David Wilcox on social media, engagement, collaboration
ABOUT
Mainly about engagement and collaboration using social media and events, with some asides on living in London. More about David Wilcox and also how the blog started.
My friends over at ruralnet|online are making tremendous progress in their quest to re-invent their business in the open. As I reported the other day, they face the challenge of moving from a "walled garden" set of online services which they charged for, towards a more distributed system using a mix of tools to provide people engaged in social enterprises and nonprofits with information, communication and collaboration systems.
The challenge - as many commercial online providers have found - is that these days people are getting smart at searching for their own information, setting up blogs, wikis and other tools, using Flickr, YouTube and so ... all for free. They often learn the tools at home (or their children do). Why pay when they get to work, particularly if work is in a charity or small voluntary group? There's lots of issues, of course, about training, support etc for those less confident - but even the technophobes have figured you don't pay much for information and tools these days.
The key issue is finding the additional value you can offer users. How do you find out what they want? Ask them to help you redesign the business. Chief Executive Simon Berry and a team led by Paul Henderson are doing that on a multi-user blog site and and through events including a focus group which I helped run last week.
As I reported on the site, we played through a co-design game in which groups invented two scenarios (a small village fighting for sustainability, and a large network of parish and town councils), then used a set of cards representing tools and activities to develop an action plan. Some of the cards offered high-value ruralnet|online services.
It went rather well ... except the groups didn't choose the ruralnet|online cards until well down their development plan. Oh dear - end of business? Absolutely not. Paul has come back with a set of ideas about how ruralnet|online can add some value to free tools, give some away, charge for some, and also offer personalised services. So far they aren't even looking at additional ads.
One of the key principles is, if the good stuff is happening elsewhere, don't try and compete, send people across and do some remixing. On that basis, I won't go on about this any more but suggest you pop across to my|ruralnet - first shot at what ruralnet|online might be and add to Paul's rich mix.
By the way, it won't be only rural - important though these services are for hard-pressed, often isolated, communities. There'll be Networksonline services for the rest of us urbanites.
This is the story of how I began to discover the way Web 2.0 may change learning for college students, the three journeys involved in building online systems, and why a workshop game may be a mud map. Oh, and how the Open Innovation Exchange model may be the way to tie a lot of these things together.
I recently ran a workshop at a college that is planning to develop its online learning system to take in more Web 2.0 tools - blogs, wikis, social networking and the like. Instead of material being developed mainly centrally, the idea is to harness the increasing capacity of students to generate their own content, and learn in part through sharing with others in the college and elsewhere. It's what many already do in MySpace and other sites, learning as I am here.
The key word is personalisation, and that means a big change for teachers, who become guides rather than instructors, as well as having to learn how to use a lot of new tools. It also presents a challenge to college management, who have to work through what it is acceptable for students to access and publish, and how potential employers will view this shift to more self-directed learning.
I was a bit anxious about running the session, because educational technology and e-learning is a huge field. I read the excellent edutech blogs of Ewan McIntosh and others, but there was no way - within time and budget - that I could research and develop a substantial presentation, or even invite in a co-presenter. I found a really useful explanation of the move from virtual learning environments and e-portfolios to personal learning environments by Ron Lubensky with a great little diagram. However I didn't feel confident about trying to translate that into the college situation, or pretending to be expert in something I'm not.
Clearly the solution was to follow the general principle of open processes, and believe in the knowledge and commitment of the dozen staff coming to the event. In fact, to model what we were talking about, and create a framework within which people could add their own content to some initial material that I brought along.
I did that by modifying an earlier presentation that I had done on Web 2.0 for nonprofits, drawing on material from the socialmedia wiki, and creating a new game based on those Drew Mackie and I have developed over the past 10 years. You can find them here. They are all available for downloading, and further development, as I'm delighted to see the ever-inventive Beth Kanter is doing for documentary filmmakers.
I drew some additional inspiration (not for the first time) from the guys on the other side of the world at Anecdote. Shawn Callahan had written a piece about Knowledge strategy - three journeys. It made me think that there were three stages for the college which mapped closely to theirs (which I summarise - do read the full post):
The first journey is designed to help the organisation's leaders develop a common understanding of what they would like to achieve and defining this end-state in broad terms, while knowing that detailed plans are unlikely to be achieved (the world is too unpredictable for a simple, linear view).
