Posts Tagged ‘innovation’
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Is it time we started sharing our cock-ups?
When chariti
es or voluntary organisations get together at events, it’s usually the successes you get to hear about. So hurrah for Sidekick Studios’ latest (beta) innovation: Cocktails and Cock-Ups, an evening of confessional presentations from charities and social enterprises about the disasters you never got to hear about – and, most importantly, what they did to fix them.
Dan Jones from Amnesty International UK, Andrew Dick from Envision, and Darren Taylor from EcoComputer Systems were impressively candid about the mistakes they’d made and the lessons they’d learnt. What struck me was how sharing failure led to frank discussions and a sense of shared experience which is often missing from the usual “look what I achieved”-style presentations.
I was
surprised to notice how rarely – if ever – I’ve seen someone deliver a PowerPoint presentation which actually highlighted the things that went wrong. Reviewing mistakes is something we do a lot in Agile web development; at the end of each two-week section of work, the whole team comes together to talk about what went right, what went wrong, and what we could change to make the next iteration more productive. But sharing that learning with other organisations? I don’t do that much.
So what did I take from the event?
- In the third sector, we’re so used to reporting to funders, trustees and bosses on what went well, that we’re in danger of forgetting that the lessons we learn from failure are valuable – not just to us, but to others, too.
- Talking about failure, rather than pretending we can prevent failure, can help us to expect and manage it. It’s also fun, and quite cathartic, once you get past the initial fear.
- “Failing fast” – building prototypes, running pilots, get feedback early on, not trying to plan everything up front in immense detail and instead being willing to embrace negative feedback and change – can actually help to avoid more catastrophic mistakes on a bigger scale.
- Sometimes a perceived failure actually leads to something better.
- It’s easier to admit mistakes with a cocktail in your hand.
So if you’re looking for valuable lessons, I reckon you’d learn more from inviting others like you to share their cock-up tales over drinks than from any of the usual seminars or conferences. Find out more about Cock-Up Cocktails on the Sidekick Studios blog.
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Youth Venture: awesome inventions to change the world
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Anyone who doubts young people’s ability to create innovative solutions to the problems faced by their communities should check these amazing inventions from young people.Ashoka’s Youth Venture project ran the Invent Your World Challenge to reward 16-25 year olds from all over the world for inventions that help their communities. The winners were a big
hit at the recent Tech4Society conference in Hyderabad, India.
Still only 16 years old, competition winner Javier Fernández-Han invented an algae-powered energy system that combines a dozen new and existing technologies to treat waste, produce methane and bio-oil for fuel, produce food for humans and livestock, sequester greenhouse gases, and produce oxygen. The VERSATILE system is targeted at developing communities which need sources of power and waste disposal – and while it hasn’t actually been built yet, you’ve got to admire the sheer ambition of the project.
We also love Tractor Factor, designed cheap car mechanic by 23-year-old Shailesh Upadhyay from Velore, India. He found it difficult to study in the evenings at his home in rural India, so he came up with a system which uses the battery in a tractor to power a fluorescent light at night. It’s now being installed in homes throughout his village.
Really inspiring stuff for a Friday read – find out more about the winners here.
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"Volunteering is now cool" – rallying cry from rent-a-crowd for non-profits
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We were always going to fall in love with an “unincorporated disorganisation” who state their vision as “a world where volunteering is as mainstream as cheeseburgers and
breathing.” Youth Tree is a group of young volunteers from Western Australia who are shaking up volunteering Down Under.
They’ve just launched the Big Help Mob, a diverse army of 100+ young volunteers who regularly get together to do favours for non-profits. Then they celebrate with “enormous, ludicrous flash mobs”.
Any local non-profit can submit an idea for how this rent-a-crowd could help them out, via their website. The best ideas are taken on. So all kinds of causes, charities, people, animals or environments can benefit from a sudden, one-off burst of people-power.
Did we mention that we love it?
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Reimagining volunteering in a connected world: a process for developing creative new volunteering ‘products’
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In 2008 and Timebank v co-commissioned a piece of research to gain better understanding about the barriers to youth volunteering.With this new understanding, a toolkit was created for the volunteering sector to use and develop opportunities that were more relevant and enticing to young people.
The toolkit draws inspiration from “a new breed of social action brands”, emerging
as a result
of self-organising via The Internet. Homemade, authentic and innovative these organizations, initiatives and websites are creating new ways for people to give their time, take action and make a social difference.
Reimagining volunteering in a connected world: a process for developing creative new volunteering ‘products’ outlines how lessons from these new social action plans can help inspire innovation in the voluntary sector.
You can also view slides from a workshop based on this work on Slideshare:
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Young volunteers can create income for charity
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Ethical fashion label 50FIFTY clothing, which is run by ex-teachers and youth workers, is pioneering an innovative way to combat the rising tide of gun and knife crime affecting young people in the UK.
They’ve combined their business knowledge and their previous lives in youth work to show young people (many of whom facing social exclusion) how to make money legally by designing, making and selling clothing and promotional goods. Through their Made by Young People project, the team says they’ve helped dozens of young people move from criminal activities into entrepreneurial ones.
With research warning that charities will lag behind the rest of the UK economy in recovering from the recession, it’s interesting to see Made by Young People offering to work with voluntary organisations to show them how to raise money through social enterprise. I’m
really inspired by the thought of harnessing the talents and entrepreneurship of young volunteers and diversifying funding as a result.
Trekstock is a great example of this approach. It started as a simple idea from a young volunteer, Sophie Epstone, who wanted to put on a gig to raise money for a Teenage Cancer Trust trek. Since then, Trekstock has launched its own fashion line during London Fashion week, toured the UK festival circuit, gained charity status, attracted support from big name celebrities and raised thousands of pounds in the process.
Sophie says: “It may look big now but it all started with a small idea to hold a little fundraiser for a trek and over time the ideas and the drive grew along
with the hope that it was going to make a difference to the charities that it supported. I think that you have a great idea, how ever big or small, you must believe that it’s always doable and there is always support out there to help you make it grow.”
I’m sure there must be countless young volunteers out there bringing innovation and money to charities, and I’d be really interested to hear more about them.
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Crowd-sourcing funding for voluntary projects
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I’ve just discovered Kickstarter, a US-based website which allows budding entrepreneurs to crowd-source the money they need to bring their ideas to life. A service designer I know called it “my favourite website of all time”, and I can see where he’s coming from.
Project creators can offer products, services or other benefits (“rewards”) to inspire people to support their project: A hot-air balloon ride to the first person to pledge $300, an invitation to the BBQ for anyone who pledges more than $5. It’s up to each project creator to sculpt their own offers to inspire people to invest.
From crocheted yurts to plans to write everyone in the world a letter, the site is packed with weird and wonderful ideas, but it’s the voluntary projects which really got me thinking – such as this appeal to save a local community garden. Could it be that by stepping away from the format of traditional funding applications, we could actually inspire more creative volunteering opportunities? The very act of selling a simple idea, rather than a huge project plan, seems like a more natural way to test out your idea on the general public. Winning public support could inspire courage to test the boundaries and be really innovative.
I’m a big fan of Junction 49 and its commitment to supporting young volunteers in working together to bring their ideas to life, as well as v‘s vcashpoint project. I’d love to see what would happen if we could add crowd-sourced funding into the mix. Something tells me that these young volunteers could teach hardened fundraisers a few tricks, and inspire new creative approaches to promoting charitable giving.
I love the
idea of voluntary projects having a whole group of supporters, right from the start, who care enough about a project to dig into their pockets to help make
it happen. As Kickstart says, a large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.
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