What goes into the box.
In Ratio’s work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to halve preventable deaths of children around the world, we separated out the core elements of an innovation from the adaptable elements.
The core elements are what make the innovation work. The adaptable elements are what make people want to use it.
We can explain the difference with the help of a smart phone.
The core of the phone comprises the circuits and wires at the back. We cannot reach these. If we could we would probably break the phone.
The adaptable part of the phone is everything we do to make it our own. The picture we put on the screen. The apps we load onto it. The fact that opening one of those apps, mail for example, we reveal our messages. Photos reveals out photos.
Suddenly the same smart phone owned by billions of people becomes mysmartphone, unique to me.
In building the box, we sought to core elements.