A community around using social tech for social impact
Starting discussions on Big Society Stores and Spaces
Today Prime Minister David Cameron gave the biggest boost yet to the Big Society programme, with announcements on the Big Society Bank and four areas getting special assistance to try out ideas around social action, service development, and community empowerment. Full text here. The ideas include:
- Making budget decisions at street-level
- Taking over local assets such as a community pub
- Delivering broadband to local communities
- Piloting the Government’s open-source planning reforms
- Taking responsibility for generating energy locally
- Deciding licensing rules locally
- Building a volunteer programme so they can keep local museums open for longer.
It seems a good time to open up discussion about Big Society here on Social by Social, because in coming weeks I think we'll hear lots more about how social technology can contribute to these and other agendas. In particular the Big Society Network - where I've been acting as part-time socialreporter - is promoting the idea of Your Square Mile as a mutually-owned online service to help new and existing local groups. More background at socialreporter.com, and on this wiki.
I think we particularly need some online discussion because the Network is deliberately holding back in creating its own forum, and welcoming others who do so in their own spaces.
There's now the independent Big Society in the North, discussion at Chain Reaction, and at RSA Fellowship. NCVO has a briefing and discussion area. Julian Dobson has some great posts, and Dave Briggs has an excellent round-up here.
I think we have a fairly unusual group of people here with interests in neighbourhoods, digital engagement and social tech.
As Dave reports, my current interest is in the idea of a Social Apps Store, which I wrote about after a Network Open Night on July 6, attended by about 150 people.
Last night Steve Moore asked me to speak briefly about ideas for a Big Society Commons or Store, which I wrote about here, and here. I said we need space with different levels … information, conversation, exchange, products and services. Maybe it is a mall plus a market, some high tech, some low. It is absolutely not created by government, but by those with something to offer.
Then I started to wonder about the role of the skilled, creative, passionate people at the Open Night. Perhaps one analogy for part of the store is an Apps store, where you can download smart ways of doing things to your mobile phone. Some are free, some you pay for. The fee goes to the developer, with a percentage to the store owner.
It works because there is a framework for the way apps are developed – tight in the case of Apple, more flexible in open sources stores.
So perhaps some of the people at the Open Night were potential developers for the Social Apps Store. If the Network can help to create the store, it will provide a much bigger market for those with social action products and services to sell – or offer free.
The Apps Store offers one metaphor to help us think how we bring good stuff together, what’s in it for the different interests involved, what rules and frameworks we need to make sure things work together.
The idea of a Apps - or is it just App? store - got some attention on Twitter, and among the Network team. It has led to a couple of invitations to discussions in Government, so I have developed it in more detail over here on the wiki.
As I explain there, although I'm using a mobile phone app store as an analogy, the content should not be just tech. For example, I really like the offline Social Spaces that Tessy Britton and collaborators will be launching this autumn through the Travelling Pantry.
There's lots of possible threads for discussion on Big Society ... so this is just an open invitation to suggest some that you might wish to follow here.
I'm hoping I'll continue to do some work with the Network, so I can put some effort into providing support by updating on what's happening. Just to provide some balance, it would be great to have some other facilitator/reporters whether enthusiastic or sceptical.
Anyone up for that? Key issues? Questions?
Tags: bigsociety, bigsocietynetwork, socialspaces
Views: 50
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dave Briggs on
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Hi David
Really timely this after the Prime Minister's (re?)launch of Big Society today. There are a lot of conversations going on in a slightly fragmented way - though of course you are doing a sterling job of tying it all together on your blog and the BSNopen wiki.
It's great that conversations are happening in different spaces, as different audiences have different approaches and issues to tackle. A good example of this is the group on the RSA network - how does Big Soc affect RSA fellows and their work? This isn't a discussion that would really interest non-fellows.
But I think there are meta-discussions about Big Soc which need a neutral space that doesn't particularly belong to any one community. Perhaps - if people contribute in sufficient numbers, Social by Social could be that place.
On your other points, I blogged a fair bit about it here. But I would say that to really work, let's have a stuff store rather than an app store!
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Permalink Reply by Anne McCrossan on -
Hi David and Dave,
Here are my thoughts on it. Sorry about the slightly lengthy post but as the momentum behind the Big Society scales, it seems to make more and more sense to have a common metaphor or meme to help to make sense of the mass. This is a simple management of information thing.
The general mood music about tBS that I've heard at the moment contains the not unsizeable risk that The Big Society can mean everything and also nothing. It might be the case that technology and the march of time makes generic social participation happen but everyone seems to agree that it needs a helping hand here.
I'm with you as far as the idea of an Apps Store or as you've put it Dave a Stuff Store goes. The one thing we all buy, whatever we buy, is ease and convenience. It's simple human behaviour and tBS is a big ambitious and hugely woolly idea.
