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Evolving Big Society – summary and next ideas
Here’s a catch-up on the posts I’ve written over the past few days about Big Society, with a few more thoughts on networking and knowledge ecologies. All posts on the topic are here.
As a reminder, the Big Society idea, launched pre-election by the Conservatives and now a centrepiece of coalition Government (read more...)
Highlight
Recent posts [Read more...]
- Give communities more powers
- Encourage people to take an active role in their communities
- Transfer power from central to local government
- Support co-ops, mutuals, charities and social enterprises
- Publish government data.
- The Young Foundation does brilliant work, and there's lots to interest in their latest The End of Regeneration? Small Estates toolkit. It's highly relevant when the Conservatives are promoting their Big Society volunteering and social enterprise approach to tackle some of the issues identified here ... so let's share good ideas and action plans based on in-depth research on three estates. It's a practical scenario against which to test Tory and other policy proposals, and develop real howtos. BUT - the "toolkit" is just a downloadable pdf with standard copyright, which means it is difficult to link and quote, and cannot be reworked. Not the most useful tool in the box. Another case of communication policy blocking the application of good work for social innovation. Or have I missed something? #
- We always hoped that Social by Social would be a book that could be chunked up and re-written for different audiences interested in social tech for social benefit - and now co-author Andy Gibson has done a great job for local government.Local by Social: how local authorities can use social media to achieve more with less was commissioned by IDeA and NESTA. As Ingrid Koehler writes at our companion site - socialbysocial.net - "this document does provide a compelling argument for how social media can be used as a tool (and not as an end in itself) to support engagement, democracy, improved services and perhaps even especially efficiency."There's more details here on the IDeA site, with additional links.If you are looking for further front-line insights on Web 2.0 for customer service in local authorities, see the latest excellent presentation from Michele Ide-Smith. #
- Kevin Harris offers a strong challenge to the approach RSA is adopting in it's Citizen Power project in Peterborough, arguing it is the latest example from the empowerment industry of appropriating ideas of citizen action to wonkdom. Prestige launch at London HQ set the tone this month ... citizens get their chance in May, when a more open style is promised. I'm hopeful. #
- Members of the 4000-strong Ning-based network Library 2.0 recently received this message: "Unless I hear a huge outcry over the next 24 hours, I will shut down this group effective Thursday evening , Feb. 25. Most people trying to join are spammers or just seeing what they can get into. I do not want to transfer the ownership of this group to anyone else. There have only been a few blog posts since the first of the year and hardly any discussions. The groups appear to be moribund as well". Is this another indication that the Summer of Social Media Love is a fading memory? See also Will Social Media Eat Itself? Some support for keeping Library 2.0, so maybe it's just a rather robust way of engaging with the members. However, if the Ning Creator wants to close it down, there's nothing the members can do. #
- Daves Briggs reflects on the recent ukgovcamp unconference he organised, and the need to move beyond conversation: "What we seem to lack is an ecosystem of ideas in public services. Discussions about new ways of doing things, how to change the way things are, how ideas get progressed into prototypes and then into actual delivered services or ways of working". #
In my last two posts here and here I’ve written about the Government’s idea for the Big Society, which aims to ….
… and suggested that while there is a lot now underway, there is no Big Plan and it is also unlikely that we will see a Big Process aimed at creating any shared vision for what’s needed to move from aspiration to achievement.
I haven’t been writing particularly critically – not just because I’m working part-time for the Big Society Network. For the best of Big Society ideas to succeed they have to be filled out and realised bottom-up, not through Government-orchestrated programmes. (read more...)
My last post There is no Big Society Big Plan – and that’s no bad thing attracted some comments and even more tweets – thanks everyone. However it did leave things up in the air, with some people saying let’s keep things unorganised, and others suggesting that’s how the less-influential lose out.
I had some ideas which I didn’t put into the post: it was long enough already, and I wasn’t quite sure which way to go.
Fortunately I then picked up on this excellently- argued post via @HelenLindop on Twitter from Louie Gardiner: Big Society – People Power. (read more...)
All reporting – even the making-sense, joining-up, helping-out social reporting type – should have some element of disclosure to keep it interesting. So here’s a secret about Big Society, on which I have written a lot recently. Remember, it was the cornerstone of the Conservative election manifesto, has been re-launched several times by David Cameron, and figures in the programmes of government departments. But …
There is no Big Society Big Plan, and no-one is in charge.
Unfortunately, in the journalistic sense, it’s not much of story. For that you need a “how shocking” quote in the second paragraph, and someone to blame in the third.
The fact that Big Society is somewhat under-organised may be surprising to those experienced in the ways of the previous administration, where programmes were driven, targetted, promoted, logo-ed and of course funded. But in current circumstances having a nonorg nonprogramme is no bad thing. I’ll quote you a RSA pamphlet later to prove it. (read more...)
Earlier this week Big Society in the North launched with an open event in Sheffield, and as I expected it was a great opportunity to test some ideas developed mainly in London against harder local realities – including the Social App Store. The bsitnorth group had taken the DIY philosophy of Big Society and decided they would explore the challenges and develop opportunities without waiting for any more from Whitehall.
Lucy Windmill of Amplified has done a terrific job of live blogging the event, and pulling together tweets and videos here. Organisers Julian Dobson and John Popham have blogged thoughts here and here. (read more...)
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