The 11:41 train from Preston to Penrith was the first indication that something was a little wrong. I was almost alone in my coach, save for a few under 30's.
None of them got off at Penrith.
I found my lift and off we drove, for me into the complete unknown. Great Asby is not the sort of place you would expect to temporarily become the centre of a Twitter storm. It's 18 miles South East of Penrith, past Appleby in Westmoreland and off down some violently undulating country lanes for a few further miles. We arrived in sunshine to a village with a stream through it in spate, surrounded by the kind of stunningly beautiful houses I dream of one day owning but never will.
So how does a web/social media geek end up in the middle of nowhere in one of the most beautiful counties in this fair country of ours for a reason other than riding her mountain bike? Well, it's a long story, but it involves City Camp London, enthusing at someone with no idea who they were (this is quite normal for me), and random throwaway comments becoming invitations to attend events with no idea as to what I was supposed to bring to the table. I like adventures (those reading my other blog possibly know this better than most) and so the invitation was accepted and off I went into the beautiful unknown.
On arrival I was immediately out geeked. This is always a good sign at any event, because it means I'm about to learn something. I don't, generally, see the point of life unless it ticks one of two boxes - passing things I know on, or sitting spending time learning from others who know far than me. Yesterday was the learning equivalent of a 7 course banquet. I left with a head stuffed full of so many ideas and concerns, things to follow up and people to cross examine in great detail that I don't quite know if I'll be sleeping for the next month if I'm to follow up on everything I want to.
So anyway. The reason for convening some excellent people in a village hall was the inaugral meeting of the Cumbrian digital broadband champions. When the meeting was convened, things in Cumbria looked a little different - BDUK hadn't picked them as a pilot area for their broadband connectivity roll out for a start.
I suppose I should also make something else entirely clear at this juncture. I am not easily impressed. Indeed, I brought quite a healthy amount of scepticism to the meeting yesterday. I was convinced the vultures were circling Cumbria and that some people were about to make some very bad decisions on where money should be spent, on who should be choosing who should be spending it, and what would be done with all the fabulous connectivity once it had been rolled out.
I was wrong.
The thrust of the people chosen to present yesterday was very much focused around the JFDI ethos. People building their own connection relay networks, digging their own trenches, making their own fibre bundles, climbing their own church spires and setting up their own Limited companies. People, ordinary people, designing school fibre networks for the whole of Lancashire, of dreaming impossible dreams - and then just implementing them. The organiser of this collection of people was Rory Stewart, MP for Penrith and Borders, a rather interesting man in himself. Throughout the day he managed to act as an interpreter for those in the audience not familiar with the wildly geeky vocabulary of fibre to the home, cabinets and megabits, sheep herder when people were not too sure what they were supposed to be doing next, defender of speakers when the audience became a little too voracious in their questioning (myself included), charming and clever interviewer and finally, holder of flipchart paper as some digital champions read out the workshop results in the afternoon.
Yes. You did read that right.
I'm not a fan of posh Tory boys. I suspect that might have been evident well before now. Yesterday I learnt most definitely that that is a prejudice all of its own and I wont be judging anyone on the colour of their politics again. Humility, empathy, talent, an enormous ability to connect with people, enthusiasm, inspiration and leadership - well I guess they get bestowed on a wide variety of people and that's just the end of that. It's what you do with them that counts, what should always count.
Other people left a lasting impression. In the midst of explanations about infrastructure, and a chance to hold a real life piece of fibre (2mm thick, possibly, and distributed by the rather fabulous @cyberdoyle aka Chris who I'll come back to later) there was Simon Jones from Cisco. I am a sucker for a smart inspirational enthusiastic visionary. Suddenly, in a tiny little village hall in the middle of nowhere I was thrown back to City Camp London and the feeling of jaw dropping 'you've done what?' feeling as presenters marched in front of us delivering dreams and actions of such audacity that you wondered if they'd landed from another planet. Simon Jones would have fitted in just fine at City Camp. Out of the same mould as Matthew Taylor, and many others I've been honoured to listen to, he explained the possibilities of a super fast broadband connection - 50 mbs a second or so - and what that connectivity had done with video conferencing in Salford Universiy via Dialogue Cafes and in Kenya allowing farmers to collaborate in co-operatives.
Wonderful lovely right up my street kind of stuff. Humanity and the web, social enterprises and the web, communicating for collaboration and community good - on the web. Using the web. You can see his presentation thanks to John Popham on YouTube.
Somewhere in there I met Ali aka @fit_to_print who is quite quite wonderful in that she is a normal lady in a normal world thinking in extraordinary ways - her idea of using mobile libraries as campaign vehicles to collate views, explain broadband and its associated opportunities to people was one of those ideas where something in my tummy did a little flip, where I knew I'd just heard something and seen a revelation which will work, which will be implemented, which will connect with people using traditional methods but change traditional peoples lives. Those moments, of watching others epiphanies, of watching the glee and the enthusiasm and listening to the words tripping out of someones mouth as the speed of the realisation is slightly ahead of the ability to express it - those are the moments. The magical moments. They are the moments where tiny shards of the future are made. Just awesome.
Then there's @cyberdoyle. Within 5 minutes of meeting her, you know that a) she is exactly who you expect her to be after following her stream on Twitter - straight to the point, smart as all hell, so incredibly not aware of how smart she actually is and fantastically brilliant and talking and enthusing at people without making them want to back away slowly. Watching her in action, watching her talk to important people and being so comfortable in doing so, so assured and so passionate, was a lesson not only in fighting hard for what you believe in, but also a lesson for me in the ability of ordinary people to be extraordinary. None of us have any excuses to accept status quo's after meeting that women. If I could, I would introduce half the people I know to her just so they could see that apathy does not reign in places in this country.
Speaking of apathy, this picture (via John Popham), mapping where each of the digital champions had come from spoke volumes to me. Firstly, all those people gave up their Saturday afternoons to be in a village hall when the sun was shining outside. All of them are volunteers. All of them are spread to the four winds. Some of them run businesses on 1 megabit connections. Some of them have no internet connection at all. Still others are connecting to the web on a 28.8k modem. All of them, I think, were over 45. Bar Rory's team, the guest speakers and a few 'experts' invited along, no one in the hall was under 45. Someone apparently said they were struggling to enthuse their local parish with the opportunities broadband would bring to the community, and that they had responded that if the older generation couldnt be enthused then maybe the under 20's could be. The reply? There aren't any, they've all left because there is no broadband.
Which is where I was going with the opening sentence of this post. Cumbria has a massive opportunity here. They stand on the cusp of being complete trailblazers in so many different areas, from education connection and delivery to healthcare provision, from ending isolation and disengagement to possibly doubling their economic contribution. But without the next generation to pick it up and pass it on to, what is the value of all this connection? Even more than that, what price the lack of input and vision from the younger generation in this whole process? If the loudest voices are skewed to a certain generation, what will be missed in a world where Facebook is for play and not for learning, information gathering, engagement or campaigning?
The vultures are circling Cumbria as it becomes known that a massive amount of money is being spoken of. The biggest task of all is going to be knowing who to listen to and who to believe, and ensuring that that money is spent wisely, carefully, and with the right people so that the absolute maximum return on investment is gained and Cumbria is not left with a broadband network which does not deliver the speed requirements of those using it for their businesses and their lives. Even more than that, there is a massive responsibility on the local County Council, to lead and inspire, to see the possibilities of this gift of infrastructure, and to plan quickly and efficiently how they will switch delivery of their services from paper to digital. In a County where connection has been cobbled together in assorted systems by assorted interested parties, the challenge is going to be to prepare adquately and to trailblaze fiercely in the delivery of online services and to prove how much money can be saved in switching to digital transactions, to become more efficient but more engaged in their service delivery and more responsive and agile, not only in their thinking but in their minute to minute service response.
