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Do NPOs also need to innovate? How to break away from traditional operation restrictions and expand influence Zhang Anmei, author of Lean Influence: Innovation in Nonprofit Organizations, has worked in the technology industry for more than 20 years, and the second half of her career is dedicated to changing the world and making it a better place. With the eyes of a technologist, she saw the plight and special features of non-profit organizations, and proposed a set of innovative methods called "lean influence": Set big goals: don’t just focus on what you can already do, be brave enough to make a difference! Start small: After repeated iterative improvements, it will bring great results in the long run. The relentless pursuit of impact: Constantly exploring problems rather than obsessing about solutions. Through this set of methods, non-profit organizations can break away from traditional operational constraints, accelerate innovation, improve service quality, expand influence, and move towards organizational goals. This book is for well-meaning people who want to create more social good through professional work, investment of time or money. Innovation isn't just for starting a business, it's as important for ongoing updates as it is for performance improvements in existing programs and larger organizations. The following are excerpts from the book: After eight years at Google, the arrogance of Silicon Valley still has an effect on me, for better or for worse. I felt at the time, as if anything could be done, everything was possible. I led the mobile phone engineering team in the late 2000s, when Google Maps' street navigation system was the most wanted feature for mobile phone users, but the map data supply was jointly monopolized by two companies. Although we have a fixed rate for using information, mobile phone users have to pay one by one when using navigation services, which hinders our way to enter the navigation market. As a result, we cannot offer free navigation products. Later, we reported this problem to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and they provided an extraordinary service: sending cars to travel the streets and alleys of the world and building their own map database. And satellite navigation system operators, who used to charge users five to ten dollars a month, are forced to change accordingly. During this process, I not only learned to think from the big picture, but also gradually realized the value of experimentation. Although Google is already a leader in the industry, it is not complacent or stagnant. It still conducts hundreds of experiments and trials every day to test the main and minor functions of system services and enhance its advantages. While web search wasn't Google's invention, it outperformed all competitors through testing, learning, and faster iterating. That's why Google's various products will continue to improve, and the entire system is also improving year by year. It was with this view and attitude that I came to the Irrawaddy Delta. I can't help but wonder, does this work? Can we do better? Can we help more people? And could it change the system forever? Okay, I admit to being a little naive. My boundless enthusiasm quickly ran into a wall and I was confronted with the hard reality that social innovation—developing better solutions to social and environmental challenges—is much more difficult than technological innovation: funding constraints can severely hamper experimentation; The needs of the backers do not always align with the priorities of the sponsors; short-term success is more attractive than long-term growth. Measuring social work outcomes is a much more daunting task than counting website hits. And, when it comes to real life, risk-taking often has more unpredictable consequences. But I firmly believe that those innovative technologies that promote the rapid progress of Silicon Valley can also become the basis for innovation and create more social benefits. Since my trip to Myanmar, I have seen more and more organizations pioneering innovative approaches with impressive results. Innovation doesn't have to cost a lot of time or money. In fact, a lot of time and money can be saved by catching problems early.
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