Impact: six patterns to spread your social innovation. (Book Review)

What do Harry Potter, Cicero and social innovation have in common? 

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows was published in 2007 it was printed on paper that did not require the destruction of forests in the process.  The story of how this came to be is an illustration of one of the six patterns of social innovation identified by Al Etmanski in his book Impact.¹  The pattern in this case being that of mobilising economic power: asking how do we tap into the collective economic power of our constituency?

Cicero, the famous Roman statesman, is quoted to endorse another of Etmanski’s patterns.  “If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings and speak my words,” Cicero is quoted as saying.  This quote encapsulates the pattern of advocating with empathy: asking how do we move beyond blame and an us/them approach to become solutions focused?

Etmanski’s objective in this book is to answer the question: “why do some social innovations take hold while others don’t spread as far and wide as they should?”  Etmanski has identified six patterns that help social innovations spread far and wide.  Two of these are those already mentioned.  The other four are:

• Thinking and acting like a movement.  Asking what am I already a part of and how do I link with other efforts.
• Creating a container.  Asking how do I enable people to easily do the right thing?
• Setting the table for allies, adversaries and strangers.  Asking how do I go about conversing with everyone, including those opposing my ideas?
• Who is as important as how.  Asking “who” allows us to recognise that everyone cares and has the potential to act for change.

Throughout the book Etmanski is keen to affirm that social innovation must involve ordinary people, yet recognise their extraordinary power.  The power of social innovation, he notes, is often held by passionate amateurs.

Etmanski’s book then, is not just about bringing about a better world through social innovation, it is also about upholding the dignity and uniqueness of each of us as individuals sharing a common heritage and destiny.

Whether Etmanski manages to answer his question is debatable.  Although he has identified six patterns, there is no guarantee that consciously creating those patterns is going to ensure that a movement spreads far and wide.  Yet, the patterns that he identifies are important.  Without recognising and attempting to create these conditions it will be virtually impossible for any social innovation to move beyond the near and narrow.

This book is a useful addition to the growing literature on social innovation.  A more judicious editing approach though, I suspect, may have allowed this book to be read more far and wide.  Oftentimes I found Etmanski’s arguments got lost in the stories that he uses to illustrate his patterns. 
Notwithstanding this criticism, social innovation is important as we move further into the 21st century.  But, we cannot rush it, and for that reason Etmanski has done us a great service in identifying the six patterns.  As he states:

“Regrettably the solutions to our toughest problems cannot be hurried.  We must resign ourselves to a terrible paradox: being patient despite the urgency of the crises we see around us.”

1. Al Etmanski, Impact: Six Patterns To Spread Your Social Innovation, Orwell Cove, Canada, 2015

Social Change Crossword Solution

For those of you waiting to check your answers to the Social Change Crossword, here they are.
Anyone wanting to do the crossword before looking at the solution, the crossword is here.

Social Change Crossword Solution:

Across: 5 Id, 7 Ecological, 9 Gulf, 11 Greenpeace, 13 Roth, 15 Tidal, 16 IACD, 20 Articulate, 22 Poor, 24 Compassion, 25 La

Down: 1 Weber, 2 Hotter, 3 Footprint, 4 Via, 6 Deaf, 8 Anger, 10 Lot, 11 Gini, 12 Anarchist, 14 Hume, 17 ATO, 18 Dario, 19 Elicit, 21 Towns, 22 Poll, 23 IPC

5 Chaotic Lessons for Social Change

The Theory of Relativity was important in helping us to see the world in a different way at the beginning of the 20th century.  For us at the beginning of the 21st century it is chaos and complexity theory that help to shift our perspective.

Although developed within mathematics and other sciences, chaos and complexity have useful insights for those of us working within community development or social justice movements.  Here are five of those insights and what we can learn from them.¹

1. The Butterfly Effect.  This is possibly the most quoted and universally recognised insight.  It tells us that from small beginnings large effects can be felt.  Consider the example of the young Egyptian woman posting a simple video message on facebook in early 2011.  By the end of January over 300,000 people were occupying Tahrir Square in Cairo calling for more democracy and freedoms in that part of the world.  The Arab Spring had arrived, which went on to inspire the Occupy Movement.

