New UK initiative for web-enabled social innovation starts in the pub

A new UK initiative for web-enabled social innovation was born yesterday evening in the time honoured way: some inspiration from our friends in the US, mixed with beer and sandwiches in the upstairs room of a London pub.

The result was a decision to set up Netsquared in the UK, loosely based on the US Netsquared conference and community, which has now led to a host of meetups and other activities through which geeks and activists find common cause and do good stuff for social benefit.

As I wrote earlier, there has been quite a bit of activity in recent months in the UK on social media for nonprofits. Last night's event stemmed from Dan McQuillan's ideas for a European Netsquared, and matching enthusiasm from the chief executive of the Charity Technology Trust William Hoyle, who had also been to the States and met the N2 folk.
William took Dan's earlier call to action one step further by offering us free refreshments in the Newham Arms, Fitzrovia. Among familiar faces were bloggers Nick Booth, Steve Bridger, Steve Moore,  Michael Ambjorn, Paul Miller and Simon Berry - remarkably fresh after his recent 1230-mile ride. So no shortage of ideas. We talked about organisating an event, running competitions to stimulate innovative projects, informal meetups and much more.
After a futile attempt to capture conversation in the hubbub of the room, I pulled William off to the pub kitchen, where he provided a very coherent summary.

Click To Play or view here

The focus of discussion  was not just about how nonprofits could use Web 2.0: in fact Dan - who has recently left an international charity - went so far as to say "the Third Sector is broken" ... I think. I'm sure he'll correct me if that's an overstatement.  While some people felt social media could help in fixing, others of us were more interested in the new set of values and ways of doing things bubbling up around social media, unbounded by historic notions of public, private and nonprofit sectors. We talked about whether the focus should be on enabling organisations, supporting causes, promoting new methods and processes of innovation. Hopefully all of them.
The gender-balance was a bit better than my initial list of bloggers suggests. I'm looking forward to finding more about Nathalie McDermott's Onroadmedia - a social enterprise that "delivers training in podcasting, video blogging and social networks to marginalised groups and organisations so that they can have their say about the issues at the heart of their communities", but there's some way to go on balance. Why is it different in the US - where Beth Kanter, Michele Martin, Britt Bravo - to mention only a few - do such wonderful stuff? Maybe Devon-based Laura Whitehead, who wrote recently on this, would have been along if she were in town. (Which raises another point ... how not to be London-centric. We came around to "N2 in the UK" as a working name - a sort of initial convening brand - to suggest N2-ish activities could pop up anywhere in the UK and and hopefully elsewhere in Europe. Just like the Web - these days people and organisations are seldom just in one place.)
Notwithstanding the desire not to be too London, there was a feeling that this is a hot place for technology innovation at the moment. Paul Miller was lyrical about the experience of the School of Everything crew at Seedcamp. Steve Moore reckoned we could stage something next year in London to equal or better the Reboot or Lift conferences.
I got the feeling that N2 in the UK has legs ... not just because of the ideas developed, but because of the style and spirit emerging from those present ... open, generous, and unbounded. William's beer and sandwiches helped a lot. I particularly liked the fact that he chose the Newman Arms because that was where, some years back, he met his wife when she was supporting her studies by working behind the bar. A bit of real life rooting.
When I left, discussion about next steps was focussed around what the Facebook group will be called. I'll post an update ... but if you are in FB with any friends in the field, I've little doubt you'll get an invite. Do find me there. Otherwise I'm sure William would be glad to hear from you at CTT. There's also an earlier n2eu wiki with more background on Dan's ideas, and a mailing list.
Update: There's now a Facebook group Netsquared - Newman Arms

Technorati Tags: innovation, n2eu, n2uk, netsquared, nptechuk

Comments

[Laura Whitehead]

Hi David, this is great news, and sorry could not have been there. I really would like to be involved in this and fully support it's development. Keep me in the loop with developments! I really feel this is what we need to progress further over here.

[Beth Kanter]

I'm so excited! Thanks for the video blog post too - it's almost like being there.

[David Wilcox]

Beth - knew you would spread the word! Relying on you for more innovative US-UK-and other connections

[Paul Webster]

As the social web knows no boundries i'm sure this can be carried around the country.
This community of UK based bloggers is connecting, but randomly by email, twitter and facebook wall posts. Tags and groups will help bring this together. I've been using nptechuk (kinda nice ring to it - credit to Beth!).
Just been adding an event to Upcoming.org, low level of interest in the UK - huge amount in the US!
and for a while will help posk ainformallyWhat is needed is on online tag
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[David Wilcox]

Thanks Paul - forgot nptechuk and now added that. Maybe connecting conversations is one of the first things N2 UK could look at.

[Nick Temple]

Hi David - sorry to have missed this. Nathalie M is an SSE Fellow, and is doing some great work in this field. Also worth mentioning is another SSE Fellow, Jude Habib, at Sounddelivery.co.uk Also helps with your gender balance....

Aside from that, there's much going on in the social entrepreneurship and enterprise field in this area....

[Simon Berry]

A crucial thing to emerge for me, that was mentioned by several people last night, was the need for an event to attract all the key players (not just those of us who are already excited about this stuff). We want revolution - completely new models and ways of doing things and new people - but we also need evolution. So we need the CEOs, the Trustees etc as well. The huge monolithic 3rd sector structures that we have, need to be shown how this new world of technology can help them transform into more effective engines of change. Thinks . . . . isn't this similar to what IBM (and the likes in the private sector) had to do to remain relevant 2 or 3 decades ago?

[David Wilcox]

There's now a Facebook group Netsquared - Newman Arms

[Britt Bravo]

Great write up! Would it be helpful to have a UK NetSquared Meetup group:
http://netsquared.meetup.com/

Let me know.

[David Wilcox]

Thanks Britt, we talked a bit around that. How would it work?

[Nick Booth]

As for tags I also use nptechuk and have just started using net2uk. As with all tags they work if they catch on.

[Christian Kreutz]

Thanks for this update and the promising first steps. However I wonder whether this is going to be an UK or an European initiative? :-) Best regards Christian

[David Wilcox]

Hi Christian - I felt there was a lot of interest and enthusiasm for making this European, but at the same time people didn't want to be presumptuous by saying "we are N2eu". Plenty of talking to be done...

[Gregoire Japiot]

What a great start! Bravo!
I'm so impatient to participate in the same kind of initiative in France.

[David Wilcox]

Thanks Gregoire - you should see some activity in the FB group soon. Look forward to some European collaborations