Skills for the Social Entrepreneur

Informed Inferences Through Synthesis

In the context of designing for impact, one of the hardest things to know is "what is right." What is the right thing to do first? What is the right service to build? Synthesis is the leap from empathy-driven research to a new opportunity. It helps to identify what new tool, idea, system, or object might help a given user in a particular situation. Because this thinking is inference-based, you may be wrong. So rather than spending a great deal of time building a cohesive, final, mass-produced solution, quickly test your idea early on by pairing your inference with a rapid form of prototyping.

Synthesis is a way to apply inferences within the confines of a design problem. The various constraints of the problem begin to act as logical premises, then the designer's work, life experiences, and logical leaps based on inconclusive or incomplete data begin to shape the inference. Inference is how designers can move from problem-seeking to problem solving. Performing this inference will require malleable factual or emotional and cultural data.

Typically, action comes from verbal debate; people discuss what should happen, and a good argument will define what to do next. This "good argument" relies on rhetorical methods of persuasion that celebrate deductive reasoning and inductive logic. In both cases, historic precedent drives the argument. Deductive reasoning presents an argument based on what all have historically agreed to be true, while inductive logic grounds an argument in what historically seems to be true. When designing for impact, designers learn to trust informed intuition or inference enough to create a new thing based on a vision of the future rather than an argument from the past. This skill is learned by trying, failing, and reflecting; it starts with a deep understanding of data-driven design, and then a realization of what "just enough" means in the context of synthesizing disconnected ideas. Inference through synthesis is learned through continual and rigorous practice.

Synthesis is a process of connecting ideas, identifying patterns, building on anomalies, and otherwise making sense of a large and complicated set of data. The process happens naturally through learning; each time we read a book or listen to a speaker, we make sense of it by synthesizing the new material with our existing world-view and knowledge. But synthesis can occur artificially, too, and designers can learn to force synthesis to occur more rapidly than it might in a normal situation.

Forced synthesis typically demands a form of externalization of data: The designer acknowledges the limitations of working memory and uses a whiteboard or note cards to present large data sets. Force synthesis typically also leverages the ability to look at things in new ways. So designers who synthesize data can consider new perspectives of time (What if this event occurred over a longer period? What if it occurred instantly?) or system (What if we zoomed in to focus on that particular person or organization? How far out can we zoom and still understand?). Sketchbooks and large drawing sheets also encourage forced synthesis. That's because they both force the designer to abstract situations and ideas into representational forms. At the root of both simple tools, as in research, is curiosity to understand the human-made world. Design synthesizers constantly seek to learn how things are connected, to understand patterns and anomalies, and to view the world in new ways.

A large part of synthesis is considering and credibly explaining behavior. For example, a designer investigating health and wellness may notice that some health-club members tend to "stand around" rather than exercising or using the equipment. If asked to explain what they were (or were not) doing, the answers wouldn't be very rich, because few people are aware of their behavior at any given time. But the designer can synthesize this observation with other data, trends, and patterns to provide a credible guess to explain the behavior. Being only a guess, it can be (and likely is) wrong, but because it's used to provoke design insight, its validity doesn't actually matter. The insights are statements of provocation—guidelines, but not rules for a design solution.

Recognizing Value

Learn to create self-sufficient revenue models, and to think about finance and value alongside your creative design. Your company will need to create enough profit through its product or service offerings to pay for operational costs (including competitive salaries). That's preferable to the traditional model of impact, in which organizations doing humanitarian work rely on grant money or donations. Those organizations describe the constant rat race of chasing donations, with as much as 50% of their time, effort and resources directed at it. This distracts from the organization's core mission. But although you'll want to consider profitability, note that profitability does not necessarily mean massive profits, a turn-off for many in the social sector.

Learning to think in terms of operational self-sufficiency requires thinking of a design's economic value and considering the world from this perspective of value. Value is the worth of a product, system or service, and worth is dynamic—it changes based on what the market, broadly, determines and what a person, individually, will pay. A loaf of bread is worth a certain amount of money in a given market on a given day, but to someone starving, it may be worth a lot more. Yet people often have trouble applying that idea to design. Even designers who realize that a product has the potential to change someone's life rarely quantify what that change may be worth to someone. So they fail to understand the value of what they've created. But you can gain an understanding of value through awareness and practice: Consider how much goods and services cost, and try to identify the motivation that led to its price. What value do the sellers assume, and how did they arrive at it?

Financial Acumen

Be skeptical of adoption, and realize that the adoption of your new products and services takes time. Expecting a massive overnight success is not realistic. A social entrepreneur must work within existing models of profit, loss and revenue for a simple reason: Nearly all other constituents will be playing by these financial rules. Social entrepreneurs also must understand the role money plays in for-profit and nonprofit companies, how various financial models work, and why they are adopted by various organizations. That does not mean that finances must be social entrepreneurs' major goal. But to ignore money is to ignore reality; designers should understand basic accounting and bookkeeping.

Many nonprofits attempt to fund themselves with grants and donations, which provides a level of resources to continue operations. But as these organizations succeed and try to try new programs and methods, they will feel pressure from their granting agencies to better measure their impact, to improve performance and reach, and to better and more rigorously account for their money. They'll lack control over their own destiny, as the threat of financial stability is constantly looming. And focus and attention will be redirected from their important work, and aimed at writing more grant proposals.

Some companies use a subsidy model, where the revenue produced by selling something to one group is used to offset the cost of providing a free service to another group. This model introduces complexities around fairness (how do you qualify for the free service?) but provides a service to those who may not have the money to pay for it.

Other financial models:

• "freemium": A limited version of a product is offered for free, with various features or capabilities are provided for a fee.
• subscription: A recurring fee is charged per month.
• per-usage: Each use generates a charge.
• tiered pricing: Various features and limitations are added or removed based on the amount paid.

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