I’m surprised that the NESTA Neighbourhood Challenge, to be launched on Tuesday, hasn’t attracted more attention – since it promises Big Society funding for local areas.
I don’t have more information than that in the invite (below), but it looks like a programme in which areas will be invited to compete for funding for Big Society initiatives. Shades of Michael Heseltine’s City Challenge programme of 1991? I would be very surprised if this initiative were not planned in No 10.
If so, it looks like a smart move on the part of the government, because not only will it benefit the ten areas who get the funds, but also do something for the Big Society “brand”.
Talking the other day to an academic with a long memory of government support for community engagement, we discussed how to get good publicity and positive word-of-mouth mentions when you don’t have big marketing budgets. His answer: hand out small amounts of money, and make it competitive so people have to be polite about the process if they are to benefit. Be nice about people who are already doing the sort of thing you want to see happen. Help people tell good stories.
I’m not being cynical here: it makes a lot of sense to pilot new approaches, and learn from those before releasing further funds.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA, trails tomorrow’s Comprehensive Spending Review (aka What’s Going to be Cut) with a hint that local authorities will get less money but more freedom to spend it.
He argues that amidst the news of cuts there should be mention of the Big Society, because it offers far more than the easily-caricatured idea of volunteers stepping in to provide cut-back public services.
Big Society is relevant at a time of austerity because it can, potentially, help us think about releasing assets of three types: in the individual, the community, and the organisation. read more »
I’m really enjoying Paul Twivy’s book Be Your Own Politician, which champions social action and citizen engagement, informed by his insider knowledge of how challenging it is to promote and negotiate support for that within the political establishment and Whitehall.
Paul recounts how he succeeded through work with Comic Relief, Timebanking, Change the World for a Fiver, and the Big Lunch, among much else – but not so much with the Big Society Network and Your Square Mile. His chapter on how this unwound is fascinating, and generally confirms my understanding as an independent observer and also paid-for socialreporter for the Network at one stage. Here’s the Big Society Wikipedia entry.
Paul recounts the point at which the change of leadership of the Network, from his initial role to that of Steve Moore, emerged through Steve promoting the fact in his bio for a TEDx event in Athens in November 2010. I picked up the bio reference – without any briefing from Steve – and blogged a piece “Steve Moore leads new Big Society Innovation Platform“.
I aimed to provide people with an even-handed update on Big Society developments, because they were so difficult to come by, and declared I’d known Steve for a some years and worked directly for him and then the Network. I explain that Paul had worked hard on developing Your Square Mile, and this was due to launch soon.
Unfortunately Steve had jumped ahead of any official announcement, and Paul recounts in his book the difficulty and embarrassment this caused. (I didn’t appreciate until now that Steve had used Paul’s slides for his talk). May I offer a retrospective apology for my part in the upset? I probably should have checked, since I had worked for the Network, and owed it more than a purely journalistic relationship.
On the other hand, there was considerable public interest in Big Society and the Network, and I think it’s fair to say I was one of very few people trying to get behind the politics and provide a running account. I was frustrated by the lack of briefing – although reading Paul’s account, I can now better understand the reason for that. It wasn’t an open process.
Anyway, you can read that particular blog post here, and judge its tone yourself. The tag cloud on this blog – right sidebar – shows that that over the years I’ve written more about Big Society, Big Society Network, and Your Square Mile than most topics, starting with a report of the launch. That includes a video interview with Paul and Nat Wei, as well as David Cameron’s remarks. I subsequently joined the Your Square Mile mutual, reported the launch, including an interview with Paul.
I’ll leave the retrospection at that for now, although it would be interesting to reflect on what Your Square Mile was trying to achieve, and whether there are lessons for what’s now needed for local social action, blending digital and non-digital methods. There may be some wider value in the work I’ve been doing with Drew Mackie on Living Well in the Digital Age, and the idea of local Living Labs. Here’s some thinking on operating systems and social apps, connecting local frameworks with the DCLG Grey Cells model.