A store makes the whole thing identifiable. The other aspect of this store concept that makes it pretty crucial is if the Big Society is really going to be a successful social initiative it needs to be able to generate user-centered business models and not just meeting places.
As a side issue I've been involved in the creation of these as a collaborator in this book for a while, and know that other people that were at the Open Night are familiar with and support the approach. This is important because the business and operating model of tBS has to go beyond voluntary participation and answer the 'what's in it for me' question as well as rally participation, in other words it has to have guts and be rooted in deep practicalities about the bottom line and new ways of doing things.
The retail idea addresses this.
The devolved and independent - but fragmented - nature of the initiatives starting now may well benefit from becoming part of an overarching framework in order to encourage more of them to happen. As an alternative, citing proof of concept of tBS on a case by case basis is a risky strategy. A store allows for work in progress and continuous improvement being baked into the way things are done.
A Big Society Store also offers a valuable second level of meaning i.e. the Big Society is what it is, the Big Society Store is how it works.
It's a sorry fact that the more political a football tBS becomes the less likely it may be to gather any genuine movement. Retail is a fast-moving get it done sector. What tBS can achieve should be both as broad and as accessible as possible for any of the outcomes to resonate beyond the badge; all in all there is a built-in diversity within the store model as well as the other associations I've mentioned for it to click.
Your Square Mile creates that kind of familiar language too, and from an identity point of view there's a theme emerging. A store idea allows for stocktaking and for all sorts of initiatives to fill the shelves, category by category and area by area.
I'm in and agree with the mighty Dave, David, that Social by Social can be the place to develop this if the buy-in, the big issue, can be there.
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Permalink Reply by Noel Hatch on
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Love the name “social apps”, something that can be quickly downloaded and that people can go back to and spread to their friends.
Think there’s a couple of analogies which maybe will be different to real apps stores (and I know you’re not trying to skin every single principle from real apps stores!). What would be really powerful is an Amazon-style approach to see when someone looks at one “social app” (i.e. Social by Social) they can see what other apps have been used by people who’ve downloaded that one. This could help the “developers” make connections amongst each other.
Another idea could be for people to indicate what projects they’ve used a particular “app” for, as this could help “developers” work out their target audience and build that tricky bridge we all now that’s moving from free to paid “apps”!
I think the best target audience it could be pitched to are the “developers” those people or organisations who are building the bridges between sectors, between communities or between approaches.
Obviously whereas in real apps stores, the skills gap between developers and users is huge, whereas in Big Society Social Apps, it isn’t at all. Maybe that’s an offer that could be provided by the Apps Store and that’s how community groups/self organising initiatives can build their own “social apps”?
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Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on
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Thanks Dave, Anne and Noel for picking up on the social apps store, at least as a conversation starter.
Maybe there's a broad set of conversations, leading to something like the store.
There are so many good ideas from the past few years on how we can use social tech for social good - and Big Society could provide a new opportunity to gather those ideas and examples, and make the effort to re-present them to Government and communities.
However, in the end we need to move towards stuff/apps that help people do things, without having them to understand too much of the tech. The Apps Store idea came from the July 6 Open Night when a lot of supporters, developers, critics, generated lots of discussion and ideas. Maybe we have to do that old, if not easy thing, and build a community to build the store. Digital barnraising anyone? Not new, but timely.
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Think the digital barnraising is a good idea. If anything everything we do around the Big Society should model the behaviours we want to foster - building solidarity amongst and between communities so that they become more powerful together. Whether that involves community development, social entreprise, public services, whether it involves social tech, neighbourhoods, etc.
I'm training as a community organiser in my spare time and something we do is have 1:1s with people who have strong links in your community - it could be the youth worker, community warden, even the local blogger - and find out more about them and what makes them tick. We then organise house meetings to explore with them at how we can engage people we know and community walks to meet people locally and find out more about the local environment. Maybe a similar approach could be used for the barn raising?
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Permalink Reply by John Popham on -
Hi David and everyone else
Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to re-invent wheels. As someone said yesterday (was it the Prime Minister or Phil Redmond?) "we are not about re-inventing wheels, but making the wheel go faster".
The web should allow us to seek out the best practice and take from it what is important to us. One of the extreme ironies is that recent years has seen a proliferation, and duplication, of online repositories of good practice, all of which have their own audiences, and their own proprietary access mechanisms.
One thing a Big Society "apps store", or whatever it comes to be called, must do, is get away from these competing systems, and put all the good stuff in one place, hopefully, in a standardised format. To this end, I offer the DC10plus Product Catalogue (http://dc10plus.sero.co.uk) which I have been involved in developing. Another place, another system, but, I am offering it as some source material which might end up in the "apps store".
