Saturday, August 26, 2006

Social Innovation and Business Today

Social Innovation has made one of the biggest impact since it’s dramatic comeback in 1970s through the works of French scholars Pierre Rosanvallon, Jacques Fournier, and Jacques Attali.
Social Innovation is comprised of new strategies, concepts, or ideas that transform policy and practices especially as they relate to the development or extension of civil society.

Social innovation concerns improved quality of life, and may relate to social welfare, working conditions, employment, or community development. It can take place within government, within companies, or within the nonprofit (also known as the third sector) sector.

John Thackara gives these 10 laws for Social Innovation.

Power Law 1: Don’t think “new product” - think social value.
Power Law 2: Think social value before “tech”.
Power Law 3: Enable human agency. Design people into situations, not out of them.
Power Law 4: Use, not own. Possession is old paradigm.
Power Law 5: Think P2P, not point-to-mass.
Power Law 6: Don’t think faster, think closer.
Power Law 7: Don’t start from zero. Re-mix what’s already out there.
Power Law 8: Connect the big and the small.
Power Law 9: Think whole systems (and new business models, too).
Power Law 10: Think open systems, not closed ones.

Rules of Business have not remained untouched and social Innovation seems to be the new mantra for all future business. One of the best example of Social Innovation happens to be the open source movement, Google, your tube, myspace and other social tools which is increasing shaping Business models and society in large. Wealth distributional and equality seems to be the new philosophy where acquiring is passé and sharing is cool…

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