Starting discussions on Big Society Stores and Spaces

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Permalink Reply by Phil Green on July 27, 2010 at 8:52

Ideas on how to build from the citizens and communities level, or citizen centred stuff ('bottom up' still a little perjorative sounding?)

1. It'd be nice to get something relevant to the first 4 BS communities - Sutton, Windsor and Maidenhead, Eden Valley in Cumbria and Liverpool - but perhaps better idea is to

2. Try and get contributors to begin to 'do' or at least attempt (to create some relevant content for) their own area (community, locality, YSM - personally don't like that name, sorry!). Have started a hyperlocal site for my own area, very underdeveloped, but gives me something to start from, and at least one or two contacts, via the local network I could try and encourage to help. Which leads on to the idea of

3. Inviting or encouraging the full range of hyperlocal sites to attempt to start creating some relevant content, eg via networks such as Talk about Local. Again idea is not so much to ask a lot of (work from) individuals running these sites but to try and tap into the knowledge and resourcefulness of exisiting local networks. Or at least invite thinking, or encourage discussion about what any such content might look like and how it'd be most useful to these existing local communities and networks.

4. Encourage the signposting aspect of any such content created to be Creative Commons and so shareable, and able to be built on, by the widest possible range of people.

5. Encourage the cross fertilization of these (maybe intially) local ideas via a sort of shared national (shared strategic - suggest need to avoid using the word 'central' if at all poss) repository

6. the above dependent on practicalities eg advice / consensus on identifying boundaries etc (as mentioned in comments and questions on wiki page )

7. Invite any other citizen centred networks to chip in, even if primarily about 'their' specialism: eg individual transition town intitiatives (via TTN), low carbon communties, climate action groups, etc.

8. A good source of potential leads for identying what's already going on locally might be something like (the UK parts of) Wiser Earth and the Sustainable Community Action wiki. SCA wiki although maybe reasonably good on environmental wellbeing side, of course won't have anything like enough on the social and economic wellbeing sides. SCA wiki, at least, all Creative Commons, so anyone can take whatever they like from it and build from if useful.

9. Identifying the developer community / relevant networks. Of course including / inviting anyone and everyone mentioned so far but also encouraging anyone who might know someone through hyperlocal networks or other hyperlocal stuff who it would be good to invite eg the Openly Local guy, to help spread the word.

10. Perhaps another practicality but maybe a need to develop advice / consensus on how to include or engage with intermediate area level stuff (eg regional, etc.) The notion of regional government may be politically well out of favour, but it's not necessarily the case that civil society won't have some intermediate area dimension. There may the need for some pragmatism as to how anything relevant can be assured of being citizen friendly.

11. Although presumably this whole project has a UK focus, there'll inevitably be some transnational stuff eg some community action around twinning, sometimes via faith groups for example, and arguably reasonable contention that this contributes to the wellbeing of the (UK) local area.

12. Encouraging local buy-in. This might be stating the obvious but the more we can develop and articulate a shared consensus, which we can point to, about what this whole BS thing is about, and this project in particular, what the positive aspects are, what it is and what it is not, etc the more we can head off local concerns. Eg is there a danger that some specific agencies eg local volunteer bureau, CVS, etc at risk of seeing some of of this as threatening / take over type stuff?

13. As a core idea is ease of use (for citizens and comunities), although ideally assuring this would become standard practice, it might be worth considering something like trying to recruit an (at least temporary) ease of use panel (eg invites to those involved in citizen action from the 4 first BS communties) to help oversee that ease of use / citizen friendly maintained throughout.

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Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on July 27, 2010 at 9:07

Thanks Phil - I'm off to Big Society North today, and as I mention here, there's great ideas coming from Eden District.
Will revisit your thoughtful process on return.
I had aimed to set up a group on this site, but on reflection that may wait until after today's meeting

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Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on July 30, 2010 at 13:27

I've just bloogged this over at socialreporter.com. Sorry things are a bit spread about - but as I report here, I'm hoping we'll have a space fairly soon for exploring the idea of a social app store in more detail. Videos, including the report from Clare, are on youtube

Social App Store gains support in the North
Earlier this week Big Society in the North launched with an open event in Sheffield, and as I expected it was a great opportunity to test some ideas developed mainly in London against harder local realities - including the Social App Store. The bsitnorth group had taken the DIY philosophy of Big Society and decided they would explore the challenges and develop opportunities without waiting for any more from Whitehall.
Lucy Windmill of Amplified has done a terrific job of live blogging the event, and pulling together tweets and videos here. Organisers Julian Dobson and John Popham have blogged thoughts here and here.

