Mapping the Big Green Challenge - The Skills & Learning ...

Mapping the Big Green Challenge 59Since only a minority of proposals to the Big Green Challenge were solely about products we havefocused our analysis of adoption on these behaviour change related measures. The exclusion ofproduct innovations from the analysis of way adoption is promoted is not intended to suggest thatsuch proposals did not need to address adoption issues. However there were very few products atthe stage of launching to a community at large. Instead the product focussed BGC proposals tendedto be at the research and development stage (where the issues to be analysed relate primarily to thedevelopment and testing of their ideas). In cases where the product was ready (or the applicant feltit was ready) for more widespread take up then these tended not to be consumer products but wereinstead some form of community-based ‘installation’ to, say, produce renewable energy in a novelway. In these cases one is looking less at a marketing strategy to persuade people to buy theproduct but rather at strategies to gain the support of local councils and communities to gainplanning permission, funding and so on. The issues relating to these types of proposal are discussedin a later chapter as proposal types Low Carbon Enterprises (Section 7.7) and Low Carbon Inventions(Section 7.10).6.2.2.3 Understanding relationships between innovators and ‘Audience’ via Types ofNetwork RelationshipThe most apparent characteristic of community action in comparison with the private domesticsphere is that it involves engaging with others with whom one has no direct family ties. Onedimension of this has been interest in the types of bonds people have with each other in communitygroups. Clearly this varies between types of groups and often between different members of thesame group, but at issue is the potential for strong bonds based on reciprocity, on-going interactionand shared values which were highlighted in an earlier chapter as key to the innovative potential of3 rd sector organisations.The increased emphasis on the importance of interactions and relationships in the innovationprocess has been accompanied by growing interest in explanations based on social networks. Onestrand in this has explored the importance of place-based, face to face relationships in contrast withinternet mediated ones. Another approach has explored the role of strong bonding ties whichreinforce the frequency and depth of ‘in-group’ communication compared with weak bridging tieswhich allow connections to be made between networks and concludes that both are important buthave distinctive roles within the innovation process. These approaches to innovation overlap withwider concepts about community which draw on notions of social capital and social identity.Some of these dimensions have been captured in relation to BGC proposals with a series of interrelatedclassifications. We can distinguish some broad models of network relationships based on theproposed relationship between the challengers and the final target audience, and whether this isenvisaged as direct or indirect (through intermediaries), personal or remote, and on-going orinfrequent. A number of broad network types were applied to this relationship and these aredescribed and illustrated below. It has also been possible to estimate whether their existingrelationships matched the intended model (i.e. the nature of their current engagement with thesegroups / individuals). Earlier caveats about the quality of the data in the initial applications need tobe remembered here – but in aggregate it may provide some insights into the readiness / ‘maturity’of Challengers to carry out the type of projects they were suggesting and about the balance betweenin-depth engagement and wider reach.Appleby Ltd July 2009