NY Times best selling author of Doing More with Less, Bruce Piasecki spoke to Social Innovation Sydney at COFA last week:
‘Doing More with Less: Innovation Routes for Families and Firms in a Swift and Severe World’
Bruce covered cases and examples he has seen of successful innovation, adaptation and response to change and the need to shift toward more sustainable approaches.
Video of his talk follows below.
Huge thanks to Bruce for taking the time to discuss his ideas with us.
We’re delighted to announce that our keynote speaker for the next Social Innovation Sydney Unconference on 13 August 2011 is:
Anthony Baxter from the Google Crisis Response Team
Anthony is a geek who works at Google Australia. Among other things, he works with Google.org’s Crisis Response team on rapid response to disasters. He also tweets @anthonybaxter.
This team has helped out during a number of disasters, for example:
Anthony is going to talk about some of the Crisis Response activities, things they’ve learned, and some ways that we can help make the world a better and safer place.
REGISTER NOW FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION SYDNEY UNCONFERENCE 13 AUG 2011
This is a great example of social innovation. It was setup by Google to focus on technology-driven philanthropy via Google.org.
The Crisis Response team works to make critical information more accessible when natural disasters and humanitarian crises strike.
Ways that the Crisis Response Team help out include:
Social Innovation Sydney is pleased to announce that the Sydney cloud computing startup NineFold has kindly sponsored lunch for the upcoming Social Innovation BarCamp. As Jonathan Crossfield from Ninefold said:
“Initiatives such as Social Innovation BarCamp are a fantastic way to harness the altruism, knowledge and enthusiasm of small groups of great people. Amazing things can happen when we put our heads together. We see Ninefold as the blank canvas or foundation for all kinds of digital creativity and innovation, so sponsoring the event is a complete no-brainer for a business like ours.”
Don’t forget you can still register for Social Innovation BarCamp – it’s on this coming Saturday 26 Febuary.
For those who are not familiar with Sydney cloud computing startup Ninefold here is some background information:
“Possibly just like you, Ninefold is a group of people with an idea. We saw a need for a powerful and professional local cloud offering that would provide all the benefits of cloud computing with the added advantages of local support, fast speeds and billing in local currency.
But Ninefold is about far more than a bunch of servers linked by technology. It’s about you – the start-ups, developers, digital agencies, and more. How we grow and improve will depend entirely on you, the wider community and the conversations we hope to have.
Launched in early 2011, Ninefold has invested in an infrastructure big enough and powerful enough to really make a difference while guaranteeing our longevity. Yet despite our unbelievably massive cloud, we’re still just a small start up – a close team in a Sydney CBD office space working intensely to develop something spectacular.”
Ninefold also have a special offer: check out http://ninefold.com they have a $50 early adopter bonus on all sign ups for a limited time.
The feedback we’re receiving thus far is that the day created vibrant discussion, new ideas, and actionable steps. The collaboration and shared insight from the experience and passion of the multitude of attendees is the perfect recipe for continued action.
Mark Pesce set the tone of the day by exploring our connection with material items, with our mobile phones. Mark challenged us to just say NO as this was the first step to living sustainably. Stephen Lawrence followed this by noting that the journey to be a Change maker begins with the journey inside ourselves.
The sessions were varied and informative. Popular sessions included Social Innovation 101: skills for citizen change makers, collaborative consumption and Australian opportunities, plus social network & social cause fatigue. Agenda here 
Along with the Unconference Barcamp the Bootcamp stream was successful. Participants stepped through tools and necessary skills entrepreneurs require to develop successful social enterprises. Key topics included Social Innovation business models, giving a great pitch, pitching practice (how to ask for funding) and lean start-up methodology.
“Congratulations on running a very impressive SIS event yesterday. I would be hard pressed to think of ways to improve what you achieved. I feel very confident about the future of society in Sydney after hearing the ideas that surfaced yesterday.” John Young, Yindi Systems
“Great to have conversations about topics that are important but I never get that chance to talk about”.
But how was it for you? What would you like at the next Social Innovation Sydney?
Michelle and other friends have been discussing our next Social Innovation BarCamp Sydney. We’re thinking of running it on a Saturday in November 2010 (date to be confirmed very soon) in Paddington.
The theme is Sustainable Design.
There are so many interesting ideas we can start to consider around sustainable design. Here’s a few resources to get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_design
Articles on Building Ecology web site
http://www.chemistryinnovation.co.uk/roadmap/sustainable/roadmap.asp
WE are proud to announce our major sponsor for the Social Innovation BarCamp is Cisco.
Cisco is one of the biggest and most highly regarded technology companies in the world. They are a leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate.
Martin Stewart-Weeks of Cisco had this to say about why Cisco are happy to sponsor the Social Innovation BarCamp:
”Social innovation, often powered by the clever and unexpected use of technology, is increasingly at the heart of new thinking for better solutions to many of the toughest challenges that affect our lives in common.
Cisco is actively supporting that aspiration in health, education, sustainable cities and climate change for example in Australia and around the world. We’re happy to support the BarCamp as another contribution to the growth of a strong and effective Australian practice of social innovation.”
Technology, the web, our phones, our laptops. All of these devices and platforms have become such a major part of our lives that we forget the impact they have.
But then it’s not about the tools, it’s about how we use them.
Our uses have adapted over time from being merely functional, serving a minimal purpose, to revolutionising the way we connect, allowing a constant state of being plugged in to the biggest pool of information and people ever known thus creating a type of global consciousness.
People like Ezio Manzini, a leading thinker in sustainability and collaborative project design, states that technology and the web is now allowing collaboration on a local level, and once successful, a scaling of these social innovations on a country and global level.
Key examples of social innovation using technology include:
Kiva http://www.kiva.org/, Live Local http://www.livelocal.org.au/ and Get Up: http://www.getup.org.au/
How are you using social innovation to encourage Social Innovation?
What examples do you have of web platforms for social innovation ?
