Learning through Empathy

I was lucky enough to spend last Friday morning at a café in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. Recently I’ve made a habit of spending Fridays there. I don’t live in San Francisco but I tend to have meetings in SF, which means the Ferry Building often becomes a bit of a home base for me. There’s plenty to eat and drink, and it’s light, bright, bustling with energy and just a bit chaotic – all good things in a vibrant city space! As much as I love the frenzy and noise of the Ferry Building, it can also feel lonely here at times. Just like in any big city, being surrounded by strangers can lead to an awesome and liberating feeling of anonymity. On the other hand, sitting in a room watching everyone else laugh, eat and connect with their friends and family can leave a person feeling alone and cut off.

A few weeks ago, I had an experience that left me feeling particularly isolated and alone, one that I thought I’d share in the hope that it offers some interesting learning and questions.

I was rushing like always to get out of the house and catch my train to San Francisco. I had a lunch meeting scheduled at (surprise, surprise) the Ferry Building, and I didn’t want to be late. To get there, I planned to walk to the train station (10 minutes), ride the train (40 minutes), take another train (10 minutes), and then walk a bit more. I sprinted to the station and hopped on just in time.

As I went to grab my monthly train pass, my heart sank: I had forgotten my wallet. Oh my god, I thought, I got on the train without a ticket! I don't tend to make mistakes like this often, so I immediately got a bit angry with myself.

Then, a few moments later the bigger reality hit: I don’t have any money. At first I didn’t think this was a huge deal – I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t get booted from the train for not having a ticket, and amazingly luck was on my side and I managed to make it all the way to SF.

But here’s where it got complicated. To get to the Ferry Building in time for my meeting, I had planned to board a city train. But without money, I couldn’t buy a ticket and I knew I wouldn’t make it on a second time for free. So I started walking, and walking, and walking. Finally, a mile and a half later I made it to the Ferry Building – out of breath and 30 minutes late! I apologized profusely as I met my lunch date and we headed toward the entrance.

But of course, then I remembered: we were supposed to have lunch, and I had no money. My companion was very understanding and even offered to pay for my meal, but after all that walking and the stress and embarrassment of the morning, I wasn’t hungry so I passed on his offer. So we chatted while he ate, and about an hour later, we parted ways.

As we said goodbye, though, I had an instant moment of clarity and realized what was happening. It was late afternoon, and I was hot, exhausted and all of a sudden excruciatingly hungry. And I had no money. I was supposed to meet my husband a few hours later, and on the surface, waiting a bit before we met up didn’t seem unbearable.

But then I got to thinking – which was unfortunately becoming increasingly hard to do on an empty stomach:

Where do I go? Where can I wait?

Where’s the nearest bathroom?

Where’s the nearest water fountain?

All of a sudden, I felt alone and hopeless. I was hungry, thirsty, tired and completely by myself. As I wandered around and looked for a place to rest, I couldn't help but think to myself: this must be what it feels like to be homeless.

Now ok, in hindsight I will admit that was a sweeping generalization. In the grand scheme of things, I barely brushed the surface of understanding the challenges of being homeless. And rest assured that I did end up reuniting with my husband, over a delicious meal no less. Still, my afternoon without cash left a real imprint on me.

The truth is I’ve been thinking a lot about empathy these days. At IDEO, empathy is an integral component of what we call human-centered design. By putting ourselves in the shoes of others, we learn about people’s concerns, hopes, fears and perhaps most importantly, needs. And their needs are what we design for.

Take the current OpenIDEO challenge in partnership with Amnesty International as an example. Human rights, and unlawful detention specifically, is something that not everyone can relate to – so we’re using empathy to delve deeper into the experience a detainee or his/her family might go through. Empathy, in many ways, is the golden ticket that helps us design solutions successfully and with compassion and authenticity.

Last week David Brooks wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about the limits of empathy. His central argument is that while empathy can be a tool for understanding, it can also lead to misguided efforts. Empathy, for example, can make us feel more compassion for cuter, more approachable causes – like puppies, sick babies, or polar bears.  And empathy, he argues, doesn’t actually translate to action. Just because you empathize with a homeless person on the street doesn’t mean you’ll actually act to improve his circumstance.

