If a strategy or program is successful in one place, more of the same elsewhere will be even better.

“Because we’re interested in doing good while doing well, doing even better by doing even more may not just be a powerful challenge, but also a significant way to reduce the ills and sufferings of the world around us,” writes Charles Cameron, host for this event.



Last July, Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of the Acumen Fund, hosted a workshop on Scale and Replicability.

This wasn’t the only time we’ve looked at issues of scale here on the Edge – the subject keeps recurring. You may want to visit Willy Foote’s event on Geographic Expansion or Bonnie Koenig’s on Going Global.

Jacqueline Novogratz quoted the 5 R’s of scaling up from Rick Dees et al., Scaling Social Impact [Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2004.]

Readiness Is the innovation ready to be spread?

Receptivity Will the innovation be well-received in the target communities?

Resources What resources are required to get the job done right?

Risk What are the chances that things don’t turn out as expected?

Returns What is the bottom line in terms of quality and quantity of impact?

Those are five important questions, and I hope we’ll take advantage of this event to revisit them.

Some points we may want to pursue from the earlier event:

Picking up on Rick Dees’ fourth “R”, Cgasca noted, “It is important to understand that best practices or models are not always transferable to other cultural contexts.”

Probing a bit further, Peter Reese raised what seems to me the fundamental question: “Is the focus of multiplication on using similar methods in other settings or on achieving comparable results?

Along similar lines, Mitra distinguished between scaling up innovative ideas, and organizations. He commented that if your idea is sufficiently better than the ideas your competitors are proposing, they may become your local affiliates rather than your competition.

And Stefanski pointed out that if achieving the greatest social return while remaining sustainable is optimal, “it may be more practical for the entrepreneur to simply offer their knowledge and for future entrepreneurs facing similar challenges to find and apply the knowledge to their unique conditions.”

Each of these points probes the overall idea: they reflect some of the subtleties we should consider when thinking about the power of scaling up to multiply the good.

What’s your experience?

[Note: This is the first of two consecutive events focused on scale: the second, starting next week, will address what we might think of as the opposite imperative -- EF Schumacher’s idea that small is beautiful.]

Patrick O'Heffernan - Apr 11, 2006 3:47 pm (#1 Total: 25)


I recently talked with a NPO leader who started a very successful local program that addresses a national problem. When I asked about national plans, she said she would not expand to a national program because the program would lose its personal contact which is what makes it work. I suggested a franchise and she agreed but neither of us could think of any NPO franchise examples. Do you know of any?

nxtrev - Apr 11, 2006 9:31 pm (#2 Total: 25)


Would you consider reviewing a Christian outreach org. called Christian Business Men's Committee (CBMC)?

If so, consider - the org. first finds a man ready to take on the task of leading - this leader then works in his area to develop a leadership team (the committee) - The committee - made up of about 6-12 people with like minded attitude towards the outreach begin small and grow thier own 'franchise' as they see fit. They take on resp. for finances and work while following bluprint of the Org. james luther nxtrev.org

JColborn - Apr 12, 2006 7:40 am (#3 Total: 25)
The Ford Foundation

Some great thinking on this topic has been done by Kirsten Moi and Greg Ratliff at the Aspen Institute. See http://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/b.613655/k.70FA/Scale_and_Sustainability.htm for more info, papers, etc...

At Ford, we've done some thinking about scaled impact (not necessarily through social enterprise approaches). A publication that reviews some of our thinking appears at http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/docs/asset_pathways.pdf.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 12, 2006 10:06 am (#4 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi, Patrick:

she said she would not expand to a national program because the program would lose its personal contact which is what makes it work

That's a response that, I must say, absolutely delights me. It is just so easy for quantity to be mistaken for quality, and the desire to expand (shorn of any details as to what is expanding, why, or with what impact on other organisms) is one of the great human drivers, invaluable at times but also prone to catastrophic failure!

I personally don’t know of any NPO franchises, and a quick google brought me to a similar discussion at Omidyar where nobody mentioned any – but the idea of franchising tools was mentioned, along with a link to NGO-in-a-box:

NGO-in-a-box is a physical box of CDs consisting of a complimentary set of peer-reviewed and selected Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) solutions tailored to the needs of not-for-profit, non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In order to keep the product current and adapt to changing and regional user needs, the Tactical Technology Collective recommends establishing "a community of regional point people" to review use and make recommendations on how to adapt the box to suit the needs of their users.

