At IDEO, we’ve been starting to think about the social impact of our work, and our journey into the realm of social impact has brought us deeper and deeper into many conversations about metrics. As designers, we are eager to apply our expertise in tackling some of the world’s biggest problems, including inadequate education, insufficient access to clean drinking water, and lack of basic health care for the poor. Each initiative we take on has been a rich learning experience about the lives and contexts of the people we are designing for, as well as an ongoing challenge of knowing whether or not we really are achieving the impact we were setting out to make. One avenue we are exploring is the relationship between innovation and evaluation. We’re pleased to be partnering with GOOD to bring great minds together and push best practices forward.This week in our first collaborative event, we will host a group of thought leaders at the IDEO San Francisco office to kick start this conversation and help focus the theme of this blog: Innovation in Evaluation. Participants come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including foundations, design firms, management consultancies, and evaluation specialists. Stay tuned for the conversations started in our session this week to continue here on this blog.Since my time as a research director studying community-based preventive health programs at Stanford Medical School in the late 1970s through my more recent role as chief investment officer at Omidyar Network, questions of better ways to measure the impact of innovative solutions and business models have been very much on my mind. During the past 30 years, the field has been slowly accelerating and involving more and more individuals and organizations. Today, the notion that we should evaluate our impact is generally accepted as a given. How such evaluation is conducted and whether or not it’s informative is still debatable. This conversation is an opportunity to bring together some of the top thinkers and organizations on evaluation, and share what we’ve learned and how we’ve grown with a much broader group of participants.We hope this forum will become a central gathering place for participants worldwide to explore innovative approaches to evaluation. Each week, we will take on a new theme related to measuring impact and will feature both guest authors and IDEO bloggers. We invite everyone working and thinking about this topic to contribute thoughts and experiences to the conversation.Guest blogger Doug Solomon is the Chief Technology Officer at IDEO.
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Man’s dog suddenly becomes protective of his wife, Internet clocks the reason right away
The online community came through in a big way.
Reddit user Girlfriendhatesmefor’s three-year-old pitbull, Otis, had recently become overprotective of his wife. So he asked the online community if they knew what might be wrong with the dog.
“A week or two ago, my wife got some sort of stomach bug,” the Reddit user wrote under the subreddit /r/dogs. “She was really nauseous and ill for about a week. Otis is very in tune with her emotions (we once got in a fight and she was upset, I swear he was staring daggers at me lol) and during this time didn’t even want to leave her to go on walks. We thought it was adorable!”
His wife soon felt better, butthe dog’s behavior didn’t change.
Otis knew before they did. Canva Girlfriendhatesmefor began to fear that Otis’ behavior may be an early sign of an aggression issue or an indication that the dog was hurt or sick.
So he threw a question out to fellow Reddit users: “Has anyone else’s dog suddenly developed attachment/aggression issues? Any and all advice appreciated, even if it’s that we’re being paranoid!”
The most popular response to his thread was by ZZBC.
Any chance your wife is pregnant?
ZZBC | Reddit
The potential news hit Girlfriendhatesmefor like a ton of bricks. A few days later, Girlfriendhatesmefor posted an update and ZZBC was right!
“The wifey is pregnant!” the father-to-be wrote. “Otis is still being overprotective but it all makes sense now! Thanks for all the advice and kind words! Sorry for the delayed reply, I didn’t check back until just now!”
Redditors responded with similar experiences.
Anecdotal I know but I swear my dog knew I was pregnant before I was. He was super clingy (more than normal) and was always resting his head on my belly.
realityisworse | Reddit
So why do dogs get overprotective when someone is pregnant?
Jeff Werber, PhD, president and chief veterinarian of the Century Veterinary Group in Los Angeles, told Health.com that “dogs can also smell the hormonal changes going on in a woman’s body at that time.” He added the dog may “not understand that this new scent of your skin and breath is caused by a developing baby, but they will know that something is different with you—which might cause them to be more curious or attentive.”
The big lesson here is to listen to your pets and to ask questions when their behavior abruptly changes. They may be trying to tell you something, and the news may be life-changing.
This article originally appeared last year.
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14 images of badass women who destroyed stereotypes and inspired future generations
These trailblazers redefined what a woman could be.
Throughout history, women have stood up and fought to break down barriers imposed on them from stereotypes and societal expectations. The trailblazers in these photos made history and redefined what a woman could be. In doing so, they paved the way for future generations to stand up and continue to fight for equality.
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Why mass shootings spawn conspiracy theories
Mass shootings and conspiracy theories have a long history.
While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people.
When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target.
Pointing to some nefarious plan by a powerful group – such as the government – can be more comforting than the idea that the attack was the result of a disturbed or mentally ill individual who obtained a firearm legally.
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