Inside Social Innovation

Latest Episodes:

Nonprofit Management: The Art of Organizing Volunteers Dec 11, 2010

Show notes

BigTent arose out of a need to find a white-label platform to support volunteer-based group leaders without a lot of operations money. Groups such as PTAs, alumni groups, and new-mother groups need to be able to maintain membership lists and have a means of disseminating important information, organizing volunteers for events, and other activities. In this interview conducted by Sheela Sethuraman, Laney Whitcanack talks about how BigTent offers online aid for the self-perpetuation of these inherently intimate groups, which typically have both online and offline member connections. It's quality in relationships, not quantity, that Whitcanack emphasizes. Advertising sponsors recognize the worth of volunteer leaders and "household CEOs," as Whitcanack dubs the typical involved moms, who make decisions for families and influence their communities.

Laney Whitcanack focuses on online and offline innovations that connect people with communities they care about. Taking notice of the scarcity of good and cheap technology to support groups, and being part of 27 Yahoo! groups herself, Whitcanack cofounded BigTent in 2006. She spent the decade previous to BigTent coaching and training hundreds of community leaders, in the U.S. and Mexico, most recently as the Director of Community Programs for the Coro Center for Civic Leadership.

While at Coro, Whitcanack co-founded The Princess Project in 2002, engaging thousands of girls and women across California each year in volunteer opportunities. A published author and speaker on entrepreneurship and community organizing, she received the Jefferson Award for Public Service in 2008. Whitcanack has a BA from UCLA, an MBA from the Simmons School of Management, and an EdM from Harvard University.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/nonprofit_management_the_art_of_organizing_volunteers

Environmental Sustainability for Small Businesses Dec 09, 2010

Show notes

Small business is about doing what needs to be done for the customer in front of the counter. It's the model of innovation, efficiency, and customer service. So when Intuit, which serves small businesses with its tax and accounting software, and eBay, arguably the largest small business incubator in the world, wanted to talk to small businesses about green initiatives, they had a lot to say. Now both Intuit and eBay have sites for the small businesses they serve to 'talk green.' They've picked up a lot of insight. In September, eBay launched the reuseable eBay box.

The green revolution comes from the far ends of individual thinking, lab science, and it can lead to legislation that sometimes vindicates and sometimes blindsides small businesses. Some small businesses already have solutions. Everyone could use a little more information-sharing. The information is difficult to aggregate, but it's out there.

Amy Skoczlas Cole, of eBay says in 2007 the eBay Green Team assembled forty-strong, grew to 24,000 employees, and when they opened it to eBay users, 300,000 signed on. eBay Green Team members had to learn it was a two-way conversation. Better ideas from their sellers led them to change strategy from "providing information" to "asking questions to provoke conversation." eBay customers were particularly interested in reducing package waste. One outcome is the reuseable, trackable, eBay Box, launched in September 2010.

Intuit has a very successful site for sharing small business tax tips. Now, through IntuitGreen.com, small businesses can share green ideas, too. Rupesh Shah of Intuit has found small businesses have practiced 'corporate responsibility' as a matter of course, long before it had a name. They're concerned about waste, especially of time and money, yet they're very focused on keeping good relationships in the community around them. But sometimes shear lack of time isolates small businesses from information that can keep them in synch with the times.

Amy Skoczlas Cole's passion for the natural world started in kindergarten, when she first wrote an essay on her love for koala bears. After studying environmental policy in college, she joined the staff of Conservation International (CI), where she turned her passion into a career. At eBay, she leads all the different aspects of the company's environmental strategy. What excites her most, though, is tapping into the collective power of the 90-95 million people who use eBay to make a real difference in world. That's why she loves running the eBay Green Team, building a movement to help consumer save money and the planet at the same time – by using products that already exist in the world.

Rupesh D. Shah is the Director of Corporate Sustainability at Intuit, a leading software solutions provider and the makers of TurboTax and QuickBooks. Rupesh has led a wide-variety of initiatives including new products and partnerships, conducting detailed environmental assessments, developing corporate-wide sustainability goals, and increasing the transparency of Intuit's efforts. Prior to that, Shah was Director of Product Management for TurboTax Business products and previously he helped to create and launch new industry-specific versions of QuickBooks.

Shah has also served as Manager of Learning and Development at Odwalla and Training Manager at Earth Train, an environmental nonprofit organization dedicated to providing youth leaders the skills, resources, and network to make a difference in their local communities. He has also consulted for AmeriCorps, the Presidio Leadership Center, the Corporation for National Service, Gorbachev Foundation, the United Nations and various other leading social organizations around the world. Shah has a MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and a BA from the University of California, San Diego.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/environmental_sustainability_for_small_businesses

Applying Design Thinking to Healthcare Dec 07, 2010

Show notes

In the developing world, healthcare is often a scarce commodity. That's why innovative products such as those being produced by re:motion designs are so important. In this audio interview, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Ashkon Jafari talks with CEO Joel Sadler about the company's initial product, the JaipurKnee, an artificial knee joint costing less than $20 that is dramatically changing the lives of amputees in developing countries. He describes how he became invovled in the field of medical devices, how his engineers have approached design and prototyping, and how the company has secured funding and created partnerships. He also offers advice for the aspiring engineering or design student.

