A New Normal for City Parks..?

In the midst of Covid there are thousands of people out enjoying their local greenspace, discovering new paths, spending time together with nature. But at the same time there’s tension in public space as public transport is avoided, cafes and bars are asking for outside space, and people queuing for shops need social distancing space.

So, what to do about all this? In a recent YouGov poll only 9% of us wanted to return to life as normal. So how can we help people keep what they’re valuing?

Future Parks Accelerator is helping 9 local authorities (including Edinburgh) to find long term solutions to managing parks and greenspaces. There’s £6million of National Lottery Heritage Fund and government funding, plus £5m-worth of advice and support from National Trust experts in conservation, fundraising, volunteering and green space management. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/our-vision-for-the-future-of-parks

As a response to Covid we’re Crowdsourcing what residents and groups could do in the next 3 months to support their council to improve and maintain greenspaces.

What do people think?

• 63% of us think protecting and enhancing green spaces should be a higher priority after the lockdown
• 57% felt they were more aware of the importance of such green spaces to mental health and wellbeing
• 54% agree that people are doing more to help their communities

What have people done?

• Within three weeks people had set up 4,208 Covid-19 Mutual Aid groups, with 2.5 million members
• More than a million people registered to volunteer for the NHS and lots for council Covid hub
• People who have never been involved in their communities are becoming active, including the 20% of population who are facing lockdown alone.

But council budgets are worse than ever, and many voluntary sector organisations have lost all their income, so where is the response to this going to come?

Some suggestions so far have been:

• 1.       massively increase the number of friends-of groups and make it easy to join them online.
• 2.       Have an ‘adopt plot type scheme’ in local areas where road closures are happening so we have loads more pocket parks: https://sfpublicworks.org/streetparks
• 3.       Increase the volunteering offer including evenings, weekends and for families
• 4.       Help people do more on their own including dropping off tools, giving people permission to work alone and helping people understand the parks work
• 5.       Crowdsource options and action for every bit of greenspace, woodland, cut through and have a rapid action plan
• 6.       Set up new online groups to coordinate green spaces like www.incredibleedible.org.uk
• 7.       Set up citizen juries etc to look at alternatives to metal play parks via Crowdsourced maps, zoom conversations and hub and spoke coordination through open data hubs
• Alongside this will be a volunteering and fundraising campaign for those who can help. 

Thoughts, suggestions..?? 

Prototyping Future Parks Rapid Local Greenspace Proposal 2020

Prototyping Local Greenspace Proposal 2020 from Casey Morrison

The Citizen Shift presentation Future Parks Nov 2019

The Citizen Shift from Casey Morrison

People Powered Parks - Consultation Beyond The Usual Suspects

People Powered Parks - Consulting Beyond The Usual Suspects from Casey Morrison

Self Managing Volunteering Models from #futureparks cohort

Volunteers and positive feedback loops presentation

Volunteers & positive feedback loops from Casey Morrison

Do we need to profesionalise or amaturise service-..?

Running social projects replicating private businesses feels like a regressive step. Running them like a mat hatters tea party is not great either. I want to run them like I run our human relationships: strong, but flexible. caring but determined.

• We need chinks of light to let people in and be involved
• We need things to be scruffy - like peoples lives, not pristine which makes people consumers
• We need dissatisfied people in order to change
• we need people to focus on how things could be better rather what what is wrong

Amateurisation might be cheaper, professional might be easier, but i want my world to feel like my human relationships.. 

In short make organisations more like people. Luckily lots of people are already doing this..

 

Organisations and technology - the human intranet from Andy Gibson..

The Human Intranet from Andy Gibson

What would a completely transparent membership org look like..?

Leeds United is a membership org. Political parties are a membership org. Voluntary Actions are membership orgs - and all do things on behalf of other people supposedly in their best interests.

This is where the issue issue is confused between ends and means. A normally risk averse org would say (and I can feel myself doing it now) where is the impetus to put ourselves above the parapet.? Why open ourselves to criticism. People are inert in packs. Look at the responses to chugging, or charity CEO pay. Leadership means a lot to a lot of people, but it generally doesn't include taking a stand on any of this.

What could we do right now to turn these organisations completely inside out..?

• Publish all our data by default (an open server) 
• Externaliase all emails unless confidential
• Use an intranet with all our members (eg Yammer)
• use voting methods for everything
• offer ourselves up as a platform anyone can use..

If this went well we could do it for the largest membership organisation we have - government..

everything and everyone could become a membership organisation by moving beyond the traditional transactional functional supply and demand model. id suggest we're doing this already, but by saying that "you are already a member" in many ways you're preempting that relationship. its where the third sector has always been, its where the private sector is increasingly operating, and its possible (i'm ever hopeful) it might be how we see the government of the future. its certainly more possible in the uk than in europe (with its 'state as provider' model, or in the US with its 'state as enemy' model). 