The second journey involves the rest of the organisation (or a representative subset) planning how they will get to the desired state.
The third journey is when the organisation actually embarks on implementing the ideas developed in the first two imaginary journeys.
What we were doing in the workshop was just starting on the first journey. As Shawn says (with the diagram above):
We encourage the leadership group to develop a rough mud map of the journey from the current situation to this desired end state while resisting the urge to fill in the details. The staff fill in the details as part of the second journey.
Got it! Games as mud maps. (I'm supposing that means drawing maps in the mud .... )
We had three hours for the workshop, and it ran like this:
First, a presentation to explain the session, a bit about Web 2.0, and the way that we were going to run the game. You should be able to see that here, but if not go to slideshare where you can view this pdf full screen and download. It includes the game cards. There's also a Powerpoint version without cards.
Second, a run of the game, which (almost) went like this, as you can see from the presentation (which I have amended slightly for this post):
Share our understanding of where the college, its students, staff and management are now, and then break into three groups each taking one of those perspectives.
Take the pack of game cards that represent three things: possible approaches, development activities, and system building activities.
Choose cards that will address the challenges you shared, within a budget of 15 points (development and building cards have 1,2, 3 points on each representing level of resource). Organise the cards in a way that enables you to describe to others what you are planning.
Then in each group develop a storyboard of what happens from your perspective - a student, teacher, manager - over the coming months and years.
Thirdly, share insights from that discussion, and consider what is needed to continue this first journey and to plan how to move to the second.
In practice we didn't have time for the storytelling, and so moved to the "what next", which will involve development of a first report and continuing discussion online with a wider group of staff.
I was running the workshop as part of my work with Steve Moore and Roy Charles of Policy Unplugged. Roy knows the college education scene well, and as well as providing all the introductions made sure in his contribution and guidance that we were rooted in the current policy, finance and political realities.
We suggested that one of the ways that the college might like to continue it's first journey, and move to the second, could be by creating an open co-design process, rather like that we've been running at the Open Innovation Exchange, using a Drupal-based multi-blog system developed by my son Dan.
In this instance the college preferred to use it's own system, but the discussion really highlighted for me the potential of the three-journey model, using games as mud maps and an open process online.
Phew, it took me a few hours to put this post together, and as so often I didn't really know what I wanted to say until I had written it. Now I understand. I guess that's personalised Web 2.0 learning.
Please feel free to use the game with acknowledgement, or let me know what you think of it. I would love to hear from anyone in this field interested in improving it.
Update: Stephen Downes has produced an excellent video on creating you own learning environment.
A conference workshop last week gave me an insight into how far we have travelled in the past few years in the possible use of new media in the public and nonprofit sectors, and how we might explore this further.
It's a few years since I did much work in the field of social housing, when I co-authored a book on how Internet technologies could offer benefits to residents and their landlords - so I was particularly interested to catch up by running a workshop at a conference of the National Housing Federation last week. We played an updated version of a card game I had previously used in 2003 at an NHF IT conference.
Four years ago there was emphasis on giving people access, conventional web sites, training and support - plus ideas for community storytelling and multimedia. This time I had thrown in cards about blogs, wikis, social networking - plus wifi, mobile phones and Internet TV. How engaged would people be with these possibilities, I wondered?
At the start of the session I asked how familiar people were with these new media tools, and saw a sprinkling of hands - maybe a quarter. Others had heard of them, but few were generally using them in the workplace in order to communicate internally, with residents, or other organisations.
We then spent five minutes inventing a typical housing association - with a mix of rented housing and leasehold, some units for older people - and broke into five groups. I handed each group a pack of cards, and invited them to choose those most relevant to the situation, and also add their own ideas. As you can see, each card had an image - so they didn't all look the same - a brief description, and a number 1,2, or 3 giving a rough estimate of cost. Groups were allowed 15 points - so they couldn't choose all the cards.
There was a great buzz as everyone read read cards and discussed how they might be applied, then created a story to present back to other groups.