I suspect that franchising may be a concept that’s better suited to the "regular business" world than to the world of entrepreneurs, let alone social entrepreneurs – the entrepreneurial spirit may prefer to see its own solutions out of its own juices, rather than working solutions out of a package, I suspect. Franchising may be appropriate where there's a brand of service or product to be franchised, but cooperation and cooptation may be the equivalent strategies where the objective is simply getting the job done, and brand doesn't significantly add value…

Putting that another way, I suspect franchising as a term focuses on the organizational level, and that memetic seeding (ie the spreading of approaches and tools) may be the method by which the social entrepreneurial sector "scales up" organically…

Organizational scaling up is another matter altogether, in my view, because while it requires the development of leadership across an increasingly distributed organization, it doesn’t demand the same fierce level of individuality that originating a concept, approach and / or organization does.

I guess what I'm saying is that bottom up, a given successful approach can be scaled by others borrowing its concepts and implementing them in their own arenas -- while deliberate expansion of a success story from one arena to many is liable to be a top down phenomenon.

Entrepreneurs in general, perhaps, and social entrepreneurs in particular, are likely to be less focused on the organization (brand, continuity of org) and more on the process (insights, outcomes)…

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 12, 2006 10:36 am (#5 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi James:

And welcome to SocialEdge.

You write of the Christian Business Men's Committee (CBMC):

the org. first finds a man ready to take on the task of leading - this leader then works in his area to develop a leadership team (the committee) - The committee - made up of about 6-12 people with like minded attitude towards the outreach begin small and grow thier own 'franchise' as they see fit.

Is the outreach you speak of a preaching outreach, does it include aspects of social service (provision of food, water, health, education etc) – or is its entire focus on social service (performed in the spirit of Christ’s comment that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me")?

It's my impression that whether a particular project is faith based or not isn't the important distinction for us at Social-Edge -- our focus is on entrepreneurial spirit with social impact.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 12, 2006 12:51 pm (#6 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi John, and welcome to the SocialEdge forums.

I very much appreciate your pointing us to Ford Foundation and Aspen Institute resources on the topic of scale – one of the best affordances of a web portal such as our is the chance to bring resources together in a way that facilitates a fast learning curve for best concepts and practices in a given area. We’re also interested in building community, in the sense of bringing the people who post here together in ways that facilitate mutual trust and regard – the foundations of successful networking – so I’d like to invite you to comment at some point on your own work for Ford, your areas of interest etc.

On the specific topic of scaling, the Aspen Institute site you linked to details an approach which will provide:

• A new model for moving to scale with applicability in community development finance and, more broadly, in other areas of the nonprofit arena.
• A better understanding of the critical stages through which individual organizations and a field must move to reach scale, and the obstacles/challenges at each stage.
• A better understanding of interventions, intermediaries, systems and infrastructures that can facilitate and/or accelerate the process of moving to scale.
• A better understanding of the funding needed at each stage, and who the broader universe of partners/participants/stateholders might be.
• Descriptions of future research activities to fill gaps in knowledge and/or test critical hypotheses.

As the documentation points out, the examples are titled towards community development, but the approach / methodology may prove beneficial in other areas of social impact.

I’d like to ask you for your own sense of scaling up in general and franchising in particular. Many of the projects we discuss here are located in the developing world, and differences of culture and resources may be greater than within, say, the American urban environment. Is it your sense that “scaling up” in these circumstances should focus on something other than the organizational level, and if so, what other options do we have for optimizing the impact of our best practices a widely diverse circumstances?

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 12, 2006 12:54 pm (#7 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi John:

In the Ford publication on pathways to large-scale impact you refer us to, I was impressed by the final paragraph of Elizabeth Campbell’s Forward:

While all frameworks are flawed in that they cannot fully capture real-world complexities, many can be helpful in organizing ideas and actions. We offer ours as a potentially useful tool for grantmakers and social-change agents wrestling with the puzzle of obtaining greater impact in their quest to eliminate poverty and injustice.