The story about closure of the Local Government Association’s Knowledge Hub – which I covered here – has gathered momentum over the past week, with various behind-the-scenes moves to keep it going or develop an alternative, and a gathering of some members of the former advisory group planned this week.
There has been extensive tweeting and blogging, and the Knowledge Hub team of online managers and facilitators have again shown the value of their role by summarising discussion so far on the value of the hub, how it makes a difference, the risks of closing, and importance for local government of enabling collaboration online. Here’s their gathering up of ideas for the future action.
Suggestions for future action/use
Increase the market base for Knowledge Hub and “sell” it to other parts of the Public Sector: Health, Police / Criminal Justice, Civil Service, LEPs etc.
Reduce the cost by doing it more cheaply either by expecting the maintenance etc to be done more productively and / or reduce some of the functionality. What are the most used parts?
Would there be some way of paying a subscription to try to keep it going or would we simply not be able to afford it?
I’m currently gauging the interest in having a F2F meeting with the original KHub Advisory Group in order to solicit ideas that can be consolidated into a more formal response.
Go back to CoP, alternative funding (e.g. Local Authorities contribute, advertising), alternative hosting/support (e.g. Google)…..
I would have thought that to let the Hub run without technical development would be an acceptable compromise
Look at the whole range of options both in terms of funding and alternative platforms and then get users to vote (not sure, can we use the ‘Ideas’ section for this?)
A week ago I think the Hub team were rather overtaken by events when news of the closure leaked, and initially there was no provision on site for discussion – hence the tweets and off-site blogging. There is now a discussion group on the hub about it’s future. I’ve captured some of last week’s Twitter discussion in a Storify here.
In writing about the Knowledge Hub closure I revisited the challenge of networking civil society … that is, how to help voluntary and community organisations, and volunteers, who are often working closely with local government, to share their experience and learn from each other.
The government’s Big Society policies rather depended on this to be effective, but in the event spending cuts led to the reduction rather than expansion of networking support. We don’t hear hear much of BS except as awards, and helpful though those are for groups they aren’t a substitute.
The Knowledge Hub is mainly limited to local government. If the aim locally is more cross-sector collaboration, shouldn’t this be reflected nationally?
I’m not necessarily suggesting that we need one big all-purpose networking platform. In my earlier piece I also picked up on Steve Dale’s suggestions of a different sort of social ecology architecture that blends specialist platforms with Twitter, Google Plus and other networks. Steve is the original designer of the Knowledge Hub, and as he explains here and here that sort of integration was envisaged in the Hub before elements were cut by LGA.
Anyway, we are where we are: with everyone agreeing that knowledge sharing and collaboration is very important particularly in hard times, but government local or national failing to support the infrastructure needed to achieve that … or even facilitate a sensible discussion on what’s needed. Who might do that?
Last time I wrote:
Meanwhile I have been exploring alternatives to the knowledge hub model in recent posts, prompted by ideas for a sort of civic Facebook or similar system developed by the new Lobbi initiative. The original vision there has been for a system to connect politicians, officials and citizens to tackle local issues and revive local politics. I love the enthusiasm behind the idea … but if a big outfit like LGA can’t make a knowledge hub work with fairly digitally savvy professional users, with shared culture and practises, is it realistic to think it possible to do something big with a far more diverse set of users?
I did write in an earlier post that I thought whatever challenges Lobbi faced in developing a platform, it could have an important role in acting as a convenor and catalyst for a wider movement for social technology for social impact, linking politics and local social action. Maybe it’s time for a get-together around the new architectures, roles and skills needed to meet The Challenge of Networking Civil Society, as I wrote a year back. It’s not getting easier.
Unfortunately I can’t follow up with a report that Lobbi is likely to step in here. The Linkedin group for a Lobbi Squad of supporters is very quiet, and although I attended an advisory group a couple of weeks ago I don’t know whether our suggestions are being taken up. As I reported after that meeting, there was more support for enabling change agents than building a sort of civic Facebook … but a Lobbi platform may still be in favour. I’ll let you know if I hear more.
