Bates - The social innovation imperative: create winning products, services, and programs that solve societys most pressing challenges

Create Winning Products, Services,
and Programs That Solve Societys
Most Pressing Challenges

SANDRA M. BATES

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ISBN: 978-0-07-176015-7
MHID: 0-07-176015-6

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For my three amazing sons Joshua, Matthew, and Sethand my bonus
daughter Lindseythe ultimate blessings and joys of my life.

Its certainly exciting to see all the attention being paid to social innovation over the past decade. Nothing could be more worthy of our time, resources, and focus than creating solutions to alleviate some of the worlds most pressing social problems. We are inspired by social innovation successes such as Grameen in microfinance, Teach for America in education, and MinuteClinic in health care. And because we are not simply dealing with the corporate bottom line, the rewards of success and the consequences of failure are immense.

Social innovationas with any type of innovationis fraught with challenges. No doubt the challenges of addressing the needs of the poor, uninsured, and homeless are exacerbated in comparison to other types of innovation. Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that social innovation should not and cannot benefit from a systematic approach adapted from the best practices applied to innovation in other domains.

At its core, social innovation is about satisfying a particular type of need of a particular group of people. It is not about whether the solution is created by a for-profit or not-for-profit entity. Social innovation shares a requirement with other types of innovationto understand the needs of those affected, to devise innovative solutions to address those needs, and to deliver the solution so that its value can be realized. As such, it can also share in the insights gleaned from innovation in other spheres. The truth of this statement can be seen in a recent personal experience.

My wife and I felt fortunate recently to discover an innovative company in the health-care space. We had visited our pediatrician on more than one occasion to get a diagnosis and treatment for an unknown growth on the finger of our youngest daughter, Julia. The diagnosis: Dont know. The treatment plan: Wait and see. We had waitedhence, multiple visits. It was now time to escalate the medical care to a specialist.

We are not uninsured, but we may as well have been. Our search for dermatologists in our insurance network indicated that the closest dermatologist was more than an hours drive away and that she would be happy to see us at her next available appointmentmore than six weeks out. The search for an out-of-network dermatologist was no more reassuring. It would also take many weeks to be seen and would cost more than $150 for the visit. Ouch!

So we took a small but calculated risk on a company called JustAnswer.com. JustAnswer provides an online platform for people to ask questions of experts in a variety of professional fields, including health care. Its stated mission: equal access to Experts for all via a platform that provides a fast, affordable and convenient way to connect with Experts. Sounds like social innovation to me.

So we asked our question, shared information and images with our online expert, Dr. Nair, and got our answer. A common wart. We took Dr. Nairs advice, and the wart was gone within a few weeks. With Just-Answer, we were able to engage Dr. Nair at our conveniencenot his since it was after midnight for him. We were able to see Dr. Nair immediately and were able to obtain our diagnosis within a couple of hours. And the cost for getting our answer? $19. We happily provided a tip for Dr. Nair.

Whether JustAnswer is a for-profit or not-for-profit entity is beside the point. The point is thatat least for usJustAnswer provided more affordable and convenient access to health-care services than was available to us with the standard health-care system. And the point is also this: Despite the focus on affordable health-care accessa social challengeour underserved needs could have been readily gleaned from a simple conversation with us about our frustrations with current healthcare options for the problem we were facing. With these needs in mind, JustAnswer has devised and delivered a classic good enough disruptive innovation. In other words, JustAnswer has applied the best practices of innovation in other spheres to innovation to address a social problem. And you can too!