A community around using social tech for social impact
Time to try joining up traditional community organising with the new hyperlocal?
Is there scope for more joining up between the local community campaigners who gathered their strength through traditional organising in the last century, and those now using "hyperlocal" social media tools? I just blogged this item on socialreporter. Would it be useful to have a get-together of the various interests? Well, interesting anyway ...
The Civic Trust was an important force for conservation and local pride for 50 years, with a network of campaigning civic societies and an awards programme. I found the Regeneration Unit in particular great people to work with on a number of projects. But earlier this year the Trust ran out of money, and closed ... and I confess I didn't even notice. That shows how far I've given up reading magazines, and moved online. It may also show how little visibility the Trust had in the new online world.
Thanks goodness my friend Kevin Harris has kept in touch, and now reports on moves to create something in its place. As he says "The Civic Trust was precisely the kind of organisation of which it might have been said, if it didn't exist they'd have to reinvent it". The Civic Society Initiative has just published the report on their consultation... and if I may quote from Kevin's piece:
"Among the main findings:
Hang on .... this is all very networky, facilitative, bottom-up, open .... just the sort of values that people in the new hyperlocal movement I've written about before are following. The recent Talk About Local event in Stoke on Trent, Community Voices programme launched by the Media Trust, Local 2.0 at the Young Foundation all show how the tools of social media - combined with more traditional methods - can give local people a powerful voice and help the organise. The RSA is going in the same direction with its Citizen Power, Connected Communities, and Social Media projects.
I wonder if the two tribes know each other? There could be great synergy if the Civic Society Initiative people were prepared to embrace the new organsing tools ... and the hyperlocal folk could connect with a wider range of interests.
My co-authors and I in the Social by Social book (using social tech for social good) have just created an online network based on earlier work with the hyperlocal groups, and hope that may be one place where some joining up could take place, as Amy Sample Ward explains here.
However, what's really needed is a few calls, followed by a good face-to-face meeting if people are interested. I wonder if the RSA might oblige in helping organise? The energetic chief exective Matthew Taylor has said in the past that he wants the to 250-year-old organisation to be "the RAC of civic activism", and the projects I've cited show some movement along this path (although I have my doubts about the RAC analogy). There's a good fit with the Charter the RSA Fellowship has just launched.
Or maybe the Civic Society Initiative would be interested in organising the meetup themselves? Umm - contact us leads to an admin email address and web form. Still, I'll have a go.
Anyone got other ideas for some oldstyle-newstyle joining up?
The Civic Trust was an important force for conservation and local pride for 50 years, with a network of campaigning civic societies and an awards programme. I found the Regeneration Unit in particular great people to work with on a number of projects. But earlier this year the Trust ran out of money, and closed ... and I confess I didn't even notice. That shows how far I've given up reading magazines, and moved online. It may also show how little visibility the Trust had in the new online world.
Thanks goodness my friend Kevin Harris has kept in touch, and now reports on moves to create something in its place. As he says "The Civic Trust was precisely the kind of organisation of which it might have been said, if it didn't exist they'd have to reinvent it". The Civic Society Initiative has just published the report on their consultation... and if I may quote from Kevin's piece:
"Among the main findings:
- Civic societies want to be less reactive, work more in partnership and be more campaigning in their outlook.
- There is a refreshing openness within civic societies about their shortcomings and their mixed reputation – ageing, negative and out of touch but also locally knowledgeable, actively concerned about the future and wanting to connect more with their community.
- The movement lacks confidence in itself and others can appear to value it more than civic societies themselves.
- Civic societies seek a unifying mission and purpose for the movement. This is likely to be based around issues of place, pride, identity and community.
- Separate voices to being a collective movement
- Hierarchical to being more networked
- Dependent to being more independent (especially financially)
- Organised top-down to being more federal.
- Providing information, support and advice to civic societies
- Facilitating civic societies to network and cluster together
- Being a national lead and voice for the movement which provides inspiration and direction; lobbies and campaigns on its behalf; and raises its profile and influence.
Hang on .... this is all very networky, facilitative, bottom-up, open .... just the sort of values that people in the new hyperlocal movement I've written about before are following. The recent Talk About Local event in Stoke on Trent, Community Voices programme launched by the Media Trust, Local 2.0 at the Young Foundation all show how the tools of social media - combined with more traditional methods - can give local people a powerful voice and help the organise. The RSA is going in the same direction with its Citizen Power, Connected Communities, and Social Media projects.
I wonder if the two tribes know each other? There could be great synergy if the Civic Society Initiative people were prepared to embrace the new organsing tools ... and the hyperlocal folk could connect with a wider range of interests.
My co-authors and I in the Social by Social book (using social tech for social good) have just created an online network based on earlier work with the hyperlocal groups, and hope that may be one place where some joining up could take place, as Amy Sample Ward explains here.
However, what's really needed is a few calls, followed by a good face-to-face meeting if people are interested. I wonder if the RSA might oblige in helping organise? The energetic chief exective Matthew Taylor has said in the past that he wants the to 250-year-old organisation to be "the RAC of civic activism", and the projects I've cited show some movement along this path (although I have my doubts about the RAC analogy). There's a good fit with the Charter the RSA Fellowship has just launched.
