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Social Innovation: Innovation for the Good of Us All

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"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.  That sucks."  So says 28-year-old Cloudera founder, early Facebook veteran and one of Bloomberg BusinessWeek's  "Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs" in 2010, Jeff Hammerbacher, in a refreshing insight about the present state of innovation.  In fact, if we're honest and sober, aren't  we all exhausted with the incessant media obsession over the next new big IPO that we really, truly, can live without, especially when there is so much else that could be done which would really make life better for so many of our fellow humans?

Case in point:  30 million people have died of AIDS over the past three decades, yet a few weeks back, when page one news recently broke of significant advances  in "treatment as prevention," how long did it hold the media's attention?  In truth, not very long at all, while the continuous drum-beat of the business press reported nearly every nuance of  forthcoming deals associated with social networks that sell you coupons to places you might not really ever want to go to, or that promise you the opportunity to be elected "mayor of your bar." Does this make sense to you?

Can this really be where our interests truly lie?  Is it always all about wealth aggrandizement? Where are the great social innovations? And, why don't we hear more about them as well? Don't get me wrong, I love my iPad and Twitter, and all the other stuff that goes along with entrepreneurship and the pursuit of wealth-creation,  and I'm neither a Luddite nor a tree-hugger, but where are our priorities? Is there no room for attention to also be paid to innovations that have less promise regarding wealth, but serve broad and important social objectives?  Have we completely lost our minds? Will we be able to look the next generation in the eyes when we describe our period on watch as custodians of their future? I simply feel that at a time when we need all the brain-power we can get to address long-standing social and environmental problems, that  it's a bit bizarre to instead bet huge amounts of money on yet another internet game producer, no matter how great the graphics, while ignoring issues of our community, planet and species. Or, am I wrong?

There is hope, however. A week  or so ago, I retweeted the story of a "restaurant dignity" program -- Panera Cares --  established by the Panera Bread Foundation, where the idea is that you shouldn't be stigmatized if you can't pay for a meal, and that it is possible for restaurants to serve both paying customers, and those unable to pay, equally, and in the same place, at the same time. As innovations go, this is no Google, but I was (pleasantly) astonished at how many other people picked-up that tweet and retweeted it again and again. It clearly struck a chord within the innovation community!

So, where are the others that we should all know about?  How about a visit to the Shanghai Social Innovation Park, or The Nest (pictured above), which is a government-sponsored incubator with a special focus on assisting innovative entrepreneurs to set up and grow social enterprises to involve and assist the disadvantaged?  In this case, a collaboration between the Shanghai City Government (which provides funding) and an aggregation of several NGO support organizations (which actually run the project), it represents the first initiative of its type in China.  As with Panera Cares, it was no big deal as far as "innovation" goes, but it really was an innovation for Shanghai, and it really was a big deal for those it served, in a society where the disadvantaged have more often been overlooked.

Social Innovation has been around for a long time, but it has never gained the attention that it deserves. In 2010 (August 12). the Economist observed, "... so far the enthusiasm for social entrepreneurship has run ahead of its effects." Isn't it time that we turned more of the spotlight back onto things that really matter?

I would be very interested to learn of other Social Innovations that readers feel merit more attention.

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Bill Fischer's latest book is The Idea Hunter (co-authored with Andy Boynton) (Jossey-Bass, 2011)

Bill Fischer can be followed on Twitter @bill_fischer