An article from eJewish Philanthropy
October  26, 2012
By Maya Bernstein 

Will Schneider, in his recent eJejewish Philanthropy piece Innovation to What End?, states that Innovation is a strategy toward a larger goal, such as creating Jewish community, increasing Jewish literacy, or improving the North American Jewish communitys relationship to Israel. It should not be perceived of, or utilized as, an end in and of itself. It is simply a mindset, and set of tools, that allow us to achieve our overall shared purpose more effectively. It can be utilized within and beyond the walls of established institutions, and it should also be handled responsibly; if something aint broke, theres no need to push innovation at it and try to fix it. And therefore, we dont encourage funders to support the new over the necessary provided they dont fund the existing over the effective. Funders and practitioners alike should focus on purpose: what is it that were trying to accomplish? And what are the most effective and creative approaches and methods we can employ?

Will Schneider, in his recent eJejewish Philanthropy piece Innovation to What End?, states that Innovation is a strategy toward a larger goal, such as creating Jewish community, increasing Jewish literacy, or improving the North American Jewish communitys relationship to Israel. It should not be perceived of, or utilized as, an end in and of itself. It is simply a mindset, and set of tools, that allow us to achieve our overall shared purpose more effectively. It can be utilized within and beyond the walls of established institutions, and it should also be handled responsibly; if something aint broke, theres no need to push innovation at it and try to fix it. And therefore, we dont encourage funders to support the new over the necessary provided they dont fund the existing over the effective. Funders and practitioners alike should focus on purpose: what is it that were trying to accomplish? And what are the most effective and creative approaches and methods we can employ?

The following post is an article from the Jweekly, written by Emma Silvers (j. staff)

On the sixth floor of an office building in San Franciscos Financial District, in a boardroom at the back of a bright, spacious office, Rabbi Noa Kushner is doing something most people dont generally think of rabbis doing: asking for guidance.

You talk, Ill type, a consultant from UpStart Bay Area says to her. Looking ahead six months, what are your main goals?

Kushner is the founding rabbi of The Kitchen, a 16-month-old group that describes itself as one part indie Shabbat community, one part San Francisco experiment, and one part tool kit for DIY Jewish practice. The rabbi has regular meetings at UpStart to talk about where her young organization is headed.

UpStart Bay Area bills itself as a social venture, consulting firm, and incubator for innovative Jewish organizations and entrepreneurs and Kushner is far from the only one who uses its services.
 

Since 2006, she and a select group of other local entrepreneurial Jews many of them young, all of them with innovative and often great ideas have been chosen to link with UpStart and learn how to translate those ideas into action.

The following post was a coverstory in the Jweekly, written by Emma Silvers (j. staff)

On the sixth floor of an office building in San Franciscos Financial District, in a boardroom at the back of a bright, spacious office, Rabbi Noa Kushner is doing something most people dont generally think of rabbis doing: asking for guidance.

You talk, Ill type, a consultant from UpStart Bay Area says to her. Looking ahead six months, what are your main goals?

Kushner is the founding rabbi of The Kitchen, a 16-month-old group that describes itself as one part indie Shabbat community, one part San Francisco experiment, and one part tool kit for DIY Jewish practice. The rabbi has regular meetings at UpStart to talk about where her young organization is headed.

UpStart Bay Area bills itself as a social venture, consulting firm, and incubator for innovative Jewish organizations and entrepreneurs and Kushner is far from the only one who uses its services.

Since 2006, she and a select group of other local entrepreneurial Jews many of them young, all of them with innovative and often great ideas have been chosen to link with UpStart and learn how to translate those ideas into action. 

An article from eJewish Philanthropy.

Quick, what instrument do you associate with Passover? Matzah? Sorry, not an instrument. With Shavuot? What? Blintzes? Wrong again. You seem obsessed with food. With Sukkot? No, a lulav is not technically an instrument.

We dont normally associate our holidays with instruments, or sounds. And yet, if we were to free-associate about Rosh Hashanah, perhaps one of the most important times in the Jewish calendar, we would immediately think of the blasts of the shofar. In fact, the Torah refers to this holiday not as the Jewish New Year, but as a day of trumpeting (Numbers 29:1). Why does this little rams horn, play such a significant role on this major holiday? And what does it have to do with the overarching theme of the holiday, renewal and growth?

The shofar can be perceived as an auditory metaphor for the elements involved in any change, renewal, or innovation process. Its various sounds, legato and staccato, a constant presence in the month leading up to the holiday, and during the services on the holiday itself, are reminders of the steps involved when we seek to make meaningful change in our personal, communal, and professional lives.

An article from eJewish Philanthropy 

Christiane Montouri, writing on the Cambridge Leadership Associate’s Blog, makes an analogy between species adaptation and organizational change. She writes: “When a species adapts, it gives up a small portion of its DNA, usually only about 5%. However, giving up the DNA that is hindering adaptation and survival not only gets rid of what is getting in the way, but also makes room for new DNA than can survive in the changing reality… Which finger would you sacrifice to make progress?” When we engage in a change process, we often must let go of certain perspectives to make room for the new. This can be a traumatic process. That is why it is so critical, in the face of change, to acknowledge what it is we are afraid to lose, and what it is we hope to gain. This clarity is so important because it may help alleviate the pain of the inevitable sacrifices in the process.

An article from eJewish Philanthropy.

My 4-year-old daughter has been suffering terribly from seasonal allergies. Her normally bright, eager eyes have been all but shut closed by red itchiness, tears, and crust. For the past three months, we have taken her back and forth to the allergist, who has tried a variety of anti-histamine eye-drops. Nothing has helped. We accepted her new normal more cranky, less playful, and constantly rubbing her eyes. We finally saw an ophthalmologist, who declared that our daughters was one of the worst allergic reactions she had ever seen, and put her on an intense course of eye drop steroids. In just a couple of days, our clear-eyed daughter was back to her joyous, mischievous self.

But theres a catch.The medication shes on is so strong that she cannot stay on it for more than two weeks. We have been given a short respite from a chronic state. We do not know what will happen after this two-week period. Perhaps the pollen will disappear from the air. Perhaps the alleviation of the symptoms will allow less strong medications to work. And perhaps shell be itchy and teary and crusty all over again, and well be back at square one. If that is the case, as it likely is, we will need to do the work we have been unable to do in all these months: identify the cause of the problem, and discover a sustainable solution for it.

I share this story because it illustrates a core concept related to the challenge of orchestrating meaningful change a distinction, introduced by Ronald Heifetz, between technical and adaptive work.

An article from eJewish Philanthropy

Though the term innovation has become an overused buzzword in both the Jewish and general worlds, it nonetheless has become apparent that, like people, organizations need to continually progress in order to survive and thrive. What remains elusive, though, is how to focus resources and energy on growth and change initiatives in order to render them successful.

In a recent article entitled Managing your Innovation Portfolio in the Harvard Business Review, authors Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff present a formula for allocating resources towards innovation, which they argue is necessary for those companies that wish to flourish in the long term. They explain that, for most companies, innovation is most successful when 70% of resources are allocated to innovations related to the companys core business; 20% to adjacent, related areas; and 10% to transformational initiatives. In the first two realms, it is critical to have talent with good analytical skills, so as to interpret and translate customer data into specific offering enhancements. In the third realm, it is necessary to have talent that can creatively uncover and analyze changing social needs, market trends, and technological changes. They then reveal a startling statistic; the ratio of distribution of return on investment is the exact inverse of the resource allocation ratio: there is a 70% return on investment in transformational innovations; 20% return on investment in adjacent innovations; and 10% return on investment in innovations to the core.