Ep. 1 - Meet the Hosts

Mar 6, 2023; Meet the Hosts

Transcript

00:11 JAMES GAMAGE, HOST:

Hello, I'm so excited to welcome you to the first episode of the Responsible Disruption Podcast. My name is James Gamage and I'm the Director of Innovation and the Social Impact Lab at United Way of Calgary and the area. To set the tone for this podcast, our episode today is going to be a table discussion with the three hosts of this show, Sydney Johnson, Monique Blough and myself, with the intention of giving you an inside look at the Social Impact Lab, what it is, where it came from, and all the fun things that we've been up to in the last four years. So to get us started, let's do some intro Sydney, why don't you start?

00:49 SYDNEY JOHNSON, CO-HOST 1:

Well, thanks, James. I will take that baton. My name is Sydney Johnson. Hi, everyone, who's listening. We're so excited to welcome you to this podcast. I am the design lead at J5. We'll get into a little bit of what that means later, but I also play that role within the Social Impact Lab. I am a trained service designer and have spent my entire career in the space of design and innovation, and I really believe in the process and that it's just as important as the end result. So when you're working with me, when you're listening to me, you'll find that that's a lot of my focus and I'm excited to get to talk to these two hosts today and on the rest of these podcasts. So, Monique, why don't you go next?

01:33 MONIQUE BLOUGH, CO-HOST 2:

Welcome, yes, to our podcast series. So my name is Monique Blough, and I'm the Project Director of the Social Impact Lab Alberta. And I was part of the founding team of the Social Impact Lab here in Calgary in 2018, and that role really set the path for the role that I'm in today. I've had a very purpose driven career and that has led me to choose organizations that are also purpose driven and and very intentional in the work that they want to do. And I think what drives me every day is the notion of trying to understand what's happening in our communities around us, but most importantly, the value of the roles community play in social innovation. OK. And James?

02:29 JAMES: Thanks Monique. So I am, as I said earlier, the Director of Innovation and the Social Impact Lab at the United Way. Though I've only been here about three years at the Social Impact Lab. My career has been long. I'm sort of on the back nine, people would say, but I've been in innovation for about 20 years. But innovation in financial services organization. So I've worked in the UK; I've worked in Ireland. And I've come over here to Canada about 11 years ago and have worked in Calgary ever since. So I came over to work as the Head of Innovation at ATB. I did a stint in consultancy. And really, my jam is driving innovation in organizations. You know, how to create the right culture processes and how to basically innovate in an organizational context.

I had a bit of an epiphany in my life about three years ago when I really had to think about what I wanted to do and and as opposed to lining the pockets of wealthy people in my innovation endeavors to date. I wanted to see if I could help less privileged than people that perhaps are less privileged than myself so that's why this work really aligns with my purpose and and actually gives me a reason to hop out of bed every morning. We do need to sort of get into the discussion obviously and we thought we have planned a broad discussion about the Social Impact Lab, but one of the things I was asked the other day, which was a very good question and I didn't really know how to answer it immediately is why did we decide to do a podcast? So Monique, over to you. Why did we decide to do a podcast?

04:14 MONIQUE: Such a great question and such a great place to start. Well, I'll speak for myself and then maybe we can see if we have consensus or what the other thoughts might be as to why we started this, but I believe we started the podcast because there's an opportunity to connect other innovators, those working in social innovation, across our community. So whether that's locally based in Calgary at a provincial level or even internationally when we start to think about how our work can expand, I also would say we started it because we not only want to learn, but we want to share and we want to share what our experiences have been like, what we've experienced over the last four years in the future. And so maybe that means a little bit of thought leadership. How can we support what's happening around us? That's my take.

05:11 JAMES: That’s cool. That’s cool.

05:11 SYDNEY: It behooves me to mention the origins of Responsible Disruption, which really started as from the two of you as a Zoom cast, if I'm correct, came out of a bit of the pandemic. A bit of a need there to create some conversations.

