Storytelling is one of those concepts that sounds like a positive thing in theory. Everyone talks about telling a story to get people to understand, engage, and act. But the reality is more complex. Stories can be amazing tools for understanding, community, and creative change. At the same time, stories […]
erik
414 posts
We often talk about the need to think outside the box. Less often we talk about how we actually do it. Creativity rarely arises just because we decide. The brain needs nudges, disruptions, new angles. It needs triggers that help us shift perspectives. An unexpected but powerful shift in perspective […]
The concept of scale has long been used in social innovation to understand how ideas and solutions spread, enlarge or deepen within social systems. In particular, research has pointed to three different ways of working with scaling as complementary paths to real system change: scaling up, scaling out and scaling […]
System innovation may sound technical and structural, but in practice it often starts with something very human. A story. When many organizations, professions and interests are to move in a new direction, reports, calculations and logical reasoning are rarely enough. Rational arguments are important but they are almost never sufficient. […]
It sounds like a contradiction. Breaking the law and at the same time strengthening democracy. But that’s exactly where civil disobedience lives. In that strange borderland where someone says “this is not okay anymore” and does it in a way that is open, conscious and non-violent. Not to destroy society […]
Systems innovation attracts with the promise of real change but almost always meets resistance, confusion and frustration along the way. This is not because people are unwilling or that the methods are wrong, but because systems themselves are complex, alive and sensitive to change. Working with systems innovation therefore involves […]
Leadership has always been about getting people moving in a common direction. What has changed is the context. When organizations operate in stable environments, traditional leadership is sufficient. When they operate in uncertain, fast-moving and interconnected systems, it is no longer sufficient. This is when the need for innovation leadership […]
In innovation and social development, the concept of ecosystems is increasingly appearing. But what does it really mean to think in terms of ecosystems, and why is it so important? Thinking in terms of ecosystems is a way of seeing the context, relationships and the whole rather than focusing on […]
Innovation is often portrayed as something new, fast, and digital. In reality, each generation has been convinced that their way of thinking is the right one and that the next generation has lost its grip. That’s why innovation always arises in the tension between generations. Let’s go from the youngest […]
In an age where information flows faster than we can think, it is easy to become a passive consumer of other people’s ideas. Flows, algorithms and short formats reward the fast and reactive. Against this, a different approach is emerging. Digital gardens. A way to slowly cultivate one’s own knowledge, […]
Many organizations and individuals are trained to interpret changes in the outside world based on a simple question: How can this benefit us? When new technology emerges, when rules change or when societal challenges become clear, people quickly look for opportunities to protect their position or strengthen their competitiveness. This […]
In many organizations, a lot of energy is put into developing the business model. You draw canvases, calculate income and formulate business plans. At the same time, the business idea is often left untouched. It is problematic because the business idea is the foundation on which everything else rests. If […]
In many organizations the word complexity is used as an explanation for why things cannot be changed. It is said that the problems are complex, that the outside world is complex or that the systems are too complex to touch. But often different types of complexity are mixed together. In […]
We often confuse the terms simple and easy. Often they are used almost as synonyms but in practice they describe two completely different things. For innovation, creativity and leadership, this difference is crucial. Understanding it makes it possible to work on complex issues without simplifying away what is important. Albert […]
The open source movement emerged from a technical context but has evolved into something much bigger than code. It represents a way of organizing people, knowledge and creativity that has proven time and again to be able to create enormous impact without relying on traditional hierarchies or ownership structures. At […]
Neo didn’t know from the beginning what was wrong. Just that something was wrong. A feeling that the world wasn’t quite right, that reality was a shell, a backdrop. That’s exactly how the work of system innovation begins. Not with solutions. Not with strategies. But with doubts. You sit there, […]
Measuring is a fundamental part of organizational management. What we measure tends to get done because we focus on what is visible, explainable, and evaluable. But innovation is something completely different from production and improvement work. Innovation is a creative and uncontrollable process that does not grow from measurement but […]
As societal challenges become more complex, the way we organize innovation, value creation and collaboration is also changing. Traditional organizations with clear boundaries, hierarchies and ownership structures have difficulties dealing with issues that span industries, sectors and geographies. In this landscape, the concept of a keystone organization has emerged as […]
There is one evening every year when the world becomes a little softer. You know the one I mean. When the snow muffles all sounds, when the lights in the windows twinkle as if whispering secrets to each other and when time, for a moment, decides to slow down. That’s […]
It rarely starts out pretty. Innovation never does. It starts more like Die Hard: late at night, wrong place, wrong people, and a system that looks stable on the surface but is rotten behind the glass facade. You walk in with good intentions, maybe even a smile, and suddenly you […]
Causal Loop Hackathons are popular tools in systems innovation because they combine rapid problem solving with visualization of system dynamics. They give participants the opportunity to openly explore, question, and hack the assumptions that govern a complex system. The result is often a deeper understanding of drivers and levers that […]
Outcome Harvesting is a method for identifying, analyzing and understanding changes that have already occurred in a system, regardless of whether they were planned, unplanned, positive or negative. Unlike traditional impact measurement, the method does not start from predetermined goals but from observed results in reality. This makes it particularly […]
System innovation is not just about creating new solutions. It is just as much about getting the solutions to spread, integrate and become part of the new system. A pilot can be fantastic, but without scaling it does not affect the whole system. By the time a solution reaches the […]
System innovation depends on actors with different logics, drivers and goals being able to collaborate. But in practice it is often difficult to see these differences because each actor primarily understands the world from their own horizon. Role-playing is therefore one of the most effective tools for making the logic […]
Systems innovation is fundamentally about people. Technology, policies and structures can change, but if behaviours do not, the system will continue to produce the same results. Therefore, the behavioural level is not a side track in systems innovation, but a central hub. Understanding how behaviours are formed, how they spread […]
System innovation occurs in complex, dynamic and often unpredictable environments. This means that traditional measurement methods do not capture the changes that actually matter. Classic KPIs are based on linear assumptions where input leads to results in a predictable chain. In system change, reality works differently. Effects often arise as […]
Designing complex systems requires methods that can handle many actors, long time horizons and interwoven dependencies. In this context, it is not enough to develop a single service or product. Tools are needed that make it possible to prototype relationships, roles, incentives, processes, policies and market logics. System-adapted sprints are […]
Backcasting is a method that reverses the traditional way of planning development. Instead of starting with the current situation and gradually trying to identify ways forward, backcasting starts from a desired future. You define a goal that lies beyond today’s limitations and work backwards to identify the steps, conditions and […]
The Theory of Change has become an established method for describing how a desired future can be achieved through a chain of assumptions, interventions and mechanisms. The method is often used in project logic, social development and sustainability work. Basically, the Theory of Change is about mapping a logical chain […]
Language shapes our reality. When we are given a word for something, a concept, a feeling or a phenomenon, we can handle it, reflect on it and give it structured attention. Naming provides distance, clarity and power. In the context of development and innovation, the meaning of words therefore becomes […]