{"id":35314,"date":"2017-03-29T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=35314"},"modified":"2017-03-28T21:54:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T03:54:45","slug":"how-do-we-really-know-effective-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/how-do-we-really-know-effective-we-are\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do We Really Know How Effective We Are?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my last post<\/a>, I wrote<\/strong> about the strong conviction that a growing number of funders, practitioners, evaluators and designers have \u2013 that social design is the most effective method for developing new systems, programs, services and interactions that will solve the major challenges of humanity. I also mentioned that we don\u2019t yet have a concrete or evidence-based way to measure the difference it makes.<\/p>\n

However, at the end of January in New York City, for the first time ever, we convened a diversely remarkable community of people to talk about just this: how to measure the impact of social design. By \u201cdiversely remarkable\u201d we mean professional designers of all stripes, corporate leaders, monitoring and evaluation executives, NGO and nonprofit organizations and representatives from the Robert Wood Johnson, Gates and Rockefeller foundations. By \u201csocial design,\u201d we mean the application of design methodologies to the solution of complex human problems.<\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s safe to say that the roughly two hundred and fifty people who came did so for a combination of two reasons. First, because of their belief that social design has the potential to improve the quality and longevity of the solutions developed, and second, because no one has cracked the nut of measuring exactly how much, where or when. And (thanks for letting me sneak in a third) because we all agree that we need to know that in order to scale and improve it.<\/p>\n

We heard stories of how social design is being used \u2013 and measured \u2013 in built environments and in transforming the culture of a venerable corporation. How it’s being used to improve the decisions of people with health challenges and to measure the effectiveness of products \u2013 not just how they work, but whether they\u2019re being used. And many more.<\/p>\n