Joel Sadler is the co-founder and CEO of re:motion designs. A former product designer at Apple, he is currently a fellow and lecturer at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. A Jamaican native, Sadler was inspired to work on low-cost medical devices after an MIT fellowship to design affordable wheelchairs in Mexico. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and Stanford.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/applying_design_thinking_to_healthcare

If You Need Something, Just Ask Dec 06, 2010

Show notes

At the conference "Small Steps, Big Leaps: The Science of Getting People to do the Right Thing," scientists present tactics for summoning better behavior. They brief attendees at the Center for Social Innovation on data that shows that "gentle nudges, subtle tweaks, and quiet prompts " are more effective tactics for encouraging social responsibility.

Appealing to the better angels of our nature sounds good in theory, but in this audio lecture, Stanford professor Francis Flynn offers practical solutions to problems such as how to ask people for help, how to motivate people to ask for help, and what to do after people have refused to help. He sheds light on what it means to take the perspective of the person asking for help versus the perspective of the person being asked. His counter-intuitive results spark interesting questions from the audience, many of whom are in nonprofits dependent on volunteer recruitment and fund-raising to achieve their goals.

Francis Flynn says he chose an academic career, in part, because he found the level of "asking for stuff" in a social work career a bit too uncomfortable. In this lecture, Professor Flynn says he brought curiosity about that to his research. His studies focus on social influence and cooperation; they illuminate patterns of interpersonal relations, leadership, diversity and helping behavior in organizations.

Flynn has been a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business since 2006. Flynn received a PhD in Organizational Behavior at the University of California, Berkeley. He then taught at Columbia Business School until 2006. Today at Stanford, he also acts as the Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/if_you_need_something_just_ask

Name Your Price Dec 03, 2010

Show notes

Identity-related purchasing decisions are illuminated by Leif Nelson who shows how cause-related marketing intersects with pay-what-you-want pricing. Nelson contends greater revenue and increased goodwill for corporate sponsors can be directly related. These field experiments at major theme parks manipulated various aspects of the purchasing experience for souvenir action photos. Nelson shares his research group's results and methodology. Finally, he defines a new concept of "shared social responsibility."

Leif Nelson and his co-authors, Ayelet Gneezy and Uri Gneezy, published "Shared Social Responsibility: A Field Experiment in Pay-What-You-Want Pricing and Charitable Giving" in Science magazine. They found that while fewer people purchase pay-what-you-want items linked to charitable donations, the price per item rose more than enough to compensate for the slight loss in volume. Total corporate revenue was greater when charitable donations were involved. Purchasers consistently reported feeling more positive about a company that offered pay-what-you-want pricing linked to charitable donations.

The increased revenue for corporations is supported by social norms that encourage generosity towards charities. Nelson explored the possibility that corporations might re-purpose their current charitable contributions to be linked to pay-what-you-want purchases.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/leif_nelson_name_your_price

Firm Stereotypes Matter Nov 22, 2010

Show notes

How can you boost credibility to nonprofits, who may appear to be warm, but needy? Or how do you promote warmth and admirability to for-profits, who may appear to be competent, but greedy? Marketing professor Jennifer Aaker shows how stereotypes can be reframed to influence consumer behavior - nonprofits see greater fundraising success when they highlight the effectiveness of their work rather than their need, while for-profits aligned to a social mission convey a greater sense of social consciousness than their competitors. Aaker spoke at Small Steps, Big Leaps, a special research briefing she convened with Professors Francis Flynn and their colleagues in the field of prosocial behavior. They presented practical, and cost-effective solutions for encouraging donations, volunteerism, social activism, and other responsible, caring prosocial behaviors.

Jennifer Aaker, social psychologist and marketer, is the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Her research spans time, money and happiness. She focuses on questions such as: What actually makes people happy, as opposed to what they think make them happy? How do small acts create significant change, and how can those effects be fueled by social media? She is widely published in the leading scholarly journals in psychology and marketing, and her work has been featured in a variety of media including The Economist, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Forbes, CBS MoneyWatch, NPR, Science, Inc, and Cosmopolitan.

