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...)
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...)
… where I’m telling stories about web-enabled social innovation, blending online and offline facilitation, promoting collaboration across boundaries. How it started >.
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