Grant funding has a vital role to play in social technology innovation. It can support the higher costs and …
Death by Social Media
Jon Voss runs Shift’s US operations, with a major focus on Historypin. Our deep intergenerational work has pulled us recently …
IMLS Focus: The National Digital Platform
On April 28, 2015, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) convened library, archive, and museum professionals to, in the …
Ten best uses of Buttons, our new digital inclusion tool
In February we launched Buttons, our new and improved digital inclusion tool, which helps you make lists of websites you …
Historypin & LODLAM at EuropeanaTech 2015
This talk at the National Library of France from February 2015 highlights some of the ways Historypin is being leveraged to increase access to cultural heritage content and strengthen local communities. I also take a quick look at the growing culture around Linked Open Data in Libraries, Archives and Museums and how data sharing may soon be the new norm for cultural heritage.
From Crowdsourcing to Knowledge Communities: Creating Meaningful Scholarship Through Digital Collaboration
In this paper, we share some of the findings of our Mellon-funded crowdsourcing research with Stanford University, with a focus …
The Next Frontier for Social Impact Investment
Featured in the Huffington Post
Harnessing the power of games to improve wellbeing
An evaluation report describing the results of the first test of Shift’s biofeedback video game, which uses the player’s heart …
Can Consumer Product Design Really Drive Systemic Social Change?
A recent Forbes piece by Ashoka’s Michael Zakaras takes product design to task as a source of transformational social change. To provide an antidote to the fashionable fascination with “things” as the answer to all our social ills, the article uses examples like Toms Shoes‘ one-for-one model and the distribution of mosquito nets as evidence that products normally fail to engage with the roots of complex social problems.
Historypin in the Community: 2013/2014
In the last couple of years, we’ve seen Historypin used to connect generations in Japan, to draw in rich life stories …
A brand new version of our digital inclusion product, Buttons
We’re really excited to be relaunching our digital inclusion product, Buttons, this week, which represents a big step in the …
Designing for behaviour change: Tip 6
The sixth in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. This one’s about User Value, Social Value and Financial Value. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Designing for behaviour change: Tip 5
The sixth in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. This one’s about testing, improving and iterating your solution. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Designing for behaviour change: Tip 4
The fifth in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. This one’s about designing around behavioural insights. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Designing for behaviour change: Tip 3
The fourth in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. This one’s about identifying the designing interventions that facilitate, not communicate. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Designing for behaviour change: Tip 2
The third in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. This one’s about identifying the motivations and barriers to action. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Designing for behaviour change: Tip 1
The second in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. This one’s about identifying the Outcome, Actor and Action. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Designing for behaviour change: 6 tips for students
The first in a series of seven guest blogs for the RSA aimed at student designers. Creative Director Tori Flower shares her insights into how to approach designing for behaviour change.
Leading in the Digital World: Opportunities for Canada’s Memory Institutions
Jon: “I was fortunate to be a reviewer on this important publication examining the future of Canada’s memory institutions, though the …
The Next Frontier for Social Impact Investment
Social Impact Investment is explored by Nick Stanhope.
Successful commercial entrepreneurs have to prioritise building two types of value within their ventures: user value and financial value. The job of creating value for users is hard. It relies on a profound understanding of the intrinsic motivations of the target audience. It requires the time, investment and experience…
Shift’s development process for social ventures
Nick and Tori explain the process that shapes and structures Shift’s work designing social ventures. As part of our three year partnership with the Nominet Trust, we have intended to codify and share this process more explicitly, both for our own benefit and in the hope that other mission-driven designers and social entrepreneurs find it useful.
Why Social Entrepreneurs Need to Be Better Than Their Commercial Counterparts
Featured in the Huffington Post
Most Mindfulness Products Miss Those That Need Them
Featured in the Huffington Post
Encouraging Reuse of NARA Wartime Moving Image Archives: Steps Toward Meaningful Engagement
How can we bridge the gap between what people want and what’s good for people?