Gifts are wonderful things, and Cumbria has received a great gift. The making of a county is in the balance here, no small thing. Rory has the right political hands for this gift to be placed in, I am now convinced of that. But whose hands will the telecommunications, technological, visionary and service delivery be placed in, and are those hands swift enough, big enough, quick enough to not only hold on to the gift, but to shape it, hone it and carve it so that it is fit for the future of a county which needs it so badly to be done well.
I am holding my breath. I am not alone.
Information sources:
#gab10 is the hashtag, the collation of which can be seen on What the Hashtag? via @cyberdoyle
The Wordle of the hashtagged Twitter stream via @cyberdoyle
The YouTube list of associated videos via @johnpopham
The Flickr set from the event from @johnpopham
A 'social reporter' blog post from @johnpopham
Showing posts with label big society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big society. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Saturday, 30 October 2010
The hacker ethic: or work as play
Nat Wei (yes, him again, sorry about this) posted a link on Twitter this morning to this report - P2P and Human Evolution. P2P for those not into downloading music illegally (I'm not but that's a different blog post), stands for Peer to Peer. In its first and thus technological meaning it's about sharing data between two nodes or multiple nodes on a network, where a node is you, instead of downloading data from a central server, like you do when you use iTunes. So, it's sharing data i.e. music, electronic books or software, between many people instead of putting it centrally and everyone downloading from that central point.
P2P in the context of this report, I think is a little different and more literal. It removes the technological aspect but the analogy stays the same. I.e. it is a map for society which removes centrality (is that even a word?) and instead replaces it with networks, relationships, reliance and support from us to other people like us. We support each other, person to person, and remove the need for central government to dictate how we will care for each other. It sounds like the removal of the nanny state so many complain about, yet the absence of disestablishment of legistlation is notable in its absence from this.
What really piqued my interest in this report was section 3.1.C.
I wrote about hacking a little bit ago. I tried to explain something of the ethos of a hacker, and what hacking means, that it is not about breaking the law, or obtaining access to things which are deemed by Authority to be off limits for a pre-ordained reason, but rather that it is a way of approaching life - all of it - and making the existing systems and processes which exist everywhere in daily life run more efficiently, fit together better, exist for a reason. Hackers do play with things, the things being the systems and processes. By getting inside either a technological or life process, seeing how it works, deconstructing it and laying it bare, an understanding of the intricacy is gained, mystery is removed and efficiency can be obtained. In other words - chuck the manual out of the window and play with something to see how it works and fits together (a note here - do not refer a geek of any kind to the manual. It's akin to suggesting their IQ is 60 points lower than it is).
Playing, in a lot of peoples minds, is what children do. The time for playing is past when you 'grow up'. There is no value in playing with something, only value in getting straight to the point and producing work as quickly as possible.
I'd like to argue with that, because I play. Lots of us do. I work damn hard but I play in the process of doing it. I play with technology - by pressing different buttons on coffee machines you can get lots of interesting frothy extra sugary combinations in your cup even if the button isn't labelled to tell you this is what happens - and I play with software and code and maps. I play with ideas. I sit in the office and argue the hell with some people who are lovely enough to put up with it, and in the process of playing about with ideas and concepts I come up with hard cold ideas which have had the fluff chipped off around the edges and which are actually something which can be implemented in the big wide world.
Big ideas don't happen in offices. Offices don't encourage thinking. I sit in front of my desk and I look at my screen and I feel guilty for reading my RSS feeds for research, or reading Twitter to catch others sparks which fuel my ideas, because it feels as if it's playing, not valuable, not quantifiable, and therefore not justifiable. But all my ideas, all the things we will be implementing in the near future, all of these things were not ideas I got from sitting at my desk at work. They came while walking to the shop at lunch. They came while smoking a cigarette (I'm on flexi, I knock 10 mins off every day for my two cigarettes I smoke during work time, back in your box), while riding my bike, while belaying my partner, while travelling home. Anywhere but at my desk.
Work is not for play. But in playing with things, testing things, discussing them, wrestling with them, yes I know pontificating about them, comes understanding, then quietness and then spirals of ideas coming from the understanding. Play has it's value. When we were children, we learnt about gravity and sticking molecules together using water to change their state so that the shape we created with those molecules would persist. We played in a sandpit. It had edges, that sandpit. Clearly defined edges over which the sand could not and did not leak. Inside the sandpit, we could be as messy as we liked, pouring water everywhere, creating havoc with bits of shiny plastics, creating waterfalls with bits of spinning plastic and yes, playing, but also yes, finding the edges, but also yes, gaining an understanding which we could take out of the sandpit and apply to life.
I do, as much as it is actually possible in an office in side a Council in Lancashire, have a little bit of a sandpit to play in, and as a result, the organisation gets the best from me. I don't claim for the hours I spend thinking outside of work because I enjoy the thinking - but also because there is a small part of me that frets that people wont understand when they see me sat around talking, that they wont understand the enormous value of that talking,discussing and argueing to me. So instead there is a trade. But I am allowed to think and ask questions and trade knowledge, I am allowed to wander outside my remit sometimes, I am allowed to play. In return, if I think of something I always share it, send emails and tweets at people who I think might like to know even if they can't do something with it right now, and everyone wins.
If we could all start doing that outside of work, if we could all sit in the sandpit and just allow ourselves to play a while without claiming for time, claiming for hours, claiming for money, claiming for brain power, then we could create magical ideas, chip the fluff off the edge of them and then go and inplement them.
I'm going to go implement something myself shortly. It's not my idea, it's someone elses, but the importance of doing as well as talking is not lost on me. But something I'd like to point out to Nat Wei is this. I can offer to teach as many people as want to listen all the tech knowledge I have, all the geek knowledge I have, all the digital and social media knowledge I have - but at the end of the day, I am entirely reliant on local facilities being nice enough to give me space for free to do it within and on the people coming to bring their own tea and coffee.
We need a tea and coffee fund. Sorry, but there it is.
P2P in the context of this report, I think is a little different and more literal. It removes the technological aspect but the analogy stays the same. I.e. it is a map for society which removes centrality (is that even a word?) and instead replaces it with networks, relationships, reliance and support from us to other people like us. We support each other, person to person, and remove the need for central government to dictate how we will care for each other. It sounds like the removal of the nanny state so many complain about, yet the absence of disestablishment of legistlation is notable in its absence from this.
What really piqued my interest in this report was section 3.1.C.
I wrote about hacking a little bit ago. I tried to explain something of the ethos of a hacker, and what hacking means, that it is not about breaking the law, or obtaining access to things which are deemed by Authority to be off limits for a pre-ordained reason, but rather that it is a way of approaching life - all of it - and making the existing systems and processes which exist everywhere in daily life run more efficiently, fit together better, exist for a reason. Hackers do play with things, the things being the systems and processes. By getting inside either a technological or life process, seeing how it works, deconstructing it and laying it bare, an understanding of the intricacy is gained, mystery is removed and efficiency can be obtained. In other words - chuck the manual out of the window and play with something to see how it works and fits together (a note here - do not refer a geek of any kind to the manual. It's akin to suggesting their IQ is 60 points lower than it is).
Playing, in a lot of peoples minds, is what children do. The time for playing is past when you 'grow up'. There is no value in playing with something, only value in getting straight to the point and producing work as quickly as possible.