Where money comes and goes

The issue of student loans is essentially an inter-generational contract. We pay in during working years for early education and then for older care. If those figures don't balance then we have an issue. We currently have an issue. There has been a load of work done modelling how we move money between generations (the pinch by david willetts being the most obvious), but this is also really good: http://simonpwalker.blogspot.co.uk/p/five-charts-that-explain-your-childrens.html


So housing is a bad example.
As is student debt.
As is adult social care
As is anything to do with state provision.

We don't have many good examples right now of things that are reducing in cost beyond the cheap TVs and electricals and clothes from Vietnam.

The only work currently ongoing is reducing costs (via efficiencies in the current system) and reducing demand (by raising thresholds and making people more responsible for them).

The twin issues of older people needing care, and working families unable to live, rent or buy a house in the same areas seems to me the same issue. We just don't currently have a way of putting the two things together.

One way to change the system long term is to look at the family model so in Spain for example everyone lives with their family while they go to college which significantly reduces costs. And in Italy every older person lives with their family which significantly reduces costs.

The second main option is to significantly reduce the costs of running a household or business. So rent at 40% of our wages is unsustainable in a country where productivity is not growing. Ditto the vast numbers of business everywhere which would cease to run if they had to carry a £200,000 mortgage on the property. Caravan sites, book shops, antique shops, corner shops, hardware stores - who will buy these businesses and run them at a profit?
All in all there is a limited way of moving money around a system. Someone pays, it's just a matter of who and when.

I think we probably need to think a bit more about what we're working towards and how we do it.

Where Leisure Meets Social Change - family lifestyles in 2020

What does data tell us about family lifestyles in 2020..? What do people actually want..?

Rampant individualism in the 20th Century doesn't appear to have left the western world any happier. Indeed the classic loss syndrome watching the rise of the developing world. we've even set us systems so we can't enjoy much of our wealth with high costs of living for what we could consider a fairly basic lifestyle (see JRF and its minimum income standard for the UK of £34,900 a year)

And as for our leisure, what does the rise in cafe culture in the UK tell us..?  It might be saying  that we like being individuals in a group context. We like being in groups even when we don’t interact with anyone else. we used to go to the high street to shop, and to libraries to find information. we don't need that anymore (in the main) we need different things, and have to build new institutions for social justice around the things we do need.

We like being part of a tribe, and where we go is now as important as the clothes we wear. Vast numbers of people could fit with membership organisations and causes who need more than a transactional approach to the work they do.

 

Maybe we are moving from a consumer model of leisure to a relational model of leisure. I think this has huge potential for social change if we can give people a way of changing things that fits with their lifestyles. Examples like Movember, Macmillan’s world’s biggest coffee morning given, or even clay shirky's cognative suplus could mean we have huge collaborative global power that we don't feel obligated to do.

 

The civil rights movement was based on individualism, not collectivism. The human rights act is the logical extension of this. Technological innovation always has been the invisible variable that could see the shifthappens in this..? Maybe with facilitated social interaction we can put in place the framework that could see this happening. 

I think its something worth working towards.

New hybrid forms of organisations..?

I think we'll soon see new hybrid forms of organisations. Why?

• People generally want more control but not liability
• Volunteering rates are down generally
• people are time poor
• committee meetings are pretty boring (speaking as a trustee) and often don't deal with the real reasons people joined the charity in the first place
• Lots of new governance structures have been set up which look for 'patient involvement' or similar
• There has been an increase in charities over the last 15 years
• People are more used to being involved (or consulted) on what brands, companies, institutions are doing and expect to be a part of things so consumerism gives (many) people what they want in this area
• The vast majority of trustees who are used to the current systems are older and will retire soonish.

So what are some options for doing something about it?

• share options for voluntary orgs (so people feel a part of an org without being a committee member)
• have organisations anyone can use to do pro-social things
• massive increase in membership and different mambership models (maybe not after your square mile http://beanbagsandbullsh1t.com/2013/08/02/your-square-mile-misses-3-million-membership-target-by-2999860/)
• have a city/town level organisation that already has a membership and allows other people to use it.

Basically we're talking about use over use without ownership. calling the shots without having to do the governance. I know about one click orgs - is there anyway around the governance question or is it just something we need to live with.
Thoughts..?

Getting things done.. Your workflow diagram

(What this workflow does NOT show you is what needs doing..)

Using money in the social system in a different way

It used to be the case, when there was public  funding around, that organisations used to write a plan, get some money and employ someone to do the work. This was fine in simple delivery jobs, but a lot of the later jobs were about coordination. And partnerships. And leverage. And it was always difficult to get these things done from a single post. Hence job shares and co-responsibility for roles etc, but all fairly clunky. 

