreneurship researcher Saras Sarasvathy, entrepreneurs aren’t different from anyone else; they simply adopt a different approach to problem solving.
14
http://gsbblogs.uct.ac.za/gsbresearchforum/files/2010/03/2008SEJ-Entrepreneur-Behaviors-Dyer-Hal-Clay.pdf
Social Enterprise A social enterprise is a venture that arises out of social innovation and processes of social entrepreneurship, and involves entrepreneurs coming together with ethical consumers in a marketplace to buy and sell in order to solve a social problem. For social entrepreneurship to turn into a social 18 | P a g e
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enterprise the following ingredients are needed: People working together to create a product or service (the company) and sharing risk15 and reducing the costs of transacting16 with each other Ethical consumers willing to purchase the product or service A marketplace in which commonly accepted rules of trade allow for a flow of materials and information through buying and selling Supplies and suppliers of materials and information to allow the product and service. Making the world a better place can involve ethical activity in each and all of these areas. If we take the ‘company’ as the key institution in the centre, we can then map the relationships between the company and all the other human and non-human actors in the network. The following list is not exhaustive but provides an overview of the types of socially entrepreneurial activities that can occur across the marketplace. External mission of the company
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Customer/beneficiary oriented o Selling a product to make profit to re-use the profit for a good cause o Providing a product or service for free to poor or socially excluded people
Providing a service or creating a social outcome that the government is not providing, or cannot provide Marketplace oriented o Changing the rules of the marketplace‘market-making’ Shareholder oriented o Including workers as shareholders who receive profits in dividend o Including customers/beneficiaries as shareholders who receive profits in dividend Stakeholder oriented o Including community groups in decisionmaking o Protecting or enhancing the environment, reducing pollution, or raw materials use.
Internal mission of the company
o Employee ownership or decision-making Product/service oriented o Reducing the amount of materials required in a product o Reducing the price of a service Suppliers orientation o Fair trading of materials and information o Including supply chain in decision-making o Investing in supply-chain capacity and equity
Some of the changes in the system are not achieved solely by one company or the workers inside that company. Often these changes are achieved by groups of actors working across boundaries, across the system- all collaborating to make systemic18 and large scale change.
15
One of the most important legal benefits of creating a company is the safeguarding of personal assets from loss in a business transaction 16 Known as the transaction theory of the firm Coase, Ronald H. (1937). "The Nature of the Firm". Economica 4 (16): 386–405 17 A distinction can be made between a customer who pays for a product or service, and a beneficiary who benefits from the product. Often, the customer is not the same as a beneficiary-like when the government (customer) pays for a disabled person (beneficiary) to receive a service
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The central concept ‘system’ embodies the idea of a set of elements connected together which form a whole, this showing properties which are properties of the whole, rather than properties of its component parts. Checkland, P. (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. John Wiley & Sons
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themselves and/or their constituencies.
Social justice All of the commentary above is based on three key assumptions: (1) That society should be just, (2) That society is not yet just, and (3) Everyone has the responsibility to make society just.
FIGURE 4 A VERY BASIC MODEL OF THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS IN A SOCIALLY JUST MARKET
These collaborations are called social movements. Tilly19 suggests that there are three characteristics of a social movement. (1) Campaigns: a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims of target authorities; (2) Repertoire (repertoire of contention): employment of combinations from among the following forms of political action: creation of special-purpose associations and coalitions, public meetings, solemn processions, vigils, rallies, demonstrations, petition drives, statements to and in public media, and pamphleteering; and (3) WUNC displays: participants' concerted public representation of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitments on the part of 19
Charles Tilly (2004) Social Movements, 1768–2004, Boulder, CO, Paradigm Publishers.
This idea of social justice is quite important to understand the purpose of social entrepreneurship. Social justice is the idea that all humans should have equal dignity and should work together to achieve that equity. These are the ideals of equality and solidarity. For many centuries, activists and theorists have identified poverty as a major problem for society, yet even when social groups are lifted out of extreme poverty, significant social problems continue to exist, such as poor health, early death, poor education. In recent years, the idea has emerged that the root of many social problems lies in inequality. READ: http://www.scribd.com/doc/25873703/Howunequal-is-Britain People have unequal amounts of
Wealth Access to materials Access to services provided by governments Access to decision-making bodies Power to change their lives 20 | P a g e
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No matter how rich a country gets, it does not mean that you can expect to live longer or have better health in the country. Watch this film
‘messy issues20’ or ‘wicked problems21’. Wicked problems are the sorts of social problem where we can’t agree on what the question is, let alone what the solution should be. When we are faced with a messy issue, we have to be very careful about how we identify the problem, what the scope of the problem is, and who gets to decide what is important in a particular problem context. In thinking about the problem we need to:
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson .html
Whilst the ‘Spirit Level’ theory is subject to much debate, it prompts us to think whether a just society is more equal and more cohesive than now. When we are thinking about social entrepreneurship, we may have a gut feel of what things should be better in the world, but we also need to have a robust theory of social change, otherwise we will end up trying to change the wrong things, or end up changing lots of things that have no impact on the social problem.
Developing a theory of social change. Part of the skill of being a social entrepreneur, being a Changemaker, is communicating how the world will change because of the new product or service, or marketplace configuration. The social entrepreneur recognises how complex the social world is, and works with that complexity. This complexity is known as
Show the context in which we are facing a social problem (temporal, geographic, social, cultural, economic, political, etc.). Identify the issues that we face. Represent the actors, including ourselves, involved (public, private, civil society), their relationships, values, attitudes, abilities and behaviour Incorporate formal and non-formal institutions (public policies, legal framework, standards, customs, cultural patterns, values, beliefs, consensual norms, etc.) that support the desired change. Visualize the present and, after analysing current reality, projecting an image of the future so that the Rich Picture embodies as much a vision of the present as of the future.
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Ackoff, Russell, (1974) "Systems, Messes, and Interactive Planning" Portions of Chapters I and 2 of Redesigning the Future. New York/London: Wiley,. 21 Conklin, Jeff; Wicked Problems & Social Complexity, Chapter 1 of Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, Wiley, November 2005.
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Summary of Unit 1 This Unit has explored some basic concepts within the field of activity and study called ‘social entrepreneurship’. The learning outcome for this Unit was to “describe social problems and identify possible market-based interventions to solve those problems”. We have established that the purpose of social entrepreneurship is to ‘make the world a slightly better place’ (called Changemaking) and we have considered different ways of thinking about that social change. We have introduced the concept of the market-place and the different actors within that marketplace. We have split ‘social enterprise’ into three concepts- innovation, the processes of entrepreneurship that implement the innovation and the organisations and institutions that result from the processes of entrepreneurship. We have also begun considering what the social problems are that we are concerned to solve. These are just the starting point.
End of Unit Task 1 Understanding Changemaking The outcome of the first unit is to record investigations into social entrepreneurship and changemaking
PURPOSE To begin a continuous reflective diary, recording the key events and activities you have undertaken to develop your Changemaker venture, and returning to reflect on your progress TASK In My Changemaker Journal in NILE: 1. Start by writing 200-300 words on what you have learnt about your own social & environmental impact from completing the Changemaker LifeHack. Changemaker LifeHack [http://northampton.netpositive.org/] 2. Write 200-300 words on what social and environmental issues are created by the degree subject you are studying or the industry that you plan to work in. 3. begin recording any event or activity that you undertake that is relevant to your Changemaker journey. You will start this Journal in Unit 1, but you should keep up the Journal throughout the whole of your activities until you submit for an award. Try and keep a weekly journal entry, to record discussions you have had, meetings you went to, learning activities you participated in, and make a few notes about how your ideas are changing and developing.
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REFLECTION AND FEEDBACK 4. Read the Changemaker Journals of two other participants and make a contribution to their thoughts and experience. Make comments on your own journal about what you learnt from reading other people’s work.
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UNIT 2 Objectives In order to thrive as a social entrepreneur or work in a socially innovative environment it is important to understand yourself, your skills, experiences and attitudes that are tools that you use in creating a new venture. You also will achieve much more if you can work interactively with other people towards your objectives, so team and group working is essential. Knowing people, developing your own networks and getting people to help you, is known as ‘social capital’. Building these skills up systematically is an essential part of what is known as ‘professional development planning’ or PDP. The objective of this unit is to understand personal assets and to develop your social capital. The outcome of this unit is to be able to begin to plan your personal development- the steps needed to bridge from your studies to your new career
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UNIT 2 Understanding yourself Watch this film about empathy. Empathy is a key AshokaU Changemaker Campus skill. We are not going to deal with this directly in this section, but it is useful to note how the author shows that empathy is a powerful vehicle for radical social change.
Activity 2.1: click on the image to watch film [http://tinyurl.com/l32netw]
Introduction Entrepreneurs and social venturers are described as individuals who create a business in the face of risk. This has given them the reputation of being “risk takers”. However, business entrepreneurs are better described as opportunists who understand and appreciate an affordable risk, i.e. what they can afford to sacrifice. We live in a society where for most people work is “just a job” completely separate from the rest of our life. So who can be a social entrepreneur? Often, when we speak of innovators, we envisage someone heroic (Bornstein, 2003) recalling the stories we have heard -for example of Florence
Nightingale. Despite this reputation social entrepreneurship is much more mundane than that, and a successful and innovative venture is not a miracle of mythical proportions, but something created by someone who has the passion to drive sustainable change, and took the opportunity to become a changemaker. Nevertheless, it is thought impossible to teach somebody to be a social entrepreneur, since a social entrepreneur is not one type of person that can be described or pictured. They are as different as their creative ideas. However, entrepreneurs do have certain traits and skills which can be taught and developed. However, before we think about what skills and traits innovators possess, we must first understand what we already possess in terms of assets. Assets don’t only relate to the physical entities like qualifications, access to equipment, networks and resources but also to skills, knowledge and experience. In other words, you are your most valuable asset in your social venture. ACTIVITY 2.2 : Answer this Changemaker Orientation questionnaire as honestly as you can. It will form a baseline against which you can measure yourself in the future. Note down your answers.
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
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An orientation’ is really just about how you think. Reasoning is the way in which we understand the world. Here we will consider two types of reasoning; Causal Reasoning: Causal reasoning uses a ready-aim-fire method and is usually used in traditional business plans where a specific set of means are used to produce the desired goal. One way of understanding this concept is to think of it like a jigsaw. You have all the pieces when you start, and you have one goal; complete the jigsaw. Though creativity may be required to achieve the goal, this is generally a fast, cheap and efficient approach requiring strategic thinking.
Effectual Reasoning: Effectual reasoning however has no set goal, but the goal develops from imagination, creativity and interaction with others. Effectual thinkers ignore the path that may be paved from traditional methods. Contrary to the causal thinker, the effectual thinker is less “ready-aim-fire” but more “fire first and aim after”. “This style is not so much of a traveller who knows the route, but an explorer who has sense of direction but no clear route” Clarke and Stewart
The actions taken by an effectual thinker are dependent on the situation and are flexible, creative and often risky. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the un reasonable man.” Bernard Shaw 1934
Changemakers often use an element of both causal and effectual thinking. However, it is at the beginning of a venture that a changemaker will benefit the most from effectual thinking where it is most needed: where resources are scarce, when you are dealing with problems that are not clear cut and well defined, and by using nontraditional methods to tackle the problem. Thinking creatively ACTIVITY 2.3 : Here are nine dots arranged in a set of three rows. Your challenge is to draw four straight lines which go through the middle of all of the dots without taking the pencil off the paper. If you were using a pencil, you must start from any position and draw the lines one after the other without taking your pencil off the page. Each line starts where the last line finishes. How did you solve the puzzle? (answer on back page)
In other words, effectual reasoning relies on planning and testing, or trial and error techniques. Effectual reasoning can be compared to chess whereby a rigid plan, irrelevant of the players other moves will not be successful.
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
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Think back to how you were solving the puzzle. Did you solve it by trial and error or did you think through a strategy? Spend 30 seconds thinking about how you solved it and what changes in your thoughts you needed have to get you there. "Knowledge is created by the learner, not given by the teacher." If you are trying to learn something then you will need to think about it. We are not trying to teach you anything you do not already know, you are merely using us to remind you of things you want to remember.
new. This Activity was to help you think outside of the box, and do something a little bit different using a trial and error technique. However, many people are scared to try something different because of their fear of failing. In the world of changemaking, failing is not seen as a negative aspect but something to be learnt from. Thus, social entrepreneurs turn negative into positive and have a contingency plans as opposed to fearing change
The beauty of this nine-dot puzzle is that you literally have to "think out of the box" to solve the puzzle. Your pencil or mouse must go outside the box of the dots to be able to solve it. The most frequent difficulty people have with this puzzle is that they try to draw all the lines within the dots and they do not initially want to draw lines outside it because: There is nothing outside the set of dots to associate to. There are no dots to join a line to outside the puzzle so they assume a boundary exists. It is assumed that doing this is outside the scope of the problem, even though the problem definition does not say you are not allowed to. You are so close to doing it that you keep trying the same way but harder.