Or maybe the Civic Society Initiative would be interested in organising the meetup themselves? Umm - contact us leads to an admin email address and web form. Still, I'll have a go.
Anyone got other ideas for some oldstyle-newstyle joining up?
Tags: civicsociety, civictrust, hyperlocal
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by David Wilcox on
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Support from the RSA: Sam McLean has commented on socialreporter.com
Good blog. The folding of the Civic Trust is scandalous.
As the person leading on the Citizen Power programme at the RSA, I am very interested and keen for the RSA to help develop a strategy for filling this void.
Creating and establishing a network for civic organisations is one possibility.
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Permalink Reply by Iris Lapinski on -
David, sounds like a great idea and connecting the 2 different tribes makes a lot of sense. I'm sure the Citizenship Foundation via Michael Grimes should be interested in this as well. Happy to help on this, if I can.
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Thanks Iris - good idea, I'll invite Michael across. Also Paul Webster ... who is doing a great job with colleagues networking on Navcaboodle.
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Permalink Reply by Aidan Kelly on -
HI David,
This is intelligent thinking, I feel. The motivations behind the development of the Civic Trust are just as relevant, if not more so, today and it's great to know there are steps in place to re-vitalise.
Connected Communites looks to be trying to understand the conditions under which community engagement can grow by itself and self-sustain, with direct relevance to social networks and network theory. This seems to be the holy grail of community empowerment, so it would be good to share best practice and join up the traditional with the hyper-new.
Great idea!
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Permalink Reply by David Barrie on
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You are *so* right!
But you'd need to think hard about the demographics. Am about to state the obvious...the civic society people I have worked with across the country place a huge emphasis upon neighborhood organizing and email. And like the retired chair of the residents group I spoke to last week, his members struggle with email and have totally standard mobiles.
Now civic folk aren't all old people, not at all. But they want something from or their entry point to cyberspace is (maybe) different to where 'hyperlocal folk' come in.
My fantasy - and I know that I am *strange* - would be that all civic group organizers are supported simply to use Google Groups, meetup.com and given help to become winners at Strictly Come Email, before someone turns up with a 'how to' on Twitter lists.
Also, civic groups are about organizing and activism and the 'hyperlocal' thing seems a bit go-go on organizations looking to chart new routes to and make money from news gathering.
The guy to turn on to your idea is Griff Rhys Jones, who's a massive supporter of these kind of civic organizations.
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Thanks David - all
Starting from what civic society people will actually find useful, and be prepared to use, sounds really sensible. It looks as if we have interest from a number of organisations ... and in particular I think various people in RSA might help. I'm thinking of a pilot event in January/February bringing people together to do a mix of hands-on, and planning for wider activity. I personally want to do that in London - but the format could be designed for use anywhere. I'll check out with RSA - all other offer very welcome. It would be an open approach.
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Permalink Reply by Viv Long-Ferguson on -
Sounds an interesting idea, an RSA Network with a thematic focus. This could link to our developing Digital Engagement and Social Media work which will run through 2010 across the UK. Are you up to the challenge to organise David - what do you need from Clare and myself to make this happen?
David Wilcox said:Thanks David - all
Starting from what civic society people will actually find useful, and be prepared to use, sounds really sensible. It looks as if we have interest from a number of organisations ... and in particular I think various people in RSA might help. I'm thinking of a pilot event in January/February bringing people together to do a mix of hands-on, and planning for wider activity. I personally want to do that in London - but the format could be designed for use anywhere. I'll check out with RSA - all other offer very welcome. It would be an open approach.
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Thanks Viv for the great encouragement. Glad to move this forward - I'll check in with the others here on who else might contribute. It would be great if RSA would host, but I know there's a lot of claims on the House.
Might be best on a Saturday - what do others think? First step could be a smaller planning get-together one evening?
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Permalink Reply by Sue Thomas on -
David, I'm afraid I'm catching up with this a bit late, but it would be of interest to some of our Amplified Leicester participants - indeed the group includes at least one member of Leicester Civic Society. Are you any further advanced in terms of a date and venue?
NB If you're interested in meeting outside of London, I might be able to offer some space at the new Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre in Leicester, a short walk from the station and very swish :) (it would probably need to be daytime though, as the screen rooms are in use in the evenings) (and Leicester is just over an hour from St Pancras)
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Thanks Sue - we are indeed getting some interest around this idea, but I'm still hoping one of the national programmes will take a lead since we don't have any resources of time or money. Anyone ready to make move? Maybe we'll just have to wait until things are a bit further along.
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Permalink Reply by Sue Thomas on
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Okay David, thanks. I'll keep an eye on the situation.
David Wilcox said:Thanks Sue - we are indeed getting some interest around this idea, but I'm still hoping one of the national programmes will take a lead since we don't have any resources of time or money. Anyone ready to make move? Maybe we'll just have to wait until things are a bit further along.
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Discussion about some building bridges/joining up events and other activities over here - including my suggestion for event toolkits for game workshops, social media surgeries, social reporting.
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