Making Citizen-Driven Innovation Work for You

In this chapter, you will learn how to make citizen-driven innovation work for you and your organization and understand the core values that lie behind the concept of citizen-driven innovation. The purpose of this chapter is to paint the bigger picture of the ideas fueling citizen-driven innovation, with the overall goal being that you will start imagining what the core values of your own organization are that could drive citizen-driven innovation for you. By describing the process of how the concept came about, you will attain an understanding of how citizen-driven innovation can fuel your organization’s growth.

The chapter will cover the following topics:

• Understanding citizen-driven innovation
• Sense of urgency
• Massive transformative purpose
• Redefining democracy for the 21st century
• Manifesting core values with the Dream! Hack! Build! method

The concept of citizen-driven innovation can be explained...

Understanding citizen-driven innovation

Citizen-driven innovation refers to the process where citizens actively participate in the innovation process, contributing ideas, solutions, and actions to address societal, community, or environmental challenges. This approach leverages the collective intelligence, skills, and experiences of the public to co-create innovations that are more inclusive, sustainable, and aligned with the needs and values of the community. Citizen-driven innovation often involves collaboration between citizens, government, NGOs, and private entities, employing tools such as crowdsourcing, participatory design, and open innovation platforms to engage a wide range of stakeholders in the problem-solving process.

Our journey with citizen-driven innovation

Our journey into citizen-driven innovation took its first steps with the government-backed initiative Hack for Sweden, an endeavor that laid the groundwork for what was to become a more expansive and impactful...

Generating a sense of urgency

A sense of urgency refers to the perception and mindset that an action or set of actions needs to be taken promptly and with a clear focus to address an issue, achieve a goal, or seize an opportunity. It involves recognizing the importance of timing and the potential consequences of delay. A sense of urgency is important for several reasons in business and in hackathons. It plays a crucial role in driving effective and timely actions to achieve goals, respond to challenges, and capitalize on opportunities. Cultivating a sense of urgency is about balancing the need for quick action with the importance of deliberate and strategic decision-making. It’s not about inducing stress or panic but rather about fostering a culture or mindset that recognizes the value of time and the impact of timely action on success and growth.

At the very inception of any endeavor – be it the launch of a business, the planning of an event, or the orchestrating...

Living your massive transformative purpose

A massive transformative purpose (MTP) is a concept that originates from the field of exponential organizations, which are entities whose impact or output is disproportionately large – at least 10 times larger – compared to their peers because of the use of new organizational techniques that leverage accelerating technologies. The term was popularized by Salim Ismail in his book Exponential Organizations, and it encapsulates a company or organization’s aspirational statement of purpose that is both grand in ambition and able to galvanize large groups of people.

These are the core aspects of an MTP:

• Ambition: An MTP is ambitious, aiming to create significant change in its sector, society, or the world at large. It’s not just about incremental improvement but about making a quantum leap in impact.
• Transformative impact: The purpose outlined by an MTP goes beyond the ordinary; it seeks to transform industries...

Manifesting your core values with citizen-driven innovation

In the contemporary business landscape, it’s almost universal for organizations to tout core values, often dovetailing with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that articulate their ethical compass and their commitment to societal and environmental betterment. Ideally, these values are more than familiar to every employee; they are internalized and serve as guiding principles for daily operations. However, the greater challenge for any organization is to keep these values from fading into the background, to prevent them from becoming mere slogans relegated to the office walls or the introductory pages of a website.

For values to be of any real consequence, they must be translated into palpable actions – transformed into living, breathing aspects of the organization’s culture. This begs the question: how can an organization authentically manifest that its actions are in sync with its professed ethos...

Summary

This chapter delved into the concept and driving forces behind citizen-driven innovation, providing you with a comprehensive understanding of why this approach is effective and detailing the deployment of the dynamic Dream! Hack! Build! methodology. Through this exploration, you’ve gained insights into the critical role of establishing a sense of urgency and formulating an MTP. These concepts are not just theoretical – they’re practical tools that, when applied through the Dream! Hack! Build! method, can act as catalysts for cultivating innovation and generating significant impact within any organization.

Through the lens of citizen-driven innovation, you’ve seen the power of inviting and engaging a broad community in the ideation and problem-solving process. Real-world applications of this method have been illustrated with the case studies of the Dream for Earth and Dream for Sweden campaigns, offering tangible examples of how to mobilize and...