tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85007947668331620692024-02-07T09:36:04.845+00:00Seeking PraxisA space for reflection on theory and practiceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-26384992327262218022013-11-04T07:52:00.000+00:002013-11-04T07:52:51.051+00:00I've moved to MediumA long overdue post here to mention that I've started sharing my musings on a new blogging platform called Medium.<br />
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Developed by the people who developed Blogger, which this blog uses, Medium is much easier to use and will drastically reduce the time I spend faffing about with pictures*, font that seems to do it's own thing, and just generally trying to make things here look as I want them to.<br />
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Also Medium has two features that I just adore. It enables a user to group posts in to collections, which is useful when writing about a variety of topics. And even better than that - you can select options which enable any other Medium users to add to one or more of your collections (or specific people that you invite). I love this social element, it make blogging feel a lot less lonely but also feels different from being co-authors or whatever in Wordpress. I'm not quite sure why.<br />
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Anyway, should you wish to check out my ramblings, I'm over here: <a href="http://medium.com/@dosticen">medium.com/@dosticen</a><br />
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I'm also trying to keep a few Wordpress blogs going. At present these are:<br />
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<a href="http://digitaldudley.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">#DigitalDudley</a> - celebrating the ways people are using social media to great things and build community across Dudley borough<br />
<a href="http://digitaldudley.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">engaging together</a> - this is the second time I've rebuilt a home online for sharing about empowering ways of working with communities! I always seem to let things lapse too much. Maybe I shouldn't worry about it. Anyway, this site feels fresh and ready to add a fair bit to, which I'm looking forward to doing.<br />
<a href="http://digitaldudley.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">East Coseley Visions</a> - along with my brilliant colleague Becky Pickin I'm still involved with the Big Local programme in Coseley, so will keep this blog going for a while to come. Alongside which a local resident is starting a hyperlocal blog for Coseley. Yay!<br />
<a href="http://buildinghealthpartnershipsdudley.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Building Health Partnerships in Dudley</a> - simply to share things we're up to in this programme, which runs until March 2014.<br />
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<i>* A note on pictures. I rather rashly deleted a whole load of photos from somewhere - despite warnings about deletions from other places - the net result of which was that all my photos on this blog disappeared! I will try to learn from this experience. I simply don't understand the linky things that go on without me doing it manually. I'm slowly finding the pictures and replacing them, but some are not great quality as I'm copying them from web versions.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-78880919775643849962013-03-27T08:57:00.001+00:002013-03-27T08:57:14.218+00:00Subtle differences: how to identify creative collaborative activity<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I’ve been learning a lot about what creative collaborative activity looks and feels like from <a href="http://www.socialspaces.org/WHO-WE-ARE" target="_blank">Tessy Britton and Laura Billings</a>. I’m coming to realise that until you experience it directly, it can be a tricky thing to differentiate from more traditional activity which might be in, for example, a charitable or consumer paradigm (see Tessy’s <a href="http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-creative-collaborative-paradigm]" target="_blank">post on participatory paradigms</a></span><a href="http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-creative-collaborative-paradigm%5D" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #021eaa; letter-spacing: 0px;">)</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. For any ornithologists reading this it’s a bit like trying to decide if you’re looking at a Willow Warbler or a Chiffchaff (without hearing any song).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L47aoovSGxQ/UU4u7QR85vI/AAAAAAAACSg/ntbGM0xRL88/s1600/ChiffchaffWillowWarbler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L47aoovSGxQ/UU4u7QR85vI/AAAAAAAACSg/ntbGM0xRL88/s1600/ChiffchaffWillowWarbler.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Chiffchaff and a Willow Warbler</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As Jason Lauritsen of <a href="http://talentanarchy.com/" target="_blank">Talent Anarchy</a> said recently in <a href="http://talentanarchy.com/2013/03/13/leader-or-follower-innovator-or-laggard/" target="_blank">a blog about a different kind of event</a> he and Joe Gertstandt are offering:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Different can be hard to understand in advance. That’s why people and organizations tend to treat new ideas so poorly. And why we have such a hard time innovating. It can be hard to embrace the different.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’ve been reflecting on differences between two Pot Luck dinners held at the same venue in Brierley Hill, one last September (<a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/pot-luck-exciting-and-brilliant.html" target="_blank">which I blogged about</a> and <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/pot-luck-dinner-launch" target="_blank">Storified</a>) </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">and one last week, both involving 16 people. On the face of it both probably looked pretty similar - 16 people milling around and then gathering around a large table to share food. However the dinner in October was collaborative, and the dinner last week, which was initiated with great intent but got unwittingly shifted to a more traditional meeting.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0LnFV2dXhbA/UU4vQk6BTNI/AAAAAAAACSo/YN0GEzn5Sy8/s1600/potluck1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0LnFV2dXhbA/UU4vQk6BTNI/AAAAAAAACSo/YN0GEzn5Sy8/s1600/potluck1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pot Luck Dinner last September</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The people:</b></span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In September it was a family-friendly activity, there were 10 adults and 6 children, three generations from one family came along.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week it was an adult only space, and in addition, only adults actively involved in some kind of community group or activity - mostly people who run or lead groups or organisations. I doubt that anyone around the table felt that others were missing, after all we’re used to leaving loved ones and kids at home when going to community meetings.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The food:</b></span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In September the food arrived in tupperware and bowls. The vast majority of it had been cooked or prepared by the person who had bought it along, barring a couple of big bags of sharing crisps and the ice cream lollies.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week the table looked like supermarket shelves, with branded plastic containers full of supermarket food, and a collection of individual bags of crisps. The only exceptions was some lovely looking home made cake, and my (rather too thick) dal made in a slow cooker and bought along warm. Again, I’m sure those involved didn’t think anything amiss with what was on offer, as we are so used to having food provided at events - by caters and the like. We’re not accustomed to making and sharing.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The conversation:</b></span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In September we just got on with it. Had a good laugh, naturally and informally made introductions between people who hadn’t met before. There was music, play and fun.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week it felt quite stilted, given the dinner part was preceded by notification that there was paperwork to fill in for Community First, and then a round of introductions, as you'd have at a meeting.</span></li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wa7naqkj0ME/UU4xd0Uo9_I/AAAAAAAACSw/a7EX5P0RUvo/s1600/potluck2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wa7naqkj0ME/UU4xd0Uo9_I/AAAAAAAACSw/a7EX5P0RUvo/s320/potluck2.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pot Luck Dinner last week - paperwork ahoy!</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The outcomes:</b></span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In September we overheard lovely discussions between Joyce and others about her food and Caribbean cooking lessons, with intent expressed for people to connect over this at a later time. Having seen the hall, Joyce soon bought a large family party to INSIGHT for Carers, helping INSIGHT to generate income.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week I’m not sure if anything serendipitous occurred. I caught up with a couple of people, which was lovely. Some ‘required paperwork’ got filled in, which rather missed the point of bringing people together in a different way.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The washing up:</b></span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In September Tony and Donna did the lions share of the washing up, and had a brilliant laugh doing it. They wouldn’t even let others help they were having such fun!</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last week I had to chivvy people to clear the table, and a rather fed up Marc said they could leave the washing up. This exemplifies what happens when something is delivered by a few to the many (charitable or consumer paradigm) - tasks aren’t shared or enjoyed, they are left. People trot off home without a second thought to the dirty dishes.</span></li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mUCMIxly6uk/UU4tf3JNoQI/AAAAAAAACSY/90uJm1zwlY4/s1600/washing+up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mUCMIxly6uk/UU4tf3JNoQI/AAAAAAAACSY/90uJm1zwlY4/s320/washing+up.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tony and Donna having fun with the washing up</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So my first thoughts about identifying creative collaborative activity go something like this:</span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Are the only people present those involved in committees or local groups/organisations? This might indicate a lack of creative collaboration.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Are a small group of people doing everything? (They are probably from a committee or group.) This is an indication of community delivering to community. It’s where a handful of local people take on or imitate the role of service providers. A sign of operating in a charitable paradigm.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Is anything handmade and/or are lots of people sharing their skills, talents or passions? If so, things are looking like they might be creative and collaborative.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What has been paid for centrally? If the entertainment, food and whatever else is going on has been paid from from a group’s budget or a project budget, then creative collaboration is probably limited, or not present.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There isn’t to judge activity which is or isn’t creative and collaborative. I am simply sharing my process of beginning to understand what the differences are and how to know them.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Has anyone else experienced and contrasted differences? What would you use as identifiers?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Photo credits: Pot Luck pictures were taken by me, and the birds are from <a href="http://theportlandportal.co.uk/portland-bird-observatory-report-week-commencing-27th-of-august-2011.html" target="_blank">The Portland Portal</a> </i></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-12109855940824131992013-03-19T17:49:00.001+00:002013-07-15T10:28:02.908+01:00Feeling safe to learn and share<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Imagine you and a colleague have just started facilitating a pretty complex and challenging learning event. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There are about 50 participants squeezed in to a not quite big enough room and you had to start late due to issues with the conferencing venue requiring people for lots of different events to queue on the street outside. Your participants are from a wide range of organisations: local authorities, clinical commissioning groups, NHS trusts, LINk and Healthwatch organisations, voluntary sector organisations and more. You have given a bit of an introduction which describes the landscape of complex systems they are all working in. A participant right in front of you at the nearest table is busy tapping away at a laptop keyboard as the group around the table start discussing the first scenario you have introduced. Someone quietly raises an issue about that participant sharing the discussion online. You panic as you realise you haven’t said anything in your introduction about maintaining a safe space for learning.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is pretty much what I think happened for <a href="http://loop2.co.uk/?page_id=14" target="_blank">Laurie McMahon</a> and <a href="http://loop2.co.uk/?page_id=15" target="_blank">Sarah Harvey</a> from <a href="http://loop2.co.uk/index.php" target="_blank">Loop2</a> today. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You won’t be surprised to hear that I was the participant on the laptop! </span></span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(At that point in the session I was working from the document we’d been emailed, highlighting key points in the scenario and making notes on what my fellow group members were raising as issues.)</span></i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unfortunately for those concerned, the concern raised wasn’t dealt with well at the time. But I am very grateful to Laurie for taking the time to apologise and have a very genuine dialogue with me at the end of the day, so that is forgiven. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On to the learning - and a request for your help and ideas...</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Laurie and I discussed the fact that the <a href="http://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/chathamhouserule" target="_blank">Chatham House Rule</a> doesn’t really work very well. So what guidelines or starting points for negotiating ground rules could a facilitator delivering this sort of learning suggest and send to participants in advance?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I often use the following in relation to confidentiality in event and workshop participant guidelines:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Confidentiality</b></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b></b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sometimes when working in smaller groups and workshops people feel they want to draw on their own experience, but may not want people outside the group to know the details they are sharing. We can’t guarantee that people you are working with will keep what you say confidential, so you must take responsibility for what you choose to disclose.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That might not quite cut it at a learning event where the facilitator might want people from public sector organisations to feel free to say things that they wouldn’t in front of the press etc. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So what can we do in face-to-face learning environments so that people feel free to speak their mind and offer opinions, without concern that what they say will be attributed to them (or their organisation) outside the room?</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And then we come to online sharing. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">At events I organise I include in the guidelines something like:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Social media</b></span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b></b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Staff from Dudley CVS will be taking pictures, tweeting, and making videos during the event. We’ll ask you when you arrive about whether you are happy for photographs to be taken of you and respect your feelings around that. If you do fancy starring on YouTube or a podcast, please tell us - we’d love to feature you!</span></span></blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6C0tXJrVb51S8_LnY10nLE5armCIlpaaqSHKPkCK9JiblEik4hN0GNLeiL1REDX_9mZ0UHb0BA3xC9_vSANoyeGzkHI-nfRusoPTVhIBTOuUfHLA67kh1N3nqEf5-mNQ5rifVcdZKeo4/s1600/social+media+heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6C0tXJrVb51S8_LnY10nLE5armCIlpaaqSHKPkCK9JiblEik4hN0GNLeiL1REDX_9mZ0UHb0BA3xC9_vSANoyeGzkHI-nfRusoPTVhIBTOuUfHLA67kh1N3nqEf5-mNQ5rifVcdZKeo4/s320/social+media+heart.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kdonovan_gaddy/with/4314365065/#photo_4314365065" target="_blank">kdonovan_gaddy</a> (flickr) </td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, this doesn’t prove particularly helpful for a learning event where participants might want to share learning points and useful information or links. So what could a facilitator ask to ensure a common understanding and agreement in the room about what sorts of things might be shared in what ways? </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Assume in this instance that participants are people involve in a paid capacity, or perhaps volunteers at board level of organisations. And remember that the facilitator(s) and some of the participants may not be social media savvy, and perhaps have views of twitter etc. which they’ve formed from reading sensationalist stories in the press. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I suspect that some of you reading this might want to suggest the short and simple social media policy: “don’t be an idiot”. But I think that might not be so helpful to people who don’t know you so don't understand that you’re not an idiot and you’re not going to tweet them verbatim and attribute everything you say.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Has anyone had useful discussions where agreements have been made about individuals tweeting their own reflections, for example? Or not mentioning or making organisations or individuals visible through what is being shared (unless it’s something like: organisation x in somewhereville have an amazing document about y - here’s the link...)?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Your experiences, ideas and suggestions are warmly encouraged, and I’ll pass them on to Laurie too.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Also huge, huge thanks to my twitter followers who helped me get through today </span>by offering support and good advice<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> (when I dramatically said that I felt I’d been gagged by the thought police!): @John_at_HPL @notazengarden @Hypnofix @navcaecm @marciasandel @lil_ster @jumpylegs </span></span>@paulineroche @JonnyZander @watfordgap <span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">and @Donna_M_Roberts. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And thanks to folk who were tweeting from the event more quietly than me! Ooh, and a learning point for me, following a helpfully made comment by a fellow participant - the noise of my keyboard tapping is distracting to people when there is a speaker at an event. I quickly switched to my iPad - all good :) </span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-45858699622695858632013-03-03T17:39:00.001+00:002013-03-03T17:39:59.181+00:00Anarchists in the Boardroom<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Anarchists in the Boardroom is the title of a book which I think should get published, and is highly likely to get published if lots of people talk about it and about 200 or so <a href="http://startsomegood.com/Venture/more_like_people/Campaigns/Show/anarchists_in_the_boardroom" target="_blank">chip in financial support in return for copies of the book</a> (for which they get a thank you in the book) and/or some consultancy support from the author. (If you’re interested already, just jump straight to the <a href="http://startsomegood.com/Venture/more_like_people/Campaigns/Show/anarchists_in_the_boardroom" target="_blank">campaign page</a>, if you want my review of chapters 1 and 2, please do carry on.)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/hackofalltrades" target="_blank">Liam</a>, the author of the book is, like many people I ‘know’ nowadays, someone who I started listening to thanks to twitter. We did met fleetingly face to face at an event in London. It is predominantly through <a href="http://www.concretesolutions.org.uk/" target="_blank">Liam’s blog</a> that we and others have conversed, and reflected on big stuff in relation to organisations and people. A lot of what Liam has been doing through the blog is enabling an open process to writing a book, a book which is about organisations being More Like People, and about what we can learn and use from social media/new technologies and movements that they have supported.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Liam generously sent through the first two chapters of the book for me to blog about here, so here is an overview and my reactions.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The chapter opens by highlighting the contrast between the way that Occupy modelled critical elements of the world which members of the movement wanted to see and the ways that social change organisations behave and describe change. Via Taylorism, Liam asks us to consider the impact of professionalism on behaviours displayed by those of us who work in voluntary/community organisations, social enterprises etc. He makes some interesting observations about the ways that civil servants change what they are doing when political leadership or policy changes, and do so seemingly without question.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We are then encouraged to consider ‘ways in which traditional management structures are likely to be at odds with underpinning principles of social media’. And Liam introduces anarchism - something which ‘places the highest faith in human potential, arguing that we do not need outside structures to create order.’ </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally we are introduced to three simple principles of the ‘more like people’ approach which organisations could take:</span></div>