I agree with Mr. Brooks that empathy doesn’t guarantee action. Since reading his article, I’ll admit that my brush with empathy hasn’t exactly changed my behavior or inspired me to act differently.

I do however believe that empathy guarantees awareness.Without sounding overly dramatic, in the span of just a few hours that day, I was transformed. As I walked around, staying close to the restrooms and considering where I might find free snacks, I realized that I no longer felt like Ashley. Instead, I felt invisible, embarrassed, and to be honest even a little emotional.

Now, thanks to that experience a few weeks ago, I have at the ready some very tangible touch points for how it feels to be someone else. To be in a different place, in a different body and live under very different but very real constraints. Has my heightened empathy motivated me to reach into my pocket and give money to someone on the street? No, not yet. But have I approached my interactions, my work, and my personal life differently thanks to this renewed awareness? Absolutely. And I think that’s a great place to start.

Turning Ideas into Impact

I recently came across this great TED talk by Steven Johnson, a technology, science and innovation author who focuses on the question of where good ideas come from. Steven Johnson on TED

Over the course of 20 minutes, Johnson discusses open innovation as a vehicle for identifying, nurturing and developing great ideas. Innovation doesn’t happen in a bubble, nor in a flash – instead the best ideas are those that have come from connected individuals who make use of “liquid networks.”  “Chance,” he says, “favors the connected mind.”

This topic has been very top-of-mind for me lately, as I dive into the world of open innovation and online collaboration over at OpenIDEO.

As you’ve heard me talk before, OpenIDEO is an open innovation platform where people from all walks of life come together to collaboratively tackle some of our world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. From improving maternal health using mobile technology to increasing access to sanitation solutions in low-income communities, OpenIDEATORS (as our global community of 17,000+ calls itself) have generated thousands of ideas to improve our world.

It turns out that August marks OpenIDEO’s first anniversary, and while we’re taking a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come, we’re also eagerly looking forward toward what we hope to accomplish in the year ahead.

In some ways you could argue that Steven Johnson’s talk about the genesis of great ideas represents the story of OpenIDEO during Year 1. Through our platform we’ve provided an opportunity for people to connect and for ideas to be shared and built upon. In Year 2, however, we’re hoping to go beyond just being a community of thinkers, and instead figure out ways to become a community of doers.

One common critique of open innovation platforms like OpenIDEO is that impact is slow and difficult to achieve, and it’s something we’ve definitely witnessed over the course of the last 10 challenges we’ve run. The sponsors we work with make a commitment to realizing ideas from each challenge, but achieving and documenting implementation and impact can be slow going due to a number of constraints on resources, time, partnerships and more. Given this, one of our goals for Year 2 is to focus on the kind of impact that isn't always slow; that is, impact via individuals like you and me.

Take our Bone Marrow Donation Challenge, for instance. Ideally, impact in this challenge means actual lives saved through increased bone marrow donation. While this would certainly be an incredible example of impact, it's going to a long time before OpenIDEO and our sponsor have helped connect a bone marrow donor with a cancer patient in need of a transplant. In the meantime, then, we also want to recognize that there are alternative impacts we can strive for in the short term – swabbing a cheek and registering to donate, raising awareness among friends and family, even hosting a bone marrow registration drive, to name a few. The point is: there are many ways to contribute to achieving impact, and many ways to become a doer.

To gear up for a year focused on increasing our impact, OpenIDEO has just launched a new challenge that asks the question: How might we increase social impact with OpenIDEO over the next year?

It’s a question that’s relevant not just for the OpenIDEO community but for the social innovation sector as a whole. What does impact mean on a local and global scale? How can we catalyze people from all over the world to recognize and act on moments of impact? And how might we empower people to open themselves up to the possibility that they can become agents of change? We’re hoping to tackle these questions in this challenge, and I’d love it if you joined the conversation.

Here’s to the start of a brand new year – one filled with new ideas and new impact.

I Am a Social Intrapreneur

When you’re looking for CSR work, there’s a very clear mantra that everyone repeats, day in and day out. It goes something like this:

“Real CSR jobs are few and far between. If you want to do CSR, go get a functional job within a big company and innovate from the inside out.”

