Week 7: The Future of
Social Innovation and Enterprise
How do we anticipate the future of Social Innovation and
Entrepreneurship? We must first examine the relationship between social
innovation and trends in society.
There is a cyclical relationship between social trends and social
innovation—they are bound to each other: when one shifts, so will the other. As
society changes, so too the innovations will adapt to these changes.
Innovations will emerge, reinventing existing technology in ways that have a
significant social impact in a particular context. The impact will drive shifts
in society, and at a certain point, will shift trends in society. The cycle begins again, as social innovation
builds on and adapts to the changes in society.
Social trends and social innovation exist in a particular context—a
time, space, and social environment with a given set of resources. External
components, such as technology, will factor into the resources for this social
context and changes in technology will shift the baseline of what innovations
that are possible.
What drives social trends? Arguably, it’s driven by society’s needs and
wants. The status quo doesn’t answer particular social questions, and change
agents seek feasible solutions through innovative alternatives. For instance,
as it is now, many current social innovations trends are responding to an
increasing demand for customization or are attempting to remediate social
challenges. The current culture of mass production provides a mass produced
item, such as a prosthetic limb. But we’ve entered into a time where everything
is becoming consistently more personalized—down to the ads we receive on social
media websites. Why not provide a customized, more personally useful version of
a preexisting model, such as a prosthetic?
It meets a demand and answers a social trend.
With the examples we’ve seen in this class, the future of social
innovation will be answering global questions. The Internet is creating a
social component of globalization—we’re not limited to trade and markets. We
have access to data on the tremendous limitations in current social structures.
If social innovations will seek to answer a global list of social needs and
wants—I believe that the future of social innovation could very well be
disruptive to existing structures of poverty, unsustainable environmental
practices, food insecurity, and many more social ills. We’ve learned again and again that the four
billion people in the bottom of the economic pyramid have tremendous collective
spending power—so even if innovation doesn’t seek to disrupt these existing
issues, there is possibility for market demand to meet these needs.
But I wonder, what are the next major shifts in social trends? Where
will them stem from? Will it be another technology wave, like the internet? Or
will it be primarily social in nature—perhaps the redefining of a set of social
values and norms?
As an idealist, I can’t help but wonder, how do we construct social
trends to create opportunities for more positive impact? How can we use the
next wave of innovations to promote global dialogue? And will social trends
meet global social needs? Or will they be specific to the smaller locations,
like specific cultures and contexts?
I guess even with all these ideas, I know it will depend on what shifts first. I’m still left wondering, what’s next?
www.fastcoexist.com/1681830/forget-gdp-the-social-progress-
index-measures-national-well-being
www.fastcodesign.com/1672572/the-next-frontier-for-3-d-printing-helping-the-
disabled#1
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