One of the reasons that so many of our frameworks are flawed is that our attempts to explain them are based on sequences of thought that run from premises or initial assumptions, via example and counter-example to conclusions and / or decisions -- while the typical "shape" of real-world complexities and problems, however is far closer to a net or web of tensions between different ideas or voices – better represented by a concept map than by a through-line.

I have a keen personal interest in developing humanistic thinking tools to mimic nets or webs of tensions of this kind, with special emphasis on the inclusion of emotions -- which give intensity and coloring to the tensions involved – and a special interest in the application of such tools to conflict resolution in particular.

One of the major differences between linear (text based) analyses and visual (concept mapping) approaches is that they don’t privilege some of the ideas in play over others – whereas linear presentations (as in white papers, etc) emphasize assumptions and conclusions, and tend to polarize other positions accordingly. But this in turn carries a powerful implication for our manner of thinking about such things:

It implies that raising and holding a question in mind may in some sense be "truer" to the nature of complex problems than any particular closure-providing answer…

That's a somewhat unexpected idea, considering our society's usual "decision-support" orientation, isn't it?

tutormentor - Apr 13, 2006 3:50 pm (#8 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

I think part of the answer to whether or not an organization should scale up is what type of revenue stream does the organization have to support its operations in one or more places; and what type of work does the organization do.

For instance, in the traditional business model people exchange dollars for goods and services. If a business offers something people want at a fair price, most people will buy. Henry Ford got rich on this concept.

However, most non profits, supported by philanthropy or government grants, can't depend on this simple cash for goods/services exchange.  Donors and grant makers are driven by many different emotions and politics, which means money does not flow consistently to any single organization on a consistent basis for a long time.

This article by Clara Miller, titled The Looking-Glass World of Nonprofit Money: Managing in For-Profits’ Shadow Universe, does a great  job of illustrating why non profits struggle so much to be successful:  http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/section/704.html

Thus, it would be foolish to try to operate multiple locations if you cannot assure consistent funding for staff and services.

A second consideration is the nature of service. If an organization is a "cookie-cutter" operation, that can be easily duplicated, with a few trained people, it's likely to have success operating in multiple locations. McDonalds, Starbucks, and many other corporations do this well.  However, if the complexity of operating is more in depth, and varies depending on the client/customer and the community, then it may be more difficult to assure an even level of service across many locations.

I read a study of the Quantum Opportunities Program back in 1995 (here's a link:

www.aypf.org/publications/RAA/12quant.pdf -

One thing I always remember from this research was a statement that said "while you can franchise structure,  you cannot franchise commitment". Thus, if an organization is a cookie-cutter operation that is easily duplicated, McDonalds, Starbucks, it is probably profitable to franchise. However, if the operations require a greater deal of local flexibility, or creativity, driven by variables such as the clients/customer, or the nature of the community, it's more difficult to operate multiple locations with any degree of consistency.

Thus, I  follow Stefanski's advise, “it may be more practical for the entrepreneur to simply offer their knowledge and for future entrepreneurs facing similar challenges to find and apply the knowledge to their unique conditions.”

I maintain a library of examples of what a tutor/mentor program might look like, as well as my own vision of what a program might look like. Then I organize events that enable people to look at this information and make their own choices of which ideas they will apply to their own situation.

I go a few steps further by organizing knowledge and a database of youth programs, and then leading efforts to help them get critically needed resources, so that the local owner has more of the resources he/she needs to innovate ways to keep a youth involved.

 

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 13, 2006 3:55 pm (#9 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi again, Dan:

I think your quote, while you can franchise structure, you cannot franchise commitment hits the nail on the head.

Always a pleasure to read you...

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 14, 2006 12:25 pm (#10 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Well, it's passover season for some and Holy Week for others -- I just wanted to note that if we slow down for the weekend, I hope we'll be able to pick up again therafter, and perhaps continue this discussion for another week.

And in the meanwhile, to wish all participants and lurkers the appropriate holiday good wishes...

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 20, 2006 7:45 am (#11 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Ah well, I have the feeling in any case that we've continued this conversation over in the newer "scaling" item, the one devoted to the proposition that small is beautiful, or meaningful, or appropriate -- or that appropriate is beautiful, and meaningful... however you'd like to phrase it.

Please join us over there for continuing discussion of just how to ensure that good ideas and best practices get shared in ways that are responsive to local conditions... appropriate and sustainable.

One last stab at the idea of scaling up...