05:29 JAMES: Yeah, I mean, it was. I started work for the United Way in this role at about two weeks after the pandemic locked down and it was the first task I was given when I came through the door was we need to set up a Zoom cast and we need to do it in a week's time. So yeah, it's etched on my memory. But yeah, we ran Responsible Disruption as a Zoom cast, which was a video over Zoom, live broadcast. We did it for...  getting on for two years sporadically, but really it had its niche in those early days of COVID when people were locked down, we were all at home looking for things to do, and the weekly broadcast was actually pretty successful at getting people through the door. Listening to our stories of social innovation as well as slightly broader stories of innovation in the sporting context as well. So for example, so yeah, that's where it started and I think naturally, I think over a period of time people got a bit of Zoom fatigue and but we felt that there was still a good story to tell. So that's why we've happened across a podcast, I guess.

06:43 MONIQUE: I love the story of our Zoom cast though, and how it started and how it's evolved and all those that trusted us to come on and be guests, right? It's something new and we're inviting them to share with us part of their journey and the work that they're doing and they trusted us with that. So I think that's a proof point to success and hopefully we'll get the same experience with this podcast.

07:05 SYDNEY: For sure and shout out to our OG listeners of the Responsible Disruption Zoom cast if you're coming from that audience, we appreciate you. We also appreciate you if you're new though, so all are welcome here.

07:20 JAMES: And thinking back about those Zoom casts and those episodes. A lot of what we were trying to talk about was sort of social innovation and really what social innovation is. Why we were thinking about that. How it could take root in our communities today and think about some of those conversations. What do you remember most about, Monique?

07:49 MONIQUE: Oh my goodness. When I reflect on the... Even if I think about the four years, like even setting up the Lab and then leading into the Zoom cast and the guests. I think social innovation has evolved as to how we imagined it might be when we first started to even how our guests interpret it, to even how we see it today. I think it really helps us consider how we might solve some of the greatest challenges that impact our communities. And I think that's what excites me about this. The notion of social innovation and the space that we've created to enable and empower those around us to lead in that way.

08:35 JAMES: I heard you define it the other day as the innovation that shapes society, which really resonated with me.

08:42 MONIQUE: Thank you.

08:42 JAMES: I really like that. Go on.

08:45 SYDNEY: I was just going to say I have a follow up question for Monique, which is... Tell us about Responsible Disruption. I think you're the best place to talk about the title a little bit.

08:54 MONIQUE: Sure!

08:54 SYDNEY: It’s right in your bio. [Laughs]

08:56 MONIQUE: Yeah, it is. Well, yes, I've always viewed myself as a responsible disruptor. Before I started to work in this space of social innovation, I spent a lot of time in tech, tech innovation and tech innovation is not done without the people, which is the social element to it. But I really realized that everything we were doing need to be done in a way that's responsible. We can't just disrupt for the sake of disruption. And so the more I reflected on that, the more I started to think I'm a responsible disruptor.

09:32 JAMES: Yeah, I love those two words together. I mean, I love the word disruption, anyway, that's always been my jam. But I think also, some people have allergic reaction to the word disruption. I remember some feedback that we got pretty early on it's like, you will not be disrupting this sector, but I like that it provokes thought. And I like the word responsible obviously with it as well. So that's really cool.

10:01 MONIQUE: I think the notion of social innovation connected with Responsible Disruption and in fact responsible disruption in any kind of capacity of innovation starts to think about what it means to have lasting, long, impact change, like the idea of those things working together, right? Because otherwise, the sustainability of what you're doing can be, could be very short term.

10:30 SYDNEY: And to have sort of the sharing of stories under the banner of Responsible Disruption as well, I mean just why do we disrupt things. I would hope that one of the outcomes is to learn something. And maybe that's something that we can talk about as these episodes unfold, as we're creating these responsible disruptions moving forward and also the view looking backwards of everything that's happened in the Lab, what has that meant and what have we learned and what was that disruption for and how did we do it.

