Systematic Thinking and Reflective Research

Clearly, something was going wrong. My group was visibly upset, to the point where I felt a creeping yet genuine concern for our next deadline. I write this in an effort to shed light on a very subtle yet essential skill for nearly every social innovator: how to create cohesion in a group setting. Although I now have a strong conviction that we will be able to produce a successful project, framing a cohesive vision for the project was certainly a challenge.

Starting Somewhere:
Judging Impact
Our group seemed to start with the question of judging impact first. This is a logical jump since the whole success of the project seems, from a distance, to hinge on the way this question is addressed. You could judge impact in a variety of ways: How many people are affected? What is the scope of the project? What pulls at your values? Or, what makes you feel good? Further vexing, every option has benefits. This meant, during my particular group project, that asking the seemingly divergent questions would, in fact, target the same issue: What are the main gaps in existing care? Or, which gap makes the most sense or feels the most authentic to explore? Although I still believe impact is an incredibly important and vexing question, in the end, the specific wording of a question is not nearly as important as the vision for the project: every person and every discipline has slightly different standards for how they phrase the question. This realization was an eye opening experience, since the specific wording became arbitrary. Instead of walking in circles around a particular set of phrases or definitions, we found that a clearer vision of the end goal was much more productive in building cohesion.

Reflective Research
Similarly, analyzing research can mean a plethora of potentially confusing options. However, unlike judging impact, not every option will produce the same kinds of productive inquiry. Fortunately, some guidance is readily available. Although the book, The Craft of Research, is aimed at an academic audience, one particular section was particularly relevant for this issue. It distinguishes between “practical problems” and “conceptual problems”. Solving a practical problem means targeting the cause of the problem or mitigating negative impacts. By contrast, conceptual problems seek to help us understand the issue better and operate at a more general, broad kind of focus. (1) Practical problems are not always easy fixes: any politician who needs more votes from their constituents realizes the ethical and moral implications that can get very messy, very quickly. Nor are conceptual problems particularly futile: without the conceptual problems involved in physics earlier, much of our current technologies would not be possible. Figuring out where your innovation stands can alleviate much of the pressure of building a cohesive vision.
For our group, we found that some things we could tackle together. However, framing it as more of an exploration with room for open-ended objectives was more productive than bickering over specific and narrowly defined practical solutions. That doesn’t mean that our work is over: there is still much to learn before our group members disband. However, it does mean that we can start running towards our goal, building on individual experiences and strengths together.

(1) Booth, W. and Gregory Colomb, Joseph Williams. Craft of Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print. 53.

Blog entry by Prisca A. Ohito

The ReMotion Knee as a Social Innovation: Considering designs, stigmas, and alternatives

The v3 ReMotion Knee is a new product, a type of prosthetic knee, intended for amputees in developing nations who wanted more control over the stigmas associated with being an amputee. The ReMotion Knee used improvements in how the knee appeared, sounded, costed, and the materials used in order to improve the quality of the prosthetics. Each of these design considerations contributed to the success of the long process of redesign because the earlier, boxier shape of the knees with visible corners became apparent when amputees were seated, the clicking noises of earlier designs hindered efforts to hide the amputee status when walking, and the newer, improved knees use a fundamentally different process of high-volume injection molding to keep costs low, control quality, and provide more global accessibility, among other improvements. In addition, it seems to enhance the complicated fitting process of patients for prosthetists, an effort that seems appreciated by those in the field. In many ways, the ReMotion Knee is a device that considers aesthetics as integral to the utility of design, an essential point when considering meaningful social innovations. Thus, the ReMotion Knee is clearly an improvement over alternatives. However, I will emphasize how the ReMotion Knee should also be considered as a social innovation; how could alternative approaches to the core concerns of stigma, quality, and access be approached from a different perspective?

Before continuing further, an exercise in defining key terms may be important. Social innovations, to me, are more than the sum of individual definitions. However, for clarity, innovations are defined as novel, positive, and sustainable values created from radically inventions but more likely specific improvements to systems and objects of design. Social innovations, by contrast, emphasize the values gained within a particular social context, including networks of communities; they often change explicit and implicit social policies.

The earlier definitions lead me to believe that the ReMotion Knee does, in fact, provide novel, positive, and more sustainable values from the redesign — an overwhelmingly positive effort worth commending. However, the goal of the project seemed to use the concealing of their prosthetics to give amputees more control over their prosthetics. This control, in turn, sought to empower them despite the challenges identified with being an amputee in a developing country.

So, this leads to the big question of alternatives and effectiveness and one considers what exactly are the policies in developing nations that stigmatize amputees? There are a variety of reasons for the decision to amputate limbs globally, as Erin Strait of the report “Prosthetics in Developing Countries” explained. In war-torn nations, a frequent explanation contends that land mine survivors face this difficult reality; however, environmental accidents, terrorist attacks and a lack of access to public healthcare facilities all contribute. Of these many explanations, a lack of access to healthcare will be examined most thoroughly in this blog.
Amputees, who need prosthetics due to the immediate healthcare conditions of diabetes, gangrene, or other diseases, could live in rural areas and may need more than a prosthetic limb to treat the root of their stigma. Perhaps innovations in portable and low-cost but high quality healthcare vehicles would attack the same issues in an alternative way. Another possible alternative would involve the materials used for prosthetic limbs. Prosthetics made of bamboo and plaster have been effective in aiding amputees; another possible innovation would involve building a sustainable, local business enterprise that would rely on the skills of local prosthetists instead of mass-manufactured limbs. Additionally, amputees also face specific challenges in daily care; for example, daily range of motion exercises are critical for some amputees because contractures can form in the knee or other areas and risk altering the long-term fit of valuable prosthetics. Thus, an alternative involving improved healthcare education would be beneficial. Finally, social stigmas rely on counterproductive social policies. Ultimately, some structural changes within how governments address healthcare, especially for those with the least access, would provide lasting change.

In sum, the ReMotion Knee is a tremendous step in a positive direction of social innovations for amputees. However, there are many more alternatives possible when considering the specific reasons for needing prosthetics.
*****
Blog post:
“The ReMotion Knee as a Social Innovation: Considering designs, stigmas, and alternatives” by Prisca Ohito

Source on ReMotion Knee:
“Introducing the v3 ReMotion Knee” by Vinesh Narayan
http://blog.d-rev.org/2013/04/25/introducing-the-v3-remotion-knee/

Source on prosthetics historically and causes for amputation in developing countries:
“Prosthetics in Developing Countries” by Erin Strait

Click to access DevelopingCountries.pdf