Shelter

Social innovation, as a problem-solving activity, cannot initiate one key solution. Rather, it results in an array of possible responses and potential outcomes, with some answers being better responses than others. To define a response as a finite solution would require an environment that would be indefinitely consistent. However, that is not the case with the challenges of our society.

An example of an ever-evolving response to an ever-apparent need is shelter. Through the many stages of humanity’s growth and development, there have been many diverse responses to build a durable, sustainable, permanent, and flexible mode of refuge from the rain. Far from referring to an organic element of nature as problematic, I am simply emphasizing man’s desperate attempts at staying dry. An umbrella, a house, a tree trunk, a mushroom, or a cave are an ensemble of responses to rain and will ever be open to further development through the course of humanity’s growth. Then, social innovation is the cycle of creation, adaptation, and diffusion concerning a particular period and needs of civilization thereof.