Think global, the saying goes, and act local. Scaling up can be thought of as the reverse procedure: acting local, then thinking global – or at least, thinking expansively. And whereas the basic logic of "think global, then act local" ensures that the wider context is considered while focusing down on problems at the level where they can be addressed in all their local specificity, "act local, then think global" has the advantage of taking success and hopefully replicating it, or in social entrepreneurial terms, doing better by doing more of the same good.

Pamela McLean - Apr 20, 2006 12:03 pm (#12 Total: 25)

Thanks  for this discussion, and the other related ones. There is so much I would like to join in on here -  but I'd finish up writing chapters.

So - thanks to Charles and all contributors - and just an observation regarding “how the saying goes”.

I have had it wrong all this time – I genuinely thought it was the other way round.  I'm always quoting it to my Nigerian friends involved in local community development as "Act local - think global..." This is because I want them to find time to share what they know with a wider audience, because what they are doing is relevant to so many other locations in rural Nigeria – and maybe elsewhere in Africa.  They are are addressing real problems and have learnt so much over the years about what does and does not work.

It seems to me a tragedy if that expertise is only applied locally. Small is beautiful. Bottom up development is appropriate development. But local doesn’t have to stay completely local and unreplicated. We have to do far more to enable local actors to contribute to global thinking – but that entails opportunity costs for them – and local activists tend to be enormously overstretched. However they are the real experts and efforts should be made to learn from their experiences and knowledge. Surely now we have easier access to ICTs this should become more and more achievable. Maybe the saying should become  “Think global – learn local – then act” 

Pam McLean

Cawdnet convenor

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 20, 2006 1:31 pm (#13 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi Pam:

Lovely to read you here once again..

FWIW, I just googled and got 187,000 hits for think global act local and 41,600 for think local act global -- and topping them both, 940,000 for the portmanteau word, glocal !!

Where that leaves us, nobody knows!

ValerieB - Apr 20, 2006 1:31 pm (#14 Total: 25)

(oops, Charles slipped in while I was posting...)

Thought-provoking post, Pamela!

Learning how to do anything is such an iterative process. What I think a lot of us crave is the opportunity to reflect on what we are learning as we go with others on the path.

Volumes have been written about best practices, and much can be learned from reading them, but it's just so much more compelling to have a chat with someone who has been there, done that, and has some war stories to tell.

It's why I hope conversations like this one will continue.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 20, 2006 1:37 pm (#15 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi, Valerie:

Welcome to SocialEdge!

Volumes have been written about best practices ... but it's just so much more compelling to have a chat with someone who has been there, done that, and has some war stories to tell.

That's spot on, I think. And in terms of "knowledge management", that's pretty much the difference between overt and tacit knowledge right there, isn't it? The best practices manual contains the explicit knowledge people have on the subject, but it's a bit stilted and limited, whereas the "war stories" you speak of are probably passed along at the water cooler not in a formal memo, and get far closer to the heart of the subject -- and of the person listening and learning too, I'll bet!

Pamela McLean - Apr 20, 2006 2:01 pm (#16 Total: 25)

Thanks for the replies Charles and ValerieB.

Ref "Learning how to do anything is such an iterative process."

Absolutely. And it's only as you are learning that you begin to understand what the question really is (or what it should be). Which IMHO is why the "traditional format" for doing proposals is all back to front - because too much funding is directed to "giving solutions" (as defined in the funding proposal - before work gets underway). Unfortunately precious few resources are available to get the question right first - so the "solutions" are often "less than helpful". Usually the people who do understand the questions/problems are not the people providing the "solutions"  (Except where local self-funded solutions are provided to solve local problems - which is done with insufficient resources - by people too overstretched to put a proper funding proposal together). To get things right you need money,ideas, skills and  networks - too often the money goes out insufficiently supported.

Ref "It's just so much more compelling to have a chat with someone who has been there, done that, and has some war stories."- I think my rant above comes from a feeling that Valerie and I may have some similar stories

Pam 

ValerieB - Apr 20, 2006 2:50 pm (#17 Total: 25)

Er, yes, I imagine so!

I have been struck more than once with how things get sort of twisted around when one is writing a grant application... in an effort to make one's own initiative sound like a good fit for the solution proposed by the funders, one spins what is hoped to be a compelling narrative.  By the time I'm through, I almost believe the story I've written. 

