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What would the world look like if we all adopted a social solutions mindset?

Greg Dees invited a diverse group of students, professionals, and community members to explore this question during his "Open Solutions Society" talk Friday night at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (@PNCA). Portland State University Social Innovation Incubator (@PSUImpact) co-hosted the event. 

Here are three things I valued most about the experience.

First, I appreciated the historical context Greg Dees brought to his remarks. It's easy to feel like the effort to find innovative solutions to social problems by working across sectors and with citizens has barely achieved infancy. There are so many ideas and small scale initiatives, but it remains hard to see the forest through the trees. Dr. Dees, widely recognized as the father of the field of social entrepreneurship, speaks from a place of deep knowledge about the history and evolution of this messy space where mission meets market.

Drawing on the insights of economists like Douglas North, Nathan Rosenberg, and Ian Morris, Dr. Dees reminds us that:

• The history of the world is one of adaptation. An innovation in one part of the world spreads, and creates the unintended consequences to which people adapt with new innovations, and so it goes.
• Testing new ideas on the margins really matters. As these ideas scale, they become the drivers of more substantive transformations—and in unpredictable ways, as Clay Shirky points out in his TED talk about how the internet is changing (government and other) institutions. 
• In order for ideas to scale, they have to have ways of being absorbed into markets or institutions. The path is fairly clear for private-sector innovators: they secure capital to grow, sell to larger firms, license thier technologies, go public, or some combination. New ideas are just as critical for social progress as economic progress, but the path for scaling social innovations is much less clear.

This is a case for field-building. Citing Richard Nelson's observation that industries with special skill needs—like, say the social innovation/enterprise/entrepreneurship/
impact/insert-your-favorite-label-here—require effective support structures to grow and become more efficient, Dr. Dees advocates a new kind of ecosystem—one that is more open and collaborative and offers new kinds of intermediaries, structures, and options for growing and scaling.  

Second, although the venue was not ideal for speaker/audience interaction, I appreciated Dr. Dees turning the floor over to audience for more than the customary 5 minutes of Q&A. One participant raised a question about how we get to a shared language among people with different experiences and points of view who so often talk past one another (business people coming to the social sector vs. social sectors professionals doing the reverse, for example).

(The questioner was helping to solve this problem simply by asking it in public.)

A specific "aha" moment for me, resulting from that question, was the possibility of linking Theory of Change approaches to social problem solving and design approaches. I often struggle with which frame to adopt in a given problem-solving environment. Last night's session, coupled with a video or two on framing, helped me see ways to blend these appraoches, even explain them in terms of each other.

Finally, although we had far too little time to explore the idea of an Open Solutions Society (and since that's the title of Dr. Dees coming book, he may not have wanted to steal his own thunder...), I really liked this idea. I asked where he had seen the promise of such a thing in the real world and the question seemed to stump him a little, though, again, he could have been keeping things under wraps until publication). 

So, I thought I'd add some breadcrumbs leading toward what I think he is describing from my small patch of the world—Portland, Oregon, the Northwest.

Here are three:

• The coming #ScaleUp campaign. Lots of people are trying to figure out new ways to build healthy economies. This week a network of people from government, philanthropy, and the private sector in Oregon will test launch a campaign about scaling solutions to our fundamental economic challenges. The idea is simple: getting people from all corners connected so that good ideas for bottom up job creation have a better chance of getting to scale than they would otherwise. If you are interested, #scaleup wants to hear from you (regardless of where you live). #ecosystembuilding 
• Change Exchange Northwest is an initiative Springboard innovation launched just this week, in partnership with Supportland, Mission Markets, Cutting Edge Capital, and communities all over the Northwest. The idea is to connect people who want to grow local and social enterprises within and across communities so that they can invest in each others' success and economic health—in an authentic, and accountable way. #ecosystembuilding
• Social Venture Society will host Hacking Social Impact (November 12-13, 2012), an unconference intended to help build the skills of social entrepreneurs to navigate impact investing more effecitvely and to help impact investors unpack what they mean by impact. (if you hurry, there might still be time to register). #ecosystembuilding

I think I'll conclude with this Tim O'Reily speech. I'm still amazed by the number of tech people I turn to for lessons on the econony and government...there's a lesson in there somewhere. I'm not sure I can quite explain this particular connection, but one of the themes in Greg Dees talk (and a subject of interest among members of the audience) was the understanding value as distinct from profit. Tim O'Reilly's clothesline talk (borrowed from others before him) is one of the best commentaries on this theme I've heard. 

