tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-189339272011-07-03T22:45:35.936-04:00Thoughts on using problem solving and applied creativity techniques to promote social change. I'll be offering some of my own project ideas as well.Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.comBlogger701100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-78958141586905237912008-01-31T20:05:00.000-05:002008-01-31T20:06:44.384-05:00

Just a few random thoughts on reading Seeds of Innovation.1. Vertical integration - Companies try to control other companies that comprise supply, distribution, and sales channels for the company. Nonprofits really don’t absorb others but the basic concept seems useful - team up to coordinate efforts at all stages of addressing a social problem. The example of homelessness came to mind. The

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-48433730638155767052008-01-19T11:56:00.000-05:002008-01-19T11:57:52.378-05:00

I’m doing a bit of market research on some books I’d like to write. Not much point if there’s no market right? Well, I’m hoping my blog readers will be willing to offer some comments on these ideas:1. The Little Book of Bad Ideas - Catalogs the social and personal costs of ideas including astrology, God, free will, responsibility, self-improvement, homeopathy, and lotteries. There will also be a

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-40458916276800705732008-01-18T20:32:00.000-05:002008-01-18T20:34:34.611-05:00

This is from a press release I wrote and sent out in anticipation of the World Social Forum on Januray 26.This is the very-long season of selling candidates and ideas, including a candidate’s ideas, a party’s ideas, or a group’s ideas for policies and programs. The usual methods of creating and selling political ideas are well known to political activists, though some simple principles for

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-43786619249447627212008-01-16T21:12:00.001-05:002008-01-16T21:12:51.406-05:00

Random input is a popular brainstorming technique, described in several books on creative thinking. I just thought I would share some random input, in the form of seemingly silly questions:1. How is a fundraising campaign like a wedding?2. How is an education campaign like a lizard?3. How is activism like housework?4. How is fundraising like jogging?5. How is a social service agency like a street

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-45052866040411718392008-01-14T10:53:00.000-05:002008-01-14T10:56:30.371-05:00

Public education campaigns are an important part of many social change efforts. People need to know about the problem - how big it is, how much it costs, who is affected, why the problem exists, what exactly can be done. Magazine ads, press releases, television and radio advertising (if you can afford it!) are all good ways to get a message across. But there might be better ways. A little

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-66382668166650691352008-01-09T20:23:00.000-05:002008-01-09T20:24:10.119-05:00

Just a few random thoughts on fundraising:1. Sometimes it must be possible to forget about money and (a) barter for the goods or services you need, or (b) get in-kind contributions to meet your operating needs. This probably won’t work when it comes to things like salaries, rent, consulting fees, or utility bills. However…2. Brainstorming often works, even when it comes to dealing with money

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-61820331629544491032008-01-07T20:26:00.000-05:002008-01-07T20:27:09.241-05:00

Advocacy efforts depend on lots of things for success - good ideas, hard work, money, effective marketing, and many other factors that are more or less controllable. This post is about four principles, the use of which can influence a campaign’s chances of success. The example of advocating for household use of solar energy technology should make these “effective advocacy principles” more

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-56846352618694215662008-01-04T21:19:00.001-05:002008-01-04T21:20:38.840-05:00

Activists want to sell ideas - conservative ideas, liberal ideas, environmental ideas, and many other types of ideas. Social change necessarily depends on getting ideas and selling them effectively. Promoting new beliefs, laws, lifestyle choices, policies, programs, regulations, and values could (One hopes!) be done more effectively with the right tools and techniques applied at each stage of the

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-4684747714157616772008-01-02T20:55:00.001-05:002008-01-02T20:55:32.190-05:00

The beginning of a new year brings with it a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how our social change efforts can be improved. Sustainable businesses need to innovate and advertise and promote. Nonprofits need to raise money and develop new programs or projects. Social marketing campaigns are always starting up. Activists and nonprofit managers are interested in public education and advocacy

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-58514102897639652482007-12-20T21:22:00.000-05:002008-01-01T14:58:29.477-05:00