In social change circles, this mantra could also be called social intrapreneurship. Unlike social entrepreneurship, where you're starting something completely new and distinct, social intrapreneurship is all about finding ways to innovate within the constraints of your current organization.

For instance, if you’re an operations social intrapreneur, you might be on the lookout for ways to streamline your supply chain so as to reduce environmental inefficiencies, but that doesn't mean that your job title has the word 'sustainability' in it. Similarly, if you’re a marketing social intrapreneur, you might find an opportunity to promote the green benefits of your product, even if it’s not an explicitly eco-friendly item. This, at its core, is what social intrapreneurship is all about.

I learned this “innovate from the inside out” mantra early in grad school, which means that while I was a student, social intrapreneurship was often on my mind and in my blog (check out some stories I wrote about Best Buy and eBay as well as a short video interview I gave about it!).

And because I modeled my opinion of social intrapreneurship on the stories I'd learned and written about, I also came to associate the topic with a few specific images and messages in my head: corporate boardrooms in big, boxy skyscrapers; bureaucrats in suits who prioritize profits over everything else; and yes, even pushing rocks up mountains with my bare hands! It might not sound like your idea of fun, but hey – let's just say that if you want to do CSR work, you quickly get used to the idea that your job one day might involve persuading some boulders to start rolling.

Because of these definitive ideas that I had about when and where social intrapreneurship could happen, when I started my job with OpenIDEO I essentially cast off my social intrapreneurship intentions. I mean, folks at IDEO don’t exactly wear suits, and they certainly don’t sit around in corporate boardrooms!

As I’ve settled in to my work and my team, though, what I’ve learned is that social intrapreneurship is actually an integral part of my day job. Without even realizing it, I’ve become a social intrapreneur.

Let's see if I can explain.

OpenIDEO is a social innovation startup within IDEO; that is, we're a new business incubating within the confines of an established organization (no matter how un-corporate it might be). Because of that, we face many of the same challenges our social intrapreneurship colleagues in more corporate settings deal with every day:

1. Cutting back the number of cooks in the kitchen: As a new initiative, we look for guidance from all corners of the organization, not to mention outside of IDEO too. The good news is that everyone has an opinion, and the bad news is that everyone has an opinion! How do we sift through these differing intentions and use them to make smart choices?
2. Being bold and realistic: This especially comes into play when we try to balance our potential to grow with our limited capacity and bandwidth as a small team. How do we pursue leads, push ourselves to develop, and be brave and bold – without burning out?
3. Solidifying “the OpenIDEO Way": Part of what makes OpenIDEO so fun and unique is that mostly everything we're doing is new and uncharted (after all, we’ve been live for less than year!). Eventually, though, you start realizing you’re reinventing the wheel every time you get asked to do something slightly different. Is there a way to stay flexible and open to new opportunities while also developing some standard processes that will help us scale and replicate?
4. Doing well and doing good: It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but it certainly applies to what we’re working on too. While we are out for social impact, we’re no good to anyone if we don’t make money. How might we find ways to prove our business model and impact our world at the same time?

Ultimately, as a new offering within an established company, we operate very similarly to all the other social intrapreneurs out there trying to create change within their own organizations.  Whether you’re a small CSR team, or a single person with a passion for sustainability or philanthropy, the work of a social intrepreneur isn’t easy. With that said, I can also state with 100% confidence that it’s a lot more fun than pushing rocks uphill!

How are you applying social intrapreneurship within your own organization? What tips, tricks or guidance would you want to share with me and others? I'd love to hear from you.

Ready... Set... Fail?

These days, when people talk about innovation, it’s almost inevitable that the word “failure” isn’t far behind. From what I’ve seen, failure and its role as a necessary ingredient for innovation is getting quite a bit of buzz these days, with everyone from design thinkers to social change agents to Warren Buffet saying that failure should be an expected – and even welcomed – outcome when you’re out to create change.

And sure, this isn’t super surprising. Anytime you think and act outside of the proverbial box, you’re bound to make some mistakes, right? Naturally.