I'd like to argue with that, because I play. Lots of us do. I work damn hard but I play in the process of doing it. I play with technology - by pressing different buttons on coffee machines you can get lots of interesting frothy extra sugary combinations in your cup even if the button isn't labelled to tell you this is what happens - and I play with software and code and maps. I play with ideas. I sit in the office and argue the hell with some people who are lovely enough to put up with it, and in the process of playing about with ideas and concepts I come up with hard cold ideas which have had the fluff chipped off around the edges and which are actually something which can be implemented in the big wide world.
Big ideas don't happen in offices. Offices don't encourage thinking. I sit in front of my desk and I look at my screen and I feel guilty for reading my RSS feeds for research, or reading Twitter to catch others sparks which fuel my ideas, because it feels as if it's playing, not valuable, not quantifiable, and therefore not justifiable. But all my ideas, all the things we will be implementing in the near future, all of these things were not ideas I got from sitting at my desk at work. They came while walking to the shop at lunch. They came while smoking a cigarette (I'm on flexi, I knock 10 mins off every day for my two cigarettes I smoke during work time, back in your box), while riding my bike, while belaying my partner, while travelling home. Anywhere but at my desk.
Work is not for play. But in playing with things, testing things, discussing them, wrestling with them, yes I know pontificating about them, comes understanding, then quietness and then spirals of ideas coming from the understanding. Play has it's value. When we were children, we learnt about gravity and sticking molecules together using water to change their state so that the shape we created with those molecules would persist. We played in a sandpit. It had edges, that sandpit. Clearly defined edges over which the sand could not and did not leak. Inside the sandpit, we could be as messy as we liked, pouring water everywhere, creating havoc with bits of shiny plastics, creating waterfalls with bits of spinning plastic and yes, playing, but also yes, finding the edges, but also yes, gaining an understanding which we could take out of the sandpit and apply to life.
I do, as much as it is actually possible in an office in side a Council in Lancashire, have a little bit of a sandpit to play in, and as a result, the organisation gets the best from me. I don't claim for the hours I spend thinking outside of work because I enjoy the thinking - but also because there is a small part of me that frets that people wont understand when they see me sat around talking, that they wont understand the enormous value of that talking,discussing and argueing to me. So instead there is a trade. But I am allowed to think and ask questions and trade knowledge, I am allowed to wander outside my remit sometimes, I am allowed to play. In return, if I think of something I always share it, send emails and tweets at people who I think might like to know even if they can't do something with it right now, and everyone wins.
If we could all start doing that outside of work, if we could all sit in the sandpit and just allow ourselves to play a while without claiming for time, claiming for hours, claiming for money, claiming for brain power, then we could create magical ideas, chip the fluff off the edge of them and then go and inplement them.
I'm going to go implement something myself shortly. It's not my idea, it's someone elses, but the importance of doing as well as talking is not lost on me. But something I'd like to point out to Nat Wei is this. I can offer to teach as many people as want to listen all the tech knowledge I have, all the geek knowledge I have, all the digital and social media knowledge I have - but at the end of the day, I am entirely reliant on local facilities being nice enough to give me space for free to do it within and on the people coming to bring their own tea and coffee.
We need a tea and coffee fund. Sorry, but there it is.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Einstein's eyes
Albert Einstein. Not a man I'd guess you'd be seeing quoted in this blog. No, you haven't wandered unthinking into the wrong one. Unthinking is in fact exactly what I'm not going to be doing. I like thinking, I do. Not alone in this, it seems :O)
It's not my job to think like this. My job is almost entirely irrelevant to this blog. In fact the separation between the two is quite important to me because the temptation to tears strips off people and situations is not something I wish to give in to, and so the separation will remain. Observant people may have noticed a certain displeasure recently. Ask, I'll explain, but not here. No place for negativity here.
And so, back to Einstein. A wonderful man for the quite obvious reasons - someone else might have made the leaps in physics he did, but that he did so at the time he did speaks volumes of a man who saw things differently. So differently, in fact, that the theory of relativity which entirely relies, depending on perspective, on the ability to see things from different angles.
But it's not the physics I'm interested in. Even I can't pull relativity into social media - well okay, I could, but I'm not going to. No, instead I want to examine the particular way of looking at things which Einstein seemed to have and try and focus on the "seeing things differently" aspect.
You're reading my words. I probably only typed this 10 minutes before you read them. Think about it. Instant thought transferal, almost. To thousands of people. 1 person. 1 tiny little person who likes to think a bit. Miracles? Start with seeing the small ones. Now, think about all the massive ones you could perpetuate from where you're sitting right now, imagine your wonder if you were to go back 20 years and look at what you are capable of, right now. Don't tell me miracles can't happen. Nor that something is impossible. Only concede that something is 'a little difficult right now' but it wont always be.
An insult commonly levelled at academics is that they're incredibly intelligent but have no common sense whatsoever. Well, tell me the value of common sense, if not having it means no prejudices at all? I'll live with no prejudices, thanks. Common sense isn't something I particularly miss. Thinking someone is a bad person because of something they have absolutely no control over? I'm not swapping.
Well no. No we can't. We really can't. And so whilst big society is coming in for some abuse at the moment, lets consider the problem. Very few people in this country give a damn about their next door neighbour. Apathy reigns. The cold hard fact is, we're screwed if we don't reverse that trend. I don't think the big society does anything other than identify the antithesis to this, which is that caring is a commodity gone well out of fashion. The issue, the biggest one of all, is that people don't start caring just because central government tell them to. You cannot instruct a human nature. All you can do is change your whole way of thinking, in the centre, and hope that your actions which are informed by that change of thinking can filter outwards on the spiderweb of our humanity.
I ask a lot of questions. Lots of us do. It's not that we want to annoy or irritate. It's not that we want to make your working or professional life hell. It's not for the devilment of it though sometimes, lord knows, your reaction tempts us to it. No. Questioning the things which are taken as set in stone means that interesting and innovative ways of doing things can happen. Stepping around the edges. Wriggling under the barriers. Call what you like, asking questions and not accepting that the first answer is always the right one is not troublemaking. It's supposed to make you think too. It's supposed to stop you from running down the same old track.
A lot of things covered in this blog, as already mentioned are not in my day jobs remit. The time I spend on Twitter, in the majority, is nothing to do with my day job either. Instead, the comments I make and the questions I ask are informed by my life experiences, by the things which I have endured, but also the things which I have been lucky enough to enjoy. I don't ask difficult questions or make difficult comments to wind people up. I instead want to challenge the assumption that because authority says something is working, that we should simply accept that it is. Where are the facts, the cold hard evidence, the best practice case studies, to back those statements of a well performing system to back that assumption up? If they're not there, who is accountable, what is the experience of the people on the ground, and what are you going to do to ensure that if peoples experience of your service is negative, what you are you going to do to fix that problem?
If, every single day, every single business man, local government Director and Chief Executive, MP and economist, think tank bod and government advisor woke up and thought 'imagine if we.........' we'd be in a better world., Stop thinking about what you can do in a world with restraints. Start thinking about what you can do in a world without them. Don't follow like sheep along the paths everyone else is walking - your area is different, probably. Different demographics, different geographics, different inputs, throughputs and outputs. Insteasd of looking at what everyone else is doing, think about what is right for where you live, work, represent or champion - ask the questions which mean the walls come down, ask the questions which use the infrastructure that's coming to it's absolute best, ask yourself how you can graps the coming challenges and change them into opportunities.
Use a little imagination. Aspire. Inspire. Lead.
