Open Societal Innovation

Open Societal Innovation (OSI) refers to the adaptation and subsequent sustainable use of appropriate open innovation approaches from business, adapted and utilized by state and society to solve societal challenges. While ICTs are not a necessity in open societal innovation, they can act as facilitator and significantly simplify and enhance its processes.

History

The term Open Societal Innovation was originally coined by the Alemannic Definition, which was developed during an IBH research project called “E-Society Bodensee 2020”.

Definition

The goal of Open Societal Innovation is the long-lasting establishing and the strategic use of the innovative potential of the whole society with all its different actors. With its origin in the paradigm of Open Innovation, Open Societal Innovation implies using different approaches and tools originally developed by corporations in order to tackle social issues or create innovation in society as well as in administration and politics. Independent of the specific technique that is used, open innovation aims to increase the variety of ideas and solutions by increasing the number of people involved. The key element in OSI is that it does not only open the state’s innovation processes for external actors (outside-in). It also intends to carry innovation impulses to the outside (inside-out). The two approaches can also be combined (coupled). The term ‘societal’ refers to the fact that not only does society participate in the innovation process (open innovation), or it is the beneficiary of innovation society (social innovation), but these aspects are combined into an open innovation approach from the society for the society.

Openness

Open Innovation by the society refers to innovation with openness in regard of socio-cultural willingness to openness, to dialogue and mutual learning effects. Strategic openness furthermore includes the acceptance of and orientation towards open results, open processes and open administration within open structures combined with the absence of exclusivity. Operational openness implies the actual readiness to allow for citizens’ involvement or technological approaches such as Open Data, Open Information and Open Knowledge.

Stakeholder: Citizens and the State

In order to open up innovation processes the active participation of stakeholders is required. However, the primary goal is not just mere representation and participation in a political kind of sense, but is the attempt to include the impetus of every participant, stakeholder or (potential) party involved in the innovation process. Reasons for state or political actors to engage in Open Societal Innovation may be important political or ethic considerations, such as the increase of integration, participation or political legitimation. Further reasons may be the promotion of acceptance of decisions or the reduction of social inequality. Mere practical considerations are also taken into account, such as a better protection of natural resources, considerations regarding the state’s budget or how to find out about specific concerns voiced by citizen and the development of solutions for existing problems. Citizens, in return, engage in order to contribute positively to their communities or to co-decide on issues touching them.

Open Societal Innovation in the administration

The concept of Open Innovation is not only used by corporations, but may also be transferred to the public sector in order to contribute to its modernization. Because the problems that states face nowadays are increasingly complex, inherent innovation capacity is vital for the public sector. The innovation capacity of the public sector can greatly profit from a strategic use of the innovation capacity provided by external actors, such as agencies, non-state third-sector organizations, the private sector, citizens or politicians.

Phases and Tools for Open Societal Innovation

Innovation processes consist of different stages, each one comprising different goals. Innovation starts with collecting and substantiating ideas, followed by defining new concepts, with ongoing evaluation and selection until a new product is brought onto the market. These stages of innovation are also to be found in processes of Open Societal Information. The degree of interaction in OSI-processes may differ greatly. Whereas communication only describes notification, collaboration includes working together in teams in order to achieve joint goals. Various approaches and tools are available for each level of interaction, e.g. event formats or online-tools which enable and support open innovation in societies, politics and administration. These tools, acting as catalysts for Open Societal Innovation, can be grouped into several categories:

• (1) Ideas: Tools to gather and evaluate ideas
• (2) Problem Identification: Tools to identify, report and collect problems, challenges, and complaints
• (3) Problem Solving: Tools to solve specific problems by organising the actual implementation of problem solutions
• (4) Design: Tools to collectively design objects, such as logos or campaign pictures
• (5) Innovation Management: Tools supporting initiators through an entire life cycle of OSI
• (6) Data: Platforms or tools providing data for further analysis
• (7) Foresight: Tools supporting the identification of trends or possible developments and the creation of appropriate strategies
• (8) Social Media: Tools to generate attention, identify problems, gather ideas, suggest solutions, share and comment on media content via social media platforms

Benefits from open societal innovation

Citizens can voice their ideas and suggest solutions to problems and generate support for good ideas to be implemented. Participation in decision making can lead to less political apathy and a stronger identification with its results as it increases legitimacy of decisions taken. The increased involvement of innovative stakeholders furthermore signifies a democratization of the state, its administration and society as well inward as outward. Open Societal Innovation grants access to implicit and dispersed knowledge and provides information about wants and needs of citizens, constituents or bureaucrats and can therefore help to tackle social issues collectively.

Challenges and drawbacks of open societal innovation

ICTs cause rising amounts of data and excessive demand of old IT-structures or the administrative personnel, which in return may have a negative impact on coordinating society and solving its problems. However, the need for more personnel in the administration generates higher expenses. Multiplicators and political actors furthermore fear that their influence may shrink due to increased influence and participation of other societal groups. Political apathy is a likely result if citizens’ ideas or suggestions are only noticed on an irregular basis or if their problems are completely disregarded. Another potential danger stemming from Open Societal Innovation is the risk of manipulation by third parties in order to do harm to political actors, the state, its administration or citizens. Especially internet-based approaches are prone to misconduct, exploitation and instrumentalization, not only by internet trolls but also by well-organized interest groups in order to advance their specific interests.

Links

• The Open Societal Innovation Toolbox

Literature

• Alcatel-Lucent Stiftung für Kommunikationsforschung: Dokumentation der Internationalen Konferenz „One Stop Europe 2014 – Offene gesellschaftliche Innovation - Wie Bürger wertvolle Beiträge in Politik und Verwaltung einbringen können“, 15. und 16. Mai 2014 in Stuttgart, Stiftungsreihe, Band 107, Alcatel-Lucent Stiftung für Kommunikationsforschung, Stuttgart 2014.
• Johann Herzberg: Staatsmodernisierung durch Open Innovation: Problemlage, Theoriebildung, Handlungsempfehlungen. (= Schriftenreihe des Deutsche Telekom Institute for Connected Cities (TICC) der Zeppelin Universität Friedrichshafen. Band 4). epubli/ Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, Berlin 2012.
• J. von Lucke: Open Societal Innovation. In: Dirk Riehle (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the OpenSym '14 – The conference and community for open collaboration researchers and practitioners worldwide in Berlin August 27 - 29 2014. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-1-4503-3016-9. (online), (online) and doi:10.1145/2641580.2641598 .
• J. von Lucke, J. Herzberg, U. Kluge, J. vom Brocke, H. D. Zimmermann: Open Societal Innovation - The Alemannic Definition (Status: 18th December 2012), Weblog „eSociety Bodensee 2020“, Friedrichshafen/ St. Gallen/ Vaduz 2012. (online) and (PDF).
• C. Raffl, J. von Lucke, O. Müller, H. D. Zimmermann, J. vom Brocke: Handbuch für offene gesellschaftliche Innovation. (= TOGI-Schriftenreihe. Band 11). ePubli, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-7375-2027-0.

References

This article "Open Societal Innovation" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• Plug and Play Tech Center
• Learners' Innovation Forum on Education
• Innovolation framework
• EOS-X Space
• Origin and disparities in technological advancements & infrastructure compared to automobile safety sector
• Jellyfish search optimizer
• Hindi Blogging ka Itihas

---