The only feeling that I can take from today’s referendum process in Stoke is that nothing much has changed for our "damaged" system of governance.
The question resembles a camel with two legs: curious looking and, well, not very mobile. It has been put together by too many people with an eye on electoral law who forgot that democracy starts with clear language that actually makes sense. To be fair, of course, the council have already been through this process in two ways, getting two different answers.
So it has been left to the campaign groups - two different groups who chose the same name - and the local media to translate the question for the general public. Try as I might to feign an interest, my eyes went glassy the very second the No campaigners started talking of councillors trying to take away my right to choose who I wanted to lead the city.
Meanwhile, the Yes campaigners, apparently submitting to the commonly-held view that to interest people, you have to terrify them, have come up with a mock-up of The Sun showing the rioting and flames that would result should we keep our mayor. Their message is that the BNP are going to put up someone very charismatic and sexy to woo us all before May. Who this charmer is, is not clear, but if it seems a good enough reason to you to scrap the entire mayoral system, then be sure to vote Yes today.
What this has to do with unpicking the merits of governance systems before us is anyone’s guess, but the Sentinel have taken the same tack for a different result, with a confusing story based on an anonymous poll of councillors that informs us that if we vote Yes we will also get the BNP leading us next May. For BNP politicians and supporters, all that’s needed is to stay quiet and take the free publicity while all around them politicians sink under their own spin and squabbling.
The only thing that can give a convincing way forward is a large turnout today, and that's assuming we think everyone understands the question. My impression from conversations with those people who don’t take an active interest in city politics - the majority, and who can blame them - is that people neither understand nor care. People are widely referring to it as an election, meaning they will be confused when they find out they're not voting for people, but for a system. Translating the question outside the ballot box for people is fairly easy, but whether or not any of us will remember what the question means once we’re inside is unclear. You’re voting No if you want to have a mayor; Yes, if you want the councillors to choose a leader or you just want rid of the mayor. If you’re in the considerable camps of people who (a) think councillors should have more power or (b) would rather the councillors were all gone tomorrow, well then there are no options for you. I could go into the wider plans of the governance commission, which have been agreed but not acted upon by the council, but I suspect you lost interest a few lines ago.
The only reason to vote today is to contribute to the turnout, because we must use our votes when we get them. My own view hasn’t changed over the last six months: the system we have doesn’t particularly matter as long as we can have a city in which everybody can contribute and have their voices heard through different avenues of representation. In the last few weeks, far away from the political arena but sometimes involving the same people, I’ve seen some very encouraging signs that the grassroots organisations of Stoke could be enjoying something of a renaissance, inspired perhaps by the visit of Desmond Tutu back in July. Online, there are more Stoke people blogging than ever before – even if large swathes of our city are still without free internet access this is a sign that we could be entering a more healthy era of discussion and debate in which the people’s voices cannot be ignored. The day when even poor ignored Tunstall has a Facebook group dedicated to its charms is a good day for our city.
The campaigners for Trentham High School, who have been bravely standing up and dragging attention back to themselves even when all seemed lost, have in my view won the battle and should be given the prize they want. If walking to London to deliver a petition wasn’t convincing enough, the achievement of the students, teachers and parents in making their school the most improved in the city deserves our respect and more importantly that of the Building Schools for the Future architects. People are more important than buildings and our reliance on demolition and displacement needs to be put behind us. Our appearance on Question Time last week was a clear message to national government that the people of Stoke have, through bitter experience, learnt to articulate issues of deprivation, fear and unfairness as they affect our communities.
As Stoke-on-Trent creeps closer to its centenary year as a federated city of six proud towns, we could be about to enter very interesting times indeed.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Beyond poverty
Wherever you are in the world, a lot of the work around poverty tends to be focussed on funding and policy. Not funding for those in poverty, naturally, but funding for the bureaucracy that seeks to alleviate poverty. This means that those who develop most success, whether working on a very wide or very local level, tend to be those who learn to play the game of government targets around deprivation.
I was interested to hear a comment today by a very inspiring woman who complained about the short-termism of funding for a women's project she ran. It struck me that we have no choice but to move beyond our reliance on funding. Otherwise, the groups have no choice but to keep emphasising their problems in order to get the funding they need to continue. The development of social enterprise as an encouraged option moves on from that, but still puts organisations under pressure to grow and develop.
For me, the present climate makes either of these avenues increasingly difficult to sustain. The global problems are going to mean there are simply too many problems for governments to adequately fund. In addition, trading is going to become harder and those companies that made funding available for community projects are likely to have less to share. To put it simply, there is less money out there now to solve our problems. We need to rely more on our own creativity and what can be done for free.
So that makes it timely that, as is outlined well in Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody and by others, we're in an era where our costs of organising has collapsed. For all the uncertainty about what the Digital Mentor idea could look like, its greatest strength is the recognition that, by teaching people in deprived communities about digital access and use of free tools, you effectively plug them in to much wider opportunities. It could lead to two outcomes: first giving people the tools to organise whatever disruptive things they want to (and I like the fact that the government seem to be going down this route when they clearly aren't in control of the outcomes); and second transcending the basic modern reality that to be successful, you have to be willing to travel anywhere in the world: get educated, get mobile. We could start tapping in to the under-utilised resources of people who are in deprived areas, hearing their voices, hearing about their skills and making links to markets anywhere in the world. Again, the government could take the lead on this by supporting remote hubs to connect people to higher quality jobs even if they aren't in the major cities.
By building up the self-sufficiency of localised deprived areas, we can build confidence in those communities and people can actually take power, instead of waiting to be given handouts.
I think we need to start cherishing the small contributions that can lead to transformative change. One activist in a community can have a significant impact. Online, that impact is magnified. In Stoke alone, we've seen some examples of decisions being overturned because resistance could not be ignored as it would have been in the past. Indeed, even at the end of major battles, we've seen a development of greater respect for groups that would previously have been ignored. People will different skills can work together, so literacy is not necessarily a barrier to participation (although it is an issue). Through greater online dialogue adding to personal meetings, we can start to move beyond the anger and divisionism that has been fuelled by decades, if not centuries, of deprivation in our communities. People can participate in more creative ways than the standard hierarchies like resident's committees and they can be asked to volunteer more easily.
To break it down into a trite, but Twitterable soundbite:
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day
Give him broadband and he'll be able to download instructions on a wide range of fishing methods.
(and perhaps the location of a nearby community group offering a fish-supper or the ability to form one himself...)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Reviews
2005 was probably the year when I turned from blogger to connected global citizen.
In June, I was in Rwanda on a rollercoaster of a week. Meeting with wonderful friends made by email as we developed a discussion on how journalists could play a part in preventing genocide. Enjoying stimulating conversations on topics that still provoke my thoughts today. We ran a conference on how the global youth could ensure ‘Never Again’, it happened to coincide with the visit of the president of the World Bank to Africa and, Rwanda being quite a closely connected place, we got him to come to our conference. After his address, I shot up to the nearest computer lab and reported the speech on Wikinews (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/World_Bank_president_addresses_global_youth_forum_on_genocide), which, in turn got a mention in the Financial Times.
Less than a month later, I heard the sound of a bomb close to my office in Tavistock Square. We didn’t know what it was, but I was already communicating with a fellow ‘wikinewsie’, Dan Grey, about explosions on the underground. At 9.56am (the log says 8.56) I immediately posted a report heard from my editor and work experience student who had run out to see what was happening. I then deleted it again, worried that it might not be true, but it was and Dan was already weaving it in to the developing Wikinews story. He later wrote (http://osdir.com/ml/org.wikimedia.foundation/2005-07/msg00060.html) that we were the first people to report the incident online. In 2008 I imagine it would have been quicker still, posted on Twitter via mobile phone from the scene itself, but in 2005 nine minutes was considered pretty fast.
Everybody brushes with news stories from time to time in their lives. The difference between then and now is that then the public’s contribution to a story was merely their answer to the bland question ‘how do you feel’. Now, we can shape the story, write it, respond to it, comment on it.
I’m now reading, simultaneously (because I’m *that* hyperconnected), Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, and CrowdWired by Tom Watson. The first is a good example of how you can carve out your niche and make money: seeing the book recommended on a few sites I trusted I marched in to Waterstones and demanded a copy, even paying extra so I could read it on the train. The second has been sent as a review copy, thanks to a connection with Tom Watson on Twitter, so I can make my own sprinklings of recommendations through my own networks so that in a few months someone else will shell out real cash for the fruits of Tom’s labour instead of just reading his blog for free.
Both books are fascinating and very readable. They represent the maturity of a movement, the time when academics can take a step back from the fast-moving events and start writing a history. 2005 is an important year in both these histories, with the 7/7 bombings and the New Orleans floods representing a step further on from the connectivity that could already be seen on 9/11 and the 2004 Tsunami. Both books are really useful as guides to those who are still waiting for the spark. I’ve already read the criticism somewhere that Shirky’s book doesn’t say anything new. Although that criticism is untrue, in my view, I can see why the online ‘natives’ may be unmoved by the story of a lost/stolen phone that could be found again by the power of the crowd.
One of the many interesting insights for me is that in the connected world, we can be very relaxed about failure. Indeed, we can afford to fail because the investment in organising is now zero. For a long time I was a little downhearted about the amount of ideas I’d started that hadn’t really got anywhere, the tools I’d built that hadn’t been picked up and used by as many people as I’d hoped. My view now, which has been backed up by the evidence in this book, is that putting ideas out that may or may not be picked up is simply part of a new process that is now done in public where it once would have been private.
In June, I was in Rwanda on a rollercoaster of a week. Meeting with wonderful friends made by email as we developed a discussion on how journalists could play a part in preventing genocide. Enjoying stimulating conversations on topics that still provoke my thoughts today. We ran a conference on how the global youth could ensure ‘Never Again’, it happened to coincide with the visit of the president of the World Bank to Africa and, Rwanda being quite a closely connected place, we got him to come to our conference. After his address, I shot up to the nearest computer lab and reported the speech on Wikinews (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/World_Bank_president_addresses_global_youth_forum_on_genocide), which, in turn got a mention in the Financial Times.
Less than a month later, I heard the sound of a bomb close to my office in Tavistock Square. We didn’t know what it was, but I was already communicating with a fellow ‘wikinewsie’, Dan Grey, about explosions on the underground. At 9.56am (the log says 8.56) I immediately posted a report heard from my editor and work experience student who had run out to see what was happening. I then deleted it again, worried that it might not be true, but it was and Dan was already weaving it in to the developing Wikinews story. He later wrote (http://osdir.com/ml/org.wikimedia.foundation/2005-07/msg00060.html) that we were the first people to report the incident online. In 2008 I imagine it would have been quicker still, posted on Twitter via mobile phone from the scene itself, but in 2005 nine minutes was considered pretty fast.
Everybody brushes with news stories from time to time in their lives. The difference between then and now is that then the public’s contribution to a story was merely their answer to the bland question ‘how do you feel’. Now, we can shape the story, write it, respond to it, comment on it.
