@Suzy: Actually, it does imply that those gifted folk aren’t thinking about these issues, and he’s right to do so; for every thinker who motivates himself to ponder and implement an innovative solution, a hundred others fail to find that last spark of motivation and content themselves with implementing less efficient, often unsuccessful models. It’s sometimes necessary for an extra-organizational force to address the sector as a whole before these inefficiencies are even recognized, let alone addressed.

All too often, we “dig in and do the work” …incorrectly, inefficiently, and sometimes even counter-productively.

It’s an interesting idea on the “how do we measure impact” question. A wide open prize would allow innovators, to some extent, to demonstrate impact using their own language, their own measures, and their own frameworks; but I’m not sure we’d have an effective means of measuring or comparing these claims at the end of it all. In other words, I think it would generate a ton of ideas on measuring impact, but might not lead to any conclusions.

On the other hand, it would result in a panel of foundations comparing and even judging varying ideas on how to measure impact, coming directly from innovators who seek to lead the sector; this cannot be a bad thing.

Doesn’t this imply that all of these gifted folks are not currently thinking about these issues?

Also, I sometimes wonder about the value we place on innovation. Don’t get me wrong we cretainly want to do things as efficiently as possible…but sometimes doesn’t it simply require that we roll up our sleeves and just dig in and do the work?

A prize for “innovation” - without clear terms for what this means - seems unlikely to change anyone’s behavior.