Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

Grant Young – Creating platforms for social innovation

Web Directions South 2010, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 15 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

People are redefining the relationship they have with the organisations they interact with, empowered by social technologies. They are seeking:

  • Human-ness: as organisations have grown in size and become more and more depersonalised, people are wanting more human interactions and personal response
  • Trust: from greenwashing to the GFC, the market’s trust has been eroded — people are looking for organisations to say what they mean and mean what they say
  • Co-creation: people are taking a more active role in developing the products and services that they use. And if they don’t find what they’re looking for, they will often create it themselves
  • Responsibility: people want to engage with organisations that are genuinely addressing the complex issues of sustainability and wellbeing

Building a brand, service or product offering that resonates in this new “economy of meaning” requires a rethinking of an organisation’s relationship to the “market” — their customers, stakeholders and the environment.

In this presentation Grant Young will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.

About Grant Young

Grant Young PortraitGrant is founder of social innovation consultancy Zumio. In this role he combines his 15+ years’ experience in online and social technology with his passion for sustainability to help organisations harness these increasingly prominent market forces.

Zumio helps its clients — spanning the commercial, government and non-profit sectors — build platforms for social engagement that simultaneously deliver organisational value while increasing societal wellbeing and sustainability. Zumio has recently undertaken projects for the Cancer Institute NSW, the Inspire Foundation, VicRoads and Saasu.

Prior to founding Zumio, Grant produced projects for award-winning sustainable design agency Digital Eskimo and managed online communications and social media strategy for conservation organisation WWF-Australia, including for the inaugural Earth Hour (2007). He has also developed web applications for the business sector in the areas of financial and carbon accounting (Saasu, Climate Friendly).

Follow Grant on Twitter: @grantyoung

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