I’m now reading, simultaneously (because I’m *that* hyperconnected), Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, and CrowdWired by Tom Watson. The first is a good example of how you can carve out your niche and make money: seeing the book recommended on a few sites I trusted I marched in to Waterstones and demanded a copy, even paying extra so I could read it on the train. The second has been sent as a review copy, thanks to a connection with Tom Watson on Twitter, so I can make my own sprinklings of recommendations through my own networks so that in a few months someone else will shell out real cash for the fruits of Tom’s labour instead of just reading his blog for free.
Both books are fascinating and very readable. They represent the maturity of a movement, the time when academics can take a step back from the fast-moving events and start writing a history. 2005 is an important year in both these histories, with the 7/7 bombings and the New Orleans floods representing a step further on from the connectivity that could already be seen on 9/11 and the 2004 Tsunami. Both books are really useful as guides to those who are still waiting for the spark. I’ve already read the criticism somewhere that Shirky’s book doesn’t say anything new. Although that criticism is untrue, in my view, I can see why the online ‘natives’ may be unmoved by the story of a lost/stolen phone that could be found again by the power of the crowd.
One of the many interesting insights for me is that in the connected world, we can be very relaxed about failure. Indeed, we can afford to fail because the investment in organising is now zero. For a long time I was a little downhearted about the amount of ideas I’d started that hadn’t really got anywhere, the tools I’d built that hadn’t been picked up and used by as many people as I’d hoped. My view now, which has been backed up by the evidence in this book, is that putting ideas out that may or may not be picked up is simply part of a new process that is now done in public where it once would have been private.
Free digital revolushun. Ur doin it rong.
The sudden closure of Burslem Library last week left me feeling really disappointed.
Sited inside the city's finest building, the Wedgwood Institute, the library is one of those places whose value often goes unnoticed. When I first moved to Burslem, two rooms of the crumbling listed building were being used and through the window you could see some fairly dusty-looking bookshelves. By the time I found myself in Burslem during the day, the library had shrunk into one room, with the rest of this fine building taped off to all those without hard hats.
Despite its very obvious neglect, the library was a haven for me and many others. Inside I could spend the odd hour for free, discovering long-gone voices of Burslem shoppers, child miners and characters. There was the internet.
A long time ago, as can be seen on Stoke council's website, millions of pounds were granted to refurbish the building. Expanded library space would have been shared with business units and the lecture theatre would have been restored. See and regret that the completion date should have been August this year.
Instead, the project got dragged into the very complex and expensive business of reshuffling North Staffs agencies and 'put on hold' while a coherent vision for everything could be developed. It is still on hold. While it is fair that money should be spent carefully, this was funding granted to restore a specific building of great significance to the city. Nobody would have argued that the building needed to be restored, so it would have been better to get on with it than have it eventually shut down altogether after becoming a danger to the public. That a fine building with such an illustrious history should have been allowed to degenerate is not the fault of any individual but of systematic failure going back generations. It's a far cry from the original vision, built by public subscription to widen out access to education.
Today, because no plans could be put into place for the library, it has shut without any warning. This is, hopefully, temporary, but this is a very stretchable word in Stoke. The closure means that between the A500 and the Haywood Learning Centre (virtually the whole of the Burslem South ward), there is no free internet access available to the public (if there are any exceptions to this please let me know).
With all the government efforts towards digital engagement, the fact that this could happen in one of the most deprived wards in the country should be a cause of concern to politicians nationally. Not least because we have two important processes going on right now: the Slater Street Public Inquiry and the masterplanning process for Middleport. Those on broadband can follow these processes online and can have our say by email, blogs or on discussion boards should we so wish; we can read updates on websites. In a library, even the web-averse could read about this matter of public interest in the Sentinel for free. If you can't afford a computer and broadband, or you can't get through the credit check to have broadband then you go back to being as disconnected as you ever have been.
Like so much, people will point to alternatives. All that is in Tunstall, they will say, or Hanley. Haven't got a car? Just get a bus. Walk, it's good for you! All of which is of little use to those with limited mobility, no money, those feeling a little isolated or frightened to take to the streets or to gamble with the public transport system. There's a certain time and feeling in Burslem, after about 3 when most of the shops have usually closed for the day, when you don't have quite enough money even for a lemonade in the Leopard. It's a time when your heart can really sink as you look over the empty buildings and the closed shops. The antidote to this feeling was the library, not in Tunstall or Hanley or up any hill, but in Burslem.
The closure also came in the same week as twinkly-eyed minister for culture Andy Burnham launched a debate on the future of libraries. To which our only answer can be "yes, we'd like one of those please".
So, as is right and proper in these circumstances, I've set up a Facebook group to retain a virtual community in support of, first, having a library at all and secondly, to have a fully developed and fabulous library in the place that our forefathers built for us. So, if you can get online and feel so inclined, please join and show your support with a little gentle badgering of your elected representatives.
Sited inside the city's finest building, the Wedgwood Institute, the library is one of those places whose value often goes unnoticed. When I first moved to Burslem, two rooms of the crumbling listed building were being used and through the window you could see some fairly dusty-looking bookshelves. By the time I found myself in Burslem during the day, the library had shrunk into one room, with the rest of this fine building taped off to all those without hard hats.
Despite its very obvious neglect, the library was a haven for me and many others. Inside I could spend the odd hour for free, discovering long-gone voices of Burslem shoppers, child miners and characters. There was the internet.
A long time ago, as can be seen on Stoke council's website, millions of pounds were granted to refurbish the building. Expanded library space would have been shared with business units and the lecture theatre would have been restored. See and regret that the completion date should have been August this year.
Instead, the project got dragged into the very complex and expensive business of reshuffling North Staffs agencies and 'put on hold' while a coherent vision for everything could be developed. It is still on hold. While it is fair that money should be spent carefully, this was funding granted to restore a specific building of great significance to the city. Nobody would have argued that the building needed to be restored, so it would have been better to get on with it than have it eventually shut down altogether after becoming a danger to the public. That a fine building with such an illustrious history should have been allowed to degenerate is not the fault of any individual but of systematic failure going back generations. It's a far cry from the original vision, built by public subscription to widen out access to education.
Today, because no plans could be put into place for the library, it has shut without any warning. This is, hopefully, temporary, but this is a very stretchable word in Stoke. The closure means that between the A500 and the Haywood Learning Centre (virtually the whole of the Burslem South ward), there is no free internet access available to the public (if there are any exceptions to this please let me know).
With all the government efforts towards digital engagement, the fact that this could happen in one of the most deprived wards in the country should be a cause of concern to politicians nationally. Not least because we have two important processes going on right now: the Slater Street Public Inquiry and the masterplanning process for Middleport. Those on broadband can follow these processes online and can have our say by email, blogs or on discussion boards should we so wish; we can read updates on websites. In a library, even the web-averse could read about this matter of public interest in the Sentinel for free. If you can't afford a computer and broadband, or you can't get through the credit check to have broadband then you go back to being as disconnected as you ever have been.
Like so much, people will point to alternatives. All that is in Tunstall, they will say, or Hanley. Haven't got a car? Just get a bus. Walk, it's good for you! All of which is of little use to those with limited mobility, no money, those feeling a little isolated or frightened to take to the streets or to gamble with the public transport system. There's a certain time and feeling in Burslem, after about 3 when most of the shops have usually closed for the day, when you don't have quite enough money even for a lemonade in the Leopard. It's a time when your heart can really sink as you look over the empty buildings and the closed shops. The antidote to this feeling was the library, not in Tunstall or Hanley or up any hill, but in Burslem.
The closure also came in the same week as twinkly-eyed minister for culture Andy Burnham launched a debate on the future of libraries. To which our only answer can be "yes, we'd like one of those please".
So, as is right and proper in these circumstances, I've set up a Facebook group to retain a virtual community in support of, first, having a library at all and secondly, to have a fully developed and fabulous library in the place that our forefathers built for us. So, if you can get online and feel so inclined, please join and show your support with a little gentle badgering of your elected representatives.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Lessons from a former newspaper editor
Back in July, at the end of a very difficult week, I started to accept that my dream, the newspaper Local Edition, was not going to continue in paper any more. On the same day, I was lucky enough to see Desmond Tutu speaking in Stoke. Of all the miraculous coincidences, nothing could have inspired me more than his speech that focussed on the small things and reflected back on a path that took Josiah Wedgwood from Burslem to Nelson Mandela in South Africa, free from prison after a centuries-long struggle against racist oppression.
Next week, I start a brand new role, on which I will undoubtedly be saying much more. So it's a good time to reflect on what I learnt.
I still don't believe that newspapers are dead. But their business model cannot work in the current climate. The weight of commercial funding needed is dragging newspapers - and more importantly, print journalists - down. Exciting as the new era may be for those working on the new business model, there are generations of reporters still being crushed in newsrooms across the country by groups seeking to hang on to their 30% profits. Much as the mainstream is getting on board with the internet, I still think there is a major point they're not getting. I don't believe Google is hugely profitable because it does everything it can to chase money. Rather, their vast profits have allowed them the freedom to experiment and develop tools that are as good as they can be and improving all the time. Lucky Google. Lucky us.
More and more of us are now finding ourselves in a period of exploration. Whether you grew up thinking you'd be a miner or a banker, there are no safe job routes any more. Those of us who are lucky will be able to find avenues we are passionate about, but there is no reason any more to give your life to any organisation in the hope of future rewards. At the point when I was ready to stop the newspaper, I realised I'd be happier labouring for a living than trying to sell another advertising space to a reluctant shop that hadn't made any money for a week. I was even more sick of trying to sell 'community benefit' to a millionnaire business-owner who wasn't about to start giving something back with my paper. The weight of the cost of paper was simply too much to sustain, I was risking my own reputation trying to fulfil too many roles and I wasn't making any money from it.
However, running Local Edition for as long as I could still created incredible benefits. My faith that there was more out there that people like to believe paid off and the paper pulled together contributions from fantastic writers, photographers and artists, all with the most generous spirits. Enough organisations and businesses put their money into the paper, an unproven concept, to keep it going at a break-even point. I had endless, dizzying conversations with people whose voices never seem to be reflected in centres of power. Our stories were followed up, amplifying the voices of ordinary people. I could start to imagine what these networks could look like if they were listened to and resourced. I had to grapple with a spectrum of political views far removed from the safe spaces we create for ourselves. We had to react to events, rumours and different truths that put me in mind of terrifying scenarios and possibilities. We showed it was possible to run a newspaper full of constructive news and that it would be popular.
These are some things I would tell people thinking about going down the same path:
- don't burn yourself out chasing the money you need to follow your dream. Get the money to sustain your food, essentials and a broadband connection and then carve out the time for your passion. Even a few minutes a day spent on a collaborative project makes an impact.
- the people who tell you not to get into debt are right, unless that debt is with the Princes Trust who will be one of your most steadfast friends (assuming you are in Britain, that is). There are many more organisations who will be just as wonderful and I haven't got time to list them right now, so seek them out rather than the ones that make things difficult while saying they're helping you.
- if your project is unusual, asking people who operate with a different vision for money to do it won't work. Again, use free tools to make your impact so that you're not relying on anybody else. If you prove your point, then risk-averse organisations will support you, but probably well after you need them. Be ready to know when to stop waiting.
