A map of interaction between Tech firms in east london..

Could we were to use this tool to map interactions between community organisations, membership organisations, regional offices, new partnerships etc etc etc..?
#potential

My notes from Armley prison visit..

Armey prison: Gary boothroyd, pippa jones

Discussion of david davis views on reoffending & the riots

Management of a prison

×          Population protection & protecting society

×          Mission statement “protecting the public” doesn’t really fit with reoffending model.

×          Voids & population movement across UK - logistical problem as much as social.

×          12 month revolving door – 75% of prisoners in armley jail reoffend in 12 months.

×          “People feel well looked after in here”. The “prison operates on good will”

×          Average age is 24. 80% have a drug problem

×          They have random drug tests every week, and search everyone coming in & out. but 1,000 people have keys for the prison

×          The Manchester riots changed everything about prison conditions but it was only 12 years ago..

×          Vulnerable prison unit – 20 people at a time, for those who will get hurt.

Social impact bonds –

×          armley is the public sector being road tested.

×          Birmingham got road tested and is now in private hands

×          Peterborough has been outsourced

×          “There is a need to rebrand” Closer working with the third sector

×          “prisoners get to 35 and then decide to stop – the only question is how to speed this up”?

×          Resettlement wing is brand new.

×          Do we need a new compact between prisoners and prisons?

×          You get more drug help in prison than outside

×          CCTV is everywhere

×          Mental health problems are rife – is prison a storing house for system failure in other areas..?

       

Educing reoffending–

×          Prison used to be the ultimate goal of the police. Remove the problem.

×          Whose job is it to change behaviour? Probation, youth offending, police, voluntary sector. Who is responsible in a very expensive system?

×          How will targeting work? We know the most likely to offend. We know the most likely to reoffend. Isn’t this dangerous?

×          How does dispersal work – putting ex-offenders back where they were doesn’t work. There is still limited support for this

×          Three most important factors: Housing, work, drug rehabilitation

        

What is the point in short term sentences

×          Just long enough to become a proper criminal

×          They’ve got a Max Spielman outlet in Liverpool women’s prison

×          Thompsons keycutting placements, teach haircutting, making boxershorts, kitchen work

×          Why can’t prisons employ ex-prisoners?

×          What are the job needs of leeds?

Getting people back into society

×          Police reduce the survalance of new prisoners to give them a chance

×          Spent convictions over 10 years

×          Burlary is a lifestyle? Zero tolerance.

×          How much does the general population care if it’s a problem they don’t have to live with.

×          How much is it good people just in a bad place?

×          Remand is a big problem. Its not worth investing in people who may not end up staying (so no targets)

×          Data functions based on reoffending rates

×          Pay By Results needs innovation and then evaluation

×          Risk transfer model (£1.4m investors input).

A new participatory paradigm for creative collaboration..? (by tessy briton)

Open publication - Free publishing

Disseminating research through social media..

This is long (!), but i just sent it to my brother for an EU research tender and thought it might be useful to share.. 
Caveat! - its written by someone struggling their way through this, not an expert.. Enjoy!

Overall approach:

• Market segmentation – who is your audience? Researchers, practitioners, people in devel countries.
• Who are your delivery partners. I would give away the kudos of it – if people feel like they’re working for you then you’ll have to pay them. Make them feel like they’re working towards a common objective that you both care about and you’ll be amazed.
• Instead of pushing a message, go to where people are. Where are these conversations already happening? What can you bolt it onto or link with..? Could you have guest bloggers who use your platform..? who wants to be associated with you..?
• Can you use an “open innovation” process (it just means crowdsourcing), and prototyping (pilots) is really popular at the moment.

Volunteers – id write a load of role profiles and see who wants to take them on. Things like updating the blog, researching certain ‘chapters’ or organising around a particular date. You can put them out through your networks and see who bites.

Framework:

1. PROMOTION: Promotion, raise awareness and visibility
2. PARTICIPATION: relies on the involvement and participation of regional Stakeholders on the strategic thinking process
3. DISSEMINATION: Dissemination of programme progress, outputs and results following a transparency and accountability spirit
4. EXPLOITATION: Efficient exploitation of the projects outputs and results ensuring their influence on further
5. NETWORKING: follow up discussions, progress ideas collectively

Or use: 1) inspire, 2) educate,3)  reinforce.