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Humanity: Being ourselves, while growing and learning to build stronger relationships</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Autonomy: Having the freedom to find out own best ways of doing things.</span></li>
<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Complexity: Understanding that life is as emergent, non-linear and interdependent as we are.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Liam gives a really accessible introduction to complexity and examples of how it comes in to play for social change organisations. He discusses humanity, and how we can better bring what we know and have learned in other parts of our lives in to our organisational lives. (This is really important to me, I have never failed to be astonished by how often voluntary members of community groups leave loads of their knowledge and skills from other parts of their lives at the door when they come along to a meeting - perhaps draughty community halls and boring agendas don’t help!) </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the section on autonomy Liam has a great imaginary story which really gets through what organisations do wrong when it comes to using social media. He also talks about how ‘social media makes it much more obvious when we aren’t being ourselves’.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's really interesting and well written, well worth pledging to buy!</span></h4>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Liam’s writing style is really conversational and engaging, and the examples and stories he uses feel so real and immediate. There are questions in key sections of each chapter which encourage the reader to reflect - this is a book that you are invited to interact with, as well as having the opportunity to jump online and talk about it.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I did smile at the fact that I am helping to get a book published which includes a sentence which begins: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>“Sadly, when leadership goes bat-shit-crazy, as history has demonstrated it often does ...”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">I am so encouraged by the lengths which Liam has gone to in order to involve people in the thinking behind the book content, and his absolute commitment to creating a </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">community of people who will grapple together with putting the principles of being More Like People in to practice, therefore putting the principles in to practice himself.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">It has been really invigorating to see the <a href="http://startsomegood.com/Venture/more_like_people/Campaigns/Show/anarchists_in_the_boardroom" target="_blank">pledges on the campaign page</a> to get the book published quickly accumulate within the first two days of the campaign, it looks as though a few more supporters will mean I can read the remaining chapters!</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So please do tweet about the book, share the campaign on Facebook, visit the <a href="http://startsomegood.com/Venture/more_like_people/Campaigns/Show/anarchists_in_the_boardroom" target="_blank">campaign page</a>, pledge to buy a copy or two, and if I haven’t convinced you, take a look at the short video of Liam talking about it below.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-50845328684560555232013-02-07T12:41:00.000+00:002013-02-07T12:41:21.975+00:00'Wired to share' - but not educated toA short reflection on sharing.<br />
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Yesterday I was part of a great session with colleagues from Dudley CVS, Dudley CCG, Dudley Public Health and <a href="http://preview.learningpool.com/about/meet-the-team/a-bit-about-paul2/" target="_blank">Paul Webster</a> and <a href="http://www.learningpool.com/about/meet-the-team/a-bit-about-eddie/" target="_blank">Eddie Ryce</a> from <a href="http://www.learningpool.com/" target="_blank">Learning Pool</a>. I took a few notes as we chatted, and spent a bit of time after the meeting sorting them in to something which would make sense to colleagues who couldn't make the session. I was about to email the notes when I thought it would make more sense to pop them in a shared <a href="http://www.dropbox.com/" target="_blank">Dropbox</a> folder I'd created for our work on online learning. Then is occurred to me that is I was doing that, others could easily add in their own reflections and thoughts to the same set of notes - as the latest version would be accessible to all. So I have invited them to.<br />
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I don't have any great expectations that others will add to the notes, it's not the way we do things yet. People tend to take their own notes and keep them as their own. But I hope I'm nudging change by creating the opportunity and putting the idea there. Because I'd cc'd Paul in the email and mentioned the Dropbox folder, he has just asked me on twitter for the link. This is great, as I know Paul may well add to the notes - it <i>is</i> the way he does things! Maybe by seeing it happen this will be another nudge for my colleagues, taking them a step closer to working in this way.<br />
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Much as <a href="http://www.rachelbotsman.com/" target="_blank">Rachel Botsman</a> says we're 'wired to share', I have to think consciously about doing things this way. Because it wasn't encouraged when we were at school, and it isn't something which the organisations we work for do. It's working with people like Paul which reminds me that I can (and should) do things in a share-y way. When I'm surrounded by people for whom it isn't second nature I slip back in to the old ways of doing things. So I'm grateful that I have contact with people who actively use online tools to facilitate collaborative ways of doing things. It nudges me, which helps me to nudge others.<br />
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What helps you to remember to share and create with others? Is it second nature for some people?<br />
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Here's a lovely TED Talk about sharing, which makes much more sense than my waffling!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-17615914139214051812013-01-23T23:24:00.002+00:002013-01-23T23:24:59.059+00:00Oh So Quiet?<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">I’m greatly enjoying reading </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Susan Cain’s book </span><i style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/about-the-book/" target="_blank">Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking</a> </i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’m only half way through, and have been surprised to identify with a number of the feelings which she attributes to people who are more introverts than extroverts. Particularly because I am in my element when facilitating or training large-ish groups of people, and I don’t have any major fears about giving presentations in front of large groups of people - though I’m glad I don’t have to that very often.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">However I do get stuck a lot in meetings of over about 6 people, and especially when my thinking feels quite different to theirs. This happened last Friday and a comment from someone involved in running the session has prompted me to reflect on what I did during the session.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The session was a workshop on </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Reconceptualising Representation: </b></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Exploring alternative spaces and modes of representation</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>A seminar that will open up conversations around the various ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ representational form structures within society and governance.</i></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>These discussions will inform critical research and insights into the effectiveness and impact of different representational forms and provide a better understanding into what representation is, its value and how do we best use it. Through discussions we will look at alternative modes and spaces of representation, such as applying the arts, and how this can be adapted and applied to enhance policy and governance practices.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Following introductions of everyone around the table, there were a couple of quite short presentations, including a couple of great videos, and then a few people involved in the research project and in arts projects were invited to talk about (really interesting and inspiring) pieces of work they had been involved in. After a couple of half attempts at opening the discussion more widely some questions were asked, but as is often the case with groups of over 5 or 6 people, those who had already contributed significantly continued to be the main contributors to the discussion. Lots of questions had been posed in the very first presentation, but with no-one helping the group to consider and respond to these in the subsequent discussions I felt that they were sadly wasted, in my view - a real shame as they were great questions.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oVx4P9WT0qQ/UQBtlE95UHI/AAAAAAAACM8/WpwVpC3HX0A/s1600/creative.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oVx4P9WT0qQ/UQBtlE95UHI/AAAAAAAACM8/WpwVpC3HX0A/s1600/creative.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image credit: <a href="http://daevildevous.deviantart.com/art/Creative-Wallpaper-152131952" target="_blank">daevildevous</a></i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It didn’t appear to me as though anyone had taken on the role of facilitating - this would have involved them remaining impartial to the discussions and supporting participants to contribute. Also I don’t think consideration had been made to non-verbal contributions, a (probably unconscious) assumption was made that those involved would be happy and comfortable contributing verbally. Which is interesting of itself given that there were people from ‘the arts’ involved in delivering the session - I am left wondering why the session wasn’t planned in more creative way and why it didn’t invite participants to contribute in creative ways. To be fair, the session was billed as a seminar, and the emphasis is on discussions, so this is merely something I’m left pondering, not a criticism.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So for about 3 hours I listened and listened, tried to gauge when there might be opportunities in the discussion to add something which I had to contribute. I couldn’t quite feel them, so I listened some more. One of the group members said something to me when we reconvened after lunch along the lines of “you haven’t said much” and made reference to the fact that I’d “taken lots of notes”.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, that’s what it may have looked like while I was tapping away at my keypad...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Listening, and talking elsewhere</b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">I’ve looked back at my ‘notes’ from the session, which consist of about 800 words:</span><br />
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<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Over a quarter were repetition of questions and useful information from the presentation slides, which I took note of because it didn’t look likely that we would be told where to refer to the presentation online, and nor did it look as though other visual aids would be used, such as the questions on flipchart to refer to later. (My memory isn't good enough to recall content of even a few slides.) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Another quarter of what I ‘noted’ was some fundamental questions I had about the research and wanted to ask, my reflections on things people had said and talked about out, connections to things which I might talk about and share, and an action for myself </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Just under a third were notes from the discussion - quotes of things people said which struck me and felt useful to reflect on.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">The remainder didn’t get written until the very end of the workshop, when we were asked to feedback two issues or opportunities arising from what we’d heard about/discussed. Thankfully for me I was near the end of the rotation, so had time to consider and prepare what I wanted to contribute, and I typed it up to help me talk coherently, as by that point in the session I had said so little that I had lost confidence in my ability to contribute.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That’s just my ‘notes’. I no doubt gave the impression of writing much more, but what I was doing was talking online and finding relevant information to absorb in other ways than just listening.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here’s what I also did during the main part of the workshop discussion:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image credit:<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/danmoyle/" target="_blank"> danielmoyle</a> flickr</i></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I sent <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/reconceptualising-representation" target="_blank">tweets about the workshop</a>, which involved</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Searching for, reading and filtering 3 sites about Laurence Payot‘s project <a href="http://www.coincidenceproject.co.uk/welcome/" target="_blank">Coincidence</a>, searching for his twitter handle and eventually <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y11rv6wqAg" target="_blank">finding a video from the project </a>to share on twitter</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Searching for and reading some of <a href="http://www.bctouring.co.uk/" target="_blank">Black Country Touring’s website</a>, finding their twitter handle and tweeting about them, including a page about The Corner Shop project</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Considering which of my twitter followers might be interested in the discussion and mentioning 4 of them, inviting them to join in - and replying to tweets they sent (mostly about having fun in the snow!)</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Tweeting thoughts I had during the discussion</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Searching for and reading about the <a href="http://stirchleyprospects.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Love Stirchley</a> project and tweeting a link about it, including a mention of someone I thought would like it (he did!) - and @GKBhambra retweeted it</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Tweeting about what I heard said about setting up an Urban Resource Network in Stirchley and replying to a response I got about that on twitter</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Taking a picture of an <a href="http://instagram.com/p/Un5VJBEQjP/" target="_blank">image I liked in the Love Stirchley leaflet </a>we were given, sharing it on Instagram and twitter</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Searching for, reading about and tweeting about <a href="http://smallchangeforum.org/" target="_blank">Small Change</a></span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Oh, and I also</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Put the Love Stirchley Festival in my calendar</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Emailed myself links to the Coincidence project and the Small Change Forum to remind myself to read more</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Looked up definitions of things like representation to help me think through what the research was about and what I might usefully contribute to discussions from some of my work </span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was also taking part in a few side discussions on twitter which had nothing to do with the workshop (with apologies to those running the workshop, but I didn’t feel 100% engaged in the conversation). They involved banter about yarn bombing, events cancelled due to the snow, and <a href="https://twitter.com/WeeklyBlogClub" target="_blank">@weeklyblogclub</a>.</span></div>
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<b>Time to talk</b></h3>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I used the lunch break as my main opportunity to ask the questions I wanted to of some of the people in the workshop - such as questions about the research focus and whether Small Change uses Theory of Change. I reckon I probably learned more by having those discussions on a one-to-one basis than if I’d have asked them in the whole group discussion, as the respondents were free from the need to take in to consideration other people’s positions, or the need to give background to those who may be less familiar with the subject area.</span></div>
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<b>Being quietly useful (I hope)</b></h3>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So although I hadn’t said much in the main discussion, I was working hard to share the interesting things I was hearing about with other people outside the room, and also finding non-verbal ways to take in information and answer some of the numerous questions I had without taking up time in the discussion by searching for and reading information online. Of course online sharing works really when people involved in delivering activities join in and make content available online before and after events. It's great that I could find links to the projects that we heard about, but information about the research itself (and the slides from the session) aren't available for open sharing yet (I've asked). If I hear more I'll shout about it on twitter!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So I've realised that you’ll rarely find me in any discussion in a group bigger than about 6 people without at least my phone in use - tweeting offers me a route to expression which isn’t often offered unless an activity is very well facilitated and involves access to lots of pens and paper for writing and drawing. Being online also means I can check things out in the moment, so enhances my learning and acquisition of knowledge during a discussion. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I wonder if other people have these sorts of feelings and do these sorts of things? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Below is a video of Bjork's song, It's Oh So Quiet - just because I like this song and writing this post made me think of it.</i></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-64404006881701377472013-01-17T23:27:00.001+00:002013-01-17T23:28:01.150+00:00Bikes, Bread and Birmingham<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">On my way to drop of some posters at </span><a href="http://www.sycamoreadventure.co.uk/" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Sycamore Adventure</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> today I saw this sign:</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0o60zaRqD0w/UPiCyZ8e7FI/AAAAAAAACMQ/FCOjLqWxP_s/s1600/IMG_1287.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0o60zaRqD0w/UPiCyZ8e7FI/AAAAAAAACMQ/FCOjLqWxP_s/s320/IMG_1287.jpg" width="289" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Having met John Lane and John Guest a number of times I was keen to pop in and see their <a href="http://www.dudleynews.co.uk/news/local/9935159.Cycle_charity___s_refit_complete/" target="_blank">bike workshop</a>, I’d been promising to a couple of years ago before they moved to their current base.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">mmm, oily workshop smell!</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Walking in I was immediately engulfed in the lovely smell of oil and workshop type things, bringing back warm memories of my Grandad’s workshop in his garage and the basement of the engineering block at Warwick University where I learned to lathe. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">John Lane warmly welcomed me, swiftly made us a cup of coffee and settled down for a chat, having introduced me to three other volunteers that I hadn’t met before. I think <a href="http://www.city-can-cycle.co.uk/" target="_blank">City-Can-Cycle</a> is wonderful for a number of reasons: they make what some people think is scrap in to fully working and safe bikes, they thoughtfully distribute bikes (free to people they know can’t afford it, and for donations to those who can), they do all this for nothing and they have lots of ideas for the future.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I particularly loved the whiteboard (the workshop is in an old school classroom). While I was chatting John Guest amended the number of visitors on the board from 936 to 937. I was the statistic being counted. What simple monitoring: number of bikes in, bikes out and visitors to the workshop. All recorded with a whiteboard marker and updated in real time!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Guest proudly presenting the hi-tech monitoring!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Lane</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was wonderful listening to John talk about the history of City-Can-Cycle, their future ideas and how they manage to wangle things like a workshop space for free. I asked John how he’d feel about contributing to a Community Lover’s Guide to Dudley which <a href="https://twitter.com/piratesprite" target="_blank">Melissa Guest</a> and I are co-editing. I’m pleased that he was interested - I showed him the Community Lover’s Guide to Birmingham which I’ve read this week. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The first story is written by Tom Baker from <a href="http://www.loafonline.co.uk/" target="_blank">Loaf</a>, and it really got me thinking. Tom's contribution is beautifully crafted and is both moving and hunger inducing! I was delighted to meet Tom on Tuesday, having invited myself along to the intimate launch of the Community Lover’s Guide to Birmingham. And it was fantastic to both meet Birgit and Marcia from <a href="http://changekitchen.co.uk/" target="_blank">ChangeKitchen</a> (another story in the Guide) and to sample their delicious food. They are having a Penny-Pinching Pop-Up restaurant once a month, I’d fully recommend a visit if you’re nearby. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’ve archived tweets, blogs and a video from the launch event <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/reading-the-community-lover-s-guide-to-birmingham" target="_blank">here</a> (I’m so glad the Community Lovers are such a social bunch online). And a little history to the Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe series was <a href="http://www.socialspaces.org/Community-Lover-s-Guide" target="_blank">posted by Tessy Britton here</a>, following her brilliant publication, <a href="http://communityloversguide.org/READ-HANDMADE" target="_blank">Hand Made</a>. <a href="http://www.karenstrunksmedia.com/" target="_blank">Karen Strunks</a> posted this short video clip of <a href="https://twitter.com/podnosh" target="_blank">Nick Booth</a> at the launch on You Tube:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Having gone on from City-Can-Cycle today to meet with Julie Dillon from <a href="http://www.dudleyci.co.uk/kb5/dudley/asch/event.page?record=74W6PiK5kfA" target="_blank">Lions Boxing Club</a> and then popping in to see Camilla Phillips and volunteers at the <a href="http://www.hopecentrerevolution.com/" target="_blank">Hope Centre</a>, I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that there are so many wonderful, generous and caring people in every square mile in Dudley borough. Let’s hope that our Community Lover’s Guide to Dudley will help people who don’t know all these stories to learn more. It really has been enlightening to read the stories behind projects and activities in Birmingham which I thought I knew a fair bit about. It makes a real difference reading what the people involved say about what they do.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-53546550084862089212013-01-04T17:05:00.001+00:002013-01-13T14:03:11.322+00:00x-y coordinationIt's that time of year when I try to get bit organised, and have grand plans and aspirations. Inspired by the <a href="http://weeklyblogclub.wordpress.com/about/" target="_blank">Weekly Blog Club</a> celebrated in a <a href="http://danslee.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/link-love-16-blog-posts-that-have-inspired-me-in-2012/" target="_blank">recent great post</a> by Dan Slee I'm going to try to write more here. And as part of the process of getting organised I'll start by finishing and publishing a number of half written posts lurking in various spaces across the chaotic system that serves as places I shove electronic files. (I'm in the process of bringing order to that chaos, and starting to understand the beauty of <a href="https://evernote.com/" target="_blank">Evernote</a>.) So here's a post I drafted in August <span style="font-family: inherit;">having read an</span><a href="http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/features/features/the-millennials" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank"> article called The Millenials</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/tammyerickson" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Tamara Erickson</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> in the Summer 2012 </span><a href="http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">RSA journal</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is about ways that members of Generation Y are </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">transforming the way we work, with their technological proficiency, aptitude for teamwork and willingness to embrace multiple perspectives.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Having been born in 1975, I think I pretty much have to accept that I am one of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X" target="_blank">Generation X</a>, not one of the Millenials. However I was struck by how much I think I'm struggling with the same things that Tamara suggests the Millenials, or Generation Y, are changing. She suggested that: </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><i>They are redrawing the line between what is institutional and what is personal, raising questions about which applications can be used during traditional work hours and what access to external sites will be allowed from internal machines. Over time, they will push us to remove the barriers; the boundaries will disappear. At some point, corporations will no longer provide employees with computers and mobile phones; their employees will simply plug in the ones that they already own.</i></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Working at Brewsmiths coffee shop today</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Thankfully I work in an organisation without daft restrictions to social networking sites and other web 2.0 platforms, so I can use them powerfully to benefit my work. However I still face the question 'when do you have time to do this?' from colleagues who don't use online to enhance offline, and haven't blurred that boundary between what is work and what is personal. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">I am already plugging in the devices I already own. I'm a year into having an iPad and wouldn't like to go to a meeting or event without it (you never know what you might want to look up). And increasingly my PC sits on my desk with the power off as I plug in my MacBook to work more quickly and easily than I can using cumbersome Windows programmes, and to produce more beautiful documents. I tried using Word once this week for 30 minutes. It crashed. I save my work to <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/" target="_blank">Dropbox</a>, I forget to back up to the server (it feels archaic, and exclusive - how can my colleagues in the council or in other places and organisations access stuff I save on our server?). </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I think (hope) that I also have this characteristic of folk younger than me: </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Ys select and use technology to make their lives easier, both inside and outside the workplace. They manage technology – and its role in their lives – in ways that are helpful and productive, whereas for many adults, it can seem intrusive or anxiety-producing.</i></div>
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And I now share this way of working with Generation Y folk: <i style="font-family: inherit;">Using new technology to support them, Ys have become highly accomplished at ‘time shifting’: doing things when it is most convenient, rather than when they are scheduled to occur. </i><i style="font-family: inherit;">As a result, fixed work hours will eventually disappear, replaced by a focus on achieving a specified result by a particular date, regardless of how time is managed within that span. </i>I can't wait for this day - hurry up Millenials!</div>
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Tamara got me thinking with this: <i>Ys are expert at multitasking and are quick to make the most of the rapid-fire information that characterises today’s world. They also tend to be good at coordinating, as opposed to planning or scheduling. They will bring this practice to the workplace and, for a number of activities, it will prove more efficient and agile.</i></div>
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I'm definitely don't rely on or stick rigidly to schedules or plans, rather I use them loosely to give some structure, which enables others to have sense of a what and a rough when. And then as new learning emerges, and context and focus changes my rough plans evolve. I think I'd rather have co-ordinating as a strength if it's OK to have that and be less good at planning. And if these things are the case then - brilliant:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Ys perform tasks collaboratively, sharing information openly and solving problems through communal wisdom. Bringing ideas together is an essential component of the innovation required for today’s competitive environment, and Ys tend to do it well.</i></span></div>
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<i>... Ys tend to play by network rules. As the cost of communication decreases, businesses are becoming part of a complex network. The rule of network economics is that open systems – those that allow others to play – are the ones that win. Ys will encourage us to develop strategies based on the principle of allowing all participants to benefit from the transaction.</i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Tamara states that <i>Ys are heavily dependent on peer networks to identify the best, most trusted sources of information. </i>I think I'm in this place now, the people I follow on twitter are amazing filters for me.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And I hope that I can be part of a group of people who<i> know how to build their own reputations as both knowledgeable sources and insightful reviewers. </i>I think there are a lot of people out there who are a bit older who have pioneered some of the changes described in the RSA article, I wonder if they too feel impatient and want these new, younger, thinkers to start to occupy more spaces so that traditional ways of working really shift. In the meantime, I might just try to turn 30 again!</span><br />
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<i style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">Image credit: by Merlin2525 from Open Clip Art Library</i></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><i><b>This post is written with a huge amount of appreciation to the many brilliant people (perhaps mostly Generation Xers) who have encouraged, inspired and supported me to learn how work in these different ways over the last three years. They include <a href="https://twitter.com/sospot" target="_blank">Sophie Ballinger</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/tobyblume" target="_blank">Toby Blume</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/podnosh" target="_blank">Nick Booth</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/davidwilcox" target="_blank">David Wilcox</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/watfordgap" target="_blank">Paul Webster</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Salhampson" target="_blank">Sal Hampson</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/danslee" target="_blank">Dan Slee</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/pigsonthewing" target="_blank">Andy Mabbett</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/johnpopham" target="_blank">John Popham</a>.</b></i></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-29526361425705831702012-10-07T22:51:00.001+01:002012-10-07T22:51:07.439+01:00Funny Money<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t2zT8f902Bw/UHHs8X98XSI/AAAAAAAABpI/EyGrNNMnJyw/s1600/funny+money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t2zT8f902Bw/UHHs8X98XSI/AAAAAAAABpI/EyGrNNMnJyw/s200/funny+money.jpg" width="137" /></a></div>
In 2000 I bought a book called <a href="http://www.david-boyle.co.uk/books/funnymoney.html" target="_blank">Funny Money: in search of alternative cash</a> by <a href="http://www.david-boyle.co.uk/index.html" target="_blank">David Boyle</a>. Around that time I was really interested in Time Banks and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system" target="_blank">Local Exchange Trading Systems</a>, having been introduced to them through a training day organised by <a href="http://www.westmidlands.groundwork.org.uk/" target="_blank">Groundwork</a> Black Country, who I worked for then. I remember being really inspired hearing stories about <a href="http://www.neweconomics.org/about/edgar-cahn" target="_blank">Edgar Cahn</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency" target="_blank">US Time Dollars</a> and <a href="http://timebanks.org/" target="_blank">Time Bank</a> which he founded.<br />
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I don't think that we ever got any alternative currencies going through Groundwork, and at that point in my life I was mostly still socialising with people I knew from university - a number of whom had become accountants. They clearly thought I was talking nonsense when I mentioned this sort of thing, and I remember debating it with a friend who graduated in International Business and being told in no uncertain terms that there was no way that the economic system we have would change, and these sorts of things wouldn't work. Not being well-versed in economics (or business), I didn't have a particularly strong position to argue from, I just remember feeling incredibly angry about the economic system and passionate about alternatives which promoted what seemed to me to be a much more equal world. It's strange looking back and realising that these conversations took place before <a href="http://wiki.freecycle.org/Introduction" target="_blank">Freecycle</a> had even started. I'm so pleased that what I was so angry about is now written about by people who know their stuff and expose a lot of the myths around economics - for example in <a href="http://www.newint.org/books/politics/people-first-economics/" target="_blank">People First Economics</a> (well worth a read).<br />
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You can therefore imagine how delighted I was to meet up today with a good friend from Bristol who has already swapped her pound sterling for <a href="http://bristolpound.org/" target="_blank">Bristol Pound</a> notes and hear how the local currency works. Hundreds of independent businesses have signed up to accept the Bristol Pound, and the whole system seems really <a href="http://bristolpound.org/howpeople" target="_blank">easy to start using</a>. But what made me tingle with joy was when my friend explained that she had eaten in a restaurant that doesn't (yet) take the Bristol Pound, and accidentally left the tip in Bristol Pounds. The waitress happily picked it up and said 'brilliant, I can get my lunch tomorrow with that from my local shop'. Wow!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My friend's Bristol £5 and £1 notes - beautiful</td></tr>
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I'm feeling inspired to re-read Funny Money, and related books that have been gathering dust on my bookshelves for the last decade ... and perhaps look harder at the opportunities for introducing alternative currencies in some of the projects I'm involved in, such as <a href="http://eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">East Coseley Big Local</a> - especially as the <a href="http://www.localtrust.org.uk/" target="_blank">Local Trust</a> are exploring alternative, <a href="http://www.localtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Enterprising-communities-agenda.pdf" target="_blank">community-based economic approaches</a>. We've also discussed time banks in relation to some community asset based health improvement work I'm doing - it feels as though these ideas are grabbing peoples' imaginations and feel possible.<br />
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I'll start by proudly showing people the Bristol Pound note which I exchanged today with my friend Carrie, and use it as reminder of what is possible when people come together and believe they can make change.<br />
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<i>You can follow the Bristol Pound on twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/BristolPound" target="_blank">@BristolPound</a></i><br />
<i>There's also interesting work being led by <a href="http://localisewestmidlands.org.uk/" target="_blank">Localise West Midlands</a></i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-17829578398831671832012-09-30T22:15:00.000+01:002012-09-30T22:30:10.470+01:00Books, Boxes and Bunkum!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WkRcwuq68xk/UGissdkUPqI/AAAAAAAABn8/LXAm52akSD4/s1600/Image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WkRcwuq68xk/UGissdkUPqI/AAAAAAAABn8/LXAm52akSD4/s200/Image.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The amazing cake we ate at the CDX event </td></tr>
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The following is an edited version of a presentation I gave at the <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/cdx-agm-2012" target="_blank">CDX AGM</a> and <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/cdx-starfish-a-celebration-event" target="_blank">celebration event</a> held on 29 September in Sheffield. It was a strange day, wonderful in that a lot of brilliant people were all in one room (members of my ‘tribe’ as <a href="http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/" target="_blank">Ken Robinson</a> would refer to it), and very sad in that together we considered and agreed a motion from CDX board to dissolve <a href="http://www.cdx.org.uk/" target="_blank">CDX</a> (a charity and limited company) after 31 December this year.<br />
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However I hold out great hope that we can become a very different sort of network, unconstrained by the requirements of being an organisation, albeit without access to the skills and experience of wonderful staff members.<br />
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My thinking on any day, week or month is shaped by whatever I’m reading - and I’m often in the middle of four or five books at once. (I’m not a completer-finisher!)
I read mostly non-fiction at the moment, and I find lots of links from what I read to what I’m experiencing. This was the case with the <a href="http://www.starfishandspider.com/" target="_blank">Starfish and the Spider</a> - in this instance it was a book I returned to when thinking about CDX’s future, as I imagined then that we might be moving towards being a leaderless organisation.<br />
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I found some of the thinking in the book really helpful at the time, offering ideas for a different way forward.
It doesn’t all feel as relevant as it did a year ago (<a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/community-development-spiders-and.html" target="_blank">see my last post</a>) but the thinking around circles feels useful to focus on now. <a href="http://twitter.com/LadyLowe" target="_blank">Emma Lees</a> suggested to me that circles could be the replacement of infrastructure like CDX.
The authors say that<i> circles are important to nearly every decentralised organisation</i>. Circles <i>share a common heritage and tradition</i>, but each independent, autonomous circle might have its own particular habits and norms.<br />
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I reflected on circles that I’ve been invited in to. <a href="http://changesuk.net/about/team/" target="_blank">Sal, Sue and Jill from changes</a> invite me to be part of work they are developing, with others, and to joint reflection sessions. They are also initiating some circles around <a href="http://futurefeministcommunitydevt.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">feminism and community development</a> which I’m looking forward to being part of.<br />
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I’ve started a few circles which I feel have a community development approach and values at their heart:<br />
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<ul>
<li>I have started Action Learning Sets. </li>
<li>I co-organise a regular community engagement networking event in Dudley. </li>
<li>It probably wouldn’t be considered community development, but I recently started <a href="http://www.shhhh.org/jelly" target="_blank">Jelly in Brierley Hil</a>l - co-working events. It fits with my approach of creating circles that bring in a diversity of members, and where collaboratively minded people can connect and support each other. </li>
<li>My work requires the development of circles - they have names like Community Forum, or planning group ... but they are all circles as far as I’m concerned, some with affinity to other sorts of circles, <a href="http://eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">such as Big Local</a>, but when I’m involved they link to a tradition of community development because I bring that with me. </li>
<li>Outside of my paid role I set up a non-fiction book group, because I wanted a way to reflect on things I read and find interesting in a group setting. </li>
</ul>
One of the books I’m currently reading is <a href="http://idler.co.uk/books/how-to-be-free/" target="_blank">How to be Free by Tom Hodgkinson</a>. According to the sleeve notes it is:<br />
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<i>“a simple, joyful blueprint for modern living. He shows that consumer society has led not to a widening of freedoms but the opposite, and that the key to a free life is to stop consuming and start producing. We are not consumers, we are creators!” </i></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CDX AGM and celebration event</td></tr>
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And just as the Starfish and the Spider book prompted me to reflect on CDX, so did this. It’s not a direct analogy, but I can’t help feeling that as members we often waited for CDX staff to offer something to us, rather than being creative, proactive members of a network. As mentioned in <a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/community-development-spiders-and.html" target="_blank">my last post</a>, CDX activity was shaped by funding from the last government and their regional arrangements. This resulted (in my view) in CDX members being put in to boxes. Regional events were held annually, with members living near a border feeling they had to ask for special permission if attending an event in their neighbouring region was more suitable for them. Around the board table (I was a trustee for 4 years), individual members were often identified by the region they were based in. And with CDX closing, members are, quite rightly, raising concerns about our national voice.<br />
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I think there are new ways to look at all this now, thanks to online social networking. It is actually all down to my involvement in CDX that I took a deep breath and plunged myself in to the online world, in spring 2012. We had recruited the brilliant <a href="https://twitter.com/sospot" target="_blank">Sophie Ballinger</a> partly for her skills and experience in using social media, and I thought it important to learn something about it - I didn’t want her to feel that her chairperson didn’t know what she was talking about (which I didn’t for a while!)<br />
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A great thing about being connected online is that the boxes we get put in fade away, as does the waiting to be offered something. I don’t need a CDX event to prompt connections and conversation, I can start them any time online. I don’t need to worry that I’ll only meet people from the West Midlands, I can talk to like-minded people living in Liverpool, London or South America.