You’ll see from a second Storify that I created on Networking Civil Society revisited that quite a few people active and well connected in the field joined in discussion on Twitter … among them Dave Briggs, Shirley Ayres, John Popham, Catherine Howe, Cormac Russell and also Karl Wilding who I should congratulate on his appointment as NCVO director of public policy.
Karl and Megan Griffith Grey brought a group of us together in the early days of social media for some very creative discussions leading to a number of useful publications. I wonder if NCVO could offer a room for some more structured discussion on today’s challenges – perhaps with Community Development Foundation? That would help reflect the interests both large and smaller organisations, as well as the enthusiasm of the free agents and connectors.
Earlier this week Lobbi, a new initiative promoting citizen engagement and action through social media, hosted a Downloading Democracy event in London. You can that see that it was a well-informed and lively affair from Mick Fealty’s excellent report, the live stream recording and Storify from John Popham.
As well as convening the event, Lobbi is developing a new online platform, outlined in this interview with Mick by the founder and initial funder of Lobbi, Hussain “Hoz” Shafiei.
As he explains on his Linkedin profile, and the interview, Hoz is “an Iranian by blood an Arab by birth and an Englishman by upbringing” with a passion to revive UK politics with an demonstration of what might also make a difference to other nations and cultures.
Hoz writes:
I returned to the UK in 2011 and decided to no longer work in a commercial industry and started on my journey to enhance global democracy. It is for this reason that I started Lobbi a project that will allow a real time connection between the electorate and their elected representatives….
Lobbi is an innovative and unique method of engaging the electorate to become re-enthused and involved with politics on a long-term basis. This is created through the ever-growing power of social media, with a Facebook/Twitter-esque interactive forum and information portal.
Lobbi provides the voting public with the means to discover current issues that affect them – instantly – via their smart phone, tablet or computer. In addition, they can get their own views across in the same way as they’d post on Facebook or Twitter. But more than this, it’s a two-way street, as politicians and elected representatives also interact, giving them a vital link to the public mood on a ‘real-time’ basis.
In short, Lobbi brings politics into the 21st century – and about time too…
You might ask, what’s new? I’ll come to that … but first, what’s not.
You can find a free event most months in London about how we need to revive democracy, and fairly frequent discussion of the role of the Internet.
What’s certain is that we have plenty of online spaces for general campaigning, and specific systems for civic engagement, whether developed for citizens by mySociety or agencies like Delib.
Consumer Focus has sponsored a Digital Engagement Cookbook with 68 recipes, and Helpful Technology offers a Digital Engagement Guide of practical help and ideas. For a wider perspective, just look at the programme for Personal Democracy Forum in New York next month. For advice on what’s worked or not, check in with Steven Clift who coined the term e-democracy in 1994 and has been promoting it globally ever since.
Steven is particularly informative on the hard slog of achieving an inclusive approach, which may come more by knocking on doors and using email lists than new social tech functions.
So how might Lobbi make a difference? At this stage I should declare an interest, because I’ve been engaged in discussions on a Lobbi Linkedin group over the past few months, and also invited to join a smaller group next week to help inform strategy. I’ve worked with Steve Moore, who is leading Lobbi development, on a number of projects, including in the early days of Big Society Network.
Steve is now developing Britain’s Personal Best (BPB) “which convenes thousands of organisations and millions of people to achieve a personal accomplishment over the course of one weekend each year”. He’s a man with the ability to carry though a big idea.
I don’t know what the Lobbi strategy will be. That depends in part on discussion next week. As Hoz indicates, a mobile-friendly system is under development that could, potentially, connect elected representatives in an area with citizens there, enable reporting of local problems to agencies, and encourage neighbour-to-neighbour cooperation. However, old hands in this field will warn that tech doesn’t do it alone.