With a lot of service redesign work this kind of work is more needed than ever. But I'm pretty convinced that it can't be done by the "in house post" model. It's neat, and easy to account for but there are just too many variables out of one persons hands. Then there is the added complication of paid workers asking citizens or volunteers to be more work (under the banner of coproduction or other good things), and the blurred line between paid staff working with and asking volunteers/community to do the delivery work.

So the WHAT is probably right, but not the HOW. So what are the alternatives?

1. Shared money across orgs which increase current posts
2. Increased delivery funds but not to fund post costs
3. Increase slush funds for volunteers/community 
4. Primes and subcontractor model
5. CVS or other holding funds (thanks @gethynwilliams)
6. Run a small grants programme
7. Do something else?

 

I have worked for a large funder and I know the costs associated with some of this stuff, so I would err on the side of low accountability in formal terms but more emphasis on reflective practice long term. 

 

But all this seems fairly clunky. Thoughts?

For ever, for everyone. What does this mean for the National Trust inthe twenty-first century?

Here's a link to Helen Ghosh talking about "For ever, for everyone. What does this mean for the National Trust in the twenty-first century?" http://www.ncl.ac.uk/events/public-lectures/item.php?for-ever-for-everyone-what-does-this-mean-for-the-national-trust-in-the-twenty-first-century

To cut a long story short its a mix of a charity using the best tools of business building a massive following. and in the future increasingly focusing on land management and use of land (rather than built stuff).

If you fancy listening for 1 hour + questions you can find the full presentation here https://campus.recap.ncl.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Embed/Default.aspx?id=4d0c55bf-aaa3-4ab9-9a89-24a3d3ceb4f8&v=1, but i have ripped out three of the slides which i think are interesting.
So what can we learn from how it operates?

1. its have devolved leadership - a national organisation with local sites under the guise of 'freedom under a framework'
2. it operates on a consultancy model with client focus and accountability
3. it generates a lot of money and spends a lot forwarding its mission, above and beyond its operating costs

Its also hyper conscious to a future which will not look like the present, in a timescale which many of us don't. i wonder if we had the same view of human social change as they have of things, what we would do differently..? It also raised the question of where the organisation was in Danny Boyle's 2012 Olympic opening ceremony..? Its more trusted than the BBC and the NHS (particularly recently) but what would get it the point where its as loved as those two institutions..?

Interesting stuff on Octavia Hill the social reformer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_Hill And on classification of memberships, and audience profiling.

Do we need an aggregation strategy for community work.?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what we do about the decreasing funding for community projects and what steps into the void left. Asset based approaches, socially focus, cafes, conversations are all good but tends to come down to meetings. And with a young child and a two hour a day commute I (and lots of other people) don’t make a lot of extra meetings.

So here are 3 models which get around the “we just need to involve more people” mantra.

Model 1 – grow the pie: There is some very good stuff like Genius York, Monmouthshire meetings, Leeds citizen forum and countless others who are attempting to get people involved who wouldn’t otherwise be involved. Fair enough, some are done well, some aren’t. But at least they show willing. Armchair enthusiasts, big data, twitter and sharing – more of this please. I’d also like some stats on this beyond community life surveys about participation rates, and national volunteering rates (which I’ve already written will be fairly healthy for a few years to come). But does it address fundamental issues of social justice (as suggested by the RSA blogs this may be a land grab for the word community: www.rsablogs.org.uk/2014/social-economy/remembering-pete-seeger-community-radical-concept). It might get more efficient in filling in potholes it doesn’t radically change anything.

Model 2 – magic bullets: This can things like social prescribing, some big RCTs, payment by results etc) and there’s a crossover with creative Councils and other things, but this is STILL WORKING WITH NEW PEOPLE in the main. Some of these will move over from the private sector, some with be business minded social tech-entrepreneurs. Part of this suggest that failure demand, and partly an allegation against people ‘whose livelihoods depend on them not understanding’. Hence a massive growth in charities and no data to suggest a reduction in social issues to show for it.

Model 3 – use the pie differently: This is working with new and existing in the social sector. I call this Community Aggregation (as opposed to Aggravation) and it owes a lot to things like David Wilcox’s thoughts http://socialreporter.com, and Julian Dobson’s National Grid of Community Infrastructure http://livingwithrats.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/national-grid-for-community.html#!/2011/04/national-grid-for-community.html The aim is “to maximise the intentions that exist (almost everywhere if we believe the social attitudes surveys) and turn this desire into something useful”. I sometimes explain that I am interested in the architecture in how things happen because everything is driven by an individual who initially is not getting paid (if you want to cheapen this experience of discovery, call them a volunteer). I think this will be the driving force for the next couple of decades (and not just rampant individualism and consumerism extended into later life). I think we are genuinely finding a new way of living together, not arguing over the spoils of a decade of government interventions.