So what can those of us who thrive online do to encourage and connect with those who don’t?<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXQobr3744Q/UGivjWfpufI/AAAAAAAABoY/j69NDiLcHFY/s1600/the+element.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXQobr3744Q/UGivjWfpufI/AAAAAAAABoY/j69NDiLcHFY/s1600/the+element.jpg" /></a></div>
I’m also in the middle of reading <a href="http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/the-element" target="_blank">The Element by Ken Robinson</a>, which is about how finding your passion changes everything. I’m discovering that one of my passions is writing - but in a way that I wouldn’t have known was possible a couple of years ago. I love writing as part of a dialogue online, responding to other people’s blogs. It feels very different to any other kinds of writing I’ve done.<br />
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So let’s expose some bunkum around online connecting.<br />
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<b>Bit of bunkum no 1</b>: <i>“I don’t have time”</i>. As I said to CDX members, they no longer receive a printed magazine from CDX. If they had found the time to read that and found it worthwhile, then they should be able to find at least a little time to read interesting articles or blogs online.<br />
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<b>Bit of bunkum no 2:</b> <i>You need a smartphone or tablet to be connected and and networking online.</i> Of course it makes it easier to fit in to your day, but providing you have access to the internet, you can make time to sit at your computer (desktop or laptop) and connect. Why not take your laptop to a coffee shop and spend an hour or so browsing?<br />
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<b>Bit of bunkum no 3:</b> <i>You need to be on twitter or facebook or in those confusing to navigate forums</i>. I disagree. Some of the loveliest connecting I do online is in other people’s spaces - their blogs. I’ve come across some amazing reflective and justice-minded people who share their thoughts and struggles, share really useful information and ask really good questions. (For example, the appropriately named <a href="http://nextstarfish.com/" target="_blank">Next Starfish blog</a> by Steve Moreby.) I love to sit and reflect on and respond to their questions and stories. And if you write a blog yourself it’s the most brilliant thing when someone who reads it takes the time to leave a comment - they are joining you in dialogue.<br />
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<b>Bit of bunkum no 4:</b> <i>You have to read and comment on a blog post within a day or two, otherwise the discussion is over.</i> I am sure many people posting on community development and related topics don’t mind when you find a post and respond to it. The joy is the discussion. The person who posted should get an alert to say someone has commented, they no doubt won’t mind on which post.<br />
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<b>Bit of bunkum no 5: </b><i>If you’re going to host your own blog you should post once a day, or once a week.</i> My view is that it’s your blog. Write as often or as infrequently as you like. Don’t make it a chore. Don’t do it if you don’t like writing! (You have other passions - do something with them). But if you do have a go, try and use it to connect. Email a few people and ask what they think about it. If you do use twitter send out a few mentions.<br />
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And my closing plea is that if you don’t want to be online don’t feel bad - but don’t keep giving reasons why to those who are. Instead make use of their passion. Ask them if there is anything good they’ve seen that you might like. Ask them to email or print it for you. And if you’re doing something interesting or exciting, find people who are connected online who can share it (the team at <a href="http://podnosh.com/" target="_blank">Podnosh</a> often do this, very effectively). Invite them along with a role to blog or tweet about about it, or take photos of it and post them online. That way more people can connect to you and what you’re doing.<br />
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I was really pleased to receive this tweet following my ramble through all of the above:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NANjNQ9SceQ/UGi1d0_B7UI/AAAAAAAABo0/IIyQdEF7AXY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-09-30+at+22.09.57.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NANjNQ9SceQ/UGi1d0_B7UI/AAAAAAAABo0/IIyQdEF7AXY/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-09-30+at+22.09.57.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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I’m looking forward to ongoing discussions and work with people like <a href="http://socialreporter.com/" target="_blank">David Wilcox</a>, <a href="http://www.urbanforum.org.uk/nick-bird/nick-bird-network-development-officer" target="_blank">Nick Bird</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/LadyLowe" target="_blank">Emma Lees</a> and others around how we can develop online and offline networking as national infrastructure organisations shrink, merge and close. If you have any thoughts or ideas please do comment here, and if you’d like to join our discussion and activity do let me know.<br />
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<i>Thanks again to those who commented on my last post, which helped my thinking around this, and especially to Nick Bird for ideas around my presentation and ongoing thinking.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-67390717586323391952012-09-14T18:26:00.000+01:002012-09-24T14:32:50.878+01:00Community development, spiders and starfish<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Twelve months ago I was a member of the board of <a href="http://www.cdx.org.uk/" target="_blank">CDX (Community Development Exchange)</a>, coming to the end of a two year period as the chair. For much of the time that I’d been chair I’d found our focus on regional networks (and less so regional network<b><i>ing</i></b>) quite constraining. The focus was required due to our core funding being from the government, and our last government invested heavily in regional structures - we had well staffed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Office" target="_blank">Government Offices</a> in the 9 English regions, supporting local authorities and local partnership structures, and there were well resourced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_development_agency" target="_blank">Regional Development Agencies</a> responsible for economic development. Despite the change in government in 2010 and the abolition of regional government structures, the activities and discussions in CDX often focused on English regions - even though of some of the regions didn't even have regional community development networks.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Inspired by ideas and observations in a book by <a href="http://www.starfishandspider.com/" target="_blank">Brafman and Beckman - The Starfish and the Spider</a>, I put together <a href="http://issuu.com/lornaprescott/docs/on_becoming_a_starfish" target="_blank">a paper</a> for the CDX board with our then CEO, Nick Beddow. The thinking took hold, and over the last year, as CDX’s resources have diminished, staff and trustees have been encouraging a ‘<a href="http://www.cdx.org.uk/about-us/blog/cdx-starfish-meetings" target="_blank">starfish approach</a>’, looking for CDX members who are natural catalysts who could set up starfish meetings.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Later this month CDX members will meet at <a href="http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=32c730a82e8537f1444a92070&id=a8f3ac4f8c&e=dddf795732" target="_blank">an AGM at which the wind-up of CDX is proposed</a>. Those of us active in community development who have been close to CDX are keen to keep and strengthen our connections and, in different ways, continue doing the things that CDX was able to do because it was a staffed network. Along with <a href="http://about.me/stevesparrow" target="_blank">Steve Sparrow </a>and <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sue-robson/46/900/696" target="_blank">Sue Robson</a> I’ve been asked to input a little about local ‘starfish activity’ that we’ve helped to make happen in Liverpool, Durham and Dudley.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">From a CDX perspective, the Dudley/West Mids starfish started with a <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/cdx-and-engaging-together-networking-event" target="_blank">Community Engagement Network event </a>in Dudley in July. My colleagues agreed that we would promote it to CDX members across the West Midlands, including members of community development network in Sandwell I had recently come across but the members of which had been unaware of CDX. We ran the networking event as an open space session, enabling a range of issues and ideas to be discussed.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">From a personal perspective, I had been thinking that a lot of the things I do in my work are starfish activities - bringing people together around different projects and ideas, and bringing <a href="http://www.cdx.org.uk/community-development/community-development%E2%80%99s-values" target="_blank">community development values</a> to them. I use things like the <a href="http://changesuk.net/themes/community-empowerment/" target="_blank">Community Empowerment Dimensions</a> as described by <a href="http://changesuk.net/about/team/" target="_blank">changes</a> to prompt discussions around community development values without getting bogged down with struggling to define community development to people who don’t identify with it.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today I’ve returned to The Starfish and the Spider book and re-read sections on the five foundations of decentralised networks and on the role of the catalyst. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The pertinent points for me are:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That <i>‘<b>circles</b> are important to nearly every decentralised organisation’</i>. They share a common heritage and tradition, but each independent, autonomous circle might have its own particular habits and norms.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Circles don’t form on their own. <b>Catalysts </b>spur groups of people to action. They are inspirational figures, who move on when their job is done (like Mary Poppins). Catalysts are peers (not the boss), who develop trust and collaboration (they aren’t directive), who thrive on ambiguity and connect rather than organise.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Ideology</b> is the glue that holds decentralised organisations together, and is a strong motivator for action.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Decentralised organisations are usually built on <b>preexisting </b>decentralised networks - providing a platform to launch from.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Inherently hyperactive <b>champions </b>spread ideas in decentralised networks. They are relentless in promoting or selling a new idea.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If I consider the many projects, initiatives and networks I’m involved in and help to make happen from a CDX perspective, I still think they could be considered as a range of different starfish activities, because what I do is not managed by or through CDX. However the principles of decentralised networks must apply throughout the network. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I’m coming around to a feeling that the Community Empowerment Network events I plan and facilitate with colleagues in Dudley aren’t decentralised (starfish) activities. This is because a small group of us organise and lead them, and the <a href="http://engagingtogether.org.uk/" target="_blank">wider programme of work</a> that they sit in. While the events themselves promote networking and connecting, there isn’t the kind of ongoing, horizontal networking which occurs in decentralised networks like twitter and online forums, with the occasional exception of when our event participants take each other’s details and contact one another directly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">A new programme of work I’m involved in developing focused on considering </span></span><a href="http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/getattachment/aedb15fb-a64a-4d71-a2d6-e8e6e865319b/Appreciating-Assets.aspx" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">assets</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> and services holistically feels much more decentralised in nature (I 'm in the process of creating a collaborative blog to share it). I hadn’t remembered the language from the book around circles, but it’s great to re-read it. What we’re trying to do with six pilot collaborative projects is to initiate independent and autonomous </span></span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">circles</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. We’ve found people willing to take on the role of enablers, the idea being that they enable (</span></span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">champion</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">?) collaboration. Our early thinking around collaboration has used the Community Empowerment Dimensions, so if we can embed this, it provides a shared </span></span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">ideology</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. We’re sort of building the circles outwards from a cross-sector action research project team - though a struggle is that many members of the circles work in a highly centralised organisation - our local authority. In no way would I claim to be inspirational, but I feel that I have a role in this activity as a </span></span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">catalyst</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">, and I am left </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">reminding</span><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> myself (as a community development worker would) that:</span></span><br />
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<li><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I must step back - not direct or lead</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I think perhaps the catalyst role is a shared one in this particular programme of work (if indeed the whole idea actually applies), and I think those of us who are catalysts are also acting as champions. My colleague Bridget Brickley is champion for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking" target="_blank">whole systems approach</a> to all that we do, and Donna Roberts is a champion and brilliant advocate for genuine collaboration. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On the face of it Dudley's work on collaboration, assets and services has nothing to do with CDX. Except that I have been a CDX member for many years, and bring community development values to all that I do. And <a href="http://wolverhamptoncelp.org.uk/pages/contact" target="_blank">Sam Axtell</a>, a colleague over the border in Wolverhampton is doing some brilliant different but similar work in an activity called <a href="http://www.maketheshift.org/" target="_blank">MakeSHIFT</a>. She brings community development values to her work. No doubt if I look further others will be doing similar but different things. We’re not networking community development practitioners or managers, as CDX did. But we’re developing independent, autonomous circles, responsive to our own particular environments and communities (professional, geographical, interest or identity), within a tradition of community development. <i><b>And</b></i> we connect to each other to share and learn from each other, through both face-to-face and online conversations. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Is that what CDX might be looking for at a time when many spiders (centralised organisations) can’t survive, but the day of the starfish has arrived?</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-52522988317226273522012-09-12T23:04:00.001+01:002012-09-19T00:17:16.797+01:00Pot Luck: exciting and brilliant!<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today saw the launch of <a href="http://www.potluck.so/">www.potluck.so</a>, a site which hosts can use to organise communal meals, and invitees can make offers of things to bring. A few weeks ago <a href="http://twitter.com/TessyBritton" target="_blank">Tessy Britton</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/laurabillings" target="_blank">Laura Billings </a>asked a few people if they would like to host meals on the launch day. I immediately said yes, as did <a href="http://twitter.com/mauricespecht" target="_blank">Maurice Specht</a> in Rotterdam. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So this morning, as I prepared things to throw in the slow cooker, I eagerly followed Maurice’s tweets from his pot luck breakfast in Rotterdam, and then showed his pictures to my colleagues when I arrived at work. Here’s <a href="http://www.collaborate.so/2012/09/a-potluck-breakfast-in-rotterdam.html" target="_blank">Maurice’s recap of his morning</a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I arrived at our pot luck dinner venue, the <a href="http://shhhh.org/" target="_blank">Secret Coffee Club</a>, about half an hour before we expected people to arrive, and Marc and Rachel and I laid the table. When everyone had arrived we were 16 in total, 10 adults and 6 children. By the time we sat down to eat an hour later the children there had all made new friends, and the adults, some of whom hadn’t met before, were chatting and laughing away, sharing stories and jokes. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was a really warm, un-pressured feeling. Lots of lovely food was being offered, passed around and enjoyed. We had noodles, chicken rice, veggie chilli, egg fried rice, dips, lots of fruit and then cheesecake, rocky road, ice creams and more!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As well as our yummy dinner, people bought other things to share (sharing was the theme of our evening). Oliver told me a little about going to the Paralympics. Stuart showed us a quadcopter and how to fly it, and answered all sorts of questions about it. Donna and Jack bought some fresh eggs from their 3 hens to share. Joyce told people about the Caribbean cooking lessons she is running (and recruited some trainees), and Marc explained what <a href="http://insightforcarers.org/" target="_blank">INSIGHT for Carers</a> do. Tony shared his washing up skills in abundance!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During the evening Maurice Skyped us, so we all said hello to him and I heard a little about his meal before the connection went. We also linked up by video through a Google Hangout to <a href="http://twitter.com/notazengarden" target="_blank">Steve</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/kirstysparrow" target="_blank">Kirsty</a> in Liverpool, who are planning a pot luck dinner soon at a local cafe in Wavertree. I briefly showed them what we were up to.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I travelled home after the dinner this evening I reflected that this was one of the most exciting and brilliant things I’ve ever done. I was actually comparing it to my wedding! Here are 3 reasons why it was so brilliant:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It really didn’t take much organising - as soon as Marc had offered the venue it was simply a matter of popping a few things on the Pot Luck website, sending a few emails, texting and tweeting a few folk and then making one dish for dinner.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It wasn’t stressful at all being a host - quote the opposite. It was actually more like being at someone else’s party. Everyone just got on with their own thing, made sure others were looked after if needed, and chipped in to the clearing up. Like Maurice, I feel there is trust that needs to be placed in people. We often try to do too much, when actually people can do it for themselves.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By the end of the evening everyone was saying how much they had enjoyed it, asking when the next one was and giving their ideas on when we should hold it (a weekend) and what we should do.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The buzz that I felt by the end was similar to feelings I’ve had following large events I’ve been involved in organising ... but without any of the tiredness and stress that results from organising them. And who would have known that 5 days ago we didn’t have anyone booked to come to our pot luck dinner! That is how simple this is - you ask people, and they come :)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are more pictures from the Rotterdam Pot Luck breakfast and the Brierley Hill Pot Luck dinner on <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/pot-luck-dinner-launch" target="_blank">my Storify archive</a>. I may put together a little video too ... and might also be on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p008nxy3" target="_blank">Adrian Goldberg's BBC WM radio show</a> talking about Pot Luck with Tessy and Maurice. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-23917598075934007362012-08-30T17:32:00.000+01:002012-08-31T16:28:53.188+01:00A top-down approach to scaling up (aka making stuff happen)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I was talking to </span><a href="http://twitter.com/TessyBritton" target="_blank">Tessy Britton</a><span class="Apple-style-span"> and <a href="http://twitter.com/laurabillings" target="_blank">Laura Billings</a> yesterday and Tessy mentioned <a href="http://www.collaborate.so/2012/08/bringing-big-ideas-to-life.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, in which the following TEDx Talk by Jason Roberts features.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> During the talk Jason shares three steps to making things happen:</span></div>
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<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Show up (or be present - bring your skills to the table)</i></span></li>
<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Give it a name (and a nice logo)</i></span></li>
<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Set a date and publish it (blackmail yourself)</i></span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’ve had the luxury in my work over the last 10 years or so to let things evolve, take time planning them, ruminate over them and work to quite nice or just self-imposed deadlines. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t get things done, I hugely over commit myself and can find myself involved in delivering activity on a range of different projects all in the space of about 36 hours if I don’t manage my calendar well. But think I’m also having a bit of a go at Jason’s way of working which, for now at least, I’m rather enjoying. And, inspired by Jason’s talk, and my chat with Tessy and Laura, I have developed my own version of the three steps. </span></div>
