Osorio Design for Social Business.pdf

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Positive+Design for Social Bchallenges, unknowns and qBy Carlos A. Osorio, PhD ([email protected]), professor of innovation Universidad

fellow at the Center for Social Innovation of A Roof for my Country, and founder o

situation:from problem toopportunity

There are 4 billion people living

with less than US$4 a day, andmost of them are in developing

nations. Their situation is getting

worse due to increasing

inequalities in their possibilities

for capturing new value creation,

the effect of the poverty tax

complementary dimensions that

affect one core thing (see figure 1

above): their dignity.

My question and motivation is

how can we use design andinnovation to (i) understand the

situation better, (ii) design better

solutions to these problems, (iii)

increase the number of firms

involved in social business, and

(iv) make it in sustainable ways.

Hammo

new deal

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2009; M

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DESIGN4SOCIALBUSI

FIgure 1: Social

challenges, unknowns(sources ofuncertainty, risk andambiguity), andquestions to answer.

Inspired in the areasof design proposedfor the Create for

Chile challenges tosolve the socialproblems after theChilean Earthquake ofFebruary 2010.

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In this context, we need a new

approach for integrating the views and

methods from design, management

and social sciences; but also we need to

integrate the many perspectives aboutsocial business, sustainability, inclusion,

and profit-making.

Also, I think, we need to make explicit

how uncertainty, risk, ambiguity and

ignorance affect our design methods

and frameworks, as well as our

solutions.

(positive+design)thinking-driven innovationfor social business

As stated by Steve Pinker (2006) not

all ideas are for positive constructive

change, and the same can be said

about knowledge, techniques, methodsand disciplines. When facing acute

social problems, the word positive

reaches a new meaning, because solving

the Worlds toughest problems require a

new mindset.

Positive design goes beyond having a

positive and new mindset, and aims at

achieving a goal that is beyond just"good". Here, having a new mindset

means being capable of perceiving

reality in many different ways, and

being insightful in making sense of

those pieces of reality. That is, it's not

the same to focus efforts on something

we think is worth pursuing, than

believing something deemed impossible

can be achieved.

One example of such an impossible

challenge is the High-Cost Economy of

the Poor problem described by

Prahalad and Hammond (2002), which

h d i h

Solving and innovating in tough social

problems requires being capable of

taking a creative leap. This can result

from training and learning to enhance

openness and willingness to take these

leaps (Kelley & Hartfield, 1996).

Moreover, as the authors stated, there

is a difference between problem solvingand creating beyond what the

problem calls for. Verganti explains

this by stating that design-driven

problem solving is a process that can be

inexhaustible in allowing companies to

create new products (Verganti, 2006),

but it also reaches beyond just products

or the problem (Brown, 2009), and goes

beyond companies and beyond profitgeneration.

In order to do this, we need a special

attitude towards problem solving that

make designers (i) look at the world

b d th p bl d t t ( li it)

other words, des

innovation focu

current user exp

possible user exp

Barry, 2007; Bu

2003).

Here, I stress theexperience. One

products, service

authors have pro

processes for pro

for services (Ulr

agree with this p

differently when

innovating in th

experience that service-process-b

This approach i

but it reaches wh

when one goes f

k t t th

SafeAgua

an umbrell

to solve th

related pro

people incampame

Chile.

It was deve

from Desig

Center Col

Pasadena)

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people livincampame

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participants of the social constructs and dynamics that

involve them, rather than merely recipients of goods and

beneficiaries of goodwill.

Doing this, however, requires focusing the innovation process

into the challenge at hand by taking a human-centered

approach (Brown, 2008) that is focused into discovering thehidden aspects of the problem, understanding them from

various and different perspectives, using anthropologic

methods such as ethnographic research and metaphor

elicitation- to discover areas of opportunity and insights in

order to discover anomalies and create a unique and

complete point of view about the problem.

There is, however, an additional and fundamental difference

when confronting acute social problems: solving these

problems and avoiding recurrence requires going beyond

what is necessary. In this context, necessary reaches a

whole new meaning. Many social problems, especially those

dealing with the poorest, are faced from the perspective of

charity and, as result, they are often temporarily solved

until the urgency pushing for charity decreases and resources

start to become scarce. This raises an additional question: Is

there space for a combination between purely profit-driven,and purely social-driven innovations? If so, what is the right

combination. We are trying to understand this under the

concept of inclusiveness.

However, and particularly in this case, good understanding

means little without action. In Chile, we are going beyond

understanding and the learning we have had by

experimentation, and we are trying to provoke change.During the Global Entrepreneurship Week, in November

2010, companies, the government and NGOs are uniting

and theming the week as the Week of Social Innovation and

Entrepreneurship, with leading participation of the

President and the Minister for National Planning, who leads

In this context, we need a new appro

vision from various disciplines -design

management and technology- and is

that could allow us to understand soc

ways, design better solutions, reach o

actors from various sectors of societythat can be sustained in the long term

these last paragraphs, and its shown

next page).

referencesAkula, V. 2010. Fistful of Rice: My U

End Poverty Through Profitability. B

Business School Press.Beckman, S., & Barry, M. 2007. Inn

Process: Embedding Design Thinkin

Management Review, 50(1): 25-56.

Brown, T. 2008. Design Thinking. H

(June): 1-9.

Brugmann, J., & Prahalad, C. K. 20

Business's New Social Compact. Har

February.

Buxton, B. 2007. Sketching User Exdesign right and the right design. San

Cescau, P. 2008. Social Innovation a

Development as Drivers of Growth,

Spring.

Fulton-Suri, J. 2003. The Experienc

Developments in Design Practice. De

39-48.

Karnani, A. 2007. The Mirage of M

of the Pyramid: how can the private

poverty. California Management Rev

Kelley, D., & Hartfield, B. 1996. Th

T. Winograd (Ed.), Bringing Design t

Addison-Wesley.

London, T. 2009. Making Better Inv

the Pyramid. Harvard Business Revie

Moss Kanter, R. 1999. From Spare

Change: the social sector as beta site Harvard Business Review, May-June.

Prahalad, C. K., & Hammond, A. 2

Poor, Profitably. Harvard Business Re

Ulrich, K., & Eppinger, S. 2004. Pro

Development: McGraw-Hill

Verganti, R. 2006. Innovating Thro

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hallenges,

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Osorio Design for Social Business.pdf