Introduction, by Ignasi Carreras
Keys for innovation:
- Link ideas.
- Challenge the “status quo” by questioning it.
- Have an “attentive” eye.
- Share experiences/knowledge in your networks.
- Experiment and essay.
- Learn from errors.
A reference: Rodríguez Blanco, Carreras, Sureda (2012). Innovar para el cambio social (PDF).
Keynote: Jem Bendell, Director of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Cumbria, UKUnleashing Abundance: “collaborative disruptive social innovation”.
How to enable and foster systemic change? Impact the decision makers. The Deeer Luxury report aimed at raising awareness on how top-level brands were disrespectful for the environment.
Enterprises, especially big companies, can be — should be — used for massive change.
The Internet brings massive potential for change, based on disruptive innovation.
(Bendell describes here a list of disruptive innovations, like Wikipedia, Kickstarter or virtual currencies).
We have to stop thinking that we are poor: there is abundance of resources, beginning with the way we relate with each other, how we are useful to others. To be the change we have to be the change together, and build alternatives together
. A way of starting could be getting out of the financial system and see whether we can collaborate without money, just exchanging our own wealth (which is not necessarily money).
Discussion
Q: How to make disruptive innovation and social innovation mainstream? Jem Bendell: try to bring the innovators out of your usual framework, and nurture them. We have to get people out of their comfort zone so that they can see what is happening outside in the world. CEOs should create subsidiaries that only focus on social innovation, taking innovators to see poverty, to see other realities.