The world through Einsteins eyes is one of infinite possibility, imagination, curiosity and questioning. If he could lay the first brick in the path which eventually led all the way to CERN, what can you do if you tilt your head 45 degrees and apply a different filter in front of your eyes? You're the ones in power, you're the ones with the chance, you're the ones elected and selected to represent us little people. Use it. Don't bough beneath it.
It's not my job to think like this. My job is almost entirely irrelevant to this blog. In fact the separation between the two is quite important to me because the temptation to tears strips off people and situations is not something I wish to give in to, and so the separation will remain. Observant people may have noticed a certain displeasure recently. Ask, I'll explain, but not here. No place for negativity here.
And so, back to Einstein. A wonderful man for the quite obvious reasons - someone else might have made the leaps in physics he did, but that he did so at the time he did speaks volumes of a man who saw things differently. So differently, in fact, that the theory of relativity which entirely relies, depending on perspective, on the ability to see things from different angles.
But it's not the physics I'm interested in. Even I can't pull relativity into social media - well okay, I could, but I'm not going to. No, instead I want to examine the particular way of looking at things which Einstein seemed to have and try and focus on the "seeing things differently" aspect.
There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.
You're reading my words. I probably only typed this 10 minutes before you read them. Think about it. Instant thought transferal, almost. To thousands of people. 1 person. 1 tiny little person who likes to think a bit. Miracles? Start with seeing the small ones. Now, think about all the massive ones you could perpetuate from where you're sitting right now, imagine your wonder if you were to go back 20 years and look at what you are capable of, right now. Don't tell me miracles can't happen. Nor that something is impossible. Only concede that something is 'a little difficult right now' but it wont always be.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
An insult commonly levelled at academics is that they're incredibly intelligent but have no common sense whatsoever. Well, tell me the value of common sense, if not having it means no prejudices at all? I'll live with no prejudices, thanks. Common sense isn't something I particularly miss. Thinking someone is a bad person because of something they have absolutely no control over? I'm not swapping.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Well no. No we can't. We really can't. And so whilst big society is coming in for some abuse at the moment, lets consider the problem. Very few people in this country give a damn about their next door neighbour. Apathy reigns. The cold hard fact is, we're screwed if we don't reverse that trend. I don't think the big society does anything other than identify the antithesis to this, which is that caring is a commodity gone well out of fashion. The issue, the biggest one of all, is that people don't start caring just because central government tell them to. You cannot instruct a human nature. All you can do is change your whole way of thinking, in the centre, and hope that your actions which are informed by that change of thinking can filter outwards on the spiderweb of our humanity.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
I ask a lot of questions. Lots of us do. It's not that we want to annoy or irritate. It's not that we want to make your working or professional life hell. It's not for the devilment of it though sometimes, lord knows, your reaction tempts us to it. No. Questioning the things which are taken as set in stone means that interesting and innovative ways of doing things can happen. Stepping around the edges. Wriggling under the barriers. Call what you like, asking questions and not accepting that the first answer is always the right one is not troublemaking. It's supposed to make you think too. It's supposed to stop you from running down the same old track.
A lot of things covered in this blog, as already mentioned are not in my day jobs remit. The time I spend on Twitter, in the majority, is nothing to do with my day job either. Instead, the comments I make and the questions I ask are informed by my life experiences, by the things which I have endured, but also the things which I have been lucky enough to enjoy. I don't ask difficult questions or make difficult comments to wind people up. I instead want to challenge the assumption that because authority says something is working, that we should simply accept that it is. Where are the facts, the cold hard evidence, the best practice case studies, to back those statements of a well performing system to back that assumption up? If they're not there, who is accountable, what is the experience of the people on the ground, and what are you going to do to ensure that if peoples experience of your service is negative, what you are you going to do to fix that problem?
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
If, every single day, every single business man, local government Director and Chief Executive, MP and economist, think tank bod and government advisor woke up and thought 'imagine if we.........' we'd be in a better world., Stop thinking about what you can do in a world with restraints. Start thinking about what you can do in a world without them. Don't follow like sheep along the paths everyone else is walking - your area is different, probably. Different demographics, different geographics, different inputs, throughputs and outputs. Insteasd of looking at what everyone else is doing, think about what is right for where you live, work, represent or champion - ask the questions which mean the walls come down, ask the questions which use the infrastructure that's coming to it's absolute best, ask yourself how you can graps the coming challenges and change them into opportunities.
Use a little imagination. Aspire. Inspire. Lead.
The world through Einsteins eyes is one of infinite possibility, imagination, curiosity and questioning. If he could lay the first brick in the path which eventually led all the way to CERN, what can you do if you tilt your head 45 degrees and apply a different filter in front of your eyes? You're the ones in power, you're the ones with the chance, you're the ones elected and selected to represent us little people. Use it. Don't bough beneath it.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
A call to arms?
I wonder if it was meant to be a call to arms? The following is entirely provoked by Lord Wei's blog entry Call for Reformers.
Before I start, let me make it entirely clear that I am not in the habit of according anyone any respect based on job titles, peerages or anything else. You talk sense, I like you. You talk utter crap, well I'll call you on it - but only if I know I know more on the subject.
Big society is a bit of an odd one for me. It's quite dear to my heart cos I'm a big hearted smart kid. Not so smart I could work at Nasa, but smart enough that I can and do pick up and understand a lot of things. I love the world I live in, but I intensely passionately believe it could be better. It could be so much better. That we could avoid situations like Baby P if people still spoke up when they saw something was wrong. That the RSPCA would get involved in less cases of animal abuse if we still bothered to pick up the phone when we heard something wrong. That if people spoke more, over garden fences and across streets, in the way that they used to (and still do in some far flung untouched areas of the country), then we would all live in a safer more hopeful future.
I am an idealist. I am a believer in what is right and what is wrong. I am a kind person. I choose to be that way, am not that way because a religion or a person tells me to be. I simply like to help. I love to solve problems. I want to fix. I see systems, and processes, and departments and attitudes which are wrong, which malfunction, which don't collaborate but which work in silos and I hate it.
I want to help change things. It's not ambition, it's not high hopes and aspirations, it's not glory or fame or money or recognition. It's the echo of a life my mother told me existed but which I never experienced. It's about the antithesis of isolation, of being let down by systems which were supposed to protect, of struggling to hold on by your fingertips.
If no one stands up and says 'this is wrong', if no one stands up and says 'I have an idea, why don't we ask that person over there how to fix it, but they're not right next to me, so why don't we build a network where two people, three people, ten people, ten hundred people can collaborate, speak, talk, explain, question, build' why then nothing will ever change and nothing will ever get done and we will never change, our society will never change.
Change is reform. Change is not always the answer. But the requirements of the world we live in are changing whether we like it or not - and it pains me to say it but it is outside of our control now. The genie has been let out of the bottle. In a country where religion has relinquished its control almost entirely of the indigineous population, what replaces it?
The choice to do good because you can. For no other reason. To contribute to building a framework where kindness is valued because snowballs gather people to them. Movements gather people to them. Know your audience, know where they live, where they talk, where they moan and where they dream, go to them, find them, pull them to you and then give them something - the something which points them in the direction to start building, give them something to work on, given them a question to start answering, give them hope and let them dream in freedom.
If you are going to issue a call to arms, please be ready for the answer. Please have a plan. Please know what you know and lay out your stall. We are legion and we are putting faith in you and we are answering your call. Now you have to prove you're worth the trust and the faith.
Before I start, let me make it entirely clear that I am not in the habit of according anyone any respect based on job titles, peerages or anything else. You talk sense, I like you. You talk utter crap, well I'll call you on it - but only if I know I know more on the subject.
