Resource:How to build inclusive movements that fuel a culture of innovation

 "Innovation" defines itself as "a new idea, device or method". We in this fast moving world experience a rapid change in science, ideology and thought process, hence it is a fact that innovation in each sector helps to enhance features, reduce flaws and invite creativity in the concerned field. Injecting a series of innovation in an organization leads to start a trend or "culture of innovationin that organization, which helps to keep its members active, in trend and most of all helps them to be creative and allows them to think from a different perspective. Here are few basic inclusive movements that will help to ignite the culture of innovation in an organization.

Introduction

Clearly, to start up with a strategy to start these movements, it is necessary to have an enormous potential, potential to be ready to tighten up seat belt to blast-off for innovation. To start an movement, all you need is a clear mind with a clear goal. Once you are set with a goal, just move forward and start with basic steps to implement, promote, educate, and enhance your movement. Get the required permissions, look out for supports (even if you face rejections, keep trying), search for funds, find the correct team and finally get set and launch your movement. Remember, this will require lots of patience and a spirit to keep moving on until the goal is reached. 

Finding a Need and Goal 

In order to create a successful, inclusive movement, one must first have a need on their campus that is not being fulfilled by the administration as well as a clear, well-defined goal. To identify a need on campus, it is important to speak to a range of faculty, staff, and students to ensure that a majority of people's opinions align to one specific need. Whether that is a need for a new design space, a new major, or more interaction between disciplines, it is very important that a majority of people on campus believe in your cause. Once a wide range of people on campus believes in your movement, all that is needed a clear, well-defined goal. Once your goal is well defined, you can then begin presenting this idea to important faculty members who can help champion your movement. 

Academic Permission and Support 

Ryan didn’t have any permission in the early going for the idea. After doing the Landscape canvas (a session where you assess what your campus needs to flourish), they noticed many groups where working separately to create their own spaces. That led to the idea that they could all work together to build one inclusive, design space. They then began pitching their idea to leaders across campus. One of them was interested in helping, and then it took off!

This gets to Ryan's core belief that says “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”. Often times he has found when working on projects, whether at Microsoft or school, that when you go to someone asking for permission, most people want to stop you. When your projects are large in scale and challenge the way things are done, it can by scary for people who may be uncomfortable and it is their immediate reaction to stop you. 

Obviously this comes with risks. You want to make sure what you are doing will not cause a large negative outcome or else you risk getting into serious trouble. Luckily though, almost everything fellows have done is better for everyone involved once it is complete. 

The one place this idea does not work is with safety and compliance concerns. Ryan and his team had experts from the fire and police department come in to help with concerns such as ventilation and making sure they had proper entrances and exits in case of a fire. 

As far as support, They were supported by as many different groups across campus. This included the Colleges of Engineering, Business, Libraries, and Architecture, Office of Technology Development, various local K - 12 schools and local businesses. This support ranged greatly from helping design classes or workshops to actual funding support. Many people worked very closely with Ryan's group early on to influence the design of the space. Their idea was to involve the “customers” (students, businesses and professors) as early in the process as possible so they could make the space as great as they possibly could. 

Cost

When we talk about costs, we need to embrace many points: 

The promotion of the activities you will roll into your University involves a cost. How you raise funds will depend on who your audiences are. So when you need to raise money, for example, you need to make fliers and all the marketing resources needed, talk to the president of the campus and convince him that it would be useful, and see how can be valuable, cool and fun for the students. As Ryan said, prove that you are real and you have something to offer.

You also need to think about the cost of the space where the movement is taking place and all the materials involved. The space must be attractive, original and entertaining to engage students, but this all comes at a cost. If you are creating this space on your campus, then try to adjust that space in the best way possible, such as renting a tent and inviting students to enjoy the space on their breaks. 

Experiment with different kind of ideas to obtain an effective one. If this idea is a big movement, it may involve a lot of costs, but don't be afraid of thinking crazy things. The sky is the limit and if it's something that they've never seen before, better.

The best way of avoiding problems and saving money is to keep in touch with experts of any topic involved in the movement. It's better to raise your hand and ask before it's too late. 

Time is a cost. Before having success, you should knock on many doors, send a lot of emails, join groups at your University, work in different places to understand how things work. It is likely that only the 10% of the people you ask for support will answer, but they are more than the 0 you have at first, said Ryan.

Talks and conferences are another way of attracting people, and you should take care of your words and prepare an attractive pitch. This takes time so be patient and practice a lot. As Nadia said, it would be great to have a million dollars and do whatever you want to, but there is a system that you have to respect, even if you agree or not.

Meetings are another cost, but they are important to do networking. Remember that one of the most important things is to find someone who really cares of what you are doing, in a high level, who can champion your movement. Working with a team is always better but remember, focus in the ones who care about you and your mission, because the others are a waste of time and money.

Finally, inclusiveness involves people of all types of abilities, so make sure that the movement includes everyone and the activities help to mix in everyone so they don't feel alone. This may involve more costs, but is worth it to create an inclusive movement. 

Leadership

When it comes to lead a movement you need two kinds of leadership: towards the people in your team and toward the target public of your movement.

First, you need to find the people on your campus that believe in your ideas and would work with you. Leading doesn't mean doing and knowing everything, on the contrary, it is always good to let experts participate and do what they excell at. As Nadia said "to be a genius you don't have to know everything, you just have to know one or two things generally well and then ask a whole bunch of questions". To ask these questions you may need to talk with very important people, and, as Ryan mentioned, you don't have to be afraid of emailing them, the worst case scenario is that they don't respond.

Regarding the public of your movement it is crucial to make your movement inclusive. That is, thinking about all the minorities that can be benefited from your project. And remember, there's no leadership without empathy. "The core of every inclusive movement is mutual respect" says Nadia in her talk and adds "I may not have been where you’ve been, but I can empathize with your humanity". 

Launch 

This step actually starts from the very beginning of your movement. The first launch is when one finally decides to start the culture of innovation. But as an overall process, the launch is one of the final steps that is to be taken up to start the movement of innovation. It is important that before the launch, all the legal and academic permissions are obtained and all resources are collected ( the 3M resources- Man, Machine, and Material). It is important to have a team organized and an organization chart needs to be created beforehand.

After this, the final part of the launch comes into existence, which involves Plan-Do-Check-Analyse (PDCA) which is a closed loop procedure which involves the following:

Plan:   Plan out the required guidelines and checklist for the members of the team. Having this created, designation of responsibilities to the team members must be carried on.

Do:   Start to implement your movement, engage your team members to continuously work to reach your movement to a number of members and help them to achieve their desired goals.

Check:   Monitoring your progress is an important part of your launch, you would not know whether your movement is a success or a failure until and unless you keep a check on your progress.

Analyse:   Check your progress and filter out your pros and cons of your movement and take steps tore-plan your movement so as to eliminating the cons and taking over the advantages of the pro. Repeat the PDCA to have a successful running movement of innovation in the organization.

Student Contribution

Rachel Acevedo

Ria Singh

Sravani Segireddy

Cecilia Tejera

Romina Dominzain