And, what I think is actually more important about this than the material it offers, is the approach it symbolises. All the products contained therein are based on people-centred approaches. There are two facets to this, they are products which have been designed in consultation with their beneficiaries, and, the experience and expertise of the people who manage them is accessible to take them on, develop them, and roll them out into new areas.
My discussions with local authorities and other partners who have expressed interest in picking up some of the products in the catalogue suggest that this is a unique selling point. We all know that cuts are hitting hard, and will hit harder in the months to come. I think we can create a win-win situation whereby some of these products which have been developed by local authorities might be floated off as arm-length companies, or independent social enterprises, thus reducing the overhead to the individual authority, and they can then then work with other authorities and other partners to replicate and refine their projects elsewhere. If we can make this happen effectively, we will avoid the scenario whereby public agencies wait until the cuts really bite, and then look around for the nearest off-the-shelf technological solution which may not be suitable, and may not have the backing of experienced managers who have done the same things elsewhere.
I think some of these products offer 21st Century approaches to community development and regeneration, which make the most of the available new technologies and harness them to bring people together, connect them with each other, allow them to collaborate as their explore solutions to their individual and collective problems, and capture the stories of their processes and progress.Capturing these lessons is essential if the Big Society is to mean anything to communities under stress and striving to improve their lot with scarce resources.
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Permalink Reply by Julian Dobson on
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Hello all
My observation - and this applies to the Big Society in the North just as much as anything else - is that you have to create the value first, and people will gravitate to it. That's the challenge for all of us. Anybody can create a space, neutral or otherwise, to discuss aspects of the BS that are of interest to them. There has to be an offer, and some content, that will make the space useful.
I think the 'store' idea is a great one and if it happens it will attract people. I'd certainly be interested in linking it with whatever comes out of our conversations in the north. If we can start creating allotments rather than replicating Gardeners' Question Time we'll be making progress.
Julian
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Permalink Reply by Tessy Britton on -
Thanks very much for the mention of Social Spaces and the Travelling Pantry. David. The landscape is very interesting at the moment, but I think that all the discussion is very helpful.
My current perspective is that Big Society, whether through the government initiatives or the Big Society Network, will only have a substantial impact, if they they acknowledge, understand and boost existing activity in existing networks. This reflects also what John and Julian have said above about using what already exists and creating value that is accessible.
If these BS initiatives can make what we do faster, bigger and better then they are almost guaranteed to succeed. For that to happen they need to recognise that this work in communities gets done well, by both professionals and volunteers when all the social capital, personal relationships and local assets are encouraged and developed. Networks such as Chain Reaction. RSA, Transition, Social by Social etc have been trying to stimulate exactly the type of activity that Big Society hopes to activate and their ideals seem very aligned. When you start to include other local networks like Student Voice, WI, Scouts, Guides, Pensioner’s Clubs etc… you can see that valuable, complex, non-professional networks already exist. Noel emphasises this above as well. It is the Social Spaces strategy to support and develop the work of these local networks rather than competing.
All the research for the book Hand Made: Portraits of Emergent New Community Culture, revealed that there is a great deal being done at local level in novel ways, with new approaches, methodologies and skillsets. These include design thinking, systems thinking, psychology etc, and they show that we shouldn’t necessarily be striving for ‘more of the same’ in the more traditional sense of ‘community’. The Travelling Pantry aims to harness all the insights from all the new style community projects and see if new positive projects can’t stimulated elsewhere, by encouraging non-professionals to get involved locally.
The great idea of the Apps Store (or other names) accesses some of this directly in that it creates a value-based starting point for all the development and relationship building which will be needed to boost any vision of Big Society.
I was really interested in Anne’s comments above on business models – I am off to buy her book!
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Dale on -
Hi David,
just picking up on some of the responses, I realise that the Knowledge Hub - an idea conceived long before the tBS - can provide an aggregation point for the many and diverse conversations and activities that are springing up on various networks. Taking John Popham's comments for example
" The web should allow us to seek out the best practice and take from it what is important to us. One of the extreme ironies is that recent years has seen a proliferation, and duplication, of online repositories of good practice, all of which have their own audiences, and their own proprietary access mechanisms. One thing a Big Society "apps store", or whatever it comes to be called, must do, is get away from these competing systems, and put all the good stuff in one place, hopefully, in a standardised format."
I could have been reading my own spec for the Knowledge Hub since this is precisely what it will do! But I won't bore you with the details of how we will be using ontologies and taxonomies to provide the standards. The key point is that it will not only join up repositories of good practice, it will join up conversations happening on other platform in other places. I anticipate many new networks propogating ever-more granular discussions on tBS themes, whereas what we need is an opportunity for co-ordinated action and the ability to tap into good ideas wherever they are occurring. Since this will also be the place where public sector bodies will be having conversations (as the next generation CoP platform for local government), it's also an ideal opportunity for tBS groups to link up with councils and the third sector.