The project has led to some great work for me and many of the people who have been involved in the paper (many of whom didn't need any help but it's still nice that Local Edition has been part of their journey). www.localedition.org.uk continues as one of the richest archives of Northern Stoke life on the internet and a communication forum that anybody can use. www.stokesounds.co.uk is without doubt the best music website in North Staffordshire. The company, Social Media CIC, will continue simply to provide a structure for ideas, without the burden of cashflow forecasts that demand endless growth to feed the machinery of business. It will instead create social capital and connect with other small organisations all over the world that are doing the same. Exciting times ahead...
PS If you're reading this thinking "but she's still got to send me that receipt/letter/form/cheque/etc/etc", I will tie up all the loose ends in the end, promise, things have just been a bit hectic recently... :)
Next week, I start a brand new role, on which I will undoubtedly be saying much more. So it's a good time to reflect on what I learnt.
I still don't believe that newspapers are dead. But their business model cannot work in the current climate. The weight of commercial funding needed is dragging newspapers - and more importantly, print journalists - down. Exciting as the new era may be for those working on the new business model, there are generations of reporters still being crushed in newsrooms across the country by groups seeking to hang on to their 30% profits. Much as the mainstream is getting on board with the internet, I still think there is a major point they're not getting. I don't believe Google is hugely profitable because it does everything it can to chase money. Rather, their vast profits have allowed them the freedom to experiment and develop tools that are as good as they can be and improving all the time. Lucky Google. Lucky us.
More and more of us are now finding ourselves in a period of exploration. Whether you grew up thinking you'd be a miner or a banker, there are no safe job routes any more. Those of us who are lucky will be able to find avenues we are passionate about, but there is no reason any more to give your life to any organisation in the hope of future rewards. At the point when I was ready to stop the newspaper, I realised I'd be happier labouring for a living than trying to sell another advertising space to a reluctant shop that hadn't made any money for a week. I was even more sick of trying to sell 'community benefit' to a millionnaire business-owner who wasn't about to start giving something back with my paper. The weight of the cost of paper was simply too much to sustain, I was risking my own reputation trying to fulfil too many roles and I wasn't making any money from it.
However, running Local Edition for as long as I could still created incredible benefits. My faith that there was more out there that people like to believe paid off and the paper pulled together contributions from fantastic writers, photographers and artists, all with the most generous spirits. Enough organisations and businesses put their money into the paper, an unproven concept, to keep it going at a break-even point. I had endless, dizzying conversations with people whose voices never seem to be reflected in centres of power. Our stories were followed up, amplifying the voices of ordinary people. I could start to imagine what these networks could look like if they were listened to and resourced. I had to grapple with a spectrum of political views far removed from the safe spaces we create for ourselves. We had to react to events, rumours and different truths that put me in mind of terrifying scenarios and possibilities. We showed it was possible to run a newspaper full of constructive news and that it would be popular.
These are some things I would tell people thinking about going down the same path:
- don't burn yourself out chasing the money you need to follow your dream. Get the money to sustain your food, essentials and a broadband connection and then carve out the time for your passion. Even a few minutes a day spent on a collaborative project makes an impact.
- the people who tell you not to get into debt are right, unless that debt is with the Princes Trust who will be one of your most steadfast friends (assuming you are in Britain, that is). There are many more organisations who will be just as wonderful and I haven't got time to list them right now, so seek them out rather than the ones that make things difficult while saying they're helping you.
- if your project is unusual, asking people who operate with a different vision for money to do it won't work. Again, use free tools to make your impact so that you're not relying on anybody else. If you prove your point, then risk-averse organisations will support you, but probably well after you need them. Be ready to know when to stop waiting.
The project has led to some great work for me and many of the people who have been involved in the paper (many of whom didn't need any help but it's still nice that Local Edition has been part of their journey). www.localedition.org.uk continues as one of the richest archives of Northern Stoke life on the internet and a communication forum that anybody can use. www.stokesounds.co.uk is without doubt the best music website in North Staffordshire. The company, Social Media CIC, will continue simply to provide a structure for ideas, without the burden of cashflow forecasts that demand endless growth to feed the machinery of business. It will instead create social capital and connect with other small organisations all over the world that are doing the same. Exciting times ahead...
PS If you're reading this thinking "but she's still got to send me that receipt/letter/form/cheque/etc/etc", I will tie up all the loose ends in the end, promise, things have just been a bit hectic recently... :)
Friday, September 05, 2008
Is this helpful?
Time is valuable. Whenever we undertake something, we have to make a brief calculation in our head about whether the time it will take is worthwhile. This is even more the case if you're working freelance or running a business.
That's why quick activities so often get far more people to participate.
The one thing I hate more than anything else at all is bureaucracy. (hopefully you understand that I'm not comparing forms to torture or genocide, I am merely being dramatic). Forms send me spitting feathers all over the place and whining like a teenager as I scrawl half-heartedly on the stupid boxes and ratings. It's only slightly better if somebody fills in the form with me.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, how dehumanised does this form make you feel?"
That's a question you rarely see.
I'm not dyslexic, but I am left-handed, so there are parts of forms that I tend to miss out because I didn't see them. I find filling them in genuinely stressful and very time-consuming. I tend to get suspicious of the usefulness of the form the longer it goes on. I start to think evil thoughts about the people who created the form. I wonder at the expense of entering data that I know for a fact is already in their overstuffed servers and wandering memory sticks. Very often, I give up, unless given another biscuit or told I can't leave the room till it's done.
More than anything, I resent the fact that part of my interactions with government bureaucracy are because I'm someone in need of 'help'. The only reason I sign or fill in the bloody things at all is because I have been part of various government schemes that have really helped me and normally there is a wonderful person on the end of the form saying "Sorry about this, but it's for the funders". Because I have been through different schemes with differing levels of bureaucracy, I know that evaluation is applied differently.
I obviously see the value of evaluation and the necessity for monitoring. A bit of reflection on your work by an impartial observer is also often very useful. Even the need to demonstrate value for money, except that I think this very often destroys actual value in the process of spreading your money as thin as it can go. I don't like the fact that because I don't have my own money to do whatever I like, I have to trade personal details for help. I would rather spend that time doing something of value instead.
I'm becoming convinced that nearly all the time-consuming evaluation could be replaced by one simple question:
"Was this helpful?"
Yes or no.
If this question was applied at the end of every interaction by a publicly-funded person, or added to the end of every web page funded by a government scheme, then we would very quickly have a body of evidence to say what is helping people most and what isn't. In other words, what works. Suggestions and refinements can always come later, with the time freed up by not having to fill in stupid forms.
Two examples:
You spend four days supplying excessive amounts of information for a branding grant that, ultimately, you were rejected for because you were the wrong sort of business (even though you had checked beforehand and your intermediary had been given the wrong information).
Was this helpful?
No
(now, isn't that quicker than composing endless vitriolic letters and complaining to everyone you meet?)
You had a conversation with someone you know at the council who told you you would probably be eligible for a refurbishment grant on your house that you hadn't heard about before and then asked the person running the scheme to call you. You were eligible, so you got the grant.
Was this helpful?
Yes
One of these examples wasted stupid amounts of unpaid time and contributed absolutely nothing to government outputs. The other contributed to outputs and ensured that someone in need got something they were entitled to. The difference is in the time people are allowed to have conversations with people.
Particularly in areas where online access is low, you can forget connecting with people if you're not released from your desk to speak to people. Conversations are extremely valuable. Information can be passed on and put into context. Conversations layer on each other. Most people are more likely to take action because of a conversation, or even several conversations, than they are from websites, mailshots or even newspapers. Certainly, these add to the mix and are vital to ensure you are getting accurate information and have something to refer to, but that is combined with the spark that made you look at them in the first place.
Call conversations, if you like, the Twitter feeds of real life and you might appreciate the importance of conversations once again. Journalists, take note.
I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but when they release the next competition to do something clever to make government work better, this will be my suggestion. Wipe out every form with more than two fields and replace it with the name of the project/person/odd new computer system in a waiting room/paper-based information given to people, a name (if you must) and a yes or no answer.
Feed it into a central space and...
We might suddenly find out what's working.
That's why quick activities so often get far more people to participate.
The one thing I hate more than anything else at all is bureaucracy. (hopefully you understand that I'm not comparing forms to torture or genocide, I am merely being dramatic). Forms send me spitting feathers all over the place and whining like a teenager as I scrawl half-heartedly on the stupid boxes and ratings. It's only slightly better if somebody fills in the form with me.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, how dehumanised does this form make you feel?"
That's a question you rarely see.
I'm not dyslexic, but I am left-handed, so there are parts of forms that I tend to miss out because I didn't see them. I find filling them in genuinely stressful and very time-consuming. I tend to get suspicious of the usefulness of the form the longer it goes on. I start to think evil thoughts about the people who created the form. I wonder at the expense of entering data that I know for a fact is already in their overstuffed servers and wandering memory sticks. Very often, I give up, unless given another biscuit or told I can't leave the room till it's done.
More than anything, I resent the fact that part of my interactions with government bureaucracy are because I'm someone in need of 'help'. The only reason I sign or fill in the bloody things at all is because I have been part of various government schemes that have really helped me and normally there is a wonderful person on the end of the form saying "Sorry about this, but it's for the funders". Because I have been through different schemes with differing levels of bureaucracy, I know that evaluation is applied differently.
I obviously see the value of evaluation and the necessity for monitoring. A bit of reflection on your work by an impartial observer is also often very useful. Even the need to demonstrate value for money, except that I think this very often destroys actual value in the process of spreading your money as thin as it can go. I don't like the fact that because I don't have my own money to do whatever I like, I have to trade personal details for help. I would rather spend that time doing something of value instead.
I'm becoming convinced that nearly all the time-consuming evaluation could be replaced by one simple question:
"Was this helpful?"
Yes or no.
If this question was applied at the end of every interaction by a publicly-funded person, or added to the end of every web page funded by a government scheme, then we would very quickly have a body of evidence to say what is helping people most and what isn't. In other words, what works. Suggestions and refinements can always come later, with the time freed up by not having to fill in stupid forms.
Two examples:
You spend four days supplying excessive amounts of information for a branding grant that, ultimately, you were rejected for because you were the wrong sort of business (even though you had checked beforehand and your intermediary had been given the wrong information).
Was this helpful?
No
(now, isn't that quicker than composing endless vitriolic letters and complaining to everyone you meet?)
You had a conversation with someone you know at the council who told you you would probably be eligible for a refurbishment grant on your house that you hadn't heard about before and then asked the person running the scheme to call you. You were eligible, so you got the grant.
Was this helpful?
Yes
One of these examples wasted stupid amounts of unpaid time and contributed absolutely nothing to government outputs. The other contributed to outputs and ensured that someone in need got something they were entitled to. The difference is in the time people are allowed to have conversations with people.
Particularly in areas where online access is low, you can forget connecting with people if you're not released from your desk to speak to people. Conversations are extremely valuable. Information can be passed on and put into context. Conversations layer on each other. Most people are more likely to take action because of a conversation, or even several conversations, than they are from websites, mailshots or even newspapers. Certainly, these add to the mix and are vital to ensure you are getting accurate information and have something to refer to, but that is combined with the spark that made you look at them in the first place.
