"Imagine if…" are two inspiring words that have the power to bring about real change, according to technology company Sony – but only if you give people the right environment to explore ideas, share knowledge and dare to dream.
That, in a nutshell, is what inspired Sony to launch its open planet ideas crowdsourcing project, in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and the design group, IDEO.
Sony was looking for a way to get people, from diverse and often untapped audiences, thinking in new ways about the sustainability challenges we all face.
So in September 2010, it set up an online open forum. Members of the public were invited first to share their ideas about the sustainability challenges that most concerned them and, then, to use seven innovative Sony technologies to invent new ways to tackle them.
It was the first time Sony had run an open forum using a social networking model and the company undoubtedly knew that taking this route entailed the risk that it could prove a costly failure.
Despite that, Sony stuck with the idea because, it says, it was entirely in keeping with its corporate goal: to inspire people to imagine a better and more sustainable future and then to work with them to build it into reality.
The forum attracted over 400 concepts from users. From these an expert panel chose seven leading ideas, and then boiled that list down to three.
Eventually the panel picked the winner, GreenBook – a cross-platform, open software application using geo-location and social gaming techniques to bring friends together on volunteering projects. The project is the idea of Paul Frigout, who goes under the digital name, Siniuc.
"We believe GreenBook will breathe new life into the age old concept of volunteering through the application of cutting edge social technology" – Morgan David, head of Sony's broadcast and professional research labs
Reaching new audiences
Sony wanted to find a way to make sustainability more relevant to wider group of people. It wanted to reach a new audience, beyond those who are already green-aware and active. Creatives and technology enthusiasts were its new targets.
Although a challenging audience to reach, Sony saw that the involvement of these people would be vital if it was to inspire fresh thinking about how technology could be put to the service of sustainability.
Hence the strong accent put on creating a space for shared thinking, debate and collaboration. The approach proved successful, with visit times to the site averaging over 10 minutes, much longer than would have been achieved using traditional media or communication channels, Sony believes.
This was not an exercise in promoting fanciful ideas and far-fetched schemes. The test was to find practical and effective uses of technology that could be readily realised.
This is clearly evident in Youtube footage, posted by Sony on the Open Planet site, showing the expert panel deciding – unanimously – why the Greenbook concept should be realised. The panel clearly wanted a concept that could be successfully implemented and that was likely to have wide social impact.
"Greenbook will enable people to come together to support and give their time and energy to their local area" – Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, corporate relations director at WWF International
What appealed to the panel about Siniuc's GreenBook project was its potential to reinvent community activism for the Facebook generation and to promote local volunteering within communities, a fact that was endorsed by voluntary organisations, such as Timebank, who took a look at the concept.
GreenBook is now being developed and progress on the project continues to be logged through the open planet site.
As Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, puts it: "We feel this is an exciting concept that will enable people to come together to support and give their time and energy to their local area and address some of the key environmental challenges that we are facing today."
Sony's Morgan David added: "We chose this idea because of its huge potential to bring people together and motivate participation. We believe GreenBook will breathe new life into the age-old concept of volunteering through the application of cutting edge social technology."
In terms of engagement, the strengths of the open planet scheme are clear and go beyond just raising awareness. It stands or falls on the willingness of participants to enter into a genuine dialogue with each other, taking a real two-way approach to communication, unlike some more prescriptive sustainability campaigns.
Gaining new insights
Sony saw direct benefits too. Not only was sustainability pushed up the company's own agenda because of the project, but the company also discovered a new and exciting way to engage with its consumers.
This was the first time the company had shared intellectual property so openly with the public. It gained some genuine insights about the concerns of its customers and the role they thought technology companies should play in combating sustainability challenges.
Indeed, Sony believes the understanding it got through using an open forum was far deeper than it would ever have achieved through traditional market research and customer surveys.
In choosing Sony as this year's category winner, our own judging panel spent some time discussing what "communicating sustainability" really meant.
Did it just mean providing information to help consumers? Was it about telling people about the company's efforts and accomplishments? Or was it about enabling an actual and measurable change in behaviour?
The judges agreed it was probably a mixture of all three, but stressed that the last was very important.
Although still in the early stages, the panel felt Sony's project had big potential to inspire large-scale change using communications in an innovative way.
That gave Sony the edge. Its initiative was seen as "a bigger play" than some of the rival schemes and the judges applauded the "bold, creative, vivid and exciting" language Sony used to describe its project.
Our judges were also clearly impressed that Sony had launched such a bold scheme, at a difficult time for the company in some of its key markets.
Simon Beavis is part of the wordworks network
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