Last time I wrote about brainstorming techniques that would help social innovators and activists to get better results. This post builds on that idea with some advice on what sorts of social innovation or activism tasks can be helped by using various brainstorming techniques. You’ll need to do a little homework after reading this post, and might need a reference source while you read. I suggest

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-70932750787219593512007-12-18T23:07:00.000-05:002007-12-18T23:08:05.802-05:00

This post just serves to reinforce my claim that social activists could get better results by applying a few simple, but formalized, brainstorming tactics to their plans. Social marketing, advocacy, public education efforts, social programs, policies, and fundraising could always benefit from new ideas. We need new idea about how to do those things and we need new ideas to promote/sell.Many, many

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-52950330931789619512007-12-12T21:41:00.000-05:002007-12-12T21:42:30.410-05:00

Last time I mentioned a few elements of creative social policy, creating one and selling it. You want to be able to identify the real problem, brainstorming, and borrowing ideas. This post includes notes on designing social policies and selling them.Design Thinking - Before getting too deep into creating a new policy or advocating a policy consider the resources that would be available to

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-45706023000517271782007-12-08T11:05:00.000-05:002007-12-12T19:04:31.503-05:00

Activists sometimes want new policies enacted. Sometimes they create a new policy idea and try to sell the idea to lawmakers or voters. The creation and selling of new policies are two undertakings that call for systematic problem solving by activist groups.Policy ideas are usually meant to solve a social or environmental problem. A little problem analysis can seperate symptoms from problems.

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-88745571603968546802007-12-05T20:56:00.000-05:002007-12-05T20:57:08.429-05:00

So, lets change subjects from talking about rasing money to the subject of program design."There needs to be a program for that issue in this town." "We need to launch a project to deal with ______."Social problems and social opportunities often get handled by new programs or projects. Some are run by the government, some by nonprofits. Whatever.Program design calls for problem analysis, so you

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-14024571057996424012007-12-03T19:45:00.000-05:002007-12-03T19:46:10.373-05:00

Nonprofit groups sometimes need to raise money, recruit volunteers, or get in-kind contributions. All three effrots really represent different ways of getting the resources the organization needs to achieve its goals. With that in mind, I offer a few thoughts on creative fundraising. The advice could apply to soliciting in-kind contributions or to recruiting volunteers. You'll have to decide for

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-70035993504891599092007-11-26T19:45:00.000-05:002007-11-26T19:47:30.259-05:00

Sometimes, maybe most of the time, the best social betterment ideas are nes you steal from somewhere. Why not borrow and adapt a good idea that's already out there? There is no reason not to try. I describe the process of stealing ideas in The Creative Activism Guide.The process isn't that hard, and to make it even easier I offer these three suggestions:1. Know what counts as a good idea before

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-13495023086027765082007-08-06T21:16:00.000-04:002007-08-06T21:25:07.981-04:00

Here are a few (very) broad principles that people should consider before they set out to improve the world/their neighborhood.the country:1. Targeted Innovation– focus on social and technological innovations that attack the root of a problem, not just one or more symptoms.2. Empirical approach – Use data, systematic observations, and formal analytical tools to understand the current situation

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-32014149744015116772007-08-04T16:02:00.000-04:002007-08-04T16:06:33.803-04:00

Maybe, as long as we think about the right things and then do something :-)I've written a book that describes some techniques for getting and implemtning ideas for social innovations that the world badly needs.The Creative Activism Guide shows readers how to use formal innovation techniques for social betterment. The Creative Activism Guide covers problem definition, idea generation,

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1168203488187535502007-01-07T15:58:00.000-05:002007-01-07T15:58:08.240-05:00

We've all got ideas to sell. Whether you are interested in green technology, immigration reform, women's rights. or sustainable agriculture you'll have policies, programs, lifestyle changes, services, or products that you wish people would adopt. So, maybe it makes sense to think of yourself as a marketer. That perspective leads to some important questions about selling social change: 1. Who

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1165160026527476382006-12-03T10:33:00.000-05:002006-12-20T23:07:46.903-05:00

