International Summer School Taking ideas forward

Conclusion and next steps -Taking Social Innovation Forward

A primary focus of the summer school was how to build the field globally to respond to
growing interest from governments, foundations, businesses and NGOs.There is a lot of impressive and imaginative practice – but the field needs to build up its skills, its methods and its research base.


Six main points emerged as future action points which could help develop and build the
field of social innovation.Clarifying the underlying values of social innovation – and the linking commitment to developing social innovations ‘with’ 1. people rather than ‘by’ or ‘to’, and projects that support collaboration, cooperation and reductions in inequality;
2. Shared language and arguments and cases to use within different countries;
3. The creation of a set of tools (social innovation master‐class – presentation/cartoon/film – ‘social innovation for beginners’, etc) to help explain the field to people from different backgrounds and with different levels of interest and understanding;
4. Develop a Time Bank for social innovators – to help the exchange of knowledge between social innovators from different countries and areas of expertise;
5. Better tools and networks to guarantee we can share content across the sector.SIX – Social Innovation Exchange Page 3 of 4 27/08/08
6. Quick collaboration between the many organizations setting up or running incubators across the world so as to share methods and lessons
Taking SIX forward

Most of the participants belong to the SIX network.

One of the main questions we tried to answer during these three days was how to better use SIX as a vehicle for developing thefield of social innovation by making it easier for practitioners and organisations to exchange methods, tools, experiences and problems.

The next steps for the development of the network on the virtual end were:
• Call for ideas – develop a space on the site for people to post new ideas. What’s
the big idea? Has it been tried and tested before?
• Resource bank – develop a space for posting what’s new – publications, events
etc;
• Book club – Develop a space for members to share what they’ve been reading
about;
• Branding/feel/image –Improve the website to make it more grass roots, less corporate;
• Content – Upload more dynamic and interactive content like videos,
presentations, pictures, live transmissions, etc;
• Forums ‐ Use the site as a test bed for collaborative forums:
‐ forum on incubators
‐ forum on networks
‐ forum on developing a methodology for public sector innovation
‐ forum on best structures for collaborative working

• Pledge bank – Develop a pledge bank tool for the website that allows members to
pledge a certain amount of hours every month/year to help develop other projects
or to help develop the network;
• Travel ‐ keep other members informed when you travel (this can be achieved
through incorporating on the website platforms like WAYN or Dopplr);
• Second Life – Incorporate second life and teleconference facilities (Skype) on the
website to help members meet more easily;
• Local social innovation groups – Use the website to develop small local groups of
social innovators;
• Develop an incubators learning set.


Future SIX events:
• 8‐10th October – Hope Institute ‐ “Social Inventions without Borders” in Seoul
• 5th November – SIX, Shuttleworth Foundation, Open Knowledge Foundation –
“Open Everything” in London
• Next Year’s Summer School ‐ Lisbon 2009, in partnership with the Calouste
Gulbenkian Foundation
Other forthcoming milestones
• Completion of social innovation methods project – March 2009
• Launch of website providing social innovation tools – June 2009