Thinking about the 9 dot challenge
It is easy to assume that what already exists is what works, and therefore not try anything
Look beyond the current definition of the problem. Analyse the definition to find out what is allowed and what is not. Are there any real rules to the problem anyway? (especially valid in human related problems - there are only perceptions, not physical rules) Look for other definitions of problems. Do not accept other people's definitions of problems. They may be either wrong or biased. If a problem definition is wrong, no number of solutions will solve the real problem. Investigate the boundaries What are the boundaries which the solution must fit into? Are the boundaries your own perceptions or reality? What are the possibilities if you push the boundaries? What are the benefits of small boundary changes? Hard work is not the solution Repeating the same wrong process again and again with more vigour does not work. You can be very close to a solution while not getting any closer to it. 27 | P a g e
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
Thought is the solution, physical hard work will not work
"In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure." Bill Cosby
ACTIVITY 2.4: Complete a game of Tetris at the level of your choice: http://www.freetetris.org/game.php Aim: the aim of playing a game of Tetris was to help explain some of the factors important to setting up a social venture: Utilizing resources (you have to work with whatever shape you are given there is little planning). Social entrepreneurs may find themselves in a situation where they have little, unpredictable resources to work with. Emphasises failing early (knowing the mistake of putting a piece in the wrong place and being able to go back and build a more secure foundation as there is plenty of time and space to rectify mistake). Social entrepreneurs are described as risk takers; however actually take small risks early in the venture meaning they can learn from mistakes making their venture more successful.
Who do you know? Social capital So far we have talked about how important you are, and found out how naturally entrepreneurial you are. Though these factors are vital in your social venture, you will need other people to help you. Social capital has many meanings, but basically refers to group participation leading to the creation of high trust networks. There is an emphasis on networks in many definitions of social capital but there is also an emphasis that value is created with the use of the word capital. Changemakers make use of both social and financial capital. In most cases, social ventures are most needed where financial resources are limited (as a result of aiming to solve social problems), therefore social capital is an important factor for growth and positive change. Communities themselves can utilize the social resources they have to drive change but social capital can also be a source of financial capital for social entrepreneurs for example access to subsidized loans, protected markets or even just investment tips.
Working creatively under pressure (fitting the right brick into the right gap while leaving gaps open for something that might fit better). As social entrepreneurs work with little unpredictable resources they have to implement their ideas in creative and imaginative ways. Building a foundation (without a strong foundation of bricks you run out of space). Social entrepreneurs carry out extensive research before taking any risks, thus starting to build a foundation 28 | P a g e
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friends knows a plumber. Joe can’t afford to pay for this plumber, but he knows that his aunt is a wiz with finances. Joe’s friend’s plumber needs an accountant, so Joe links the two together. In gratitude, the plumber shows Joe what to do. He borrows the tools from friends, and asks his dad to ask the plumbers merchants for any off cuts and discards. What Joe end’s up with is not an elegant plumbing job, and it was clumsily achieved, but it works and was free.
FIGURE 5 SOCIAL CAPITAL (IMAGE BY L AURA BRODRICK)
Knowing people is just the start. The essential ingredient is to find people who know other people. This is known as ‘weak links’ and develops the ideas of Mark Granovetter. People who know lots of people a little bit are better informed than those who know a few people very well. l. Weak links and social capital, used together, give us an idea of who is connected to whom, but also the quality of that connection and the likelihood that the connection will yield useful knowledge or solutions. There is an enormous amount of literature on social capital, but the simplest illustration for this is the burst water pipe. If my water pipe bursts, I have money and a phone book, so I can phone a plumber for an emergency visit, and it will cost me a lot of money. I have some social capital, because I know that I have a phone book, I know that I have money, but I don’t known whether the plumber is good, or too expensive. If I had no money at all, I would be unable to solve my problem, because I know nothing about plumbing. If Joe had no money and no plumbing skills, how would Joe go about solving the problem? Joe has lived in the area since he was a child and still knows many of his school mates. None of his close friends is a plumber, but one of his school
Joe has weak links- he knows a lot of people, he knows them well enough, and he feels able to ask for solutions. He has a lot of ‘bonding capital’- he can connect to people within the community. However, if he wanted to solve a problem of lots of burst water mains across the neighbourhood that keep happening, he might struggle to create a solution. He might not know who to contact within the water company or the local authority, he may not know that something could be done, or that the problem is not too big to be solved. When he phones the water company he may not express himself in ways that speaks to the business interests of the water company and may be brushed off. Joe lacks in ‘bridging capital’ which is the ability to bridge out of his immediate social networks to solve a structural problem. Although this case study is about plumbing, it is very simple to extend this to issues about crime and wellbeing.
So this isn’t a static picture, both my social capital, and Joe’s, can be developed and improved, so that a mix of bridging and bonding social capital is created. First we need to find our first set of ‘social capital’ rich connections, we can invest in them to help them make connections they didn’t have before. We can find out what these first key people know, who they know and how they use these networks to solve problems. We can then begin to work with these people to solve community problems. Furthermore social capital is often associated with trust therefore the interaction between community members and the trust within it may stimulate more community activism. Groups that have strong social network ties are often very trustworthy yet groups that have closed networks may act against the interest of other groups. Social capital may also reduce the probability of individuals who 29 | P a g e
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engage in opportunistic behaviour as those communities that are high in civic engagement are less attracted to opportunistic behaviours. Social capital also looks at conflicts and good social relations that can affect a person’s ability to pursue their interests within the community This interaction is referred to as ‘bridging social capital’ which are bonds of connectedness that are formed between diverse social groups within a community. This connectedness from knowing others, benefits those individuals or communities as it increases access of sources, sharing of information improving the quality of information, enforcement of contracts and having a shared vision or collective goals.
Building your social capital ACTIVITY 2.5: Keep an ongoing note of your networking and social capital activities. How are you getting on? How challenging is it? Is it getting easier? How does 'empathy' and this idea of 'outrospection' effect your thoughts about networking, and who you network with?
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
‘Bonding social capital’ however refers to homogenous groups. This looks at groups that have similar interests, affiliation, experiences or goals such as neighbours, prospective buyers or school groups. However ‘bonding social capital’ can have a negative effect on the degree of sociability outside the closed social circle. ‘Bonding social capital’ can have a negative effect on the community as a whole but ‘bridging capital’ can have a positive effect as it makes a link between different groups or networks. For example the bonding social capital of groups that commit criminal behaviour can have a negative impact or perhaps a same nationality group that do not have bridging capital to other community members which in turn isolates them from the rest of the community. These would be important points to consider, as the lack of bridging capital may contribute to high levels of crime or nuisance behaviour.
Here are some handy tips adapted from The Schmooze-Hater’s Guide to Networking, by Tom Searcy, founder and CEO of Hunt Big Sales (as seen on bnet.com): 1. It’s not about you. OK, it is – but only halfway. Always be thinking about how you can help the other person. What problem can you help them solve? What skills or knowledge do you have to offer? If you keep the other person in mind, good things will happen for you, too. 2. Set a goal. If you are at an event with good networking potential, have a number in mind. Go with 1-3 specific people in mind that you’d like to meet. As an alternative, set a goal to meet 5-10 new people, ask them 2 questions, and exchange contact information. 3. Ask good questions. Beyond, “What do you do?”, ask what their biggest 30 | P a g e
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challenges are in their work, what problem they are seeking to solve, or what project they are currently passionate about. 4. Say goodbye. Especially with more “highprofile” people, don’t dominate their time. Spend a few minutes getting to know them, and then exit gracefully. After introductions and a few questions, offer a handshake and say, “It has been so nice spending a few minutes to get to know you. I hope you have a great evening.” 5. Follow up! If someone gives you his or her business card, follow up with them. The next day, send an email. It can be as simple as thanking them for their time and the opportunity to meet them
Innovation and creativity The term innovation has been used so much over the past few years that it is risking becoming cliché. As businesses hide behind the term when they only have a good product the term is gradually loosing meaning. However, despite the different definitions, innovation is generally associated with social change. Thus social entrepreneurship is not innovative but uses innovation to create change. Social innovation strives to meet unmet needs using new responses that are creative and somewhat risky in order to benefit society. However, social innovators counteract this risk by continuously testing with prototypes, testing and trials.
idea that will initiate change. Innovation is no to be confused with simply making something better as innovation means more than that, it refers to change rather than doing the same thing but better. This can be through organisations, strategies and ideas that all drive toward a social need whether it be healthcare or education. Social entrepreneurship alone is not innovative, but it can be a means of innovation and the aim of social innovation is to strengthen the civil society. Thus, the term does not have one solid meaning, but lots of overlapping meanings and uses. For example, a new technique, a social purpose such as microcredit or distance learning or a new policy all come under the umbrella term of social innovation. We know that social innovation can mean many things, but it can also appear in many different settings; from government, to for profit organisations, to non-profit (third sector) organisations along with everything else in between. Recent research has even begun to look at cross sector collaborative social innovation. The many meanings and purposes of social innovation shows us how important and useful this concept is In 2013, the company Jessops went into administration (in other words, it went bust). This company had been operating since 1935. It soon reopened with the support of a new investor. Read the BBC material at this link and think about why this might have happened.
The term innovation differs from invention because to invent means to “think up or create (something new)” (Collins dictionary 1998) whereas to be innovative is to have an 31 | P a g e
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Possible reasons
Competition from other innovative retailers including supermarkets and other chains. Other companies have been innovative and created a new way of taking photos for example the popularity of the smartphone. Jessops did not continue to create what the consumer wanted.
Why social innovation? The social needs of today are becoming more pressing, as the aging population increases, so many people are unemployed and climate change there is a massive need for change. The traditional methods have failed to come up with adequate solutions to the problems in society and therefore need new, innovative techniques to drive change. The aim of this unit is not to tell you what is innovative but to encourage you to build on your creative skills through carefully selected exercises and activities. Provocative. Just one word . . . Provocative. Until recently All Souls College had an exam named the “oneword exam”, an exam that students feared and nonparticipants gathered outside the college in the hope to hear some news. The tests explanation sounds simple; the students are given one word, be it provocative, or innocence or harmony, and with this word the students are required to create an essay. Like most, this exam required a vast amount of knowledge though unlike other exams it required the same level of imagination. This exam was designed to emphasise that everything around us, even a single word is an opportunity to use not only our knowledge but creativity and imagination and has been deemed the hardest test in the world.
ACTIVITY 2.6: List as many things as you can think of that relate to the word water Why is this Activity difficult?22
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Despite innovators in science, education, technology and many more areas taking centre stage creative problem solving is still absent throughout most school education systems. This means that we are not taught to embrace our imagination and creativity, mainly through concerns that creativity cannot be assessed. Therefore we do not see everything as an opportunity. Imagine if we did. Instead of seeing problems everyone saw opportunities for positive change. Creativity is imperative and this module is designed to encourage you to learn through thinking, imagining, creating and problem solving as opposed to telling you what is “right” or “wrong”. Matthew Edward Harris sat the exam for All Soul’s College which has been called the hardest exam in the world. He described exam as if he were “a chef rummaging through the recesses of his refrigerator for unlikely soup ingredients". This exam forced people to look somewhere else as he describes looking for “unlikely” ingredients. This reminds us that to solve the world’s 22
Adapted from INGENIUS by Tina Seelig, Ph.D. Copyright © 2012 by Tina L. Seelig.
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biggest problems as well as using what you know, from what you have learnt, been told or observed you also have to delve into your own imagination to find those kind of ideas that have already changed the world. Perhaps creativity is often neglected throughout the education system because of the common belief that ideas are cheap; a statement that is utterly wrong. Without ideas we would live the same way forever, making the same mistakes never changing or questioning anything. Creativity is needed for new fresh ideas, and ideas are needed for positive innovative change. Alan Key argues that “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”. We have the ability to invent our own futures using the creativity that we possess.
What does creativity look like? Creativity can mean so many different things and there is no right or wrong. Though this is a basic, easy to digest description of creativity it still does not explain what creativity means you. “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things”. Steve Jobs, Wired magazine, 1996
ACTIVITY 2.7: What does creativity look like? Draw a picture.
[you can try http://drawisland.com/ to create an electronic picture]
Asking you to draw creativity rather than asking you for a definition helps to unlock ideas that might be floating around in your subconscious. Creativity is different to intelligence even though they overlap; they are very different processes in the brain. Creativity is a slow process rather than the speed and efficiency that are required for intelligence tests. “Creativity has been essential to the success of humans.” Dr Charles Limb, John Hopkins University
ACTIVITY 2.8: Flip the triangle moving only three circles: Did you solve the above puzzle by thinking logically or did the answer just come to you in a flash? Creative thinking often works on eureka and insight moments, where you overcome an assumption you held and suddenly realise there may be a different way 33 | P a g e
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of doing something that you had not realised before. The aim of the following activities and puzzles focus on traits useful to innovation including flexibility, redefinition and elaboration and are designed to encourage these insights and eureka moments.
Divergent thinking 23 ACTIVITY 2.9: Spend two minutes listing things you can do with a pencil other than write/draw. When you are done grade your answers from 1 (for mundane answers) to 5 (for original, imaginative answers).
overcome functional fixedness (otherwise known as a “mental block”) but easy enough to let your mind wander. Our best ideas usually come to us when we least expect them therefore, when looking for problems or solutions it can be helpful to step away from the problem and the possible solutions and do a mundane activity that will allow the brain to wander like the washing up, a word search, having a shower that may lead to an “insight” rather than doing nothing and trying to force an idea. The more creative ideas that you managed to come up with, the more of a divergent thinker you are. Divergent thinkers and social entrepreneurs have similar personality traits including creativity, risktaking, improvisation, curiosity and nonconformity. Creativity exists in all of us; though some have higher levels than others, we are all creative even if we don’t know it. For example, most of our daily lives are improvised and unplanned, meaning that we carry out the day as situations arise. Thus we all use effectual thinking and we can practise using these techniques more often.