So we use aggregation. Start with what’s there and maximise it. Maybe use the Law of Marginal Gains from the Sky racing team (aka – does it make the boat go faster? www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,17547_5792058,00.html). Voluntary Actions are ideally placed to do this, with a rebrand but often don’t have the skills or money to make it happen. In many places NHS or Las are setting up things very similar to CVSs which run on volunteers and aim to “bring the community together”.

So it needs a communication strategy for a city as well (community nodes model on the left). These new organisation may at a later date be floated off when they realise it’s not easy or cheap to do and then they tender them out like they’ve done in many places over the last 24 months bringing competition and driving the things people do aside from delivering contracts which often make up the most important things they do. Hence grants. It’s not sexy to say it, but grants are often still the cheapest way of getting what you want.

Start with what exists, offer help from a variety of sources (asking for volunteers through www.do-it.org.uk is hugely depressing, and we’re still waiting for something like skill-will to broker resources on businesses. While I’m here have a look at: http://training4good.org/about looking to fill spare training courses with people who might need them – a great example of maximising assets.

So maybe we end up with something like this for a city..?

(There is in fact a Model 3b – just put more money in. It’s always an option, particularly the increasing north south divide. All the ideas I’m suggesting won’t replace the fact that money is pouring out of many towns and cities and its showing.)
Casey

The impact of new community business models

We are starting to see the impact of new community business models. Is this a blueprint for more cutbacks in cultural and community services in the name of austerity or is it the release of control from an overcentralised state.?? People can judge that for themselves (mostly, lets be honest, depending on a political stance & points to be scored), but I think we're beyond debating the theory and moving into the practicals.

1. Locality have a model of community libraries: http://locality.org.uk/projects/community-managed-libraries-2/ and some front-line workers are starting to whistleblow through blogs (which I guess we’ll see more of particularly as it moves ino the NHS)  : http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/campaigning/volunteer-run-libraries/practicalities/the-reality-is-very-different-a-volunteer-library-manager-speaks
2. Rethinking Parks is about changing long term delivery models and ownership of public parks and green spaces: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/programmes/england/rethinking-parks
3. Delivering Differently programme for local authorities looking at changing how services are delivered: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/central-and-local-government-team-up-to-improve-local-service-delivery 
4. The Encouraging Social Action report has a range of case studies and measures: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/262771/2901062_SocialAction_acc.pdf
5. Friends of groups are on the increase – google trends shows this graph (although there is no concrete data) http://www.google.co.uk/trends  

Here's some examples from the community libraries data:

Someone suggested to me recently that the ‘social’ in British life is being eroded, that it was ironic that “social housing is bad, but social media good”. In the age of the social everything we seem to like the concept but hate the practical. I'm not sure the wholescale move from civic life to health has been fully understood or debated yet.

So what might replace state institutions in neighbourhoods in 21C.

• Jobs and growth and typical politician answers etc?
• peace and love and more money answers?
• more imaginative ideas like shaping desirability out of market failure?
• idealists and new catalyst for action?
• Leveraging existing infrastructure - eg a new role of housing?

With the rolling back of the state – what options are there except less of the same..? We have a lack of imagination which is worst – Q what do we want?: A not the USA and not government control of everything.

Judy Robinson's blog on the north south devide is a good starting place for looking at the long term implications of these kinds of decisions: http://www.involveyorkshirehumber.org.uk/blog/rebalancing-the-north-south-divide/
One thing is for sure, I’m not sure that just recruiting a business development manager will get us there..

A Social Operating System and a Coproduction Readiness Tool

I like the idea of a social operating system, a little like Julian Dobson's National Grid of Community Infrastructure. Here's a Chamberlain Forum article that discusses it. I'm not so sold on the core economy stuff, simply becasue i think its unrealistic as a destination right now.. http://www.chamberlainforum.org/?p=1638

It means you could have some metrix and measurement on the indicators necessary for coproduction. 

In line with the 1) thuinking 2) testing 3) doing model we could communicate changes even when there seems to be little actually happening.

What do you think..?

The competitive environment for social action (thoughts on Porters Model)

A lot has been said in public sector circles about the benefits of mutualisation, oursourcing to communites and new community trusts. They increase donations, volunteer numbers and general support. I'd love to see some evaluations of these, but the general case seems to be so.

This has led to two things:

1. more mutuals/trusts/voluntary deliver, and
2. a change in attitudes in our institutions about being more enabling

So with a large number of new entrants into the voluntary/ social sphere i was thinking of the competitive environment for social action, in particular Porter's Five Forces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_five_forces_analysis


Has anyone done any analysis on this?