It would be so refreshing to be able to write a proposal which said something along the lines of, "well, we're not sure, exactly how we are going to go about this, but we have some really smart, experienced people helping us and we think we stand a good chance of figuring it out if we're permitted to explore a bit!

Pamela McLean - Apr 20, 2006 3:32 pm (#18 Total: 25)

And what about the ones that only seem interested in paying for the fancy stuff. So when you want help to kick start a new project or part of a project they only seem interested in photo-opportunity stuff (the stuff that actually you could manage to do in  cheaper ways than they are willing to pay for) It seems they'll pay for "shiny-and-new" rather than the "make-do-and-mend" "second-hand"  "borrow-mine"  "let's make a bit more space over here" creative maximising of resources that is the cultural norm - at least it is with the projects I know. But then they but won't help with the essentials - the things that can't be rustled up without finding the necessary money - because that's "only people" or "consumables" etc..... 

tutormentor - Apr 21, 2006 1:46 pm (#19 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection


Pamela, as one who writes too many grant requests that are mostly rejected, I feel your pain. Thus, I've been trying to change the paradygm and get funders to make choices of where they fund, based on where the need is, and what organizations in those areas are doing work that the donor wants to support.

One way to draw attention to where the need is would be for local organizations and their clients to use blogs to tell their story.

Ethan Zukerman wrote about aggregating blogs in his own blog at http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog?p-452 . I repeated his message in my own http://tutormentor.blogspot.com message of March 30, 2006.

If groups who have a common goal, or a common geography, or a common problem, can find ways to form networks of purpose, I think they can attract the attention of donors to their cause and perhaps make a significant shift in how funds are awarded.

I'm trying to apply this concept in building support for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

Dan Bassill Tutor/Mentor Connection

JessicaMargolin - Apr 21, 2006 4:09 pm (#20 Total: 25)

Cameron said, "I think your quote, while you can franchise structure, you cannot franchise commitment hits the nail on the head."

But, actually you can franchise commitment to some degree:

Step 1a, you see what parameters are necessary for commitment; to the extent you can build those, there might be a decision to proceed even if those areas aren't met.

Step 1b, you determine where value is created -- where the commitment is coming from. You can then incorporate the value-creation components of the structure of the franchise model.

Step 2 is of course creating feedback mechanisms and intervention points

Step 3 is stress-testing it.

I think it's important to leverage and learn as a way to reduce risks for potential funders, organizers, volunteers, and community members.

That said, the return might be longterm for a community, so I am always hesitant with "first you start with a self-sustaining enterprise...." as a stipulation for the franchise concept.

tutormentor - Apr 22, 2006 6:16 am (#21 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection


I agree Jessica, there are some ways to approach it. However, I don't think many of these are likely to result from the efforts of the small entrepreneurs who are creating new enterprises.

Instead, I've been looking for universities who might partner with the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to take on a role of "creating leaders" who might populate the field.

If I were a business with large sums of money, I could endow a chair at a university, or pay for this service. However, as a small non profit, my enticement is "vision" and the potential of a university to provide 'tipping point' type impact across an entire social sector.

If someone from a university wanted to tackle this problem, then some of the steps you've suggested might be steps they would consider.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 22, 2006 6:23 pm (#22 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi Pam, Val.

Okay, here’s the same basic issue surfacing in two places. Pam writes:

it's only as you are learning that you begin to understand what the question really is (or what it should be). Which IMHO is why the o"traditional format" for doing proposals is all back to front - because too much funding is directed to "giving solutions" (as defined in the funding proposal - before work gets underway). Unfortunately precious few resources are available to get the question right first - so the "solutions" are often "less than helpful".

Val writes:

things get sort of twisted around when one is writing a grant application... in an effort to make one's own initiative sound like a good fit for the solution proposed by the funders, one spins what is hoped to be a compelling narrative.

Do others here find themselves in similar situations? Is this a recurring problem, ie a pattern? Is it, in fact, not just an exception but something closer to the general rule?

What are the obstacles to changing this pattern?

What can be done in individual situations where this pattern obtains? What can be done to address this pattern at a meta-level -- ie not only in terms of your own particular situation and project, but in terms of changing the overall approach?