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Redefining the question aids the discovery of new perspectives that weren’t obvious at first. The innovative things that exist today like the car, the iPhone, and the internet seem obvious now, but someone thought of those ideas. If you found it easier to list uses of the pencil the second time, this is because the Activity you were asked to do in the middle of the divergent thinking tests was designed to occupy your brain enough so that you could 23
Adapted from the BBC creative minds documentary BBC (2013) Horizon: The Creative Brain: HowInsight works. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rbynt
1) Do not dismiss ideas and encourage wild ideas. Rather than dismissing ideas that sound a bit ridiculous, encourage them because they may lead to something feasible. 2) Build on the ideas of others. In a creative space ideas can bounce off one another so go with the flow and expand on each other’s ideas, using and instead of but. 3) Have one conversation at a time. Having emphasised the importance of building on the ideas of others it is important to let everyone have their say. Speaking one at a time and listening to what everyone has to say mean you do not miss any ideas. 34 | P a g e
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4) Be visual. In order to carry out the above suggestions it is handy to have visual stimulators, like writing all the ideas down, using highlighters, pictures and colours, images make things memorable. People often worry when asked to carry out tasks like this believing they “can’t draw”. Do not worry how good or bad the drawing is, it is about the idea behind the drawing that is important. 5) Quantity and quality! One of the ways of finding good ideas is to think of lots and lots of ideas and discard the bad ones later. Though the end product is about quality, in the creative stages you need to focus on quantity. Use all of thetips above and get down as many ideas that will fit onto a page and more! FINALLY, as a way of winding down from this Unit, in one minute, adapt as many circles on
the next page as you can into objects, by drawing on them.
This task relates to the brainstorming rule to build on the ideas of others. Here you have been given a diagram and have been asked to add to it in a creative way. Thus you do not create an entirely new product but build on an existing idea creating change.
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SOLUTIONS
FIGURE 6 SOLUTION TO THE 9 DOT CHALLENGE
FIGURE 7 SOLUTION TO THE FLIP THE TRIANGLE PROBLEM
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Summary of Unit 2 Creativity helps us to prepare for uncertainty and problems that we may not know exist yet. One of the traits of social entrepreneur is that they can work with little, imperfect information. No information is perfect, so learning to work creatively will enhance the way problems are responded to in society. Puzzles and creative tasks help to unlock creativity by encouraging you to connect ideas to unlock divergent thinking, insight and improvisation. Unexpected or unusual experiences help us to think in a more divergent, creative, flexible and original way, these skills can subsequently be used in expected situations to create unexpected results and find new and perhaps more effective ways of doing things
End of Unit Task 2 Understanding yourself
environmental issues they encounter in their life and work. Refer back to the section on Social Justice (on Page 20) to remind you what this means. You can use this interview guide to help you. 2. In My networking/Social Capital journal (Unit 2) in NILE, provide a record of the meetings you have attended to explore the social problem that you want to tackle, the contacts you have made, and the skills they bring to your understanding of the social problem REFLECTION AND FEEDBACK 3. Read the Networking/Social Capital Journal of two other participants (different to the last Unit) and make a contribution to their thoughts and experience. Make comments on your own journal about what you learnt from reading other people’s work.
The objective of this unit is to understand personal assets and to develop social capital in social entrepreneurship PURPOSE To provide evidence of developing creative skills through social networking. TASK 1. Meet with at least two students, one academic and someone from an industry sector you are interested in (or work in) and interview them about social and 37 | P a g e
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UNIT 3 Objectives To create a social venture, one needs to understand social problems, why they happen and how social entrepreneurship can help solve the problems. This unit provides information on a variety of social problems, and creates a framework for thinking about and researching social problems. The objective of this unit is to gain experience of, and reflect on, social problems and solutions through voluntary action, scientific research, or employment. The outcome of this unit is to be able to begin to explore social problems through research and experience.
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UNIT 3 Society & Social Problems Introduction A social problem relates to an undesirable situation that affects the quality of life of those involved. Social problems are complex and they are not agreed on by everyone, for example the teenagers playing loud music in the park do not see themselves as a social problem, but the residents in the nearby houses may do. There is an almost overwhelming list of social problems including homelessness, pollution, domestic abuse racism and sexism to only name a few. Social issues can also arise when people in a society have differing opinions on topics such as unplanned pregnancy as some see abortion as the solution whereas other will be strongly opposed to this choice. It is therefore, sometimes the solutions to the social problems that cause division throughout the community; which can subsequently lead to further problems. This section aims to help you understand what makes a problem social and the meaning of social problems24. Moreover, social problems are not fixed but change over time and examples of social problems today are homelessness and child abuse. In the 19th century issues like this were classed as individual misfortune and other issues, including divorce, took centre stage as pressing social problems. Social 24
Edited from
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=399004 &direct=1
problems not only differ over time but also from country to country, for example social problems including severe poverty, lack of personal health and food shortages are not major issues in the US or Europe but are major problems in Africa or Asia To make social problems even more complicated, they do not only affect those that they directly touch, for example a spread of disease will eventually affect a whole community. The spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa demonstrates this; as there is danger of contraction for the whole community, it is costly and leaves many children orphaned. Therefore, we can already see how some problems that seem like a single issue can have numerous effects on the community as a whole. Likewise, the unemployment rate of the UK does not just affect those who are out of work but has an impact on the entire economy. Whichever solution is implemented will leave some unhappy and thus a solution in these societies cannot please everybody.
Social Evils In 2007, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation started a UK-wide debate to find out what are the social evils of the 21st century. Thousands of people told us what they thought these were. Common themes included drugs and alcohol, crime and violence, and decline of the family. Underlying these, some other themes emerged – including a perception of a decline in values, fear of others, inequality and a lack of community. 39 | P a g e
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Activity 3.1 Read the materials on the Joseph Rowntree website to get a sense of the big picture of social problems and specifically the report on modern British ‘social evils’.
Inequality A new way of thinking about social problems is through the idea of ‘inequality’. Because specific social problems are impossible to summarise in this short briefing note, thinking about inequality is a useful strategy to explore social problems around us. The inequality theory suggests that the more unequal a society, the greater the other problems.
Activity 3.2 Click on the image to view a film about inequality [http://vimeo.com/64995158]
Inequality is not difference. Saying that people are unequal is saying that some are disadvantaged relative to others; inequality is disadvantage in a social context. The main inequalities in society are class, gender, race and inequalities in income and wealth.
The conclusion of the Spirit Level work is that health and social problems are worse in the most unequal societies.
Debates about inequality were recently revived by the extensive work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of The Spirit Level. It has been claimed that inequality is a ‘theory of everything’ but, even if it is not, it helps to explore how social problems arise. "The countries with the biggest gap between the rich and the poor have the highest level of whatever health and social problem it is we're looking at," said Professor Pickett25.
Leading social commentator and academic Danny Dorling claims in this timely book that, as the five social evils identified by Beveridge are gradually being eradicated, they are being replaced by five new tenets of injustice, viz:
25
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11518509 Accessed
Here is a handy USA based interactive tool. http://inequality.is/
elitism is efficient; exclusion is necessary; prejudice is natural; greed is good; and despair is inevitable.
These are controversial claims, but social innovation rejects these ‘tenets of injustice’ and seeks to overcome despair, rejecting greed and prejudice, through ventures that are inclusive and involve all stakeholders. The
3/02/14
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Equality Trust is a leading UK source of information and data for you to explore.
Wicked problems Some social problems are also known as ‘wicked problems’, because they are so complex. A wicked problem does not present an obvious solution and those discussing the issue struggle to define the question being asked. This is because there is no definitive formulation for a wicked problem; for example, poverty is a wicked problem and has existed throughout time, however the level of poverty in Northampton today is not comparable to the level of poverty in the nineteenth century, but still poses a huge challenge. Furthermore, efforts to tackle wicked problems focus on making the situation better rather than solving, or fixing it as any “solution” would be like putting a bandage on an injury in order to stem the bleeding for a while. This is a result of their complex nature and because we have incomplete information about the issues, and means that a team attempting to tackle a wicked problem have to use flexible, adaptable and often unconventional approaches to attempt to tackle the problem. A wicked problem can be a social or cultural problem that appears at first impossible to solve due to a number of reasons including:
Different opinions of the situation or problem Interconnected relationship between problems. Incomplete information about all aspects of the problem
To make wicked problems even more complex, though they are unique, they rarely
stand alone and affect each other; resulting in some presented problems being symptoms of less obvious ones. Poor education can be linked to poverty, poverty to obesity, obesity to the economy and so on. As a result, these types of problems cannot be solved with linear, systematic, or causal approaches but a more holistic approach where all elements of the issue are investigated. Attempting to tackle a wicked problem is in itself a wicked problem and therefore wicked problems can seem overwhelming and pressure is put on policy makers to come up with a quick fix. However, wicked problems bring uncertainty and this element of problems is difficult to tolerate. Despite wicked problems being almost impossible to solve, policies still attempt to use traditional, linear approaches where an attempt is made to “tame”26 a wicked issue. Any attempt to tame a wicked issue will lead to a superficial solution. A great resource on the application of wicked issues theory to design and social entrepreneurship can be found at https://www.wickedproblems.com/read.ph p Yet, all hope is not lost when it comes to tackling wicked problems. An intellectual approach that expresses empathy, abductive reasoning and rapid prototyping needs to be used. It is important to work as part of a team to ensure that the problem being discussed is looked at from a number of perspectives.
26
Chapman,J. (2004). Systems Failure — Why Governments must
learn to think differently, 2nded. London: DEMOS
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Do not be fooled into thinking that every problem in society that is difficult to solve is a wicked problem. Many social problems, however, do have the characteristics of wicked problems and therefore cannot be easily “fixed”. Teams tackling problems aim to alleviate symptoms, negative behaviour and consequences caused by problems. However, despite entrepreneurs having the reputation for being agile and quick to make a positive impact, to understand a wicked problem, details need to be acknowledges on a number of different levels including science, medicine, economic, politics and so on. Thus creating the need for interdisciplinary collaboration emphasising the importance of social capital and effectual approaches to a tackling a problem.
By considering what other factors may be involved in the occurrence of a high crime rate we can develop a level of empathy with individuals in the community both those carrying out the crime, the victims of the crime and those living in a community with a high crime rate. This empathy means that we can start to understand a number of perspectives 28of the data and the problem itself. Though we cannot tame a wicked problem, we can take steps that make it possible to tackle it. 1) Simplify the problem- complex problems can be overwhelming… do not make the problem more complicated. Work with what you know to be true and test all assumptions. Be flexible and do not continue with rigid ideas that those affected by the problem don’t feel to be relevant. 2) Break it down to bitesize chunksthough problems are connected, can be symptoms of one another, and have impacts on each other by keeping focused and priorities issues you can tackle one thing at a time. By applying a triage technique you can prioritise problems like they do patients in the resuscitation room of a hospital;
Perceptions The team identifying a problem will usually analyse data to try and come up with patterns and connections. This is a useful method, however one that can be easily weakened by perceptions or in other words people in the team seeing what they think they see27, or relating too much to things they think already exist which leads to the team working with many assumptions. By working only with existing data the team risk only identifying what is already recognised for example the high crime rate in Northampton as opposed to why data has occurred in this way for example: this could be linked to the high rate of unemployment.
27
Most important outcome Greater chance of success Nearest time limit
Berger,P. L. and T. Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of
Reality: A Treatise inthe Sociology of Knowledge, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books
28
Maccoun,Robert J. (1998), "Biases in the interpretation and use of researchresults", Annual Review of Psychology 49: 259–87
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3) Work backwards- though you need to keep focused, you may find yourself at a dead end more than once and need to redefine what you are looking at. For example rather than asking why a problem is a problem, ask why it needs solving. E.g. A farmer needs to solve the problem of being unable to grow a certain crop. By redefining the question, and asking why he needs to grow this particular crop he realises that it is because it has a high profit margin. Thus he can look at alternative crops that may also give him the high profit margin he desires, that he is able to grow. The problem manifested itself as being the farmer unable to grow the first crop and therefore he may have initially looked for a solution to this problem. By questioning why we need to do a certain thing we can come up with a solution that does not involve the thing that we cannot do, but solved the reason why we want to do it in the first place.
Tackling wicked issues Once you have eliminated all the possibilities except one, that one must be the solution. Sherlock Holmes.
Research- in order to understand the whole picture you need to find out triggers and consequences, or in other words what happened before, during and after the problem occurred.
Don’t be afraid to ask!- Not having much knowledge will certainly be a challenge but should not be a limitation. Using the tips surrounding social capital and developing networks in the area will be vital to your social venture. Use the right tool- Problems will require different tools and some tools will be more effective than others depending on the job that needs doing for example, you would not use a hammer when tiling your bathroom, however when you need to put a nail in the wall it’s the perfect tool. Is it supported by a theory?- This goes beyond what you have and who you know to what you know. A lot of aspects of society have already been thoroughly explored so some theories e.g. Bandura’s Social Learning theory may shed light on relevant areas of your interest. Do something new-. Therefore, ignore traditional methods of problem solving and try something completely new. Test possible improvements- The “guesscheck-adjust” approach where by you test your assumption by trialling possible improvements to the problem. This method is almost like a process of elimination where you can say for sure what did and did not make the situation better.