We ended up with a discussion, and the discovery that even after a few minutes conversation those not too familiar with the tools could learn enough from those who were, and see how they might be used in their work. It was really all just a conversation-starter, but convinced me yet again that helping people talk to each other is usually a lot more fruitful than talking at them. I've listed the card content below, and you can download a pdf of them here. Those at the top of the list below were chosen over those at the bottom. There was general agreement on the use of new media for engaging residents and other stakeholders, and often the need to move to a new content management system with more interactivity. There is high usage of mobile phones among residents, so text and voice messaging would be important. More services online was no surprise - but I was interested that several groups felt they should have a presence in MySpace or a similar social network. Clearly the message of go where people are, rather than expect them to come to you, is getting through. No-one felt that their chief executive would write a personal blog: as someone said, it would just be written by a press officer.
The workshop game, played at the housing conference, was just one of suite of methods Drew Mackie and I have developed over the past few years, which you can find at our Useful Games blog. We used a longer version of a similar game with Digital Challenge finalists: you can read about the Manchester session here.
The main difference with the Digital Challenge version was that we spent time after the initial selection of cards developing stories of how different people in the community could use the technology tool set. That gave a fresh set of even more useful insights into usage.
Reflecting on the workshop session - and others that we have run - it struck me that with a little development we could use this for some qualitative research into the potential for the adoption of different communication and collaboration methods in different settings. The virtue of these workshop games is that they offer scope for exploring most of the relevant issues: the context, history and culture (in the scenario setting); the different roles and beneficiaries (if you bring in characters); the range of possible methods (on the cards). In longer versions we throw in 'crisis' cards to the storytelling, and extend the stories told to impact on programmes.
Drew wrote a paper on Why games a few years back, which you can find here. 2003! Time for an update, highlighting yet again how effective a few bits of paper can be in getting people talking. More so than Powerpoint.
E-participation: E-mail, blogs and web site used for engagement with residents and other stakeholders
Content managmenent system: Move to content management system, with scope for blogs and forums as well as static pages.
Focus on mobiles: Mobile phones are a major channel for information and communication.
Services online: More services are available online
Community content: Residents encouraged and supported in developing content online - text, audio, video, photos - through blogs and wikis.
Wireless broadband : Residents and staff can dispense with landline phones and use wireless network for free calls and Internet access
Video storytelling: Staff and volunteers use video clips to tell stories
Free Web services strategy: Cut software costs and support collaboration online by using new free web services.
Instant messaging: All staff are encouraging to be available online for chat - speeding communication and reducing e-mail
Social networking: Set up a site on MySpace - or similar - and network there.
Information kiosks: Information kiosks provide information and some communication facilities
Podcasts: News updates and stories from the organisation - and residents - can be downloaded for playback on iPod or similar
Free Internet phone calls: Staff switch to free Skype calls where possible - with instant messaging too
Exploration: Staff encouraged to spend time exploring blogs and other social media to help plan new development
Chief executive’s blog: The chief executive has a public blog to provide a personal view on developments.
Online maps: Web services can be combined to create online maps and other ways of combining data
Use feeds to cut e-mail: Staff are encouraged to reduce e-mail by using RSS feeds from new system.
Internet TV: Interactive digital TV provides web services and broadcast opportunies without the need for computers
News on tap: Use - and add to - news from 24dash on blog
Photosharing: Staff and residents are encouraged to upload and tag photos for public sharing.
Project collaboration system: Project management and collaboration system like Basecamp used internally to improve team working
Wikis for instant web sites: Wikis provide groups with collaborative publishing and workspace - and instant web sites
Virtual worlds - Second Life: Engage people in the Second Life virtual world
Other Ideas: Selling the additional benefits of going online - shopping, family/friends, family trees; Train the staff and residents; Setting up our own ISP; SMS updates; Online forum - means for residents to interact with each other; Free map services.
The main sponsor for the conference was the public sector news organisation 24dash, who look as if they have great potential for helping public and nonprofit bodies get more attention online. At present much of the public sector is still rooted in the tradition of press release and trade publication. While many of those are excellent, this approach doesn't lead to much cross-over into the blogosphere ... and probably doesn't help senior officials see the point of engaging online.
24dash runs a news site fueled by the Press Association, press releases, and columnists. I talked briefly to Jon Land - who writes here about the service - and Alan Tomlinson, and heard a little about their plans. It sparked a lot of thoughts, which I'll follow up shortly, about how to combine conversational conferencing with the development of what I would call social reporting. If 24dash could help professionals becoming generators of content for their site and others it would be another step towards the interactions needed between citizen-customers and those providing public services.