Tools:

Crowdsourcing via wiki –  This often has low interaction levels, but is a good way. I’d do a Blog – people will generally read but hardly ever reply unless you make it very personal. I’ve used http://www.wikispaces.com/ or googledocs https://docs.google.com  is a pretty good way of crowdsourcing information (spreadsheets are really good, quick and cheap way of collecting info)

Facebook has voting polls and is a really good way of reaching an audience using ‘events’. Mostly people get driven to blogs.

Twitter is the best way of publicising blogs and updates and building easy communities of practice (have a look at other people’s lists and follow some lists. ).

Newsletter You can do a really easy newsletter using http://paper.li and people can subscribe to it (I’d just do the blog personally.) or use mailchimp

Linked-in has practitioner groups so you can invite people to join a group, and anyone can publish anything that gets emailed to all in the group.

Don’t link twitter, FB or linked in together – they’re separate audiences. But you can automate posts (eg automatically post from a blog to FB.) or time your posts if you have to.

You could try using Google AdSense. It’s been on my list for a while. For charities its free for a bit, but it will target people searching for “development” or whatever and your advert will show up on the right hand side of the search.

Geographic – people like maps, and seeing themselves on maps, so you can make a Google map with pin points of all the relevant places. People click on the links and it takes them to different places. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ct=reset go my “myplaces” and “create map”

Mobile apps – early days for this in academia.  I’d suggest maybe publishing a book/ report summary when you’re done and sell it through mobile apps.? Even 100 copies at £30 a head is a decent return for very little effort (it’s what I’m planning to do next year) http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1541053

QR codes – very good if you have a shop window or location to display them..? Or an advert on a bus – people have to be walking past and want to find out more (but wouldn’t type a url into a phone browser)

Videos are excellent. Use a vimeo account and link them to other topics (using hashtags like twitter). See the one I did for yorkcvs here: http://vimeo.com/30538238

Animations - I don’t know if you’ve seen the RSA animate videos, but they’re excellent and worth replicating rather than a simple headshot..

http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/

Stories – tell them as a journey, and involve people in the journey. No one is really interested in finished products anymore. You can use http://storify.com/ to capture some of this on route (eg summary of thoughts around a particular theme.)

Put PowerPoint slides online – its human communication and people like looking at pictures. (or use prezi to be a bit flash)

Maximise the use of what you have; email, website, e-bulletins, databases, events, meetings, networks.

I’d suggest you spend some money on infographics (see http://visual.ly) as a way of presenting data. I don’t know anyone who reads formal academic papers anymore.. Thats it..!

Useful links:

Social media dissemination: http://worldviewsconference.com/announcements/social-media-is-inherently-a-system-of-peer-evaluation-and-is-changing-the-way-scholars-disseminate-their-research-raising-questions-about-the-way-we-evaluate-academic-authority/

EU programmes on Open Innovation - http://www.euris-programme.eu/en/homepage/open-innovation

Innovation in higher education – by Geoff mulgan http://pearsonblueskies.com/innovation-in-higher-education/

Wikis in the classroom: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/wikis-in-the-classroom-three-ways-to-increase-student-collaboration/

York CVs social media guides.. http://yorkcvs.org.uk/ycvs-publications?page=2 

Imagine what we could do if human being worked in collaboration like this..

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Music video: Crazy World We Live from amplified-a.. (an old project of mine)

I'm collecting examples of human irrationality..

Examples of human irrationality

1. Pro golfers putt more accurately from all distances when putting for par than when putting for birdie because they fear the bogie more than they desire the birdie.
2. Israeli parole boards grant parole to about 35 percent of the prisoners they see, except when they hear a case in the hour just after mealtime. In those cases, they grant parole 65 percent of the time.
3. Shoppers will buy many more cans of soup if you put a sign atop the display that reads “Limit 12 per customer.
4. More to come..!

My Clore social leadership presentation today..

Clore social leadership interview with NESTA on Prezi

Community Lovers Guide to the Universe in Leeds..?

I've teamed up with @mikechitty and @charlottebritto in order to try and pull together great examples into a Leeds version of an international book called “Community lovers Guide to the Universe”.
Help is needed from editors, curators, or photographers - but mostly it’s a book of people starting interested, small, good things for the love of it..