I've been thinking about using vending machines to sell new products and ideas, the sorts of products and ideas that are consistent with sustainable development goals. You can already buy coffee, tea, beer, lottery tickets, and so many other things from vending machines. Why not use them to sell fair trade and organic products? What to sell though? How about fair trade chocolate bars, organic

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1163956214622201612006-11-19T12:10:00.000-05:002006-11-19T12:10:14.670-05:00

Last time I wrote about some social change insights from a book called Diffusion of Innovations. Innovations tend to succeed or fail based on six factors: (1) Relative advantage, (2) Compatibility, (3) Observability, (4) Trialability, (5) Complexity, (6) support by influential change agents. Last time I made some remarks on how those characteristics can be applied to selling social innovations.

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1163177489717009832006-11-10T11:51:00.000-05:002006-11-10T11:51:29.793-05:00

I was reading about research on how innovations spread through societies. Most work seems to be on technological innovations. But, I think the lessons from diffusion of innovations research could apply just as well to social innovations. Policies, laws, regulations, lifestyle changes, new attitudes, and "green" technologies all need to be sold. Knowing what helps an innovation to succeed can only

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1162740378555234052006-11-05T10:26:00.000-05:002006-11-05T10:26:18.626-05:00

Designing new public ediucation strategies, social policies, and so forth needs to proceed based on some fundamental principles that can guide us to create things that are likely to work. I'm not sure what new or revised principles we really need in this area. I do have a few thoughts to offer. So, here are some things to keep in mind: 1. Decision making is emotional and not purely rational - If

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1162135928146960482006-10-29T10:32:00.000-05:002006-10-29T10:32:09.826-05:00

Solving the world's problems will require some new ideas and some effective selling of many ideas. Taking advantage of opportunities to improve things that are okay now will also take new ideas. That's easy enough to see. But what counts as a good idea? If you don't know then you can't really say whether your idea is any good. Many factors are really involved here, though we may want to

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1161740907917525822006-10-24T21:48:00.000-04:002006-10-24T21:48:32.036-04:00

Why isn't there a Consumer Reports for ideas? That very popular magazine does us a service by reporting on the performance and quality of all manner of consumer goods. I bet many of you have used Consumer Reports magazine or one of the annual Buying Guides to help you make a purchase or two. Why isn't there a similar magazine devoted to ideas? Yes, I realize that many magazines are devoted to

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1159928446854461002006-10-03T22:20:00.000-04:002006-10-03T22:20:46.900-04:00

Voters, politicians, consumers, activists, managers and the rest of us all make choices regularly. We make choices about legislation (Shall I vote for it or against it?), where to live, what car to buy, what politicians to vote for, whether to bother voting at all, and a bunch of other stuff. You get the picture. My topic for the past two posts has been the common human question "What should I

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1159632742419661622006-09-30T12:12:00.000-04:002006-09-30T12:12:22.456-04:00

I was rereading Edward De Bono's book Serious Creativity and got some ideas. De Bono describes many techniques for generating new ideas, and some techniques for introducing creativity into organizations. These are really formal mechanisms for eliciting new ideas. Activist organizations and social service nonprofits need to keep up a list of specific areas where creative ideas are needed. This is

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1158284993518728352006-09-14T21:49:00.000-04:002006-09-14T21:49:53.570-04:00

I was inspired to address this subject by a question someone asked me last night: Why are there so many rude drivers? You probably thought that some people were just selfish and/or stupid. You were partly right. Since this is a sociology blog so I feel compelled to come up with a few sociological observations. Several social forces are at work, or not, in the case of rude drivers. Consider the

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1156602270538102292006-08-26T10:24:00.000-04:002006-08-26T10:24:31.633-04:00

Why do people complain about the state of society? We all do this sometimes. We complain about the Bush administration, Dick Cheney, pollution, economic policy, declining morals, intrusive government, loss of civil rights. corporate greed, housing prices (My personal favorite!), the status of women, and a bunch of other things. My very favorite topic of criticism happens to be the quality of