Call conversations, if you like, the Twitter feeds of real life and you might appreciate the importance of conversations once again. Journalists, take note.
I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but when they release the next competition to do something clever to make government work better, this will be my suggestion. Wipe out every form with more than two fields and replace it with the name of the project/person/odd new computer system in a waiting room/paper-based information given to people, a name (if you must) and a yes or no answer.
Feed it into a central space and...
We might suddenly find out what's working.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Reputations
It is quite often the case that people feel isolated when they have a problem with a company or organisation.
Many people may not be aware of the powerful search tools that can help them find out more about an organisation's reputation than you will get from their official websites or the often PR-led mainstream media.
Google blog search and Twitter search, which recently incorporated Summize, are both becoming increasingly stronger tools as more people express their views online. Because you can skim through snippets, you can get a quick overall picture of positive or negative comments and also delve deeper into stories that might show national trends. It adds greatly to our ability to hold organisations accountable as they increasingly try to build big walls around themselves.
It adds to the usefulness of main Google which, as I've blogged before, will often get you to answers that are missing from corporate websites. This week I tried to visit Stikipad and just got a holding page, suggesting it would be up and running soon. Later, a Google search took me along the same track as many more people to a blog post that revealed the site had actually been down for several months and showed no signs of revival. What started out as one person's frustrated blogspost became a focal point and the link rose further up Google as more people linked to it. The post became a bubbling, collaborative space to the extent that once personal phone numbers and details went up the original author asked everyone to leave when the party looked like turning nasty (or rather, libellous).
It highlights two important points. First of all, if you're having a frustrating time with a company it is worth documenting your experience online somewhere, if you feel ready to, because it should get picked up by others, possibly including a quick-witted person from the organisation. Second, it is a reminder that most forums, and Twitter, are public and if you're working for clients you might think twice before slagging them off online in any place that can be traced back to you. You don't know whose desktop it might pop up on...
Many people may not be aware of the powerful search tools that can help them find out more about an organisation's reputation than you will get from their official websites or the often PR-led mainstream media.
Google blog search and Twitter search, which recently incorporated Summize, are both becoming increasingly stronger tools as more people express their views online. Because you can skim through snippets, you can get a quick overall picture of positive or negative comments and also delve deeper into stories that might show national trends. It adds greatly to our ability to hold organisations accountable as they increasingly try to build big walls around themselves.
It adds to the usefulness of main Google which, as I've blogged before, will often get you to answers that are missing from corporate websites. This week I tried to visit Stikipad and just got a holding page, suggesting it would be up and running soon. Later, a Google search took me along the same track as many more people to a blog post that revealed the site had actually been down for several months and showed no signs of revival. What started out as one person's frustrated blogspost became a focal point and the link rose further up Google as more people linked to it. The post became a bubbling, collaborative space to the extent that once personal phone numbers and details went up the original author asked everyone to leave when the party looked like turning nasty (or rather, libellous).
It highlights two important points. First of all, if you're having a frustrating time with a company it is worth documenting your experience online somewhere, if you feel ready to, because it should get picked up by others, possibly including a quick-witted person from the organisation. Second, it is a reminder that most forums, and Twitter, are public and if you're working for clients you might think twice before slagging them off online in any place that can be traced back to you. You don't know whose desktop it might pop up on...
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The social reporter
I like David Wilcox’s definition of the social reporter. It sounds friendlier than the two rather ugly words citizen journalist, although that name might be too far developed (in good ways) to change now.
It defines very nicely the work I’ve been doing over the last 18 months. It wasn’t until I had to take stock for a funding application that I realised that my team would have had around 35,000 exchanges on the streets of Northern Stoke in a year. None of us were working in the area before, so that is 35,000 connections that would not have happened otherwise. I always felt that the conversations were as important as the newspaper, both reinforcing networks and provoking action. We supported networks and new projects, we passed on information and we countered rumours if we were able to.
Before call-centre journalism became normal, journalists were community-based (at least in the realms of power) and conversation-based. How would journalists operate if it went back to that, with the addition of technology? Less of the smash-and-grab vox pop to get some bland quotes from different ‘sides’ and perhaps a recognition that the reporter, as the person who is speaking to both those in power and those without, can support a dialogue between them instead of exacerbating a conflict.
Perhaps they would give a bit more thought to the other bits of information people tend to tell you as you’re gathering a story (that is if you give them enough time). Someone got a broken fence? Why not give them the number of someone to report it to instead of filing it away until all the fences in the street have been broken by a serial vandal, the point at which it might actually become a story in the eyes of your news editor. If some people have specific questions that they want asked, let them know about the freedom of information act. Find small, quick ways (Twitter) to report small things that might be of interest to other people and encourage the people you meet to use email and Twitter to let you know anything they want to, you don’t know what might lead to a story.
I know this approach doesn’t necessarily lead to the productivity that the current mainstream media is looking for. But the way things are going, more journalists are going to struggle to find work anyway. Perhaps while we are looking for other ways of making a living, we can use our skills and instinct to report for the good of our communities?
On the other hand, I remain sure that the only way to stem the decline of the newspaper industry is for the big powers to stop centralising everything and put the same investment into community-based reporters whose remit would be to produce rich, stimulating content that is vital to its audience. All the investment in technology will be for nothing if you lose the connection with people altogether - an important point, I think, for both the media and government.
It defines very nicely the work I’ve been doing over the last 18 months. It wasn’t until I had to take stock for a funding application that I realised that my team would have had around 35,000 exchanges on the streets of Northern Stoke in a year. None of us were working in the area before, so that is 35,000 connections that would not have happened otherwise. I always felt that the conversations were as important as the newspaper, both reinforcing networks and provoking action. We supported networks and new projects, we passed on information and we countered rumours if we were able to.
Before call-centre journalism became normal, journalists were community-based (at least in the realms of power) and conversation-based. How would journalists operate if it went back to that, with the addition of technology? Less of the smash-and-grab vox pop to get some bland quotes from different ‘sides’ and perhaps a recognition that the reporter, as the person who is speaking to both those in power and those without, can support a dialogue between them instead of exacerbating a conflict.
Perhaps they would give a bit more thought to the other bits of information people tend to tell you as you’re gathering a story (that is if you give them enough time). Someone got a broken fence? Why not give them the number of someone to report it to instead of filing it away until all the fences in the street have been broken by a serial vandal, the point at which it might actually become a story in the eyes of your news editor. If some people have specific questions that they want asked, let them know about the freedom of information act. Find small, quick ways (Twitter) to report small things that might be of interest to other people and encourage the people you meet to use email and Twitter to let you know anything they want to, you don’t know what might lead to a story.
I know this approach doesn’t necessarily lead to the productivity that the current mainstream media is looking for. But the way things are going, more journalists are going to struggle to find work anyway. Perhaps while we are looking for other ways of making a living, we can use our skills and instinct to report for the good of our communities?
On the other hand, I remain sure that the only way to stem the decline of the newspaper industry is for the big powers to stop centralising everything and put the same investment into community-based reporters whose remit would be to produce rich, stimulating content that is vital to its audience. All the investment in technology will be for nothing if you lose the connection with people altogether - an important point, I think, for both the media and government.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The new business diet
This week marks one year since I started my own business. A year since the last pay-cheque dropped into my bank account and I feasted every weekday on a Krispy Kreme donut for breakfast and a healthy, balanced, two course meal in a subsidised work restaurant for lunch. Oh, happy days.
But I have to admit looking over my Facebook albums, I was putting on a little weight in those last few weeks in London. Since then, I’m getting towards a second dress-size down from when I left. How do I know this? Well, obviously, I haven’t been able to afford new jeans since.
So while the life of a startup entrepreneur may be hard, it has its upsides. With these tips I explain how you too can lose weight in the quest to gain pounds. Or, er, dollars.
Network to eat
In the world of new business, you should find yourself invited to all sorts of free networking events designed to help you learn the mysteries of making your first million. And what’s the best thing about these? The buffets, of course. Be sure to exercise a bit of subtlety. While standing by the buffet table don't just wolf down your plate like some orphan waif, it'll make people suspicious about the viability of your business.
Assume an ‘open networking’ position and make connections as people join you to get food with some smalltalk about how there’s never enough wine at these things, haha. Talking more means eating less so be sure to ask the person standing with you lots of questions. While he’ll think you’re fascinated by what he’s doing and like you more, you’ll can eat enough to keep you going all day.
Location, location, location
In the modern world, most businesses can operate anywhere with a broadband connection. So why spend all your money on an office in a swish city when you can find some pre-regeneration area where the rent is cheap and the people interesting? It you pick the right sort of town where coffee culture hasn’t quite taken off yet, you can save money and lose weight merely by skipping lunch – by the time you get hungry at 3, all the cafes will be closed. If you're missing the high life, just watch an episode of The Apprentice and you'll soon be reminded of why you wanted to get out of corporate life in the first place.
Shop smart
If there’s one thing that will make you appreciate the life of a small trader, it’s being one yourself. No more casual handing over of the plastic in an impersonal supermarket, if you’ve got a few pounds in your pocket, be sure to make sure they benefit the people who might end up giving you some business in turn. And since you’re not sure when the next payday will be, it makes a lot of sense to eat all the food in your house before buying anything else.
Pound those streets
Cashflow forecast says you’ll have a sales manager by month three? Yah, right. Once you’ve found that the only person willing to work on commission is yourself and that sending emails all day results in no response, you’ll be doing the sales calls before you know it. While you’re at it, maybe you don’t really need to plough your cash into a car anyway, you can get by perfectly well on foot. All great for the waistline!
Clare-Marie White runs a social enterprise in Stoke-on-Trent, UK. All approaches by investors or people willing to buy her a cake are most welcome.
This article was originally published on Knewsroom in May and I was a bit slow getting it onto here...
But I have to admit looking over my Facebook albums, I was putting on a little weight in those last few weeks in London. Since then, I’m getting towards a second dress-size down from when I left. How do I know this? Well, obviously, I haven’t been able to afford new jeans since.
So while the life of a startup entrepreneur may be hard, it has its upsides. With these tips I explain how you too can lose weight in the quest to gain pounds. Or, er, dollars.
Network to eat
In the world of new business, you should find yourself invited to all sorts of free networking events designed to help you learn the mysteries of making your first million. And what’s the best thing about these? The buffets, of course. Be sure to exercise a bit of subtlety. While standing by the buffet table don't just wolf down your plate like some orphan waif, it'll make people suspicious about the viability of your business.
Assume an ‘open networking’ position and make connections as people join you to get food with some smalltalk about how there’s never enough wine at these things, haha. Talking more means eating less so be sure to ask the person standing with you lots of questions. While he’ll think you’re fascinated by what he’s doing and like you more, you’ll can eat enough to keep you going all day.
Location, location, location
In the modern world, most businesses can operate anywhere with a broadband connection. So why spend all your money on an office in a swish city when you can find some pre-regeneration area where the rent is cheap and the people interesting? It you pick the right sort of town where coffee culture hasn’t quite taken off yet, you can save money and lose weight merely by skipping lunch – by the time you get hungry at 3, all the cafes will be closed. If you're missing the high life, just watch an episode of The Apprentice and you'll soon be reminded of why you wanted to get out of corporate life in the first place.