Some examples from Tessy Briton’s Hand-Made have been:

1. ×          Men’s Sheds – a stress free home from home for better social interactions
2. ×          School of everything – want to learning anything? Someone already knows the answer, you just need to know where they are
3. ×          Ourgoods.org – an etsy.com marketplace for matching skills
4. ×          Learned dreams – where did you want to get to as a child, and what do you need to do to get there..?
5. ×          And more formal examples of People’s supermarket, urban farming schemes, community organisations using ebay etc

If you want to know more about HandMade you can download the pdf’s here (or even better part with £30 for a copy) http://www.blurb.com/books/1541053

So get your thinking caps on and let us know any leads, however small, of people doing good things around you. Leave a comment, tweet us, help us set up a facebook or just have a good long think.

We need to crowdsource ways to turn ideas into social innovation. We need to storyboard what the future can look like, and we need small examples of people leading the way. Come on board..!

Are Big Lottery going to change their operating system..? #ppchange

I have a confession to make, I am an ex employee. Which puts me in that came of loving the organisation, but leaving out of frustration with it.. But i remember conversations years ago about how to genuinely have an impact on social problems, they have some very bright people around, Peter Wanless is progressive and open to ideas - I always assumed it was the board that was risk averse and defensive..?

(one example was a radio interview about not funding war memorials: the public concerned about the legacy of Yorkshire war heroes, BIG defensive about "the strategic alignment with existing programmes"..)

1. Their funds will be genuinely more important than ever to focus on entrenched social problems in a difficult economic climate.
2. The board has just changed.
3. They seem a bit out of kilter with the three #big society white papers which came out last year (localism, public services white paper & giving green paper).
4. There has been a gradual swing towards newer type organisations; NESTA, Young Foundation, Your Square Mile.
5. The hard choice of top-down or bottom-up seems a bit irrelevant now - surely we can get strategic programmes fro the bottom up..?
6. They have just change their policy direction - (the criticism focused on percentage allocation)

I'm wondering if bigger changes are on their way...?
Are Big Lottery going to get all radical on us..?
Thoughts..?

A standing start.. or Hand made 2-0

I've had another good look through Hand Made by Tessy Britton. I'm trying to pull together interested people to do a Leeds and maybe York version of the new "Community Lovers Guide to the Universe" along the same lines. So the simple question is: from a standing start, without time or money what could you do..? Right here right now!

Under-utilised resources & by-products in social innovation..

Ok, so I have the possibility of being seconded to the City of York council Nesta creative councils bid, sit on the open innovation group and will lead on third sector innovation for the next 24 months, but what would it actually mean..?

Question 1 - under-utilised resources:

Could supermarket checkout staff be knowledgeable about community events? Could volunteer tourist guides know about locally produced produce? Could we use spare capacity in shops for libraries or virtual noticeboards? In short - how could we leverage in, and broker change in multiple sites across a city..?

• ×          Car parks
• ×          Lockers
• ×          Meeting rooms
• ×          Organisations
• ×          Open access toilets
• ×          Shops

Question 2 - by-products currently produced by the system:

• Could recycling be done by a voluntary organisation alongside their core work..?
• Could sellable goods be produced by co-ops of rehabilitation patients in hospitals..?
• Could service users be service experts – shaping the services they need, and changing those they don’t.

The list is short, for now, but given the dynamics, it’s a good test of collaborating and yet challenging - separate enough to bring something different to the table.. This is the beauty of open innovation, but a tricky thing to juggle being open with the politics of running a council. Luckily there are some very good examples of people doing that, and York has put a good team together so far.. 

What can Creative Councils learn from the RNLI..?

The RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Association) was originally a 'provided service' in the model of most statutory bodies. In most other countries where they exist, they are like the coastguard paid for out of taxpayers money - yet in the UK it is wholly run on public donations.

So the question is: how can councils and other public bodies brand themselves as a mixed income model? Can they increase their perceived value and their income at the same time..?
(The alternative model would be the post office, running commercially with a public subsidy..)

So what's special about the RNLI? Lifeboat crew members are unpaid volunteers, while lifeguards are paid by the appropriate town or city council and RNLI provides their equipment and training. Its is also ranked number 1 in a Third Sector list of charity reputations. They are a big organisation, operating 444 lifeboats across the UK. They rescue an average of 22 people every day. They run an annual budget of £147.7 million.

