The Global Ideas Blog

July 7th - 7/7 a year on

Difficult to believe it is a year since the bombings in London. I had just started a new job and just moved house, so my commute had just changed, as had my working hours. This meant I was a distance from the events when they happened: I got kicked off a tube at Knightsbridge/Hyde Park Corner, and walked.

It was a strange morning: my best friend and brother were both on the net, and their updates changed as more information became available: originally power surges, then bombs on tubes, then bomb on the bus....at which point I stopped trying to get to work and walked home. And there was an eerie quiet as people walked back, seeing things above ground for the first time in a long while...phoning parents (mine had no idea of what had happened, and didn't register the seriousness till later) and talking to each other.

And I remember the next day: I got back on the District Line (the Piccadilly was, of course, out of action) in the morning, and got in early, because there were so few people getting on and off. And I got stared at for having a bag with me between my feet. In the next few weeks, I witnessed people leave carriages when an Asian person got on (and others then apologising for their actions), and people asking whose bag something was and so on. None of which happens now.

At the two minute silence this morning, I was trying to remember my feelings that morning. It wasn't shock or surprise, because we all expected it at some point; it wasn't fear, either; it was relief and sorrow for those affected. A kind of world-weary acceptance and quiet resilience which exists under the surface of many people in this country, and of which we should be proud. That is the ongoing memorial to those who lost their lives.

And I thought also this morning that I was pleased to be one of those trying to change things, and improve things more; to make a difference in the time I have. It might only be a minuscule effort in the grand scheme of things, but it is my small commitment to words we don't hear much these days: optimism and hope.

An immigrant strike to raise awareness of their contribution

I had one of those 'wasn't that idea submitted to the Global Ideas Bank a while back' moments this weekend, when I heard about the immigrant strike in the US. And, despite my ailing memory and greying grey cells, I knew it rang a bell for a reason. See the idea here:

An immigrant strike to raise awareness

...and the idea-author has already posted up the link to the real thing on the BBC website; here's another take on things. There's a useful US wrap-up on Daily Kos.

What's interesting now is to read some comments left on the original idea:

Electric Fish: Subject: Immigrant strike
So, because immigrants are disliked by some people, you recommend a strike which will make them even more disliked. I would find it difficult to think of an idea which would be less productive! Try fewer anti-social activities!

Ambhagat: Subject: Response to electricfish
It's not an entirely serious suggestion, e-fish - nor do I think it is feasible. However, spreading the idea of an immigrant strike is a better way to raise the issue than actually doing it.

Siaffa: Subject: Response to electricfish
        What do you mean by 'try fewer anti-social activities'.  Do immigrants hold a monopoly on anti-social behaviour?


There's a whole load encapsulated in that: traditional anti-immigrant views countered by a robust response; the idea author saying the idea isn't 'serious' or 'feasible' (perhaps this accounts for their excited addition of the link this morning!); whether raising an issue through an idea is better than doing it...and so on....

Skoll World Forum of Social Entrepreneurship (part 3)

And finally...just to round up the final day (hope this has been at all interesting to anyone!):

DAY THREE

Opened with a discussion of what a 'social stock exchange' might look like / whether we want one....chaired by Peter Wheeler, chair of Futurebuilders (and the Young Foundation), and featuring Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank, which is widely regarded as one of the foremost social inventions (microcredit that is) of the last fifty years. Plus Ron Grzywinski and Celso Greco (apologies if spelling is awry, who also do stuff in this area....in the US / Brazil)

[See articles here on the Global Ideas Bank about Grameen]

Too much to blog here, but lots of interesting stuff (and entertainment value from Peter Wheeler). Including Yunus' view of the 'social business enterprise' (SBE) + the importance of judging by quality (and the concept of a "non-loss, non-dividend company"; an interesting spin on the non-profit label). Celso Greco preferred the idea of "social profit"....the whole conversation had a feeling of IT'S WAY TOO SOON TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS AND THE WHOLE THING IS A DISTRACTION AT THIS POINT, but was interesting nonetheless. One nugget from Yunus was: "not knowing something is a blessing - you start from a clean slate and your logic starts from a clean slate"; that appeared to me to be a pointed reference to simple translation of business/capital investment models to the social sector....