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<li><i>Put yourself in the presence of (aka keep pestering) people as energetic and enthusiastic as you are</i></li>
<li><i>Steal a name - and an idea: take a top-down approach to scaling up</i></li>
<li><i>Set a date and publish it (and then get really worried about how soon it is!)</i></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’ve learned some of this by watching. In March 2011 I participated in some training which would help me to be a host of a <a href="http://socialmediasurgery.com/about" target="_blank">social media surgery</a>. Luckily for the social media needy of Dudley, my colleague <a href="http://twitter.com/piratesprite" target="_blank">Mel</a> also participated in the training with me. Left to my own devices, it would have taken 2,3 or maybe even 4 or months before a surgery was up and running in Dudley. The idea of finding a venue willing to have us for free and finding volunteers to surgeon all felt a bit daunting to me. But thankfully not to Mel. She just asked, offered a little in a return, called a few contacts who could give time to help others and within a month we were hosting <a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/basking-in-social-glow.html" target="_blank">Dudley’s first ever social media surgery</a>.</span></div>
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I’ve been sharing an office with Mel for 18 months now, and something must be rubbing off on me. I’m getting ideas or being offered opportunities and then going straight to people I suspect might be up for making them happen quite quickly and without too much fuss. </div>
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<b>Pestering tools</b></div>
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A key tool for pestering people who you seek to collaborate with is twitter. Within hours of suggesting something to a couple of people you already know reasonably well you can have your collaborators roped in and, if necessary, a time and date in the diary to get it all sorted.</div>
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Other social media tools are good for longer chats with the more the distant folk - Tessy, Laura and I chatted via Skype yesterday, and having <a href="http://theverytiger.com/2012/08/12/interview-with-lorna-prescott-from-dudley-cvs/" target="_blank">trialled it with Honey Lucas</a> recently, I can see the potential for <a href="http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/" target="_blank">Google Hangouts</a> for progressing things with a group.</div>
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<b>Taking a top-down approach to scaling up</b></div>
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What on earth does this mean? I’d never heard of it until Tessy mentioned and explained it to me. And I’d been doing it without knowing it! Social media surgeries are one example. The <a href="http://socialmediasurgery.com/" target="_blank">social media surgery + platform</a> enables new people to come along and use the social media surgery model in their own locality or community, utilising the resources provided by the platform. The more people that do this, the better the idea becomes - because there are more options for people who want to attend or help out at surgeries.</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Perhaps my experience with social media surgeries was useful when I came across the idea of <a href="http://coffeebirmingham.co.uk/what-is-jelly/" target="_blank">Jelly on the Coffee Birmingham website</a>. The more I read, the more I liked the idea, so I tweeted <a href="http://twitter.com/m4rcuk" target="_blank">Marc Carter</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/reidy72" target="_blank">Lorna Reid</a>. We agreed a meeting date two weeks hence, I did a little more <a href="http://www.uk-jelly.org.uk/" target="_blank">reading about Jelly on the UK Jelly site</a> and some preparation for the meeting, we met and divvied up the tasks required to promote and run a first event. I made a record of what we’d agreed, also shared it with Odilia from <a href="http://hubstourbridge.com/" target="_blank">Hub Stourbridge</a>, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">as they may well run Jelly events in Stourbridge in the future ... and that’s it. A few tweets, a bit of planning, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>one meeting</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">, getting stuff done... and launch (it will be on 24 September in Brierley Hill). No time for stalling, over-thinking it, or putting any organisational barriers in the way. I am making use of contacts I’ve developed in Birmingham to explore how other Jellies work, and will go along to the next Birmingham Jelly, which is before our Brierley Hill Launch, but that’s all stuff I’m doing in my own time, out of interest, it’s not really required to make this work. We’ve used what’s already there online and are helping to scale things up.</span></div>
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Encouraged by how easy this has been, I’ve now somehow got myself involved in the (international!) <a href="http://potluck.so/tulsehill/launch" target="_blank">launch</a> of a new <a href="http://www.collaborate.so/2012/08/pot-luck.html" target="_blank">Pot Luck initiative</a>, thanks to Tessy and Laura, who emailed me about it less than two weeks ago, the launch date being less than two weeks from now! If all goes to plan, the website will be up in the next day or two, invitations will go out via me and anyone else I can rope in to this. Organising this has involve <b>no meetings at all</b>. The boundlessly enthusiastic Marc Carter is hosting the dinner at the <a href="http://secretcoffeeclub.co.uk/" target="_blank">Secret Coffee Club</a> and hopefully I’ll have some lovely photos and video to share in couple of weeks, proving that Brierley Hill can do Pot Luck just as well as Glasgow ... Rotterdam ... and wherever else gets involved.</div>
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And my learning so far: I’m starting to understand how some of my colleagues in the public sector feel when they think I’m trying to make them do things too quickly. I’ve made myself write this blog before the websites are up for either Brierley Hill Jelly or Pot Luck, because I need to experience sharing things before they are finalised, as it’s what I will increasingly be asking of others.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-47460684120456074682012-08-18T11:07:00.000+01:002013-08-31T23:03:54.677+01:00Karen and Margaret<a href="http://www.karenstrunks.com/" target="_blank">Karen Strunks</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/karenstrunks" target="_blank">@karenstrunks</a> on twitter) is probably known to most people who might be reading this. A generous online communicator, someone who makes things happen and who builds bridges between online and face-to-face relationships, in person Karen is warm and welcoming with a big friendly smile.<br />
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Scrolling through my twitter feed this morning I spotted this tweet from Karen:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk_F1jY2BHuY_rtQGEmVQaSxaZNcEUsjKIzESdjt8qiPAoUOMcgREZFFNOHrbFdPcSDcB4qVTtFqIpzqYOAuXn8fv8dO7koGyc9AUVih1NpNJof4DIBMjF-yByyD510K7lKa8GSW6eWeU/s1600/karen+tweet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="55" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk_F1jY2BHuY_rtQGEmVQaSxaZNcEUsjKIzESdjt8qiPAoUOMcgREZFFNOHrbFdPcSDcB4qVTtFqIpzqYOAuXn8fv8dO7koGyc9AUVih1NpNJof4DIBMjF-yByyD510K7lKa8GSW6eWeU/s400/karen+tweet.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I felt immediately worried and at the same time bad that I hadn't spotted earlier tweets about this. A quick click on Karen's profile and I found these tweets:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOS31n5DqUgU28dAZ3l9VEe0S7KAKeFKtisLqIHJdH6UbjYVr0OWk2CiyV-6WRMXdq2lMJPw0u4WdUmsgwG0J71LH1OjxoIbHUttQGCJ8tpbopbUxGKtBZwIaQAgoVKK88EUbgovEl7k/s1600/karen+tweets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtOS31n5DqUgU28dAZ3l9VEe0S7KAKeFKtisLqIHJdH6UbjYVr0OWk2CiyV-6WRMXdq2lMJPw0u4WdUmsgwG0J71LH1OjxoIbHUttQGCJ8tpbopbUxGKtBZwIaQAgoVKK88EUbgovEl7k/s400/karen+tweets.jpg" width="362" /></a></div>
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Still worried about what was wrong with Karen, I clicked on to <a href="https://twitter.com/createdineire" target="_blank">@createdineire</a>'s profile and tweets, wondering who this was. It took me to Margaret, Karen's mum, who I recognised as I had met her at the most recent <a href="http://birminghamsmc.com/" target="_blank">Social Media Cafe in Birmingham</a>. (Karen organises the Social Media Cafe.) And reading through Margaret's tweets I saw the most lovely thing - updates on Karen's health and lots of thoughtful and caring conversations between Margaret and Karen's friends on twitter. Here's just one of many examples:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKbJS958_Lcgk8LcEHlowLw_iUk2Q4kJdPyfVQf4cuspbEL1GcgovTnuiHAEmc6hcCDRVdepGS_WSnUm0hZ7QdsW0yx8kpH74E5lqsTsh_T9OHJCx4vhSEsmGKzxrn5hzBEAXGtB2qox8/s1600/karen+again.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKbJS958_Lcgk8LcEHlowLw_iUk2Q4kJdPyfVQf4cuspbEL1GcgovTnuiHAEmc6hcCDRVdepGS_WSnUm0hZ7QdsW0yx8kpH74E5lqsTsh_T9OHJCx4vhSEsmGKzxrn5hzBEAXGtB2qox8/s320/karen+again.jpg" width="299" /></a></div>
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I quickly ascertained from Margaret's tweets that Karen had an operation on gallstones, and felt very relieved to read that she is getting better and Mum approves of the care she was getting in hospital.<br />
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When I started using twitter two and half years ago I never anticipated seeing it used in such a caring way. The public conversations and updates from Margaret have enabled Karen's followers and friends to keep track of her improvement and send get well messages. I feel as though I'm always learning, from people like Karen, about helpful and creative ways to use twitter. Now Margaret has become my twitter heroine, which is why I wanted to write and share this story. (I also love <a href="http://www.createdineire.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/naughty-computer.html" target="_blank">this poem</a> on Margaret's blog, which I will now follow.)<br />
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Get well soon Karen x<br />
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<i>In case you don't know Karen, here's some of the stuff she does and makes happen:</i><br />
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<i>She initiated, runs and is the Creative Director of the <a href="http://4amproject.org/" target="_blank">4am Project</a> (it's brilliant, check it out)</i><br />
<i>She runs the <a href="http://birminghamsmc.com/" target="_blank">Birmingham Social Media Cafe</a></i><br />
<i>She manages a <a href="http://www.wakegreenpark.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">hyper local blog for Wake Green Park in Moseley</a></i><br />
<i>She is part of the brilliant <a href="http://talkaboutlocal.org.uk/the-team/" target="_blank">Talk About Local team</a></i><br />
<i>She blogs about all sorts at <a href="http://abitmoreofkaren.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">A bit more of Karen</a></i><br />
<i>And somehow she also has time to be a professional photographer! (<a href="http://www.karenstrunksphotography.com/" target="_blank">site here</a>)</i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-51951101482552086612012-07-20T17:41:00.001+01:002013-08-31T22:58:38.329+01:00Curry in the community<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9-QvowG5rT17QK2tsNlCGdqZoHL5u5QJVUVEHXu7ArAJSTf5NLmqRq1aWovtt9o5bOXBPW8Mi-qWFYXhjVyGlTuaK8qQszQ1rf4ABF0Y5JYpFdWTTcodB-Bw6D6c0VTdvwWIseXcLro/s1600/little+bangla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9-QvowG5rT17QK2tsNlCGdqZoHL5u5QJVUVEHXu7ArAJSTf5NLmqRq1aWovtt9o5bOXBPW8Mi-qWFYXhjVyGlTuaK8qQszQ1rf4ABF0Y5JYpFdWTTcodB-Bw6D6c0VTdvwWIseXcLro/s1600/little+bangla.jpg" /></a></div>
Thanks to a friend from Yorkshire having been working in Dudley this week and staying in a hotel in Oldbury, I ventured to a new restaurant called <a href="http://littlebangla.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Little Bangla</a>. Despite having lived about 2 miles away for 11 years, I'd never been to Langley High Street, but a good reviews on Trip Advisor suggested that Little Bangla was worth a visit. I was intrigued when I looked at the restaurant website to see <a href="http://littlebangla.weebly.com/working-with-the-community.html" target="_blank">a page called Working with the Community</a><br />
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As we walked in the door we were greeted with warm handshakes and a friendly welcome by the owner, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of tables full, given it was a rainy Monday evening.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRECAJvTOf0-SCavBomUThBBdjeiOBOW6U9393g1Pp4FBVd2nAZ5nNI0xPO22qksysMKYMIwjFpdftOkFVY2RgDJDGXTVsI55gmukJPWnUso_EdDEtDE9XOyLZ9LTZVdPzasmX6wumXrg/s1600/little+bangla+zac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRECAJvTOf0-SCavBomUThBBdjeiOBOW6U9393g1Pp4FBVd2nAZ5nNI0xPO22qksysMKYMIwjFpdftOkFVY2RgDJDGXTVsI55gmukJPWnUso_EdDEtDE9XOyLZ9LTZVdPzasmX6wumXrg/s200/little+bangla+zac.jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little Bangla owner Zak</td></tr>
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The food and service were great, enhanced for me by conversation with the owner, Zak. I asked him about the work he does with schools, which includes giving cooking lessons. He also works with local councillors, <a href="http://retiredlangleycouncillor.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/sandwells-mayors-curry-evening-at.html" target="_blank">supporting the Mayor's charities</a>. He is of the view that while he still needs ensure the restaurant is a going concern, there is much that businesses can do to support communities, both nearby and overseas. He hopes that if other businesses see him making connections in the community that they might follow suit. <br />
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Zak has been surprised at how useful social media has been for his business - he proudly informed us about how swiftly they have generated friends on the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/littlebangla" target="_blank">restaurant Facebook page</a> and he is starting to use twitter more (<a href="https://twitter.com/littlebangla1" target="_blank">@littlebangla1</a>). The restaurant gives Facebook friends offers, and apparently around 90% of customers are regulars, there being little passing trade along Langley High Street.<br />
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Behind the bar there were a collection of 32 lovely awards which Zak had ordered to give to school children the next day. The restaurant recognise 2 pupils from each class of both <a href="http://www.langleyprimary.ik.org/" target="_blank">Langley Primary School</a> and <a href="http://www.causewaygreen.sandwell.sch.uk/" target="_blank">Causeway Green Primary School</a>, and give a meal at the restaurant to the child and their parents/carers, an award and a certificate of recognition. I've <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/little-bangla-award-ceremony" target="_blank">Storfied Zak's tweets with photos</a> from the Awards Ceremonies this week.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hA3-cEcKmArjrmgcEufMkL7a61K0KfFpQ3zRiu2a5cfX0RYKdQF3ERkpPAiWEXa0mOsiDufCzuOtqSTFZXuYbclnlkWlAMS5n3e05OiwA_i_d00j_cWzmgbEPTcD6R0tvQDA9az2gL8/s1600/little+bangla+awards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hA3-cEcKmArjrmgcEufMkL7a61K0KfFpQ3zRiu2a5cfX0RYKdQF3ERkpPAiWEXa0mOsiDufCzuOtqSTFZXuYbclnlkWlAMS5n3e05OiwA_i_d00j_cWzmgbEPTcD6R0tvQDA9az2gL8/s400/little+bangla+awards.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I just love Zak's approach to life and business (from what I was able to see and hear of it in one evening) and wish that more local business people worked in this way. I'm feeling quite despondent about the likelihood of businesses in East Coseley linking in to the great opportunity which <a href="http://eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com/about/" target="_blank">Big Local</a> offers (<a href="http://eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/a-mixed-reception/" target="_blank">see my post here</a>), but I feel very cheered to know that there are people like Zak in the world. And even more cheered to find out that I'm within the delivery radius of Little Bangla! Though I will of course be eating at the restaurant again and look forward to hearing how the children liked their awards dinner.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-66713440797274676452012-06-29T18:44:00.002+01:002013-08-31T22:50:59.386+01:00Lamenting my languishing reflective place<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0lpU-UsqOvHIfYJ0bL4lSaTx6nBzkUlcqS5YZctgO13VxrLBbILkzCIfmD0eCEzSMqurqRxXsUCbNsRg8kIOoPXo_0pITQ7EN5Oi33ieGaj4TXIyyRHxaxS1zEZpniIP9UtGvjtcefT0/s1600/praxis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0lpU-UsqOvHIfYJ0bL4lSaTx6nBzkUlcqS5YZctgO13VxrLBbILkzCIfmD0eCEzSMqurqRxXsUCbNsRg8kIOoPXo_0pITQ7EN5Oi33ieGaj4TXIyyRHxaxS1zEZpniIP9UtGvjtcefT0/s1600/praxis.jpg" /></a></div>
So... I haven't posted here for a good while. Which perhaps means that I haven't created enough time and space lately for considered reflection.<br />
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In <a href="http://www.cdx.org.uk/community-development/what-community-development" target="_blank">community development</a> reflection on your own practice, values and beliefs is intrinsic to your work (whether it is paid or unpaid). I am fortunate to have carved out some time for reflective activities in my work, for example I convene an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_learning" target="_blank">Action Learning</a> Set, and I participate in sessions which prompt reflection on my work and approach, such as an event earlier this week for facilitators trained to use <a href="http://changesuk.net/resources/axis-of-influence-series-voice-and-echo/" target="_blank">community influence frameworks</a> Voice, echo and DUO. I also read a lot of blogs and try to reflect on what the authors say and add to the conversation.<br />
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However I'm concerned that I've been rushing around doing so much that I haven't given deliberate thought to how I am putting <a href="http://www.cdx.org.uk/community-development/community-development%E2%80%99s-values" target="_blank">community development values</a> in to practice in some significant activities I'm working on.<br />
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One of the activities is supporting the <a href="http://eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com/forum/" target="_blank">East Coseley Community Forum</a> to get people involved in <a href="http://www.localtrust.org.uk/big-local/" target="_blank">Big Local</a>. I've been <a href="http://eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">blogging a lot</a> about what I'm hearing, seeing and doing in East Coseley, and it's been brilliant that my colleagues are also contributing posts, it feels like a real team effort. But the purpose of the sharing is for updates and information, not reflection.<br />
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I'm also working on a community-led health improvement project which is focusing on <a href="http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/2011/appreciating-assets" target="_blank">community assets</a>, and there is so much in what we've done already which warrants reflection. I have been reflecting through dialogue with my colleague, but I often find that writing things down helps to unlock deeper thoughts and draw out new thinking and ideas.<br />
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These concerns are shared as a precursor to a more concerted effort to reflect on my practice, and share reflections here and in other spaces I'm creating to promote shared learning. I'd love to hear how others make time and space for reflection, and what helps them.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-70337548646863123412012-03-25T22:32:00.000+01:002013-08-31T22:47:31.170+01:00Trevor Hopkins and Trojan MiceI am looking forward to attending a learning session on the practical application of asset based approaches later this week. The session is provided through the <a href="http://www.wmpho.org.uk/lfph/">West Midlands Public Health Observatory Learning for Public Health programme</a> and will be delivered by the engaging <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/trevor-hopkins/1a/56b/a3b">Trevor Hopkins</a> from <a href="http://www.assetbasedconsulting.net/">Asset Based Consulting</a> and co-author of <a href="http://www.assetbasedconsulting.net/uploads/publications/A%20glass%20half%20full.pdf">A Glass Half Full</a>.<br />
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Trevor delivered an introductory afternoon seminar last month which I attended (the slides from the session are <a href="http://www.assetbasedconsulting.net/uploads/presentations/Birmingham%20Workshop%20Feb%2027.pdf">here</a>). I <a href="http://storify.com/dosticen/community-asset-based-approach-seminar">Storified tweets from the session</a>. The session included descriptions of 'deficit' and 'asset' approaches, applications of an assets approach in relation to health and wellbeing, case studies from Sandwell and Coventry and thoughts about community asset mapping and JSNAs (<a href="http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=7942796">Joint Strategic Needs Analysis</a>).</div>
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Trevor opened the session by saying that he would be challenging - that felt exciting to me. He asserted that a problem is a management issue - managers can deal with it, whereas a dilemma is something you can’t solve - it’s what leaders do. Trevor thinks we have a dilemma around public health and how we deal with it. He talked about recovery and resilience, using the example that personal networks and support are as effective as a flu jab ... if we can have both together then it’s even better. This reminded me of work that the <a href="http://www.thersa.org/">RSA</a> have been doing around <a href="http://www.thersa.org/projects/connected-communities/whole-person-recovery">whole person recovery</a> and <a href="http://www.thersa.org/projects/connected-communities/communities-connected">connected communities</a>. </div>
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Trevor explained that a deficit approach to health is a pathogenic approach which focuses on disease and death, and leads to disempowerment and dependency. (He challenged us to find more deficit ‘d’ words, which of course I tweeted. @lizzie_banks suggested depression, disorder, disengagement, debilitating and disaster!) </div>
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The features of a deficit approach were described as including policymakers seeing systems or institutions as the principal tool for the work of society, a structure which is designed to permit a few people to control many other people and people being seen as clients or customers. This brings to my mind a description of neoliberalism in David Gauntlett’s excellent <a href="http://www.makingisconnecting.org/">Making is Connecting</a>:</div>