So the unanswered question is "why do people value this over ambulances, or bin men, or anything else" - and how can other services get a piece of the action..?

Stupid business ideas dreamed up in the Guggenheim..

First of all, go see the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao - its a great place for thinking. 

These are my 'business' ideas..

1.       Naturalair conditioning on trains (by creating a removable air vent flow system between front and back windows..)

2.       Socialenterprise driving school

3.       Fashion boutique by those with unconventional ideas (eg on the autism spectrum etc)

4.       Counciltax rebates for Mingas (Mingas are public works undertaken by communities in South America - normally annually to sort out roads or drainage etc.)

5.       A modern Guild for community enterprise - what better place than York with its history of Guilds.. 

6.       Taxifirm as social enterprise (they pretty much run as Co-Ops already, so maybe not much point)

7.        Peerto peer volunteer (we're working on this, but no-one has come up with a decent model yet - even timebanking..)

9.       £10canteen for 1 hr lunches. 3 starters, 3 mains & a drink.

10.  Something around Small is Beautiful .

That's it..! But i made me realise strange places produce strange thoughts so i always take a pen and paper to museums now..

Why the general direction of travel that should really worry those who like things as they are..

It sudenly occured to me that there were a lot of implicit policy changes since 2010 that have not been written down together. So here's a list of things that show the direction of travel..

1. community over voluntary
2. self organising over organised
3. loans over grants
4. informal over risk assessed
5. delivery over 'voice'
6. problem solving over fairness
7. competition over collaboration
8. any willing provider over VCS
9. individual responsibility over government responsibility
10. peer to peer over hierarchy
11. social enterprise over voluntary
12. communities of place over communities of interest
13. economies of scale over local protectionism
14. social impact bonds over grants
15. chaotic working groups over formal partnerships
16. the specific over the generic
17. change over consistent

And this is the backdrop that the voluntary sector will be expected to have an increased role in:

1. double dip 
2. higher inequality 
3. more disadvantage (as the population get poorer)

I'm pretty optimistic despite all this, but i think firstly we need to recognise what is happening.. ;-)
It not the specific, but the general direction of travel that should really worry those who like things as they are..

Shared access to beach huts - a small example of collaborative consumption #collcons

Yesterday I was on the north Norfolk coast, on a beautiful sunny day with the beach full of happy families. Yet the beautiful beach huts by the side of the sand were all locked up and unused. What a missed opportunity. How nice would it be for the families to be able to use the beach huts for the day - lock them up again therefore not subject to vandalism..? So we need a very small system of accountability and trust, and some sort of feedback system. It shouldn't be very difficult.

1. How about a database you could log into (maybe with facebook) that would give you the 4 number code for the combination lock on a beach hut. 
2. To lock it up after use you would sign back out (maybe using foursquare) to say you had left. 
3. And you could leave feedback on the exchange like couchsurfing.

You could apply this method to more vulnerable thing longer term; holiday lets, caravans, bicycles etc..
Let's get more use from the things we have. Collaborative consumption has a long way to go. So if you could increase the sum of human happiness on a North Norfolk beach really easily, think about putting that into health and social care..

What's the phone number for Europe..?

The UK has the best civil society in the world and is something I think we should be looking to export. But it is messy. And many people would prefer it to be easier to understand, work with and buy in. A colleague of mine summed this up nicely by saying:

"What's the phone number for Europe?
Asking me how something is done in the voluntary and community sector is like asking for the phone number to Europe.."

So I know thing need to simply and merge, but we need to be careful not to lose the diversity, independence and ownership of the third sector that has makes it the best in the world - something that you could never plan or build..

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos delivers graduation speech

Infographic of collective intelligence.. #collcons

Are we getting better at using technology for collective intelligence..? Does this fit with the ideas of collaborative consumption and pro-sumers..?

Are there stages of grief in public service decommissioning..?

The public don't know what's hit it yet but at best this year we'll have:

1. the hardest debates over the services middle class people use


2. the expectation that universal services won't exist any more 


3. the role of the state solely being around targeting problems


4. an expectation that the third sector will deal with problems, (not the extras the state would never pay for..)

