Do you have identified very clearly a social need in our society? Do you have created a solution for a particular problem? Maybe a first result or even success is visible. You could convince some investors and help some people. Maybe you have been working on it for several years already and an entire group of people, a village, an institution could benefit. You could scale up?
Your idea has been mentioned in journals, maybe even been nominated in the short list of anaward celebration? This is a lot. But?
But there is still a huge doubt: your solution might not be enough to “change”, but just to “calm the issue” – somewhere, for a moment. Does your idea just cover “one” dimension? Doesn’t the same problem affect other lives and locations all over the world or appear in another way just around the corner?
I asked myself what do we need for a real change, how does change in other contexts work?
- There are always a lot of factors and players that influence – in a positive, but also negative way.
- The problems of missing education and infrastructure, poverty, environmental issues, lacking health care are complex.
- No doubt, the willingness and concrete help of many social entities and people have been and is there to make a difference and to change for better, too.
- But: the more we know, the more global we go, the bigger the problems seem to be.
Do we have a real chance to change?
If we want to solve a problem and to help people, we need to ‘break’ it down in small bits and start. Otherwise nothing will happen or it simply takes too long. Help bits are needed – like data packages in the Internet. And then – on site those can be put together – according to the needs of “users”. Help has to become more flexible, personalized and at the same time much more complex.
But as good as our handling will be today, it is just a one dimensional solution, an isolated one. The last decades have shown in many aspects how things depend on each other and how many combinations and different results are possible if single parts are combined. In a positive way, but in negatives, too. The multiple aspects of a problem are more visible than ever. So, what?
Probably the solution has to take the same format as the problem itself – a complex, networking world need a complex net of answers. We have to focus much more on finding partners and to put one brick to another. Continuous interaction across all sectors (private, public, governmental, church) is needed, co-creation of partners from different parts, and the willingness to collaborate. And all based on the people’s need. The need has to be the driver to bring the right elements together.
The idea of the one, “holy” personality or organization who can do alone so many good things in this world is gone.
So, whenever possible we should connect to others, share our solutions, integrate others in the process to cover additional aspects. We re just ONE brick, independent from acting as an institution, as social entrepreneur or in any other social role. We have to accept that if want to build a house, we need many bricks – in different sizes, formats and colours.
We should pay much more attention to the networking part of our activities. Always based on the specific need on site. What do you think?
Go India, go future! 