Geoff Mulgan Quotes
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Social innovation thrives on collaboration; on doing things with others, rather than just to them or for them: hence the great interest in new ways of using the web to 'crowdsource' ideas, or the many experiments involving users in designing services.
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Cities simply don't have the powers they need to radically innovate in cutting obesity or the number of disaffected teenagers.
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Science is, rightly, searching for drugs to arrest ageing or to slow the advance of dementia. But the evidence suggests that many of the most powerful factors determining how you age come from what you do, and what you do with others: whether you work, whether you play music, whether you have regular visitors.
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In Britain, polls show large majorities in favour of mansion taxes and higher taxes on the finance sector.
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Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.
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Everyone knows of great projects that were too dependent on a charismatic individual, or simply too expensive to be replicated.
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Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats; promote their welfare; deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.
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The end of life is likely to be an important focus for innovation. Most people die in hospitals, tied up with tubes and with their bodies pumped full of drugs. Yet most would rather die at home and with more control over the timing and manner of their death.
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I can think of nothing worse than a think-tank where everybody agreed.
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The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity - where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data - has rapidly become a widespread reality.
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Conflicts are never caused in any simple way by identity, culture or economics. Where resources are scarce, or there are strong historical memories of conflict, small events are more likely to inflame passions.
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Societies can easily talk themselves into conflict and misery. But they can also talk, and act, their way out.
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Even many of the teenagers who feel confident on navigating the web simply don't have the skills needed to 'write and create' digital tools, not simply consume them.
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Predation is part of the everyday life of capitalism, in sectors as mainstream as pharmaceuticals, software and oil - where people's money, their data, their time and their attention are routinely taken in fundamentally asymmetrical exchanges.
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Learning isn't something you should only do solo.
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Societies advance through innovation every bit as much as economies do.
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Immigration isn't always good for the economy or jobs.
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Huge sums are invested globally in medical research and development - and with good reason.
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Before the Second World War, L'Oreal in France was an active supporter of the French fascists. The cosmetic group's founder Eugene Schueller was an active member of the 'Cagoule' group, committed to the violent overthrow of the Third Republic, and hosted meetings at Oreal headquarters.
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On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, even when there was a very clear social or environmental case for doing so.
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The most dynamic cities have always been immersed in the critical innovations of their time.
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It's an irony that growing inequality could mean more money for philanthropy. In the U.S., quite a few of the ultra-rich have taken to heart the 19th century industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie's comment that it's a disgrace to die wealthy.
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So is civil society prepared for the future? Probably not. Most organisations have to live hand to mouth, juggling short-term funding and perpetual minor crises. Even the bigger ones rarely get much time to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Many are on a treadmill chasing after contracts and new funding.
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The most important innovators often don't need any technologies - just imagination and acute sensitivity to people's needs.