Dan is offering one response in his post -- the use of blogs by local organizations and their clients to tell their stories. This is a grass-roots upward response -- but are there ways to ensure that the problem faced at the grass-roots level gets heard by those who need to hear it?

Dan also suggests forming networks of purpose -- but the key point he makes, I feel, is the need for an approach that addresses the paradigm under which we're operating:

, I've been trying to change the paradigm and get funders to make choices of where they fund, based on where the need is, and what organizations in those areas are doing work that the donor wants to support

Paradigm shift. It's a very difficult task -- but it's also very high on Donella Meadows' list of Places to Intervene in a System, and thus a very powerful approach if we can manage it!

Pamela McLean - Apr 23, 2006 4:20 am (#23 Total: 25)

Reference "Places to Intervene in a System"  (Charles please give us the link).

It seems to me that there is often a good match between what funders want to achieve and what activists are trying to do. However,the mismatch comes at the point in the system where they try to communicate with each other. It is a typical problem of top-down and bottom-up failing to link up.

I am reminded of a useful analysis of this problem, by Stephen Musgrave (I could find the full reference). The analysis is based on a study of top-down and bottom-up initiatives related to e-gov in the UK, but he takes a systems approach which is widely applicable.   

He describes something that I remember as “areas of confluence” (though that my not be his exact term). Basically – he suggests that more attention needs to be given to areas of confluence if the different inputs of “top-down” and “bottom-up” are to meet together and flow on effectively. Steven addresses the problem of mismatch between the cultures by suggesting that each side should have people who are given *equal status* who meet at the area of confluence – he calls these people “information czars”.  

 

Dan’s suggestion of blogs is a step in this direction. In a way it is offering a strategy  for crossing the culture gap, so that funders can get to understand something of the culture in which bottom-up initiatives work, and, as a result offer more apporprate mechanisms for awarding funding.

 

Another example of communicating on equal terms equally at the area of confluence was the redevelopment of a public open space in a run down area of London (near Kings Cross station). It was a requirement that anyone putting forward a scheme must show evidence that their proposals reflected local opinion and need. The plan that was finally adopted had taken an innovative approach to consultation. The company concerned had provided public consultation opportunities, but recognised that no young people ever attended, so their voice was not being heard. The invitation to the consultation process simply did not seem to apply to them. I often have similar feelings about funding proposal processes.

 

To overcome the problem of youth involvement the company sent out a professional film crew, with a young person acting as interviewer. They went to local youth clubs and other spaces where young people met, and asked their opinions. The resulting video was presented along with written reports of standard consultations.

 

The point of this example is that both sides were able to communicate without leaving their cultural comfort zone. The young people presented their opinions in a natural way –speaking informally and spontaneously to someone they felt comfortable with; wearing their normal casual clothes; and on their own territory. They came up with useful insight into problems and possible solutions. Similarly the decision makers heard those opinions in their cultural comfort zone - formal suits; offices and conference rooms; considering evidence in formal ways that they felt comfortable with.

 

Somehow activists and funders have to develop a cultural meeting point that is appropriate for both sides - I'm hopeful that Social Edge is the place it could start to happen..

 

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Apr 24, 2006 10:38 am (#24 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Pam:

You write:

Reference "Places to Intervene in a System" (Charles please give us the link).

Wioth pleasure! -- and I'll add a bonus!

Places to Intervene in a System is Donella Meadows’ classic account of where interventions will have the greatest impact -- an astonishingly important paper for anyone hoping to change the way things are. Using Jay Forrester’s systems rtheory as her basis, Meadows shows that the greatest impact doesn’t come by influencing quantities (numbers, material stocks and flows) but from playing with the rules of the system (incentives, punishment, constraints), the power of self-organization, the goals of the system, and above all the mindset or paradigm out of which the goals, rules, feedback structure arise.

http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid790.php

Dancing with Systems: What to do when systems resist change is an excerpt from Donella Meadows's unfinished last book. Systems thinking says the future can't be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can't be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can't surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can't impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone. A brilliant essay in favor of a fully human and humane understanding of complex situations, problems.

http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Dancing.html

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - May 3, 2006 9:29 am (#25 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


This may or may not be a Biob Dylan quote, I forget -- but eirther way, this event will still be open for another week, so let's all just carry on carrying on..