Are We Forgetting Something?

In all that we’ve learned during the past 7 weeks, I feel that something is missing.  We’ve learned about innovative products and strategies geared mainly toward the international market.  I’ve been inspired by the audacity of these ideas and the determination of the individuals who’ve created them.  However, there is considerable work to do to make organizations, systems, and products that already exist more effective.    

Using the United States as an example, we have some of the most elite innovators in the world.  We’ve developed devices like the IPhone that seem to have put the world in the palm of our hand.  Yet and still, our government is slow to act and cannot reach agreement on most policy issues.  Our country spends money that we don’t have and our people can’t find jobs.  Our kids don’t have access to equal educational opportunities and our schools are failing.  Yet and still taxpayer dollars continue to fund these traditional public schools despite a decline in student enrollment and student outcomes.

Why don’t we put our energy and innovative efforts into making changes to these flawed infrastructures?  Why don’t we make the things that we’ve worked so hard and paid so much for, more efficient, faster, and more inspiring?  Why don’t we see the possibilities instead of the limitations?  Yes, there are barriers to innovating from within an existing organization (e.g.: bureaucracy) but so what!  Fix them, change them, and allow room for progress. 

This week’s Harvard Business Review Article talked about crafting innovations to fit unmet needs at the “bottom of the pyramid”.  It’s somewhat “sexy” to focus on these international markets but it’s not where we should put 100% of our efforts.  Instead, we should adapt the best practices from these innovations to existing infrastructures and focus a significant portion of our efforts there.  Take the new business model process for emerging markets from the Harvard Review Article for example.  We can adapt these strategies to the business model of existing organizations – ensuring that they meet an unmet need, make smart tradeoffs to drive down costs where appropriate, make products accessible, etc. 

In all that we’ve learned, we must remember the necessity to innovate from within and from without.  If we can approach social innovation with this more balanced approach, I believe we will begin to see positive changes to scale inside and outside of the US.