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Social Innovation: knowing a good idea when you see it |
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Written by Hugh Morrow
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Monday, 03 March 2008 |
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There is much excitement about the field of Social Innovation at the moment. And there is no doubt that innovative solutions can have dramatic beneficial impact on society. But before we get too excited, we must consider a few of the challenges. Of greatest importance is the difficulty of reliably identifying an idea that is in fact good.
Most of the discussion around social innovation is at the level of 'outcomes' ... that is an improvement in the well-being of society as a whole, or more commonly of a particular segment of the population. Obviously, outcomes are the 'end-game' that we are all working toward. However reliably identifying those interventions that have beneficial impact in the outcome of individuals is notoriously difficult. Not least because it may take many years to know if a particular intervention has actually worked.
There may be far greater scope for social innovation in the areas of 'process efficiency' or 'outputs' which are more readily identified and evaluated. New 'business models', funding strategies, operational strategies, social franchising etc fit within in this realm.
For example, in the areas of early childhood intervention, we may need to wait until a client is an adult to truly understand the impact. Whereas, it might be relatively easy to evaluate the impact of a new staff roster strategy on employee and client satisfaction in a child care setting.
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