Shop smart
If there’s one thing that will make you appreciate the life of a small trader, it’s being one yourself. No more casual handing over of the plastic in an impersonal supermarket, if you’ve got a few pounds in your pocket, be sure to make sure they benefit the people who might end up giving you some business in turn. And since you’re not sure when the next payday will be, it makes a lot of sense to eat all the food in your house before buying anything else.
Pound those streets
Cashflow forecast says you’ll have a sales manager by month three? Yah, right. Once you’ve found that the only person willing to work on commission is yourself and that sending emails all day results in no response, you’ll be doing the sales calls before you know it. While you’re at it, maybe you don’t really need to plough your cash into a car anyway, you can get by perfectly well on foot. All great for the waistline!
Clare-Marie White runs a social enterprise in Stoke-on-Trent, UK. All approaches by investors or people willing to buy her a cake are most welcome.
This article was originally published on Knewsroom in May and I was a bit slow getting it onto here...
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Response to the Governance Commission report
Yesterday was a very important day for Stoke-on-Trent. The Governance Commission reflected back a picture of Stoke politics that everybody will recognise. You can read the full report here.
Given how many people who had given evidence were in the room, it was surprising how quick people were to distance themselves from its findings. Unfortunately, the same habits of divisionism and negativity that have turned off most of the people of city were all evident. The cabinet were accusing the Independents and BNP of causing all the problems while simultaneously claiming they wanted to move away from negative politics. The main campaign group was asking for an entirely different option that the ones we are able to choose. The vast majority of people in the chamber were white and over 40. In the press conference afterwards, the cabinet, who were quite clearly in the firing line, seemed to be denying that their leadership style had in any way contributed to the report. Meanwhile the national Guardian newspaper have been to Bentillee and gave the world a three-page view on the rise of the BNP in Stoke. Brilliant.
So, what choice do people in the city have? Nothing, except to get involved right now. Unless you want the same people who have caused this demise to create the solution, you need to find a way to be a part of it. I've been discussing the report with a few people so far and everybody has some view on what should be done. 'Leaders' may decry apathy but people are far from apathetic. I believe where they are missing the point is by failing to realise that where there is a lack of trust it's no good asking people to be involved in the sky-high policy, it is the issues on the ground that they care about and the short term. Just take parking as an issue. If the people of Burslem have been able to have absolutely no dialogue with anybody on an issue that they almost universally agree adversely affects the town, how can you say they are being engaged?
Little things have a massive effect on people's lives and the council need to accept that if they're in a huge fight over them, that's not good leadership. Dialogue can prevent issues and build trust. Of course it's hard to get people involved, but that's your job. Why did the closure of Dimensions need to turn into a petition issue instead of being discussed with Residents Associations and, dare I say, the users of Dimensions? Who has ever been asked about whether parts of Hanley should be rebranded, wiping its name entirely from roadsigns? Not the communities of Hanley, I'll suggest.
The report is well thought-through, leaving options open for discussion where possible and clarifying the areas where choices are more limited. Reporting it simply as a row over whether we have a referendum for a mayor rather misses the point: that our system is so damaged that the system doesn't really matter. If we accept the Commission's view of the problem - and there is no reason why we shouldn't because it echoes all of the views expressed every day in the City, at least the parts I see - we need to accept their solutions. The council need to take immediate action to fix the breakdown in engagement and start to show people it is worth getting involved again.
Given how many people who had given evidence were in the room, it was surprising how quick people were to distance themselves from its findings. Unfortunately, the same habits of divisionism and negativity that have turned off most of the people of city were all evident. The cabinet were accusing the Independents and BNP of causing all the problems while simultaneously claiming they wanted to move away from negative politics. The main campaign group was asking for an entirely different option that the ones we are able to choose. The vast majority of people in the chamber were white and over 40. In the press conference afterwards, the cabinet, who were quite clearly in the firing line, seemed to be denying that their leadership style had in any way contributed to the report. Meanwhile the national Guardian newspaper have been to Bentillee and gave the world a three-page view on the rise of the BNP in Stoke. Brilliant.
So, what choice do people in the city have? Nothing, except to get involved right now. Unless you want the same people who have caused this demise to create the solution, you need to find a way to be a part of it. I've been discussing the report with a few people so far and everybody has some view on what should be done. 'Leaders' may decry apathy but people are far from apathetic. I believe where they are missing the point is by failing to realise that where there is a lack of trust it's no good asking people to be involved in the sky-high policy, it is the issues on the ground that they care about and the short term. Just take parking as an issue. If the people of Burslem have been able to have absolutely no dialogue with anybody on an issue that they almost universally agree adversely affects the town, how can you say they are being engaged?
Little things have a massive effect on people's lives and the council need to accept that if they're in a huge fight over them, that's not good leadership. Dialogue can prevent issues and build trust. Of course it's hard to get people involved, but that's your job. Why did the closure of Dimensions need to turn into a petition issue instead of being discussed with Residents Associations and, dare I say, the users of Dimensions? Who has ever been asked about whether parts of Hanley should be rebranded, wiping its name entirely from roadsigns? Not the communities of Hanley, I'll suggest.
The report is well thought-through, leaving options open for discussion where possible and clarifying the areas where choices are more limited. Reporting it simply as a row over whether we have a referendum for a mayor rather misses the point: that our system is so damaged that the system doesn't really matter. If we accept the Commission's view of the problem - and there is no reason why we shouldn't because it echoes all of the views expressed every day in the City, at least the parts I see - we need to accept their solutions. The council need to take immediate action to fix the breakdown in engagement and start to show people it is worth getting involved again.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The World is watching
“When I climbed to the boat pier, I saw a corpse of a young child, wearing a rubber band on his wrist. Thousands of lives, thousands of innocent people, lost in the water, lost on the land.”
- Nyi Lynn Seck
If May 2008 will be remembered for the massive tragedies in Burma and China, it could also be credited for being the month when the global community stepped up and became a real force for action.
In years gone by, the aid response to Cyclone Nargis might have remained an issue for governments and aid agencies to fight over in the corridors of the UN. Now, the immediate direct reports of victims via blogs and Twitter feeds mean that few people in the world can say they didn’t know.
Few governments will openly say they want to kill off their people and would normally rely on the darkness of media blackouts. However, the ongoing work by organisations like Reuters-backed Global Voices, and web users themselves, to encourage blogging in countries where self-expression has always been dangerous now means that we have direct reports from countries whose people have had no voice. On Sunday, Myat Thura translated a report by Nyi Lynn Seck, quoted above. With the honesty of the citizen journalist, Myat Thura writes: “When I read Nyi Lynn Seck's article, I really wanted to cry” and the article ended with links to pages where people could donate.
While bloggers could bring individual human experiences to world attention, Google Earth swung into action immediately to support aid agencies and the UN agency UNOSAT in using maps and satellites to view the area affected. Even if visa restrictions mean that the vast majority of them have not been able to get into the area yet, they can be better prepared for when they do and any of the 200 million users who have reportedly downloaded Google Earth can see the extent of the devastation and relief work.
In China, Google were also able to provide services for people to find lost relatives and track relief efforts, which may give critics some assurance that they have been able to have a positive impact even while they have played to the Chinese government’s rules. In addition, Google is matching donations to relief efforts in both China and Burma.
At the time of writing, over 8,000 people had signed a petition calling on the UN to apply the new doctrine ‘Responsibility to Protect’ to enforce international aid. Few governments have endorsed the idea of taking on Burma’s military regime but the public response has given weight to diplomatic efforts by the UN and governments.
While in the Olympic year the Chinese government were unlikely to leave the victims of the earthquake, there’s no doubt that they will have seen the advantage of their fast reaction: hundreds of rescue pictures being beamed around the world, perhaps helping to fade memories of the protests about Tibet and associated web coverage that doggedly pursued the Olympic torch.
Governments, no matter how bad, will rarely declare that they are out to let all their people die and so rely on international ignorance and apathy to let crimes against humanity pass by. The fact that the Cyclone aftermath has been so high profile will certainly have had an impact on the Burmese government’s willingness to engage. The fact that there are more voices than just those in the West also means that they are not being backed into a corner by British and American governments waving aid. On Sunday the British diplomat Lord Malloch-Brown explained to the BBC that although they would like to see aid moving in faster, they were reassured by the fact that Association of East Asian Nation countries were able to broker a link that the "Burmese can work with".
The events of the past two weeks have shown that while ‘responsibility to protect’ has some way to go before becoming a fast-track to prevent mass deaths, the global community are willing to react and have a sense of common humanity. The next challenge for global activists will be to find out how the same power can be harnessed to prevent the ‘slow burning’ crises such as Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As pressure continues to let aid through in Burma, the world will continue to watch and wait, and pray, for the survivors of May’s natural disasters.
First published on Knewsroom
Why you can no longer buy the media
First published on Knewsroom
(with thanks to the kommuknity for the incredibly ego-boosting 41,860 watts :) )
(with thanks to the kommuknity for the incredibly ego-boosting 41,860 watts :) )
Social Media Marketing is increasingly popping up all over the web as the bandwagon of choice for communications strategists. While there will be plenty of helpful contributions like this article, I fear that there will be some very tedious and expensive attempts to hijack the internet for commercial or political use, which will fail. In the meantime, the risk is that advertising revenue will decline, putting at risk the very model that much of the social media depends on while companies try to market themselves on the cheap.
The great development of the internet is how far individuals are in control of what they view. People decide what to open themselves up to based on trust. The links are between individuals grouped into communities. Best of all, people recommend things to each other because they want to, not because they are paid to. Attempts to cut into those relationships with marketing messages are binned as the spam that they are.
The public relations industry has been able to take advantage of the mainstream media's refusal to invest in journalism (see: churnalism) but the internet gives us the chance to bypass media pointlessness and go straight to the source. If journalists stop worrying about the effect of all this on their own jobs, they could do what they were always meant to do - report what's new in a way that is clear and simple to the reader who wants to find out what happened this hour/yesterday/this week. They could signpost to what's online and add healthy amounts of real-life questioning and investigation. Novel, no?
Where does it leave the PR workers? Well, since so many of them turned from journalism to PR out of necessity, there's nothing to stop them using their talents to feed more information onto the web and stopping the obsessive drive for control that makes it so difficult to find out anything about what is happening in our institutions. If you were asking me how Stoke's extensive public relations budget should be spent, for example (and I don't suppose for a minute that anybody will), I'd suggest one PR officer for each of the six towns (yes, even Fenton), whose role would be to channel information between councillors, council workers and the community in whatever ways were most appropriate, whether that means talking (yes, talking) to people on the street (bejeezus!), writing articles for their own web presences or sending information to the local media.
If politicians and businesses really want to take advantage of the potential of the social web, they need to relax and realise that what people are really interested in is authenticity and the chance to build trust. I've been quite impressed by Gordon Brown's Twitter feed in the last couple of weeks. There's very little spin you can fit into a 140 character tweet, so the unnamed tweeter (tweeterer?) just posts updates about what Gordon is up to. He also follows all his own followers, meaning that you can get into a direct dialogue - again, there's no room for long boring discussions but you can give instant feedback or ask short questions. Undoubtedly, some media pundit will try to say how very cringe-worthy it all is, but since we've all stopped finding the time to read what they say, it doesn't really matter.