11:04 MONIQUE: I think it's interesting to consider like what comes to mind for me while you're speaking Sydney, is this notion of who's engaged and who's involved and how do you bring them along the journey so they feel like they're part of that process, right? That responsible disruption rather than it just being a few people that come up with an idea in a room and go out.

11:25 SYDNEY: Yeah, absolutely, and disruption can be jarring, and sometimes that is a necessary piece and sometimes that is not the right thing to do and I'm interested to dig deep. I'm sure we could talk about that for quite a while and and that language of testing and prototyping and and changing things up and sometimes it is for the sake of changing things up because you just need to change things up.

11:51 MONIQUE: Well, isn't it always the best laid plans are those that need to change anyways?

11:54 SYDNEY: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it makes me think of the evolution of the Lab and where we started and maybe that's where we should start today.

12:07 MONIQUE: I feel like this show is all on me. I want that to change. [Laughs]

12:08 JAMES: Yeah, but before we go, I do wanna talk about that disruption because obviously I came from innovating in a corporate context and the father of disruptive innovation is Clay Christensen and in a corporate context, you have incumbent firms and you have organizations that have been delivering a service for very many years and they're not inclined to change what they deliver. And in fact, they don't want to because it creates inefficiencies, but innovation tends to come in those contexts, from organizations that maybe have a small innovation for a small niche group initially, which actually works very well for that niche group and then the wider mass market learns about the value of that innovation and then it scales. And before you know it, a whole industry is disrupted. And so while we do want to do Responsible Disruption and we do want to be responsible, we must also think about the opportunity to completely change things.

I was thinking the other day about systems innovation. We talked a lot about innovating the system and I'm sure we'll come along and talk about it. And I sort of view the system as a bit like the incumbent. And sometimes we all in the innovation that we do, we must take some time and have some space for completely disrupting the system and it needs to be done in a responsible way. But I also listened to a podcast and the guy that one of the speakers on the podcast runs an organization called Give Directly and they in the developing world, they give cash. They don't work through NGOs or the agencies to provide services to the people in less developed countries. They give cash and that's completely disrupted... completely against the system and it's completely disrupted the way that aid is distributed, but actually they've been incredibly successful. So thinking about that opportunity to disrupt the system as well, I think it's quite an important thing that we ought to always have in our minds when we're when we're innovating.

14:40 MONIQUE: Yeah, I think all the things you've raised and or all the points you've raised are interesting and meaningful. And I think this notion, like the example that you gave of an organization that's just giving money, we're often tied to the ideas that we need to understand what's going to happen with that money. We're tied to this idea that if we're going to support progress that we need to understand what the outcomes are going to be instead of potentially trusting those that are living in that space every day to know that they're going to do what's right for their community or for the people that they are supporting. It's a curious space to be in, really.

15:25 SYDNEY: Well, it comes back to that idea of ambiguity, which is right in this podcast description, is the importance of embracing ambiguity and that whether it's funds that have been received or intention or time or energy towards something we think as humans or in the systems that we are accustomed to are so used to being like, well, I'm going to do this and I'm going to get this or this is going to happen. And in this space, you don't always know what's going to happen. You can line up the cards as well as you can, but you won't really see what happens until you get there. And I think that is one of the biggest challenges for folks engaging in this space is that ambiguity, and is that realization that you just kind of have to go through that and maybe you don't know everything at the outset

16:17 MONIQUE: Can I pull a little bit on the string of social innovation, a little bit more as it relates to not only corporate culture, but like employee culture.

16:26 SYDNEY: Yeah, absolutely.

16:26 MONIQUE: I think it's interesting. We've talked a lot about preparing for this episode. Many of us have read things in advance, and like we always do in our work. But the notion of social innovation playing such a prominent strategic roles and organizations now for hiring practices, for building a culture of change. And I'm curious as to what you both might think. But James, too, from your corporate side. What do you think?

