What do people want to use their intelligence for..?

If we assume people are getting more intelligent year on year (this is disputed of course) then we are entering the most fertile mass intelligence period in history. The UK population is collectively hugely educated and arguably more equally educated, thanks to a massive middle-class thanks to globalisation, than ever before.

Which raises the question -What do people want to use their intelligence for..? I have two options:

1. To increase their earning potential (& therefore their own personal welfare)
2. To increase social justice (& therefore other peoples' welfare)

If the possibility of number two are being blocked by unfair structures and the possibility of number one gets slimmer as the western world gets comparatively poorer. If we were to realise our complete affluence, and organised structures to use it well, then we could focus on the second.

So, what kind of world do we want to use this new mass of intelligence to build ..?

What can we learn from The Fighter about behaviour change..?

You know the plot, its the same for loads of movies. Loser decides to turn his life around and has one last shot at the title. 

I was in Armley prison a few weeks ago and one of the things that stuck with me was at the average age of 'turnaround point' was 33 years old. Third sector organisation like CounterPoint do a lot of work at these pivot points. I'd also argue that things like Big Lottery Fund's PeoplePowerChange are essentially aiming at helping people reach their pivot points.

So what can we learn from The Fighter (or The Wrestler, or Rocky, or Raging Bull, or....) about behaviour change..?


Well........... It's completely at odds with our current model of social change. We currently have a system that pays professional intermediaries to look after other people. Maybe i'm being harsh but we encourage people to admit they can't cope (and therefore  need help), and we incentivise the professionals to maintain some level of need. And when the turnaround for the individual happens? Who takes the credit for this turnaround? Not the individual, but the project.

But in the films, the individual makes the change by...

    * A sudden switch on moment
    * Reaching rock bottom
    * Going against his family and friends
    * Getting a new girlfriend
    * Having someone to do it for (normally a kid)
    * Finding the one thing they're good at
    * Having a shot at the title.
    * Losing at least once on route
    * The individual has to lead the change.


So instead of worrying about the process (in which we can only ever support the individual to make the change) maybe we should worry more about the end. How about concentrating our efforts on jobs and housing for people leaving prison..?

The future of our neighbourhoods visioned..

I'm living in an area that recently got Big Local funding (£1m over 10 years) and might soon start working in another one, so its really interesting to be able to compare a professional view of people-led-change with a personal one. More on this later, but for now, here's what a successful kirkstall in leeds might look like (according to the kirkstall vision). See what you think..


View Big Local Trust in a larger map

The morning sun filters through the triple-glazed windows of Abi’s live/work building as she drinks her organic Kirkstall Apple Juice and sets her biometric wrist band to confirm she is about to start her daily jog. Out of the door she crosses Kirkstall Boulevard, taking care not to get in the way of the family who are cycling to school along one of the many designated green cyclo-paths that run through the area and into the city centre. Heading for her usual route, a 3 kilometre physio-track through the beautiful and verdant Kirkstall Valley Park, she passes the communal veggie gardens, reminding herself to pick a handful of free herbs on the way home.


Twenty minutes later she is at her compumodule, checking her Lifebook Page and starting the morning’s study session via a supraspeed web link connecting her with the local UniCollege in Abbey Grange. Today’s 
edutraining session includes a videolink conference with partner courses in Wakefield, Mumbai and Sao Paulo.


Having learnt all about bio-sensitive river regeneration techniques, she takes a short walk past the Eco-leisure Pod to the Kirkstall Korner Kafe, where she meets her friend Sanjit for lunch, dining on trout caught earlier that day in the River Aire. After lunch Abi goes to the Burley Community Hub, where she is a part-time volunteer helping active older people such as John, who she helps use the latest computer software that enables him to keep in touch with his son, a mining technician on Moonbase Ten.


After a couple of hours at The Hub, she gets back on her Biocycle and rides home through the tree-lined streets full of children playing and young people having fun doing their gardening and community sports activities in the inter-linked pocket parks. She stops off  at the Abbey Grounds, under which the former A65 road had been sunk some twenty years ago, to check on the site for her stall at the next bi-monthly Kirkstall Festival. This is the event where she and her friend Bernie, a fellow member of The Kirkstall Development Trust, sell the flowers they grow on their green roofs for charity. Abi then calls at the Ecomarket in the Kirkstall District Centre for her weekly shop. Her choice of seasonal food, nearly half of which has been produced in the Kirkstall Valley, is captured on her hand-held scanner, to be packed and delivered later by the store. They also collect her recycling at the same time. 


An elderly neighbour has told her of the days when people actually went in ‘their own cars’ to the supermarket! Abi can also scarcely believe parents even used to drive their kids to school. After dinner Abi decides to go out into the city centre, but not before listening to the daily report from her l at’s energy monitor which tells her how much electricity her apartment block has generated and sold to the Kirkstall Regional Grid today. She thought of walking into the centre, as this has long since become a very pleasant thing to do. She decides to catch the Sola Train from Kirkstall Station, after popping in to the converted St Anne’s Mill Centre for Creativity just in case her mate Katie wants to come along for a drink. After a good evening out, she catches one of the all-nite Trolley Buses home.


Abi loves living in Kirkstall. She moved here five years ago from Sheffield, having seen the place on the national news when it won a prestigious Euro Award for the most improved, sustainable and visionary neighbourhood in the country. That’s why she doesn’t mind  when her friends call her by her new nickname and is proud to occasionally be known as ‘Kirkstall Abi'..


So is it helpful to have a different life visioned, or will it turn people off with its twee vision of a possible reality..?

David Barrie: 'Finding new ways to associate'. from The Lost Lectures on Vimeo.

What would Wainwright say about private ownership in the lake district..?

I have always spent quite a bit of time in the lakes. My family have long owned a dilapidated shack with access to the south side of the lake. Since boyhood I have seen the lake stuffed full of motorboats, pleasure cruisers and canoe-laden Scouts, all enjoying themselves.
But these days I see no-one.

The houses by the side the lake have become so exclusive that they can only be owned by people who are too busy to go there. Either that or they sit on someones' property portfolio as a "growth asset".

The  third most popular tourist destination in England are the pleasure cruisers who ply the lake. And all the millions of tourists on these boats see is the shoreline of these footballers wives' mansions. Millions of photographs return to all corners of the globe with title like 'Wordsworth's lakes' or Wainwright's view' and all the photographs actually show are empty temples to money.

I am not jealous of other people's successes, I just wish that houses in impossibly privileged locations were used a bit more. I'm sure the Scouts would make the most of the opportunity of a place to go for some solace..

Anyway I think that between private ownership and public access lies something - and I am thinking about how i might put some of those principles into practice.

I am, with a few other people, buying a few square feet of lakeland access. You could almost touch both sides of it with your arms outstretched but i means you could keep a boat there. The idea is to put it into Trust (so that i cannot be sold) but that we keep the access relatively open. They'll be a google-docs calendar of availability, and people will have to book in, but anyone is welcome to use it. I want to be able to control what happens to it (by putting it into trust so it can't be sold) but i want anyone to be able to use it.

This absolutely seems to be the future of public service. I don't care who owns it, but i want access. I don't want to own my local swimming pool, but i want a say in its running. I care less about private ownership, and more about private use..

Google map of voluntary orgs in york..

(I'm proud of getting this done this last year - and thanks to John Haw who actually did it..)

View Voluntary organisations in york in a larger map