Can we win the prevention argument using control groups?

Can we win the prevention argument using control groups?

1.       take two cities of relative size & deprivation

2.       exclude one from access to voluntary groups support

3.       control for the variables

4.       compare & contrast

5.       win the argument with a monetary figure of certain types of support..?

Obviously it’s not this simple but it’s been done in other parts of the world where these differentials are naturally occurring – (see video on comparing success rates of various malaria preventions).

So if a city has an Age Concern are there 2% fewer hospital admissions than a city without an Age Concern..?

Are new job roles needed for organising in the new millennium..? (from @podnosh)

The kids waving their A-levels certificates this week will still be working in 2050. What kind of jobs might they be doing..? what skills will they need..?

I liked these new key job roles as a starter for ten in organising from @podnosh..

1. Storyteller, communicating stories of how new worlds of local public support might be envisioned in the absence of existing blueprints;


2. Weaver, making creative use of existing resources to generate something new and useful for service users and citizens;


3. Architect, constructing coherent local systems of public support from the myriad of public, private, third sector and other resources; and


4. Navigator, guiding citizens and service users around the range of possibilities that migth be available in a system of Local Public Support.

From being a service to being a system..?

We’re being told that the NHS will move from being a service to being a system. That it won’t deliver things, it will set the framework through which things happen. This sounds a lot like community empowerment but the costly, professional driven days of the Community Empowerment Networks seem to be over. Ideas like People Powered Change might change the emphasis, but even costly programmes like the Big Local Trust seem a bit artificial in these heady days of self organising.. Particularly as the news always seems to be over once they announce the successful schemes.. All our other statutory animals are changing beyond all recognition as we speak, changing shape, changing cost and the direction of travel will not change in 4 years time..

So - lets imagine for two minutes that the VCS were one animal. How would it look..? 

What would a system for social change look like..? How would individuals be able to enable their own personal change? How would groups for an drive social justice..? 

This is my best guess from an infrastructure point of view - for the transforming infrastructure programme..

Transforming Infrastructure - York CVS thoughts and ideas.. on Prezi

Is it charity or philanthropy..?

Here's the words of EBay’s Founder:

• “When I use the word “charity,” I think of what’s needed to alleviate immediate suffering. It’s just pure generosity driven by compassion, and it’s important but never-ending work—there will always be more suffering. Charity is inherently not self-sustaining, but there are problems in the world, such as natural disasters, that require charity.


• Philanthropy is much more. It comes from the Latin for “love of humanity.” Philanthropy is a desire to improve the state of humanity and the world. It requires thinking about the root causes of issues so that we can prevent tomorrow’s suffering.”

What do you think? And how does it react to the changing third sector landscape..?

Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration - what does this mean for infrastructure..?

This is everything I've been talking about for Transforming Infrastructure organisations and self organising - neatly encapsulated by Clay Shirky..

So what does this mean for infrastructure..? Do we protect what we have because that's how its done, or because it's our jobs, or because change is difficult, or we're giving up power..?
I think its possible to coordinate more activity with lower costs - the interesting question is the values we use to get there..

Peace or justice - localism and potential for change..?

It’s a simple question, but i’d suggest that peace & justice are mutually exclusive.

• Peace = status quo
• Justice = change 

It's normally those who who have won who are asking for a ceasefire. Those who still see inequality want justice, which means redressing an issue, which means change..? To if the issue is building more houses, or a youth club - does the power of protest and localism lead to conservatism in decision making..? In which case, Britain - broken or not, how is it going to change..?

The voluntary sector - from private to public ownership..

We have 637 charities registered in York. Imagine these as boats in a harbour, all privately owned, all doing their own thing.. Now imagine replacing all that with 4 large pontoons in the bay..?

The voluntary sector - from private to public ownership on Prezi

Now if you were a person looking to put your energy into increasing social justice, and not spending your time to keep the boat going; the money collected is used to maintain the boat, volunteer hours are used to maintain the status quo, when everyone really wants to focus on change..?

I want us to focus on the difficult things. I want to make things uncomfortable. i want to dive down deep.
I think changing the way we think about social justice (and not just changing the brilliant orgs that have struggled into existence - and that don't exist in many part of the world).
I think this is a good place to start..

