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working with a new cohort of innovators that
a huge amount of value is already in the
group. One of the easiest, and also most
effective ways of incubating social innovation
is to put the innovators in the same place.
Much can be achieved by simply bringing
these brilliant, socially minded people
together in the same room and allow them to
build connections, share learning and
collaborate. Sometimes we can try too hard
to force thing along and add too much
structure. Structure is important, but
sometimes the best is just to take a step back
and let people talk, and be open and relaxed
around each other. It gives people the space
and time to appreciate the knowledge in the
room. People find commonalities between
them, they start to collaborate and they start
sharing ideas. It sounds almost too easy, but
giving people the space and time is really
effective.
It is also important to be flexible when giving
people tools. We need to accept that some
people will find them effective, and some
people wont. For some people the tools we
offer them will make sense, but equally for
some people they won’t. Our goal is to
facilitate and enable people to use them,
rather than saying they have to do use the
tools in a certain way. We suggest they might
try our tools as a possible way of working. If
they didn’t find it useful they will at least have
gotten a new perspective on their innovation.