Talk by Tori Flower at TEDxKCS. She shares insights from her background in advertising and as a designer for behaviour change, including the importance of looking at the world from the point of view of your customer and designing things people actually want.
The First World War Centenary on Historypin
A home for local community First World War projects. Today we’re excited to launch the First World War Centenary hub on Historypin, a home for local community groups running First World War commemorative activities.
We’re nominated for an Urban Food Award
We’re excited to tell you that our project that puts healthy fast food outlets in areas dominated by unhealthy options, …
Why Social Entrepreneurs Need to Be Better Than Their Commercial Counterparts
Successful commercial entrepreneurs have to prioritise building two types of value within their ventures: user value and financial value, but social entrepreneurs need all three.
From We Are What We Do to Shift: a new name for a different approach
Our work in behaviour change started 10 years ago, as a social movement that inspired people to use their everyday …
I’m Not a Plastic Bag: Reducing single-use plastic
“We strongly believe that encouraging customers to shop with reusable bags is the best solution, and this oneoff Anya Hindmarch …
Historypin: bringing communities together though local history
“I’m besotted with it. They’re calling it a “digital time machine” and, this being the age of Wikiality, anyone can …
Mobile game helping children manage their emotions
“We need healthy, creative and resilient children who know how to maintain wellbeing and can manage stress, judge risks and …
Box Chicken:
a healthier alternative to fast food near schools
“Rather than restricting takeaway food we should seek to transform it, by making healthy food as visible, tasty, and cheap …
Most Mindfulness Products Miss Those That Need Them
You can’t call yourself a forward thinking company these days without some reference to mindfulness in your organisational strategy…
Why the world needs video games for good mental health
Over the last 18 months, with support from the Nominet Trust, we’ve been researching and developing the first version of …
The 3 strands of value vital to social tech ventures
This article has been written by Nick Stanhope, CEO of We Are What We Do, and Dan Sutch, Head of …
Three values
On the surface, the language and practices of Silicon Valley and other tech investors have brought the social sector a greater focus on ventures, accelerators, fast-growth innovations, of startups, incubators and investment…
A closer look at NT100 2013 project, Historypin
Historypin was launched in 2011, after two years of R&D and beta testing, with a mission to help bring people together, from across different generations and cultures, to share and explore the history of their communities…
4 Major Efforts to Share European Cultural Heritage
This winter has seen a flurry of activity around a number of projects related to Europeana content, and the incredible work of partners across Europe helping to increase the discovery and reuse of European cultural heritage.
Can video games use biofeedback to improve wellbeing?
We have partnered with Playlab London, Complete Coherence and 2CV to design and make a video game for young people that builds habits which increase their long term wellbeing …
Video games + behaviour change
Video games don’t normally get a good rap when it comes to the health of young people. Instinctively, replacing hours …
Promoting wellbeing: A practical way to improve public mental health
Outlining the scale and impact of mental health, who is most at risk, and the argument for focusing on wellbeing …
Survey of products and services which promote wellbeing
Evidence for interventions to improve wellbeing (mindfulness, gratitudes, awe and optimism) and examples of products and services which facilitate these. …
Street Food for social change: why gourmet hipsters are just part of the story
If you walk a few hundred metres west from Old Street roundabout, the new hub of London’s tech start up …
Insights Report: Domestic Food Waste
The scale of the issue, the main types of food wasted, key audiences, key food-wasting behaviours and the cultural context …
Survey of Existing Consumer Products and Services which Reduce Food Waste
Report broken down by the six stages in the domestic food cycle including summary highlighting common themes and relative effectiveness, …
Box Chicken: Providing some healthy competition to fast food outlets
Evaluation Report Kathleen Collett
RSA Workshop: Designing ways to improve Everyday Wellbeing
Mental health is a major issue affecting the UK population. 25% of people in Britain will experience mental health problems every year…