Positive Deviance

I really enjoyed reading the article, "Design Thinking for Social Innovation", particularly the section on Positive Deviance, founded/created by Jerry Sternin.  This concept makes me think of two very useful characteristics: common sense and practicality. Having little knowledge of social innovation prior to this class, terms like 'social enterprise' and even innovation itself appear intimidating.  It was interesting to read about how design thinkers find solutions to large problems by observing people (positive deviants) in different situations and draw conclusions based on what is already working for them.  This shows how common sense and practicality are at work every day in many places by many people, and as social innovators we just have to find it!  I think as a class, we can all benefit from this article as we work on our group projects.

I found one example on the Positive Deviance Initiative website of what Pittsburgh is doing to implement PD. (http://www.positivedeviance.org/projects/countries.html?id=45)

The VA Healthcare System in Pittsburgh implemented PD to advance their "Getting to Zero MRSA Initiative" which stands for Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a virulent pathogen that cannot be easily killed with antibiotics.


I also found a couple of articles on positive deviance and how others feel about it and if they think it works: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/12/the_power_of_positive_deviance.html
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/11/29/the_power_of_positive_deviants/

Questions to think about:

Are there other examples of positive deviance initiatives among Pittsburgh companies?
Have they been successful?