Social Innovation blogs and links

I’ve just returned from Beijing, at a Social Innovation conference, which was tremendously interesting….and of which a more focused post soon. But, in the meantime, here’s a list of blogs and sites that I follow in the wider world of social innovation:

– First up, the mighty WorldChanging, who are also connected to TED (and the TEDBlog; see TedTalk for podcasts)

– Social Innovation Conversations, led by Tim Zak and others…for the podcasters amongst you

– Doors of Perception for a design-centred approach (see their take on the Beijing conference here)

– Xigi.net which is newer but has interesting stuff around social markets and investments; Acumen Fund is a funder of social entrepreneurs with a decent blog…

– Springwise is an offshoot of Trendwatching, giving a ‘daily fix of entrepreneurial ideas’…

– Audeamus, this blog (!), the 4 Non Profits PACE blog, and (the active bits of) SocialEdge pretty much cover social entrepreneurship

– David Wilcox’s Designing for Civil Society is interesting on partnership, governance, networking and knowledge…and Clay Shirky is great on the interface of society and technology

– Of the (UK) think-tanks, Demos’ Greenhouse is most active and most wide-ranging

– There are also RSS feeds of (crazy, humorous, and sometime socially-oriented) new ideas from the Global Ideas Bank, Idea A Day and HalfBakery

I’ll add to this soon: all suggestions welcome…

UPDATE: (more sites than blogs, now)

– John Thackara adds design-related innovation links to the pot, of which I’ll pick out particularly…
Architecture for Humanity, the Next Design Institute and GeekCorps as well as the Stanford Social Innovation Review, which I should have mentioned before

– Site-wise, social entrepreneurs are also well-represented on the new spangly Ashoka site, as well as Echoing Green, Schwab and others.

– Headshift is good for social software stuff

– Uffe from Kaos Pilots (who deserve a link here as well, of course!) sends through Emerging Futures which is a new one to me

– Also, ideas and technology-wise, we can throw ShouldExist and Lazy Web (for tech ideas) into the mix, as well as MySociety‘s portfolio, including Pledgebank, WriteToThem and TheyWorkForYou

4 thoughts on “Social Innovation blogs and links”

Nick,
For your collection: We put together this list of design-related social innovation links a while back:
http://doors8delhi.doorsofperception.com/links.html
I thought the Beijing conference was amazing, but we are probably foolish to think of it it as the world’s first conference on social innovation. Up to 10,000 organisations are affiliated in one way or another with the World Social Forum; and Paul Hawken reckons that over 1 million organizations, populated by over 100 million people, are “engaged in positive activity designed to address climate and other environmental issues”. http://sustainablecivilsociety.org/

Thanks John. I’m inclined to agree (re. ‘world’s first’), and we should harness and build on the manifold existing initiatives, rather than ‘claim’ the ground in any sense. But if focusing in, or ‘umbrella-rizing’, with the social innovation label can prove useful, then I’m fully supportive.
I also enjoyed your talk on DOTT (http://www.dott07.com). The SSE currently has no partners or presence in the North East, so would be interested to talk to you about the project.
And thanks for the links!

There are hundreds of millions of people involved in social innovation and millions of organisations doing it in practice. Paul Hawken’s back of the envelope numbers are surely far too low. The UK alone has several hundred thousand civic organisations. But conferences overtly about the subject and bringing together people from very different sectors seem rare (hence describing the Beijing event as ‘one of the first’, and certainly the first for the quarter of humanity who live in China). One of the most useful insights for me from the conference was the idea that the most dynamic social innovation happens in the space between the three traditional sectors – public, private, non-profit, where new types of organisation and role are springing up, but without much of a language to explain what they’re up to. That suggests that the challenge is to find new combinations of the very dynamic groups and networks already working in this field. Its up to them whether new terms and tools are useful rather than to aerosol onto them a new label. But my guess is that many will find the language of social innovation quite useful as they fight their own battles for legitimacy and resources.

I’m inclined to agree. We’ve recently very much been pushing the “this is happening across sectors in a different space” with regards to social entrepreneurs. I have to say, with due deference to Uffe’s Fourth Sector (http://www.kaospilot.dk/docs/FourthSector.asp) that I prefer the idea of this being a ‘space’ where things happen, rather than another “sector”, which instantly springs up boundaries and divisions etc…Maybe it is the Fourth Space we are talking about? (which has nice echoes of new exploration)

John Thackara on October 23, 2006 at 10:59 am said:

Nick,
For your collection: We put together this list of design-related social innovation links a while back:
http://doors8delhi.doorsofperception.com/links.html
I thought the Beijing conference was amazing, but we are probably foolish to think of it it as the world’s first conference on social innovation. Up to 10,000 organisations are affiliated in one way or another with the World Social Forum; and Paul Hawken reckons that over 1 million organizations, populated by over 100 million people, are “engaged in positive activity designed to address climate and other environmental issues”. http://sustainablecivilsociety.org/
Nick Temple on October 23, 2006 at 11:08 am said:

Thanks John. I’m inclined to agree (re. ‘world’s first’), and we should harness and build on the manifold existing initiatives, rather than ‘claim’ the ground in any sense. But if focusing in, or ‘umbrella-rizing’, with the social innovation label can prove useful, then I’m fully supportive.
I also enjoyed your talk on DOTT (http://www.dott07.com). The SSE currently has no partners or presence in the North East, so would be interested to talk to you about the project.
And thanks for the links!
Geoff Mulgan on October 24, 2006 at 10:45 am said:

There are hundreds of millions of people involved in social innovation and millions of organisations doing it in practice. Paul Hawken’s back of the envelope numbers are surely far too low. The UK alone has several hundred thousand civic organisations. But conferences overtly about the subject and bringing together people from very different sectors seem rare (hence describing the Beijing event as ‘one of the first’, and certainly the first for the quarter of humanity who live in China). One of the most useful insights for me from the conference was the idea that the most dynamic social innovation happens in the space between the three traditional sectors – public, private, non-profit, where new types of organisation and role are springing up, but without much of a language to explain what they’re up to. That suggests that the challenge is to find new combinations of the very dynamic groups and networks already working in this field. Its up to them whether new terms and tools are useful rather than to aerosol onto them a new label. But my guess is that many will find the language of social innovation quite useful as they fight their own battles for legitimacy and resources.
Nick Temple on October 24, 2006 at 3:07 pm said:

I’m inclined to agree. We’ve recently very much been pushing the “this is happening across sectors in a different space” with regards to social entrepreneurs. I have to say, with due deference to Uffe’s Fourth Sector (http://www.kaospilot.dk/docs/FourthSector.asp) that I prefer the idea of this being a ‘space’ where things happen, rather than another “sector”, which instantly springs up boundaries and divisions etc…Maybe it is the Fourth Space we are talking about? (which has nice echoes of new exploration)