We recently ran another session of our Digital Challenge workshop game, used to help plan area-wide technology programmes. Last time it was Bristol - this time we were at the Manchester Digital Development Agency, which is one of the most experienced outfits in this field. Could our simple set of project cards, used to prompt discussion about how technology might benefit local people, bring anything to the techie toolkit?
Drew Mackie and I were delighted to find that they could, not least because of the enthusiastic way in which Dave Carter (with Gary Copitch in the picture) led his colleagues in stories about Jack, lone-parent with twin daughters, and the Malis, recently arrived from Somalia.
As before, we asked participants to work in groups and follow this sequence:
Describe an area - who lives there, and its characteristics
Invent a local character or characters
Choose from a set cards those projects you think will benefit them
Tell the story of how they use the technology ... while we throw in a few life crises and opportunities along the way.
This led to:
Jack has severe health problems and no computer skills, but with local support ends up in a self-help online health group, and running an E-bay trading setup with his daughters.
Mr Mali becomes a local councillor running online services for his constituents, while Mrs Mali uses the Internet extensively to further her career as a health care professional.
You can download the game kit we used, and the stories that resulted, from the links at the end.
The stories will help Manchester in developing storyboards for its Digital Challenge bid, and once that is out of the way I think that Manchester, Bristol and others may be interested in how these workshop techniques could be used to help local organisations and residents explore what digital development programmes will mean in practice.
We received a further boost when Gary Copitch, director of the Manchester Community Information Network, used the game himself for a workshop. He reported back:
We got six people from different Black and Minority Ethnic groups and I split them into 2 groups. I did a bit of a brief on the bid itself as people were interested in what it was. But it also gave a concept on what was possible within Manchester.
I then asked participants to come up with an identity. This they did with not too much trouble. One group developed a profile for a Somali women with 2 children who was an asylum seeker and the other group came up with a single Polish worker who was a migrant. They then filled in the year 1 and the impact of the technology on people's lives. I then gave them a number of scenarios. These included: where asylum status was approved, problem with a child in school, computer was stolen, the situation in Somali got worse, the Polish worker decided to bring his family over, there was a backlash against migrant workers in the press.
They all responded to this and changed their use of ICT. Overall the game worked really well in helping them define their problems and thinking about how ICT could be used in each case. What was interesting was that all the cards came into play. Once the infrastructure was in, and training given, both groups quickly went towards the social media type work and producing content. I would definitely use the game again.
Gary also gave us some valuable feedback on how to improve the mechanics of the game, including changes in the timeline, and different ways of handling scenarios.
From our experience so far it seems to me that the game offers particular benefits in a situation where the aim is to benefit excluded groups, and involve a wide range of people and organisations in planning and delivery of technologies that few people understand:
The format creates a level space in which the simple cards and instructions (we hope) make it easy for everyone to join in
Working in groups means those with more understanding of technology can explain to others.
The range of cards means it is easy to describe what may be planned "for real" in an area, while also enabling people to ask "why can't we do that too".
Moving into storytelling about local characters means the language and discussion is more likely to be in terms anyone can relate to - or challenge.
The game sessions are not intended to lead to any firm decisions, but rather to trigger conversations that can continue afterwards. That allows time for reflection and evolution.
Just as organisations and funders have come around to the idea of online platforms for communities of interest or practice, doubts are setting in among technology stewards and others charged with getting it done. You can build the systems, but getting people to use them is something else. A more organic process is needed. But try explaining that to those commissioning them.
Bev Trayner sums it all up neatly in Are you a Yes2.0 or a No2.0?:
A not uncommon scenario for me is to be asked to roll out the recipe for building an online community of practice. What software/platform should we use? What are the steps? There is usually funding for a platform, and, increasingly, some funding for training and facilitation as an add on to the platform.
Dave Snowden talks of something similar in Natural numbers, networks and communities. "...in the early days" a portal was installed, a taxonomy created and you sat back and wondered how you could get people to codify their knowledge. Another rule was you rolled out the plans, templates and processes to build a community of practice and wondered how to motivate people to engage.