Firstly, just build it … and they probably won’t come. Why should citizens embrace a new system if they are happy with Facebook and its scope to create groups, pages and networks? Why should politicians and officials engage in a system that may not integrate with the ones they already have in-house?
Secondly, local politics and community action requires a blend of online and offline activity. That’s not just because a third of people may not be online – a point made by Chi Onwurah MP at this week’s event. Or that, in my experience, relatively few community activists are enthusiastic online activists. It’s also that getting things done, once you go beyond Clicktivism, involves building new relationships and trust, working through ideas and options, and making decisions in complex situations. Online isn’t enough for that.
Thirdly, if you do manage to get a lot of people online in the same place, you need to put a lot of effort into facilitation and site management. That’s a skilled operation.
The more ambitious you are, the more the costs and management issues increase. Where will the revenue come from, not just to manage and develop systems, but to fund the offline activity?
I suspect that in further discussions to refine Lobbi, those experienced in the field will suggest either focusing on one activity that current platforms and programmes are not offering – and do that really well. Or aim to connect some of the very disparate online activities currently underway. And to be agile – try stuff out small scale, revise and redevelop.
My hunch is that given Hoz’s passion, combined with Steve’s contacts and convening skills, Lobbi might do well by aiming to be as much a movement and community as a new platform. What was very evident at the Downloading Democracy event was the number of people who’ve been around the scene in the last six or seven years welcoming the chance to meet up for a chat. After a burst of activity in 2007-09, and the failed hopes for Big Society, we’ve rather lacked the social spaces to bring together social techies, community activists, new-style democracy advocates … well, forget the labels, I mean people who want to do good stuff locally using a mix of methods new and old.
At local level, there’s general accord that it makes sense – particularly in hard times – to go for an approach that makes as much as you can from the strengths of local people, projects, and buildings before developing new initiatives from scratch and seeking funds that might otherwise support existing initiatives. Map existing assets and networks, and concentrate on community building. Social technology can help in that process, as I’ve explored here and here.
Maybe there’s a couple of new angles for Lobbi: one focused, one more open.
First, if looking for a niche, consider focusing on how to digitally enable the enablers who help build communities. What help do they need in the personal use of technology, how can they help others, how can they enable their organisations. Go person-centric.
Second, take an asset-based approach nationally. Map who is doing what in this first, and aim to build connections both personal and technical. Use that knowledge both to advise and build kits for the enablers, and to create a strong community and movement for technology-enabled social action.
Hoz and Steve have been generous in bearing with the challenges that I and others have raised during earlier discussion, welcomed new ideas and connections, and remained determined to press ahead. With that sort of spirit, Lobbi could be a catalyst for a fresh approach to politics and local action.
As Mick Fealty puts it more eloquently in his report:
There’s a term in evolutionary biology called punctuated equilibrium which suits the uncertain times we are living in. The gist is that big changes in living organisms largely occur in short episodic bursts when their external environment undergoes some form of drastic change. In such terms, the current multiple crises in democracy is being driven by sudden and rapid technological advances in human communication.
The resulting uncertainty is a necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories and practices for how we might functionally respond, both as collectives (nations, communities, sharers of a global environment) and individuals (politicians, priests and citizens). None of us really know where any of this is taking us, though we can see and feel seriousness of the deficits that arise as a result of the disruption of ‘business as usual’. There are no road maps.
When life isn’t business as usual, we need people like Hoz and Steve. If only to get me blogging about this stuff again.
A couple of commentators followed through, with Ruth Porter in the Telegraph on Building a Big Society from the bottom up (we need a Smaller State), and Janet Morrison in the Guardian Lose the egos and collaborate (charities must live up to their values). Each interesting, if predictably aimed at respective core audiences.
Urban Forum produced one of their concise and readable briefings, this time by Caitlin McMullin on the Localism Act.
This post isn’t an attempt at a comprehensive round-up, and my focus here is less on the substance of the reports and seminar than on the means of communicating the Big Society idea/project/initiative/brand … whatever it is. Previous posts here, including how the public call to action side of it has faded, while policies like Localism and Open Public Services are changing the framework by which government shifts the balance between what they do, and what we are expected to do for ourselves.
