A Glimpse into the World of Social Innovation.

Dream big, take one step at a time :  An Illuminate Universe learning and leadership experience review

By Nicole Burchell, Employability Project Manager and International and Intercultural Communications masters candidate.

August 2024

Introduction

If you have ever been interested in social innovation or being part of the change you want to see in the world,  then look no more.  As a Community Leader for Illuminate Universe I had the opportunity to fully submerge myself into a work integrated learning experience that explored the ins and outs of Social Innovation. In the following post, I would love to share that experience with you and by mentioning some of the key learning points as well as my personal review about the overall experience. 

Main takeaways from the Illuminate x MeaningfulWork: The Power of Social Innovation leadership experience 

Social innovation is at the intersection of social and economic development. Social innovation requires considering the people impacted by the people affected by the issue. So it is important to identify the problem, narrowing it down to the specific clientèle you want to reach, empathizing with those people and getting data from them to better understand how they view the problem. 

Personal Purpose 

Personal  Hedgehog Theory and the importance of storytelling

In fact, the personal hedgehog theory, which is mentioned in this framework, demonstrates that our purpose is directly at the intersection of three things: our passion (what we love), our skills (what we are good at ) and our marketability). 

Storytelling is another key point as it has the power to influence, convince and keep people interested and invested in your venture. The brain remembers visuals, so storytelling helps by creating these visuals and should aim to gain the interest of others, instruct, involve and inspire.

Empathy

Empathy is an important factor of social innovation and success as it helps to gain a better understanding of the people who are impacted by the issues we are trying to solve. Also, in a professional setting, harboring safe psychological places helps to keep people engaged, motivated, open to share and interested in their work. Emotional intelligence is key to working with people and understanding the importance of making people feel heard. 

Identifying Problems and causes

Though a program may help find a solution to a social problem, a process is a way to find a solution and it can be applied to many situations. When dealing with social issues such as poverty and homelessness for example, it is beneficial to focus on the outliers rather than the main group, as focusing on them will help find solutions that work for everyone. 

It is important to have measurable goals and to focus on the obvious problem.  In fact, when using a process, many social actors must be involved such as government officials, non profits, health agencies, etc. Concertation and collaboration is key, so is sharing resources, accountability and focusing on urgency.  Experimenting, readjusting and analyzing results by looking at the outcomes in shorter cycles will allow you to see if you are getting results. 

Root cause analysis

It is important to find the root cause of a problem in order to find solutions. In order to do so, you have to determine what the problem is, if there is a solution and can the mechanism be turned on or off if needed.  Asking why at least five times will help determine the root cause of the problem: Determine the issue, Why is it happening? Why is that? Why is that?

Solution Design

Design thinking

Requires putting the human at the core of the issue  and can be done in five  steps: 

• Empathize to understand the people the design or product is for

• Define: all the data collected in step on, and determined those people’s needs

• Ideate: Coming up with ideas and potential solutions, brainstorming

• Prototype: Breaking down ideas, and testing out the best ones creating a mockup

• Test: Using the prototype and testing with real people 

  
  

Failing is all part of the process as design thinking requires starting over numerous times to find the best version. This process is called ideation. 

Business model

The business model is a key tool to develop your idea, and to build an infrastructure, as well as to reach your customers and make your idea scaleable. You must include a market analysis: Who are the competitors, what are their weaknesses? What are the microeconomic forces ? You must map your environment and determine if your model is able to adjust to shifts. 

Lean startup and customer development imply that you must be ready to fail, learn and readjust. Test your model to learn and keep working to improve it everytime. 

When presenting your business model it is important to pitch it by telling a story as this will have more impact to engage and peak the interest of  your audience. 

Grow your business

A few key points are important when growing your business.  As an owner, you have to be fully engaged, present and connect with the customers in order to create a rapport and have them wanting to come back for what you have to offer: yourself, your product, and your location.  Having a unique selling proposition will give you an edge that makes people want to come back, but also bring their friends.  It is also important to be present, to be passionate and  to aim to get a better understanding of your customers needs and to evolve accordingly.

Make sure to focus on your sales, your revenue and your cash flow. You will need to find ways to gauge your success so that you can see if you are improving every month. How can you increase your sales for example or reach more customers or engagement? .  Finally strive to be the best and idealize your business by imagining what needs to be done to make it even better and taking the steps to do so. 

My appreciation of the learning and leadership experience

When I chose the Social Innovation option as my learning experience, I thought I knew quite a lot about the subject already, as I have been working for a non profit for years. However, I was enthused at how much it exceeded my expectations. In fact although I understand the ins and outs of working for a non profit, there are so many more key factors I was not aware about.  Wanting to be part of a movement or a cause may be the driving force which sparks one's interest, but behind the scenes there are many economic and marketing factors to consider in order to get the project or organization running and successful. 

