The Big Bang of Social Innovation

What does it take to be a leader or entrepreneur in the social innovation field? To find  the secret to such success, 200+ people came together at the bigBang! event in Cleveland, Ohio on October 28.

The event was hosted by Cleveland Social Venture Partners, and headlined by leadership and systems thinking guru, Peter Senge, with support from Mobile Innovation Lab, a Cleveland-based Design Thinking consultancy.

The event was live-streamed over the Internet into schools and businesses by the Uncomn.tv network.

You can see the founders of Mobile Innovation Lab Ken Chapin and Abby Straus (also a partner in M&B) facilitate the 90 minute brainstorming session that led into Peter Senge’s world cafe activity. Click here to watch the video.

You can also download a copy of what everyone had to say. Click here.

For those who are interested in undertaking a similar activity, here’s a workshop you might like to try with your own social entrepreneurship community:

1. What are the big societal and technological changes/trends that we’re responding to in Social Innovation?

2. What’s working really well in the world of Social Innovation? What do we want to KEEP? ABANDON? RE-INVENT?

3. What leadership qualities are essential for success in Social Innovation? Think about great leaders you admire and your own strengths and successes as a leader?

4. You have been asked to design a leadership development program. Thinking about the qualities/skills required (from question 3), what are some activities that might help develop/practice those skills.

5. Describe a social innovation project you might like to lead today. 5 word title, 25 word description and how will it benefit society/the world?