Access+Many+and+New+Perspectives


 * //What are networks good for?//**

We have observed five common reasons that leaders tap the power of networks: to weave community, access many and new perspectives, build and share knowledge, mobilize people, and coordinate resources and action. Just as most social change efforts have multiple purposes, many network solutions are designed to capture several of these benefits at once. As a result, the descriptions of network purposes that follow are archetypes, rather than mutually exclusive or exhaustive categories.

__Access Many and New Perspectives__ Social media tools and the accompanying network mindset are expanding our ability to access new perspectives by tapping into the minds of many individuals, rather than relying only on an elite few. A program officer can now “crowdsource” a targeted social problem by asking for input in an open form or running an online competition.

Innocentive, a well known competition model, connects solution seekers with a network of problem solvers. It is mostly a hub and spokes model, with solution seekers at the center connected to the problem solvers, but the problem solvers aren’t usually talking to one another. There’s an untapped potential for the solution seeker to weave connections among the problem solvers.

Ashoka’s Changemakers, which runs social innovation competitions to create solutions to social problems, is weaving networks of problem solvers. The Changemakers competitions solicit online entries of innovative ideas from around the globe, and post these applications on a Web site for everyone to see to elicit feedback, collaboration, and revision by the larger community. This platform makes it possible for the problem solvers and the broader community of interest to see the mosaic of social solutions, and connect with one another. Ashoka then uses expert judges to select a group of finalists, which are then narrowed down to a final set of winners by the online community. Ashoka has run numerous competitions, including a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to find disruptive innovations in health care, a partnership with the National Geographic Society to identify exemplary geotourism leaders, and a partnership with Exxon Mobil Corp. to find technological innovations to improve the lives of women in the developing world**.** By combining the bottom-up power of a crowdsourced approach with the top-down knowledge of experts, Changemakers helps generate innovative ideas more quickly, and select the ideas that have the best chance of succeeding.

The Peery Foundation and its open strategy development process is very different example of accessing a range of new perspectives. Dave Peery and the foundation’s first employee had been experimenting with Twitter, and felt that if they opened up their discussion to others in real time, they would be able to benefit from advice from a range of philanthropy practitioners, consultants, and social entrepreneurs they had met. Through the Twitter conversation, Peery was rewarded with links to a wide range of resources relevant to the topics they were discussing and a number of helpful tips from philanthropy professionals and social entrepreneurs. The experience strengthened the young foundation’s dedication to remaining experimental and maintaining a high standard for openness and trust with the social entrepreneurs it intends to support.