Snowden advises not to spend money on roll out programmes, but to use it on training super-users among the opinion leaders. In my own proposals I have called these people "champions" and budgeted for involving them in the choice of selecting tools and helping them to use them. In other words, look at what is already there and, as Wenger, White and Smith say in the Communities of Practice Tech report (soon to come out) - see how you can support and extend what they are already doing.
The problem with this process is that it can look messy, unstructured and not controlled. And it doesn't forefront a glitzy super site that will impress the funders. On the contrary this approach even suggests that simple tools could do the job.
Beth Kanter has a great PowerPoint presentation on "Demystifying Web2.0 tools" that she and David Wilcox did in London on Monday. In it she suggests how you can tell if an organisation is ready for Web2.0:
YES 2.0
you want to express the human voice of your organisation
you want to enable easy ways for people to share knowledge and information
open source thinking - willing to share ideas in progress and let others join in and help it
can deal with the messiness
you already have the basics covered.
NO 2.0
you are obsessively controlling
if your organization is not ready for some changes in how you work
your audience is not online
everything must be vetted by central authority
your copy or campaign messaging is written in stone, not electricity
you aren't prepared to assist people in learning a new skill and the time to make it an organizational habit.
Bev adds:
I can think of two more things I would add to No2.0: 1) you are expecting to spend most of your budget on tools and technology; 2) you haven't thought of a budget that takes you to events and processes beyond the launch of a platform.
Beth and I ran a social media game yesterday that aimed to get people talking about a range of tools that can be used for online communities and organisations. I think we need to develop it with more emphasis on outcomes, the messy processes that may be needed to achieve them, and the supreme importance of people in different roles.
In addition: this item on Drupal considered dangerous for startups? with associated comments explores the pros and cons of using a flexible but complex content management system, compared with, say, starting with a simple blog and growing out from there.
Beth Kanter and I had a couple of great workshop sessions at the UK Circuit riders conference yesterday, talking about social media and nonprofits - and I think the participants enjoyed it too. We tried to make it as interactive as possible. Beth live-blogged the opening session. For our workshops, Beth had slimmed down her 81-slide Powerpoint presentation (it is a real work of art) to a "Wikitation", which is slides on the wiki organised so it is easy to jump to examples. That way Beth was able to run through the main social media tools and explore how people were trying these in practice. You can see both see both here.
We then ran our newly-develop social media game, in which groups invented an organisation or network and then each took one of three challenges:
Improving internal communications
Improving external communications and engagement
Using social media as an individual - maybe a circuit rider, for example
Many of those present had experience of social media, and were able to offer explanations and tips to others during groups discussions. The different scenarios offered some fresh ideas and insights too, I think. You can see another US presenter at the conference, Marc Osten of Summit Collaborative, getting into the gaming sipirt.
We had a wifi connection, and by the end of each session Beth had taken and posted pictures and results of discussions to the wiki. Nothing like showing what's possible on the spot. You'll see those on the wiki too.
There's so much blah-blah-hype around social media is was wonderful to work with someone who has so many of the tools at their finger-tips - and is prepared to share. Beth and I had not met face-to-face before the event, but were able to work online to develop the presentation and game. Beth's use of the wiki during the event (subject to some dropped connections) was amazing. OK, we need to clean it up a bit, but that will be done with the energy and insights generated on the day. I'll reflect further later on the scope for integrating workshop activities and online tools ... and will be looking for other opportunities to experiment.
The other delight at the event was a chance to meet up with fellow UK enthusiasts for social media including Steve Bridger, Miles Maier, Paul Henderson and Nick Booth. We can't rival Beth's US fellow social media bloggers yet, but I think a little blog community is emerging here around social media and social network where the focus is nonprofits and civil society. Drop a comment in here if you are interested in linking up - we hope to have a get together fairly soon. Beth suggested we start tagging social media posts with nptechuk ... the standard US tag is nptech.
If you want to try the game for yourself, all materials are available here, free to use with attribution under a share alike license. Do get in touch if you are interested in discussing
Previously:
Next game - demystifying Web 2.0
Not sure how to help your organisation introduce blogs, wikis, mashups, RSS, tagging? Or even explain what these may mean? Use our pack to get your colleagues talking.
Circuit Riders provide tech support to voluntary sector organisations too small to have IT staff of their own - and as such can end up covering everything from the hardware and network plumbing to the latest tools. I suspect this can lead to communication problems with non-techies, so hope the game will eventually be a useful addition to their kit. Could be useful for buzz directors, technology stewards and social reporters too.
