(*Insert innovative product here)

How many folks at the Bottom of the Pyramid woke up every morning lamenting the fact that their kerosene lamps weren’t eco-friendly enough, and wanted something more sustainable? Sure, the danger of kerosene fires was a real problem, but no one had yet introduced a way harness the power of the sun as a viable replacement.

People just knew that their current solution wasn’t optimal, but in the absence of anything better, they kept operating as normal. Even when companies like d.light introduced this new product, people were unsure about switching from what they’ve known.

In yesterday’s Sunday Morning Coffee, Bryan discussed the fact that companies exist to solve your problems. Well, what if you don’t know that you have a problem? Read more »

One of the biggest challenges social entrepreneurs face is encouraging their consumers to make fundamental, simple changes in their behavior.  Last week I wrote about how products need to align with behavior patterns in order to sell, but what I didn’t touch on was the power of games to create that alignment.

Consider a social entrepreneur selling clean drinking water in rural India. Convincing consumers to buy water is a notoriously difficult task.  Attempts to demonstrate the health differences between clean and dirty water often fall flat.  However, when positioned as a status symbol, suddenly drinking clean water is more desirable.

Gamification is a process that takes that kind of motivational tactic to a whole new degree.  To gamify something you need to take elements of games—points, levels, unlocks, etc.—and embed them subtly.

Airline mileage points are a perfect example…as you earn miles you move up statuses & gain access to various perks etc.  The game keeps you coming back to that airline.

Let’s return to our clean water vendor.  Imagine if she ran a weekly competition that rewarded the top customer of the week with a t-shirt and free water.  Certainly some customers would increase their consumption to try to win. Read more »

News on the ‘inhabit another planet’ front appears slow; meanwhile, the world’s population continues to increase at a staggering rate. One way or another, the world is getting smaller and we’re going to have to get used to sharing a smaller piece of the same pie.

As is typically the case with every challenge in life, obstacles provide an opportunity in other areas. Increases in the amount of energy used provides the scientific community with an opportunity to invent new efficient ways to reduce energy usage. Non-profits, social enterprises, governments, and big businesses alike are working (sometimes together) to tackle this ever pressing problem.

These institutions are pushing through some of the most innovative changes to solving global issues that we have seen in history. Yet, it is all for naught if we still intend to approach the outreach problem in the same manner. Albert Einstein famously quipped that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

As the thinking towards solving global issues from a scientific perspective is changing, personal behavior and outreach must change as well. Read more »