2.  Unpredictability.  Chaos Theory tells us that we cannot predict with any certainty the outcome of any intervention or programme.  Our previous thinking had been that we could gather all the data, analyse that data, create a model, make plans and predict what would happen when we carried out that plan.  Unfortunately, many of our plans did not produce what we expected.  The world is not that predictable – it is just too complex for that.

3. Feedback.  Although this insight comes more from Systems Theory, it is strongly supported by Chaos Theory.  Feedback tells us that all parts of a system are constantly receiving feedback from other parts of the system and the environment.  These parts then adapt to this new information and in turn pass that on to other parts of the system.  So, the feedback continues, never ceasing.

4. Emergence.  The old saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” captures the concept of emergence to some extent.  Emergence describes a structure or property that arises from the organisation of component parts, yet which could not have been predicted from a knowledge of the component parts themselves.  For example, the formula for common table salt is NaCl – sodium and chlorine mixed together.  The taste of salt cannot be predicted simply from knowing what sodium and chlorine taste like on their own.  The taste of salt emerges from the new mixture.

5. Self-Organisation.  Chaotic and complex systems are self-organising.  That is, the system evolves from the interplay of its myriad parts.  It is not organised or created by any command and control mechanism.  Look at any ecosystem and you will see this.  The vegetation, the animals, the insects, the birds, the soil, the waterways, the weather patterns, the landforms all interact to organise themselves into a coherent system  Yet, when humans attempt to control some part of it, inevitably the system starts to break-down.

What Does This Mean For Our Work?

What can we learn from these insights?  What can we take with us into our community work or our work for social justice?  Here are just a few thoughts.

1. The Butterfly Effect tells us that each of our seemingly small, individual and insignificant actions can or could have a major effect.  We will never know.

2. If we accept unpredictability then we can remove ourselves from a lot of the stress that we tend to place upon ourselves.  This means that instead of being certain about outcomes we can be content with working in ways that are more likely to produce the effects we would like, without the necessity of being defined by “success” or “failure.”

3. If all parts of a system are both the receivers and the senders of feedback, then we need to embrace diversity.  We must actively seek out the voices, skills and ideas of all, especially those who are often excluded from discussions and dialogue.

4. New structures and relationships are always emerging.  We must not be afraid of the new – rather we would do well to embrace the change, to appreciate the newness and the possibilities that emerge.  Emergence teaches us that we must connect, we must engage with each other.  The answers to complex problems do not come from each of us working in isolation and then adding the answers together.  The answers emerge from our inter-connection.

5. Most of the structures of western society are based on hierarchical, chain-of-command models.  Continuing to impose this model is irrational when we understand self-organisation.  Self-organisation suggests that we discover and explore our creativity by becoming more curious, by asking questions, and not accepting authority just because it is “authority.”

1. What follows is by no means an attempt to thoroughly outline the insights and learnings from Chaos or Complexity Theory.  It is simply a few possibilities.

Balancing Equations

One of the important rules of mathematics that we learn early in our school life is that both sides of an equation must balance.  For example 2 + 2 = 4, or 6 x 5 = 30.  When the equation doesn’t balance it is known as an inequality.

Let’s apply this basic understanding to this equation:

22.6 + 30 + 26 + 24 + 5.9 + 24.6 + 6 = 1,767

It doesn’t balance does it?  It’s an inequality.

What do these figures represent?  Let’s take the left hand side of the equation first.

The cost of supplying clean and safe water and sanitation to everyone in the world is estimated at $22.6 billion each year for five years¹.

