Last week at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, over 500 executive leaders in the private, non-profit and public sectors gathered to discuss the topic of “What’s Next?” in social innovation. The Social Innovation Summit included panels on sustainability, economic development, and had special guest Alicia Keys top off the conference with a discussion on her celebrity activism. Waggener Edstrom was a lead sponsor during the Summit, and conducted a workshop on Social Media for Social Good moderated by Jennifer Houston, President of WE Studio D.
To summarize what WE learned from the event’s other sixty speakers, we are sharing the following six takeaways relevant for any social innovator:
Top Takeaways from #SIS12
- Scale, scale, scale – the buzz word from #SIS12. Nearly every panel discussed the importance of bringing a particular service that is having social impact to scale, to reach the masses. Scale appears to be one of the primary ways social innovation services are being measured – if the idea cannot scale to have far reaching impact, investors and corporate partners are likely going to be less interested, but this presents an interesting conundrum because local, grassroots efforts are essential as well.
- Storytelling remains paramount. Many still feel their companies and organizations are not doing a good enough job telling their story – and there is a demand for consulting and learning nuances and expertise of telling a compelling story. Storytelling, in essence, is all about customer experience. Storytelling drives behavior and behavioral changes, and authenticity and intermediaries will have the most impact while focusing on positive outcomes. People want to be engaged, whether its advocates, partners, donors or general audiences: that’s why constant feedback is a must for all who support a cause. As such, this constant “content machine” has to come from a variety of sources - companies need to learn to be more transparent and share information out more frequently.
- Focus on the outcome, not the brand. The nuance here is that these stories should be mined and then amplified from the grassroots audience. The brand centered story is less important than the outcome of the story from the perspective of the participants, audience, users, and/or beneficiaries.
- The line between paid and earned content is blurring. The Huffington Post is pushing that edge with their Causes pages, and this may likely become the new norm. Being in the content business is even more important today than ever (and we’re seeing that in the uptick of content work and hunger for storytelling). Check out the J&J Global Motherhood platform as an example.
- Many companies are worried about the limits of their CSR initiatives because the reputational benefits companies derive from their CSR programs, even when the latter are well thought out and effectively implemented, become less of a differentiator when every company has one. That said, a world in which every organization has a well thought out, effective CSR program is a great problem to have!
- Philanthropy has to have a sustainable business model. Shared value was another recurring theme at the Social Innovation Summit. There has been a shift in intention from a social contract mentality, to a social capital mentality, where business strategies are tied to social strategies. Companies understand the need to solve social problems, but the only way to do so is to harness the engine of business. In line with this new way of thinking, companies need to be open about their intentions and motivations – from a business value perspective, and how social innovation programs can advance those interests while still doing “good.” You need to tell the story of business!
The Social Innovation Summit panels will be available for a limited time on The United Nations Web TV. And, you can still check out the tweets at #SIS12 for more popular highlights.
Stay tuned for details about the next Summit hosted by Landmark Ventures on the West Coast later this year!
-
LisaB