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for problems and choosing to interpret them differently
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Activity 3.3 Watch this film of students discussing social issues. Answer each of the questions for yourself
What's going on in the world today? Why should I care? Who has the power to fix this? What can WE do? Why do I care? How can it happen?
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Do some research on social issues in your field of study and write a short essay in this Unit's Journal about what you have learnt. If you have already done an assignment about this in your degree, what did you learn? What have you learnt since doing the assignment?
Problems as opportunities We have an unconscious, automatic way of thinking of problems as we see them as negative issues that get in way of our “harmony”. This default thinking prevents us from seeing problems as opportunities, which we can identify by consciously looking
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Activity 3.4 Watch the ‘This is Water’ film clip: http://dotsub.com/view/6b8cc93f-3b53486b-a1ce-025ffe6c9c52 When thinking of Africa, most people who have not visited would describe is as a continent of despair and disaster recalling media coverage of starving children and seemingly endless droughts. However, Africa is in fact a place of resilience, resourcefulness, entrepreneurship and determination with a strong sense of community. Innovation can be provoked from difficult circumstances and though the types of innovation might seem simple to some, it can have life changing impacts on those it affected by it.
Innovations from Africa Below are two examples of African innovations starting with detail of the problem: 30
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http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/863/218/86321865_640.jpg
http://www.collegegreenlight.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/080113-This-is-Water.jpg
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Water Problem: Two in Five Africans do not have nearby access to water facilities and as a result have to walk very long distances for water supplies. Further problems arise from this issue including women and children are expected to carry out the task meaning they are missing out educational or economic opportunities due to the vast amount of time is takes to collect water. Furthermore, the way in which the barrels are traditionally carried on the head not only means that they risk spinal injuries but also limits the amount they can carry back. There are also extreme cases where those collecting water are at risk of rape or assault when traveling the long journey to collect water. Idea/Solution: The “Hippo water roller” was created, a drum that can be rolled along the ground and carries five times more water than the traditional containers while weighing only half the usual 20kg. The drum has a steel handle and has been designed so that two people can push it up a hill.
“Essentially it alleviates the suffering people endure just to collect water and take it home. Boreholes or wells can dry out but people can still use the same roller [in other wells. One roller will typically serve a household of seven for five to seven years”, Grant Gibbs, Project Manager This solves the problem of limits of water that can be transported as it allows people to transport larger amounts of water faster meaning women and children may be able to take advantage of educational or economic opportunities. It also prevents injury caused by carrying heavy loads on the head as well as doing the journey less frequently lessening the risk of assault or rape. Nelson Mandela supports the idea and is quoted saying this innovation will “positively change the lives of millions of our fellow South Africans” as approximately 42000 Hippo rollers have been sold in 21 African countries and demand exceeds supply. Hippo Rollers cost $125 each and though currently distributed through NGOs there are plans for a mobile manufacturing unit in Tanzania.
Technology
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http://www.collettefoundation.org/blog/wp-
Problem: Tech-savvy youths, who make up the bulk of the continent's population, face being left behind by a growing "digital divide". While much of Africa has skipped the desktop internet era and gone straight to mobile tech, big name brands retail in price ranges that remain out of reach for a majority in sub-Saharan Africa. Infrastructure is also straining under rapid population growth, and wireless and broadband technology is not yet widely available in many public places.
content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_1107.jpg
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Idea: The Inye computer tablet that can connect to the internet via a dongle surmounts the price and infrastructure barriers in one go.
Something is only a problem because we define it that way and so a lot of time and energy is spent complaining about the problems in society when this time and effort could be used to look for solutions as we recreate these problems as new opportunities for change. Too often we say we do not like something and try to force things back to how we were before, but the world is changing, it will always be changing so we have to learn how to change with it by working with and manipulating situations to create positive change in our societies.
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Method: Co-founders Saheed Adepoju and Anibe Agamah, aimed to plug a gap in affordable mobile devices with the Inye tablet in Nigeria. They say its strongest selling point is its price – currently around £200. Run on Android systems, it can be connected to the internet via widely used dongles rather than wirelessly. IT provider Encipher also offers add-on bundles from games to specifically tailored apps. Local developers are designing apps that address issues such as HIV, water and sanitation and education. Verdict: The group is now retailing its Inye 2 model to popular demand. Long-term, there are plans to expand beyond Africa's most populous country These simple but creative and innovative ideas may seem useless to someone who does not struggle with any of the issues that the idea is trying to alleviate . Thus, when tackling a problem a social entrepreneur 32
must understand a society and its individual needs in order to create positive sustainable change.
More of these innovations can be found at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/a ug/26/africa-innovations-transformcontinent
Creativity to solve problems The process of an insight, or eureka moment starts with a problem or challenge but one that logical thinking perhaps cannot solve. There are many innovative designs all around us today but at first glance you might not identify them with solving a problem. The following task is designed to encourage you to think about problems that have been solved by products we use in our daily life. Activity 3.5 Finding problems solving in products What problem does an iPhone solve?
http://www.enciphergroup.com/wp-content/gallery/inye/2.jpg
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What problem does a Dyson vacuum cleaner solve?
What problem does a train solve?
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Finding the right problems Having established that in order to improve the quality of life we need to creatively solve problems. However, how do you know when you have the right problem? Some problems are still considered to be individual misfortune though others are so common, and attract so much attention that they are considered a public problem and these are the kind of problems that social entrepreneurs will aim to address as not only do they affect a lot of people, but the public want them solving and therefore you are more likely to have the support from the community of which you are trying to help.
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Summary of Unit 3 In this Unit we have explored some social problems. There are too many problems that we can’t describe them all, and how they are all caused. Instead, the idea of ‘inequality’ has been presented as a theory, as a way of thinking about social problems. We have also looked a genre of social problems that are so complex that they can’t be tackled using standard problem solving techniques. These are called ‘wicked problems’, which are discussed in more detail in the next Unit. We have also looked at some solutions in order to think about social problems as ‘solutions’ waiting to happen.
End of Unit Task 3 Understanding social problems The outcome of this unit is to be able to begin to explore social problems through research and personal experience. PURPOSE To record your investigations into the social problem that you are seeking to tackle TASK
2. In My Social Problems journal (Unit 3) record your investigations into the social problem you are seeking to tackle, showing links to websites, journal papers, reports, and interviews with people involved in the problem to demonstrate that you have explored in detail a specific problem. Record your experiences: have you done any volunteering, or come across a situation at work? Do you experience the social problem yourself or have you explored the social problem with those who experience it? It doesn’t matter what social problem you try and tackle, and you may keep changing your mind as your explore the issues in more depth, but follow your passion. REFLECTION AND FEEDBACK 3. Read the Social Problems Journal of two other participants (different to the last Unit) and make a contribution to their thoughts and experience. Make comments on your own journal about what you learnt from reading other people’s work. How has your understanding of your social problem been widened and developed by reading about other peoples’ work?
1. Undertake research in the library and in the online journals into the social and environmental problems that you have been exploring so far
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Unit 4 Objectives Having gained some experience and understanding of social problems, you will want to be able to solve the problem. Through working through some resources on innovation, ideation and decision-making skills, you will be able to explore, with your fellow participants, possible solutions to the problems. One of the ideas you have might work out to be a viable, self-sustaining venture. Even if a business is not possible, these creativity skills will help you enormously in your future career anyway. The objective of this unit is to apply creativity, thinking skills and decision-making processes to a social problem in order to devise a series of possible solutions, one of which might be a selfsustaining enterprise.
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UNIT 4 Problem Solving The term innovation has been used so much over the past few years that it is risking becoming cliché. However, despite the different definitions, innovation is generally associated with social change. Thus social entrepreneurship is not innovative but uses innovation to create change. Social innovation strives to meet unmet needs using new responses that are creative and somewhat risky in order to benefit society. However, social innovators counteract this risk by continuously testing with prototypes, testing and trials. The term innovation differs from invention because to invent means to “think up or create (something new)” (Collins dictionary 1998) whereas to be innovative is to have an idea that will initiate change. Innovation is not to be confused with simply making something better as innovation means more than that, it refers to change rather than ‘doing the same thing but better’. This can be through organisations, strategies and ideas that all drive toward a social need whether it is healthcare or education. Social entrepreneurship alone is not innovative, but it can be a means of innovation and the aim of social innovation is to strengthen the civil society. Thus, the term does not have one simple universally agreed meaning, but lots of overlapping meanings and uses. For example, a new technique, a gig, a social purpose such as microcredit or a new policy all come under the umbrella term of social innovation.
We know that social innovation can mean many things, but it can also appear in many different settings; from government, to for profit organisations, to non-profit (third sector) organisations along with everything else in between. Recent research has even begun to look at cross sector collaborative social innovation. The many meanings and purposes of social innovation show us how important and useful this concept is. Underpinning all of this is the need to ensure that we are actually clearly solving the problems we have set out to tackle, that we understand the causes of the problems, why the problem is occurring in the places and manner that we have spotted, to ensure that when we start our social venture, we know (as much as we can) what the impact of the venture will be.
Triggers and Inspiration for innovation 33 Crisis The need for change is the most powerful motivations for innovation. However crisis can also have a negative effect on creativity a result of the pressure that results from the need to change. However there are examples where nations have used crisis to accelerate innovation for example in the rise in community spirit and increase in young entrepreneurs in New Orleans in the years following Hurricane Katrina. Another example is China’s faster response to the Szechuan earthquake than in 2008.
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From the NESTA Open Book of Social Innovation
www.nesta.org.uk/library/.../Social_Innovator_020310.pdf
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Poor Performance: The poor performance within services can result in the need for a redesign of the way a need is met; this may be brought to the service provider’s attention through for example statistics, customer complaints or feedback. Innovations of this type are usually adapted from elsewhere.
New Technologies: The introduction of new technologies can prompt inspiration for change and be adapted to social needs this may be computers in classrooms, assistive devices for the elderly or the contraceptive implant used to reduced teenage pregnancies. Research into specific areas provides the evidence that is needed to progress for example, research that suggested that having children share a computer in the classroom is more effective that having one each. Thus thorough research states not only how helpful it can be to have computers in the classroom but also how best to utilise this resource. Furthermore, new evidence from such research will improve quality of life by focusing on the needs before the ideas for action and therefore more effective ideas are implemented.
Efficiency Savings: When trying to cut public spending it is necessary to reassess the ways in which services are designed and provided. An example being aiming to reduce the amount of people who are being sent to prison, the “right” systems thinking can identify possibilities for change. When referring to the “right” systems, there is not a specific system that can be explained but rather that the need to change in such circumstances means that spending cuts is unlikely to have
a positive impact when using traditional methods.
Root causes of social problems 34 Some of the topical social problems of today include antisocial behaviour, crime, homelessness, poverty, drugs, mental illness. However, attempting to solve poverty, for example, is a daunting and almost impossible task. Therefore, it is important to find out what effects poverty has on society, individuals and communities, what are the other issues contributing to poverty in specific places and how can these be tackled. Thus we have to have focus not only on the problem but anything that will exacerbate it; otherwise a badly phrased problem will result in a weak, unsustainable solution. In order to fully understand a problem and its effects we have to delve right to the source/s of the problem, think of them like roots of a tree. On the surface you see a tree, but there is a whole root system below that just because it cannot be seen, it does not mean it is not there. Now think of mushrooms which are fungi that attach and infect the roots of trees. Imagine a forest where a large number of the trees roots are infected and connected by mushroom fungi, from above all you see are what look like normal trees but below the mushrooms are feeding off the nutrients of the trees. When the mushroom fungus is not receiving enough nutrients off the tree any more, it sprouts in order to reproduce. This sprouted mushroom is the only clue that anything is going on below the 34 http://www.thwink.org/sustain/analysis/HowToStrikeAtRoot.htm
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surface, so let’s think of this as a symptom. If you were to remove the mushroom you might think you had solved the problem, however the mushroom will simply grow back as only dealing with ground level leads to “superficial solutions” that are unsustainable as the fungi spreads underground. Now imagine that the trees are a community and the fungi is the problem, policies that only deal with ground level problems ignores the root causes of the problem and therefore have little effect. Underneath the ground there is a web of mushroom fungi that connect from tree to tree meaning that all the trees are infected and connected to each other through the fungi. When you see a mushroom above the ground in a wood/forest it means that is it dying and has sprouted to spread seeds, this is a symbol of an underlying problem. The aim of the next task is to understand complexity and wickedness of problems to ensure users do not come up with general solutions to general problems.
Figure 1 shows how the “superficial” layers describe how the problem manifests itself, in other words, the symptoms of the problem. This layer is easy to see and require little analysis. The key to understanding complex problems, however, is to explore all the factors that result in the superficial layer. Only focusing on the superficial layer will lead to unsustainable improvements at best. By breaking through to the “fundamental” layer, which is where the root causes of the problem symptoms lie, the problem can be explored in more detail leading to a deeper understanding of the problem, its symptoms and its causes. However, this layer is not as easy to see as the superficial layer and it is important to locate where to “dig”, putting emphasis on the importance of quality research into a problem.
Detecting problems, not what people need Sometimes, those affected by the problem are not able to clearly state what they want or need and therefore it is your problem to detect the right problems. Finding out why someone feels that they need something will help you understand what can be done to improve the problem. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” Henry Ford, inventor of the first mass produced car.