The cost of eradicating extreme hunger is estimated at $30 billion per year.²

The extra money needed annually to provide access to primary education for all children is estimated at $26 billion.³

The cost of preventing HIV/Aids is estimated at $24 billion per year.⁴

The cost of first line treatment of malaria is estimated at $5.9 billion.⁵

The cost of providing universal maternal health care in developing countries is estimated at $24.6 billion.⁶

The cost of saving the deaths of two million children each year from pneumonia and diarrhoea is estimated to cost $6 billion.⁷

If you add all those together you get $139.1 billion.  That doesn’t equal $1,767.

So, what does the 1,767 represent.  That is the amount that the world spent on it’s militaries in 2014 – $1,767 billion!  In one year.⁸

Talk about an inequality.

The nature of estimation is, of course, open to debate and error.  However, it cannot be argued that even considering that there will be errors, the inequality is glaring.  So too is the immorality of it.

1. World Health Organisation (WHO)
2. Speech by Director-General (Jacques Diouf) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 2008.
3. The Guardian, November 2013, quoting UNESCO report.
4. AVERT (an international charity working in the HIV/Aids sector, based in UK), 2013.
5. Global Malaria Action Plan, Roll Back Malaria.
6. Adding It Up, UN Population Fund and Guttmacher Institute, 2009
7. Ending Preventable Child Deaths From Pneumonia and Diarrhoea by 2025, WHO/UNICEF
8. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 2014.

Is It Any Wonder?

There are constant moans and grumbles about the behaviour of individuals in modern western society.  Drugs, violence, theft; all symptoms (apparently) of a society in decline.  We can blame the individuals in each case, but are we really doing anything to curb the underlying causes?

Is it any wonder?
That: children bully others at school,
When: politicians yell at and verbally abuse each other in parliaments.

Is it any wonder?
That: women are the primary victims of domestic abuse and violence,
When: men make and tolerate sexist comments and jokes.

Is it any wonder?
That: people on little or no income steal,
When: transnational corporations avoid tax through spurious loopholes.

Is it any wonder?
That: young men readily resort to violence,
When: the nations of the world regularly go to war.

Is it any wonder?
That: young people take drugs,
When: the liquor and tobacco industries are two of the world’s largest industries.

Is it any wonder?
That: people end up in debt,
When: the advertising industry is constantly bombarding us with messages to buy, buy, buy.

Is it any wonder?
That: rates of anxiety, depression and suicide are on the increase,
When: so much of the entertainment media idolises celebrities, status and self-glorification.

Yes, it can be easy to look at the behaviour of individuals and place the blame for their behaviour upon them. But, every individual is located within a wider environment.  If we don’t take that environment into account then we will often end up just putting sticking plaster on the problem.

We can offer drug rehabilitation programmes, anger management courses, jail sentences or financial counselling.  But, if we just send people back into the same environment can we really expect any real long-term or inter-generational change?

This is one of the major challenges for community development.  How do we change social conditions rather than trying to change the behaviours of individuals?  The first thing for a community development worker to do is to be able to see the bigger picture.  A community development worker must be able to look outside the square, and challenge the cultural and social mores and values that are the cause of many of the behaviours that individual display.

As a society we are quick to condemn the young person on ice, quick to condemn the bully at school, quick to condemn the father stealing to provide for his family.

Before doing so, perhaps we should be asking:

Is it any wonder?

Development Does Not Mean Growth

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about development, sustainability, sustainable development and growth.  Some of it may simply be a lack of clear definition and some of it may be deliberate obfuscation.

Much of the confusion stems from a poor description or understanding of the word development itself.  The root of the word is Old French: de-envelop.  That is, peeling back, getting to the core.  Quite the opposite of how the word is commonly thought of; to add to or increase.

Growth on the other hand, very clearly implies adding on, extending, becoming bigger, more more and yet even more.

Clearly, the world is finite and continual growth is not possible.  Development, however, is and should be, possible.  We desperately need to discover the core of what it means to be human on a finite planet that we share with 7 billion other humans. 

