ABSTRACT
This chapter examines broad narrative streams, with an emphasis on the diversity of interpretations and pre-occupations that they reveal. It analyzes some of the key tensions between the narratives, tensions that impact both on the way co-design is situated within the practice of social innovation and on the sorts of outcomes it is expected to produce. The systematic design process consists of a number of phases that lead from a deep engagement with the consumer in their real-world context; to an ideation phase, including prototyping; and thence to implementation. Social innovators are extraordinarily diverse, the ways they approach social innovation and conceive of it having effect are equally divergent, and the types of problems on which it is brought to bear are legion. The diversity of approaches to classifying social innovation, the levels at which it occurs, and the difficulties in establishing causal links between specific actions and outcomes are reflected in the wide variety of definitions applied to it.
