November 2007
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23 November 2007
More on building networks
We are really enthused by the response of Fellows to the email I sent out last week regarding the future of the Fellowship. So for we have received some 500 replies of which all but a tiny handful have been very positive.
Thank you!
Over the coming days and weeks we will be getting back in touch with people but I am using my blog to respond to the most frequently asked questions.
So to start off†
i) What do you mean by civic innovation?
In essence I mean innovation with a civic (pro-social) purpose in which the voluntary efforts of citizens (Fellows) play a crucial role in both the development and application of new thinking.
ii) Will this initiative be nationwide (not just restricted to those who can come regularly to John Adam Street)?
Absolutely.
Indeed of the early ideas for Fellows' initiatives and networks we are exploring all are outside London.
Some of the most positive responses we received to the email came from Fellows outside the UK who see online networks in particular as a great way of getting involved from distance.
iii) When is the event here at John Adam Street and what will happen?
November 22, when we be inviting a small number of Fellows (around 260) to join us in the RSA house in London for a day to begin working through the implications and applications of this idea.
However we are already coming to the conclusion that we will need at least one more event and that this should perhaps be outside London.
We will keep you updated as we go forward through our website and this blog.
iv) How do Fellows go about setting up a network?
We will be providing Fellows with new online and offline support to get these off the ground. But the steps to setting up networks will be -
Finding other Fellows interested in your idea, and developing a clear plan of what the network is setting out to do.
Ultimately, the first should be very simple. We are improving the Fellowship database and developing online toolkits to make it as easy as possible for Fellows to contact others in their locality or those who share their experience, enthusiasm or concern.
In the early days it will be a more labour intensive process of us spotting themes and connecting people and using the November 22 event to develop networks.
The bigger challenge, I suspect, is enabling networks to become sites for civic innovation. I have written in past posts about this and about working with Fellows to develop concrete examples of what networks might be about, and what they might seek to achieve is now our top priority.
v) How do we differentiate ourselves from other organisations?
Another big question. Three, different answers.
First, answering the question 'what is the specific value that the RSA network can add?' is an important issue to be addressed as networks evolve.
Second, networks should be enthusiastic about working in partnership with other people and organisations who share our aims.
Third, some networks will end up developing ideas that float away from the RSA as free standing initiatives, as has been the case in the past with, for example, Tomorrows Company and the Campaign for Learning.
vi) How can we make sure our networks are effective?
See above.
From the outset we need to say this is about more than enthusiasm. We have had some good ideas from individual fellows but - without seeming rude or churlish - our response has to be that any idea has to pass two tests.
First, it must be something that captures the interest and commitment of other Fellows.
Second, when there is a critical mass of support, ideas must be subject to robust development, asking questions like: what are we trying to achieve, why are we equipped to do this, who else should we be working with, how would we know if we were succeeding, what would we do if we failed, what we do if we succeeded, etc.
As part of the support I mentioned earlier on, we are developing a team here to help Fellows work through these questions and it is vital that the culture of the Fellowship is one that welcomes a challenging and robust examination of all our ideas and initiatives.
vii) How can we maintain the rigour and authority of the RSA while opening it up in this way?
Again, see above.
We have some important resources to bring to the table: our multi-disciplinary make-up, our fierce political independence, our history and reputation.
But these resources will only be fully utilised if the ideas we develop are high quality and the interventions appropriate and effective.
This is not a free for all. It needs to be an action-learning process in which the Fellowship and the RSA are in a continual process of developing, refining and applying high quality ideas.
Thanks again for the amazing response and I hope this discussion will continue, not just with John Adam Street, but increasingly, as you develop ideas and debate challenges, between yourselves.
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14 November 2007
Mind the gap
Last week the BBC published an opinion poll of attitudes to families. The headline grabbing finding was that 94% of us feel positive about our own families, up by 4% from a similar poll in 1964.
But the BBC poll also found that 70% are pessimistic about the future of families as a whole. Whether or not this tells us anything significant about families it does confirm a more general, and worrying, characteristic of public attitudes.
This contrast between private optimism and societal pessimism about families reminded me of a phenomenon we used in Government to call the ‘perception gap’.
This is the marked difference between what people said about their own experience of using public services like hospitals and schools, which was generally positive, and their view of these services in general – which was generally negative.
From a political perspective the unwillingness of voters to generalise from their own experience was deeply frustrating. It meant that real gains in service performance were not reflected in satisfaction with Government.
The ‘perception gap’ doesn’t end there. My friend Ben Page at MORI will know the details, but I’m pretty sure that people also report that their neighbourhood is improving while simultaneously believing that communities as a whole are falling apart.