Why i love twitter for infrastructure orgs - process change & behavioural change..

I've just bought the networked non profit but we've got a session at @YorkCVS next week about opening up communications and I've been doing the presentation.. (also credit to Clay Shirky organising without organisations which throws down the gauntlet to infrastructure orgs unwilling to change)

I think it can revolutionise the core function of a support and development organisation:

1. Development work - never type the same advice email again, and build a community of people on the same journey. 


2. Campaigning - topical recently, but also the changing power balance of small local orgs (eg mass localism by nesta) by retweeting their words.


3. Networking - new creative and disruptive working groups to get ideas beyond our own shores


4. Consultations - let's collect the info small groups are sending out rather than asking them to bow to our will.


5. Accountable representation - no mixed messages only direct communication, open and transparent and full of ways of groups representing themselves (or at least telling us when we're getting it wrong)..

So that's the logistics, but maybe the behavioural change is even more important..?

Is choice the opposite of collectivism..?

Reforms to the public sector focus on choice. And choice is based on individualism. So choice is the opposite of collectivism right..?

I'm not too sure.

As someone who was born not long before Thatcher came into power I have a core of individualism that i'm pretty unhappy to sweep away. I also think some of the best innovation, change, decisions, things and interesting people are out there on their own. They have not compromised. They have not changed their decision based on others. They are stubborn and obstinate.

I am still holding out for some sort of 'collective-individualism' that would marry these things. In the meantime we'll have to hold every decision about public sector reform on its own merit.. And have a watch of this..

The medicalisation of our sink estates..

Hull's unemployment rate is going to hit 15% soon. You also have 20% of the working population on incapacity benefit.
You have a large % of public sector jobs, and you have declining industries. you have depression and low education.

Getting over the dubious core cities argument (that we shouldn't prop up dying dying areas of the country any more than we should prop up dying industries), we have essentially paid these areas off to contain their problems and leave us alone.

We have offered Hull prosac and told it to keep its mouth shut. We now have cuts to benefits, services and jobs.
Wherever you put your line on personal responsibility and the nanny state - the cold turkey is going to be horrific..

We spent the last 10 years outsourcing our problems to professionals..

We spent the last 10 years outsourcing our problems to professionals in the third sector or public sector. I don't think the answer is more family intervention projects (good as they are) but mechanisms for a collective response. I also don't think we need to be too negative and there's certainly no need to demonise people. .. its time to take them back in-house and have a proper look at what society actually means.

We need an individual response to collectivism. We need to build new worlds. We need to build strong new connections in the areas where we live..
#thatisall

What can the RAC tell us about public service delivery..?

Many local authorities all over the country are in the process of changing the way they deliver public services. They only really have two options:

1. stop delivering services
2. deliver services differently

• Option 1 is libraries, youth work, neighbourhood services - stuff that isn;t statutory (its a surprising list of what is statutory, incl libraries)
• Option 2 is innovation

So what would happen if the RAC delivered free public services (like before they existed and horses broke down), and what would happen if that we taken away..?

• Would people pay a subscription for premium public services?
• What would happen if we give people choice over what they take out of the system? 
• Would we have fewer breakdowns..?

The value of relationships in co-producing & commissioning..

Local authorities are very good at seeing the value of processes. What they are less good at is seeing the value of relationships, yet the entire fabric of the social contract is based on transactional relationships.

1. When older people ask for meals on wheels - do they want food or companionship?
2. When people go to the doctor do they always want a pill, or do they want recognition? 
3. how do service users contribute to the service? do they only walk through the door when there is something wrong?
4. are there enough cracks to allow people to see ways in which they could help?

I think a resurgence of neighbourhood resilience is needed for all of this (separate post about voluntary orgs as the 4th emergency service) but it rests on a basic premise - are networks strong enough to realise this? 

Focusing on where the online and offline world meeting is quite a good metaphor for joining the old world with the new..

Nesta Creative Councils – Catching the Wave

Yesterday I read catching the wave a collation of the application to on innovative leadership through @nesta_uk’s #creativecouncil  bids..

The thing that worried me most is that 70% of local authorities who applied to the programme think they already have all the skills they need for social innovation. I wonder where they have all been hiding? Either they’ve been squashed by bureaucracy and just need freeing, or else they don’t realise they don’t have skills (Donald Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns).