What struck me about the re-emerging Big Society debate was how distant it was from the way that people actually talk about their local community, and do things for mutual benefit (unless they are paid community development workers, in which case they naturally pay a lot more attention to diminishing career prospects, and are rightly concerned about policy developments).
I caught a terrific dose of community optimism last Saturday, when I went to an event in south London, celebrating the I Love Thornton Heath project. I’ve blogged about it here, as part of the work I’m doing with John Popham and Drew Mackie for the Big Lottery Fund’s People Powered Change.
As you’ll see from the post and videos it was all about the stories people want to tell each other about their neighbourhoods, and the scope for helping each other that comes from that. I’m sure it would have gladdened David Cameron’s heart, and that of Ministers like Francis Maude and Nick Hurd, responsible for Big Society … but I don’t think I heard the words once. (Nor did we hear much about the riots, which happened up the road: the starting point was strengths, rather than problems, although these were acknowledged).
The response from Cabinet Office, quoted by the Guardian, to the select committee report which claimed people didn’t understand Big Society, and that concerted action was needed, was:
Programmes such as Community Organisers, Community First and National Citizen Service will help stimulate more social action by bringing people together in the communities they live in to solve problems and make the most of opportunities and assets. And there is a clear plan of how government will support this. The Localism Bill give power back to local communities, while the Open Public Services White Paper will empower individuals by giving them choice over services and empower neighbourhoods to take greater control over local services. In addition the Cabinet Office business plan sets out a clear set of objectives for the Office for Civil Society.
I suspect that the response from people like those that I met in Thornton Heath might be something to the effect that we’ve being doing what you call Big Society for years, but we can’t quite see how the policies and programmes that you are talking about will make a difference. Not that they won’t – but it isn’t clear. We just don’t understand.
I hope I’m not putting hypothetic words into people’s mouths: I’m just connecting the conversations I had last Saturday with one I had with Eileen Conn at the recent People Powered Change workshop.
Eileen suggests that the way that informal community groups operate, with no paid staff, is fundamentally different from the more conventionally managed operations of funded voluntary organisations (and public services, of course). The groups work through horizontal person-to-person networks, while organisations operate vertically and hierarchically. Taking an analogy from physics, one is matter, one is more like energy waves. Thinking about joining bottom-up and top-down misses the complexity of the social ecosystem.
If you accept Eileen’s analysis, it goes a long way towards explaining why Big Society – as expressed by Cabinet Office – doesn’t play out on the ground. It’s not just a matter of “something invented by the Tories” or too tied up with the cuts: it is just from another planet.
So how can we develop some common understanding, between Government, central and local, other public services, voluntary bodies and community groups? I think there’s broad agreement – certainly evident at the seminar – that we need a mix of all of these.
Tessy Britton’s Social Spaces project has a game that provides a way of playing the issues through – and like Tessy and her collaborators I find that games are a great way to create spaces within which people from different backgrounds can have useful conversations (here’s one Drew Mackie and I ran about community spaces).
In Tessy’s game – described here – people sort through a collection of 100 skills that are printed on cards, and consider:
skills that the group can do
skills that their friends can do
skills that to their knowledge neither they nor their friends can do
My experience of the game is that people find that there are a lot more cards in the first set than they might expect. Tessy reports:
“Through workshopping with over 1800 people in the last 14 months we have discovered that this activity, but some miracle, did exactly what we hoped it would.
Without exception everyone enjoys this game – people always laugh and joke their way through the game which takes about 10-15 minutes – we have even had frequent demonstrations of ‘sitting in the lotus’ position.
It is informal and people interact in light ways that help them get to know one another better.
Of the 100 activities a group of 4 or more will be able to do, or have a friend do, over 90% of the skills. The percentage between how much an individual group can do themselves varies on size of group, but generally speaking most skills can be done in the community.