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“Neoliberalism...is the belief that markets are the only lens through which to run anything, or to assess the value of anything. It is manifested in many ways, and becomes apparent when individuals are seen as simply customers and consumers, and workers become faceless ‘service providers’. It means that the ‘voice’ of people is denied, because they can only express themselves through choices within the existing market, which is not genuine self-expression at all.” </blockquote>
Trevor highlighted that traditional approaches result in production a great deal of the same thing, whether goods or services. Then to overcome the issue that people are different and may have different needs or problems services are targeted at at those needs and problems, resulting in communities an individuals being ‘segmented’ and posts such as ‘obesity co-ordinator’, ‘smoking cessation co-ordinator’ being created. However people aren’t a condition, nor are obesity or smoking single problems, they are complex, wicked problems.</div>
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On organisational change, I liked what Trevor shared: that a lot of organisations see organisational change like a Trojan Horse. The organisational development team are hidden inside and come out at night! A better model is Trojan Mice - lots and lots of them nibbling away. What a fantastic vision, and imagine all the diverse challenges which could be made if there were lots of people making them. This makes me wonder whether the idea of trojan mice is similar to the idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontalidad">horizontalism</a>:<br />
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“Horizontality or horizontalism is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of management power. These structures and relationships function as a result of dynamic self-management, involving continuous participation and exchange between individuals to achieve the larger desired outcomes of the collective whole” (from Wikipedia)</blockquote>
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Trevor suggested that social sciences are going to save public health and referenced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich">Ivan Illich</a> and his publication ‘Medical Nemesis’. I’ve just come across Ivan Illich in <a href="http://www.makingisconnecting.org/" target="_blank">Making is Connecting</a>. I found this passage in chapter 7 useful to reflect on. <br />
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“Whilst big, uniform systems may have been developed with the intention of helping people on a broad and democratic scale, Illich argued that they always reach a point beyond which they cause more harm than good. Schools, for instance, are originally intended to provide an <i>education</i> - of course - but once they are established into an institutional system they become machines to deliver<i> schooling</i> - conformity to rules, and memorization of a set body of knowledge without necessarily learning or understanding - which is then measured as an end in itself. Therefore, Illich suggests, the institution of school makes people stupid, institutionalized medicine makes people sick, and the institution of of business ruins the planet. This sounds gloomy, then, but his solutions, based on more individual and community-based engagement, helpfulness and creativity, may be of interest."</blockquote>
During the seminar we heard from two officers involved in asset based projects in Sandwell and Coventry respectively. Marianne Munro, a Community Development Officer for Sandwell MBC shared the story of the <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:E-fzcYVzB80J:www.thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk/_library/Resources/BCC/DragonsBriefingSandwell.doc+soho+victoria+friends+and+neighbours&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgoQGV6BLWBWVZLss33hirt2PT87RWq0apZhuIruBdBLe0iQ3GhAQLwkR65K3ab6Lsz3ELAeeFNrwKRv7jqy10bOnuCUbsExUHPgLcDXQ76SgNIgN4L7rZ-kRE9p9FYPFDM7e4H&sig=AHIEtbQuj954afubkr2LCk2aM9IFtwx-bA&pli=1">Friends and Neighbours project</a> and Kate O’Hara shared the Coventry Asset Based Approach which is linked to their <a href="http://www.coventry.gov.uk/info/200068/mental_health/1214/wellbeing">10 ways to wellbeing</a>. Having heard both case studies I was left with a niggling frustration that both case studies seemed to be presented as a journey from initial stages of mapping, listening and networking, working towards goals of a structure, for example a formal partnership or Community Interest Company, with governance and sustainability plans. I can’t help feeling that this shouldn’t be the prescribed destination of asset based work, and it feels inherently unsustainable compared to other outcomes which asset based activity could result in. </div>
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I return to the excellent <a href="http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/About/tabid/347/Default.aspx">Third Sector Research Council</a> paper by <a href="http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/About/TSRCFellowships/EileenConn/tabid/839/Default.aspx">Eileen Conn</a>, as referred to in <a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/must-you-be-so-linear.html" target="_blank">my last blog post</a>. In <a href="http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=K8%2brbdUTghQ%3d&tabid=827">Community engagement in the social eco-system dance</a> Eileen’s description of vertical, hierarchical system of relationships fits with Trevor’s description of a deficit approach and Illich’s issues with institutions: <br />
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"... the nature of the relationships is primarily vertical and hierarchical: tightly regulated to ensure compliance with organisational policies and constraints including employment and contract laws, and financial and managerial governance. They are generally divided into segments, subjects and topics. The organisation structures, and management and governance systems, have co-evolved with the vertical hierarchical system of relationships." </blockquote>
I would have thought that an asset based approach would be concerned with creation and nurturing of the horizontal, peer system of relationships - Eileen suggests that to be healthy and strong </div>
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"the roots for these social relationships need to be appropriately tended. The way grass roots grow… is an instructive image for this. Grass that grows strongly and healthily, and is difficult to uproot, has a strong and intertwining mat of roots. These are like the strong interconnections in a community, all giving strength and support to the whole. If the grass is separated from its mat of roots it loses its strength and its intrinsic nature. These social networks, and the need to nurture them, are fundamental to resilience."</blockquote>
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Have the projects in Sandwell and Coventry been looking at communities through a lens which results in them looking for things like the institutions which initiated the projects? Eileen Conn helpfully describes issues with the lenses through which we see communities in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUYus4S6HDc&feature=player_embedded">this video clip</a>. </div>
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Trevor highlighted questions which arise if we agree that the solutions to health inequalities might be in the hands of individuals, their families and their friends: What does that feel like to health professionals? How can they do their jobs? He suggests that an infinite model of power is helpful. I think a very real focus on barriers people face and social justice is also helpful. </div>
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There was lots more covered in the first seminar, but I think this post is getting rather long. So .... was Trevor challenging, as he had promised? </div>
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Perhaps some of the things that he said may have been challenging for participants who are working in vertical hierarchical systems of relationships, as I observe from the outside that such organisations squash creativity and assertive challenge of the status quo. However I didn't find anything challenging in what Trevor shared or suggested. It sounded to me like absolute common sense, and I really connected to the community development roots in what Trevor talked about, and welcomed his references to social justice as being fundamental to asset based approaches. <br />
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Two things I found challenging in the experience of attending the seminar were:<br />
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<li>The style of the seminar not being asset based, given the content was about asset based approaches. I felt there were missed opportunities to share some of the assets in the room - particularly the knowledge and experiences of participants. I wonder if a better balance of time could have been achieved so that we became participants rather than an audience. Or perhaps different ways of sharing the case studies so that they were discussed rather than presented. Of course I say this with appreciation for the task that the organisers and presenters had, and there was an awful lot packed in to an afternoon session, which I greatly appreciated having the opportunity to attend.</li>
<li>Being the only person in the room who was visibly using a laptop/ipad for note taking and tweeting. I don’t think anyone else was tweeting (I expect some people aren't allowed due to organisational social media policies) and I felt a little self-conscious about it.</li>
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Finally here are some <a href="http://engagingtogether.org.uk/resources/asset-based-approaches/" target="_blank">resources I recommend</a> if you would like to find out more about asset approaches, and an <a href="http://abcdeurope.ning.com/" target="_blank">online network (ABCD Europe) </a>where the asset based practice and approaches are discussed.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-69722090926548568142012-03-12T15:45:00.000+00:002013-08-31T22:42:58.497+01:00“Must you be so linear?”I’ve just participated in the second Ageing Well Dudley stakeholder session, helpfully facilitated again by <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carol-hayden/26/30/9b9">Carol Hayden</a> (<a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.com/2011/11/ageing-well-dudley-and-social-network.html">I shared reflections on the first session here</a>). <br />
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Ageing Well Dudley activities have involved <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry">Appreciative Inquiry</a> interviews and group sessions in two areas of the borough with contrasting demographics; <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=brockmoor%20dudley%20demographics&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEIQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dudley.gov.uk%2FEasysiteWeb%2Fgetresource.axd%3FAssetID%3D106052%26type%3Dfull%26servicetype%3DAttachment&ei=d_5dT_K7JdTU8QPUn5zrDg&usg=AFQjCNHdQ2wSYh3OrJebzhSOmfQTuK9emA">Brockmoor</a> and <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=census%202001%20pedmore%20dudley%20demographics&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CE0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dudley.gov.uk%2FEasysiteWeb%2Fgetresource.axd%3FAssetID%3D106065%26type%3Dfull%26servicetype%3DAttachment&ei=DP9dT9KLBI3A8QO95PXlDg&usg=AFQjCNFTzp8hnL857vvx3HvUquXxW-FGDQ">Pedmore</a>. From the interview information some composite fictional profiles of older people in each area were put together and shared at the stakeholder event to get us thinking about:<br />
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<li>What type of support would make a difference to this person’s quality of life?</li>
<li>What support could be found without relying on statutory services?</li>
<li>What is needed to extend this sort of support</li>
<li>How would you use £1000 to make this happen?</li>
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The group I was in were given a pen picture of the fictional Mrs Bates, a 73 year old retired dinner lady who is a council housing tenant in Brockmoor. Her husband died 8 yrs ago, she does a supermarket shop at the weekend with her daughter, shopping locally is not as easy as it was as she is less mobile. Her daughter and son-in-law are moving away, and she won't have to look after her grandchildren any more, she will miss them but is a bit relieved as it was becoming hard work. Getting things done in her home is difficult. She would like a grab rail but has been told that the council don't fit them. She waited 6 months for hole in ceiling to be fixed. She doesn't know who to ask for advice and help, she doesn't want to speak to social services. <br />
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Some of common features of discussions about the pen pictures of older people included a need for some listening, them having someone to talk to, seeing an older person as a whole (not a broken arm, in the case of one who had been in hospital) and older people knowing about services and activities when they need to. Then, in groups we were tasked with developing an idea to share with others in the room which could be done with £1000. <br />
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I described to my group the model of <a href="http://socialmediasurgery.com/about">Social Media Surgeries</a> and that the beauty of them is that it is people offering their time and a bit of knowledge which creates connections in the room. Here are the <a href="http://podnosh.com/blog/2009/08/12/recipe-how-to-make-a-social-media-surgery/">ingredients for a Social Media Surgery</a>, as compiled by <a href="http://podnosh.com/about/">Nick Booth</a> in 2009.<br />
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I was wondering if a similar model of voluntary, peer support could be developed in a neighbourhood.<br />
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Nick stresses that social capital is the most important ingredient: <br />
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<i>Think of social capital as the stock pot of your social media kitchen; you need to keep it constantly bubbling away. By the way, it has to be home made and hand made. In an emergency you can borrow some social capital from your neighbour, but please take care to return it as soon as you can. Some people are tempted to use shop bought social capital. It never works.</i></blockquote>
Nick recently <a href="http://podnosh.com/blog/2011/06/22/social-media-surgeries-simplicity-and-being-there/" target="_blank">updated his recipe</a> as he thought it should be more simple and is mainly about being there - here's my version of the simple version for an older people's peer support meet-up:<br />
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<li>A free room with some chairs and where you can buy or blag a drink (a cafe is perfect)</li>
<li>A host – the person who’s happy to choose a time and date and check with the people at the venue that it’s ok with them. On the day they welcome people, introduce them and just make sure people are ok</li>
<li>At least one volunteer helper from the neighbourhood and hopefully at least one older person from the neighbourhood looking to make new connections. </li>
<li>Zero expectations – high hopes can kill enthusiasm. Expect nothing and be delighted by what does happen.</li>
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My difficulty today was that in starting to share this idea I was struggling to communicate, partly because most people were service providers and immediately started think about giving advice, and what if the person volunteering gives the wrong advice … and so on. What I am thinking about isn’t really about advice at all, it’s about an impartial person giving their time freely to sit with someone else who lives in the same neighbourhood and is perhaps feeling a bit isolated. Admittedly the volunteer helpers might need to people who know a bit about what goes on in the area or have experience of accessing services and navigating through services, but there is no way that such an activity could be expected to match exactly a the needs or questions of an older person with a service provider who has an answer (see Nick's recipe: have zero expectations).<br />
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The <a href="http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/About/tabid/347/Default.aspx">Third Sector Research Council</a> recently published a fantastic paper by <a href="http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/About/TSRCFellowships/EileenConn/tabid/839/Default.aspx">Eileen Conn</a> which helps me to understand why I’m struggling to communicate my idea. In <a href="http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=K8%2brbdUTghQ%3d&tabid=827">Community engagement in the social eco-system dance</a> Eileen describes two systems, as below.<br />
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The first is the system of relationships which we see in our public sector agencies and formal voluntary organisations:<br />
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<i> ... the nature of the relationships is primarily vertical and hierarchical: tightly regulated to ensure compliance with organisational policies and constraints including employment and contract laws, and financial and managerial governance. They are generally divided into segments, subjects and topics. The organisation structures, and management and governance systems, have co-evolved with the vertical hierarchical system of relationships.</i></blockquote>
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Eileen calls this a <b>vertical, hierarchical system of relationships</b>. Eileen explains that this is very different to civil society - which is not like regulated organisations, where people are recruited to particular defined jobs. Instead, individuals, when they come together voluntarily through their shared interests, connect to give each other mutual ‘peer’ support in some way. These personal connections are the source of nourishment for the horizontal relationships between peers. Eileen explains that for the <b>horizontal, peer system of relationships</b> to be healthy and strong</div>
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<i>the roots for these social relationships need to be appropriately tended. The way grass roots grow… is an instructive image for this. Grass that grows strongly and healthily, and is difficult to uproot, has a strong and intertwining mat of roots. These are like the strong interconnections in a community, all giving strength and support to the whole. If the grass is separated from its mat of roots it loses its strength and its intrinsic nature. These social networks, and the need to nurture them, are fundamental to resilience.</i></blockquote>
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I guess what I was making a fumbled effort to convey in the meeting today was an idea for a very easy to manage way for some of those roots to give a bit of their time (an hour or two a month, or less) in a hosted space to connect and intertwine with neighbouring roots, perhaps with a look towards that whole other system of vertical, hierarchical relationships and tips on navigating it, but as much, if not more, with a view to people in similar situations sharing, connecting and learning from each other. It could be that the first time someone attends they end up sharing a recipe, or a story about living in the area 50 years ago… but they have had the opportunity to be listened to and to connect. No-one has put them in a box clearly marked with a service area. <br />
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My idea was about this, but I appreciate that it’s difficult to see that if you’re used to doing things <b>for</b> people, providing services <b>to</b> people and if you’re looking at the world from through the windows of your vertical structures. Eileen explains this really helpfully in this video clip:<br />
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So I’ve come away from the meeting feeling that I may have been less than helpful to my colleagues (in being inadequate in conveying my idea) and that I might have destroyed my idea by exposing it to a different way of thinking, which is very linear: a person is seen as having a problem, a service provides response. As the character Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation says to Captain Jean-Luc Picard: </div>
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<i>You humans are so linear… although you can occasionally break the patterns of thought that so limit you. While you know better from personal experience, you still engage in this linear thinking that so restricts your understanding …</i></blockquote>
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I feel that I am frequently guilty of linear thought, and I think people who provide services often work in culture which encourages linear thought. In order for older people in Dudley to become empowered, connected and like the intertwined roots of grass needs us to stop worrying about linear solutions all of the time, and facilitate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence" target="_blank">emergence</a>. Rather than only providing the solution to what we see as a person's problems, can we do more to tend the whole lawn - allowing each blade of grass to lean towards the sunshine?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-38089440044305339782012-01-29T22:19:00.000+00:002013-08-31T22:41:11.263+01:00A Community Lover's Guide to Dudley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There’s growing excitement in the office I share with Melissa Guest at Dudley CVS about gathering stories for a Community Lover’s Guide to Dudley. Mel and I have volunteered to edit this book, which will be available to view online and to order in hard copy on demand.<br />
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The following from the <a href="http://communityloversguide.org/#1889018/About-CLG">Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe site</a> describes the background to the idea. </span><br />
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<i style="font-family: inherit;">The idea for Community Lover's Guide to the Universe was conceived in Rotterdam in April 2011 by <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tessybritton">Tessy Britton</a> and <a href="http://nl.linkedin.com/in/mauricespecht">Maurice Specht.</a></i><br />
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<i>Following the fantastic response to the collaborative book <a href="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1541053">Hand Made</a> (45,000 online readers), which was published in Autumn 2010, the idea evolved that we might be able to start producing local versions of Hand Made.</i><br />
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There are now over 35 confirmed voluntary editors.<br />