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1155684920289180252006-08-15T19:35:00.000-04:002006-08-15T19:35:20.356-04:00

OK, so we all know that society is plagued by bad ideas. We do know that don't we? Good. Maybe we should devise a way of measuring social pollution. Some of you may be familiar with Harper's Index, a list of anecdotes and statistics. The Index is really only for entertainment, but the items listed do give an amusing look at the nature of our times. Well, maybe the ideas that characterize our

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1155390189397307762006-08-12T09:43:00.000-04:002006-08-12T09:43:09.443-04:00

I was thinking about religious tracts, when this obvious idea hit me. You've probably seen those little booklets that contain religious messages contained in a mix of text and cartoons. Well, why should the religious have a lock on this means of communication? Why not use tracts to promote science, logic, reason, humanism, and other worthy things. Use simple text and cartoons to make one point. A

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1153266850143018262006-07-18T19:54:00.000-04:002006-07-18T19:54:10.250-04:00

Here we go again. The world is full of ideas on global claimate change, immigration, education, alternative energy, poverty, mankind's place in the natural order, blah, blah, blah. Those who follow my blogs know about my interest in fighting ideas that are counterfactual, illogical, or destructive of widely-held human values. The time before last, I posted a checklist that you could use to test

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1152976672811102342006-07-15T11:17:00.000-04:002006-07-15T11:17:52.923-04:00

Maybe complexity is the main reason we don't try harder to evaluate ideas about social policy, economic policy, crime, the war on terror, global climate change, and other issues.  The issues themselves are also hard to understand. Deciding what we think about the ideas we encounter can be awfully complicated. Yet, our unwillingness to confront this complexity causes all sorts of social problems.

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1152833956630166592006-07-13T19:39:00.000-04:002006-07-13T19:39:16.690-04:00

Do the facts support our ideas about crime, poverty, immigration, environmental problems, corruption in business, and other things that keep appearing in the news? Are today's laws and policies based on facts? When an idea is based on no facts, misinterpreted facts, or misused scientific concepts it is probably social pollution. Even if the idea seems likely to have positive consequences for

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1152661476702686112006-07-11T19:44:00.000-04:002006-07-11T19:44:37.866-04:00

Assumptions can be a real problem when they relate to social policy, ballot initiatives, activism efforts, and legislation. Are the assumptions behind welfare reform, immigration reform, flag burning bans, anti-poverty measures, and drug policy based on sound assumptions. These are the sorts of issues that call for asking some tough questions about our assumptions. So, what assumptions are

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1152230081118707892006-07-06T19:54:00.000-04:002006-07-06T19:54:41.183-04:00

No, I haven't been watching too much Star Trek. Logic is something that we need more of in social policy, economic policy, elections, foreign policy, education, voting, and personal decisions of all sorts. (Note to you psychologists: I know that decision making is not really a rational activity. I'm choosing to politely ignore that fact.) What would happen if policies were based more firmly on

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1152020781087319722006-07-04T09:46:00.000-04:002006-07-04T09:46:21.180-04:00

Do our social policies and economic policies really support our values? Do spending priorities in Congress really reflect our values. When someone in Congress or, God help us, on talk radio proposes some social program or piece of legislation we might wonder what values will be supported or undermined? Sometimes we like to think about what society should be like. Liberals, leftists, progressives

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1151626038608699462006-06-29T20:07:00.000-04:002006-06-29T20:07:18.683-04:00

Money makes people happy. Congress should represent the diversity of the US population. Juries should look like the accused. What do you think of these ideas? Why? Well, her is what I think: Money = Happiness: This is true to a limited extent. Up to a certain income level happiness does tend to increase, then the rate of increase slows down. At some point (An average income of maybe $3500 a year)

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1151460201428840622006-06-27T22:03:00.000-04:002006-06-27T22:03:21.500-04:00