It does make people feel capable – we have frequently had groups spontaneously applaud themselves at their collective cleverness.
It genuinely surprises them how much can be done around the table – and through this are also blown away considering how much skill is lying dormant in the community.”
Tessy adds you can buy a set of cards on the Social Spaces Shop – “BUT before you do, please be aware that you will be able to request a free PDF of the Social Spaces Skills Game in the new year, which we are making available free for community’s use via a Creative Commons [Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs] licence”.
I think that this gives us one clue to the challenge of how to help people understand and build Big Society (or whatever you choose to call the good stuff people do in their community). Create an open sourced store of games and other methods. I’ve previously called that a social app store.
Another very promising approach is emerging over on the Our Society site, where Lorna Prescott is inviting people to join development of a guide to Our Society. Lorna has picked up on a rather theoretical framework I developed back in January, and wants to assemble practical ideas and test them through the reality of life in Dudley. If people in other communities join in, the guide/store could evolve quite fast. I’m sure if we applied Tessy’s game strategically, we would find that we have all of the ingredients (to shift the metaphor to that used in the Transition Network Companion).
I’m planning to shift more of my blogging towards understanding what local people and groups need to develop our/big/good society. Bottom up? Grassroots? Energy-led? People-powered? Oh dear, I can see language is going to be a problem. What would you say?
Update
Excellent curation of tweets from the seminar, using storify.com, from Roxanne Persaud
I don’t know whether my modest promotion of the Big Society Awards last May made the slightest difference, but the Office for Civil Society were kind enough to write with thanks a few days ago, saying 370 nominations were received, and it is time for another round. Would I spread the word again?
The awards focus on promoting social action, empowering communities, and opening up public services. They are open to individuals, groups and organisations. read more »
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I’m puzzled by the recommendation for a “central information hub for community activists” from the Government’s Champion for Active Safer Communities, Baroness Newlove. Her report on Our vision for safe and active communities: Government Progress Update, has an introduction from David Cameron, and this as its first priority:
Creating an online ‘home’ for community activism. Building on existing online services, these easy to find and simple to use ‘hubs’ will provide community activist ‘starter kits’, together with useful links, contact details, up-to-date funding information and the ability to recruit potential volunteers online.
I’m sure that Baroness Newlove has good evidence of a demand for information from her work in local communities in recent months – so, right problem. What’s puzzling in a Government announcement is that it was only last year that Mr Cameron launched Big Society Network and Your Square Mile as a solution. You can see the video here. read more »
If your community-benefit project would itself benefit from some endorsement from the Prime Minister, there’s a couple of days before the next round of submissions for Big Society Awards.
If, in addition, yours is a digitally-enabled project, you might have a good chance of being featured on the No 10 web site as one of 12 projects chosen each quarter, and getting an invite to a reception with David Cameron. Full details here including the nomination form.
Of course, you might say “wouldn’t touch it with a virtual barge pole” … and I share with others reservations about Big Society as brand and the many contradictions in policy it embodies, while promoting citizen-led action. Past musings here on various things Big Society-related.
However, those who have been to receptions for award winners report genuine, joyful enthusiasm, and about 500 submissions have been received since the awards launched last November. Are the activists being co-opted for political purpose? I think it is up to them, and would like to see the awards as one small way to make direct connection between the very London-centric nature of Big Society promotion and what’s happening on the ground. read more »
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Opinion surveys and a report from ACEVO – which represents the chief executives of voluntary organisations – have led to a fresh round of stories about how Big Society is doomed, the government must try harder, no-one understands it, and more seriously that BS policies will increase inequality.
There’s clearly substance in all the stories, although some are more negative than the tone of the ACEVO report (Word doc) which “embraces the Big Society as an agenda” while calling on the Government to “fill in the blanks” on contributions from banks, support for deprived communities … and also improve communication and leadership.
However, I think that the way which we can best understand Big Society is changing. (Warning: mixed metaphors follow). read more »
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