Social Innovation

Discussion

The Wikipedia writes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_innovation :

"Over the years, the term has developed several overlapping meanings. It can be used to refer to social processes of innovation, such as open source methods. Alternatively it can be used to innovations which have a social purpose - like microcredit or distance learning." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_innovation)

In the P2P Foundation literature, we use it almost exclusively in the first sense. Saying innovation is or has become social, means stressing that innovation is an emerging property of distributed networks. It is located in the overall community and econoly, and less and less exclusively within an institution or from a single individual entrepreneur.