Social Silicon Valleys

What do hospices, Wikipedia, NHS Direct, the Open University and restorative justice share in common? All are examples of social innovation – new ideas that have helped to change society. And all went through the stages that Schopenhauer once described as happening to so many new ideas: ‘first it is ridiculed’ he wrote; ‘second it is violently opposed; third it is accepted as being self-evident’.

Societies advance through innovation every bit as much as economies do. But we still treat social innovation in a much more amateurish way than innovation in science or business. It remains roughly at the point where science was more than a century ago. [Geoff Mulgan, Director, Young Foundation in Centre for Charity Effectiveness Newsletter]