Innovation Is Not the Holy Grail

It is time to move from innovation as an ideology to innovation as a process.

By Christian Seelos & Johanna Mair | Fall 2012

In a recent project with the Rockefeller Foundation,¹ we explored what enables organizational capacity for continuous innovation in established social sector organizations that operate at an efficient scale delivering products and services. We undertook a literature review of the mainstream organizational and management literature on this topic, and we were amazed by both the magnitude of this research stream and the insights we gained. First, we found that both long-term evidence from studies of social sector organizations and recent empirical evidence challenge the mantra that more innovation is better. Second, we found that many of the assumptions about innovations in the social sector may be misleading. And third, we discovered that pushing innovation can stifle progress just as much as it can enable it.

Stanford Social Innovation Review

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/innovation_is_not_the_holy_grail#When:21:11:38Z

Quit Social Media Now

9 Reasons to Quit Social Media Now

by Erik Sass, Aug 8, 2012, 1:22 PM

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/180465/9-reasons-to-quit-social-media-now.html 

1. It's a wast of time
2. It's addictive and unhealthy
3. It encourages envy/narcissism
4. It takes you away from the real world
5. It encourages superficial relationships
6. Privacy concerns/unethical business practices
7. It can be personally and professionally doangerous
8. It's expected
9. It's going to get worse

Engagement Ladder- From Jess Littlewood

I thought I would re-post the information Jesse from EchoDitto shared via email.  He provided a few links to read about the Engagement Ladder (very interesting to read about a social media ladder instead of a youth programming ladder!).


Message from Jesse: Some of the most interesting thinking and workshopping that I think we'll be doing is determining:
- The qualities of each "rung" of the ladder or "slice" of the pyramid
- The right hooks that move people up
- The right content and context for those hooks
- The tools we'll use, particularly the platform
- The right follow-though strategy (staff/volunteer resources, further training, a calendar of events/campaigns, etc)


Grist Engagement Strategy

5 Reasons why Corporate Social Tools Fail

Engagement Pyramid

These articles are hitting my nerd sweet spot...so much engagement theory, so much overlap. Must refrain from doing another dissertation...

Webinar Hosting Tips from AEA


The American Evaluation Association has been offering a lot of webinars (long and short) presented by members in remote locations and facilitated by AEA staff. Here is a quick sense of how they handle the prep and periodic technical glitches.


eLearning Update - The Best Laid Plans
From Stephanie Evergreen, AEA's eLearning Initiatives Director 
 
eLearning is a fickle field. If you've attended more than a handful of our Coffee Break webinars, you probably understand what I mean. Most of the time, everything moves along swimmingly. But more often than we'd like, something goes awry. For an occasional attendee, the viewing screen never displays the presenter's slides, for reasons none of us can explain. Once in a while, the presenter trips up when navigating among various open programs. As I write this, just last week the audio line completely snipped off. On those rare Coffee Breaks where something has hit a snag, we do our best to recover and learn from our mishaps. Here's what we do to take preventative care:

1. We rehearse. About two weeks prior to each Coffee Break webinar, we hold a 45-minute rehearsal, where we discuss logistics, check on audio quality, practice handing the screen back and forth, and walk through each step of the presentation.

2. We peer coach. All presenters are offered the option to invite a peer coach onto the rehearsal. Our awesome peer coaches - Nina Potter, Joe Heimlich, John Nash, and Juan Paulo Ramirez - give presentation pointers and insights about how to run the demonstration smoothly.

Even still, nerves and technology do not always cooperate with us when we go live. We're lucky enough to have very poised and graceful presenters who can easily roll through small hangups and give an effective demonstration. When things really go haywire, we have a backup plan:

1. We stop.
2. We cut off the webinar, apologize deeply, and schedule another time to rerecord the demonstration with no audience.
3. We then notify everyone who registered when the recording is available. With more apologies.

Technology is never perfect but we are grateful for an avenue to host amazing, volunteer presenters as they share their know-how with our members.

Creating Innovation in Government: 3 Lessons from Todd Park

excerpted from blog post by Pat Fiorenza on July 30, 2012 at 11:01am

Lesson 1: Team Up

 “Whenever you have an idea, go find the three people who have had the same idea as you, years ago.”

Lesson 2: Understand and Employ Principles of Lean Startup

“A single collective brain to solve a problem,”

Lesson 3: Embrace “We Government”

“Most of the smartest employees in the world, are employed by other people,”

http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/creating-innovation-in-government-3-lessons-from-todd-park

The Naked and the TED

Today TED is an insatiable kingpin of international meme laundering—a place where ideas, regardless of their quality, go to seek celebrity, to live in the form of videos, tweets, and now e-books. In the world of TED—or, to use their argot, in the TED “ecosystem”—books become talks, talks become memes, memes become projects, projects become talks, talks become books—and so it goes ad infinitum in the sizzling Stakhanovite cycle of memetics, until any shade of depth or nuance disappears into the virtual void. Richard Dawkins, the father of memetics, should be very proud. Perhaps he can explain how “ideas worth spreading” become “ideas no footnotes can support.”

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/105703/the-naked-and-the-ted-khanna
via https://twitter.com/nicco

Dowser - The Site for Solution Journalism

Another interesting example. "Who's solving what and how" Limited social functions, but note sections: news and ideas, interviews, mini case studies, and multimedia. This article originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review (presumably used with permission). We should look for material to repurpose too, and establish a routine for requesting use permission.

 http://dowser.org/opinion-why-not-everyone-should-be-a-social-entrepreneur/

Coursera

Elite University Free Online Courses

Nice model and there is a course on Social Network Analysis.

https://www.coursera.org/course/sna

Nicco Mele interview, Collaborative Innovation

Nicco Mele: The Future of Social Collaboration

by Jill Hart on July 27, 2012

Nicco Mele, 2009 Distinguished Lecturer and adjunct faculty at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has been breaking new ground in web strategies for more than a decade.  In 2004, while webmaster for Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s run for the presidential nomination, Mele invented the landscape for integrating technology and social media into political communications.  He went on to found Echo Ditto, through which he works with Fortune 500 companies and non-profits around the globe developing effective web strategies.

Open innovation and crowdsourcing have become part of Mele’s DNA.  He co-founded Genius Rocket, an advertising agency that pioneered the framework that joins hundreds of well- respected creative professionals by crowdsourcing. The marriage of the open innovation and crowdsourcing models has proven to leverage top talent while delivering affordability and speed to market for clients.

I was excited to catch up with Mele at the Vermont Digital Future Conference held at Champlain College. He graciously shared his unique blend of thinking in explaining why social collaboration continues to grow as a viable resource for innovation, and how he believes funding sources like KickStarter are opening doors previously padlocked to many start-ups.

Collaborative Innovation