Big society is a bit of an odd one for me. It's quite dear to my heart cos I'm a big hearted smart kid. Not so smart I could work at Nasa, but smart enough that I can and do pick up and understand a lot of things. I love the world I live in, but I intensely passionately believe it could be better. It could be so much better. That we could avoid situations like Baby P if people still spoke up when they saw something was wrong. That the RSPCA would get involved in less cases of animal abuse if we still bothered to pick up the phone when we heard something wrong. That if people spoke more, over garden fences and across streets, in the way that they used to (and still do in some far flung untouched areas of the country), then we would all live in a safer more hopeful future.
I am an idealist. I am a believer in what is right and what is wrong. I am a kind person. I choose to be that way, am not that way because a religion or a person tells me to be. I simply like to help. I love to solve problems. I want to fix. I see systems, and processes, and departments and attitudes which are wrong, which malfunction, which don't collaborate but which work in silos and I hate it.
I want to help change things. It's not ambition, it's not high hopes and aspirations, it's not glory or fame or money or recognition. It's the echo of a life my mother told me existed but which I never experienced. It's about the antithesis of isolation, of being let down by systems which were supposed to protect, of struggling to hold on by your fingertips.
If no one stands up and says 'this is wrong', if no one stands up and says 'I have an idea, why don't we ask that person over there how to fix it, but they're not right next to me, so why don't we build a network where two people, three people, ten people, ten hundred people can collaborate, speak, talk, explain, question, build' why then nothing will ever change and nothing will ever get done and we will never change, our society will never change.
Change is reform. Change is not always the answer. But the requirements of the world we live in are changing whether we like it or not - and it pains me to say it but it is outside of our control now. The genie has been let out of the bottle. In a country where religion has relinquished its control almost entirely of the indigineous population, what replaces it?
The choice to do good because you can. For no other reason. To contribute to building a framework where kindness is valued because snowballs gather people to them. Movements gather people to them. Know your audience, know where they live, where they talk, where they moan and where they dream, go to them, find them, pull them to you and then give them something - the something which points them in the direction to start building, give them something to work on, given them a question to start answering, give them hope and let them dream in freedom.
If you are going to issue a call to arms, please be ready for the answer. Please have a plan. Please know what you know and lay out your stall. We are legion and we are putting faith in you and we are answering your call. Now you have to prove you're worth the trust and the faith.
Sunday, 17 October 2010
The view from the bottom
If society is Big, then what's the view from the bottom? Ben Page touched on this at Solace 2010, something I didn't attend but I watched in Twittertime. He's sent me some fab stats on this, unfortunately and annoyingly, they're not in my inbox because my domain forwarding is broken and no one seems able to tell me why.
Anyway, Ben from Ipsos Mori touched on the barriers in front of the 'working class' in engaging with the big society. I'm putting it in lower case instead of upper case for a reason. Big Society is a call to arms, big society is what is actually happening on the ground, or at least that's the way I see it. But barriers. He identified that the challenges weren't apathy, that there were issues instead with possibilities, opportunities and expectations. But we knew that. Surely we all knew that?
I don't suppose I am working class any more. I have no idea. I sit in the middle in all things, and perhaps this is just another example. Bridge. One foot in one world, and one in another. But the view from the bottom, I think I can speak for.
I volunteered to do something in the traditional terms of the word this year for the first time ever. I stood on top of a windswept Bowland moor top for 3 hours. I stood in a car parking space and made sure no one parked where the judges needed to park for the King of the Mountain mini race inside the first Stage of the Tour of Britain. I got shouted at by a dick of a motorhome driver. I didn't mind. I got blown to hell. I didn't mind. I watched the cloud we sat inside clear and a panorama of West Lancashire open up before me and smiled happily. The judges arrived, parked their car, waited. We watched the helicopters rise and then fall in the distance. Every police motorbike culled from a 100 mile radius swept past us. First the breakaway passed us and faded off into the downhill distance. Then the peloton arrived and the wind around me blew the other way, temporarily, as the combined force, energy, fire and passion of 70 men blew past me, barely out of breath after the Category 2 climb. I smiled. I smiled and smiled and smiled. I wasn't paid to be there. I wasn't paid to wait. I wasn't paid to break down the barriers afterwards and help the men and women who were to remove all traces of the Tour of Britain for this year. Instead, I found a reason to get out of bed at 8am on a Sunday morning. A sense of teamwork. A clearing of the cobwebs and some soul food which will lead inevitably to me purchasing a road bike with the express intention of one day being fit enough to ride that same stage they rode, all by myself. I volunteered ostensibly to do nothing more than stand on a hill. My reward was a new found love.
Is that the big society?
It wasn't when I volunteered. It never crossed my mind. I didn't think 'oh I'm supposed to be trying to be some bright young thing and it's important to do something instead of just sitting here typing frantically and oh look, a big society opportunity, excellent'.
No.
I thought 'I love bikes, love riding my bike, lets go help some other people put on a race where people who love bikes far more than I do can push themselves to the absolute physical limit through wind and rain, up hills and down'.
Selling the big society is pointless. It's not about the sell. Don't sell it to me. Just tell me, in some coheisve, easy to use, non patronising and non accusatory way how I can give my time to do something useful with a spare few hours. I've got time. I've got plenty of time. I've not always got health but I've got a net connection. I'd offer to help kids read without a second thought but I work so that's out. I can type damn fast - does anyone need that? I can stand on a hill for 3 hours, anyone want me? I can sew a bit, talk a bit, put together nifty presentations, teach you the basics of tech, interpret legalese for you, I can explain the basics of group dynamics......just tell me how to put this in the right place for the right people at the right time and I will be happy. If you build it, we will come, well those of us who are digital. And, frankly, if you can't work out the benefits of ensuring everyone is digital by now, nothing I can say will make you realise.
You've got an army on the end of the network. Point us in the right direction, use the right tone of voice to do it, communicate with us regularly, and we will build it. But we will need a little bit of funding for expenses and training each other how to pick it up and pass it on and we'll need reminding every now and again exactly why we're doing this. The rest, we'll pick up and do ourselves.
The view from the bottom? Enable me, don't lecture me.
Anyway, Ben from Ipsos Mori touched on the barriers in front of the 'working class' in engaging with the big society. I'm putting it in lower case instead of upper case for a reason. Big Society is a call to arms, big society is what is actually happening on the ground, or at least that's the way I see it. But barriers. He identified that the challenges weren't apathy, that there were issues instead with possibilities, opportunities and expectations. But we knew that. Surely we all knew that?
I don't suppose I am working class any more. I have no idea. I sit in the middle in all things, and perhaps this is just another example. Bridge. One foot in one world, and one in another. But the view from the bottom, I think I can speak for.
I volunteered to do something in the traditional terms of the word this year for the first time ever. I stood on top of a windswept Bowland moor top for 3 hours. I stood in a car parking space and made sure no one parked where the judges needed to park for the King of the Mountain mini race inside the first Stage of the Tour of Britain. I got shouted at by a dick of a motorhome driver. I didn't mind. I got blown to hell. I didn't mind. I watched the cloud we sat inside clear and a panorama of West Lancashire open up before me and smiled happily. The judges arrived, parked their car, waited. We watched the helicopters rise and then fall in the distance. Every police motorbike culled from a 100 mile radius swept past us. First the breakaway passed us and faded off into the downhill distance. Then the peloton arrived and the wind around me blew the other way, temporarily, as the combined force, energy, fire and passion of 70 men blew past me, barely out of breath after the Category 2 climb. I smiled. I smiled and smiled and smiled. I wasn't paid to be there. I wasn't paid to wait. I wasn't paid to break down the barriers afterwards and help the men and women who were to remove all traces of the Tour of Britain for this year. Instead, I found a reason to get out of bed at 8am on a Sunday morning. A sense of teamwork. A clearing of the cobwebs and some soul food which will lead inevitably to me purchasing a road bike with the express intention of one day being fit enough to ride that same stage they rode, all by myself. I volunteered ostensibly to do nothing more than stand on a hill. My reward was a new found love.
