Theory of Change. What’s that? We have to figure ours out.
Theory of change is a buzz word from the philanthropic and social change worlds. It is how you explain how you think change happens and it impacts how you invest your time and money to create the change you seek in the world.
I have had a Theory of Change crisis. In bringing small companies together to grow an ecosystem would help bring it about. I thought we could publish a journal and track the industry as it evolved.
Connecting the startups isn’t enough. We have to connect to potential funders, partners and more importantly proactively shape and make markets.
Knowing this I went to a conference at the end of March called Leaders Shaping Markets. I met folks from around the country working on creating change by engaging the mechanics of markets. I connected with Cheryle Dahle (Former writer for Fast Company) and Peter Battisti with the Future of Fish for the past 4 years they have been working on shaping transforming Fish Markets.
FLIP Labs is having success transforming fish markets and are working to expand to other markets.
They are having success and are currently working expanding their efforts via FLIP Labs to other They have a three phases method
* Discovery. Re-framing a problem, approaching a challenge with new eyes, flipping the underlying assumptions
* Co-Design. The best solutions are designed by the “residents” of a system, newly armed with fresh insights.
* Pod Facilitation. Consultants often vanish after writing reports. The Flip Labs team embeds in a system and works with practitioners to hatch solutions, to stand alongside them in the messy process of execution.
Our collective community work is well into the Discovery phase.
Gabriel is flying in from Seattle to share with us more about how their work and to meet with us to learn more about how we can work together to create Ethical Data Markets.