Section 2 Connecting people, ideas and resources
Intermediaries
Intermediaries are individuals, organisations, networks, or spaces which connect people, ideas, and resources. They can take a variety of forms – some incubate innovations by providing a ‘safe’ space for collaboration and experimentation; some connect entrepreneurs with the supports they need to grow their innovations; and others help to spread innovations by developing networks and collaborations.A crucial lesson of innovation in other fields is that the supply of ideas, and demand for them, do not automatically link up. In the technology sector a great variety of institutions exist to connect them better. They include specialists in technology transfer, venture capital firms, conferences, and academic journals – which sit alongside consultants adept at looking at companies’ IP, or their R&D pipelines, spotting patterns and possibilities that aren’t visible to managers and owners themselves. Much of the history of technology has confirmed how important these ‘social connectors’ are. They are one of the reasons why economics has found it hard to understand innovation without a substantial dose of sociology added in.
The social field generally lacks specialist intermediaries of this kind. There are some effective networks in academic disciplines and professions. And some foundations try hard to connect emerging ideas to potential buyers and users. But these tend to be small scale and ad hoc. This is one of the reasons why it can take so long for ideas to grow and achieve impact in the social field.
As social innovation becomes more widely understood, new institutions are coming into existence to fill this gap. These range from innovation funds to innovators in residence, and innovation agencies. Building-based projects have been the fastest to take off – because their business model draws on the fact that any new venture needs to be based somewhere, and people tend to like to congregate with others like them.
In the medium term however, as in private business, we would expect social economy intermediaries to become more explicitly focused on their knowledge and relationships. One of their roles is to grow fields and markets: supporting a range of social ventures to become more effective in tackling social problems. We’ve suggested that much social innovation comes from linking up the ‘bees’ – the individuals and small organisations that are buzzing with ideas and imagintion – and the ‘trees’, the bigger institutions that have power and money but are usually not so good at thinking creatively. On their own, the bees can’t achieve impact. On their own, the trees find it hard to adapt. Intermediaries can help to link them up. To be effective they need to reach across the boundaries that divide sectors, disciplines, and fields. They need to attract innovative, entrepreneurial people – the job of intermediation needs to be highly creative. And they need to be fluent in many ‘languages’ – able to translate from the ‘language of everyday needs’ to the very different ‘languages’ of policymakers or investors, for example.
Intermediaries also play a critical role at the stages of growth and diffusion. They are often involved in designing, testing and evaluating projects, subsequently advocating their adoption by government, businesses and non-profit organisations. They help to establish markets for new services and projects, and to spread innovations by developing networks which highlight, promote and disseminate learning and best practice. These are sometimes strongly promoted by funders – for example, the European Commission’s sustainable urban development network URBACT and the EQUAL Programme.
Championing innovation
Individual roles can be created to scout out, highlight, and disseminate innovations. These individuals can work within, or across, organisations. They can be involved in adopting or adapting existing innovations. Or, they can be responsible for embedding processes within an organisation to enable innovation to flourish. These kinds of role are increasingly popular within the public sector.- Innovation scouts
- Innovation champions
- Social intrapreneurs
- Social entrepreneurs in residence
Innovation teams
There is a wide range of innovation teams. Some work within organisations, either within or across departments, some are set up to encourage collaboration across organisations, and some are designed to focus on particular issues – or use a particular approach. The best innovation teams are multidisciplinary and able to engage a wide range of stakeholders in the design, development, and evaluation of innovation.- In-house innovation units
- Arms length or spin off innovation units
- Local innovation teams
- Specialist innovation units
Innovation hubs
Innovation hubs are spaces and places which bring people together to learn, share, and collaborate. They are much more than shared work spaces. They are places where social entrepreneurs, community activists, non-profits, and others, can come together to share ideas, insights, and experiences. In this way, hubs provide mutual support. They also provide economies of scale and scope – as hub members share associated costs (overheads, meeting rooms, connectivity, and so on).- Innovation hubs
- Social business parks and ‘social Silicon Valleys’
Institutions to drive innovation
The absence of institutions devoted to social innovation means that too often it is a matter of luck whether ideas come to fruition. Institutions play a critical role in mobilising energies and orchestrating more systemic change in fields such as climate change and welfare by linking small-scale social enterprises and projects to big institutions, laws, and regulations (for example, shifting a city’s transport system over to plug-in hybrids)- Innovation departments and offices
- Public innovation agencies (like Nesta)
- Specialist innovation agencies
- Innovation funds.
- Innovation incubators
- Innovation brokers
- Dedicated intermediaries
- Trade papers and magazines
- Research centres
- Innovation universities and research departments,
- Innovation learning labs.
- Sector specialist institutions
- Demonstration centres
- Innovation accelerators
Innovation networks
Networks can serve as alternatives to formal organisational structures within the social economy – ‘they can leverage the assets that already exist in a system by connecting them to others’.5 The very nature of networks bring a range of benefits that are particularly important within the social economy:they can expand rapidly and widely; information and resources can be spread quickly; they bring people together efficiently and in new ways because they provide short ‘pathways’ from one individual to the next (despite social or geographic distance); and they are resilient to outside shocks because the structure is adaptive and fluid.6 However, different kinds of networks will be appropriate for different kinds of organisations, foundations, and institutions.
- Innovation Networks
- Pollinating networks.
- Collaborative networks
- Service collaboratives
- Communities of practice
- Action learning sets
- Membership organisations
Innovation platforms
There are different types and forms of platforms, but in the main, they involve giving people the tools and resources they need to organise themselves. In the case of Meetup, for example, this means enabling people to connect and come together to discuss and act on issues of their choice. There are countless other examples. Think, for example, of micro-blogging service Twitter, personal publishing platform Wordpress, citizen reporting papers such as OhmyNews, social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, and Bebo, or collaborative projects such as Wikipedia. It is easy to see the generative potential of platforms: as more people get involved, the wider the scope and reach, and by extension, the greater the social impact. But platforms do not follow the traditional linear model of social innovation. The various stages from design, testing, development and diffusion occur almost simultaneously.- Information platforms.
- Platforms for connecting
- Platforms for aggregating action
- Platforms for pro-ams,
- Co-production platforms.
- Online laboratories
- Peer-to-peer platforms
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