To be human and to live good, healthy, fulfilling lives there are some fundamental (core) needs that must be satisfied: fresh, clean water and sanitation, food, security, adequate housing, income, health, education, energy supply etc.  For some of us these are satisfied, but for many millions and billions of humanity there is clearly need for development.

For example, over 900 million people do not have adequate food supplies, yet 1/3rd or more of all food produced never reaches an human stomach.  One in five of us live on less than $1.25 per day and 51.2 million people are forcibly displaced because of persecution, conflict, other forms of violence or human rights violations.  It is estimated that nearly one in three people do not have regular access to essential health care.

So, for much of the world there is an urgent need for development.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the rich nations are hell-bent on growth – specifically, economic growth.  Consider these quotes from Western leaders (from the US, Germany and Australia):

“The most important thing that the United States can do for the world economy is to grow, because we continue to be the world’s largest market and a huge engine for all other countries to grow.” – Barack Obama 

“We need a growth-oriented, sound fiscal policy, we need investments by the state…” – Angela Merkel 

“As always, stronger economic growth is the key to addressing almost every global problem.” – Tony Abbot

That growth is not sustainable.

The term sustainable development has entered the jargon over the past decade or two.¹  What does the term mean?  One model that attempts to illuminate it has been conceived by Kate Raworth, writing for Oxfam.² 

The Doughnut

Fig 1 (Oxfam)

Raworth likens her model (Fig 1) to a doughnut, with social foundational needs forming the inside circle of the doughnut and an environmental ceiling forming the outside circle.  Between the two (the core of the doughnut) is the “safe and just space for humanity.”  Getting to that space and maintaining ourselves within it is the goal of sustainable development. 

“Moving into this space demands far greater equity – within and between countries – in the use of natural resources, and far greater efficiency in transforming those resources to meet human needs.”

Raworth has identified eleven dimensions to the social foundation and nine dimensions to the environmental ceiling.  Furthermore, Raworth has quantified how well we are doing against each of these dimensions (except the three social dimensions of jobs, voice and resilience, and the two environmental dimensions of atmospheric aerosol loading and chemical pollution). 

How are we doing?  Not very well.  How equitable and efficient are we?  Not good. (Figs 2 & 3)



Fig 2 (Oxfam)

We have exceeded the ceiling for biodiversity loss, climate change and the nitrogen cycle and are dangerously close to the ceiling for the phosphorous cycle and ocean acidification.


Fig 3 (Oxfam)

In terms of the social foundation, we have not yet met any of the “developmental” needs for any of them,  We are getting close on education, food, water use and electricity.  We still have challenges in the areas of social equity, health, sanitation, and the employment gap between men and women.  We have an enormous challenge in terms of representation by women in national parliaments – the gap stands at 77%.

Is the doughnut useful?  Yes, it is.  If only because it provides us with a conceptual framework within which to understand sustainable development and guide policy making that provides the social foundations, yet does not crack the environmental ceiling.

Clearly, we have some work to do.

1.  Indeed, as far back as 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainable development as “the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.”
2. Kate Raworth, “A Safe and Just Space for Humanity,” Oxfam Discussion Paper, February 2012

5 Environmental Equations We Should Know

To some of us equations help to model the world.  To others of us they can open up new perspectives.  And then there are those of us who just can’t stand equations – too much reminder of “maths” at school perhaps.

But mathematics and it’s associated equations are everywhere, and environmental science or the science of climate change are no different.  Here are five such equations that any environmental or climate activist should know about.

1.  I = PAT

Perhaps one of the simplest and also contentious equations is this one formulated in the 1970s by Paul Ehrlich, Barry Commoner and John Holdren.  In this equation I stands for impact of humans on the planet, P for the human population, A for affluence, or consumption rate per person, and T for technology, or resource intensity.

PAT has been expressed as P x A x T, i.e a simple multiplication effect.  However, this is too simplistic.  The equation should perhaps be better written as I = f(P,A,T).  That is, human impact is a function of the combinatory effects of Population, Affluence and Technology.

