The emergenc(e|y) of the citizen innovator …
Chris, many thanks for your answer and for taking the time to share your conclusion of the workshop. (Also, feel very welcomed at Edgeryders! We’re a not-so-established think tank, too. In fact, we don’t even exist giggle … an inside joke here, ya know.) I completely agree with your evaluation of what we on the workshop were often lacking: communications, some crucial expertise, networks. Now the first (having a hard time to explain ones idea) is in my view just a symptom of the idea being not yet mature. Which is ok for young ideas, but also just the point where professional one-on-one consulting becomes very valuable, as I proposed above.
Also I’m thankful that you see potential in the social innovation web helpdesk idea. Thanks for the openness – if anything comes out of this proposal, I’d be eager to hear it 
Maybe the whole “citizen innovator” thing is just so different from how social innovation worked before that it just takes time to develop a mutual understanding? (… and yes, I myself learned a lot about the social innovation world when in Amsterdam).
I should try to make that point clearer, about what I see is different with “citizen innovators”: In the European Social Innovation Competition, more than half of the entries (314 of 605) came from the so-called PIGS states [see]. Which proposes, as is also my impression, that social innovation currently is a kind of emergency self-help of citizens. We’re replacing services no longer provided by failing states (forgive the harsh expression, but “austerity” is just an euphemism to me …). The citizen social entrepreneur is quite a desperate person who has no time to lose. Because their society starts to fall apart, and often enough also their own life, so making a business out of all that seems like an ingenious last-resort measure … . This is why I propose that this group needs some hands-on, detailed social innovation consulting to make proper business ideas out of their ideas. Taking all the time and effort to learn more generic techniques and background knowledge for social innovation has its own merit in academia (may I use Social Safari as an example), but it’s not the most efficient use of expert time when dealing with citizen entrepreneurs. We’re on the craftsman level of social innovation instead, and better engage in learning by doing with some expert advice now and then. (And when it’s time to study the background of something, the Internet provides usually enough for us, for cheap.)
What I’d be interested to know: Is there any shift in what a typical social innovator / social entrepreneur is like, from before-crisis compared to now? My statements above are obviously based on little data and a subjective impression from within my small area, so it would be interesting to get a subjective impression and maybe some more data from somebody who’s working in the field way longer