I really appreciated how the human experience is at the core of social innovation projects. Empathy helps us not only to have better relations with people, but it is key to better understanding the solution.  Often as academics, we understand an issue from a theoretical standpoint, but between theories and the reality (as it is lived by the people who experience the problem first hand), there is a lot to learn.  I definitely was first confronted with this reality in my workplace. As an employability project manager in a  non profit that focuses on accompanying migrant women to enter the workforce, it is my responsibility to help the participants find employment after they have completed job training at our organization.  One of the key obstacles for migrant women looking for work in Canada is being able to juggle work and life balance. Although I am required to successfully help these women find employment, there are factors that I cannot ignore: work schedules that concord with daycare and school schedules so that these moms can be present to mind childcare as well as work.  In fact, as mentioned in the Social Innovation learning and leadership experience, it is important to work with social actors in order to find solutions. Just as the expression says It takes a village, working in a community organization requires collaboration with health and mental health agencies to provide resources to our participants; government workers are also involved and are our primary partner and responsible for funding. We also collaborate with employers who need to understand the realities of our clientèle. 

This experience also allowed me to better understand ways to find solutions by delving into finding out the ‘why’ of the issue to determine solutions that can be implemented, but also removed if needed. Sometimes issues are actually more due to certain circumstances (ex: a certain period of the year or peak period ), and so it is important to find solutions that can be applied only when needed.

Toolkit

One of my greatest appreciation about the community leader experience are the tools acquired throughout to put a plan in place.  I already have so many ideas in mind,  but being able to refer back to the Personal Hedgehog Theory is great as it showcases  what I love, what I’m good at, and  it allows me to put a plan in place so that  I can monetize my passions and desire to make a difference. The next option is to implement processes such as interviews  to get a better understanding of the issues I want to tackle and to involve people who are dealing with this issue. This collaborative approach, in my opinion, is the best way to tackle an issue from the inside, rather than putting in place a program that does not even consider the users and what they need. For example, in my field of work, the socio economic issues experienced by marginalized migrant women cannot be tackled without considering factors such as the language barriers, systemic discrimination, unrecognition of skills and competencies learned abroad, lack of personal and professional network, and the fact that they are still the main childcare providers in their home. It would be quite neglectful and inconsiderate for one to just assume that they can go out into the world and find a job as easily as a Canadian born person who speaks one of the two official languages. Not empathizing with these women’s struggle would also mean that our organization has failed at helping them find solutions that are suited to their specific needs. 

My Capstone Project

As part of my work-integrated learning experience on social innovation, I had the chance to reflect on what type of project I would like to put in place. This allowed me to not only dream, but ideate and reflect on how I could help the women I work with better integrate the workforce after their training. I came up with an idea to create a liaison program which would help not only the women to better understand the expectations of the Canadian workforce sector, but also to help them feel more empowered and valued in the workplace. I had also thought of how I could involve the employers so that they don’t feel threatened by my idea to infiltrate their hiring onboarding processes, but rather felt confident in my expertise and ability to help them put good practices in place. The Social Innovation skills I learned through the learning and leadership experience allowed me to understand the importance of storytelling to engage and interest employers and to gain their trust. This is a very valuable knowledge,  because without employers being on board it would be impossible to create such a process. Understanding the benefits of empathy also helped me to have better selling points and to analyze both the needs of the women I want to help, but also the employers needs so that I can better prepare my mockup to present it to them.

Lastly, having to reflect on funding, logos, partners, etc. really gave me a sense that this is something that is feasible, but that stepping outside of my comfort zone can help me find ways to actually get the ball rolling.

Reflecting on my leadership journey

Before embarking on this leadership journey, I had many ideas, mostly creative, but putting those ideas on paper and connecting with individuals who work in positions I aspire to work in really helped me get a better understanding of what I have to offer to the corporate world, and what I need to develop more. I appreciate having a chance to connect with people who work for big tech companies and consulting companies such as Google and Deloitte, as I received first hand advice from them as to how to improve my resume, what a typical work day looks like for them, but also leads to different opportunities I had never really considered. 

I discovered that although I may not have always considered myself a leader in the traditional sense, my sense of empathy, my curiosity and my creativity may actually be strong points to be able to oversee and lead a team. This leadership journey also made me reconnect with my inner child, with an openness to view the world with a broader view and consideration. The more I learn, the more aware I become that I have barely skimmed the surface and there is so much more to explore. 

Finally I’d like to conclude by saying that this leadership and learning experience with Illuminate Universe has been both informative and resourceful. The Social Innovation work integrated learning experience has taught me that there is so much more to this sector than nonprofits and charity work and the creative ways in which a social issue can be tackled are infinite.  Empathy and emotional intelligence are key factors to better understanding a social issue or problem and understanding people who are concerned by them.  Storytelling and having a purpose is what will drive success,  but being empathetic, curious will help to better understand the issue at hand. Once the issue is defined, then one can start to dissect the problem, determine solutions, develop prototypes and test them without being afraid to fail a few times before finding the most appropriate approach or solution. 

My advice to anyone who is considering applying to a community leader position for Illuminate Universe is to do so with an open mind and to really be willing to get out of their comfort zone.  In the end, you may just come out on the other end with more skills, more contacts and a better understanding of yourself and the work you want to do!