Is that the big society?
It wasn't when I volunteered. It never crossed my mind. I didn't think 'oh I'm supposed to be trying to be some bright young thing and it's important to do something instead of just sitting here typing frantically and oh look, a big society opportunity, excellent'.
No.
I thought 'I love bikes, love riding my bike, lets go help some other people put on a race where people who love bikes far more than I do can push themselves to the absolute physical limit through wind and rain, up hills and down'.
Selling the big society is pointless. It's not about the sell. Don't sell it to me. Just tell me, in some coheisve, easy to use, non patronising and non accusatory way how I can give my time to do something useful with a spare few hours. I've got time. I've got plenty of time. I've not always got health but I've got a net connection. I'd offer to help kids read without a second thought but I work so that's out. I can type damn fast - does anyone need that? I can stand on a hill for 3 hours, anyone want me? I can sew a bit, talk a bit, put together nifty presentations, teach you the basics of tech, interpret legalese for you, I can explain the basics of group dynamics......just tell me how to put this in the right place for the right people at the right time and I will be happy. If you build it, we will come, well those of us who are digital. And, frankly, if you can't work out the benefits of ensuring everyone is digital by now, nothing I can say will make you realise.
You've got an army on the end of the network. Point us in the right direction, use the right tone of voice to do it, communicate with us regularly, and we will build it. But we will need a little bit of funding for expenses and training each other how to pick it up and pass it on and we'll need reminding every now and again exactly why we're doing this. The rest, we'll pick up and do ourselves.
The view from the bottom? Enable me, don't lecture me.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
A classless society to be a big society?
We are not a classless society. From where you are sitting, it may look like it is, and I commend you and congratulate you on your luck. I suspect you have been born into a different world to mine and many others. If you are sitting there raising an eyebrow in slight bewilderment about the concept that big society needs to address class issues, then let me try and explain. I am not comfortable with the task of explaining, because it is a complex issue that I will inevitably end up breaking down into a small blog post, but I have to try because annoying trends are emerging.
A while ago I said that I didn't think the big society could work in my street. I acknowledge fully I was wrong. I missed the point. The point, of course, being that the big society is very much alive and well here, but that due to cultural differences, we are welcome, but only when assistance is required for very specific problems. Otherwise, there is a language and cultural barrier which through no fault of anyones seems to be insurmountable at the moment. I believe that in 10 years time this will not be true. I believe this very much.
So after much soul searching, I came to the conclusion that I'd missed the point of big society, and that perhaps being a complete and utter sap, I believed in it more than I'd actually realised, because actually, attending conferences, discussions, joining in with debates online on Twitter, talking to people and trying to change their viewpoint of the world and trying to establish who the people are who can help me change the world a tiny little bit - all of that is the big society. It's about people giving up their time to share, talk, collaborate, inspire, challenge and discuss. It's about sparking epiphanies in others as much as it is about getting something out of it for yourself. Well, for some of us. :O) It's about giving something up for no reward, I think, about sharing with people with no expectation of reward, only a deep seated aspiration to try and change the colours of the world slightly for those who might come after.
My motivations, I suspect, are being questioned in some quarters. It's simple. I might come across as being exceptionally stupid and naive but I am a reasonably good judge of character - and this judging is usually done when people aren't aware they're being watched. I don't mean stalked - I mean people watching - the same people watching that we all do. The small difference might be that I do it consciously - perhaps not, I don't know. But I watch how people deal with others, above them, at the same level as them, below them. Process the data, and make decisions. Decisions about whether someone is the right person to trust. Decisions about whether someones motivations are the same as mine. Decisions about risk taking, rewards or lack of them, being trusted myself and about faith.
I do this for everyone I come into contact with, truth be told. From political leaders to friends, at every level. I can't help the way I am. It's how I roll. I give information freely to people, but it's filtered, always filtered until I trust someone.
Why is this important?
I grew up at the bottom.
Big society requires people to come together. It requires ideas and trust and faith and good intentions. It requires the commitment to give your time, ideas, enthusiasm and passion to some one or something with no hope of return or reward. It's not an easy thing to do. It requires excellent communication skills to convey your ideas. It requires immense confidence to stand up in situations you are terrified of being in and bely no signs of your fear but instead project the concrete absolute projection of believability. You're not fooling anyone. You're not lying. If someone saw how scared you really were, they might think you were, because they would be judging the person in front of them on their own social experience and not the social experience of the person in front of them. But it is necessary to stand in front of these people, these people who are not your people, to ask for money, acquire funding, acquire benefactores and gain support, which creates noise, which results in success.
Some of us are more comfortable than others. Some of us acquired a 'sod it lets see what happens' attitude somewhere along the way and the fear dissipates in the reflection of other peoples questions, curiosity and interest. Some of us are chasing something a little more elusive than job roles, a boyfriend who can pay all the bills or fame and glory. I can't speak for everyone who comes from where I come from, because you know I've not met anyone else yet who comes from where I come from and finds themselves here in this insane world of endless possibilities, or certainly what looks some days like a world of endless possibilities and other days looks like nothing short of an insurmountable obstacle course where I simply don't have the skills, any of the skills, to negotiate it.
But I don't want to hear only one conversation. I want to hear everyones voices. I assume the government wants to hear everyones voices, despite someone from the Tory party slapping down some of the disabled Twitter army last night. I'm going to assume her crass ignorance is in the minority. In order to hear everyones voices, please make sure you ask. Everyone. Don't expect everyone to be gobby enough to come to you. Don't expect everyone to be ballsy enough to come to you. Don't expect everyone to have come to the conclusion that there is nothing to lose and only in trying, in asking the difficult questions, in pushing harder and harder and harder is there a chance that a small tiny piece of the world might look different, might come together, might be okay. Not magnificent, but simply okay.
In order for the big society to happen, money is needed. In order to get money for your project, you have to, essentially, pitch. The thought fills me with absolute terror. I'll do anything to avoid it, absolutely anything. I don't think I'll be alone. So what do we do? Who do we go to? Who will advocate on our behalf? Who will be the presentable, eloquent, confident voice for us?
Is that even the answer? Or is the answer to actually teach people how to speak for themselves. Give them the tools. Allow them to practice, hone their speeches and their skills and then go and take their fire, passion, enthusiasm and care to the table and not choke on the words before a sentence has passed.
A conversation has to involve all. Please, will someone work out a way for everyone to have a voice?
A while ago I said that I didn't think the big society could work in my street. I acknowledge fully I was wrong. I missed the point. The point, of course, being that the big society is very much alive and well here, but that due to cultural differences, we are welcome, but only when assistance is required for very specific problems. Otherwise, there is a language and cultural barrier which through no fault of anyones seems to be insurmountable at the moment. I believe that in 10 years time this will not be true. I believe this very much.