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Mel and I are drawing up a list of around 15 people who we will ask and support to contribute their stories. We are looking for projects local to Dudley Borough which originate from a person or group (rather than an organisation). The projects will involve 'hands-on' doing, learning or other creative elements and seek to include, involve, or share with others <br />
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I hope that sharing these stories will encourage those who work in our local voluntary and public sector to think a little differently about how we can make the most of the passion and energy we have in our communities. <br />
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This links to wider work in Dudley to respond to the government’s localism agenda and the changing relationship between the local public sector and communities and citizens. In particular through <a href="http://oursocietydudley.org.uk/">Our Society in Dudley Borough</a> we’re starting to <a href="http://oursociety.org.uk/group/our-society-a-guide">talk about community assets</a> (we include social, human and cultural assets along with built, natural and financial assets in this thinking). The stories in the Community Lover’s Guide will offer practical examples of the ideas we are exploring. I’m also looking forward to reading stories from around the world and finding inspiration in other places. Mel and I met up with <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stephjennings">Steph Jennings</a> who is working on the <a href="http://podnosh.com/blog/2011/11/29/community-lover%E2%80%99s-guide-to-the-universe-and-birmingham/">Community Lover’s Guide to Birmingham</a> with <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/nick-booth/2/99b/b18">Nick Booth</a> and already has some amazing stories to share. <br />
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Please do get in touch if you have suggestions of people whose stories we could include in the Dudley edition. <br />
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-3583715619106004772011-12-02T09:29:00.001+00:002013-08-31T22:38:12.900+01:00Turbulence<div class="Body1">
<span lang="EN-US">In September I enrolled on a 12 week evening class at the <a href="http://www.macarts.co.uk/" target="_blank">Midlands Arts Centre</a> called Talk Film. The course is led by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1282420" target="_blank">Michael Clifford</a> (@bikefilm), a BAFTA Award winning Director. One of Michael's most recent projects has been to make a no-budget film, <a href="http://turbulencefilm.com/" target="_blank">Turbulence</a></span><span lang="EN-US">. The story of how this was done and how it turns the conventional approach to film-making on its head has intrigued me, with obvious parallels in community work.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The starting point was that Michael and producer <a href="http://www.dreamfinder.net/" target="_blank">Natasha Carlish</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> @natashacarlish) were keen to work together and embark on a huge learning journey around an idea to get a film made and shared. </span>They started with no budget, which is not at all normal for making a film. British filmmaking culture is to get money up front (as we tend towards in relation to grants in the voluntary sector). Filmmakers can spend years languishing in the <i>development</i> phase while they seek backing or apply for funding to make their film.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In filmmaking the resources you really need are people, places, props and skills. The resource Michael has easiest access to is actors. He has worked with many and is friends with lots of actors on Facebook. Final year undergraduates from the <a href="http://www.bcu.ac.uk/pme/school-of-acting" target="_blank">Birmingham School of Acting</a> were auditioned to be cast in the film. A series of workshops with the actors followed, with the original idea being that a series of short stories around characters they created would be written. In another unconventional move, scriptwriter Stavros Pamballis was given loads of ideas to generate a script from, rather than him starting with the ideas. He used his skills to weave a humorous and believable story from the masses of information, and apparently drafted it in one weekend!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A lot of investment was made in drawing out the skills and strenghts of the actors. Michael spent a lot of time talking not just to the actors themselves, but also to people that knew them. The fact that the students had been studying and living together meant that they knew each other really well and were able to share with Michael what strengths they saw in each other. Character development was influenced along the way, including changes to the story when they discovered that one of the actresses could sing.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In terms of a place, Michael and Natasha negotiated use of the <a href="http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk/" target="_blank">Hare and Hounds</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> in <a href="http://lovekingsheath.co.uk/" target="_blank">King's Heath</a>, Birmingham.</span><span lang="EN-US"> They were able to use it for filming for three weeks. Usually a full-length feature film like this would take six weeks to shoot.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Equipment and props were begged for and borrowed, each day of filming Michael and Natasha would put out requests on twitter and Facebook for props and so on. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Equipment was easier blag than consumables - borrowing £3000 worth of lighting equipment was straightforward compared to finding food 5 days a week for cast and crew.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Online networking has had, and continues to have, a significant role in the development of this film. Natasha was new to online networking, but keen to harness it's potential to support both the production and post-production of the film. <a href="http://turbulencefilm.com/archives/310" target="_blank">Natasha's first ever blog post</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> was on the film's site. The idea was to build the audience <i>while</i> the making film. Traditionally things are kept secret until polished marketing is ready and a film close to release. However models of film distribution are changing, with <a href="http://m.sheffdocfest.com/view/seizethefuture" target="_blank">awareness and audience and loyalty being developed online</a>. </span><span lang="EN-US">Natasha said that doing it this way means that as filmmakers "you have the power, you don't have to wait for £30,000 marketing budget". Natasha and Michael decided not to go to any traditional distributors, their experience has been that it is very hard to make money that way. So the strategy they adopted was to get beyond their own networks online. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Despite being told "you'll never be able to to do it", a collaborative approach to filmmaking has resulted in a great Birmingham based film being made and screened, with audiences across the West Midlands and and online being nurtured. Michael and Natasha said that they felt more entrepreneurnial going about it this way.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I went to see Turbulence, and hear Michael and Natasha talk about it, at the brilliant social cinema <a href="http://www.flixfixer.com/custard/" target="_blank">flixfixer</a></span><span lang="EN-US">, with a fellow community development worker, Chris Florence (@sententiachris). We both thoroughly enjoyed the film, and discussed excitedly the parallels between what we had heard about the making of the film and the current context for community projects and participation.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Not waiting for a grant, creating links to others and just doing it is how some amazing community-based activities start. Some that I know of locally include the <a href="http://www.blackcountryfoodbank.org.uk/" target="_blank">Black Country Food Bank</a> </span><span lang="EN-US">and the <a href="http://www.hopecentrerevolution.com/" target="_blank">Hope Centre</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> in Halesowen. Many others are shared in <a href="http://www.tessybritton.com/#584713/Emergent-New-Community-Culture" target="_blank">Handmade</a> - Tessy Britton's lovely collection of inspiring stories about creating connections and community.</span></div>
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Recognising and building on the strengths of people as assets is in the spotlight at the moment in community work, with the government promoting 'Asset Based' approaches (a great introduction to this is <a href="http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/2011/appreciating-assets" target="_blank">Appreciating Assets</a>), the BIG Lottery's <a href="http://peoplepoweredchange.org.uk/" target="_blank">People Powered Change approach</a>, and the work of people like Tessy Britton (@TessyBritton) such as <a href="http://tessybritton.com/1911571/Community-Kitchen-Oct-2011" target="_blank">Community Kitchen</a>. </div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So what can we learn from innovative and enterprising film makers like Michael and Natasha? I think at the very least that it's worth trying, it is possible, understand and make use of people's strengths and connections and just get on with it. We might well experience some turbulence along the way, but we don't have to wait around for a funder to give the go ahead.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-25240597218489255032011-11-06T14:15:00.001+00:002013-08-31T22:36:27.350+01:00Ageing Well Dudley and social network analysis<div style="text-align: right;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doreen Collins</td></tr>
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Last week I attended a meeting to scope an <a href="http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/ageing-society/ageing-well/" target="_blank">Ageing Well</a> initiative in Dudley. Ageing Well aims to provide a better quality of life for older people through local services that are designed to meet their needs and recognise the huge contribution that people in later life make to their local communities. Local authorities are being supported to improve their services for older people while there are the dual challenges of public sector cuts and an ageing population. Support is through <a href="http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=20344655" target="_blank">Local Government Innovation and Development</a><br />
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I haven’t been to this sort of meeting for some time and was pleased that the session was being facilitated, and was done so excellently by <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/carol-hayden/26/30/9b9" target="_blank">Carol Hayden</a> from <a href="http://www.sharedintelligence.net/" target="_blank">Shared Intelligence</a><br />
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During the meeting, Maggie Venables (Assistant Director in Dudley Council's Directorate of Adult, Community and Housing Services) shared information about Ageing Well in Dudley (see below), and <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/bridget-brickley/37/487/3a0" target="_blank">Bridget Brickley</a> from <a href="http://www.dudleylsp.org/" target="_blank">Dudley Community Partnership</a> gave us an overview of what a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking" target="_blank">whole systems approach</a> is and how this had given insights in to other services in Dudley.<br />
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A core proposition that underpins Ageing Well Dudley is:<br />
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<i>That Dudley MBC and its partners can, despite the challenging financial context, promote the health and wellbeing of older people thereby reducing or delaying their need for acute support for as long as possible, through:</i><br />
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<li><i>Meaningful and sustained involvement of older people in their communities and in a wider range of service areas than health and social care;</i></li>
<li><i>Realising a vision of a whole system offer for older people through improved links between relevant organisations and services (including the voluntary and community sector) at a borough-wide and locality/township level;</i></li>
<li><i>Improving intelligence about how older people access services and using this information to improve access routes</i></li>
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<i>And that this proposition is best explored in detail at a locality/township level.</i><br />
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My reflections on the meeting and the above core proposition led me to three questions:<br />
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<li>Could work on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network" target="_blank">social network analysis</a> helpfully inform Ageing Well initiatives?</li>
<li>In order to achieve the social change desired, are systems approaches enough, or do we also need (for example) approaches which analyse and develop understanding of power?</li>
<li>To what extent is this work likely to lead to changes in the roles and work of employees across a range of organisations, and if so, what should we be doing to prepare for this?</li>
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I will consider the first in this post and the second and third in future posts.<br />
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<b>Social network analysis</b><br />
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During the meeting Maggie Venables suggested that the Ageing Well in Dudley initiative could ask older people how they would like things to be more joined up, and how they could be more involved in decisions. I think it would be great if, in addition to this much needed look at how services could work better together, Ageing Well also asked older people how they join up to different sorts of support.<br />
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This sort of questioning and mapping would help to answer another question Maggie posed in relation to information about support services and the fact that there is lots of information out there, but: on the day an older person needs some specific information, where do they go to get it? Her question reflects a key issue of concern described in the meeting briefing paper, which is related to <i>how</i> a wide range of older people access services that are appropriate to their needs.<br />
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I feel that a really helpful thing that those involved in Ageing Well Dudley could do at this early stage is look at the <a href="http://www.thersa.org/" target="_blank">RSA’s</a> work on <a href="http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/333483/ConnectedCommunities_report_150910.pdf" target="_blank">Connected Communities</a>. I think this would fit well with the systems approach being proposed.<br />
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The report suggests that: <i>“Taking social networks seriously means recognising that the elementary unit of social life in neither the individual nor the group. Social networks allows us to move beyond this classic theoretical distinction.” </i><br />
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And that: <i>“The network perspective offers a distinctive explanatory tool because it reveals patterns of relationship and exclusion that would otherwise remain invisible. Patterns of connectivity can serve as a diagnostic, revealing opportunities to connect those who are disconnected, and ‘spreading’ constructive social norms through highly connected individuals whose behaviour is likely to be imitated by those in their network”</i><br />
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The Connected Communities report includes descriptions of the research methods used and generously shares an example of a research questionnaire used. The fieldwork undertaken in two areas suggests that:<br />
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<li>A potential benefit of social network analysis and reflection is that it is a process which can itself strengthen networks – it can be both an intervention and a diagnostic.</li>
<li>A networks approach gives a clearer understanding of patterns of social inclusion and exclusion, so can help in addressing the problem of loneliness and social isolation. Mapping bridging nodes and organisations was identified as critical for building network structures that offer mutual support and reduce isolation and loneliness. (p59 of report)</li>
<li>There is a developing understanding of how community resilience can be understood in network terms. The strength and variety of hubs and the propensity for network decay were considered key elements of resilience.</li>
<li>Empowerment is likely to be a function, in part, of a person’s social networks. Key aspects include network position, the nature of the network core, and the degree to which local organisations are co-ordinated.</li>
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<b>A related note on geography</b><br />
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The Ageing Well Dudley work intends to focus on two areas which have different demographics so that interventions can be compared and contrasted. I was pleased to hear that although demographic data is often collated by political ward boundaries, the two areas for this work won’t be defined by a line on a map drawn for the purposes of political representation. <a href="http://councillors.dudley.gov.uk/home/conservative/cllr-david-vickers/" target="_blank">Cllr David Vickers</a> usefully suggested that the areas chosen might helpfully comprise of a mixture of wards.<br />
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And in relation to geography:<i>“The principal lesson we have drawn from community policy and practice over the last two decades is that defining ‘communities’ solely in geographic terms has major limitations.”</i> (Connecting Communities Report)<br />
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I am confident that while Ageing Well Dudley work will focuses on two geographical areas, it will recognise that individual’s networks and relationships reach beyond whatever geographical boundary is used to manage focus of the project. I wonder if it also possible to use social network analysis to develop an understanding the patterns of connectivity (or lack of them) in the two areas to compare and contrast. I would anticipate network maps relating to demographics, however I think the network maps provide more in the way of pointing to solutions than does data which says that one area has greater levels of home ownership, for example.<br />
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Rebecca Daddow from the RSA who works on Recovery Capital <a href="http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/2011/10/" target="_blank">explains</a> that they use social mapping wherever they can because <i>“understanding social networks and relationships between individuals, groups, communities and organisations is the key to changing lives, reinvigorating communities and increasing wellbeing.” </i><br />
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I think that the importance of relationships is illustrated by the work of the <a href="http://www.dorsetforyou.com/popp" target="_blank">Dorset Partnership for Older People Programme</a>, which I <a href="http://lornaprescott.blogspot.com/2011/02/keeping-empowerment-working-learning.html" target="_blank">blogged about here</a>. I was really inspired listening to Sue Warr from the partnership explaining that amongst other fantastic things, the programme has made over 250 small grants to groups in Dorset. 14 of these projects run by local people are estimated to have saved the taxpayer £600,000. A £370 investment in a table tennis table has led to a social network which supported a man to leave hospital days earlier than expected after an operation.<br />
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I therefore advocate use of social network analysis and network mapping in the Ageing Well Dudley initiative, because it will help to take thinking beyond the boundaries and mindsets of public services and place the focus on individual older people and those around them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-72340446442335585122011-10-16T09:00:00.004+01:002013-08-31T22:32:21.901+01:00Tackling Child Poverty in Dudley15,000 children in Dudley live in poverty.<br />
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That's 22% of children in the borough. Child poverty in Dudley is rising at a faster rate than the average. Dudley has a higher proportion of parental couples in poverty than lone parents.<br />
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Nicki Burrows at Dudley CVS supports a network of voluntary, community and faith-based organisations who work with children, young people and families. The network is hosting a cross-sector event focusing on child poverty on Tuesday 18 October, <a href="http://dudleychildpoverty.eventbrite.com/">Child Poverty - not in our backyard</a> Twitter users can follow the event using #cypfpov11. As well as the interest in the event which has been generated (150 people have booked to attend), I have been incredibly impressed that Nicki and the network will make this happen without spending anything. Everything has been contributed for free, from the venue to the coffee.<br />
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And then I heard something even more inspiring...<br />
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In working with Children's Services on the Child Poverty Strategy, Nicki discovered that 3,000 children in Dudley receive a free school meal during term time. Some of them may go for 2 or 3 days without food during school holidays. Local food banks and soup kitchens see an increased demand during school holidays. Ever keen to create innovative solutions to problems, and to involve the private sector, Nicki has developed an activity to encourage local businesses and food outlets which provide hot meals to provide meals to children in school holidays. I interviewed Nicki to find out more about all this work:<br />
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<i>The information about Child Poverty in Dudley above is from Dudley's Child Poverty Needs Assessment available <a href="http://www.dudleylsp.org/needs-assessments-data-and-trends/health-jsna/copy-of-copy-of-jsna-documents-for-dudley/">here</a></i>. The measure of child poverty is the number of under 16 year olds who live in households whose income is below 60% of the national median income.<br />
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This post was made as part of <a href="http://blogactionday.org/sample-page/">Blog Action Day</a> - <i>an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day</i>. The aim is to<i> raise awareness and trigger a global discussion around an important issue that impacts us all. </i>The topic of discussion this year is food.<br />