16:56 JAMES: I mean, I think when an organization or company starts out down the innovation path, I think when you're doing anything new, you need to give it some oxygen and energy and focus. But I also think it's a natural evolution. And artificially, you might separate that innovation group or the role of that team from the rest of the organization. But, in due course that needs to become more the culture of the whole organization, be that magic fairy dust, if I can call it that. That's in one team needs to be sprinkled across the whole organization so it is a natural evolution to move from it being about a specific team to it being more about the way the organization or the company does it carries out its day-to-day activity so I see it as a natural evolution.

17:58 SYDNEY: And I suppose that's the measure of success of an embedded innovation Lab, right.  And we're certainly not the first and we won't be the last to be doing this kind of work. I am recalling the process as you say James, as you know, experimentation, integration, and then innovation diffusion. I actually really like the phrase innovation diffusion as the as the way to think about.

18:21 JAMES: Not sprinkling fairy tales, yeah. [Laughs]

18:22 SYDNEY: Oh well, that's a type of diffusion, I suppose. But there's the part where it's the protected container. Then it becomes that kind of growing pains of where is it everywhere in the organization, but then it becomes so natural that you almost can't separate it from the organization. And that is the place to be, and then however many years later, you have to do it all over again. But that's how she goes.

18:52 JAMES: Yeah, that does make me think about sort of the evolution we're going through at the moment and we're... I know you asked this question earlier, Sydney. We didn't answer it, but the... where the Lab came from.

19:02 SYDNEY: It’s alright. I don't take it personally. [Laughs]

19:04 JAMES: You know, you were there at the start, Monique. [Laughs]

19:05 MONIQUE: I know, I didn't. That’s true. I didn't share that. Thanks for bringing that back. But yeah, you're right. We've had quite an evolution. I mean, when I think back to 2018, when I was a member of the J5 team at the time along with a wonderful team from United Way. Talia (Bell) being one of those founding members as well. And we came in with this notion of wanting to move from serving to solving as we think about United Way’s history and I think it was such a great mandate for us and how we started. But since that time and since that idea of thinking about it in designing solutions that were about solving what was happening in our community versus just serving what was happening. I think we've also evolved from that so much. We really learned the depth of stakeholder engagement that we needed, the depths of what it means to work in community, the depth of work that the frontline agencies do every day. Like these are not our area of expertise right as J5 or is at the time. We're not social workers, we're not psychologists. Most of us have not worked on the front line. And so understanding the value of those contributions and that connection, I think really shaped how we became who we are today to be honest.

20:38 SYDNEY: Yeah, absolutely. There's a maturity piece there like some of the things that came out of the Lab in the in the first few months and a couple few years, some of them are still active today. We still have our Inspire program, which was the very first thing in the Lab. Of course I wasn't there at the time.

20:55 MONIQUE: It was, it was one of the first.

20:56 SYDNEY: OK great! [Laughs]

20:57 MONIQUE: Yeah, it was.

20:59 SYDNEY: Glad I've got my ducks in a row. And of course, Natural Supports and some different products and slightly tech focused pieces. But I think anyone who's working in this space for a length of time begins to understand that.... it's that African proverb. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And that nothing happens in silo and neither does design, right? We go with our communities and it's it really is all about co-design at the end of the day, I'm biased in that view, but I think that creates space for me.

21:39 MONIQUE: I think that’s true. Absolutely. I think what's interesting is when we started as well, we put a lot of boxes around how we might work. Right. How we would engage with community and I think we also boxed it because we had uncertainty, right, that ambiguity, and then as we've evolved, we've become much more comfortable to in fact remove some of those boxes and to allow the natural flow of what's occurring around us to guide us in our work and to be extremely comfortable with ambiguity and knowing that something beautiful can come out of ambiguity. But James, you joined us right in pandemic. So imagine the Lab during the pandemic time where we were convening people in the Lab before on a weekly basis to now all of a sudden having to shift everything. What have you seen in the last two years?