 
Until next time.

Design is a discipline from workforce professionals could hugely benefit, if only the word "design" didn't make us so uneasy. Among American public policy and program stakeholders, "design" is often perceived as having to do with aesthetics alone—as not central to the serious business of work, learning and economic opportunity.

A quick (and unscientific) scan of panels and presentations at key workforce conferences and events (NAWB, SETA, CWA, NAWDP and NASWA) provides some context. The word "design" is used infrequently—words like "(re)tooling," "(re)engineering," and "(re)building" are used much more often. When "design" does appear, it tends to be used in the following contexts:

• Workforce professionals "design programs" to meet legal, financial, or organizational requirements (but apply design methodologies to solving customer problems or meeting community needs less often);
• Workforce professionals "improve" or "expand" "program designs". In these cases, it's not clear whether the designs themselves are examined for fit or integrity. The priority overall seems to be "scaling" existing "designs."
• Workforce professionals "design" reporting documents, databases, and ways of measuring activity. In fact, the balance of "design" work seems to be focused on reporting rather than actually doing. 

What is design?
I'm with Jeffrey Veen on this one. It's only worth talking about (and doing) good design, and "Good design is problem solving." For those who want more depth, listen to this fantastic talk by Bill Moggridge, author of Designing Interactions (an amazing—if voluminous—resource) and Director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The talk is called, "What is Design?"

How Can Design Benefit Workforce Programs and Policies?
Our WEadership project revealed many opportunities, but our focus here is on the potential of three key (and overlapping) design-industry trends.

1. Design for the 90%. In the past decade, designers themselves have led a movement intended to make design more accessible. One of these efforts (and one that has captured the imaginations of social entrepreneurs, innovators, and changemakers all over the world) is "Design for the other 90%" (also referred to as Bottom-of-the-Pyramind or BOP Design). This effort, which began as an exhibit, has morphed into a book and a movement of sorts, catalyzing related initiatives like "Design with the other 90%: Cities" and, of course, a network—called The Other 90%. This entire effort is focused on solving fundamental human problems in areas like health, employment, and education. We could all learn something from this movement that could inform the design of our workforce, education, and economic development efforts.

 

2. Service Design (sometimes called experience design) is also increasingly characterized as a movement. The aim is to improve the interaction between service providers and customers by making intentional choices about the service environment, sequence, and nature of provision that lead to better outcomes for all. Service design is an interdisciplinary approach to process improvement (and sometimes wholesale re-engineering) that takes into account the motivations, preferences, and objectives of those using the service. It focuses on meeting customers needs in a high-quality way on the theory that customers will achieve better outcomes through better service (while also enjoying a more pleasant experience). Skeptics generally point out that workforce centers are not Starbucks shops (they are correct). But the workforce system could learn something from service design that could help improve the experience of career transition—and education and training—so that it's a better experience for people in need of positive experiences and for the service providers themselves.

 

3. My favorite of the three trends is Co-Design (sometimes called collaborative design or participatory design or even co-creation). The central idea is that people who use or benefit from programs and services are engaged in designing them—and not in a perfunctory way, in a fundamental way. I use the phrase "programs and services" loosely here, because a typical co-design process begins with a program that is not working very well and concludes with a solution to a problem that may not be a program or service at all . And that's the point —to develop collaborative solutions to shared problems, not just to review or tweak existing programs. Co-design processes have the potential to invest government agencies, non-profit organizations, social innovators, and citizens and community members in each others' success—and to build community innovation capacity, which is why codesign projects are so popular in the social innovation community. Here is a sweet and simple video that explains co-design, brought to you by our friends at ThinkPublic:

So what do you say? Can you think of a wicked workforce problem that serious design methodologies could help us address?

Resources:

• D-Rev is a design incubator with an "other 90% focus.
• IDEO's Human Centered Design Toolkit (supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and available for download at no cost)
• An Introduction to CoDesign (on slideshare) by ThinkPublic
• UsCreates post on CoDesign session at Social Innovation (SIX) Winter School (full disclosure: I am a SIX School alum)
• The Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) Co-Creation Guide

* This is part of a series of entirely subjective posts intended to inspire greatness among applicants to the Workforce Innovation Fund. The opinions and perspectives expressed here are not those of Social Policy Research, the US Department of Labor (USDOL) or anyone other than the author. Please steal the ideas you find most promising.

The Annie Casey Foundation's Annual Kids Count Data book for 2011 is out.

And in what should be no surprise for anyone and a giant disappointment for everyone, childhood poverty is up, again.

