Week 3

 

Summary:

This week I learned how social innovation is about solutions.  Those solutions are found by figuring out problems that caused them in the first place.  This can be done through understanding wicked problems, using the 5 whys, and understanding analysis’ (root cause, cause and effect, and Fishbone).

Response to readings:

I found myself understanding a concept from another class because of this class!  In my Advocacy and Advertising class I was learning tips for effective client relationship management.  One of the tips did not sit right with me.  The tip was to help the company (the person or company that the brand name client was hiring for advertising means) to defend their creative work when the client decides not to go with the idea.  I understand defending one’s work, but I did not agree with the suggestion that if the client decided not to go with the idea, that they were “bullying” them.  That is a strong word to describe a client’s right to decide whether they go with an advertising idea or not.  After all, it is their company/organization, and they are the one’s paying the advertising company.  Not the other way around.  But after reading “Good Business Creates Good Business: Southwest Creations Collaborative” I was better able to understand the reasoning for defending one’s work or how a company came to the findings that they did.  Southwest Creations Collaborative (SCC) worked hard for the successes that were made with the underserved women they worked with.  To have an organization (Social Venture Partners–New Mexico (SVPNM)) come in and tell them that they only way they can offer the grant money is if SCC follows what SVPNM teaches them in how to operate more effectively can feel as if SCC may be putting their organization at risk.  I could finally see two sides to this and not just the clients.  Though they may be different, both have risks in this collaboration!  One side knows the ins and outs of the situation because they have lived through it while the other has so much knowledge and information because of all the time and research they put into it.  This thinking, strangely enough, helped me understand an important part of the 5 Whys as well.  In step one it instructs the user in assembling a team.  No one person can think of all the ways possible in getting to the root of a problem or in the case of SCC and SVPNM, the perfect way to be most effective.  But a team filled with people in different backgrounds and training can!

Weekly prompt:  What are you most looking forward to in regard to your social issue?

I immediately had an answer for this, but I told myself to pause and wait to see if anything else came to mind…and it did!  My first thought was to make a difference.  I want to get people to be more comfortable in talking about the issues surrounding suicide.  I am a firm believer that things will never change with this social issue until we start opening up more.  But when I stopped and waited to see if my Spirit and brain would lead me in a different direction, knowledge came to mind.  I have been to many suicide prevention trainings and helped fundraise for an organization on this social issue that I believe is making a difference.  Through those efforts, I have learned a lot.  But what came to mind was that maybe I need to branch out to other organizations and training platforms to make sure I am getting all the information.  Maybe there is another organization that goes about educating the public in suicide prevention in a way that is more effective?  So, I think I am most looking forward to learning new information.