22:28 JAMES: Yeah, I mean, I obviously started almost three years ago now and what was clear was the community engagement that had been very apparent within the Lab. I remember doing some stats in that first year around the number of people that attended the Lab and we took good records in those first few years. And there were over 900 people who'd come into the Lab from universities, government, at all levels of government, philanthropists and donors, universities, you name it, as well as people with lived experience, who obviously we're trying to solve problems for. So that was a really important part of our DNA. So now we tried not to lose that during the pandemic, although it was a little difficult. Inspire, for example, went from an in person program to one that we shifted to using Zoom and Mural, but like every sector of the economy that was a difficult time and I think we're learning around about how to reconnect in person with organizations and how to maintain those relationships which are so important for that diverse view and as well as expertise on how to innovate and what sticks out from my point of view is that the effort that we needed to make during that time to make sure we maintain those connections and have that diverse input.

24:07 SYDNEY: Yeah, it's kind of a form of disruption itself. Like I think about it, the Inspire program and how yes, it made us shift in the immediate sense from a fully in person sort of workshop experience to one that's a Zoom and mural, but then led us to the opportunity of creating some directed and some self-directed parts of that, that program and so now the way that program looks is that part of it is a professional learning platform, part of it is still in person and in a space together and sort of open up new avenues to take to. I think it took it to the next level really. Of course, it's like a long running project here in the Lab, but that's just maybe that disruption was not particularly responsible. But we couldn't have done anything about it. But it's still a disruption.

25:00 MONIQUE: Yeah, well, we were forced to change because of the disruption, and it’s out of our control.

25:02 SYDNEY: Yeah, and innovation came out of that.

25:05 MONIQUE: Yeah, and I think Inspire is such a good example because it became a proof point to us being able to go into the Social Impact Lab, Alberta and just so you know, there'll be a future podcast on that. If you want to stay tuned.

25:23 JAMES: Just one? [Laughs]

25:24 MONIQUE: Well, a whole series, good point, a whole series, where we'll do a deep dive on the work that we're doing across the province. But I think that it's a good point to consider what is outside of our control that then disrupts us, and then how do we react to that disruption?

25:35 SYDNEY: Yeah, it's all about your reaction. That's all you can control.

25:39 MONIQUE: So if we think about how much we've changed or evolved. And we know the last two years, third year here, we've had a lot of evolution. What do we think our next point of evolution is going to be?

25:55 SYDNEY: Oh, what does the future hold? Do you have a crystal ball somewhere? [Laughs]

25:59 MONIQUE: Well, I don't have a crystal ball, but the social impact level Alberta leads me to start thinking about what does the future hold for social innovation at a provincial level. What does the future hold as we think about our ecosystem as a whole. As we think about bringing all the people that have come through the Lab: nonprofits, academia, government, philanthropists. Like what does it look like for us when we think about the scale of what we might be able to do?

26:30 SYDNEY: I mean, for me, it's sort of my philosophy towards this work and design and being human centered, which maybe we haven't touched on too much, but I think the more people in the world that are considering things through a human centered lens, saying what is happening to the people around me because of these choices, the environments around me because of these choices and to your point before James about the systems that we live and work in, the more people applying that thinking... Thinking about that in their work, actively working in those spaces, the better. And the Social Impact Lab is an incubator of that kind of thinking. Is an incubator of bringing groups together, bringing people in, introducing them to that, holding the space for that work. So on and so forth and I can only see that expanding until the next signal comes and we say, oh, like we actually need to bring that into some of what we're promoting and some of what we're supporting, but really there's an expansiveness to once you start really considering the way that the choices you make as an organization as a team, as a project factor into the system, factor into different people's lives. Things really only go up from there.

