adoption

This post contributed by Paula Cardenau.

One of the themes that we discussed at the beginning of the Sao Paolo gathering (after we dried off the Sao Paolo rain, which took us by surprise on the way and drenched us, literally, and which allowed us to skip the ice-breaking  dynamic) was the main barriers that impede social technologies in reaching the people for whom they were invented. Social technologies are products and services that seek to improve the quality of life of the people who today are exclused from the system because of their economic situation, location, culture, physical disability, etc. All of the 23 social entrepreneurs gathered that first day are developing and/or distributing a product or service of that type, and reflecting with what type of barriers they face at the hour in which they intend to reach the intended audience at a mass level.

How can social entrepreneurs drive the adoption of their mobile activism tools? Participants in Ashoka’s Social Entrepreneurship Twitter chat identified several key themes. Broadly speaking, the key drivers of adoption fall into three categories: design, distribution and context.

Product Design
All forms of entrepreneurship depend on finding an unmet need and successfully satisfying it. @metameerkat suggested that involving beneficiaries in the design process will help to increase subsequent adoption. I found that to be true when I designed a web application for Baxter Healthcare. By getting out into the field and talking directly to hemophilia patients, their caregivers, and their healthcare providers, I discovered that the patients and caregivers wanted an easy way to enter repetitive treatment information, while doctors wanted reliable diagnostic data. Fortunately, our development team was able to create a solution that met both needs and led to increased customer satisfaction.