Technology-driven organizations have traditionally based their growth
strategies around technology-based research and innovation, primarily
carried out by highly skilled engineers and product designers in closed
research labs.  Think about the skunkworks team of engineers
responsible for the design of the Motorola Razr. 

Realizing that technology-driven innovation drives short term growth,
but often fails to deliver on long-term value, many organizations in
the past decade have adopted a consumer (or marketing) innovation
focus, driving growth through in-depth consumer research and
observation. Popularized by leading design firms such as IDEO and
Cheskin, consumer-driven research is still carried out by experts
(anthropologists), although with a more human focus.

At this year’s IIT Institute of Design’s Strategy Conference, Josephine Green of Philips Design introduced the idea of social innovation. 
She spoke about the need for businesses to adopt an innovation strategy
based around the delivery of socially-driven products and services
co-created directly with experts, customers, and future-driven
entrepreneurs and creative communities.

So how do socially-driven organizations operate?

By Green’s definition, social innovation is based not only on
identifying social, cultural, and individual human needs, but also
through gaining a holistic understanding and appreciation for the
relationship between people and the products they use. In other words,
looking at the greater experience of a product or service as a whole to
identify new contexts of use.  Apple is one example of an organization
that has gotten it right on more than one occasion: first with the iPod
+ iTunes combination, and most recently through their partnership with
Nike on Nike+. 

What also differentiates social innovation from its predecessors is
that by its very nature, social innovation requires the engagement of
different stakeholders (both client-side and consumer) from the
beginning of a project’s inception through a process of collaboration
and co-creation between stakeholders and experts.

What does this mean for interactive marketers and designers? First and
foremost, I believe we’ll play a prominent role in championing an
‘open’ philosophy to design and innovation in which our primary
responsibility is no longer about delivering ‘finished’ products or
experiences, but crafting unfinished or open solutions that are capable
of evolving with users over time. Second, there will be a strong need
for those with a creative generalist skill set to facilitate many of
the ongoing conversations between consumers and subject-matter experts.
It’s definitely an exciting road ahead.

Audrey Carr