28:01 MONIQUE: I love that you mentioned the signals, because I also think that's something we're experiencing, right? That we are picking up on the signals around us, whether it's within our own organization and opportunities that exist there, whether it's how we are collaborating more closely at a broader systems level and across many organizations that are focused on social innovation. We're almost a bit at this tipping of what might come next.

28:33 JAMES: And you talked about signals. I mean, you specifically are working on outside Calgary thinking about how this process or these techniques can be used more broadly. Are you hearing signals?

28:51 MONIQUE: I am, absolutely. No one could see me, but I was nodding my head saying yes! Absolutely, I think what's really interesting about the timing of this work is that there is an openness and desire to want to engage at this level and I'm really excited to talk about the work and future podcast, but we don't show up in a community with our own notions and our own ideas. The community invites us in and which means then they are at a place of readiness to work through or think about the things that are occurring around them and that in fact is a signal of itself that the timing is right and not all communities are the same. My goodness, not at all. And even though at a provincial level we might think the timing is right across the province to think about capacity building, but each community, each individual is bringing their own experiences, and assumptions to the table, so how do we unpack that at the same time of being aware of what's occurring at the broader level?

29:58 JAMES: But it's a difficult proposition not to like really. The offer is we are going to help you as a community and individual, a group of people make your community better in some way and and we'll help you do that. So it's great to hear that people are ready for it, but I'm sort of not surprised as well.

30:22 MONIQUE: I think the notion of wanting to support change in the community and then being able to enable and empower a community to do that might even be inherent in how communities operate and want to improve.

30:35 SYDNEY: I would suggest yeah, but I think maybe it's like the opposite of doing something to a community, which is what we want to be clear, that we're not doing right, it's not the sense of, “oh, we're going to come in and tell you what to do” or “we know best” or any of that. It's a support. It's an empowerment and it's a different way of working together where sometimes that looks different for each community. Sometimes it's just creating the space, sometimes it's giving a bit more tools and active support, but I think that's the biggest message. I think for me, when I'm speaking to people in community is, look, this isn't happening to you. It's happening with you and you have the consent in that.

31:24 MONIQUE: Full control, yeah, absolutely. It does make me think about some of the other projects we've had in the Lab, like natural, supports, right? If we think about Natural Supports, the notion of this project was built around how do we help youth that are experiencing sadness, anxiety and self harm. And so the work in the Lab led us to design a solution that would support adults that are known as natural supports, those in the life of a youth, and so it could be a coach, a teacher, a parent, an aunt, and so the reason I liken it to that is this idea of we are there to support and provide tools and practices for you if you choose. And it's in the choice that creates the power to then make the change. And that's what happened with natural supports and that's what's also happening as we think about scaling across the province as well.

32:17 SYDNEY: They're nice sentiment. Maybe something else I think to touch on that makes the Social Impact Lab a unique Lab in the space of, certainly Calgary and Alberta, but Canada and maybe elsewhere is the collaboration between the United Way and J5 design. And the way that those different strengths and superpowers come together to create the space that we're in and just I think we just want to go over a little bit if people are tuning in or learning about the Social Impact Lab for the first time.

32:55 SYDNEY: And please add on, Monique and James, but J5 design is really about bringing that human centered design methodology and approach to the Lab and United Way of course, has deep intimate knowledge and connections with these groups and individuals and community understanding of the social sector and of course their own batch of innovators, two of whom I'm speaking with, and I think that's really important, because if we're talking about scaling a Lab, if we're talking about the system, it is about people coming together, it is about partnerships and it is about relationships and so much of the work the first thing we have to start with this relationship building and the reason that we've come as far as we have is because of the relationship that we have.

33:43 MONIQUE: I would agree with that and I think I have a unique vantage point, because I felt like it was a partnership. But also, as a previous J-Fiver that then moved to United Way, I've been able to see the evolution of the relationship, you know, all the sides of it. Like any relationship, it has complicated layers to it, but we always come out with a focus on what are we trying to achieve and that is in fact what drives everything that we choose to do together.