Next I went to a seminar called Making Misery Matter, given by Douglas Holt....this was about how to brand cultural movements, and was an interesting, if very academic, view of how brands work, and how movements get going (what Holt termed 'moral movements'). He put forward the idea that it is cultural (rather than social) entrepreneurs who make macro change to ideology and institutions. He then discussed how to create these movements (or be a cultural entrepreneur)....taking sideswipes at Bono, Make Poverty History and others as he went....basic point is that the spokesperson has to be from the people suffering the problem, to make it real and authentic....then there are various 'injustice performances' along the way and, hey presto, you have yourself a cultural movement. Well, not exactly, but you get the gist.

Finally, there was the Q&A session which, somewhat laughably, had four panel members speaking first, so the Q&A was only 15 minutes (and then only because someone from the audience courageously interrupted). There was some interesting stuff from the panel, so it was a bit of a shame they were used in this place in the schedule...including Matthew Bishop of the Economist saying that for social entrepreneurship to be 'proper' entrepreneurship, it needs to have its share of failures and high risk activity. Jackie Khor from the Rockefeller Foundation said "definitions may be confusing but it is success that makes the difference"; the guy from the Milken institute (Glenn Yago?) said that the "way you get a level playing field is with a bulldozer" (nice).

The final wrap then took place (with Stan Thekaekara (spelling?) posing the question "what was the return on the investment of this conference?")....with the stand out phrases being: "unless we can take this out of the room and down to the grassroots, then it will not be worth it" and "social entrepreneurs par excellence, people of the community" (in reference to the Adivasis, who gave their reflections).

All in all, a worthwhile time had by all. You can see / find out more here, and I promise not to blog anymore about it..... ;0)

Giant catch-up

Well, it's been a while people and, to steal from the great philosopher Garfield, it would take two of me to be more tired....but it's all been exciting, and there's a whole truck-load of things/ideas/event/interesting bits and bobs to blog:

- I spent a couple of days on an Ideathon. What's that, I hear you cry. Well, basically, it's a Unilever-sponsored CSR scheme that aims to use corporate brainpower rather than financial muscle to help charities. A charity brings a business problem, and a crack team work through the problem over a couple of days and then report back with their solutions/ideas. As part of said crack team, I have to say it was a fantastic experience, and, though I can't say which charity it was concerning (because then I would have to kill you ;0) ), I think what was presented back was remarkably coherent and robust. We shall see.

- The day before that, I'd also had my brain squeezed at the launch of Launchpad, the institution-creating wing of the Young Foundation. The theme for the brainstorm was the Olympics and health, and a good time was had by all, fuelled by energy bars and, in an appropriate sporting manner, half-time oranges. My superpowered group included Rowena Young, of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, and I'll be blogging the Skoll World Forum in due course.

- The Power Inquiry came back with its reviews on how to reinvigorate political debate and participation. Including lowering the vote to 16, which Gordon Brown appeared to back in a later article....

- And while we're on Gordon Brown, there have been calls for him to make his next budget a carbon budget....and if you feel passionately on that subject, you can take part in a community-computing grid-type effort from the BBC on climate change

- You can vote for the Designer of the Year here. Might I suggest Cameron Sinclair, for this reason.

- Check out the Formula One type green fuel cars

- See the Australian Ideas Festival

- And submit your own ideas to the Global Ideas Bank ;0)

Bizarre coincidences and memory blocks

OK, so let's start with the mental blockages: the more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed that the last post referred to the East End working class, and then failed to follow through on its claim....I forgot, having got carried away writing about BP and the X-Prize, to link to the Young Foundation's new publication, which follows on from Michael Young's pioneering research in the East End. I may go to the launch next week, so will report back.