However you understand the equation, what it does tell us is that all three components of the equation must be considered if we are to reduce our impact on the earth.  There are indications that the world population level may begin to flatten out in the second half of this century.  There are also some exciting looking technological breakthroughs on the horizon, allowing for greater efficiencies.  Greater efficiencies mean a reduction in the impact due to technology.  Many climate change activists promote these technologies and put faith in them to stall off climate catastrophe.

However, the one component of I=PAT that is often overlooked or possibly shunned is that of affluence, or our consumption rates.  Affluence is highly variable around the globe, with those of us in the western, rich nations consuming at a rate considerably greater than those in developing nations.¹  Those of us in these rich countries who are concerned about climate change and our impact upon the earth must take a long hard look at our consumption.

2.  F = P x G/P x E/G x F/E

This equation is known as the Kaya Identity and is a special case of the I=PAT equation in that it considers human impact upon the climate.  In this equation:

• F is global CO₂ emissions from human sources
• P is global population growth
• G is world GDP, and
• E is global energy consumption.

Developed by Japanese economist Yoichi Kaya the equation is used extensively by the IPCC² for the projection of it’s emissions scenarios.  Breaking down each term into population growth, GDP per capita, energy use per unit of GDP, and carbon emissions per unit of energy used has proven to make the calculation of global emissions easier.

3.  Private Car Emissions per year

Transportation world-wide makes up about 14% of global carbon emissions.  Here is an equation that allows individuals to calculate the tonnes of carbon dioxide that their private car emits per year.
CO₂ emissions (tonnes) = k x e/100 x 0.00237, where

• k is the number of kilometres driven per year,
• e is the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, measured by the number of litres per 100 km.
• 0.00237 is how many tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted by burning one litre of fuel.

So, for example, suppose you travel 20,000 km in a year and your car has an efficiency of 9 lt per 100 km, then the number of tonnes of carbon dioxide you would emit that year would be:  20,000 x 9/100 x 0.00237 = 4.3 tonnes.

4. EDD = WB/WEF x 365

This simple looking equation is used to calculate the Ecological Debt Day (EDD), otherwise known as Earth Overshoot Day.  Ecological Debt Day is the day on which it is calculated that we humans have expended as much of the earth’s resources as the earth is capable of restoring in that year. 

Last year (2014), this day was calculated as being on August 19. In other words, from 20 August onward for the rest of that year we were living beyond our means.  It is akin to having our annual salary and expending every last dollar and cent of it by August 19.  Thereafter, we must beg or take out a loan against the future.  A bank may be prepared to do that but it is extremely doubtful that the earth can continue to do so.

In the equation above EDD is calculated by dividing WB (World Biodiversity: the amount of natural resources the earth produces in a year) by WEF (World Ecological Footprint: the amount that we humans consume per year) and multiplying that figure by 365 (days in the year).

There are a number of sites on the Internet that give data for world ecological footprint, the footprint of specific countries and even calculators allowing you to discover your personal ecological footprint.

5.  1 = 1

This is the simplest, yet possibly the most important of the five equations.  It simply says one equals one.  One does not mean two or three, but one.  That is the most basic equation we need.  We have one planet.  We live on one planet.  We are part of one planet.  We depend upon one planet. 

We do not have two planets.  We don’t even have one and a half planets, yet that is how many we are presently using on a global scale.  We are consuming one and a half planets worth of resources each year.  And, some of us are consuming at an even higher rate. 

This equation brings us back to reality.  One Earth.  The other equations may tell us how much we have overshot, what factors we need to consider and even how much we personally contribute, but this equation says it simply: ONE means ONE.

1.  North America and Western Europe has 12% of the world’s population, yet accounts for 60% of private consumptive spending.  Meanwhile the 1/3rd of the world’s population living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa account for just 3.2% (source: Worldwatch Institute)
2. IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.