Thank you so much for this thought provoking piece on using prizes to harness the growth of networks. I love the concept of valuing relationships over financial reward, and moving past the winner-takes-all attitude. It resonated a lot with a recent piece I wrote in SSIR that may be of interest: http://ssir.org/articles/entry/teaching_values_and_purpose_for_social_change. Thanks so much for your great work.
I wonder if the results of building the network might have been some what similar even if there was no ‘prize’? It seems like most of the effort described here went into relationship building and joining a network (which has been my experience for what sustains a network over time) not the competition for prizes per se. Although the traditional prize ‘incentive’ might help to surface some who might other wise not be identified, could the focus on a prize actually be a distraction to the real work of building the relationships that sustain on-going networks?
@Bonnie - Good question. Prizes are a tool to catalyze or strengthen networks but certainly not the only tool. We’ve seen many networks build without the use of prizes as well. That said, all healthy networks have three things: a defined shared purpose, clearly defined roles and activities that match those roles, and appropriate incentives and rewards to play those roles. Prizes can help with the process of getting to those three elements.
And yes, I agree—if you focus only on the “prize” itself, you’ll be distracted from the relationship-building!
Thanks Kimberley for this positive piece. I am runing the Womanity Award for the Womanity Foundation, investing in a replication ecosystem to prevent violence against women. The second edition will focus specifically on ventures that are harnessing ICT / New Media to prevent violence against women. We run a nomination system, and the strongest organisations are invited to send a joint synopsis with a partner of their choice that will replicate their evidence-based programme somewhere else in the world. The topic is so vast, and the learning so precious that we decided to capture the wealth of experience of these ict ventures in a peer-to-peer learning network called ICTforWomanity network.
The network will convene on line and off line and will gain from each members perspective on political, social and economic contexts they live in. We expect them to coaching each other on their tech development, advocacy and campaigning practices.
The programmes shortlisted are covering diverse concepts such as cyber security, street and online harassment, gaming, on line norms and behaviours, wearables, geolocalisation, urban audits, bystanders capacity building, education apps against human trafficking, m-health moocs for health professionals, and so forth.
The learning will be documented and disseminated to inform practitionners, funders, decision-makers, support providers, activists and women like and you and me.
Would love to be able to update you!
Hi Kimberly - followed a link from another SSIR article and was pleased to see your reflections on the SPRING work. The sort of prize networks you are talking about one of the emerging use cases for the Sphaera platform, and it would be great sometime to explore with you potential synergies between your work and ours. Would be great to build on the terrific work Context Partners did with us when Sphaera was just a number of Post-It notes on a wall.
COMMENTS
BY Sarina Beges
ON October 6, 2015 04:34 PM
Thank you so much for this thought provoking piece on using prizes to harness the growth of networks. I love the concept of valuing relationships over financial reward, and moving past the winner-takes-all attitude. It resonated a lot with a recent piece I wrote in SSIR that may be of interest: http://ssir.org/articles/entry/teaching_values_and_purpose_for_social_change. Thanks so much for your great work.
BY Bonnie Koenig
ON October 22, 2015 09:29 AM
I wonder if the results of building the network might have been some what similar even if there was no ‘prize’? It seems like most of the effort described here went into relationship building and joining a network (which has been my experience for what sustains a network over time) not the competition for prizes per se. Although the traditional prize ‘incentive’ might help to surface some who might other wise not be identified, could the focus on a prize actually be a distraction to the real work of building the relationships that sustain on-going networks?
BY Kimberly Manno Reott
ON October 29, 2015 03:59 AM
@Bonnie - Good question. Prizes are a tool to catalyze or strengthen networks but certainly not the only tool. We’ve seen many networks build without the use of prizes as well. That said, all healthy networks have three things: a defined shared purpose, clearly defined roles and activities that match those roles, and appropriate incentives and rewards to play those roles. Prizes can help with the process of getting to those three elements.
And yes, I agree—if you focus only on the “prize” itself, you’ll be distracted from the relationship-building!
BY Servane Mouazan
ON November 17, 2015 06:16 AM
Thanks Kimberley for this positive piece. I am runing the Womanity Award for the Womanity Foundation, investing in a replication ecosystem to prevent violence against women. The second edition will focus specifically on ventures that are harnessing ICT / New Media to prevent violence against women. We run a nomination system, and the strongest organisations are invited to send a joint synopsis with a partner of their choice that will replicate their evidence-based programme somewhere else in the world. The topic is so vast, and the learning so precious that we decided to capture the wealth of experience of these ict ventures in a peer-to-peer learning network called ICTforWomanity network.
The network will convene on line and off line and will gain from each members perspective on political, social and economic contexts they live in. We expect them to coaching each other on their tech development, advocacy and campaigning practices.
The programmes shortlisted are covering diverse concepts such as cyber security, street and online harassment, gaming, on line norms and behaviours, wearables, geolocalisation, urban audits, bystanders capacity building, education apps against human trafficking, m-health moocs for health professionals, and so forth.
The learning will be documented and disseminated to inform practitionners, funders, decision-makers, support providers, activists and women like and you and me.
Would love to be able to update you!
BY Astrid Scholz
ON July 5, 2016 09:49 AM
Hi Kimberly - followed a link from another SSIR article and was pleased to see your reflections on the SPRING work. The sort of prize networks you are talking about one of the emerging use cases for the Sphaera platform, and it would be great sometime to explore with you potential synergies between your work and ours. Would be great to build on the terrific work Context Partners did with us when Sphaera was just a number of Post-It notes on a wall.