There is definitely a change in power in Suppliers (commissioners of services) and New Entrants. There is also the increase power of Customers (clinets, volunteers potentially) who have more information about their options and about the market. There's also fierce competition within the industry as charities compete for a shrinking pot. It would be good to measure an industry (maybe a brand tracker??) beyond the anecdotal attitudes surveys and confidence surveys.

Nice diagram on human and social capital..

Focussing on human capital and social capital seems to me like a good way of matching both skill development (individualism) and community enterprise (collectivity).

I'd like to see someone with a project plan along the lines of Encouraging Social Action: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/262771/2901062_SocialAction_acc.pdf

Peak volunteers..?

In a few years will we will reach peak volunteers..? (like peak oil).

1. Current volunteering participation rates have been pretty flat for more than 10 years.
2. More than 50% of volunteering is done by less than 10% of the population.
3. With Baby boomer retirement numbers peaking in 2030 the situation when it changes will change fast.

So what will it change to..?

1. Gen x-ers have less time, less disosible income, less security, less of an asset base. They also think about their leisure time in very different ways.
2. They have a commercial outlook on many things and have less firm ideas on community and association.
3. They equate membership with transactions (and anyway membership has been plummeting anyway)
4. They are still committed to social causes, but won't use the mechanisms of the last generation to achieve them. 

Remember 30% more baby-booomers retired in 2012 than in 2011.  

So anyone planning services should not be thinking about today but should be thinking about memebership, donors and volunteers when  the wheels start to fall off in 10+ years time. The baby boomers will change a lot about everything (they will do to healthcare & care homes what they did to civil rights and individualism) which will need sorting out in itself, but remember its their sheer numbers that make things inevitable.

We can ride the good times over the next 10 years, but let's also have a plan for the worse..

A different way to think about money and the institutions that spend it

The lottery has spent £22 billion on social change since 1997. I remember asking the CEO at the time what he had spent it on (!) and of course he didn’t know and of course its a churlish question, and no-one can answer it about anything we spend our collective money on, but as a colleague said the NHS spends more on healthcare than the whole continent of Africa. Globalisation has provided the funds, resource allocation is the key. 

Seems odd to say in austerity times but maybe money is not the solution anymore. or not the whole solution anyway.

A common question towards the end of a grants term is “how do we sustain this”? Should we not have a strict plan for how this will not be needed anymore in 3 years time? The question on the application form about “sustainability” is laughable. But there are things we can do?

Could we not agree what voluntary orgs in principle we want to keep and make sure they’ll be alright for 2-3 years? It would mean borrowing some money or changing how we spend things. but it seems really odd we haven;t had a proper discussion on what we expect taxation to pay for, and what we expect philanthropy to pay for.  Would that mean the social mission for some was not needed anymore? Some of them. And in which case what would we do with that surplus of talent and time instead..? 

The issue of student loans (for example) is essentially an inter generational contract. We pay in during working years for early education and then for older care. If those figures don't balance then we have an issue. We currently have an issue. 

So housing is a bad example.

As is student debt. 

As is adult social care

As is anything to do with state provision. 

We don't have many good examples right now. 

The only work currently ongoing is reducing costs (via efficiencies in the current system) and reducing demand (by raising thresholds and making people more responsible for themselves)

So is the only way to change the system long term to look at the family model (or the core economy) and what it is able to provide? In Spain for example everyone lives with their family while they go to college which significantly reduces costs. And in Italy every older person lives with their family which significantly reduces costs. 

All in all there is a limited way of moving money around a system. Someone pays, it's just a matter of who and when. 

I remember suggesting to another lottery bod that we put all the lottery money tthrough a single bank account and use the endowment for something (it wouldn't remove the interest that the lottery distributors accrue either as its one step down the chain). It would mean a bit of hassle, and an intermediary account, but its surely not beyond us to move some imaginary money around. Make links between things that don't currently exist that get us beyond the 'least worse position' else end up in. I did 6 years volunteer dispute mediation where the focus was to move people from their positions to their interest. It sounds like we could do that to the rest of the economy. We have the desire, we just don't yet have the mechanisms to get beyond zero-sum. This is not an information problem, and is probably not an inclination problem. It is a logistics problem, the type of game humans are very good at solving with the right incentives. 

So maybe we need a different map of incentives in how we think about social change - as much as we need a different way to think about money and value..

And money might not be the solution, but it certainly alleviates problems. Stand in line for the foodbank and discuss it. 

That's 2014 for me..

Non hierarchical orgs - or does legal structure matter..?

The idea of a hierarchical vol org always seems a bit strange, yet everyone assumes that's the way that an organisation has to be run. Or is it? What if there IS a credible alternative that would save time and liberate staff from seeing themselves as part of one org and not parts of others..? (Disclosure: I don't have one) 

If we could form a network of people who cared about social change in a particular area then we wouldn't need to worry so much about organisations, or the logistics of keeping orgs afloat. NCVO used yammer this last year by opening up its consultation to be had via yammer. Once a week i would log on and quickly add any thoughts i had on the topics being discussed. Better 100 people's 2 minute scribbles that 10 people's 20 min scribbles. (more recently  I've done a similar thing with Genius, and yammer.)