Otherwise, it is a week of bizarre happenings thus far. I blog something nice(r) about BP, and then get an e-mail this morning from their Alternative Energy department, asking if the School for Social Entrepreneurs would be interested in hooking up with their entrepreneurial programme...

And, having made the momentous decision to move our work away from Lotus Notes, the Guardian makes Lotus Notes and why it is rubbish/not rubbish (depending on your status as user/administrator) a running feature in their Technology section. Indeed, my previous rant about the subject even gets quoted in that section today. The correspondence still seems to split pretty much exactly down administrator/IT people and the end users in organisations, which kind of backs up what I said previously. If it's not for the end user ultimately, who is it for?

Finally, referring back to the mental block stuff, there's a neat-ish electronic deck of cards to stimulate creative thought available from the Space for Ideas site, called the Creative Block. You download it to your desktop and then click on the deck for a technique to prompt you out of your confined thought-processes. It's not bad, although there are only 25 cards....but you can add your own. The idea, originally, relates back to Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies deck of cards, which is well worth a look, particularly as he is a patron of the Global Ideas Bank and its work.

BP, X-Prize and East End working class

A round-up of a few interesting things that relate to stuff I've covered before:

- Having had a go at BP's relentless green-washing media campaign previously, I feel I should report on when they make genuine steps towards the future, and a financial commitment to go with it. So good to hear that they are planning a $1bn hydrogen plant in Arnie's backyard in California....progress will no doubt be tracked

- I think I've covered this before, too, but the people behind the $10 million private race to space, the X-Prize Foundation are widening their remit to other prize areas, namely genome codes and eco-transport....we shall see if the financial incentives prove as successful in these fields; worth noting that the GIB highlighted prizes as a way of promoting faster rates of research some time ago....see Reward the invention, not the feasibility study

- Most amusing piece of the week is David Stephenson's on open source, and why Lego are more forward thinking than the American Government: Thinking outside the blocks

- Finally, on the back of my discussion last week about how local and regional agencies are leading the way on environmental issues/community involvement, interesting news of the South West Regional Development Agency developing a Wave Hub to test wave energy systems (which are obviously the best long-term renewable option for that area of the UK, as anyone who's tried swimming against the Atlantic winds can testify). So kudos to them as well.....

Two Mings don't make a...might

Much of the talk over the past few days in the UK has been about the Liberal Democrats and also their potential new leader, Menzies Campbell; his name is pronounced 'Mingis' or, simply, 'Ming', for short. This has inevitably led to depictions in various newspapers (particularly with the politicking / machinations of the Lib Dems infighting) of him as Ming the Merciless. The BBC News website was even speculating on what his followers should be called (Mingers? Mingons? Mingites? Mingles?)

Anyway, all this Ming-related malarkey reminded me of another Ming: FlemMING Funch, an early supporter/designer/hoster/IT guru on the Global Ideas Bank. So I went back to his own Ming blog and found a few gems. In particular:

- a great round-up of Web 2.0 software applications

and

- the Edge's annual question; this year's is "What's Your Dangerous Idea?" and there are lots of interesting people giving interesting responses, including Kevin Kelly, Martin Seligman, Martin Rees, Craig Venter, Matt Ridley, Jared Diamond, Douglas Rushkoff, and Stewart Brand. My personal favourite? Susan Blackmore: "Everything is pointless", which cheered me up no end.

Feel free to add your dangerous idea below....

Beyond Petroleum

Interesting post on WorldChanging about BP's announcement of its move into alternative energy sources. It is amazing what an impact marketing can have; in the UK, we've had a really heavy advertising campaign from BP which, if you didn't know what they were, might make you think they were an environmental campaigning organisation. A recent issue of the Economist was packed with similar ads from Exxon and others; indeed, it's amazing how far the ground has shifted, how the issue of climate change has mainstreamed into the thinking of big (energy) business.

But what is the reality behind this? BP aims for its alternative energy to earn $8 billion over the next decade. Place that next to BP's $350 billion of revenue generated last year. If they got $8billion in a year, that would be, ooh, about 2.25%. But in the next decade....hmmm. And little of the work is to be UK-based, despite the B for British in BP.