So after much soul searching, I came to the conclusion that I'd missed the point of big society, and that perhaps being a complete and utter sap, I believed in it more than I'd actually realised, because actually, attending conferences, discussions, joining in with debates online on Twitter, talking to people and trying to change their viewpoint of the world and trying to establish who the people are who can help me change the world a tiny little bit - all of that is the big society. It's about people giving up their time to share, talk, collaborate, inspire, challenge and discuss. It's about sparking epiphanies in others as much as it is about getting something out of it for yourself. Well, for some of us. :O) It's about giving something up for no reward, I think, about sharing with people with no expectation of reward, only a deep seated aspiration to try and change the colours of the world slightly for those who might come after.
My motivations, I suspect, are being questioned in some quarters. It's simple. I might come across as being exceptionally stupid and naive but I am a reasonably good judge of character - and this judging is usually done when people aren't aware they're being watched. I don't mean stalked - I mean people watching - the same people watching that we all do. The small difference might be that I do it consciously - perhaps not, I don't know. But I watch how people deal with others, above them, at the same level as them, below them. Process the data, and make decisions. Decisions about whether someone is the right person to trust. Decisions about whether someones motivations are the same as mine. Decisions about risk taking, rewards or lack of them, being trusted myself and about faith.
I do this for everyone I come into contact with, truth be told. From political leaders to friends, at every level. I can't help the way I am. It's how I roll. I give information freely to people, but it's filtered, always filtered until I trust someone.
Why is this important?
I grew up at the bottom.
Big society requires people to come together. It requires ideas and trust and faith and good intentions. It requires the commitment to give your time, ideas, enthusiasm and passion to some one or something with no hope of return or reward. It's not an easy thing to do. It requires excellent communication skills to convey your ideas. It requires immense confidence to stand up in situations you are terrified of being in and bely no signs of your fear but instead project the concrete absolute projection of believability. You're not fooling anyone. You're not lying. If someone saw how scared you really were, they might think you were, because they would be judging the person in front of them on their own social experience and not the social experience of the person in front of them. But it is necessary to stand in front of these people, these people who are not your people, to ask for money, acquire funding, acquire benefactores and gain support, which creates noise, which results in success.
Some of us are more comfortable than others. Some of us acquired a 'sod it lets see what happens' attitude somewhere along the way and the fear dissipates in the reflection of other peoples questions, curiosity and interest. Some of us are chasing something a little more elusive than job roles, a boyfriend who can pay all the bills or fame and glory. I can't speak for everyone who comes from where I come from, because you know I've not met anyone else yet who comes from where I come from and finds themselves here in this insane world of endless possibilities, or certainly what looks some days like a world of endless possibilities and other days looks like nothing short of an insurmountable obstacle course where I simply don't have the skills, any of the skills, to negotiate it.
But I don't want to hear only one conversation. I want to hear everyones voices. I assume the government wants to hear everyones voices, despite someone from the Tory party slapping down some of the disabled Twitter army last night. I'm going to assume her crass ignorance is in the minority. In order to hear everyones voices, please make sure you ask. Everyone. Don't expect everyone to be gobby enough to come to you. Don't expect everyone to be ballsy enough to come to you. Don't expect everyone to have come to the conclusion that there is nothing to lose and only in trying, in asking the difficult questions, in pushing harder and harder and harder is there a chance that a small tiny piece of the world might look different, might come together, might be okay. Not magnificent, but simply okay.
In order for the big society to happen, money is needed. In order to get money for your project, you have to, essentially, pitch. The thought fills me with absolute terror. I'll do anything to avoid it, absolutely anything. I don't think I'll be alone. So what do we do? Who do we go to? Who will advocate on our behalf? Who will be the presentable, eloquent, confident voice for us?
Is that even the answer? Or is the answer to actually teach people how to speak for themselves. Give them the tools. Allow them to practice, hone their speeches and their skills and then go and take their fire, passion, enthusiasm and care to the table and not choke on the words before a sentence has passed.
A conversation has to involve all. Please, will someone work out a way for everyone to have a voice?
Monday, 19 July 2010
A governments disassociation with reality
This isn't a political blog. I will be honest, my interest in politics is a fledgling thing, the vestiges of ignorance of which I sometimes passionately wish I could reclaim.
Frankly, the whole thing winds me up. But this wraps into social media and so please bear with me. We get there in the end. Via some irritation at the Big Society. You have been warned.
So. The Big Society speech happened this morning. I've read the speech. Sounds great - well reads great. Just the right amount of pregnant pauses (ellipses) and impassioned pleas for the coming together of a nation.
Well if we were all white and middle class, it would work. Don't look at me like that, it would. The dream of Mr Cameron's is one I have no doubt that a large amount of you share. I do too. I'm young(ish), idealistic, and full of passion, enthusiasm and belief that the world can be changed if someone just comes up with the right idea in the right place with the right people listening. I'm white, and much to my occasional embarrassment thoroughly middle class. If someone is having trouble, I offer to help. If I see someone doing something suspicious or blatantly wrong, I'll report it to the relevant people. I carry a little fireproof pouch to put my cigarette butts in when out walking or biking and I smile and greet everyone in my street. I read Exec Board meeting minutes for fun, Prime Ministers speeches for fun. I want to know, I want to be involved, I want to give time for free, hell despite my better judgement I've volunteered for the Olympics and will eventually be marshalling at a local mountain bike race series.
My neighbours are very different. But before we discuss that, so that you understand the direction this is coming from, let me tell you a story.
Someone ploughed into our lovely company car last year. It was a stolen car, we now know driven by some local Asian kids. The race is relevant, I think, bear with me on this. They ploughed into it at such speed and ferocity that the entire front engine of a VW Passatt was left hanging off, almost entirely detached from the main chassis of the car. It was a write off. I was a bit upset. My other half was pretty shocked too as was our guest who we'd been playing Rock Band with and as a result hadn't heard a thing, not the impact, and not the lovely locals who'd knocked on our door to tell us. So those lovely locals? They know my other halves mother lives 15 doors up, went and knocked on the door and told her and asked her if she could phone us. So she did.
They didn't have to bother, you know? Our street is half Asian, half white. Old traditional ingrained white Lancashire. The people doing the running around that day were Asian. The kids handed themselves in eventually, we suspect entirely down to community pressure from families who recognised the kids as they ran away. They didn't tell the police a thing, something I was monumentally irritated about at the time. Instead they went behind the scenes, called mothers of uncles of friends and got them to hand themselves in. I have an immense amount of respect for those kids for doing that and any animosity I held against them dissipated in the understanding that perhaps they'd paid their dues to their community in ways I didn't know of.
The Big Lunch still couldn't happen here.
No, it really couldn't. Here's the reason why I told you the story above first. The wives wont look me in the eye. They wont greet me, wont talk to me, wont acknowledge me, never mind pass the time of day with me. I had the strangest moment while smoking a cigarette the other day in our back yard where I saw our next door neighbours face for the first time in 4 years of living here and I don't know who was more startled, me or her.
Me, possibly. It just floored me. I have become so accustomed to the way things are here, so inured to the traditions and respectful of the flow of life that someone stepping outside of that just broke my head a bit.
This is why the Big Society wont work. For a Society to be Big, all must be involved. Until there is more understanding of the psychological make up of all those who share the ground of the British Isles, how on earth are we going to work together? We've got to start having the Big Conversation first! We must learn to co-exist side by side, respecting the flow of other lives is different to ours, their priorities the same, but that the systems to ensure those priorities upheld a mystery to us too. We must be transparent in our behaviour and motivations and open with our smiles and greetings relentlessly and without thanks in order to attempt to engage with someone - anyone - who does not have the same skin colour as us.
That works both ways.
