Scale vs. Diffusion Redux

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-04-20 06:29:00 UTC
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(via BusinessWeek)

Last week, I wrote a post suggesting that certain social innovations are better served if we think about their growth as diffusion across a network rather than scaling production within a particular institution. At the same time, Sean at Tactical Philanthropy wrote a similarly themed post called "Steal This Idea!"

The posts clearly hit a nerve. It seems that many in this world are thinking hard and potentially thinking different about "scale" and are up for a little critical re-evaluation. With this post, I want to highlight just a few of the comments and conversations:

Steal This Idea!: Sean makes the point that because knowledge is valued differently in the social sector, the originator of a good idea for changing the world doesn't need to "own" it's application to reap it's benefit.

The Business Model of Change is Important: Tony Wang writes that whether the model of growth looks more like traditional scale or networked diffusion, understanding and actively cultivating that model is an essential part of the entrepreneurial process.

Comment Theme #1 - Finally, "Scale" Isn't Sacrosanct: A variety of commenters - notably Nick from the School for Social Entrepreneurs and Ken from FrontlineSMS were excited to see real active discussion that could impact our sometimes unwavering fealty to the gospel of scale.

Comment Theme #2 - Affirmation of Local Context: Another big theme was the notion that diffusion necessarily gives local context a stronger hand in adapting an innovation to meet a particular and discreet set of needs.

Comment Theme #3 - Mind Shift, Not Resource Increase: There was a lot of agreement that foundations still had a potentially vital role fostering the ecosystems in which innovation could diffuse across networks, and that a mindset shift was more important than any sort of resource increase.

Comment Theme #4 - Institutional Scale Still Matters: A final point was that the "diffusion" mindset doesn't entirely supplant our notion of scale as much as supplements it. There are still certain types of social sector products and services where the economies of scale that come from expansion of a particular institution or organization really matter.

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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