Like water pollution, global climate change, and toxic waste, social pollution generates costs and benefits. Like pollution of the natural environment the costs and benefits are not spread evenly. The costs and benefits of social pollution aren't as clear as one might think, if one thought about the subject of social pollution. Who benefits from social pollution you might ask? Well, almost all of

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1151020713504965752006-06-22T19:58:00.000-04:002006-06-22T19:58:33.563-04:00

Again with the social pollution! I'm also going to say a few things about celebrity "news" shows, ginned-up social problems and health threats, Q-Ray bracelets, and talk radio. My comments could apply to other specific things that don't occur to me at the moment. The general categories of things that I have in mind here are corporate fear-mongering, political fear-mongering, crass commercialism,

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1150847944026936142006-06-20T19:59:00.000-04:002006-06-20T19:59:04.126-04:00

Yeah, we can all agree that bad ideas are, well, bad for us. But what does that really mean? What are the consequences of social polution, in time, energy, and dollars? This morning I happened to glance at the celebrity news section of the Washington Post Express. (Guess what? Brangelina was mentioned. Ditto, two drug-addicted and useless rock stars.)  This unfortunate encounter led me to expand

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1150424014956399272006-06-15T22:13:00.000-04:002006-06-15T22:13:35.030-04:00

Political posturing, crass consumerism, religious fanaticism, and other signs of problems in society all need attention. We need alternatives that people will really adopt. We need tools and strategies to overcome all forms of social pollution. So, what can you do to fight social pollution? I can offer several strategies and some specific ideas. I've mentioned the need to come up with

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1150242550083232462006-06-13T19:49:00.000-04:002006-06-13T19:49:10.126-04:00

Again with the social pollution! Well, I promised to write about pollution cleanup and I'm going to get to it now. Keep in mind that social pollution can come in two basic flavors: philosophical ideas ("Homosexuality is a sin.") and practical ideas (Work on a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.). Social pollution has four consequences, each of which provides a pretty good reason to be

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1149647476417139132006-06-06T22:31:00.000-04:002006-06-06T22:31:16.470-04:00

Immigration reform, global climate change, global poverty, the left-wing media, the right-wing government, voter apathy, and our spiraling national debt all need our attention. We need new ideas, in some cases. Mostly, we need to work harder at selling ideas that already exist. What do I mean? Well, we could use better ideas for government policies, social programs, legislation, and education.

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1149206038964885892006-06-01T19:53:00.000-04:002006-06-01T19:56:46.300-04:00

Ideas are as important as the air and water that we depend on. Wihout a steady stream of ideas that are new, at least to the individual, life would be pretty miserable. Luckily, many ideas are good, or relatively harmless. Unluckily, the more powerful an idea becomes the more damage it can cause. My last couple of posts described a network of community groups that could fight those powerful and

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1149032739494485972006-05-30T19:45:00.000-04:002006-05-30T19:45:39.553-04:00

Political debates, elections, scandals, the mass media, religion, an all sorts of activists spread bad ideas. Last time I wrote about community groups dedicating to fighting this social pollution. This post offers a few more details on the tools and techniques that the groups could use to prevent pollution and clean up polluted areas. (I'll have more to say about claenup and remediation in future

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1148741586009203482006-05-27T10:53:00.000-04:002006-05-27T19:44:03.740-04:00

No, this is not another call to clean up the earth, at least not in the way you were probably thinking. I've written a few posts on the topic of social pollution - ideas that are counterfactual, illogical, or that undermine widely-held human values. Social pollution calls for pollution control. You don't want feces in your community's water supply. Hopefully, you don't want the intellectual

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1148265825617760242006-05-21T22:43:00.000-04:002006-05-21T22:43:45.680-04:00

Television programs that promote sustainable development and a rational and logial approach to dealing with social problems. I've got three ideas about subject matter and content: 1. Eco-Cities TV - A design show dedicated to showing how much resource consumption can be improved in a city, while enhancing quality of life.Each episode would focus on one city, using interviews, expert analysis, and