Sometimes, I still feel alienated here. I clumsily and entirely accidentally offend, I trip over words, I don't know who to make eye contact with, I confuse people here because I ride bikes and come home covered in mud even more than perhaps I would in an entirely white street. Yet I notice that the kids a few doors up have scooters now and one of the older girls has a bike and we smile at each other, and is there a shared acknowledgement of wanting to explore, to be free, to fly? Who knows? Neither of us say a word, both of us trapped in our confusion of the social rules of the others worlds. She doesn't know if I want to speak to her and I don't know if I am allowed, whether I would be offending someone, at what age it is okay to continue to smile and encourage and past which point it becomes offensive and wrong to do so.
Our society is a minefield and the current discussion with France banning the veil does nothing to calm the seas. I don't want to live in a white middle class society, I want to live in a truly Big Society, one in which everyone has a voice. Until it is possible for that to happen, I think we're floating in the clouds.
So where does social media come in?
I don't know anything about you except the value of your words on blogs and on Twitter. The social complications are removed, I can't accidentally offend by reading or responding to the wrong thing. There are no minefields, just conversation. A Big Conversation. The web is a great leveller, removing, in some cases, your job title, your doctorate, your Honourable status and many other things besides. It means I'll talk to many people who I would probably feel a bit too intimidated to engage with off those platforms, though a tentative interaction on those platforms make things very much easier for me when a face to face meeting happens. By that point, I know the jump off points, no matter who you are and where you are from. I know the subjects to avoid, I know the subjects which make you glow with enthusiasm, I sometimes know your political direction and will never hold that against you.
What concerns me, increasingly, is the demographic of social media channels. I have a growing suspicion that they are not representative of the wider demographic certainly, of our local Boroughs. Whether that's an issue or not, something to be messed with and changed or not, I'm still quietly arguing with myself over. What I do know is that perhaps the responsibility is on us to find out where all our target audiences are communicating and discussing and to try and engage with people in their own virtual worlds. But I think perhaps someone wiser than me needs to chase that one down, because I honestly don't know where to start. And that's something I am hugely embarrassed about too.
Frankly, the whole thing winds me up. But this wraps into social media and so please bear with me. We get there in the end. Via some irritation at the Big Society. You have been warned.
So. The Big Society speech happened this morning. I've read the speech. Sounds great - well reads great. Just the right amount of pregnant pauses (ellipses) and impassioned pleas for the coming together of a nation.
Well if we were all white and middle class, it would work. Don't look at me like that, it would. The dream of Mr Cameron's is one I have no doubt that a large amount of you share. I do too. I'm young(ish), idealistic, and full of passion, enthusiasm and belief that the world can be changed if someone just comes up with the right idea in the right place with the right people listening. I'm white, and much to my occasional embarrassment thoroughly middle class. If someone is having trouble, I offer to help. If I see someone doing something suspicious or blatantly wrong, I'll report it to the relevant people. I carry a little fireproof pouch to put my cigarette butts in when out walking or biking and I smile and greet everyone in my street. I read Exec Board meeting minutes for fun, Prime Ministers speeches for fun. I want to know, I want to be involved, I want to give time for free, hell despite my better judgement I've volunteered for the Olympics and will eventually be marshalling at a local mountain bike race series.
My neighbours are very different. But before we discuss that, so that you understand the direction this is coming from, let me tell you a story.
Someone ploughed into our lovely company car last year. It was a stolen car, we now know driven by some local Asian kids. The race is relevant, I think, bear with me on this. They ploughed into it at such speed and ferocity that the entire front engine of a VW Passatt was left hanging off, almost entirely detached from the main chassis of the car. It was a write off. I was a bit upset. My other half was pretty shocked too as was our guest who we'd been playing Rock Band with and as a result hadn't heard a thing, not the impact, and not the lovely locals who'd knocked on our door to tell us. So those lovely locals? They know my other halves mother lives 15 doors up, went and knocked on the door and told her and asked her if she could phone us. So she did.
They didn't have to bother, you know? Our street is half Asian, half white. Old traditional ingrained white Lancashire. The people doing the running around that day were Asian. The kids handed themselves in eventually, we suspect entirely down to community pressure from families who recognised the kids as they ran away. They didn't tell the police a thing, something I was monumentally irritated about at the time. Instead they went behind the scenes, called mothers of uncles of friends and got them to hand themselves in. I have an immense amount of respect for those kids for doing that and any animosity I held against them dissipated in the understanding that perhaps they'd paid their dues to their community in ways I didn't know of.
The Big Lunch still couldn't happen here.
No, it really couldn't. Here's the reason why I told you the story above first. The wives wont look me in the eye. They wont greet me, wont talk to me, wont acknowledge me, never mind pass the time of day with me. I had the strangest moment while smoking a cigarette the other day in our back yard where I saw our next door neighbours face for the first time in 4 years of living here and I don't know who was more startled, me or her.
Me, possibly. It just floored me. I have become so accustomed to the way things are here, so inured to the traditions and respectful of the flow of life that someone stepping outside of that just broke my head a bit.
This is why the Big Society wont work. For a Society to be Big, all must be involved. Until there is more understanding of the psychological make up of all those who share the ground of the British Isles, how on earth are we going to work together? We've got to start having the Big Conversation first! We must learn to co-exist side by side, respecting the flow of other lives is different to ours, their priorities the same, but that the systems to ensure those priorities upheld a mystery to us too. We must be transparent in our behaviour and motivations and open with our smiles and greetings relentlessly and without thanks in order to attempt to engage with someone - anyone - who does not have the same skin colour as us.
That works both ways.
Sometimes, I still feel alienated here. I clumsily and entirely accidentally offend, I trip over words, I don't know who to make eye contact with, I confuse people here because I ride bikes and come home covered in mud even more than perhaps I would in an entirely white street. Yet I notice that the kids a few doors up have scooters now and one of the older girls has a bike and we smile at each other, and is there a shared acknowledgement of wanting to explore, to be free, to fly? Who knows? Neither of us say a word, both of us trapped in our confusion of the social rules of the others worlds. She doesn't know if I want to speak to her and I don't know if I am allowed, whether I would be offending someone, at what age it is okay to continue to smile and encourage and past which point it becomes offensive and wrong to do so.
Our society is a minefield and the current discussion with France banning the veil does nothing to calm the seas. I don't want to live in a white middle class society, I want to live in a truly Big Society, one in which everyone has a voice. Until it is possible for that to happen, I think we're floating in the clouds.
So where does social media come in?
I don't know anything about you except the value of your words on blogs and on Twitter. The social complications are removed, I can't accidentally offend by reading or responding to the wrong thing. There are no minefields, just conversation. A Big Conversation. The web is a great leveller, removing, in some cases, your job title, your doctorate, your Honourable status and many other things besides. It means I'll talk to many people who I would probably feel a bit too intimidated to engage with off those platforms, though a tentative interaction on those platforms make things very much easier for me when a face to face meeting happens. By that point, I know the jump off points, no matter who you are and where you are from. I know the subjects to avoid, I know the subjects which make you glow with enthusiasm, I sometimes know your political direction and will never hold that against you.
What concerns me, increasingly, is the demographic of social media channels. I have a growing suspicion that they are not representative of the wider demographic certainly, of our local Boroughs. Whether that's an issue or not, something to be messed with and changed or not, I'm still quietly arguing with myself over. What I do know is that perhaps the responsibility is on us to find out where all our target audiences are communicating and discussing and to try and engage with people in their own virtual worlds. But I think perhaps someone wiser than me needs to chase that one down, because I honestly don't know where to start. And that's something I am hugely embarrassed about too.
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