And because of that Twitter feed, what did I, an avid hater of the Labour party, find myself doing yesterday? Posting Gordon's comments from the press release and the BBC report onto Knewsroom in a story that subsequently got 'invested' onto the front page. Free PR in the old-fashioned sense, and purely because Gordon said something that I thought was useful and would be of interest to the Knewsroom audience. I would be very happy to follow any of my political representative's Twitter feeds if they started them, because it cuts out the party political rubbish and simply lets me know what they're doing.
Moving on to businesses, it is a similar lesson. People need to think of the way they do business or make buying choices. Increasingly for me, it is about personal connection. We all know and accept that everyone has to make a living, but we'd be more likely to work with people we have come to trust through some form of collaboration. It's about giving as much of yourself as you want to, but being clear about what it is you are selling. I am about to change all my business bank accounts to a new bank in Burslem, firstly because they were recommended to me and secondly, when I went in to open a separate account they were kind over my chronic inability to fill in forms. Thirdly, I was reminded in the branch of the advertising that I liked on TV and I thought "Oh yes, I like them". Amazing what a pretty cartoon and song can do for a business's reputation.
This combination marks several brands that I like and I'd name Apple and Honda as good examples. Their advertising is well-made and sticks in the mind, making their products more desirable. Advertising reinforces personal recommendation and gives me specific calls to action. Targeted advertising is often useful to me. Sites have enough of my personal information and even the words I am using to mean that the ads alongside my web use can be complementary, while still separate from my surfing.
So to conclude this terribly long article, it's the combination of advertising and people-resources that will set apart successful marketing strategies. By investing in advertising, businesses are much more likely to get themselves close to the audiences they want to reach than by indulging in passing fads like viral marketing, which are much more risky, or by producing old-style PR which will increasingly be ignored. If they want to use networking as a method, they need to invest in people to spend time establishing themselves in communities and building trust by making a useful contribution to the internet. Those people will need to believe in what they are doing and have the freedom to tell the truth and use their own initiative to add value to their company's work. The new wave of big websites have got it sussed out, it remains to be seen whether the old regimes can change as effectively.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
..."like herding cats"
This is one of my favourite phrases. It gave me a moment of delight during a particularly tiresome few days spent in Brussels with a group of multi-national, multi-age Quakers. Delightful though they were, trying to manouvre round a city with them was as frustrating as the time I had a go at walking an ill tabby:
Let's go here...
No... let's look here ...
RUN!!!!!!!!!!! .... and stop ... & escape ... and ...
let's look here.
Hmmm.
And so on.
So anyway, this post by David Parrish reflects on the similarities between creatives and cats, centring on one company's difficulty in 'leading' these high and mighty pests. It's a good article and he asks if anybody has any further thoughts...
My view's this. It's not just creatives, cats are the best personality type for anybody to take on. Any talk of herding suggests that what you really want is sheep. Human beings, I would argue, were never meant to be herded. Signs that they are being herded suggests something unhealthy, dehumanising in society. And I don't include armies in that (except the most unhealthy armies). Good armies are disciplined teams.
What David doesn't mention is the reason why cats and humans became so vital to each other in the first place. People may have worked out how to harness nature and create fields of delightful foodstuffs, but without the cat, rats and mice would have eaten the whole harvest before man got it anywhere near his bread-grinder. Cats played an essential role in the development of society. Nobody drew up a contract with the cat, they just formed a happy partnership based on their skills.
The same people who tend to be compared to cats have a tendency to be highly effective in the right circumstances: they are self-motivated, they work out what they need to do and they do it well and they're not afraid to take the initiative when they see an opportunity scuttling by. Partnered with the right organisations who will provide them shelter and let them be themselves, they can be transformational. Many web 2.0 companies have this sussed. Provide free board, nice snazzy bedding and a toy or two and your cats will create the likes of Wikipedia or Facebook. The most advanced companies have trusted their users with their code and have found that, far from stealing the baby's breath, they've changed society again and again. For providing the infrastructure, they are very well rewarded.
I worry a little every time I see mention of 'leaders' anywhere near consultants (not counting David as I've heard very nice things about him). It tends to go alongside an assumption that you have, or need, a compliant population and that with the right leadership everything will be better. Your people are your problem and we, the well-paid consultants, can show you how to change them. Personal empowerment doesn't really come into it. Recent developments in the business support model are following other government trends by creating structures that are overly paternal and creating deep mistrust amongst the people they are supposed to be trying to help. And no matter how good your intentions are, if a cat doesn't like what you're trying to do it will opt out of your system and find some other way to be happy.
This is important in the context of the creative sector because in our area, creatives are being feted as the potential catalysts for growth. If we do well, we will need coffee shops, food shops and the rest. It is the case in Burslem that because we have a very low cost base and from that many remarkable collaborations have sprung up. This week, we're putting together the Arts & Crafts Festival that will hopefully fill the streets with fun. Why are we doing it? Because it's good for business and we want to. But creatives aren't different from anyone else. Britain's future, I have heard a senior minister say, is not in the jobs where you need to be a gentle cow, the jobs for life where no imagination was required. Where that leaves the mass service industry is anybody's guess. But looking at it positively, it requires a population of people who work hard for their own means, in small partnerships, following their passions, whether that means running a cafe, a newspaper, gardening company or an IT company. The owners of small businesses work harder than anybody else, increasing productivity (if undercutting the minimum wage). The only effective way to deliver this change is to give people the confidence to find their own niche, to become the cat.
The difference in approach is one of trust and having faith that people's actions are for good intentions and will have good effects, even if the outcomes are not the ones you have on your stupid bloody outcome ticksheet. Let people off the lead, but provide a supportive atmosphere and we could really change things.
OK, I've probably taken the analogy far enough now, someone else should have a go :)
Let's go here...
No... let's look here ...
RUN!!!!!!!!!!! .... and stop ... & escape ... and ...
let's look here.
Hmmm.
And so on.
So anyway, this post by David Parrish reflects on the similarities between creatives and cats, centring on one company's difficulty in 'leading' these high and mighty pests. It's a good article and he asks if anybody has any further thoughts...
My view's this. It's not just creatives, cats are the best personality type for anybody to take on. Any talk of herding suggests that what you really want is sheep. Human beings, I would argue, were never meant to be herded. Signs that they are being herded suggests something unhealthy, dehumanising in society. And I don't include armies in that (except the most unhealthy armies). Good armies are disciplined teams.
What David doesn't mention is the reason why cats and humans became so vital to each other in the first place. People may have worked out how to harness nature and create fields of delightful foodstuffs, but without the cat, rats and mice would have eaten the whole harvest before man got it anywhere near his bread-grinder. Cats played an essential role in the development of society. Nobody drew up a contract with the cat, they just formed a happy partnership based on their skills.
The same people who tend to be compared to cats have a tendency to be highly effective in the right circumstances: they are self-motivated, they work out what they need to do and they do it well and they're not afraid to take the initiative when they see an opportunity scuttling by. Partnered with the right organisations who will provide them shelter and let them be themselves, they can be transformational. Many web 2.0 companies have this sussed. Provide free board, nice snazzy bedding and a toy or two and your cats will create the likes of Wikipedia or Facebook. The most advanced companies have trusted their users with their code and have found that, far from stealing the baby's breath, they've changed society again and again. For providing the infrastructure, they are very well rewarded.
I worry a little every time I see mention of 'leaders' anywhere near consultants (not counting David as I've heard very nice things about him). It tends to go alongside an assumption that you have, or need, a compliant population and that with the right leadership everything will be better. Your people are your problem and we, the well-paid consultants, can show you how to change them. Personal empowerment doesn't really come into it. Recent developments in the business support model are following other government trends by creating structures that are overly paternal and creating deep mistrust amongst the people they are supposed to be trying to help. And no matter how good your intentions are, if a cat doesn't like what you're trying to do it will opt out of your system and find some other way to be happy.
This is important in the context of the creative sector because in our area, creatives are being feted as the potential catalysts for growth. If we do well, we will need coffee shops, food shops and the rest. It is the case in Burslem that because we have a very low cost base and from that many remarkable collaborations have sprung up. This week, we're putting together the Arts & Crafts Festival that will hopefully fill the streets with fun. Why are we doing it? Because it's good for business and we want to. But creatives aren't different from anyone else. Britain's future, I have heard a senior minister say, is not in the jobs where you need to be a gentle cow, the jobs for life where no imagination was required. Where that leaves the mass service industry is anybody's guess. But looking at it positively, it requires a population of people who work hard for their own means, in small partnerships, following their passions, whether that means running a cafe, a newspaper, gardening company or an IT company. The owners of small businesses work harder than anybody else, increasing productivity (if undercutting the minimum wage). The only effective way to deliver this change is to give people the confidence to find their own niche, to become the cat.
The difference in approach is one of trust and having faith that people's actions are for good intentions and will have good effects, even if the outcomes are not the ones you have on your stupid bloody outcome ticksheet. Let people off the lead, but provide a supportive atmosphere and we could really change things.
OK, I've probably taken the analogy far enough now, someone else should have a go :)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Ooh
You can get the answer to (almost) any problem on Google. I was so impressed with the last example of this, I had to share.
Gmail stopped loading on my laptop. Firefox had just updated but it was still working on my main computer. It was just flickering and reloading and frustratingly blank, though I could see the message headers on RSS feeds. It was also working on Safari but I didn't want to have to start switching to that, thank you very much.
The solution? Clear all your cookies and page history. You don't need to clear passwords.
It worked.
So if it happens to you, you'll know what to do.
And that's why we all rely on Google...
Gmail stopped loading on my laptop. Firefox had just updated but it was still working on my main computer. It was just flickering and reloading and frustratingly blank, though I could see the message headers on RSS feeds. It was also working on Safari but I didn't want to have to start switching to that, thank you very much.
The solution? Clear all your cookies and page history. You don't need to clear passwords.
It worked.
So if it happens to you, you'll know what to do.
And that's why we all rely on Google...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Not much changes...
For the present day, the word 'dead' has been banned from any editorial coverage of Burslem in my newspaper. The word rings around too much like a mantra for me to want any part in reinforcing it, as it does no service at all to all the living, breathing people working hard in the town*. You'll find the script here if you scroll down the depressing Doulton story and even more depressing bulldozer comment, by 'Burslem resident'.
Today I was told about a video from the 60s in which people talk about the decline of Burslem, which surprised me. To hear about that period today, you think it was the most bustling, thriving time. It reminded me to dig out a passage in the Old Wives Tale, coming up to its centenary next year, with Sophia's reflections upon returning to Bursley after a few decades getting rich in Paris:
In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the immense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her virginity. On the east side, several shops had been thrown into one, and forced into a semblance of eternal unity by means of a coat of stucco. And there was a fountain at the north end which was new to her. No other constructional change! But the moral change, the sad declension from the ancient proud spirit of the Square--this was painfully depressing. Several establishments lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for a long time; 'To let' notices hung in their stained and dirty upper windows, and clung insecurely to their closed shutters
...