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<a href="http://www.blogactionday.org/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-63649958797766823522011-10-12T23:58:00.003+01:002013-08-31T22:22:12.272+01:00A balancing act<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin Smith</td></tr>
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This post is written in response to an <a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/jenny-morgan/beating-black-country-blues">article posted by Jenny Morgan on the Open Democracy site</a> on 15 September, which I just became aware of today. Jenny was in Dudley attending a meeting of the <a href="http://www.cfed.org.uk/4_Estates.htm">5 Estates Project</a>, which was initiated by Martin Smith and other volunteers from Tenants and Residents Associations in the Netherton area, who are reaching out to isolated migrant newcomers and challenging myths about migration across their estates. However she talks evocatively of a freezing wind battering the faded bunting of the Fountain Arcade in Dudley, and of it not just being the weather that is forbidding. She is referring to prejudice, discrimination and racism against migrants.<br />
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I feel moved to bring balance to this representation of Dudley by presenting another perspective, which focuses on great things people are doing and we can all build on to make progress in Dudley, rather than writing the area off as being stuck in the past, or labelling Dudley as a place which has a culture of excluding newcomers and a ‘local dialect, impenetrable to English-speaking outsiders’.<br />
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It’s a real pity that while Jenny was in Dudley with Kenneth Rodney on what sounds like a dismal day weather-wise, she didn’t seek refuge from the wind in the warm and welcoming <a href="http://cafegrande.webnode.com/">Caffé Grande</a> on Stone Street, which is next-door-but-one to Kenneth's office. Martin who runs the café not only offers great coffee and cake, and healthy eating options, but also hosts reggae and soul music nights, our <a href="http://socialmediasurgery.com/surgeries/dudley-cvs">Social Media Surgeries</a> for local clubs and groups, and has recently welcomed a local neighbourhood watch group to hold their meeting in the café. Looking at the <a href="http://cafegrande.webnode.com/latest-news-and-events/">recent news</a> on the website I see that the cafe is also supporting an upcoming talented singer from Dudley.<br />
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While I agree that Dudley Town Centre is struggling, as are the other town centres in Dudley Borough, including Brierley Hill and Halesowen, this is not peculiar to Dudley (see some of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/09950217029171103273">Julian Dobson's</a> blog posts, <a href="http://livingwithrats.blogspot.com/2011/02/seven-steps-from-ghost-town-to-host.html">such as this one about ghost towns</a>). And while Kenneth is reported as saying that Dudley lacks vision, I think what is sad is that a vision Dudley did have, for which special planning permission was sought, was to build a huge out-of-town retail development, including the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. My understanding is that the decline in the high streets of Dudley Borough started when Merry Hill opened, local traders feel that it sucked the lifeblood from the High Streets. So the evocative description of Dudley in decline, in my view, is as much a result of the ‘vision’ of the planners in Dudley as it is the recent recession. Perhaps the challenge is to ask how can we better harness the vision of the people of Dudley? I am convinced they have vision, but perhaps aren’t often offered appropriate safe spaces in which to express it.<br />
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And for me, rather the diverse and independent local businesses of Dudley Borough (like <a href="http://cafegrande.webnode.com/">Caffé Grande</a> and the Egyptian <a href="http://www.stourbridge.com/stourbridge-business/stourbridge_giftshops.htm">Scarab Café and gift shop</a>) than the identikit retail outlets and chain coffee shops of Birmingham, whose profits go to multimillionaires who evade taxes, rather than recirculating back in to the local economy.<br />
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However I feel I understand the essence of what Kenneth might have been getting at in contrasting Dudley with Birmingham. Birmingham feels vibrant with its diverse population and cultural offerings. Dudley Borough is less than a third of the size and much less diverse, and perhaps from the outside the pace of things feels slower. But surely that would be the same when contrasting any borough or town with the second city of England? Whilst I can find the pace of change frustratingly slow in my work in Dudley, what I wouldn’t wish for either is a knee-jerk local authority, acting before they have thought.<br />
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It’s interesting to compare my experiences of Dudley MBC and supporting empowering approaches to working with communities, to those of Birmingham. Between 2000 and 2005 the Labour government funded the development of Community Empowerment Networks (CENs) in 88 local authority areas across the country. The aim was to develop local civil and civic action, and improve representation and community influence in statutory sector led partnership structures. An awful moment for Birmingham CEN was when the staff were suspended by pressure exerted on the employing body by the Local Authority. For no good reason. They were soon reinstated. Once government funding had ended, Birmingham City Council and its partners didn’t choose to continue resourcing the CEN, and CEN members gathered voluntarily to set up Network4Birmingham (‘Big Society’ in action in the last decade?). Travel a few miles west to Dudley and what would you find? Dudley MBC and its partners, through the Dudley Community Partnership, using shared funds to continue resourcing Dosti, Dudley’s CEN. That funding doesn’t end until March 2012 … <i><b>6 years</b> </i>after many other CENs shut down due to lack of support from the local statutory sector.<br />
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And it was thanks to the passion and drive for social justice of a worker of Dosti, Katherine Rogers, that Martin Smith was supported to develop what is now the Five Estates Project. The Centre for Equality and Diversity were, we felt at Dosti, the appropriate partner for Martin and his TRAs, and we invested a lot of time and energy in gently brokering the relationship to try and ensure that it would become the successful partnership that it is today. A lesson in why there is a need to carefully balance the amazing ‘get-up-and-go’ of Dudley activists with the slow burn of developing relationships and trust between people and the organisations or groups they are involved in.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mona Bhatti</td></tr>
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People like Martin Smith are the reason I’m still working in Dudley after 14 years. Back in the late 90’s it was Betty and Geoff Clayton, Mary Growcott, George Williams and Allan and Myra Miles. More recently I’ve been inspired by people who I see gently and sensitively challenging the status-quo and working slowly towards social justice in ways which bring others with them. <a href="http://www.dfta.org.uk/">Martin and his colleagues</a> involved in the 5 Estates Project in Netherton. Mona Bhatti and the Asian’s women’s group she has started in Brierley Hill. Naghmana Kauser and the women at <a href="http://www.dudleyawn.org.uk/home/index.php/component/content/frontpage">Dudley Asian Women’s Network</a>. I mention Dudley Asian Women’s Network because they are also dealing with the racial harassment which Kenneth talks about (and let’s remember that prejudice isn’t peculiar to the people of Dudley). At an event earlier this week hosted by Dudley Asian Women’s Network we heard from a woman who has accessed their services and support, and started volunteering with them. She wasn’t an Asian woman. She was a newcomer from Hungary.<br />
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There is lots of activity taking place to recognise and celebrate the voluntary action of residents of Dudley. Next Thursday evening will see out annual <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrulRYi3Fh0">Volunteer Awards</a> event (I'll be tweeting from the event, probably using #volawards - follow @DudleyCVS to hear all about amazing volunteers).<br />
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Senior decision-makers in Dudley are embracing an approach to the ‘Big Society’ which, like Kenneth has done, recognises that people in Dudley (and across the globe) have been doing this for decades. We call it <a href="http://oursocietydudley.org.uk/">Our Society in Dudley Borough</a>.<br />
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So don’t be deceived by what you might glimpse on a day trip to Dudley, whatever the weather. Behind the walls of houses and community buildings, and inside the local council offices, there are hundreds and thousands of people with ‘get-up-and-go’. You simply need to make time get to know them.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-80772167638163687522011-08-28T09:31:00.000+01:002011-08-28T09:31:54.535+01:00How should my organisation approach listening, learning and sharing online?<br />
I now work for Dudley CVS, a voluntary sector infrastructure organisation which employs 18 staff, has a board of 14 trustees, and is helped out by some long serving volunteers, as well as volunteers who are with us for shorter periods. To date the organisation has not developed a coherent approach to supporting its staff, trustees and volunteers (or indeed members) in the use of online social and collaborative tools. Despite this Dudley CVS staff have led some advances which are pioneering for Dudley, for example establishing and hosting regular Social Media Surgeries for local groups, clubs and societies, and being social reporters at events.<br />
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I am in the process of drafting an approach which the organisation could take to develop listening, learning, sharing and collaboration online. So far I’ve come up with three elements to the approach and some intended outcomes.<br />
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I’d most welcome your suggestions on anything important that I’ve missed, or information out there that I’d find useful.<br />
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The approach I’m suggesting is to:<br />
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<ol><li>Agree and adopt organisation-wide use of specific platforms (e.g. Flickr for photograph sharing) for the coming period, based on what staff already use and are familiar with, and which will support our organisational aims and work. For some of this I’ll use the advice in @carlhaggarty’s <a href="http://carlhaggerty.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/facilitating-a-social-media-strategy/">blog post on facilitating a social media strategy</a>.</li>
<li>Develop support which can be implemented across the whole organisation, so extends to all of Dudley CVS’s staff, trustees and volunteers.</li>
<li>Provide support in the form of:</li>
</ol><ul><ul><li>a simple policy – <i>using great advice from @davebriggs in <a href="http://davepress.net/2011/01/02/a-good-social-media-policy-is-a-good-idea/">this blog post</a></i></li>
<li>skills and needs analysis </li>
<li>peer support e.g. Social Media Surgeries, cascading training</li>
<li>written guidance sheets e.g. for creating, uploading and sharing video, using twitter etc. – <i>in creating these I will revisit some fantastic posts by @theverytiger on <a href="http://theverytiger.com/">her blog</a></i></li>
<li>access to external training and support, including criteria/guidance to help line managers decide what is worth paying for or promoting to staff</li>
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I will also check out how existing strategies and policies in relation to ICT, communications, data protection, HR/training and personal development relate to the above.<br />
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The outcomes I’ve framed are that:<br />
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<ul><li>Staff, trustees and volunteers feel confident to use the Web to listen, learn, share and network. </li>
<li>Staff, trustees and volunteers receive support they find useful in order for them to develop skills and knowledge to use online networking tools confidently and appropriately.</li>
<li>There is clear, consistent, accurate and responsive online communication by staff, trustees and volunteers on behalf of Dudley CVS.</li>
<li>Staff, trustees and volunteers understand and regularly review the balance of the personal and professional facets of their online identity as an individual representing Dudley CVS. <i>(Thanks to @sburrall for <a href="http://www.involve.org.uk/our-responsibilities-as-citizens/">this blog</a> which made me think more about this.)</i></li>
<li>There is alignment of social networking and sharing with other communications including offline communications.</li>
<li>Dudley CVS model good practice to both organisations we support and those we seek to influence in relation to effective online networking and engagement.</li>
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I found the aforementioned <a href="http://davepress.net/2011/01/02/a-good-social-media-policy-is-a-good-idea/">blog post on a good social media policy</a> by @davebriggs really helpful in framing some of the outcomes.<br />
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In addition to all of this there is also the consideration of how we provide support to local groups and organisations too, which we’ve started with Social Media Surgeries and I’m hoping to have a regular column in our printed and online newsletter providing tips on using online tools and networks. But in terms of the internal approach – have I missed anything? And/or can you recommend relevant reading?<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8500794766833162069.post-78777919674517318232011-08-19T13:02:00.000+01:002013-08-31T22:16:18.395+01:00On Reflection<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Although I haven't posted here for a while, I've found that my use of online social tools is greatly facilitating my reflective practice. Previously I sought to carve out time to record reflections on work I had delivered, arranged meetings with colleagues to reflect on activities we had undertaken together, and shaped supervision time with my line manager to aid reflection. Although much of this reflection involved conversation or dialogue, notes of what I had learned always ended up on pieces of paper in lever arch files, gathering dust. Which feels quite different to the reflection I've engaged in through blogging, forum and groups discussions on sites such as <a href="http://network.changesuk.net/">changes network</a> and the <a href="http://oursociety.org.uk/">Our Society network</a>. By making observations in these spaces which promote dialogue, sometimes over long periods of time, I find it more simple to refer back to my learning and continue learning, as the discussions and work evolve. It feels a lot less static than those sheets of paper filed away until I sort through a folder and rediscover them. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paulo Friere</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">To this end, I've re-named my blog 'Seeking Praxis', in the hope that I'll use it more to reflect, and learn through the process of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">reflection. The term <i>p</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i>raxis</i> is, I feel, a complicated one which I don't fully understand. It has been described as a unity of theory and practice. Paulo Freire advocated praxis as being fundamental to understanding and transforming the power relations of everyday life. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.actionlearningsets.com/php/news.php?id=4">Action Learning Sets</a> have been one way that I have developed some grasp of what praxis is. I was fortunate to have taken part in an <a href="http://www.actionlearningassociates.co.uk/resources/nacvs.html">Action Learning for Managers Project</a> run by <a href="http://www.navca.org.uk/">NAVCA</a> (then NACVS) from 2001-2004, giving me the opportunity to be part of a facilitated Action Learning Set. My experience of Action Learning is that it is an very simple but incredibly powerful way of learning. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">An Action Learning Set will often consist of a group of 4-6 people who agree to meet for a full day at a time, usually every 4-6 weeks for a period of 6 to 12 months. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">During a meeting, each set member has around 45-60 minutes in which the focus is on an issue related to their work. They spend 5-10 minutes 'presenting' the issue, which sounds much more formal than it is - essentially they describe a problem they have identified which they have some control over, and explain this and any relevant wider context to other members of the set. The other set members act as 'supporters'. They may ask questions for clarification, and then move on to asking questions which help the presenter to explore their issues, their feelings, possible actions and so on. The supporters are not there to offer solutions, but one thing I have found really useful in sets beyond the questions is that supporters might reflect back to me that I said a certain word a number of times, or my voice or other body language changed when I talked about a particular part of my issue, or people related to it. Towards the end of the allocated time slot the presenter has space to develop actions. They commit to undertaking them and reporting back to other set members at the next meeting, both on what happened, and what they learned as a result.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhikptR8keD6wqp3zkN0Kl13IKZTS9DBhkoUNTcpExYJdWHekoSYd5juXiIceEjbc8mcHKvifG3t0OhlV4pN0MqhtB6ojNiZ1hFFoW-IbYaycJ7lIAKfI0zjnEw727ICtFCJMB0LW2fQuU/s1600/revans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhikptR8keD6wqp3zkN0Kl13IKZTS9DBhkoUNTcpExYJdWHekoSYd5juXiIceEjbc8mcHKvifG3t0OhlV4pN0MqhtB6ojNiZ1hFFoW-IbYaycJ7lIAKfI0zjnEw727ICtFCJMB0LW2fQuU/s1600/revans.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reg Revans</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;">My understanding is that </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Revans">Reg Revans</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;">, who pioneered action learning, was happy that the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;">approach be played with. I think what I have described above is pretty much the basic approach. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Revans strongly held that the key to improving performance lay not with 'experts' but with practitioners themselves. Hence he devised Action Learning as a process whereby the participant studies his own actions and experience in conjunction with others in small groups called action learning sets. (source: Wikipedia)</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">I have been part of an Action Learning Set which has just finished meeting due to a member moving away. (This is the third time in three sets I've been part of that someone has moved away, prompting my own reflection on how long people stay in posts in the voluntary sector.) Looking back over notes from our set meetings, I was surprised to discover that we met only 9 times in just over 2 years (with a year long gap in the middle) and that our 5 set members were only all together for one full set meeting and the introductory session. This contrasted with sets I've been part of previously with 4 members in which we met more regularly and pretty much were all able to attend all sessions. Despite the flux in participation and gaps between sessions of my latest set, we've shared some deep learning, become very open with each other and gained hugely from the process.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US">A member of the set who works in the public sector feels that it has fundamentally changed the way she works and approaches things. Rather than things going round and round in her head, she starts to focus in on the issue and look at what she can do to change things, using action learning type questioning on herself.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US">At the end of every set meeting we reflect on what we've learned, often focussing on what we've learned about ourselves, the set, and the world. It has been interesting to look back and read the reflections of four people who were new to the process and see that their reflections on the set swiftly shifted from worries about the way that they were supporting, along with fears about presenting and being questioned to expressions of comfort with the interactions, trust, going with the flow and the robustness of the process. It feels as though one thing which has really emerged from this particular set is how the use of the sorts of questions we use in action learning are so useful in our work. Here are a selection of reflections from set members:</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US"><b><i>"I didn't realise action learning questions are so much use in other contexts"</i></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US"><b><i>"it struck me thinking about how this approach could help with my team, it works beyond the set meetings - there arer wider-reaching consequences"</i></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US"><b><i>"It's amazing how you can bring any issue and it works"</i></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US"><b><i>"I don't know anywhere else that you can achieve so much in such a short space of time"</i></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US"><b><i>"The set is a powerful way of unpacking things that are complicated - you can sort out things, and leave with clear thinking and actions instead of the muddle you came in with"</i></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span lang="EN-US">I can hugely recommend action learning. If you can identify a set member with experience of action learning you can probably manage with a self-facilitated set. Then the only cost is time and perhaps the hire of an appropriate room. You will need a space which is comfortable and in which you won't be interrupted. We like to meet away from our own places of work. If you have access to some budget I would recommend identifying and working with an experienced facilitator (there are a number listed on <a href="http://www.actionlearningassociates.co.uk/index.php">this site</a>), they can really help the set to work in creative ways. One thing to remember in relation to identifying set members is that no-one in the set should have line management responsibilities for any other set member. Other than this, it is fine for set members to all be from the same organisation, although I think there is a lot to be gained from being part of a set with people who work in different sectors, in different sorts of roles, and in different geographical areas. </span></span></span><br />
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