FIGURE 8 R OOT CAUSES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
In other words, Henry Ford (whose quote is above) aimed to understand people’s relationship with travel, and one thing he found was that they wanted to get there quicker. They did not actually tell him what they wanted, but he created what they wanted by finding out what the root causes of the problem was, and reframing the 52 | P a g e
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problem in a wider context. And he went beyond breeding faster horses! This “digging” or researching of the problem can be difficult as those affected will not simply tell you what the problem is or might be, thus a social innovator needs to have the ability to analyse information and make connections using techniques including interviewing techniques, questionnaire methods, observation, conversation using a combination of effectual and causal reasoning. After reaching the fundamental layer, the root causes become clearer and may even present possible solutions. These solutions are fundamental solutions that differ greatly from the superficial solutions that were first presented with the visible, superficial problems. Fundamental solutions may be characterized as radical actions that stray from traditional methods and despite traditional methods not having an impact, the new fundamental solution may be met with resistance and disbelief. However, by keeping focus on the aim of tackling the root causes of the problem the resistance will eventually dissolve and the idea embraced. Social entrepreneurs are characterised as individuals who take an opportunity of change in the face of risk, and resilience and persistence are key to getting to the root of a problem. This usually comes hand in hand with behaviour and attitude change of those they are working with.
Open questions In order to understand problems and their consequences you must understand the relationship that those effected have with the problem. When researching the problem
and its cause and effect it is limiting to ask direct, closed questions about the problem for example, “Do you think poverty in your area is a problem?” will only present the answers “Yes”, “No” or “I don’t know” which are almost useless for your research into the problem. Therefore, you should use conversation techniques that help you explore the problem for example “Tell me about Poverty in your area”. By asking an open question the other person is free to tell you the details that they think are important. You should let the other person lead the conversation, asking them to elaborate or explain any points that you think are particularly relevant to your research using questions of why and how. It can also be handy to ask “why not?” can also be handy because it changes the question, revealing deeper detail of the problem as the lack of action is defended or justified.
F IGURE 9 EDWIN LAND AND HIS POLAROID I NSTANT PHOTO35
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Edwin Land (the creator of Polaroid cameras) after taking a photograph with his daughter on a film camera explained to her that the film had to be developed and therefore she could not yet see the photos. His daughter replied “why not?”. This inspired Land, as he kept asking himself ‘why not’, and he came up with a way that the photos could be seen instantly. From simply asking ‘why’, one would presume something could not be done, Land came up with a way it could be done. This concept has been further developed by the creation of digital cameras, where the photos can be viewed, deleted and edited the instant the photograph has been taken. Rephrasing the question helps up to remember why we are doing what we are doing, what is the true goal and how can we achieve it. A well phrased problem statement is key to finding a sustainable solution to a problem. If a Problem is too specific (e.g. my internet connection is poor) or too broad (e.g. there is a high unemployment rate in Northampton) then it will be impossible to create a sustainable solution because not enough people suffer from a problem so specific thus your solution will not impact society, and there are too many factors at play contributing to a broad problem like unemployment rate of Northampton.
The limits to success Even though fundamental solutions are a sustainable method of improving a situation do not be fooled into believing that once a solution has been implemented the problem will disappear. One of the many challenges of super complex or ‘wicked’ problems (as
Horst and Rittel called them) is that they can never be solved but rather, improved, limiting the ability to measure success of such implemented improvements. Nevertheless there are guidelines that help to establish the limits of success:
Redefine the problem: The key issues of complex problems can get lost, and therefore it is important to keep reassessing and establishing what the question is, before attempting to answer it.
Do not think it is solved: The project is usually a long term commitment as the problem is never solved but improved, thus there is no end to the project and any improvement does not stop the problem being wicked.
No right or wrong answer: Wicked problems cannot be entirely solved or be defined as “right” or “wrong” but they can be made better, or worse. Thus the solutions to wicked problems can be described as better, worse or not good enough when trying to solve a problem.
You only get one shot: Though entrepreneurs are characterised to use effectual thinking and a trial and error approach, this is not practical in the implementation process as every action has an effect thus leaving little opportunity for trial and error efforts. In order to make sure that the efforts that are being put in place do not lead to unintended consequences that have a negative impact, social entrepreneurs have to carry out research at depth. Though it is not advised to use trial and error when implementing solutions, social entrepreneurs make small, informed improvements that have large positive impacts as opposed to
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high profile attempts, that fail to address the whole issue.
Solving a problem Once we have identified the problem, its root causes and who is affected by these issues we can start to look at how we can improve it.
Start with the user: The most important people to get on board with you and your idea is the community that you are working with. By working with them, you can understand the problem in much more detail as individuals can keep a diary or simply explain their world from their perspective. Ideas build and flow from others therefore having a reflective commentary that comes from the heart of the community will flow through the idea and your improvements. For example, SILK at Kent County Council used ethnographic research (a technique that explores cultural phenomena) when reviewing the lifestyles of that citizens living in that area.
Visit the problem: Visiting the area you are working with is a powerful technique to influence your idea. Reggio Emilia, described as a prosperous town in Northern Italy. Since WW2 has adopted a holistic, creative and child- centred approach to the education of those in their early years. This town has, as a result become an inspiration to educators worldwide and the mixed private and public company in Reggio Emilia coordinates visits to its early years centres.
Positive deviance: We have already discussed that social innovators tend to use unconventional methods of investigation and action. This is not because they enjoy the risk, but because by investigating the uncommon behaviour of a few within a community may help find a strategy that has the ability to improve the whole community that has not been used before even if the same resources were available. For example, Child Nutrition Programmes in Egypt observed poor families who did not have malnourished children when many other children in the community were malnourished. They found that those families with well-nourished children fed them a diet of eggs, beans and green vegetables. Thus, the parents of malnourished children were encouraged to feed their children the same diet along with promoting other simple hygiene activities regarding food preparation. This resulted in improved child growth throughout the community.
Investigate extremes: By investigating the extreme circumstances of a situation can improve a service for mainstream users, for example providing easier access to buildings for those with disabilities helps review how the building could be more accessible to all. Moreover, making a problem worse can help to identify the key problems fuelling that issue that can then be tackled. This is an ethically challenging approach, but sometimes the symptoms of a problem have to get worse before we can understand what is creating the problem
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Rethinking In poorer communities there are derelict buildings discarded and unused for years. Those in the community may see them as an eye sore and something that is draining the communities’ resources. However, like seeing problems and opportunities, these spaces can also be seen in a positive light as an opportunity for innovation. As social entrepreneurs often work with communities with limited resources it is vital for the community to utilize what it already has. By rethinking space and concepts they can creatively revitalize the community to meet their own social needs. An example of this is architect and academic Teddy Cruz who has become well known for using what others see as “waste” material to build health clinics and houses in Tijuana.
Rich pictures There are a number of analytical tools that can be used to interpret a situation including rich pictures and diagram methods including mind maps, influence diagrams, multiple cause diagrams and more in order to understand complex situations. To get the
best use of any of these methods it is important to understand why a particular tool is being used, whilst taking its limitations as well as benefits into consideration. Though there are many established visual aids, the most appropriate for this community profile is the use of rich picturing. A rich picture is a detailed doodle containing symbols of a situation or circumstance and contributes to part of the Soft Systems Methodology36 which is a systematic way of interpreting and analysing real problematic situations. The aim of drawing a rich picture is to help understand a complex situation or problem. It can be difficult to write down the details and perspectives of a problem due to the limitations of being guarded when using words. Being forced to think about and relate to the situation or problem in enough detail to draw a representation means that ideas flow from the unconscious revealing perceptions you may not have realised were there. You may be worried that you cannot draw, or that others will not understand what you are trying to represent, however this is much less a barrier than a way of expanding on the details of the situation even further. Misinterpretation of your picture means new perspectives may be brought to life or you may be asked to explain revealing yet more detail. In fact, drawing a rich picture as a group or “co drawing” can be more productive in understanding a complex situation as a result of perception, differing interpretation of data and problems and lengthy discussion. Rich pictures are not a
36
Checkland, Peter B. and Scholes, J. (1990) Soft Systems
Methodology in Action, John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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way of recording new data, but of understanding existing data. Rich pictures begin with the analysis of a problem but they can also be used to come up with ideas to make the situation better. This can be achieved by investigating assets of themselves, local policies involved and the community concerned with the problem. In other words, they focus on building upon what is already there. By testing repeatedly using a trial and error technique, investment plans can be tested in order to understand factors that are involved in success or failure of suggested improvements.
Think about what you know from what you have seen, what you have been told, witnessed or experienced. By thinking about the situation in detail you can begin to draw it using symbols (such as £,$ J L ), buzz words (such as isolation, angry) and pictures in order to portray concepts. Though symbols and buzzwords help to express thoughts, by completing as much of the rich picture in picture form forces you to think in detail in order to represent it without words, revealing a perception you may not have realised before. Buzz words and symbols should only be used when a picture cannot accurately display a point.
How to create your rich picture Step 1: A rich picture is valuable when working in a team or as an individual. Firstly, think about the situation and break it up into small concepts or circumstances so that the problems can be visualised. To make it easier, one technique is to place the situation in the centre of the page and create the story around it. For example:
STEP 3: Once you have got a few ideas drawn out and have symbolised important aspects of a situation you can identify how problems are connected, what cause and affect they have one another and recognise root causes. Ask questions like;
STEP 2: How have you interpreted the situation? This is the question you need to focus on to start to build your rich picture.
How does issue A affect issue B? Who is affected by issue X? Why is this factor important?
This helps to further develop your understanding and practise making creative connections by focusing on single, unique situations and how these affect each other. 57 | P a g e
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For example:
STEP 4: The rich picture should include anything and everything that you think is a factor in the situation. It is important not to focus too much and force ideas but let your thoughts flow naturally from your subconscious onto the page. BY avoiding organised thoughts you steer away from stereotypical thoughts, assumptions and only identifying what you think exists instead of what actually exists. Draw what you see and not what you think. This is a crucial step as the aim of this technique is to take an almost in-comprehendible and complex problem and break it down, using a step by step process to understand all the factors that contribute to the problem, and how they relate to each other and the community. When you create your own picture the process will help you understand what you identify as problems in your community and how these issues are inter-wined with each other. Some communities have similar problems e.g. drug use, high crime rate or homelessness however the specific root causes are unlikely to be the same as wicked issues and the communities they manifest themselves in are unique. Using rich picturing will help you to understand your interpretation of the data that already exists
from your own perceptions, values and experiences in order for you to develop this understanding. Remember rich picturing is a way of interpreting data, not a way of recording it. After thorough investigation you will have the problem (taking into account all its cause and effects) that you want to solve and therefore you’re ready to start looking for your solution/improvements. Finding your solution is a similar process to finding your problem. You will have to investigate the solution by interacting with the community that is affected by the problem. This is where brainstorming really comes in handy, by following the rules of not dismissing ideas that sound too radical at first glance you can create a solution or improvement that though it might be unconventional, it is also successful by taking a different approach to traditional methods that aren’t or have stopped working. Balloon Kenya blog Posted on June 8, 2011 “Inspiration is an amazingly powerful feeling. It quickly fills you with drive and determination as your mind ventures off on a series of tangents. I experienced such a feeling a couple of months back when I was interning at the Young Foundation. I was sitting in an ideation class with Stu who works there and we were discussing my idea for Kenya when he mentioned gap years and business training. Suddenly I had this feeling of joy and energy as an idea quickly started to formulate in my mind. I left the office soon after too excited to stay and I headed for the underground to journey home. On my commute I got out a notepad and quickly jotted down some more thoughts. And by the time I got off the train to walk the final few steps to my house I was bouncing along with a huge grin on my face. It seemed like in the space of an hour I had gone from being
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farely clueless on my future to having a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. I was suddenly inspired to found my own social enterprise. I was tired of waiting for opportunities to arise and I was excited that now I was going to make something happen. I returned home and quickly grabbed my mum to explain my idea. After all mums are the crucial litmus test and she would have to like it. Thankfully she uttered the words, ‘it’s brilliant’ and I knew I was on to something. And so a fairly average day had in an instance turned to possibly one of the defining days of my life. Inspiration had hit me and I couldn’t be happier. KenyaWorks was born…”
Human centred design Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process and a set of techniques used to create new solutions for the world. Solutions include products, services, environments, organizations, and modes of interaction. The reason this process is called “humancentered” is because it starts with the people we are designing for. The HCD process begins by examining the needs, dreams, and behaviours of the people we want to affect with our solutions. We seek to listen to and understand what they want. We call this the Desirability lens. We view the world through this lens throughout the design process. Once we have identified a range of what is Desirable, we begin to view our solutions through the lenses of Feasibility and Viability. We carefully bring in these lenses during the later phases of the process.
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” — Tim Brown, president and CEO
Thinking like a designer can transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy. This approach, which IDEO calls design thinking, brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges. Design thinking is a deeply human process that taps into abilities we all have but get overlooked by more conventional problemsolving practices. It relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well 59 | P a g e
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as functional, and to express ourselves through means beyond words or symbols. Nobody wants to run an organization on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an over-reliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as risky. Design thinking provides an integrated third way. The design thinking process is best thought of as a system of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps. There are three spaces to keep in mind: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Inspiration is the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions. Ideation is the process of generating, developing, and testing ideas. Implementation is the path that leads from the project stage into people’s lives. Under this system, IDEO uses both analytical tools and generative techniques to help clients see how their new or existing operations could look in the future — and build road maps for getting there. Our methods include business model prototyping, data visualization, innovation strategy, organizational design, qualitative and quantitative research, and IP liberation. Find more details about design-thinking and IDEO’s open toolkit at http://www.ideo.com/work/humancentered-design-toolkit/ http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/201 3/05/27/50-problems-50-days-part-1-realempathy-innovation/
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Summary of Unit 4 Though social problems can be complex, intimidating and confusing they are not altogether impossible to tackle. By exploring the root causes of the problem and understanding the perspectives of both those working to tackle the problem and those directly or indirectly affected by the problem, you can begin to formulate a plan as to how you could work to alleviate the consequences of the problem, in a sustainable way. Rethinking the concept of a problem into an opportunity means that society can see positive change as opportunities and resources for innovation are utilised. However, it is imperative that the problem you intend to tackle is well defined because a poorly phrased, ill-defined problem will lead to a superficial, unsustainable solution.