And while people generally report positive experiences in their own contact with people from other races and religious backgrounds they are again less sanguine when asked to generalise about other types of people.
What might explain this phenomenon? The first culprits are, of course, our friends in the media. Bad news sells. Politicians are lazily portrayed as untrustworthy, venal and second-rate. The criticisms of an independent report on Government policy make headline billing while other more numerous positive conclusions don’t merit a mention (or are described as a whitewash).
Films, TV dramas, documentaries and reality shows all tend to focus on society’s ills and miscreants. As I have said too many times on public platforms, the modern mass media is a disorganised conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self righteous rage.
But it’s not just the media: we too are implicated in the perception gap. If we receive a good service – either in the private or public sector – we might tell a couple of people. But if we suffer from a bad service we tell all and sundry.
I’m no evolutionary determinist, but in this one might see a sign that human beings have a hard-wired predisposition to see warning as more important than celebration.
Politicians too must take some blame. Opposition parties believe it is in their interests to prove the country to going to the dogs, while Governments need to justify the latest crammed Queen’s Speech. With so many people wanting to tell us things are going wrong is it any wonder we think our own experiences are the exception to the rule?
Ministers may despair at the ‘perception gap’ – but does it matter to the rest of us? I think so. It contributes to a tendency to exaggerate our own agency and underestimate the impact and potential of collective action.
In a complex world it is hard enough to find solutions to tough social problems without doing so against a backdrop of pessimism. If ‘out there’ is damaged, declining and dangerous, it makes sense to retreat into our own atomised privatised lives, and cower inside our gated communities. And of course the more we do that the more our pessimism about collective action becomes self-fulfilling.
One week and counting
It is just a week until the RSA Networks big day here on November 22nd. A huge amount of work has gone in here at John Adam Street and we have been guided throughout by committed Fellows like those involved in Open RSA (you'll need to log in to Facebook to see this link). I won’t say more as you can find a longer blog from me on the RSA networks blog.
On Saturday I am in Scotland at a major RSA Conference to discuss the Society’s development North of the Border. It is an exciting time all round in the Fellowship and I will make sure to report back on both events.
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05 November 2007
Back from America
Sorry about a longer gap between blogs than usual. I spent most of last week as the guest of RSA USA and am currently writing this on a train.
We have had some really interesting comments on our RSA Networks blog, and the team and I will be responding to those later in the week.
But in the meantime, back to the US!
It was a fascinating visit combining discussions with Fellows and potential partners about our ambitions for the USA chapter with the Stateside launch of our work on personal carbon trading.
Thanks to all the American Trustees who took such good care of us on our visit.
In Frank Spring we have an ambitious new National Director and I have no doubt that over the next months we will see a strong programme emerging in the USA, including, I hope, some joint lecture and debate series in which we look at key issues from opposite sides of the Atlantic.
Apart from Iraq, the key policy issues in the race for the Presidential nominations are health, immigration and the environment.
In the health debate Michael Moore has made his filmic contribution to exposing the weaknesses of the US system while Rudy Giuliani has made a scathing (and inaccurate) attack on the outcomes of the NHS.
On these issues and also education, where criticism of Bush's 'no child left behind' initiative matches growing unease at the test-driven English approach, there is scope for the RSA to host a rich US/UK dialogue.
I am also keen to explore a lecture series focussing on my own new obsession: understanding and developing human intelligence.
And moving closer to home...
A couple of weeks ago we partnered up with the Society Guardian to launch Meet The Dragons, a unique investment fund to encourage and celebrate innovation in social care.
In a format familiar to many from a certain TV programme of a similar name, a shortlist of the most interesting ways of addressing the needs of older people, children and others will face a panel of experts (including myself as Dragon-in-Residence) with a pot of money, consultancy and practical support to help the best ones grow.
A group of social care leaders is helping us have this conversation in what has been, for too long, a neglected area of provision.
I've written before in this blog about how the RSA's Fellowship can be a unique and very powerful network for fostering and sharing civic innovation in the real world.
This is exactly the sort of event which can combine experiences of making change happen with our Fellows' expertise in a way that will enrich both our work, at 8 John Adam Street, and inspire and support a wide network of social innovators.
If you think you're already working on a winning project, get applying.
Meet The Dragons is also a chance to get to grips with the realities of developing citizen-centred approaches to the challenges of modern life.
Social care is a classic example of what was traditionally seen as a "delivery" service. But changing demographics and a recognition that the way social care is commissioned and delivered needs to be different has thrust transformation to the top of the agenda.
Now Carers UK estimates that every day another six thousand of us take on caring responsibilities. This is a challenge that affects all of us - visit our website for more information.
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