The simple question on what constitutes social change, and what needs focusing on for a more just world is all down to detail. but it would be good to be having that conversation in an open, non hierarchical way..

Organisations need to be managed. But they also need to be owned. Things like one click orgs www.oneclickorgs.com/ are about working within the current model of organising, I'd like to separate these two things as much as possible..

A story from Uganda - of collectivity and different modes of living

Is it really so stupid to think we can live differently? Take an example: can we live collectively cheaper than individually..?

The second world war taught us that we can live very cheaply indeed. Food, clothing and furnishings are all 19th century products which involved moving goods around the world to lower costs. And housing as a collective good is relatively cheap, it only becomes expensive when we choose where we want to live (or more rightly, where we don't want to live). so the cost of living could be fairly low if we organised things differently - right??

So rather than talk about how we get to a low cost life (which might be one of the few options for the millenials building their form of living in the 21st century) this is a story from Uganda where i was for a few months fifteen years ago. I was doing research on musical styles for my degree (sound engineering - and trying to use synthetics to recreate natural sounds).

i arrived in a small town up in the hills in the middle of a power cut. now power cuts are pretty common, but normally you'd be somewhere, and you stay there until the light come back on. with any luck you've got warmth, a candle and a friend to pass the time with. but this was me being dropped off in the middle of pitch darkness on the side of a dusty street. no-one else got off with me, and there was no one around, just me and a bag of my possessions.

Now i can't describe the level of darkness. i waited for me eyes to become adjusted, but they really didn't. the moon must have been obscured, and there wasn't a generator anywhere. it was eerily quite and i became apprehensive about finding a hotel to sleep in, and also about general safety (after a few weeks in Nairobi you'd know why and i was full of the antimalarial laruim anxiety and hallucinations). But i couldn't stay still, so i walked very very slowly up the middle of the street with my arms out in front of me. It sounds strange to say it, but I walked straight into the very first person i met. very slowly, but straight into him.

I was instantly full of paranoia. My first impression was one of malevolence. I thought he was going to attack me, or rob me. 

but of course everything was fine and we laughed and he helped me and i saw him later. and then every day because there are only around 20 people in the village and we play football together etc.

But my first impression was one of malevolenceand i have begun to think how odd that is. what a recent phenomena.

But he took me to someone''s house, and i stayed a few days. I'm not sure if it was a hotel or not. i used taxis that i am not sure are taxis. i hitch-hiked, or i may have just got on buses when i put my arm out.

My point is that there was not much difference between individual and collective. Life is living. And there are not two separate modes of living depenig if we trust people or not. 

Anyone is more interested in a benevolent world should check out Historias Minimas (Intimate Stories in English) and count how many time you expect something bad to happen to the main character. which doesn't. And you start to notice how conditioned we are to think bad things happen. A bit like the Bechdel Test which counts female roles in movies and you start to conclude mainstream films are not normal at all.

So when i think about organising a different way of living i don't think about transition towns, or new involvement methods. I think #digitalbadges and recommendations and verification tools will be useful in changing what we think of as our own, but mainly I think about bumping into strangers in the pitch black- the unplanned opportunities for living, and finding the experience beautiful rather than terrifying..

How to make a decision after an incident..

Top 10 Mistakes in Behaviour Change - from the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

I think we underestimate the role behaviour change is going to play in our lives over the next decade or so. For all the talk of the 'nany state' we're going to see largescale interventions in subtle ways into our ways of living mostly under the banner of saving money.

Health (smoking, fatty foods, cancer, dementia) are the obvious ones, but also family and social interactions are going to be a huge part of the new 'enablign state'. so we'd all better get comfortable with talking about, and often designing processes which are focused on changing other people's behaviour.

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change from Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

The case for a social movement - in note form

(or why voluntary and community organisations are the best place to redefine our social system)

Diagram showing the political dividing lines of the last 20 years

My submission to @NCVO’s 2015 Project on Volunteering

In reply to ncvo’s discussion paper for the #2015project There are some very odd things going on in volunteering at the moment:

• 1) Statutory bodies are increasingly recruiting volunteers directly as it’s cheaper than contracting a voluntary organisation to do it.

• 2) Increasingly front line organisations cannot afford to provide the infrastructure for volunteer placements when they have PBR monthly targets. 

• 3) private sector bodies (predominantly around sports) have learnt through social media metrics that recruiting volunteers as event organisers is both a cheaper deliver mechanism and also adds to the buzz surrounding the event.