The Square really had changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but it had deteriorated. As a centre of commerce it had assuredly approached very near to death. On a Saturday morning thirty years ago it would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering country-folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was like any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St. Luke's market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her window, echoed to the sounds of noisy commerce. In that instance business had simply moved a few yards to the east; but Sophia knew, from hints in Constance's letters and in her talk, that business in general had moved more than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles--to arrogant and pushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its theatres and its big, advertising shops.
The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the black deposit on painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam syrens, showed that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished. But Sophia had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant nothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate links to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley was done for.
* However, it does make for a great Facebook group title.
Today I was told about a video from the 60s in which people talk about the decline of Burslem, which surprised me. To hear about that period today, you think it was the most bustling, thriving time. It reminded me to dig out a passage in the Old Wives Tale, coming up to its centenary next year, with Sophia's reflections upon returning to Bursley after a few decades getting rich in Paris:
In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the immense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her virginity. On the east side, several shops had been thrown into one, and forced into a semblance of eternal unity by means of a coat of stucco. And there was a fountain at the north end which was new to her. No other constructional change! But the moral change, the sad declension from the ancient proud spirit of the Square--this was painfully depressing. Several establishments lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for a long time; 'To let' notices hung in their stained and dirty upper windows, and clung insecurely to their closed shutters
...
The Square really had changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but it had deteriorated. As a centre of commerce it had assuredly approached very near to death. On a Saturday morning thirty years ago it would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering country-folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was like any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St. Luke's market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her window, echoed to the sounds of noisy commerce. In that instance business had simply moved a few yards to the east; but Sophia knew, from hints in Constance's letters and in her talk, that business in general had moved more than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles--to arrogant and pushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its theatres and its big, advertising shops.
The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the black deposit on painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam syrens, showed that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished. But Sophia had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant nothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate links to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley was done for.
* However, it does make for a great Facebook group title.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Voices from Burslem, Tunstall, Middleport, Cobridge...
As I think I've written here before, Global Voices is one of my favourite websites. It collates world voices in a way that amazes me - volunteers who manage to put together views of their region that are both comprehensible and complex. From my computer I've felt closer to people and countries that I may never visit but that tempt me with their stories of culture, current affairs and, often, food.
One of my criticisms of the site - though I understand the reasoning - is that they don't include disenfranchised voices from the so-called developed world. In an area like Stoke, blogging has not yet taken on the importance that it has in many of these countries. The internet is taken for granted as a tool for entertainment, education perhaps, but rarely self-expression. D'log and Two Up Two Down are two great local blogs that lead the way and Mindblogging has also made a good start with a directory of blogs encouraging people to write about mental health issues as well as everyday life. The bloggers in the group are exploring the medium, supporting each other and using blogging to engage in dialogue with each other, rather as they do in areas covered by Global Voices where bloggers have formed communities. There is a form of self-expression on the website of the main local paper but... I would cause myself problems if I wrote anything more about how soul-destroying it is.
In the first month of my new project, the articles I'm probably proudest of (many not written by me) have been those that give a flavour of local voices. A front page article had a hint of dialect in one of its quotes. “Them that’s got vehicles, they’re OK and I don’t begrudge them, but there’s a lot of us old ones today who never learnt to drive and can’t get very far now.” Bob Adams, whose handwritten contributions I'm loving even if they have to be typed out, writes about Burslem's past in a way that evokes local conversations about history, and again there are bits of dialect in there. "Mum and Dad however weren’t struck on Blackpool. “Your money goes too quick there, you’ll be spent up in no time.”" And a recent article included quotes from a public meeting, giving a voice to residents of Slater Street. Although the dialogue there is continuing, it felt important to reflect the anger expressed at the meeting in a way that gave the sense of the meeting (in Quakerly terms). I didn't include, but liked, the phrase "As far as I can see, you've gone all the way round Burslem and come back again".
This area is one of constant conversations. In Tunstall people are in more of a hurry, but in Burslem many now know me or know they can come to the shop to talk about some aspect of the area. When giving the paper out, it is normally impossible to cover the length of the shopping area on market day without having given out all my papers while talking to someone or other. In the first issue, we had an article about Sytch Village, one of our displaced/demolished communities, and people are still coming to tell me about their lives there. In Burslem, the past is constantly layered upon the present as older residents remind each other of what used to be where. Sometimes this is couched in negativity, but not by everybody. Our shop, for example, used to be Slacks, and because of the stories of so many people I can forget the bleakness of a quiet day and think of it when it was the place where girls used to wait for their dates for the evening. Those that could afford it went to one of the two cinemas on Bournes Bank, while those with less money, or no date, just walked round and round Burslem with their friends, meeting each other and eyeing each other up. Sometimes they would spot a celebrity near the Queens Theatre, but they wouldn't have been as interested in them as in the everyday interaction amongst themselves.
The constant conversation is also an education. Nothing is ever simple. Far from the safe office world where you are roughly in agreement in everybody, you have to grapple with your own views in the face of real experience of racism, crime and economic deprivation. After three weeks full time in Burslem, I suffered a real bout of culture shock, no longer knowing where I fitted in amongst the groups that we tend to classify: the people often bought in from outside trying to regenerate the area, the economic underclass, the creative workers, the traders, the powerful, the powerless... I could see parts of myself in all those groups and felt in danger of falling between the cracks. It doesn't help that there is a level of personal scrutiny that I was unprepared for. In this area, you have to constantly guard against bitterness here and where everything is a risk you have to avoid looking for people to blame. Luckily, I've got a support network of inspirational people who help me embrace the struggle to succeed and who affirm that it is worthwhile to try.
And so, in all, it's a lot of fun. And with more resources I hope that my project will draw more local voices out and help to represent this indefinable area in its true light: vibrant, problematic, diverse, exhilarating... just as other places have been able to do through Global Voices.
One of my criticisms of the site - though I understand the reasoning - is that they don't include disenfranchised voices from the so-called developed world. In an area like Stoke, blogging has not yet taken on the importance that it has in many of these countries. The internet is taken for granted as a tool for entertainment, education perhaps, but rarely self-expression. D'log and Two Up Two Down are two great local blogs that lead the way and Mindblogging has also made a good start with a directory of blogs encouraging people to write about mental health issues as well as everyday life. The bloggers in the group are exploring the medium, supporting each other and using blogging to engage in dialogue with each other, rather as they do in areas covered by Global Voices where bloggers have formed communities. There is a form of self-expression on the website of the main local paper but... I would cause myself problems if I wrote anything more about how soul-destroying it is.
In the first month of my new project, the articles I'm probably proudest of (many not written by me) have been those that give a flavour of local voices. A front page article had a hint of dialect in one of its quotes. “Them that’s got vehicles, they’re OK and I don’t begrudge them, but there’s a lot of us old ones today who never learnt to drive and can’t get very far now.” Bob Adams, whose handwritten contributions I'm loving even if they have to be typed out, writes about Burslem's past in a way that evokes local conversations about history, and again there are bits of dialect in there. "Mum and Dad however weren’t struck on Blackpool. “Your money goes too quick there, you’ll be spent up in no time.”" And a recent article included quotes from a public meeting, giving a voice to residents of Slater Street. Although the dialogue there is continuing, it felt important to reflect the anger expressed at the meeting in a way that gave the sense of the meeting (in Quakerly terms). I didn't include, but liked, the phrase "As far as I can see, you've gone all the way round Burslem and come back again".
This area is one of constant conversations. In Tunstall people are in more of a hurry, but in Burslem many now know me or know they can come to the shop to talk about some aspect of the area. When giving the paper out, it is normally impossible to cover the length of the shopping area on market day without having given out all my papers while talking to someone or other. In the first issue, we had an article about Sytch Village, one of our displaced/demolished communities, and people are still coming to tell me about their lives there. In Burslem, the past is constantly layered upon the present as older residents remind each other of what used to be where. Sometimes this is couched in negativity, but not by everybody. Our shop, for example, used to be Slacks, and because of the stories of so many people I can forget the bleakness of a quiet day and think of it when it was the place where girls used to wait for their dates for the evening. Those that could afford it went to one of the two cinemas on Bournes Bank, while those with less money, or no date, just walked round and round Burslem with their friends, meeting each other and eyeing each other up. Sometimes they would spot a celebrity near the Queens Theatre, but they wouldn't have been as interested in them as in the everyday interaction amongst themselves.
The constant conversation is also an education. Nothing is ever simple. Far from the safe office world where you are roughly in agreement in everybody, you have to grapple with your own views in the face of real experience of racism, crime and economic deprivation. After three weeks full time in Burslem, I suffered a real bout of culture shock, no longer knowing where I fitted in amongst the groups that we tend to classify: the people often bought in from outside trying to regenerate the area, the economic underclass, the creative workers, the traders, the powerful, the powerless... I could see parts of myself in all those groups and felt in danger of falling between the cracks. It doesn't help that there is a level of personal scrutiny that I was unprepared for. In this area, you have to constantly guard against bitterness here and where everything is a risk you have to avoid looking for people to blame. Luckily, I've got a support network of inspirational people who help me embrace the struggle to succeed and who affirm that it is worthwhile to try.
And so, in all, it's a lot of fun. And with more resources I hope that my project will draw more local voices out and help to represent this indefinable area in its true light: vibrant, problematic, diverse, exhilarating... just as other places have been able to do through Global Voices.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Which space?
Sad to see that Omidyar.net is closing down (login probably needed). O.net always seemed to me to be a great place of potential but I never had the time for it. It had an overload of discussion and it was frustrating to start reading an interesting conversation only to find it had been going on for two years and you were never going to absorb enough information to join in. I made some good connections there though and liked the project that enabled each person to sponsor a breakfast in Uganda. It was quick and simple.
Obviously every space can't be as simple and instantly-gratifying as, say, Facebook. But the online eco-system is something we're not making the most of yet. We move between overload and meaningless interaction. What would work for me is a space where:
- 'everybody' is and I can read their profiles to see if we have anything in common
- we have structured, timed conversations or seminars where I could learn something and go away with at least one action point, something manageable
- we move away from the instant-response model that we're moving towards online where if you don't act on something immediately the chance has passed, perhaps going back to a wiki-like structure that can be built upon by anybody to evolve but ideally without having to understand every layer
- we can access the information we need quickly and not always rely on others to answer questions for us - I guess this requires a collation of everything already out there by Google or somebody
- words & ideas can be tranformed into action by anybody, anywhere
- the burden of organisation is lower than that of action
Any ideas?
Obviously every space can't be as simple and instantly-gratifying as, say, Facebook. But the online eco-system is something we're not making the most of yet. We move between overload and meaningless interaction. What would work for me is a space where:
- 'everybody' is and I can read their profiles to see if we have anything in common
- we have structured, timed conversations or seminars where I could learn something and go away with at least one action point, something manageable
- we move away from the instant-response model that we're moving towards online where if you don't act on something immediately the chance has passed, perhaps going back to a wiki-like structure that can be built upon by anybody to evolve but ideally without having to understand every layer
- we can access the information we need quickly and not always rely on others to answer questions for us - I guess this requires a collation of everything already out there by Google or somebody
- words & ideas can be tranformed into action by anybody, anywhere
- the burden of organisation is lower than that of action
Any ideas?