A sought-after teacher in the field of marketing, Professor Aaker teaches in many of Stanford's Executive Education programs as well as MBA electives including Designing Happiness, Brands, Design & Social Technology, How to Tell a Story, and The Power of Social Technology. Recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, Citibank Best Teacher Award, George Robbins Best Teacher Award and both the Spence and Fletcher Jones Faculty Scholar Awards, she has also taught at UC Berkeley, UCLA and Columbia.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/firm_stereotypes_matter

Philanthropy Can Be Good for You Nov 21, 2010

Show notes

Money doesn't make you happy, but giving it away does. This is the theme of an audio lecture given by Harvard Business School Professor Mike Norton at the Stanford Center on Social Innovation's conference, Small Steps, Big Leaps: The Science of Getting People to Do the Right Thing. Norton discusses his research on how much money a person must spend, and under what conditions, in order to experience an increase in happiness and well-being. He also focuses on practical applications of his knowledge, strategizing creative ways for companies to engage in philanthropy and to encourage their employees to donate money.

Mike Norton is an associate professor of business administration in the marketing unit at Harvard Business School. After earning a BA in Psychology and English from Williams College and a PhD in Psychology from Princeton University, he was a fellow at the MIT Media Lab and at MIT's Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on consumer behavior, consumer psychology, decision-making, nonprofits, and social enterprise.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/philanthropy_can_be_good_for_you

Money Makes People Less Socially Focused Nov 15, 2010

Show notes

With money on the mind, people work harder and longer before asking for help and are more reticent to help others. This self-sufficiency orientation elicits less prosocial behavior, such as the willingness to volunteer or donate to causes. Marketing professor Kathleen Vohs' research finds that money acts as a psychological resource that changes people's motivations. In a series of lab experiments, primed subjects subtly exposed to the concept of money are more motivated by their own goals and are less socially focused. Vohs spoke at Small Steps, Big Leaps, a special research briefing convened by Professors Francis Flynn and Jennifer Aaker and their colleagues in the field of prosocial behavior. They presented practical and cost-effective solutions for encouraging donations, volunteerism, social activism, and responsible, caring and other prosocial behaviors.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/kathleen_vohs_8212_money_makes_people_less_socially_focused

New Business Models and Metrics for Water Nov 11, 2010

Show notes

Dysfunctional water and sanitation infrastructure can be seen strewn all across the developing world. Wells, pumps, and toilets fall into disrepair and areas once pronounced "covered" are again confronted by problems resulting from a lack of clean drinking water and sanitation. This exacerbates the challenge of achieving the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation. In this audio interview, part of a Stanford Center for Social Innovation series on water, Water for People CEO Ned Breslin talks with Stanford MBA student Ashish Jhina about performance metrics, planning, and financing practices aimed at supporting a longer term vision for water and sanitation infrastructure. He stresses the importance of setting appropriate tariffs and of budgeting for inevitable operational and maintenance costs from the outset. He explains how new business models could catalyze local entrepreneurial involvement in sanitation thereby making efforts to improve sanitation coverage more successful and sustainable.

Edward D. (Ned) Breslin joined Water For People as its director of international programs in January 2006, and was appointed acting CEO in late 2008. The board hired him as chief executive officer on May 13, 2009. Ned was first introduced to the challenges of water supply when living in the Chalbi Desert of northern Kenya in 1987, linked to a Lutheran World Relief program through his university – St. Lawrence. He subsequently worked for a range of local and international water and sanitation sector NGOs in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, including positions at the Mvula Trust and as country representative for WaterAid in Mozambique, before joining Water For People.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/new_business_models_and_metrics_for_water

Can Defaults Save Lives Nov 08, 2010

Show notes

Retirement plans, green energy, organ donations — how can defaults help you save money, save the environment, and save lives? What difference does it make if you have the choice to opt-out now or opt-in later? Eric Johnson, Columbia Business School professor examines the powerful role that defaults hold in changing behavior and the way we construct our values. He offers insight on how to design defaults to maximize impact and presents common pitfalls to avoid. Johnson spoke at Small Steps, Big Leaps, a special research briefing convened by Professors Francis Flynn and Jennifer Aaker and their colleagues in the field of prosocial behavior. They presented practical, and cost-effective solutions for encouraging donations, volunteerism, social activism, and other responsible, caring, and prosocial behaviors.

Eric J. Johnson is a marketing professor at Columbia University's School of Business. His research interests are in consumer and managerial decision-making and electronic commerce. He is among the most widely cited scholars in marketing, according to the Thompson Scientific Highly Cited ratings. His work on electronic commerce has been published in the Communications of the ACM, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and Management Science. He has presented his work before the Federal Trade Commission, and has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Readers Digest, National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Marketplace, and the CBS Evening News. He is a coauthor of two books: Decision Research: A Field Guide and The Adaptive Decision Maker. His research in behavioral economics has appeared in Science, Journal of Economic Theory, as well as in two books. Earlier work examining the role of affect and similarity in understanding risk in papers has been published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In addition, Johnson is the director of the Columbia Center for Excellence in E-Business, and co-director of the Center for Decision Sciences at Columbia University. Professor Johnson serves on editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of Consumer Psychology (former associate editor), Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Interactive Marketing and Marketing Letters.

https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/can_defaults_save_lives

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