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...)

Networking Big Society – or maybe some knowledge gardening

In my last two posts here and here I’ve written about the Government’s idea for the Big Society, which aims to ….

1. Give communities more powers
2. Encourage people to take an active role in their communities
3. Transfer power from central to local government
4. Support co-ops, mutuals, charities and social enterprises
5. Publish government data.

… 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...)

Since there’s no Big Society Big Plan, can we expect Big Process? Probably not.

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...)

There is no Big Society Big Plan – and that’s no bad thing

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...)

Social App Store gains support in the North

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...)

A invitation to help develop the Good Stuff Store

The idea of a Social Apps Store to support local social action – floated here – has gained enthusiastic support among my colleagues in the Big Society Network, where I’ve played the role of social reporter for a few week. While very welcome, this internal support wouldn’t matter much if the Store didn’t appeal more widely to those who have pioneered the use of social tech for social benefit in recent years … and those doing less shiny but more challenging work on the ground.
I’m really pleased by support so far because it seems a good example of how social reporters can operate.
Consultants are known as people who borrow your watch and tell you the time, and then walk off with the watch. Journalists are under pressure to make things just that bit more interesting than when first heard (so you may not always recognise your idea on page or on screen).  Maybe social reporting can gather pieces of conversation and ideas and present them back in ways that encourage people to say: thanks for adding … I want to help with that … now it makes sense. Being positive, joining up, making sense, helping out, as I wrote earlier. I’ve done a bit of journalism and consultancy, and this is much more satisfying. (read more...)

The Mindapples Big Treat: fruit cocktails create a Social App

Last night I dropped into a West End gallery, tripped lightly over freshly-laid turf towards a barful of delicious Courvoisier cocktails, greeted on the way by engaging young women (and men) with offers of cake, hugs, massage … and sex and intimacy conversations.
Just another PR event in the life of a socialreporter? No, it was promotion of the Mindapples mental health project … so let’s move from tab-style to (slightly) serious. (read more...)

Mapping at the Big Society Network Open Night

One experiment we tried at the recent Big Society Network Open Night was asking anyone who wanted to lead a discussion to step to the front, pitch, form a group, chat, report back.
Silence? Chaos? Conflict? No, it just worked as you can see from the videos. Well, I was pretty sure it would, because Steve Moore facilitates open space events very well, with light touch/high enthusiasm. So not really that much of an experiment.
However, another thing we tried was asking people to fill in a short questionnnaire about who they worked with, and where they thought their strengths lay in terms of skills, resources, and willingness to share.
My colleague Drew Mackie has been using this technique extensive in local projects, and it is particularly useful if you want to do some network weaving to improve connections, and to figure out the potential for doing More with More by releasing resources in the social fabric … breaking down bureaucratic barriers, merging silos etc.
About 40 of the 150 plus people present filled in the questionnaire. We explained that the input data would be confidential, but that we would map the results as an illustration. You can see the result here – click to expand. (read more...)

Building the Big Social Apps Store

Yesterday we had the first Open Night for Big Society Network, with more than 150 enthusiasts, sceptics and critical friends working through just what Big Society might mean in practice.
Was it a mask for coalition cuts on (read more...)

Building Big Society giving and doing by making it easier to listen

Update and summary: Lord Nat Wei, one of the authors of the Big Society idea and Network founder, will no longer blog about the vision. He will be working as unpaid advisor to Government. Meanwhile, many people are talking about Big Society, but finding it difficult to get to the core idea and connect with each other. The network could make a virtue of listening, and encouraging many voices.

There’s been lots of discussion around Big Society over the past couple of weeks, as you can see from my bookmarks, the Twitter stream, and this smart way of displaying content generated in many different places.

Using paper.li you can agree a hashtag (keyword with # before it) then ask people to post links (URLs) of blog items or other content in a tweet containing the hashtag. Set up paper.li to search for the tag, and it displays both the tweets and the original articles – creating your own news page refreshed daily (thanks @evangineer). (read more...)