I don't object to this move, and there is no doubt that, amongst energy companies, BP are ahead of the game on this one. Let's be clear, though: this is an economic investment for them; there is no altruism or triple bottom line driving it. They know that oil will peak, and that their future (and future profits) could similarly dry up. So let's give a muted round of applause (what one of my friends calls a "golf clap"), continue the pressure for them (and their industry colleagues) to do better, press for genuine widesweeping corporate social and environmental responsibility, and remember that 99% of that tagline is Petroleum, and 1% is Beyond.

An enormous sense of e-wellbeing

Sustain-IT's annual e-wellbeing awards are announced again. Now in their fourth year, the awards are "the UK's only national Awards that identify and promote social, economic and environmental benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). " See here for more information...

It did get me thinking about the concept of e-wellbeing. Generally, the GIB has always been interested in the wellbeing / happiness debate, so what does e-wellbeing look like or involve? Is there such a thing? Can e-services be part of achieving wellbeing (for example, if community ties are a factor, do virtual community ties have the same effect?) or real, by which I mean not economically-related, happiness?

Bluster and bravado

On top of the We're Not Afraid phenomenon (see previous post), there is now a pledge that people can sign up to say that they will march in London here at PledgeBank. The pledge is as follows:

"I will at the earliest opportunity, assemble in London in a public demonstration of respect to the victims of the July 7 atrocity, defiance of the murderers who carried it out and solidarity with the people of London but only if 2500 other people will too."

[ Deadline to sign up by: 15^th July 2005.
457 people have signed up, 2043 more needed at time of posting]

It goes on to say:
"In the aftermath of the Madrid bombings in 2004, millions of Spaniards took to the streets to show their solidarity with those who had suffered and to show those who had committed these terrible acts that the people would not live in fear. We at The Sharpener have no experience of organising marches. This pledge is to start the popular movement, to make people remember that the streets of London belong to them and not to terrorists."

I have a few things to say on this, which will inevitably appear curmudgeonly, and are inevitably personal (so this is an opinion bit: ideas to follow below). That is: why march? Why do what Madrid did? If Londoners don't want to rise up in as spontaneous fashion as in Madrid, then why try and engender something unwanted? Furthermore, as an article in the Guardian argues this morning, our "phlegmatic cool" (not marching in protest, rising up, shouting for revenge in megaphones, demanding change etc) is arguably something to be admired. The pledge's slogan is "We Defy Terrorism" and they go to great pains to explain why it is an act of terrorism (the definition of which is often argued over)....but what definition of 'defy' is this? Resisting terrorism? Challenging terrorism (we defy you to do that again)? Or withstanding terrorism? In the knowledge that four young men from Leeds, British born and bred, have blown themselves up to kill innocent people, what does "defying terrorism" even mean? Who are they defying? Who is being shown anything? And why do we think 'they' will listen? Could the energy be better expended elsewhere?

A side-issue: a (cynical) person might ask if PledgeBank is really the right vehicle for organising a mass demonstration anyway....perhaps, as they intimate, they are just trying to get enough publicity so that someone else will come along and do it....but couldn't they do that directly with those organisations involved in, say, the anti-war marches and so on? Seems strange to me.....I asked the Global Ideas Bank audience after the tsunami to contribute their ideas, their social inventions, for addressing the issues raised by that disaster. In hindsight, I wish I had simply asked people to donate (which I did ask as well, and many of them had already) directly to the cause. It was the wrong vehicle at the wrong time.

And finally, on a positive note, there has been almost as much coverage about an idea originating from within East Anglia's Ambulance Service (big up to Bob Brotchie) for an "in case of emergency" phone number in people's mobiles . The basic premise is that people know who to call instantly in case of emergency....which seems a practical thing we can all do: a positive, real step, however small, to make things "better" next time. And there are other ideas and projects, some coming through the SSE here, which can try and address these problems in the long-term. What solutions can we try and generate and come up with to help change the current situation? Defiance doesn't really move us forward.