But should we really be using the term "failure" to describe this behavior? I’m not so sure. Before I get to that, though, I’ve got a couple of admissions to share:

Admission #1: I am a perfectionist.

I don’t mean perfectionist in a purely competitive way, but more like I really want to get things right. Dotting every I and crossing every T is definitely part of it. But have you ever stopped to think first about which pen might draw the best I or T? I definitely do.

Admission #2: I’m also a planner.

I like knowing what’s coming down the pipeline, what’s on my to-do list, and what I can expect. More than anything, I LOVE when good planning leads to good results (guess it’s a vicious cycle of planning and perfection!).

But here's the problem:

First of all, perfection is often exhausting. Setting the bar beyond what’s doable can sometimes lead to greatness, but it can just as easily lead to burnout. And planning? As they say, expect the unexpected. I may always want to plan, but life gets chaotic, things get in the way, and new opportunities (and roadblocks) pop up.

When I first started my new job, I often used the word “stretched” to describe how I felt. Not in an overwhelmed kind of way, but instead like a rubber band being pulled in two directions at once. In essence, my new job and my new team stretch me everyday to think, act and approach my work in wholly different ways. While I like to plan my next move before getting started, for instance, my team likes to seize a good idea and run with it. And while I like to make sure we have things right (ok, let’s be honest – perfect) before diving into anything, my team is more than comfortable making a few mistakes along the way.

And so here comes Admission #3: mistakes make me very, very uncomfortable.

What's funny is that when we talk about innovation, especially in the social sector, I'll be the first to raise my hand and recognize how important failure is as a part of the learning process. Objectively I can understand that innovation is messy and chaotic, and because of that, it can and should entail making mistakes along the way.

The hardest part, of course, is taking a leap of faith in my own innovation process, knowing full well that I might not get it right the first time.

For a perfectionist who likes to plan, making a mistake is one of the toughest things you could ask me to do! But like a rubber band being stretched, I’m learning to accept the fact that a few mistakes along the way are helpful, and maybe even healthy.

It can be tough to find a balance between waiting to do something until it’s perfect and jumping in with both feet, regardless of the warning bells. I've learned that the need for perfection shouldn’t paralyze you, but your willingness to make mistakes also shouldn’t cloud your better judgment.

How do you move forward thoughtfully and also proactively? How do you try to get it right the first time, but also give yourself permission to make a few missteps along the way?

To be honest, I don’t yet know. But I’m working on it, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Which brings me back to my original question: is failure the same thing as making mistakes? I may be a recovering perfectionist, but I'd argue there's a definite difference!

Day in the Life of a Community Manager

It’s been a few weeks since my last post – and coincidentally it’s also been a few weeks since I started my new job as community manager for OpenIDEO. While I’ve had many “bloggable” moments recently, I’ll admit I just haven’t quite gotten around to it. Too much new stuff to learn, too many new people to meet, too much new work to do, I guess.

But today, when someone forwarded me this awesome infographic, it was like the stars aligned and I just HAD to post this. For anyone who’s curious about how I’d describe my first few weeks on the job, it doesn’t get better than this:

All kidding about piñatas aside, I do think this image very accurately depicts my experience so far.

So far my new job has been 150% about tending to the garden, cheerleading for members, patrolling the spammers, and playing concierge. It’s also been about taking a pulse on the community’s mood and priorities, and translating them into actionable insights for my team. And, in all my spare time, of course I’m also trying to gobble up as much information as my Tweetdeck can handle on social innovation, technology and design.

(Oh, and maybe sleep occasionally too...)

In short, I’m learning that as community manager I wear a lot of hats.

Some of these hats aren’t so fun – imagine writing an email to someone asking them not to spam our site anymore! But some of them are just plain awesome. Seriously – my job is to figure out ways to nurture and grow a community of people who care about doing good things in our world. How amazing is that?

As I get more embedded into the world of community management, I’ll do my best to record what I learn here.

For now, I’m curious to hear from you, as a user of online communities, what do you think the role of a community manager is? And for all you community managers out there, what hats do you wear that might not be captured in the image above? I’d love to hear your thoughts (and tips too, since I’m definitely still learning!).