Post-Evaluation Reflections by Make A Difference Institute

Jockey Club Make a Difference Social Lab Post-Evaluation Reflections by Make A Difference Institute

Since the launch of the Jockey Club MakeA Difference Social Lab (JC MaD Social Lab) in 2016, the Social Lab team completed the first phase of4 social labs with the generous support of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, many passionate young changemakers who joined us on this innovation journey and 3 government departments willing to co-create with the community. It has been our pleasure to see ordinary citizens (especially young people) delighted to participate in public service innovation, and the small seeds of change we have sown along the way.

In the 4th social lab carried out in the first part of 2019, Market Lab@Aldrich Bay Market, we invited Institute for User Participation (IUP) to be our critical partner. They observed our lab dynamics, understood our expectations as well as those of the lab participants, and observed our excitement, frustrations, and takeaways. The participatory approach of the IUP evaluation helped us to understand our strengths and limitations.

After reading the IUP report, we would like to share our reflections in this quick response.

What should the “success” of social labs look like?

A social lab is an experimental process towards social innovation. The spirit of experimentation is not practiced as often in the social sphere, as compared to the medical and technology fields, where “success” of their experiments could be better defined, say, in coming up witha new vaccine or discovering new technologies.

As organisers, we are often asked: what should the success of social innovation usinga social lab process look like? What were we, asa small non-profit creative platform, able to implement or were not able to do, given the limited time and capacity, and how could we strengthen this model for more scalability and effective outcomes?

Our team’s learning is that: we must accept social labs as experiments which need iterative trial and error to evolve. The experiments are grounded on the needs and pain points of the community, which we (together with young labbers) must first identify and empathise with.

During the experimentation process (such as testing prototypes and understanding the system), many values, skills and competencies are strengthened, including gaining empathy, and problem solving and analytical skills in collaborating with a diverse group of people.

Another important learning is building resilience and accepting failure, while continuing to experiment and pivot. This is probably the hardest part and can shake the confidence of young people in their comfort zones. Only when participants are able to acknowledge their frustrations

could they become confident changemakers in the future. We note some labbers have continued to embark on different social innovation projects after completion of a short social lab. This warrants further study and might perhaps be defined as one dimension of “success” of this social lab programme.

At the end of the day, JC MaD Social Lab’s intent is to empower more young people as empathetic changemakers, having commitment to support positive social change in their respective roles in the community.

How should “social innovation” be defined?

The impact of social labs lies in the testing of innovative ideas and solutions to respond to complex and wicked problems. To us, innovations could be on the system level, but must start small. Innovations can also mean ideas already practiced in other fields, but new to another sector or a community. We note labbers might define “innovations” differently. Some believe innovations must be big, novel and groundbreaking, while others think it is simply a better solution to resolve a community issue.

The diversity in perception could make communication difficult, and the lab team has reflected on ways to bridge the gap and align labbers’ thinking so that they can join hands to carry out humble, and nevertheless innovative ideas.

No matter the “size” of an innovative idea, it is important to reinforce the “evidence-based” dimension of a social innovation and this has been good for value alignment. For example, the design of The Market Lab prototypes was derived from issues identified in our “community understanding” phase of the lab.

The design of the lab process will also affect its outcome and hence impact of the “innovation”. We thank the IUP team for highlighting to us the effectiveness of a quicker cyclical approach, which we have subsequently used in the Local Tourism Lab (Jan to July 2021). A 3-cycle experience of looping community understanding, ideation and prototyping was carried out, allowing for empathy and network building, gradual immersion into the community and constant testing and combination of ideas. We together with labbers found the cyclical process beneficial as it enhances the experimental mindset.

To answer our question above, social innovation is not just defined in accordance with scale and magnitude but, through meaningful co-creation in lab processes, also rope together cross sector enthusiasts to identify the salient issues and collaborate, with a view to arrive at powerful solutions.

Finally, how could small prototypes evolve into sustainable models?

We sow seeds on the idea of experiments and co-creation in civil society and government. During the lab process, we have not spent too much time pondering sustainability.

Without opportunities to prototype, pivot and improve, it is too early yet to discuss sustainability. We find that changes often happen in unexpected ways after we have completed our social labs as public sector innovations take time and need a myriad of conditions including visionary leadership to ferment and grow.

Two years after the end of Healthy Street Lab, the Transport Department approached us to collaborate in what has become Healthy Street Lab 2.0 to co-create safe and enjoyable streets in a school zone in Sham Shui Po.

Three years following The LIBoratory Project, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department commissioned MaD to carry out a year-long project called Pick-a-Booket to better curate children's books in public libraries for families with children aged 3-8. These two labs emerged from the first stage prototypes explored in The LIBoratory Project as well as Healthy Street Lab 1.0, and we had the valuable opportunity to further develop those ideas together with committed civil servants.

After the end of The Market Lab, a few keen labbers were eager to continue with their prototypes and deepened their ideas as a mini-social lab. By collaborating with academics and community organisations, they ran a six-month project to explore pop-up markets on vacant sites to foster community-based economy. They co-created a regular Pop-up Market Design & Planning Toolkit and implemented a real pop-up market in Sham Shui Po. When bigger changes are yet to happen, cross sector champions can continue to test small innovations using their creativity. We will continue to be a catalyst to facilitate young people with motivation, knowhow and resources to make positive change and that in itself will contribute to the sustainability of the social innovation movement.

We thank the IUP team once again, and also the hundreds of labbers and collaborators who supported the social lab process in the last 5 years. Your views and insights are not only valuable to JC MaD Social Lab’s future development but will inform more labs and social experiments to come.