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Why is there not a central location for finding authoritative opinion and (especially!) facts about social issues and environmental problems like methampehtamine abuse, gun violence, vlobal climate change, and immigration? Wouldn't activists, educators, students, and writers love something like this? (Yeah, I've heard of Google, but I was thinking of creating something more focused and user

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Edward DeBono talks about thinking clubs in his book De Bono's Thinking Course. The main point of those clubs was to practice the use of various thinking tools that he developed over the years. I think his idea could be taken much further. Global warming news got me thinking even harder about the matter. We need more thinking clubs that are also doing clubs.Here is what I mean: If you work in

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1141573660276831102006-03-05T10:21:00.000-05:002006-03-05T10:47:55.586-05:00

I just read a book titled Why Not? and it gave me some ideas about promoting social change, designing better social policies, and other topics of interest to those who want to make society better. So here are my ideas:Incentives - It is easier to change behaviors if you reward people than if you threaten to punish them. The challenge is to offer incentives that really promote the behavior you

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1141054718663826152006-02-27T10:19:00.000-05:002006-02-27T10:38:38.730-05:00

Social activism is all about selling new policies, laws, regulations, lifestyle choices, technologies, values, and beliefs. Did I leave anything out? So, if you want to promote social change, any sort of social change, maybe you can imporve your results by thinking like an entrepreneur. That's a theme I'll return to again and again in this blog. For now here is what I have to say:Why not try to

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Reduce poverty, promote economic development that restores or protects the environment, fight substance abuse among young people, or promote democracy, or promote world peace. Wishing can make things happen.Okay, so there is also some work involved. Perhaps lots of work. It all depends on how big a change you want to make and how fast you want the change to happen. Makes sense, right?Part of the

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Social activists, environmentalists, and some nonprofits focused on public education tend to use reasonable tactics to get their points across. They use professional Web sites and direct mail materials, take out ads in newspapers, try to recruit celebrity spokespersons, and otherwise try to get into the spotlight.Sometimes, the tactics do become ridiculous. PETA has had nude models painted like

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Must we make policy decisions about things like national security, environmental protection, welfare, social security, and prescription drugs by seeing who can win a fight over ideology. And of course these fights are often shaped by lobbyists, re-election concerns, and assorted influence peddlers. Those three forces are at work in all levels of government.Nonprofit organizations are often

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1137944674543051382006-01-22T10:03:00.000-05:002006-02-13T16:43:25.616-05:00

No, I'm not saying that teachers should be social activists in their classrooms. This post is about a tool that educators could use to promote social change. The tool I'm referring to is the direct teaching of thinking skills.Edward De Bono was the first (I think) to create a program of training in thinking skills. You can read more about the program, CoRT Thinking Lessons, at his official web

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1136737002020464612006-01-08T10:57:00.000-05:002006-01-08T11:46:06.843-05:00

Michael Michalko's (1991) book Thinkertoys is about creativity for business problem solving. Thinkertoys describes 34 techniques for creative thinking along with techniques for evaluating ideas and for becoming more creative in general. This post is about using those techniques in government, activism efforts, nonprofit management, education, and social entrepreneuership.Most of the challenges

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1136214049130276632006-01-02T09:48:00.000-05:002006-01-02T10:26:33.346-05:00

Jump Start Your Business Brain by Doug Hall is a worthwhile read for activists. Why? The book is about selling products and services. What do most activists want to do? They want to sell some idea, policy, law, lifestyle change, or behavior change.And why should the rest of us care about what you are selling? Maybe the answer is obvious: we/you must do _______ to make society better! If that is

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1135823279031460952005-12-28T21:17:00.000-05:002006-08-04T12:41:51.636-04:00

Well, I have a bunch of ideas for CDs or downloadable files that assemble information on topics that people care about. I'm thinking of a searchable compendium of knowledge and ideas in areas like these:1. health and fitness.2. Wealth building.3. Success.4. Applied Psychology.5. Marketing.Knowledge base files could also be created for areas of concern for activists and nonprofits. I know enough

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1135644509675108072005-12-26T19:31:00.000-05:002005-12-26T19:48:29.700-05:00