Saturday, June 09, 2007
I couldn't help myself. Up at 7am to start building templates and instead gave into temptation to get onto Last.fm.
So two hours later, I give you the White Llama playlist, currently indulging my deepest 90s memories... it's a bit flaky so far. Apparently I have to spend the rest of the morning on it too. Oh hell.
So two hours later, I give you the White Llama playlist, currently indulging my deepest 90s memories... it's a bit flaky so far. Apparently I have to spend the rest of the morning on it too. Oh hell.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Progress!
This post will work just as well here as on the new Local Edition blog and is a helpful reminder to readers that I'm still here, though commuting much less.
Today I received official confirmation of my Unltd Milennium Award, given to support social enterprise. As long as I can get the forms sent back, this will be a great boost and it is a fabulous network to be involved with.
According to their website, 'UnLtd's social entrepreneurs are real visionaries - people who want to change the world. That doesn't mean they necessarily develop complex, global solutions to large-scale issues; often, social entrepreneurs simply take a problem in their own community and make a commitment to tackle it.'
They also demonstrate (quote):
This is a very nice description and I have enough self belief to think it all applies to me (that's the benefit of being an only child). It carefully misses out their (or at least my) lack of form-filling ability, fear of cold-calling and a slight tendency towards wasting too much time on the internet. And a terrible track record for turning up on time to anything, ever.
The best thing about this project so far has been all the support I've had from other people. People say it's a brave thing to set up a newspaper alone, but I haven't felt alone once in the whole process so far. It is difficult to sell the idea of free newspapers to people, especially in a place where suspicions run high, but when they have become clear on what the paper is setting out to do, they have wanted to help and be involved. Next week, of course, I'll be knocking on a lot of doors following up those offers, so be warned!
On which note, if anybody would like to start writing for the paper please get in touch with your ideas. Everything that comes in will be edited to fit the vision that is currently all in my head and indescribable (it will be great though) so it's the raw ideas I'm most interested in rather than if you're a highly experienced writer. As well as news and information, there will be opinion slots and features about everything that has a relevant angle. Sport is going to be covered by Anthony Munday, who comes very highly recommended, and obviously the more information people send us, the more we can include.
Apologies if my sentences have taken a very long turn. It's been a very long day.
Today I received official confirmation of my Unltd Milennium Award, given to support social enterprise. As long as I can get the forms sent back, this will be a great boost and it is a fabulous network to be involved with.
According to their website, 'UnLtd's social entrepreneurs are real visionaries - people who want to change the world. That doesn't mean they necessarily develop complex, global solutions to large-scale issues; often, social entrepreneurs simply take a problem in their own community and make a commitment to tackle it.'
They also demonstrate (quote):
- Vision
- Determination
- Passion
- Self motivation and self belief
- Flexibility
- Resourcefulness
This is a very nice description and I have enough self belief to think it all applies to me (that's the benefit of being an only child). It carefully misses out their (or at least my) lack of form-filling ability, fear of cold-calling and a slight tendency towards wasting too much time on the internet. And a terrible track record for turning up on time to anything, ever.
The best thing about this project so far has been all the support I've had from other people. People say it's a brave thing to set up a newspaper alone, but I haven't felt alone once in the whole process so far. It is difficult to sell the idea of free newspapers to people, especially in a place where suspicions run high, but when they have become clear on what the paper is setting out to do, they have wanted to help and be involved. Next week, of course, I'll be knocking on a lot of doors following up those offers, so be warned!
On which note, if anybody would like to start writing for the paper please get in touch with your ideas. Everything that comes in will be edited to fit the vision that is currently all in my head and indescribable (it will be great though) so it's the raw ideas I'm most interested in rather than if you're a highly experienced writer. As well as news and information, there will be opinion slots and features about everything that has a relevant angle. Sport is going to be covered by Anthony Munday, who comes very highly recommended, and obviously the more information people send us, the more we can include.
Apologies if my sentences have taken a very long turn. It's been a very long day.
Monday, June 04, 2007
I don't really like it when people write about Facebook, especially in the papers. It seems rather like jumping on the bandwagon, or worse, risking scaring everybody off. There's the inevitable fate becoming so popular that it becomes hijacked by the PR companies and eventually brought up by some media mogul who can take our data and manipulate us in all sorts of wicked ways. There's also the tedium of journalists blatantly putting together stories from their desks based on nothing more revelatory than the fact that 'celebrities' have friends in 'real life'! And we can find them seven degrees away through our own friends! Hold the front page!
But it is worth writing about, so forgive me for a post. I've done my fair share of evangelising and physically forcing people to sign up to the site ever since falling for the newsfeeds that make it so alluring to come back to and so easy to update. Most of the sites I've dragged friends onto have proven difficult to maintain and even that simplest of communication tools, email, has ground to a halt under sheer weight. I know I'm not alone in rarely reading them properly anymore and in spending far more time sorting my inbox into neat folders designed to manage time than actually ever getting round to responding. As a very useful article once said, all 'action' trays, whether physical or virtual, are simply there to hold everything until it has become old enough not to matter anymore. Which in today's world is about four hours.
But that's another issue. For now, Facebook is in a honeymoon period. As every social networking tool has tried but only Facebook actually appears to be succeeding in, it is providing millions of people with an eco-system for trivial interactions and passing viewpoints (OK, that might be a good description for all the web, but this one presents it particularly well). I think it is those in their twenties and thirties for whom this is going to be most significant - the point when its members are old enough to have children in their twenties or thirties could, I suspect, signal the exodus. This audience needed a lot of persuading to sign-up, unlike the sparrow-like hoards of teenagers who will sign up to a Nigerian lottery site if the rest of their class does. Some of this audience have never really experienced internet addiction before on this level, the quick fix that comes with a snippet of information that you can respond to just as quickly. Others have been addicted for years and are just glad other people have now joined them.
I was very pleased to read the story today of workers in a law firm who just won back their right to access Facebook, particularly after commiserating with a friend who has just been banned and will now miss out on the hours of newsfeed that reel away other bored friends' status updates and public wall gossip. It is positive that that people are demanding their right to this interaction because while it may be trivial, it is no less so than the smalltalk workers make around the watercooler. At least on Facebook people have, to a greater or lesser extent depending on their personal definition of what constitutes a 'friend', chosen to be in touch with that person rather than accidentally ending up in an office with them. Now I'm lucky to have had wonderful colleagues for the last few years but know plenty of people work in environments that are little better than Stalinist states. The ones who ban Facebook, for example (you know who you are). This particular law firm, backing down, came out with some spurious excuse about video streaming on Facebook taking all their bandwidth. You might ask yourself what else is broadband for? Then you might remember that few people upload videos to Facebook and the real culprit of such bandwidth-banditry is usually ugly, ugly, noisy Myspace.
The law-firm accepted the networking advantages of Facebook in their climbdown. While I fear slightly for a world where professional networking involves that much disclosure of your private life, it doesn't surprise me so much with lawyers. I was going to use the description 'coke-addled vandals' but this isn't a convenient time to be sued, so we'll move on.
Happy workers are those who can meet their friends, spend a little time laughing at a joke made by someone they like. Who can shriek, Wooster-like, at seeing old chums, all as they alt-tab back to their spreadsheets and databases. Happy workers are productive workers and far less likely to take a sick-day if they know they will see their friends at work. Only true addicts would really take whole days off or completely abuse their Facebook privileges, because it is quick, pleasing gratification that we crave, not more overload. It is our safe space where we can catch a glimpse of our friends' worlds, where we can share our good and bad news, emotions and opinions. Much like the pub, but cheaper, quieter and on tap all day and wherever we happen to be. Lovely.
But it isn't real life, so in case you're in the vicinity, here's another blatant plug for a real life gathering place (with its own Facebook event page, natch*):
Come to the Burslem Festival on June 23!
* Ooh. Memories of Just 17 just came flooding back.
But it is worth writing about, so forgive me for a post. I've done my fair share of evangelising and physically forcing people to sign up to the site ever since falling for the newsfeeds that make it so alluring to come back to and so easy to update. Most of the sites I've dragged friends onto have proven difficult to maintain and even that simplest of communication tools, email, has ground to a halt under sheer weight. I know I'm not alone in rarely reading them properly anymore and in spending far more time sorting my inbox into neat folders designed to manage time than actually ever getting round to responding. As a very useful article once said, all 'action' trays, whether physical or virtual, are simply there to hold everything until it has become old enough not to matter anymore. Which in today's world is about four hours.
But that's another issue. For now, Facebook is in a honeymoon period. As every social networking tool has tried but only Facebook actually appears to be succeeding in, it is providing millions of people with an eco-system for trivial interactions and passing viewpoints (OK, that might be a good description for all the web, but this one presents it particularly well). I think it is those in their twenties and thirties for whom this is going to be most significant - the point when its members are old enough to have children in their twenties or thirties could, I suspect, signal the exodus. This audience needed a lot of persuading to sign-up, unlike the sparrow-like hoards of teenagers who will sign up to a Nigerian lottery site if the rest of their class does. Some of this audience have never really experienced internet addiction before on this level, the quick fix that comes with a snippet of information that you can respond to just as quickly. Others have been addicted for years and are just glad other people have now joined them.
I was very pleased to read the story today of workers in a law firm who just won back their right to access Facebook, particularly after commiserating with a friend who has just been banned and will now miss out on the hours of newsfeed that reel away other bored friends' status updates and public wall gossip. It is positive that that people are demanding their right to this interaction because while it may be trivial, it is no less so than the smalltalk workers make around the watercooler. At least on Facebook people have, to a greater or lesser extent depending on their personal definition of what constitutes a 'friend', chosen to be in touch with that person rather than accidentally ending up in an office with them. Now I'm lucky to have had wonderful colleagues for the last few years but know plenty of people work in environments that are little better than Stalinist states. The ones who ban Facebook, for example (you know who you are). This particular law firm, backing down, came out with some spurious excuse about video streaming on Facebook taking all their bandwidth. You might ask yourself what else is broadband for? Then you might remember that few people upload videos to Facebook and the real culprit of such bandwidth-banditry is usually ugly, ugly, noisy Myspace.
The law-firm accepted the networking advantages of Facebook in their climbdown. While I fear slightly for a world where professional networking involves that much disclosure of your private life, it doesn't surprise me so much with lawyers. I was going to use the description 'coke-addled vandals' but this isn't a convenient time to be sued, so we'll move on.
Happy workers are those who can meet their friends, spend a little time laughing at a joke made by someone they like. Who can shriek, Wooster-like, at seeing old chums, all as they alt-tab back to their spreadsheets and databases. Happy workers are productive workers and far less likely to take a sick-day if they know they will see their friends at work. Only true addicts would really take whole days off or completely abuse their Facebook privileges, because it is quick, pleasing gratification that we crave, not more overload. It is our safe space where we can catch a glimpse of our friends' worlds, where we can share our good and bad news, emotions and opinions. Much like the pub, but cheaper, quieter and on tap all day and wherever we happen to be. Lovely.
But it isn't real life, so in case you're in the vicinity, here's another blatant plug for a real life gathering place (with its own Facebook event page, natch*):
Come to the Burslem Festival on June 23!
* Ooh. Memories of Just 17 just came flooding back.
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