End of Unit Task 4 Solving problems The outcome of this unit is to distinguish the symptoms of social & environmental problems from their causes in order to design robust solutions. PURPOSE The purpose of this task is to apply systems thinking and problem analysis to find the root causes of the social problem you are trying to tackle.
TASK In one of your assignments, or classes so far, or in your volunteering or previous experience, you may have come across a social problem that you will have thought ' do you know, someone should fix that, but I wouldn't know how'. You may be passionate about a particular issue, or may just be curious. 1. Select a problem, and do some further research into that specific problem (noting what sources you have used to gather your information). 2. Draw a mind-map showing your developing understanding of the problem, and then 3. Draw a series of rich pictures (as per the instructions in the learning material) about your problem, noting down all the conditions that contribute to causing the problem. Try and think of as many things as possible. Speak to your social network, and the other Changemakers to help you. Keep redrawing the rich pictures until you think that you have expressed all the possible causal factors. Highlight the ones that you think are root causes. 4. Take photographs of these rich pictures, insert them into a word document with notes on your observations and the links to your supporting evidence, and upload the word document with the pictures to the NILE site for peer evaluation. (You can 61 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture save the word document as a pdf or compress the pictures to make sure the file isn't too big). REFLECTION AND FEEDBACK 5. Look at the rich pictures drawn by other participants. Write 200-300 words on what you have learnt about their understanding of social & environmental problems. Offer some advice and feedback.
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UNIT 5 Communicating You and Your Venture The purpose of this unit is to provide students with an understanding of the value and importance, to themselves and to their careers, of personal branding, and the relationship of personal branding to changemaking. The unit shall explore student identity and how this identity can be expressed externally to personal networks and potential employers. Through an exploration of personal identity, students shall be able to identify relationships terms of individual values and purpose between the objectives of changemaking and their chosen social entrepreneurship project.
Why build your brand?37 What do you plan to do with your life? Is your ambition to get a job and work through a career, being promoted every so often? Or do you want to be visible, employable and have flexibility in your career? Today’s job market is less predictable than fifty years ago. It is less likely that you pursue, or are able to pursue, a traditional career. In the 1950’s and 1960’s people spent their entire career in one or two companies. 37
These activities are drawn primarily from an outstanding book
called Brand You written by John Purkiss and David Royston-Lee. This book is available as an e-book, or you are encouraged to consider purchasing a personal copy.
Overtime, company structures have become flattened, meaning a reduced requirement for middle managers due to the introduction of computers and internal restructuring. In addition, companies are less loyal to their workforce; doing the same job for a long period of time no longer makes your employers loyal to you. In today’s global marketplace, in which everyone are connected virtually, it is more likely that you will change jobs more frequently and acquire a broader portfolio if skills than employees have done in the past. It will be this portfolio of skills that defines your brand. You will no longer rely on a job title to define your identity and you are less likely to progress through formal work hierarchies. Instead you can now tailor your work to your talents and interests; lateral, sideways movements are therefore more common, you may find yourself implementing the same outcome for one company after another. It is also more likely that you will start your own business or be self-employed. By making better use of your personal networks, it is your career portfolio of skills, abilities and personal attributes which gives you a competitive advantage over others that makes personal branding so important to your visibility. The aim of this unit is to encourage you to work through a variety of activities that help you answer the question who am I? This is designed to encourage you to explore your values and talents which lead to a definition of your identity and the foundation to your personal brand. 63 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”. Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon)
of the brand, pursue emotional responses and reactions of consumers, and maintain a relationship and a level of identification of consumers with the brand.
How brands work
Building and maintaining personal brands requires individuals to adopt a similar approach to establish a valuable asset and commodity.
It is not the intention of this chapter to go into any great depth about brand theory, although it is important to reflect on some academic definitions of brand.
Activity 5.1: Consider the Coca-Cola brand. What do you think makes the brand valuable?
Kotler et al (2001) presents a traditional view that a brand is the name, associated with one or more items in the product line, which is used to identify the source or character of the items. Brassington & Pettitt (2006) suggest an alternative definition. Brand is the creation and communication of a three-dimensional character for a product that is not easily copied or damaged by competitor’s efforts. Both of these definitions highlight the aims of this unit which will encourage you to define your identity (character) and establish techniques to communicate your brand within an increasingly competitive environment. Purkiss & Royston-Lee (2012) quote Andy Milligan, a leading brand consultant, who defines a brand as a symbol that guarantees a particular experience. It is the aim of the brand owner to increase the value of the brand. In order to increase brand value, companies work to continuously make consumers aware of the brand, satisfy their functional and psychological needs, maintain performance
[you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Did you think of:
A consistent brand image which is easily recognisable by all, using colour and text Well established brand with a broad appeal, which associated memorable traditions, messaging and stories which can be understood anywhere, globally Consistent and reliable products associated with the brand which deliver functional benefits A lifestyle brand which can result in emotional responses by consumers 64 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture Brand value and brand strength is dependent on a variety of factors; here are some of them: o Brand values – intangible characteristics of the brand are important to the consumer; such as reliability o Brand personality - the set of human characteristics associated with the brand. For example, Coca Cola can be considered as cool, all-American and real o Brand imagery – the symbol, logo or rituals associated with the brand
Personal branding essentials So far we have considered the very basic foundations to brands and what makes brands valuable. These also form the foundations to the essentials of personal branding.
Reputation
Your personal brand can be defined in terms of your reputation, and the number of people who keep thinking about you; this can be defined as your reach. Your reputation grows stronger as more people think about you and the higher their opinion of you. In order to have a strong brand you need to manage both reach and reputation; this is indicated in the diagram below, reproduced from Brand You.
As you progress through your University career, your brand shall be constantly developing. You will be involved in activities and experiences that provide experiences and critical examples of your personal development. It is these experiences and examples of skills that will begin to define your brand. For example, Event Management students will organise a variety of events throughout their studies, whilst Tourism students may take a study trip abroad. It is these experiences that define your talents; which you will consistently and authentically communicate to your network. Activity 5.2: Choose someone you know in your Changemaker workshop class and write their name below. Then imagine they are describing you to someone you don’t know. What would they say? Use the space below.
Your Brand [you can use http://anotepad.com/ add to capture your notes]
Reach
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Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture Activity 5.3: Considering the person you chose to describe you in Activity 5.2; now using the space below; how would you describe them to someone they don’t know? Which form(s) of media (TV, Internet, newspapers, social media etc) do you think contributes most strongly to communication their personal brand (enhancing the reach of the brand)?
[you can use http://anotepad.com/ add to capture your notes] [you can use http://anotepad.com/ add to capture your notes]
Consider what you have written about yourself in Activity 6.2, and what others have written about you (ask them in class). Do you consider that you have the beginnings of a personal brand?
Personal Branding case studies
Here are some examples to inspire you; do you agree with the aspects that contribute to a strong personal brand? It is worthy to note that those people who have pursued personal wealth may have less inspiring aspects of personal branding.
Kate Middleton Activity 5.4: Think of one personality or celebrity that you admire or are aware of who you think has a strong personal brand. This person might be a media or business mogul, a sports star, and entertainer, a public figure or a politician. For that personality, use the space below to bullet-point the key aspects that contribute to a strong personal brand:
Married to Royalty Reputation for being sensible, levelheaded, down-to-earth ‘Loved’ by the public Elegant sense of style Charming personality Can connect with all walks of life Barack Obama
Able to achieve what others considered to be impossible 66 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture Strong intellect Public speaking prowess Won Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 The ‘bringer of hope and peace’ Mark Zuckerberg
‘Brilliant, change agent, visionary’ Extremely wealthy Brilliant computer skills
Your personal SWOT SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is used by businesses during strategic planning to undertake analysis of the business environment in which the company is operating to identify internal strengths and weaknesses of the organisation, and internal and external threats and opportunities associated with the company. SWOT is a simple and powerful tool that students can apply to themselves to start thinking about their brand.
Strengths: What do you do well? What do others see as your strengths? What unique resources do you have at your disposal?
Weaknesses: What do you improve? What do others see as your weaknesses? What hold you back?
Opportunities: How can you turn your strengths into opportunities? What opportunities are available to you? What trends can you take advantage of?
Threats: What can get in your way of your development? What threats result from your weaknesses?
Activity 5.4: Respond to the following prompts to undertake a personal SWOT; limit yourself to no more than ten minutes to complete the analysis. Once completed, compare your strengths and weaknesses to others in your changemaker project group. Are the group members compatible? Do you complement each other? Are your weaknesses found as strengths in other members of the group?
[you can use http://anotepad.com/ add to capture your notes]
Your Talents By undertaking a personal SWOT you have started thinking about yourself and answering the question, who am I? During your analysis of your strengths, you may have identified some skills and talents 67 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture that you already possess. We shall now focus on your talents; talents are defined as things you naturally do well, some you may have been born with, others you may have developed at school or in your personal time. Talents provide the foundation to your skills; skills are also developed over time at school and university. Your talents are manifested in the things you enjoying doing most or are best at. To help in your consideration of your talents, you may find it helpful to consider the concept of flow. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2008) describes flow as optimal experiences. To illustrate, think about an activity you particularly enjoy or are motivated by; this could be playing a sport such as tennis, or when you are being creative. You will know you have found flow in an activity when you find yourself giving complete attention to the activity and actions become automatic and you become completely involved in the activity. You will be concentrating on the task at hand, but you will not be aware of conscious of control, and the concern for the self disappears. Finally, time is transformed, and you find you have no sense of time. If you are a car owner, you may have experienced flow on the motorway, when you suddenly realise you don’t have any recollection of the last 10 miles! Purkiss & Royston-Lee explain that the best way to identify your talents is to examine what you have done in the past. Remember, talents are not the same as skills; talents are
innate, you are born with them. Examples of talents may include:
Being able to lighten the mood of a group of people Having the confidence to present in front of an audience Being able to follow an argument quickly Being able to stimulate a group of people engaged in a common task
Activity 5.5: This Activity has two parts and is designed to help you identify your talents. First reflect on your life so far and list up to six occasions that you consider to be high points or peak experiences; these memories may have given you pleasure or achievement; they must be meaningful to you. Remember to consider your childhood, education, work and leisure. 1. ................................................................... 2. ................................................................... 3. ................................................................... 4. ................................................................... 5. ................................................................... 6. ................................................................... For each point, ask yourself:
What talents were you using With what type of people In what type of situation
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Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture Now list your talents, starting with those that give you most energy when you use them: 1. ................................................................... [you can use http://anotepad.com/ add to capture your notes]
2. ................................................................... 3. ................................................................... 4. ................................................................... 5. ................................................................... 6. ................................................................... [you can use http://anotepad.com/ add to capture your notes]
The next step is to consider if there are any common themes connecting your high points.
Your Values Your values are what you believe is important, and they are evident by the way you do things. Values may be based upon beliefs, principles or concerns. People who share identical talents, but different values are likely to end up in entirely different careers.
High points can provide clues about applying your talents enjoyably and profitably. As you are a university student it is likely that you have your career ahead of you and therefore it is unlikely that many of your high points result from your chosen career or field of study. However it is worth reflecting whether you think it likely that the talents you possess are likely to be used in your chosen profession.
This next Activity will help you identify your values.
Activity 5.6:
2. ...................................................................
Using the space below, identify how you will be able use your talents in your chosen career or field.
3. ...................................................................
Activity 5.7: Write down the names of people who you admire the most; extend the list if needed. This might include friends, family members, world leaders, artists, sportspeople, personalities - whether living or dead. 1. ...................................................................
4. ................................................................... 5. ................................................................... 6. ................................................................... 7. ................................................................... 69 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture 8. ................................................................... 9. ................................................................... Now, for the list above, write down the qualities for which you admire the person; such as honesty, enthusiasm, sincerity, physical fitness etc e.g Bob Geldof: passionate about changing the world; e.g Carl Lewis – a great athlete 1. ................................................................... 2. ...................................................................
Understanding your values is important as they are likely to influence where you choose to work. If you are already working or have worked recently, consider the values of the organisation you have experience of. If you consider that there is a mismatch of values between the values of the organisation and your values, this may become an issue for long-term contentment at the institution.
3. ...................................................................
Telling your story
4. ...................................................................
Do you remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood? Little Red Riding Hood is a wonderful example of storytelling; it provides an excellent example of story structure and contains many hidden messages and symbolism. How old is the girl (Little Red Riding Hood) in the story?
5. ................................................................... 6. ................................................................... 7. ................................................................... 8. ................................................................... The next step is to review the qualities you see in others, and seek themes. The qualities in others will resonate with you and reflect your values. In the space below, write down up to five values that matter to you. 1. ................................................................... 2. ................................................................... 3. ................................................................... 4. ................................................................... 5. ...................................................................