34:14 SYDNEY: Absolutely. And we always come forward to a better place one way or another and get through that fog together. The fog I'm referring to is of course that ambiguity that we'll be speaking up about in many, many other episodes.

34:29 MONIQUE: Probably every episodes we might lean in somewhere on the ambiguity piece.

34:29 SYDNEY: Probably. This is why we decided to put it into the Disruptor, because it’s going to be a hot topic.

34:36 JAMES: Yeah. Ambiguity, resilience, acceptance. That's sort of all etched in our brains on a day-to-day basis.

34:46 SYDNEY: Someone should make a Twitter counter of how many times we say social innovation.

34:48 MONIQUE: We should actually be tracking that for the end of the year. [laughs]

34:54 JAMES: So thinking forward also, what struck me when we were talking about the scaling of the Lab is how we're thinking about one of those relationships that we have is our corporate relationships and how we think about the work that we can do with some of our donor relationships and that's one of the things that we do in the Lab and one thing is very certain since we started the Lab. The lens around which corporates and donors look at this work has changed. If it used to be the triple bottom line, but now the current trend is to very much not only report on your results but report on your ESG environmental, social and governance metrics and, there's a lot of unpacking to do about what that means, particularly in the social side, in this city in particular, because a lot of the large organizations are mostly focused on the E, the environment.

But I think there's a role that we can play working more closely with these organizations to help them understand how the role that they can play in the S, to help them report on the work that they do within the S and actually change that relationship between the social impact of their work and what they do on a day-to-day basis. I think no longer is did you report on your results, and you know? That's 100% of what you do and your success is guided by that. Stakeholders nowadays are interested in what else you're doing for the social sector, what else you're doing for the environment, how your governance is. And I do think our position helping, working with organizations gives us, puts us in a unique position to be able to help them think through that going forward.

36:52 MONIQUE: Yeah, I think that's such a valid point. The notion of reporting to shareholders versus reporting to community or stakeholders as part of that journey. If I can just pull on that a little bit, what I find interesting is when we're thinking about scaling, we are 100% looking at what corporations organizations are in community and what role are they playing in that community? Because in fact, if you're thinking about systems change, systems change cannot occur solely with the nonprofit sector or can it not only occur with academia. It needs to have everybody at the table, includes corporate organizations and the role that they play in their community, right? Or we're seeing that in one of the communities we're active in today that has a large corporate partner who is active in that community and it would be wrong of us to not consider the impact that they are having on that community, and therefore in the work that we are considering.

37:55 SYDNEY: No silos here. Thank you very much.

37:58 MONIQUE: I can always count on you to create a good summary.

38:02 SYDNEY: That will be my role on the podcast. I'll just put it in five words or less. [Laughs]

38:08 MONIQUE: We need that for sure. [Laughs]

38:11 JAMES: So yeah, I think that's going to be an important part of our work going forward. And we need to accept that. Some of the intentions and reasons we're involved in this work might be quite different in an organization. It might be really that the key metric that they're wanting to solve is employee engagement, for example. So I think that's the role of the design led approach. The role of speaking to people to really understand what problem they're trying to solve and actually come to the table and work on something that works for society, but also works for their objectives as well. So well, thank you everybody for tuning in, in that case. So and for your interest, but you're tuning in because you're interested in how the work that we do to hopefully enrich people's lives around us. And so thank you for spending time with us. Just don't forget that change is created not only by those working actively towards it, but by those willing to support it. So your ears, minds and hearts are really appreciated. So thank you very much.

[Outro music]

That's all for today's episode of Responsible Disruption. Thank you for tuning in and we hope you found the conversation valuable. If you did, don't forget to follow, rate, and share wherever you get your podcasts. To stay up to date on future episodes and show notes, visit our website @ Social Impact Lab dot com or follow us on social, and until next time, keep on designing a better world.