The long journey from conversation to ideas to action
The first meeting of OpenRSA last week went really well, and the 20 or so people who came are now reflecting on where next in the process of helping re-invent the RSA from the outside in as well as the inside out. We were reminded again that conversations and ideas are fairly easy ... moving to action is more difficult. I'm sure that will be the challenge when 250 of the RSA members (known as Fellows) get together on November 22 for a bigger official event.
Anyway, we've made a good start.
Our initial discussions confirmed the role of the RSA as a convening place for people and ideas, with a particularly strength in crossing disciplines and public, private and non-profit sectors. As you can see here, one of the groups called that an "intellectual sharecycle". Our photogallery shows some of the other flipcharts, and reflections on how our first gathering together in a Facebook group has worked.
My conclusions are that it is pretty easy to get people into an FB group (more than 300), and to show interest in an event (maybe 80) but signing up and paying a small fee (£15) cuts that down (about 20). Great buzz at the event, and in the pub afterwards ... but even fewer people will then contribute to discussion. Is that just the one percent rule kicking in again:
It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.
In practice I expect a lot more activity to flourish, than this suggests. We ended up talking about some big issues (e.g. tackling social cohesion in cities) in pursuit of chief executive Matthew Taylor vision of a network for civic innovation. It dawned pretty quickly that it takes more than a few hours to work through the role of staff, funders, volunteer members, and other organisations in any new project. I think that the conversations we had last week will lead to a lot of new connections and ideas that people will join up with others things in their lives, and bring back to the group or the wider RSA when the opportunity arises.
You can see videos from the event here, including one of Matthew when he popped in to give some encouragement.
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He subsequently blogged about a few of the big project ideas that are developing, including a debate on the Severn Barrage, and widening the attraction of Bristol's barbour area.
Like most of the other ideas we are mulling over these are only on the drawing board. But they are interesting examples of what emerges when we ask the question: "How can the RSA make a difference?" Any answers you might have are, of course, welcome. >It's that balance between work by staff, and work by Fellows, that is a key issue in how things are moved forward. Is Matthew expecting that he and staff will develop ideas and then invite Fellows to join? Or will Fellows be encouraged to come up with ideas, and then work with staff? At this stage I expect an honest answer would be ... we don't really know. That's what we aim to explore.One other piece of very good news that we picked up was Mick Fealty will be developing a blog about the process for the RSA, starting before the November 22 event. Mick is famed for the Slugger O'Toole blog about Northern Ireland politics, and is now in residence at the Telegraph as Brassneck. As you can see here, Mick believes in playing the ball not the man, and likens a good blog to a pub.Mick's blogging is all part of the social media strategy being promoted by Matthew, and put in place by RSA web manager Anshuman Rane. You can see him here reflecting on the event with Malcolm Forbes, who convened the Facebook group.
The challenge will be encouraging Fellows to do as much development work as possible at local level and then - when we are happy that the project is a sound one - thinking about how we can best use the RSA's resources (and particularly the wider Fellowship) to bring these ideas alive.
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