A few quick things I think are really important:

1.       People in positions of power no longer have the answers.

2.       Service design needs to be done by those who use services.

3.       Even if they did have the answers, implementing themselves on behalf of service users will lead to rejection (like organ transplant rejection)

4.       They need to be asking for help from outside of their normal circles.

5.       They need to be open to suggestions that they have already considered and dismissed.

Social leadership is by definition social. I hope we hear a few more doors opening because I’ve heard very little coming from the councils that Nesta selected.

What constitutes failure in local neighbourhoods..?

We have been talking a lot about failure in the last months. There has been a sense from government that everyone is failing to live up to expectation and that we should all be doing more. In part I agree some critical reflection is needed, and a refocusing on social purpose helps us stay sharp, but I’m getting a bit worn down now.

So lets have a simple checklist on failure:

1. It is impossible to live without failure unless you live cautiously.
2. Life is not a checklist of achievements
3. Life is complicated and the ability to control it won’t get us very far
4. Imagination is needed to see how something could be different

So let’s take joy in the fact that millions of good people are doing excellent things – exactly the sort of things that government think that people should think about (but don’t realise they’re already being done).

So let’s ask people in power to accept risk and failure (such as local government).. ok?

What can the third sector learn from hack events..?

We in the third sector could really benefit from get together's on specific topics to make sure we're still doing them in the best way.

• #leedshack today was one such example. 
• Another is Mike Chitty's Leeds Child Poverty innovation camp on the 19th October 2011.

So i'm going to get on with inviting people from outside the voluntary sector to the York voluntary sector strategic forum and have an overnight hack-athon on social issues. Existing orgs would buy pizza and provide a room & broadband for £50 - it would be like the fairness commission but a proper discussion.

• We could take it further and use it to genuinely design new services with the people who use them.
• We could invite people from local government not as representatives of anything, but as human beings wishing to service the public.

York CVS's work so far with the business community shows me there needs to be much better understanding, and it needs to be built on equal footings. No one has to say that what exists right now is the best that is could possibly be, and problems are going up and capability is going down.
Anyone who wants to be part of the solution should be welcomed..? No one can do this on their own..

Clore social leadership thoughts PT2

I’ve been thinking a lot about social leadership. And I’ve begin separating the two words:

1. Leadership – Harvard business school; tips, tactic, business acumen etc. (You can add Alan Sugar, commencement speech videos by steve jobs, jk rowling or oprah, and books about moving cheese..)
2. Social  - more difficult. Towards a notion of society (a post individual notion of society – no going back to 1950s nostalgia), but also social as in shared (collaborative consumption, shared ownership and production etc).

So why is social media good but social housing is bad? I think it’s about obligation. I hate the fact that Thatcher made waiting at the bus stop a small defeat (and why local gov has to spend millions on trams to get us to ride busses).

I hate the fact we’ve been taught to view ourselves in some sort of social hierarchy (on costs of trainers, or klout score).

I think we can do something about it. In fact it leaps up as the only thing to do. And so blindingly simple, but brilliant it has to work.

• I think it’s perfectly possible to recreate leisure time with a purpose. We spend on ave 3 hours a day watching telly which neither gratifies nor does anything.
• I think the third sector can give people this - 
• Of course we can get too utilitarian about these things (everyone needs to explore pointless things) but .

Some say we had to burn the ashes of Europe in a world war before we could unify. Some say we have to push towards the extremes before we can work back. I think a new model of social interaction based on social values – call it a social contract if you will – is the only way to move on from blame. The people who are part of the problem are also part of the solution..

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement..

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Its up to the mainstream to include the excluded..

I'm not going to write about the riots, but it’s pretty clear there's a lot to think about:

• we have reached a political consensus now on how to run a modern first world country, and nothing will deviate us from that. The new politics will be red or blue but it won’t make much difference.
• Hoodies don’t vote, but retired people have a loud voice.
• Membership is at an all-time low, of political parties, of churches, of anything. We dip in and out, no-one has a hold on us.
• It’s pointless blaming other people for binge drinking (no one like to be reminded the biggest binge drinkers are over 50s right?)
• Consumerism hasn’t got us very far – not happy, not proud, not satisfied.

