Social Innovation Lab site launched

Tessy Britton points to … The Social Innovation Lab for Kent has
had its stealth site made live. It really is pretty marvellous! There
are lots of ideas and working methods as well as case studies and
videos.

Lucy in the sky becomes a Director of Digital Innovation

Congratulations to Lucy Hooberman on her appointment at Warwick Digital lab as the new Director of Digital Innovation from December. Lucy wrote an interesting blog about innovations in her work at BBC’s Future Media & Technology Division.

Collaboration needs real pay-offs. Where does tech best fit?

In recent posts I’ve looked at two models for collaborative social innovation: Social Innovation Camp and RSA Networks. In the SI Camp model people pitch project ideas openly, collaborate within newly-formed project teams, then compete against each other. In RSA Networks people pitch ideas, look for collaborators, and may also get some help from RSA staff. Both are, in part, about the use of social technology, but my analysis of them both – compared here – brings home, I hope, that technology is not the key element for success. What’s important is the underlying model for moving from idea to implementation, and reward. (read more...)

Leadership 2.0: step forward the unheros

Jemima Gibbons from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

Earlier this year David Gurteen gave us a neat summary of how new online tools and attitudes (Web 2.0) are changing the way we do business, learn and socialise. World 2.0 has arrived, and requires a different mindset:

We are moving from a simple world to a rich, complex, diverse one. One where power is less centralized and more distributed. We are moving from a command and control world to a world where people can do as they please within the boundaries of responsibility.

David summarised World 1.0 and World 2.0 in the chart below. This is the world of both small-scale social innovation – and also new-style open, corporate innovation supported by NESTA Connect.

Jemima Gibbons spotted this a couple of years ago when lecturing at Cass Business School, and something clicked. Academics were talking about new more dispersed, distributed forms of leadership, Web 2.0 was emerging as a meme … so what we will need is Leadership 2.0. (read more...)

Sketching the social innovation landscape

It looks as if we’ll have a socially innovative autumn in London, with more opportunities and support for people wanting to do good stuff using new (tech) stuff. Here’s what I’ve picked up recently, and I’m sure I’ve missed a lot, so please add a comment with other events and activities you may know about. This round-up rather shamelessly favours my friends.

Social Innovation Camp last April gave us an inspiring and enjoyable model for developing web-enabled projects by bringing together techies and innovators for a weekend , so I’m delighted to hear from organiser Paul Miller that the team have raised funds from Nesta and the Young Foundation for two more camps and a series of monthly meetups. (read more...)

Social innovation is happening: will Government join in?

This autumn the UK Government departments responsible for citizen empowerment, tech-supported innovation, and democratic engagement have a chance to catch a wave of optimism about what might be achieved through more open, cross-sector collaborations. But will they rise to the opportunity? There are some encouraging signs. (read more...)

UK socialtech: got the PM – what next?

Projects using social technology to benefit communities received strong support from the Prime Minister Gordon Brown today at the UK Catalyst Awards. He launched the scheme a year ago, and today presented the community award to Savvy Chavvy – an online community for young Gypsy Travellers. You can find all the winners here. (read more...)

Catalyst awards promote web for good

A new set of awards to promote the use of the social web to meet social needs was launched this evening in London with the backing of the Prime Minister … and I think they could help make a (read more...)

Can social innovators join up, innovatively?

There’s a growing buzz in London around tech-enabled social innovation, with its champions circulating at events like UKGovwebBarcamp, Social Innovation Camp, Tuttle Club, and last night at minibar.

The buzz should heighten on July 2-3 at a major 4Good event sponsored by Channel4 and others. More details promised soon. There’s also (read more...)

Social media, creativity, and open collaboration

The University of Westminster asked me a while back to contribute to their Creative Juice seminar yesterday, and I was in a slight panic last week when I realised I needed to talk to a mix of designers, freelances and academics about social media and creativity.
I didn’t really have much fresh to (read more...)