A collapsable bike helmet constructed from recycled paper and plastic employing a honeycomb design.  Obvious, right?  Now that we mention it, of course it exists.  Except the EcoHelmet didn’t until 2016.  Nothing in the design and materials is a breakthrough of science or technology.  The barrier was our way of thinking.  Our inability to think about the application of these materials in a new way.

Those working in the social sector are addressing problems that are so large and complex that they cannot easily monetize.  Our environment is ripe for prototypes of all kind.  If we fail, it is expected.  If there is an easy solution it would have been employed already.  Each program, hire, budget, donation is a protoype.  It is a micro-effort to do the work that matters.  We need to remind ourselves that we are in the design thinking arena.  We each present a vision to put ourselves out of business because we solved a problem.  Perhaps we should be protoyping everyday, and wary of iteration.