Storytelling is much more than just telling a story. People reading or hearing the story can imagine, dream, understand hidden messages, and feel emotions. A good story contains a beginning or introduction, a middle which provides the reader with information), end (solution) As a storyteller, it is your job to trigger curiosity, surprise your audience, and provide a climax to the story. Stories are likely to contain a problem, and end with a solution. Story stimulate the imagination and emotions; they let us believe, experience, think, and learn. 70 | P a g e
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Many leisure experiences are based upon stories. In the tourism industry there is a trend for Dark Tourism presenting stories around disaster, crisis, destruction, death, war, and suffering. Examples include Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Chernobyl, Ground Zero (9/11), Mumbai Slums, and Fukoshima in Japan. During your time in university, and beyond, you will be exposed to experiences and new skills and activities which are newsworthy. These experiences are stories that you can tell to your network. You are probably already telling your stories through social media, many of you who use Facebook are already promoting the basics of your personal brand with Facebook status updates and photos and comments of your experiences at university.
good story you must ensure the audience understand the facts, are involved by the sequence of events, feel emotions (laughter, sadness etc.), and there is a morality; what do we learn from the story and how do we change as a result. A good storyteller is able to create curiosity, play with the emotions and feelings of the audience, involve the audience, create suspense, and trigger the imagination. There are three instruments in storytelling. The first is Story Structure which creates cohesion and suspense over time. The next is Stratification which uses dimensions make stories fascinating, and finally, Story Energy which makes stories convincing. We shall focus on Story Structure. Look at the Storytelling Curve diagram below. It consists of an introduction or Prologue, a trigger to the story, sub-climaxes or teasers, the final climax, purification which is what can be learnt from the story and how the story transforms the audience, and finally the end of the story, or Epilogue, when the message or morality of the story is understood. Climax
Suspence
Storytelling is increasingly being used in business to provide customers with an enhanced experience. Have you ever eaten at the Hard Rock Cafe? If you have, you may have noticed that the walls of the restaurant are adorned with pop memorabilia; such as guitars and costumes, each with their own story attached.
Introduction
Trigger
Sub-climaxes Purification
The skill, of course, is to professionalise these stories, and make them work for you. The problem with Facebook status updates is they lack depth, tend to brag (bragonistic), and are announcements, rather than tell the story in an interesting and engaging way.
Activity 5.8:
We shall now consider the basics theory behind storytelling. Remember, to write a
Watch the following short Youtube video of the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Click:
Trigger
End
Time
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Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CkCpx3 CE2Q Use the space below to answer the following prompt questions: Introduction (Prologue): Who are the persons or characters of the story, what is the environment, time and place
How old is Little Red Riding Hood?
Did you think of:
Trigger: What is the mission, a journey from A to B
Sub-climaxes: How is suspense built? Any false trails or information the audience has that the characters don’t have?
Climax: What is the catastrophe when everything seems lost?
Purification: Is there evidence of hope or salvation where a seemingly unsolvable problem is solved
Introduction: Little Red Riding Hood and her mother in a cottage on the edge of a forest Trigger: To travel to Grandmothers house Sub-climax: Picking flowers Climax: Wolf try’s to eat Little Red Purification: Woodcutter saves the day End: Don’t talk to strangers?
This activity has shown you the basic structure to a good story. Personal branding requires you to tell your stories in an interesting and engaging way. You will be using various methods to promote your personal brand, and to do this effectively, remember the basic storytelling rules. These rules can be equally as effective as a method to structure in-class presentations.
Building your brand online End (Epilogue): Define the message, learning, morality or warning of the story
So far we have explored the nature of personal branding and you have made a start on defining your brand, and being able to tell your story.
Symbolism: Define any symbolism within the story
Hero: Who was the hero in the story?
This section of the chapter will introduce the tools available to you to communicate your brand. Before we commence, lets briefly look to see how much exposure you already have online. 72 | P a g e
Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture Activity 5.9: Open a suitable search engine, such as Google (www.google.com), and type your name into the search box. In the box below, identity the ‘hits’ you achieve. Identify the platform used.
Blog is short for weblog, and are a diary located within a website. Blogs are text based, with pictures, video and audio recordings. People can subscribe to your blog, and leave comments.
It is likely that the number of hits you achieved was limited, and may have only achieved hits to work related activities; and social media. To increase your personal brand reach you are encouraged to make use of social media to put your message across to your audience. The diagram below identifies the range of tools freely available to you to help you communicate effectively online. These tools are blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, and another tool is Google+.
Free of charge platforms available to you include Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) or Blogger (www.blogger.com) or Tumblr (www.tumblr.com). If you are taking personal branding seriously and want to build a strong online profile, you are encouraged to host your own blog within a website with your own domain. You are likely to be familiar with the other tools available to you; this will be discussed in class. If you are not already using these tools make sure you start using them to build your personal brand reach:
LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com Facebook – www.facebook.com Youtube – www.youtube.com Twitter – www.twitter.com Google+ - www.plus.google.com
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Unit 5 Communicating you and your venture Personal branding and changemaking
Purkiss J & Royston-Lee D (2012) Brand You (2nd), Pearson, Harlow
By now you will have commenced your changemaking project. To conclude this chapter, reflect briefly on the relationship between your chosen group project and your personal identity. Activity 5.10: Use the space below to make some notes that explain any relationship between your values and the chosen Changemaker project; and your talents and the role you are playing to deliver the project.
Sources Brassington F & Pettitt S (2006) Principles of Marketing (4th), Pearson, Harlow Csikszentmihalyi M (2008) Flow, Harper Collins, New York Kotler P, Armstrong G, Saunder J, Wong V (2001) Principles of Marketing (3rd), Pearson, Harlow
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End of Unit Task 5 Communicating yourself and your venture The outcome of this unit is to provide students with an understanding of the value and importance, to themselves and to their careers, of personal branding. PURPOSE
REFLECTION AND FEEDBACK 3. Share the statement you have written with a member of your class, either electronically, through NILE or better still through a social media platform. Ask this member of your class to provide comments about what you have written; especially in terms of how interesting the statement is.
To make a start at developing your personal brand online. TASK By the end of the unit you will have explored your talents and your values; this will become the foundation of your personal brand. 1. Write a short statement about yourself of around 100-150 words, longer if needed, which defines you and your talents and values in a way that will be engaging for your growing audience. In addition, make sure you briefly explain the Changemaker project you are involved in, and how this choice of project matches your values and talents. 2. Then, publish your statement in one of the social media platforms available to you, such as LinkedIn or Facebook. You are particularly encouraged to use one of the social media that you have not used before.
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Unit 6 Planning your Venture
Unit 6 Objectives By this point, you may be thinking of starting a social enterprise (or working in one), or you may be designing a new product, creating an event, performance or media campaigning to achieve mainstreaming of your idea. Whatever you decide to do, we have called this your ‘venture’- it doesn’t have to be a business. Getting this right is essential as a part of career planning as well as getting the venture off the ground. Writing a plan is the starting point, but getting resources together to make it happen is also important. In this unit you will be doing some simple business planning, but also working in groups to get the other essential parts of your venture together. The objective of this unit is to plan the launch of a new venture and provide evidence of identifying and securing resources to deliver the plan
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UNIT 6 Venture planning Introduction Having considered what assets you have, what it means to be an entrepreneur, practising some creative and innovative thinking and understanding and identifying problems and their root causes you may be almost ready to plan your social enterprise! Or alternatively, you may use the skills that you have learnt to create and set up another venture whether it is organising an event, or creating a new product either way this section aims to help you organise and plan your venture. As a result of aiming to create a social venture it is required of you to involve other people, especially those who you are aiming to benefit from your idea. Thus, rather than focusing on planning (a misleading term) we will instead focus on venture organising in order to emphasise the importance of community organising and developing. One of the most challenging parts of any venture is getting it off the ground, and therefore the aim of this section is to help you gain simple venture planning skills, including an understanding of how to provide the evidence you have collected along the way that support your idea and as well as knowing exactly what you want to come from the venture.
Goals and Objectives
confusing. They both refer to something that you want to achieve though have different meanings demonstrated below;
Goal The goal refers to the desired result that you want to achieve from your event, programme, organisation or activity. The goal itself is not measurable, but it broken down into objectives which are themselves broken down for evaluation. Thus the goal the direction for action. Action: the action may not be specific but vaguely describes the desired outcome e.g. “the goal is to have a clean and safe local park for children to play� Measure: Goals are not always measurable, but are broken down into objectives that can be broken down.
Objective The objectives of a venture refer to action you intend to take in order to successfully meet the desired goal. You can think of objectives as the roads that take you from the beginning to the goal. Action: find as many volunteers as possible to help clean up the local park. Measure: this is measurable as the amount of people who have volunteered can be counted and evaluated. There is more than one type when referring to objectives including outcome objectives-
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final and intermediate and process objectives38.
Process objectives The process objectives refer to the actions planned and taken throughout the process of the outcomes objectives intended to reach the desired goal. This stage poses questions such as what is the goal and how will we achieve it? Time is taken to write up plans of how actions will be carried out including obtaining resources, finding people to volunteer, liaising with local councils etc. Examples of process objectives may include;   
Speak to those living in the local area about the issue and proposed clean-up Promote the issue in local areas requesting volunteers Call a meeting with local people to discuss the issue and propose a clean-up of the park.
Outcome objectives Outcome objectives consist of two parts; 1. Intermediate outcome objectives These refer to the hoped for results that they process objectives have attempted to achieve before reaching the end of the venture. e.g. recruit locals to volunteer at the cleanup.
38
Kettner, P.M., Moroney, R.M., & Martin, L.L. (1999). Designing
and managing programs: An effectiveness-based approach (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
The process objective is to successfully find volunteers to help with the clean-up, but the goal of the park being cleaned up has not been achieved yet. Though at this time it aims for an intermediate result it is a necessary step in order to reach the final goal. 2. Final outcome objectives These are the hoped-for results on approaching the end of the venture. An example of a final outcome objective is removing all rubbish from the park. It is described as a final outcome because it is the result desired by the end of the park cleanup. Some goals may look like a huge jump from here to there making them seem overwhelming and that is why we can use objectives to break the down into small steps take us from here to our desired goal. The objectives you set build the stepping stones that lead to the success of your venture; the results of the process objectives become part of the outcomes objectives all leading the venture closer to its goal. This emphasises the importance of process objectives as on evaluation you are able to understand and reflect on objectives that either did or did not succeed and identify opportunities for improvements. After identifying the objectives for your goal there are still three elements relating to the outcome statement that will strengthen it and these are; Timeframe- This sets a start date and a deadline for your venture.
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Measurement Tools- We have already discussed that objectives are measurable so you need to establish the way in which you intend to measure them. Responsibility Assignment- this refers to designating groups or people to certain objective measurements. Overall outcomes should also be “SMART”;
Specific Measurable
Action Orientated Realistic Time bound (have a deadline)
Once again this seems a lot to swallow in one go and looks confusing. Activity 6.1 Make your own Stepping Stone diagram to express your venture objectives (Figure 10) remembering that objectives work together to come to a desired goal and you step off one onto another until you reach the other side, or the goal.
FIGURE 10 S TEPPING STONE TO OBJECTIVES
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Opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming." Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises
Planning to fail One of the biggest challenges in developing a venture is the fear of failure. If we are not sure about the steps we need to take, or the future is uncertain, we tend not to act. If we take an different approach, we can use that uncertainty a key feature of our venture. Most of the problems that you will encounter throughout your venture start up and growth can be spotted and solved before they have much effect so do not be afraid of potential failures. If you take time at the beginning of the venture to think about all the ways in which your venture can fail, and then think about how these can be prevented your venture will be more successful39. This is called a premortem or “prospective hindsight�, which is like the hypothetical opposite of a post-mortem; instead of doing an assessment of what did go wrong after the venture fails which does little than give closure to those involved about what caused the venture to fail and also risks pointing the finger at certain people or teams, we can assess at the beginning of the venture what might go wrong which is an unemotional activity with much less finger pointing and blame as well as having the ability to rectify anything that might cause the venture to fail, before it fails.
Activity 6.2 Discuss with friends and note down 10 reasons why your venture will fail to meet its objectives 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. [you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
Activity 6.3 What strategies can you adopt to prevent these failures? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. [you can use http://anotepad.com/add to capture your notes]
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Further reading at
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1 218&context=intl
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The nature of what you are working with comes with the extra baggage of uncertainty so you need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Having carried out a premortem you may find that you had been heading down the wrong route. If this is the case you have to be flexible and let it go, your stubbornness and determination will not make a difference if the problem or solution is unfeasible. So save your energy finding the right problem or the right solution.
category. However, log frames were originally designed as a visual aid of the planned sequence of events of a program and in this sense, serve their purpose well.