(btw - I have realised recently how fragile my connections are with males. i think there is something in my bonding which is not quite right - i'll have to think about this one, but it comes from being a generation of men raised by women.)

So what to do?:

• If we want to live in a society where people feel included, then we must include them.
• We have been outsourcing our social problems to specialists, or housing estates, or doctors or charities, but in fact isolating them has only made it worse.
• We want people to care about things, we have to care about them ourselves.

Concrete steps?:

• we need to create new social interaction points outside our bubbles (why not have a regular match at the park, a volunteer to coordinate and let people get on with it – you only need to set these things up once.)
• we need to involve the mainstream who feel powerless in doing something. We’ve spent too long talking.
• we need to make it easier for people to ask for help by asking for help ourselves (self-sufficiency has gone too far) by making batches saying ‘could do with a hand’ or ‘tired legs’ or on the hedge saying ‘needs haircut’
• we need to develop a feedback mechanism so that positive behaviour is reinforce and people who do something don’t feel cheapened after it (volunteering has a danger of doing this initially)

Forget politics. It’s not that it isn’t important - but it’s irrelevant to this question.

neighbourhood blogs and digital voices in York

Neighbourhood blogs and digital voices in York - a few things going on..

1.      Media Trust recently got some lottery money to do neighbourhood blogs or campaigns: http://peoplepoweredchange.org.uk/2011/05/25/big-grant-opens-up-community-news-journalism-networks  and they’re doing an event At @yorkcvs in September: http://yorkcvs.org.uk/content/does-your-group-need-marketing-advice

2.      Here’s a good presentation on the Digital inclusion strategy for York: http://prezi.com/lngy608pkgjn/technology-and-change-an-update

3.      Local TV bid from York: http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/business/news/9186757.York___s_hopes_of_having_own_TV_station_a_step_closer

co-producing social outcomes

This is a draft of some of the diagrams i am doing for the @cloresocial leadership interview next month. Let me see if i can get the papershow pen working properly..

Why would anyone want to read a 13 year olds blog..?

Marcus Romer (@MarcusRomer) 05/08/2011 22:38 After sorting my dad's funeral out, I come home and find that my 13 year old has started a blog. I then sit down read ...http://millieromer.posterous.com/

On twitter yesterday there was a very touchingly human in itself from MarcusRomer. Touching in itelf, but it got me thinking about working with voluntary orgs on communicating their mission. Many orgs, particularly small ones, simply see what they do as, well, what they do. Nothing special. mundane. boring even.

But these people from all walks of live are sat on information that is hugely valuable, to policy makers, to people who could help, to people who need to understand, to everyone. And its in the mundane that the gems happen. The case studies are all about large changes, but i prefer the small minute changes in thoughts in normal people as they realise what is happening all around us. Millie's blog had 700 views on the first night so must have touched some people. The things we take for granted changes everything. the minute we realise there is not enough money in the cash machines if we all withdraw it, or enough food in the British isles if we all go buy it, or enough police on the streets if we all decide to go looting..

So if you have a few minutes have a look at the list of York voluntary orgs on twitter, and maybe follow them to make them realise what they are doing is brilliant and important. And maybe they'll stop you every once in a while, and you'l realise that something mundane is actually quite special. That something you've overlooked hundred of times could actually be important. That something everyday could be something.... like the 13 year old's blog last night, did for me..

The Social Media Effect

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If the richest 10% are now international - why not everyone else..?

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett authors of The Spirit Level are hopefully coming to do our AGM in Sept, and are heavily involved with the Fairness Commission in York. So inequality is high on the agenda so let’s take it one step further:

Here is a map of absolute poverty internationally:

Social justice can no longer a national issue. If we take Britain alone our:

1. the relative poverty line is static (as it moves with income inequality)  and
2. prison population is static (at 0.00147%)
3. every local authority has a unactioned plan to ‘reduce the gap’.

If we internationalise our plans we would be jointly tackling more difficult trade and migration issues on an international scale. No longer would Beeston, Brent or Burnley be our problem places. They wouldn’t be in the bottom 10%, they would now be in the top 10% internationally. I wonder what they would change and what leadership they would take on social justice internationally.

So if the richest 10% are international - why not everyone else..? A academic change of perceptions could see change from unlikely sources where our leaders have been failing..?