Using Social Media for Social Innovation

Vienna.
The final speaker in this session at Challenge Social Innovation is Ricard Ruiz de Querol, who begins by noting the major social challenges we currently face; in addition, we also have some very major social media platforms – his interest is in the overlap and connection between them. A third element is the realm of social innovation, which intersects both areas.

Social media is an umbrella term for a wide range of possible tools, platforms, and practices; even individual platforms like Twitter sustain a universe of applications and practices. Where do we start? How can and do developments – social innovations, even – in one corner of that universe gain speed and scale? How can social entrepreneurship gain a Microsoft or Google to support it (without the negative consequences that may come with such an embrace)?

Time spent on social media continues to increase substantially, and for many users, social media remain for the most part a source of entertainment above all else. How can they be activated for social innovation? Lessig suggests that market forces, code, social norms, and the law affect the uptake of technology; in social media, platforms are developed by coders, then become subject to market forces as they attempt to attract venture capital and generate revenue; in turn, however, coders also influence the social norms which exist on the platforms they develop. The law, by contrast, is continuing to play catch-up, lagging behind developments in the other three areas.

What influences whether such social media platforms are able to play any role in social innovation is what patterns of use and interaction emerge there; social media may not address any problems if they cannot be used in beneficial ways. Social media may be useful for listening, advertising, marketing, word of mouth, customer service, conversation, engagement, networking, collaboration – and social entrepreneurs are learning to use social media for ‘normal’ things which may not always align with community needs and interests.

To use social media to achieve greater speed and scale for social innovation, it may be necessary to replace market with societal forces, to begin with a balanced interaction between social norms and code, to filter those outcomes through applicable laws, and to then connect the result to societal forces. Ostrom’s work on collective action is interesting in this context – it points to the importance of common resources, governed by communal rules; this depends on self-organisation, trust, and transparency, and such aspects need to be translated to and embedded in social media environments.

Behind trusted information is a chain of trust relationships, which is by no means trivial and needs to be made transparent and traceable, not least also through architectural approaches. This addresses three related areas, from technological governance through content governance to societal governance. To achieve a platform for collective action and social innovation, these three areas need to be addressed together.