So we're having private and statutory moving into a space where smaller voluntary organisations are retreating from. And the social attitudes surveys tells us people (especially young people) are more cause driven, but less motivated by sectors.

I think in time volunteering/ participation/ involvement will become mainstream, and the organisational framework will learn to sit better around larger groups of knowledgeable activists in some ways a return to the philanthropic organisations of the 12C albeit with more external focus. How this fits with a massive increase in opportunities on Do-it (and what succeeds it) and increasing health and social care needs as the state retreats and the family doesn't step in - I don't quite know.

I’m enthusiastic about the future of www.do-it.org.uk as I like the shared infrastructure principle (small and large orgs have the same way of attracting supporter) but also the critical mass we’re talking about needs a single focus. It’s still 9% of the population who do more than half the volunteering hours. Things like www.wewillgather.co.uk are great, but they rely on the same small number of people to deliver. A bit like the lurkers – maybe we need a strategy to increase the number of creators and contributors from the 90% of lurkers..?

 
As a trustee of InvolveYH we're looking at how we can involve more people in helping delivering our work, with different levels of involvement depending on people's knowledge and time offered. We think this will help us grow our supporter base whether we call them 'volunteers' or not.

CIPD presentation – working beyond our hierarchical boundaries

Here's my CIPD presentation for friday drawing on the parallels between volunteering and workforce development models.
Alternative title was "why your best people won't work for you"..

CIPD presentation – working beyond our hierarchical boundaries from Casey Morrison

Behaviour change in healthcare - what the future looks like

I found an excellent picture of the change in behaviour required to sustain a new healthcare model. Like changes to smoking rates, drink driving rates, 5-a-day healthy eating campaigns we can expect this to hugely change how we live our lives. watch it unfold..!

Desperately seeking a new organisational model (with own car & gsoh)

A lot of the conversations i'm having at the moment are about change (obvs). The largest problem i'm having is that this is not a change to, but a change from. Or more clearly: WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE DESTINATION LOOKS LIKE.

Lets be clear: there is no-one doing it that we can copy. There is no toolkit. There is not even very good examples that work after the initial enthusiasm has run out.But there are people all over the UK working on it. so we have hope too.

However, there are parallels to draw, associations to make. Voluntary organisations are being bought into public commissioning for their innovation, yet the public bodies are asking them to design projects which are not like anything they have done before. They want services that rely much more heavily on technology and on volunteer effort, and that (whisper it) are simpler cheaper.

So here's a parallel. The evolution of political organisation.

(I have a similar chart at home for how organisations operate, but the final box is still a blank.. )

So where do we start? I was talking to the CEO of a CVS about the amount of time they spend doing tasks which added no value to their work. then you multiply this. but merging is a blunt tool. I think we need to separate the task of running an org from leading an org. and i know some people employ an operations manager and separate this from the CEO. but this still keeps the problems in house.

I'm thinking of some way for small organisations to outsource their business functions (HR, payroll, even staff management in some respects) so that all participants are free to pursue the mission. So something like the fiscal sponsorship that @GMAddVentures are trialling. So something like a solicitors model may emerge for social change organisations along this spectrum:

Contracted out

Delivered by partners

Staff-led

Volunteer-led

Customer self-led

Now where did i put that GSOH..

(I also like):

• a national grid for community infrastructure - julian dobson
• participatory paradigms - tessy briton
• mititant optimists - david barrie

Strategic Planning for Networks.. (what can we learn from the planning behind wikipedia's 100,000 volunteer editors)

I'm interested in how we can leverage huge numbers of people from around the world towards a collective pro-social aim. The best example of this (and yet to be replicated) is wikipedia.

Below are some slides from their planning explaining how they moved from a mission of "all information for everyone" to 100,000 volunteer editors around the world, maintaining the 4th most read website on earth. This is a bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model. Diverse volunteers can create fast, fluid and innovative projects that outperform the largest and best financed enterprises..

Lets be completely honest. Our current method of: context, gap analysis and strategic planning WILL NOT GET US HERE. This isn't about a communication strategy, or dissemination or viral applications. Its about how we sell a massive challenge and manage millions of separate contributions into a whole. And we cannot do that by using the same strategy tools.As the slides say: "the plan is not the point, the point is activation".

So how do we make it happen? Here's their 5 steps:

1. focus on asking Qs
2. make a space for it to happen
3. focus on people
4. model transparency
5. fail fast

Strategic Planning for Networks from Eugene Kim

the relational state

I was reading Nestas's report on complaints driving innovation and i thought their diagram on The Relational State was a pretty good summary.

Gov not funding social change, ever again..?

There were a series of tweets a few days ago from @gethynwilliams that i wanted to pull together and reflect on.