I shouldn't get too carried away because the version we'll be trying on Monday is a very simple half-hour taster, and part of a session where the bigger attraction is a terrific presentation mainly authored by my US co-presenter Beth Kanter. As well as being an amazingly prolific blogger, trainer and widget fundraiser, Beth excels at researching images people are prepared to share and turning those into the sort of Powerpoint you really want to watch (rather than being a sort of presenter-prompt full of bullet points). Beth's offers some thank-yous here.
Beth and I have never met face-to-face, and it's been a lot of fun putting the session and wiki together wholly online. And now we get to meet. Thanks conference organisers, Lasa and the ICT Hub.
Since Beth has to fly out tomorrow, we've scampered to put everything together in advance - so you can preview the presentation and the game on a social media wiki we are developing.
We know there are too many slides, but we'll have Sunday evening to meet and slim things down. If you are in Birmingham and want to join us, let me know. We'll be at the conference hotel 5ish.
I'm more used to running workshop games and simulations than participating, and the opening session of today's Contactivity knowledge management event was quite a learning experience. The aim of the simulation, led by Martin Laycock, was to take us through the challenges of an organisation upgrading its business support IT system.
We worked in teams making choices on what to do about poor teamwork, management refusal of support, lack of employee commitment and limited levels of commitment. We had cards, counters, calculators and worksheets. Once we had made decisions we could work out whether we were improving the project or not through some simple formulae. Supporting software produced impressive graphs. In the hour and a half available we could only get a taster of the full Cayenne simulation designed by Celemi. It was pretty heavy-duty kit compared with some of the stuff Drew Mackie and I use in our games.
People I talked to agreed that the challenges were realistic - just the sort of thing they had struggled with in real projects. However, I felt uncomfortable about the exercise, and I don't think it was just misplaced professional jealousy. I had the sense that there was a box of 'correct' answers in the background ... a manual for project management that we were being tested on.
As Drew and I tried to emphasise in our recent engagement game, there is seldom a right answer about 'what works' - it depends very much on the context, the purpose of the project, and overwhelmingly the people involved. In the Cayenne simulation I felt there was an over-emphasis on methods and too little scope for creative strategies.
Still, I'm not sure I'm right. Maybe the type of project being simulated doesn't have much room for manoeuvre. Most people seemed to enjoy the exercise and find it useful. Celemi have a strong reputation for careful research in designing their simulations.
Talking at lunch to one of the facilitators who does a lot of work using this type of simulation, I asked how he found people responded. The message I got was that in many organisations people often expect to be talked at - and told what to do. Learning through simulation can be unusually liberating ... but there is still a demand for structure and delivery of 'content'. Conversation and insights from other participants isn't enough.
Conversely I found I learned more from the informal chats I had after the simulation, than from my workbook and worksheets. That reminded me how different we all are in the ways we prefer to communicate and learn.As George Bernard Shaw put it: "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."
In future I'll pay more attention to people at my sessions if they say it didn't work for them.
I can't unfortunately make it to tomorrow's conference sessions, where organiser Ed Mitchell has laid on a range of different approaches with knowledge cafe from David Gurteen and open space from Martin Leith. Diversity is all.
The go-between wears out a thousand sandals, according to a Japanese proverb. In deepest Holloway last week that fate befell those playing the role of councillor in our game simulating the government's new neighbourhoods policy.
As conference organiser Kevin Harris reports, the game aimed to simulate what will happen in a few years when "double devolution" takes hold, and public service delivery moves down the ladder beyond councils to offer more contracting opportunities to nonprofits, and more opportunities for active citizens.
Drew Mackie and I were relieved when participants readily agreed to move from presentations to interaction, to form groups, and develop descriptions of fictitious (but pretty realistic) neighbourhoods. To spice things up, they threw in plenty of problems and then passed the challenge to another group, while inheriting someone else's neighbourhood. After that, their task was to come up with ways in which different agencies, organisations and community groups would plan and carry out improvements. It was a revised version of our first run last November. As Kevin reports:
The first version of the game had been uncannily realistic but we had struggled to integrate the policy role. On this occasion we diluted it but Drew introduced a role for ward councillors - and it was fascinating to watch how, in two of the three groups, the councillor ended up being a butt for complaints from the community groups and systematically ignored or by-passed by the service agencies. Watching one group was like watching a game of tennis, and reminds me that I've often been puzzled as to why anyone would want to become a councillor. It just doesn't seem a pleasant way to spend one's evenings.