"[O]ver the last decade there has been a significant decline in economic
well-being for low income children and families. Data also reveals the
impact of the job and foreclosure crisis on children. In 2010, 11
percent of children had at least one unemployed parent and 4 percent
have been affected by foreclosure since 2007."

Go ahead and see for yourself—here's the book.

What to do?

In Georgia, the number of kids living in high-poverty areas has increased by 81 percent over the past decade.

One in four children in Georgia lives in poverty, the highest rate the state has seen in 40 years. one in ten young Georgians is growing up in an area where at least 30 percent of neighbors live below the federal poverty line—about $22,000 per year for a family of four.

And this story is not Georgia's alone.

But many Georgia communities are trying something new—community partnerships (collaboratives) that target the highest poverty neighborhoods with an array services intended to increase incomes, improve health, raise skill levels, and help families achieve higher levels of economic security (two of these partnerships are Promise Neighborhood efforts).

So what about this kind of approach to workforce development? We saw a taste of it a decade ago with the Youth Opportunity Movement, but the work Georgia is doing targets the community as a whole, not just one demographic group.

What if communities (even wealthier ones) targeted their most in-need neighborhoods? Workforce agencies could serve as "backbone organizations" that support partners acting in alignment ot achieve shared goals. This is sometimes called a collective impact approach, and some workforce agencies use it already—like Worksystems, the Workforce Board in Portland, Oregon, which is organizing youth services in this way. (This approach is also covered in The WEadership Guide.)

There are really two complementary ideas (but we'll count it as one in keeping with the one-idea-per-post approach we've take here):

• Targeting communities in need and redesign intervientions and services to meet those needs more effectively (a deep but narrow approach)
• Aligning multiple organizations around a set of shared goals and developed a collaborative strategy for change

Either or both are worthy of trying given myriad of workforce challenges our communities are facing.

How about it?

* This is part of a series of entirely subjective posts intended to inspire greatness among applicants to the Workforce Innovation Fund. The opinions and perspectives expressed here are not those of Social Policy Research, the US Department of Labor (USDOL) or anyone other than the author. Please steal the ideas you find most promising.

Collaborative consumption.

Rachel Botsman coined the phrase, but the movement away from individual ownership to sharing is big—and it's global. If you are not familiar with the idea of collaborative consumption, here are three ways to catch up fast:

• Take a look at the Collaborative Consumption website
• Read this piece on Shareable
• Watch Rachel's TED talk below

"What does this have to do with workforce development?" you might ask.

A lot.

First, people in the throes of unplanned career transition often need to radically reduce their expenses. Collaborative consumption facilitates this in three ways:

• It helps people access products and services they need (from lawnmowers to cars to kids clothing) without having to buy them outright;
• It helps people monetize stuff that have but rarely use (renting lawnmowers, car or tools, even a spare bedroom, for example); and
• It helps people develop new networks—by meeting and interacting with neighbors they may not know and whom they might not meet in other ways. These interactions help people newly-isolated from former colleagues interact with others, keeping spirits up and possibly leading to new opportunities for paid work.

In addition, as we noted in our post on peer-ro-peer learning and badges, new platforms are enabling people to learn real skills from each other that can help them build portfolios or transition jobs or careers. This is a form of sharing that builds skills and credentials.

Finally, from the perspective of growing numbers of collaborative consumers, the shift away from individual ownership is not a temporary one. New terms like "The Share Economy" are redefining what it means to trade with each other. We see this in the rise of co-housing and co-working—people intentionally sharing their homes and workplaces with others not for the money alone, but for a host of other benefits that accrue socially, professionally, and in terms of community well-being.

What else could we do?

The implications for workforce development are quite significant from a program point of view (are we helping people who need to downsize understand how to participate in this alternative economy?), a policy point of view (are we facilitating the lifelong learning we have been advocating all these year, now that so much of it is accessible at no cost?), and from an organizational point of view (how could our agencies and organizations benefit from participating in the collaborative consumption movement?).

Oh the possibilities...

Here are two additional resources that may help you see them:
1. Anya Kamanetz's Edupunks' Guide to a DIY Credential
2. Shareable's The Gen Y Guide to Collaborative Consumption.

Got stuff to share?

* This is part of a series of entirely subjective posts intended to inspire greatness among applicants to the Workforce Innovation Fund. The opinions and perspectives expressed here are not those of Social Policy Research, the US Department of Labor (USDOL) or anyone other than the author. Please steal the ideas you find most promising.

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