Its basically the stark outline (probably quite rightly) of a world of social change that operates without any government intervention. At all. For all the talk of ideology driving political funding decisions blaming austerity politics we may simply, and irreversibly have returned to the third sector operating wholly outside of government.

I wonder how many people currently working in the third sector would be surprised by it.???

1. a very difficult time for so many VCS people facing redundancy right now. complete reinvention needed - personally and organizationally.

2. particularly feel for those working in infrastructure - orgs need very bold new business models. fear may already be too late for some.

3. 1 thing certain - lobbying harder for state cash is pointless. we one of many competing for ever-shrinking cake. this evident for some time.

4. my advice - give up on government entirely. not sustainable, whoever is in power. orgs and staff need to be radical.

5. most VCS business plans based on assumption government can lead and fund social change - that's no longer true

6. @gethynwilliams ...And the challenge now is for the sector to do it itself, rather than ask central gov to ask local gov to purchase better
   — Jake Eliot (@housingJake) March 25, 2013

7. @housingjake thanks - and true - and still no guarantee of survival, but at least energies can go into something other than fire-fighting...

   @caseymorrison it's a nice idea. personally haven't seen much evidence it will work. 'investors' want high rates of return. you?
   

@gethynwilliams Completely agree. hollowing out businesses that can be done cheaper by private sector. but i'm an optimist & £ still exists.
— Casey Morrison (@caseymorrison) March 25, 2013

8. @ana_brankovic true that. plenty of folk came into the sector on a specific understanding of how things worked. now it's a new game...

9. @gethynwilliams All orgs claiming a social purpose have a duty wider than their own delivery role: to push for change to Govt, public, etc.
   — Mike Wild (@MikeWildMacc) March 25, 2013

Thoughts..?

Insight data on 21 century volunteering.. (presentation)

Insight data on 21 century volunteering - from a national trust conference last year..

1. we way we interact with everything has changed, but the way we help people link with causes hasn't
2. how we use our leisure time has moved beyond consumption
3. if we use platforms and devices for social media we can now connect millions more people

In summary there is a huge audience for something we're terming social leisure. (50,000 people applied to be volunteers for the 2014 Glasgow commonwealth games and as many predicted for Le Tour in Yorkshire.)

The organisation that meets this need will win the prize. The race is on. 

Ok Computer from elliottofhook

Micro-volunteering - some practical examples.. (presentation)

Micro-volunteering - some practical examples.. (A presentation i gave at the national trust conference last year)

Basically i think microvolunteering is one of those things that has massive potential if we think about it in a different way. There are lots of platforms, lots of small ideas but nothing that allows small chunks of time for people to do something useful, and feel part of a cause.

This was my attempt to outline some ideas of things we could do on nationaltrust properties, but would probably be applicable for any non profit..

It Only Takes a Minute from elliottofhook

Irreverent localism presentation from 2011

I just found this, but in 2011 I was asked to sum up the new focus on localism in a quick, slightly amusing presentation.

I suggested it focuses on balancing the potentially opposing forces of:

1. collaborative local action
2. protest voices

but also that we have a lot more tools now to change the debate, stop the strongest voices in the planning process. I also suggested we don't currently have a vehicle for doing this. Since 2011 arguably the picture has polarised even more with HS2, Section 106 changes and hospital closures.

(back in 2011 there was just a picture of a big horse..)

Irreverent Localism Workshop 2011 from Casey Morrison

Youtube as a search engine - how i have changed my default in how i search for information

My behaviour in relation to searching and filtering information has started to change quite dramatically after many years doing the same thing. I wonder where they will lead, and how out information portals will change as behaviour changes.

So what do these changes look like..?

1. I now use Youtube as my default non work search engine. 
2. I now use mobile apps in isolation (eg train times) but i find them increasingly less useful in general online activity (eg comparing different travel methods etc), so i'm increasingly looking for cross pollination of different information in a single app.
3. I'm subscribe to Youtube channels like i subscribe to blogs on an RSS reader.
4. I use flipbook as my RSS reader and occasionally look at twitter on it (mainly for the better display of pics) 
5. I follow people and search on Slideshare. This is a bit like watching a film over watching a tv programme: you know someone's worked very hard on a slideshare presentation unlike some thrown together blog.
6. I use image search before text searching if i know it will have a lot of results (to help with the filtering process) especially if i know they'll be a lot of hits and i'm looking for things of good quality.
7. I access more and more websites via mobile and I now notice when a website has a good mobile page. 
8. I differentiate between durable information and disposable information (mainly this is the distinction between blogs and twitter) along the lines of Thinking Fast and Slow
9. The news that Siri could be our default search, therefore eliminating the need for separate apps cones as no surprise. I use it as my default text input device now.

As someone who has promised themselves they will never read another academic abstract, starting in niche information places feels like a good place to start

but the speed of the change in my behaviour has surprised me..