Earlier Kieran Drake, from Neighbourhoods and Citizen Engagement at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, had provided a full briefing on how policy is developing, and explained the enhanced role councillors might have. They would move from the back benches to the front line, becoming leaders of communities and empowered advocates, while calling on support from council officers running neighbourhood management. You can download the presentation here, together with others from Gabriel Chanan and Paul Hilder.
It all sounded fine in theory, but then things don't always turn out the way the policy makers hope. Games are one way of testing out what may happen. In this case it seemed that councillors could end up being pulled in two directions, trying to build bridges but just as likely to get in the way. Is that a mixed metaphor? I'm not sure, but it was all pretty hilarious since people managed to have fun exploring the future of Slaghampton.
Kevin highlights the complexity of what the government plans:
Presentations and discussion at the conference, as well as the game, confirmed that this agenda packs a hugely complex set of issues. The scope and power of agencies, the formality of neighbourhood agreements with service providers, the skill-levels of councillors, the worries about burn-out among activists, and so on - all sorts of unanswered dynamics and tensions. To their credit, the ODPM have long-since recognised the importance of strengthening local government and enhancing the role of councillors.
While there were clearly a lot of tough issues, I found some support for the way things may develop. I asked two people from what could easily become opposite sides of the fence what they thought. Folake Segun works for Croydon Voluntary Action, and Theo Fasoyiro for Croydon Council. They were very positive about the new policies and the benefits they may bring. However - and this to me is the key issue - they emphasised that it is because the public and nonprofit sector have a good working relationship at present. Where different sectors don't get on so well the new arrangements are going to be pretty challenging, and the role of councillors particularly so. In that case, start ordering sandals now.
Chinese social entrepreneurs now have the benefit of some innovative (and fun) planning tools to help improve urban and rural neighbourhoods, thanks to my friend at ruralnet|uk, Jane Berry. I think Jane picked up some ideas too.
A couple of weeks back Jane called to say she was off to Beijing, and please could she have some games to take. No surprise, since she has been a collaborator with Drew Mackie and I over the past few years in developing workshop techniques to help people work out how to set up everything from online community networks to technology centres and one-stop rural service hubs.
Fortunately our development partners NIACE rushed over a couple of boxes of The Regeneration Game, and you can see the hand-over here. Jane says it was rather more than a formality, and local people at the Shining Stone Community Centre quickly put together their own version of the game which, as her official press release says, led to "heated discussions" into the evening. Some things are the same the world over.
The trip for three UK social entrepreneurs was organised by GLI - Global Links Initiative - and was supported by the British Consulate-General, Shanghai.
Jane's sessions went beyond the Regeneration Game, and in the pictogram on the flip chart (right) I can identify an attractive and intriguing version of ruralnet|uk's model for a sustainable multi-use service centre.
The various games developed with Drew and Jane use cards to represent project ideas, with cartoons, budget points, descriptions, and hints about resources needed. The group playing the game has the task of choosing projects to address challenges in their situation within a given budget, and then turning the choices into an action plan. For the Regeneration game we had the added expertise of NIACE, and the particular pleasure there of working with Jane Thompson and Cheryl Turner. We've found games worked well in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Spain and no doubt other places too, since many of the games are available online. They have the added advantage of being a fun way of getting to know new people, and leaving them with something that is hopefully useful when you go. I hope Jane has brought back some useful contacts.....
Update: Jane told me: "I was delighted to find Chinese community groups much more open and dynamic than I had expected, unexpectedly vocal in their insistence on participation, self-determination and the need for change, and anxious to learn lessons both from within the country and beyond. There is a strong recognition that the next steps for Chinese non-profits are to work more closely with each other, as well as to find ways of reflecting the needs and wishes of their target groups."
The key issue is finding the additional value you can offer users. How do you find out what they want? Ask them to help you redesign the business. Chief Executive Simon Berry and a team led by Paul Henderson are doing that on a multi-user blog site and and through events including a focus group which I helped run last week.
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