Logic models Logic models were originally created by the US Army before being adopted by NASA, USAID and more recently European Developers in the 1980s. By the 1990’s log frames were the standard grant application (Hailey and Sorgenfrei, 2004). Logic models, which are also known as a Theory of Change can be used as an evaluation tool that represent the logical relationship between elements of your venture40. For example, if you have the resources that you need then you can implement the action that will create a certain output in other words, a logic model helps you to visualise hat is supposed to happen. This is a causal approach as the effectual approach usually takes place in finding the problems and the resources to implement your idea, the logic model is a systematic way of working with uncertainty. However, as a result of this systematic, rigid nature, log frames have many limitations when it comes to community ventures as log frames presume a constant environment which, as we have already discussed in detail, communities and society do not fall into that 40
Modified from http://www.how-
matters.org/2012/02/26/logframes-errrgh/
F IGURE 11 BASIC LOGIC MODEL
Fig. 2 is a very basic example of a logic model that demonstrates the basic components that make the connection between your venture plan and the results you intend to get. Although logic models are rigid and use a causal approach, don’t be afraid to be a little bit creative, if you think you can improve the logic model then add your own modifications! These are listed below: Planned work 1) Resources: What is available that can be directed toward the venture? Resources can include human, financial, community or organizational and is anything you need to set up and develop your venture. 2) Activities: What are you going to do with these resources? Activities can include tools, events, technology, and any other intentional action aimed at the implementation of the venture. 81 | P a g e
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Intended Results; 3) Outputs: What are the direct results of the activities? Outputs can include different types, levels and targets of services that the venture intends to deliver. 4) Outcomes: What are the changes experiences by participants e.g. behaviour, knowledge, skills? Outcomes can be short term (which are attainable in 3-7 years) followed by long term (which is achievable in 4-6 years). 5) Impact: What changes have occurred within the organization, intended or unintended as a direct result of the program after 7-10 years? The impact may not be reached in some programs until the conclusion of project funding.
Social Venture Canvas Expressing your solution as a venture can be a bit tricky. Most ‘social enterprises’ are expected to fill in a detailed business plan full of financial projections, and funded projects often require detailed application forms. This will come later, but for now all that is needed is a simple format in which to express the different aspects of your social venture. In 2008, Alexander Osterwalder published The Business Model Canvas, which is a strategic management template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It works as a visual chart with elements describing a firm's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. It assists firms in aligning their activities by illustrating potential trade-offs.
F IGURE 12 OSTERWALDER 'S BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS
We have taken inspiration from this simple but dynamic model to devise a canvas that you can pull all the information from the previous units into a plan that can be visually communicated. Bear in mind that although the canvas we are going to present is a dynamic one, it is important to think of your venture as a cycle of activities. The Young Foundation’s open model of social innovation illustrates this really well.
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Figure 5 shows the whole of the Social Venture Canvas (SVC). This works in the same way at the Business Model Canvas, but as you can see from this film, the language of business is rather complicated.
FIGURE 13 YOUNG FOUNDATION MODEL OF SOCIAL INNOVATION
In their model, the prompts are you thinking about yourself, your experience and the world around you. You have thought about a number of possible solutions, and you have ‘prototyped’ them by sharing and testing your ideas with friends, family and those who will benefit from your venture. The Social Venture Canvas that we have devised fits between stage 3 and 4 of Figure 4, and helps you communicate your ideas in a structured, but concise way.
Activity 6.4 Click on the image to watch the film about describing business models http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoAOzM TLP5s So, what we have done with the SVC is customise Osterwalder’s basic model and express it in simpler terms with the social problem being the core of the model.
We first start with the wider social issues. The information that goes into this section can be taken from Unit 2 Understanding yourself, from your networks and social capital investigations and from Unit 3 Social Problems, where you explored a wide range of issues that you are interested in, and narrowed it down to something you want to tackle.
FIGURE 14 S OCIAL V ENTURE CANVAS
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The venture or solution is summarised in the bottom left island, and immediately to the right is the beneficiaries. Beneficiaries are a specific group of people who benefit from the solution. The directly associated island contains the evidence you have collated to support your wider context. Having gathered and summarised the evidence of your wider social issues, you will have selected your core social problem(s) that you are focussing your venture on.
You can use your rich picturing activities to explore all the contributing factors, and finally express your problem in a clear ‘problem statement’, remembering that you still need to try and express the ‘wickedness’ of the problem, and not make it too simplistic.
Beneficiaries are not always customers. If we think of a customer as a person who pays for a product or service, we can think of situations where one person (or organisation) pays for something to happen but does not benefit from that product or service. If I buy a coffee, I get to benefit from the drink. If I buy a coffee for a friend, I don’t benefit directly, but I might have an opinion about whether the coffee is cold or not. So, the person selling the coffee has to satisfy two people- the person who gets to drink the coffee and the person who gets to pay for the coffee. Charitable giving and public sector contracts all work on the same basis, so we need to be clear about who pays and who benefits.
We make sure that the problem statement is not too simplistic by summarising the root causes of the problem(s). Explaining the social problem and the root causes carefully is key to getting the rest of the canvas to work. The next two steps are to explain the solution and who benefits from the solution(s).
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our venture/solution. We need to list the key resources including objects, supplies, energy, time etc. We then explain how those resources are configured together into a specific set of key activities- including making and selling. We can’t do this all on our own, so we also need a list of key partners, explaining what value they add to the venture. We might, for example, work with a chain of shops to make sure our solution can be bought in any corner shop in the UK, or we might use an internet sales company to make sure that everyone knows about our solution.
On the right hand of our model, we have all the important aspects of our relationship with the beneficiaries, making sure that all the activities and resources from the left hand of the canvas are actually working to make our beneficiaries’ lives better.
one-to-one, one-to-group. We also need to know why the beneficiaries will be attracted to your venture or solution. Next, we need to know how you are going to communicate with the beneficiaries. This isn’t just ‘email, or telephone’, but how are we going to get information to them- web, television, social media, newspapers, but also ‘how are we going to hear back from them’? We need to know that we are satisfying their needs, so we need to be able to hear their stories. This could be through including the beneficiaries in running our venture (remember the ‘internal mission’ from Unit 1?) and/or it could be consultations and surveys with the beneficiaries (the external mission).
We also need to know the key costs and incomes related to the venture. Costs will arise in both the left and right hand parts of the canvas, from maintaining partnerships with key suppliers (think about agents’ fees), from running the activities and using resources (employees, energy, offices, supplies, etc.) and the costs of maintaining the relationships with the beneficiaries and other stakeholders (including those who pay the bills, either through donations, sales or contracts). This would include costs of meetings, websites, surveys, tv adverts etc.
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All of these key aspects of the social venture canvas should come together to link up with the impacts and outcomes that we intend to achieve (From Page 3 of this briefing note).
Bringing it all together Here’s a checklist of all the key steps so far: 1) Topic/Problem a) Select the topic of problem that you are interested in and list the key terms b) List as many other words relevant to the topic/problem as you can c) Do some reading: what other words can you find relevant to the topic? d) Example: what is ‘homelessness’? Who uses the term? What other terms are used to describe this problem? Couch surfing is an example. 2) About yourself/your group/ your research identity a) What do I (and my group) already know? Take notes b) Who do I know that knows something about (and/or has experienced) this problem? Approach them informally to talk and take notes. c) Who do they know that you could approach informally for a chat 3) What is already known? a) Text books- long term knowledge b) Journals- detailed, specific, authoritative research sources. c) Grey literature: policies, think tank reports, consultancy research, not peer reviewed d) Web: short-term, journalistic, ephemeral knowledge and opinion e) What information is available on a general level- it might be about homelessness in the USA, but could it be relevant to your home area?
f) What has already been tried and tested? Use the web to research organisations and groups that might be tackling your issue and have information Example: Shelter 4) Question/understanding society a) Bringing this together, what is my question? What do I think is going on? Why is this problem like this? b) What new or additional questions does my desktop research pose? c) What questions can I NOT find an answer to in literature? d) What is the purpose of answering these questions? 5) Investigate a) How will I know that what field research I do has fulfilled my purpose? b) What research techniques will answer the question; that I am familiar with; that I can use in the time available; and that I can do ethically? 6) Results a) Summarise the results b) What are the limitations of my data? 7) Analyse/Action a) Have I answered my question? b) What have I learnt? c) How does this information change the way I, or other people, act?
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Summary of Unit 6 This unit has covered the setting of objectives for your venture, and making sure that the activities proposed link logically to the outcomes desired. Often projects fail because they get bogged down in designing activities that don’t clearly link to real world outcomes. The Social Venture Canvas has been introduced to pull together the information gathered in the previous Units, in order to give shape to the venture so that it can easily and concisely communicated. The objective of this unit is to plan the launch of a new venture and provide evidence of identifying and securing resources to deliver the plan PURPOSE Using the outcomes from the exercises in the Changemaker Certificate Unit guides AND any learning your have developed in other classes, devise a new social venture using the Social Venture Canvas planning framework provided. TASK 1. Complete the Social Venture Canvas using the materials and learning you have completed in Units 1 to 5. REFLECTION AND FEEDBACK 2. Look back over all of your journal entries and notes you have taken to make sure that you have responded to and incorporated all the information and learning you have developed into the Social Venture Canvas. 87 | P a g e
Where next? Fantastic! You have completed the Changemaker Workbook!
Review your Changemaker LifeHack profile. What have you learnt from the activities that it suggested you do? Review your Journals and notes kept during the exercises and activities in this Handbook Your assessed work comprises: AS1-Social Venture Canvas AS2- External Peer Feedback Exercise
60% 30%
Download the document to edit from here Social Venture Canvas This is a poster-format product built around the investigation of a social problem, and acts to summarise the key thinking that leads to the proposed solution and how it is to be delivered and sustained. The poster will be backed up by evidence based on questions for each section of the canvas. Report on External Peer feedback You will be expected to create a public profile (either via a blog or a website- see details later) for the development of your social venture in the e-tivities of the Certificate and in the development of the Social Venture Canvas. You will be expected to present this information on pre-determined social media/crowdsourcing sites that provide external peer feedback and evaluation. You will be elicit feedback on your proposal from third parties and explain what you would do differently in the social venture, based on the feedback. Submit your social venture information on any of the following crowd sourcing websites (which ever suits your purpose, and if they don’t, find your own) and elicit feedback from people outside your immediate network. Record the feedback and provide one page of A4 (max 1,000 words) indicating what you would do differently if you undertook the Changemaker Certificate again, based on the feedback you have received.
Assessment criteria Assessment Criterion Developing and effectively utilising diverse personal and social capital to reach viable solutions,
Effectively interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems View failure as an opportunity to learn; understand that creativity and innovation is a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes
Exceeds Standard / Gold
Meets Standard / Silver
Actively using experiences and knowledge from different social groups, beneficiaries and stakeholders to create new ideas and increase innovation, creating a workable solution.
Mostly using existing social networks, knowledge and experiences to help create new ideas and foster innovation. Some input from beneficiaries and stakeholders. Solution is viable with some additional development.
Approaching Standard / Bronze
Not at Standard
Ideas and innovation arising primarily out of existing knowledge and experiences. Limited access to wider knowledge base. A potential solution has been proposed.
Relying entirely on personal experience to inform understanding of problem. Solution (if offered) may not be viable or workable.
Is able to look at complex information and successfully draw and justify conclusions and apply to situation
Is able to look at information and successfully draw conclusions
Looks at information and sometimes is able to draw conclusions
Looks at information, and rarely is able to draw a conclusion
Recognizes and is able to manipulate parts of a system to come together to accomplish something
Recognizes how the parts of a system work together to accomplish something
Identifies parts of a system but cannot explain how they work together
Is only able to identify the parts as one, rather than each part individually
Understands the importance of attempting/experimenting is an important part of the path to success, including failed attempts
Understands the importance of attempting/experimenting is an important part of the path to success, but does not understand this includes failed attempts as well
Does not understand how failed attempts are part of the innovation process that leads to success
Symptoms of the social problem identified with insufficient attention paid to the wider context and solution therefore only partially addresses the need.
Some attempt to either identify the problem or a social context but not both. Neither the problem or the solution are clearly identified or proposed.
Attempts to reflect critically on learning experiences in order to inform future progress
Attempts to reflect critically on learning experiences, but not in order to inform future progress
Passive use of feedback and limited critique of peer submissions. Feedback limited to use of internal network.
No feedback provided to other participants and no attempt to incorporate peer critique into own work.
Embraces the idea that attempting/experimenting is an important part of the path of success and approaches opportunities with an understanding that many failed attempts are likely
Relevant to: AS1
AS1
AS1
AS1
AS1 Ability to effectively communicate the features of the social problem being addressed and the potential viability of your proposed solution.
Features of the social problem clearly articulated in the appropriate social context and reasons for the potential solution justified
Social problem is identified and situated within context. Solution partially addresses the root causes.
Reflect critically on learning experiences (past or current) in order to inform future progress
Reflect critically on learning experiences in order to inform future progress in a variety of conditions
Reflect critically on learning experiences in order to inform future progress
Assume shared responsibility for assessing and valuing individual contributions made by peers.
Pro-actively eliciting feedback and providing constructive critique and feedforward to peers. Excellent use made of external networks, including beneficiaries and stakeholders.
Elicits some feedback and provides an element of constructive critique and feedforward to peers. Starting to make use of external networks and extensive use of internal network (peers and colleagues).
AS2
AS2
The University of Northampton Changemaker Handbook
Written and Edited by Tim Curtis, Lauren Burke and Justin Lance with contributions by Shoshana Dzialoszynski and Oshie Shulman. Illustrations by Martyn Lorbiecki and Julie Rae-Clarke. Films by David Christian-Green Copyright: Tim Curtis, The University of Northampton. All Rights Reserved 2015. Third Edition The University of Northampton Boughton Green Road Northampton NN2 7AL Northamptonshire United Kingdom http://www.northampton.ac.uk/changemaker
Š2015