Maybe something like this already exists for teaching students in high school and college, but probably not: There could be a market for teaching materials that show students how to identify biases in their own thinking and (more importantly) in others' thinking.The biases are of three kinds: the ecological fallacy, the individualistic fallacy (both familiar to sociologists but not to the general

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1135019917220445622005-12-19T14:18:00.000-05:002005-12-19T14:42:00.566-05:00

First, you should know that a wiki is a Web site that anyone can add to, delete from, or edit. The most famous wiki is probably Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. I was reminded of a wiki idea of my own today when I saw a reference to Wikipedia in a book. I think there may be interest in a wiki that focuses on one or more aspects of social change, assuming no such wiki already exists. So what

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1134835145680771672005-12-17T10:39:00.000-05:002005-12-19T14:08:54.926-05:00

Yes, sociologists and sociolo9y students generally know how to "brainstorm" in a general, undisciplined way. But there are some specific techniques and applications that may be interesting to sociologists and other social scientists. This post offers some of my thoughts on that topic.Survey research - Concept fans can be used to work from the general intent of a question to the specific word

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I'm sure there are many things sociologists have done that could form the foundation of business ventures, nonprofit programs, new products, or new services. I've already come up with a few.The Institute for Applied Sociology would develop nonprofit and business applications of sociology. This would be a for-profit venture. It could provide training, sell information products, and perhaps do some

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This is a potentially valuable product for social forecasting, technological forecasting, strategic planning, trend analysis, and perhaps for other applications. Perhaps it offers a new way to study the "cultural climate" in foreign countries or to track the "chatter" on hundreds of Arabic Web sites. Environmental scanning is the systematic search for information about an organization's social

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1134096708959241512005-12-08T21:44:00.000-05:002005-12-08T21:51:48.970-05:00

Creative thinking can be helped along by comparing a challenge to a randomly selected word. This technique, sometimes called random input, is an old brainstorming trick. Here are a few related thoughts on challenges that I've been thinking about lately. Note the form of the statements I make. The "random" words jsut popped into my head. You could use a dictionary and just open to a random

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1133716607001127982005-12-04T11:52:00.000-05:002005-12-04T12:16:49.486-05:00

I3 is a project to research the consequences of popular ideas about various aspects of social life. The exact areas of social life and the exact ideas are open. The areas I had in mind to invesitgate are science, government, religion, economy, politics, ethics, education, family, and technology.Those areas seem to make the most sense as focal points because of their impact on social life.Why do

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1133112021624321872005-11-27T03:20:00.000-05:002005-11-27T12:20:21.653-05:00

There could be an organization that offers a range of services that can support social change efforts. We could call it the Public Sector Innovation Institute. It would provide training and consulting on a creative thinking, problem solving, decision analysis, planning for social marketing, social innovation, social ventures, sustainable development, and economic development.The main offerings

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Idea #1: There are many tools, techniques, and strategies out there for problem-solving, innovation, planning, and decision making.Idea #2: Thousands of organizations and groups are interesting making the world "better" in some way, often with poor results, slow results, or no results. Sometimes the unintended consequences cancel out any benefits.Idea #3: An organization that offers training,

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1132591961691249302005-11-21T14:53:00.000-05:002005-12-04T12:24:01.976-05:00

How about 20/20 for those interested in social change and social issues? A television series combining science, technology, and human interest stories might be a hit, or at least profitable. It would be relatively cheap to produce, probably more than a soap opera or the home makeover show.My social innovations program would be a newsmagazine focusing on social and technological innovations that

Dr Societyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966183828384579322noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18933927.post-1131915452356632972005-11-13T18:57:00.000-05:002006-02-06T23:32:44.903-05:00

Thanks for checking out my first blog, first on the topics of ideas. This blog is a repository for my social innovations, inventions, business ideas, social ventures, Web site ideas, movie and television ideas, and miscellaneous ideas that are hard to classify. If you are looking for ideas you can use in a business, nonprofit, or even a government agency, I encourage you to subscribe.I want to

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