I might add that we will be developing an app store for the K-Hub and running a few hack-days to encourage development of some useful apps. Seems to me there are many opportunities for joining up our thinking on some of this stuff. I'm hoping to be able to keep tabs on the emerging shape of the tBS so that I can identify if/how/where the Khub can help.
Steve.
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Thanks Noel, John, Julian, Tessy, Steve for taking this idea several big jumps further. I've just posted a piece on socialreporter and will message people on Socialbysocial, so I hope we'll get yet more. As I said in my post, maybe this is the Good Stuff Store :-) (picking up Dave's comment).
Noel - I love the idea of comparing/developing face-to-face community organising and online organising. I hope others will pick up that thread, or you might develop? Feel free, of course, to start a new discussion topic. It also makes me think we need to do some serious mapping - trialled here by Drew Mackie - to help build the network (s).
Thanks John for such an amazing offer from DC10plus. As many people have pointed out, local government innovation is an essential part of the mix. Looks as if there is scope here for both supporting social action and service improvement - a difficult balance as Toby Blume points out here.
Julian - really looking forward to the meeting in Sheffield next week and love allotment conversations rather than gardening experts. Sheds and Stores?
Tessy - I agree so much that we have to build from existing networks as well as adding new stuff. Back to mapping. And so pleased that the tech side can be bound in with the on-the-ground innovations that you are featuring and taking on the road. The Network is planning a tour in the autumn ... I hope they'll be interested in travelling with the Pantry. Who wouldn't?
Steve - as you know, I've been a huge admirer of your work on Communities of Practice and more recently the Knowledge Hub, and had a hunch you already a Store and much more in the spec. Now we can join up with earlier conversations here about khub. Great if we can join up with the hack days and find other ways to collaborate.
Once we get a few more ideas we can think about how best to organise. One step could be to create a group on this site, to make it easier to message each other, pull discussions together. I also need to think - on behalf of the network - how best to keep track of the conversations happening in many different places and networks. Any expertise on that most welcome.
I hope to be able to report back later on various meetings on the store idea.
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Permalink Reply by Traidmark.org on -
Sounds great. (commented on your blog but through best to post here so the ning group can see it:)
What is done and how it is done are the two key points (creativity is key:) Full comment is here
http://whymandesign.posterous.com
Facebook conversation with very interesting points are here...
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=21&post=321&uid=113...
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Permalink Reply by John Popham on
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Here's something on social media Surgeries as part of this discussion. With full acknowledgements to Nick Booth, progenitor, and inspiration.
In some ways, I think Social Media Surgeries are a pure manifestation of the Big Society concept. The original idea from Nick Booth was truly inspirational, and I have been fortunate, through the Digital 20/20 programme, funded by Yorkshire Forward, to be able to take it on and roll it out in nearly all the main cities and towns in Yorkshire now. We have managed to persuade people, from a variety of backgrounds, with social media knowledge, to pass on their skills and knowledge to people who will make good use of it in local communities and support organisations. The main reward they get, is a sense of well-being at having done a good deed, and, time and again, the “Surgeons” have told me how good it makes them feel. The Surgeries we have established in Yorkshire have effectively become support mechanisms and networking opportunities for the Surgeons, as much as they have been of assistance to the “Patients”. And, not only do we get the “Surgeons” for free, we always manage to get the venues, and often refreshments too, for free.
I think we can make Social Media Surgeries centrepieces of the Big Society approach. They are, in themselves, demonstrators of the Big Society, as well as being sources of knowledge, skills, expertise and inspiration for the individuals and organisations who will develop Big Society initiatives. Social Media will be vital in connecting people together, providing them with opportunities to collaborate, and amplifying the results of their collaborations. It will allow them to do more with less, gain access to sources of advice and support for doing things differently, and telling the stories of their successes. In this context, I don’t think it is too fanciful to say that the establishment of a social media surgery in an area can be a catalyst for a new forms of community development. I would certainly like to look for resources to kick start social media surgeries in the four Big Society pilot areas. I know Nick has been doing some of this stuff working with Neighbourhood Managers in Birmingham, and I amy talking to a local authority in Yorkshire about an approach which takes Social Media Surgeries into neighbourhoods and uses them to connect people together.
I hope this is useful – I suppose what I am saying is that – in Social Media Surgeries, we could see a manifestation of the exhortation to “be the change you want to see”.
Sorry about that last bit, it was quite late when I wrote it!
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