You'll find videos that I shot here. More links below. These excellent reports leave me free here to concentrate on the idea that I was promoting - an online store of practical tools that will help people build big (or small) society in their neighbourhood. Earlier disussions here.

Although I already knew Julian and John, I was a little uncertain how the store and other ideas would fare - so it was great to be warmly welcomed before the event by some of the team at the Sheffield-based Community Development Exchange - Sophie Ballinger, Emma Lees, and Tanwir Rauf - with some really constructive ideas.
I get the sense that, in Sheffield at least, the different tribes in community work, social enterprise and social media are working together. They are already creating big/small society.
During the event I pitched the store idea, and was then joined by about a dozen people to talk it through ... with a great mix of tech and nontech expertise. We focussed on the idea of a Social App Store, that had first surfaced in my mind after the Big Society Network Open Night on July 6 - reported here.
Broadly the idea is that there's decades of expertise in local social action and community development, so let's not re-invent the wheel. On the other hand, it is very scattered, because funding regimes and organisations' natural self-promotion does not encourage easy navigation and linking of resources. Those in the main networks will happily swap news of the latest reports, toolkits or smart tools ... but then walk into any local meeting in government, community or voluntary sector and there's maybe 10 percent acquaintance of key resources across the fields. That drops to near zero for any new neighbourhood activist. Just Googling gives you a bewildering mass of resources, and the best stuff may not be online anyway. Even if you find what you are looking for, it may not be in a form that is easily digested and used. There's too often more thought for the funder than the customer.
So - how could we find or develop useful stuff that's as easy to use as a mobile phone app, downloaded from the Apple store or Android market?
These need not be tech. One of my favourite examples of a really simple app is the one-page waiver proposed by the National Association for Neighbourhood Management, enabling you to cut the grass on publicly-owned land. John Popham found some great ideas when he visited one of the Big Society vanguard areas, Eden District. Car sharing, village welcome packs, planning applications online, connecting second home owners, using the schools' IT network.
The idea of the store is that it will be a market place, and so success will depend partly on how it is framed (who manages the space) and who will pitch up with some goodies. (I've had some terrific inspiration from Anne McCrossan of Visceral Business on how we might blend experience from retail, social media and open business approaches ... more on that another time).
On the night in Sheffield I was delighted that marketing and social media specialist Clare Mackenzie was keen to pull together the discussion and report back, as you can see above.
I'm responsible for taking the store idea forward for Big Society Network, and I'm excited by the possibility of collaboration with Clare, John and other talented and enthusiastic people I met in Sheffield (and then with others).
Meanwhile back in London we've been thinking how best to make the store idea real, and decided that a first step is to create a simple showcase of the sort of apps we are talking about. I say create, but in the spirit of open co-design and co-production it will be more a matter of seeding the showcase and then inviting people to put up other ideas. That will also help us think through what might be an app and what not, and who might decide. We'll need a core group of collaborators and ways of ensuring that the apps are what people really need, not just what we want to put in a store. Sheffield seems like a great place to start with that. (... awaiting early challenge from Birmingham:-)
If you want to keep in touch, I'll keep reporting back on SocialbySocial, where you can also join in discussion. I'm also in discussion with one network who has the sort of site we might be able to semi-clone for the showcase and more structured discussions. If someone has done it already, let's see if we can borrow.

• Earlier posts on Big Society Network
• Looking North for Big Society realities
• Big Society in the North event Amplified
• Explorations in no-man's-land: Julian Dobson
• Videos from BSitNorth event
• Big Society in the North - first event: Emma Lees CDX
• Big Society in the North: John Popham
• Big Society launches in the North: Inside the M60 report
• big society, little hope?: Saul Cozens
• BSitNorth on Twitter
• Discussions about the store at SocialbySocial
• Building the Big Social Apps Store - report of July 6 BSN Open Night

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Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on August 2, 2010 at 18:35

Thanks everyone for invaluable contributions.
I've now set up a group on this site to take forward practical discussions on the Social App Store (working title). I do hope you will join in over here.

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