Barry IdeasBank: Lessons and a way ahead
Jennifer Owen with contributions by Andy Green Report funded by ESRC
Acknowledgements Special thanks to all of those that gave up their time to be interviewed for this report, and to Jackie Le Fevre, Gareth Loudon and Martin Williams of the Flexible Thinking Forum for providing great insights and guidance. Gratitude must also be extended to Andy Green for introducing the researcher to the world of Barry IdeasBank with such passion she couldn’t fail to be inspired.
Jennifer Owen
Contents
Executive summary Page 2
Introduction Page 3
The Barry IdeasBank story Page 4
Phase 2 - the Plan Page 6
Phase 2 - the Reality Page 8
IdeasBank - guiding principles Page 11
Insights from Phase 2 Page 14
Successful ideas and tangible products Page 27
The need for co-production Page 31
A potential and scalable model - a 21 Point Page 39 Plan Conclusion Page 51
Bibliography Page 52
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Executive summary
The Barry IdeasBank is a project run by social enterprise, the Flexible Thinking Forum to initially address the question of ‘Where do you go if you have a good ideas for your community?’
With the support of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, Barry Town Council, the Vale of Glamorgan Council, Pride in Barry, and Newydd Housing the project began a Phase 2 in October 2014 as part of a one year project to explore new ways of engaging the local community in Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan.
On one level the Project has generated a useful collection of ideas, along with some significant results for partner community groups, from using its resources of the Forum’s team, a web site, Twitter feed and programme of networking and events.
On another, perhaps more profound level, the IdeasBank project has generated valuable insights for tackling the crisis on a major, yet largely unrecognised social problem - the decline in Social Capital in our communities. The project shows a new way forward on how IdeasBanks can offer a critical resource by creating off-line and on-line connections with community activists, to nurture their confidence, capability and connectivity to boost what is called their ‘Social Collaborative Capital’.
According to the UK-wide Understanding Society research just 5% of a community are civic engaged in being active with a voluntary association with just further 10-15% are likely to get further involved. Volunteer rates are 80%.
If communities rely on just small numbers of committed citizens, with the trend indicating diminishing civic engagement, it is vital these committed individuals, as well as other potentially engaged individuals are connected and supported.
Lessons from Phase 2 of the IdeasBank project have identified a potential model to make the operation of ideas banks sustainable and scalable. This shows a potential way ahead, through a potential Phase 3 of the Project, to realize a vision for every town or city across the UK to have their own community ideas bank.
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Introduction - the story of how the Barry IdeasBank evolved
Barry IdeasBank was created by the Flexible Thinking Forum, a social enterprise which works to promote applied creative thinking skills in communities. It has a vision that every town or city the UK should have an IdeasBank - somewhere to go when you have an idea to make your community better.
But how can you make a community IdeasBank work? How can you make it sustainable, scalable or transferable?
The Barry IdeasbBank through its pioneering trials has provided some answers and a promising way forward.
Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan, is Wales’ fourth largest town. The place is a paradox: it boasts outstanding natural scenery, notably its five beaches, yet is also home to heavy industry around its docks, chemical works and industrial sites (back in 1915 Barry Docks boasted being the world capital of coal exports).
The Town has suffered from a run-down tourist infrastructure, with a former Butlins holiday site closed in 1980’s still not fully regenerated. It has a legacy of a poor brand image, and what many commentators observe as a ‘glass half empty’ culture among many local people.
Yet Barry has demonstrated a community spirit that has overcome major obstacles. Whether it is the local community rallying around its football team, Barry Town United, (which successfully kept the Club alive by launching a legal challenge against the might of the ruling by the Football Association of Wales to exclude the town’s club from its Leagues), to numerous cases of local people doing amazing things; Barry provides a microcosm of modern-day Wales and Britain.
This report aims to capture a moment in the evolution of the IdeasBank idea, to record the lessons of the Project’s Phase I and Phase 2. This report hopes to be a source of guidance going forward, proof of the project’s merit to funding bodies for a Phase 3 where it can serve as a potentially replicable model in towns across the country.
The research conducted for this report, consisted of semi-structured interviews with 13 individuals. It was limited by a short research time frame. Given more time and resources a survey of all users of the Barry IdeasBank might provide even further fruitful and important insights.
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The Barry IdeasBank story
Phase I
The Barry IdeasBank was established in 2012 as a result of the frustrations felt by the Flexible Thinking Forum’s founder Andy Green, a Barry resident. Andy attended numerous regeneration consultation events across the UK. Ideas were generated but never used or kept for future reference. Could you not create, Andy thought, a local bank, a repository of these ideas for the community?
Andy had a fortuitous encounter with Crowdicity, one of Europe’s leading providers of open-source innovation software. (They produce community idea software for the United Nations and the World Wildlife Fund among others.) Crowdicity generously providing their on-line facility for free, which led to the creation of the crowdsourcing Barry IdeasBank website - later labelled Phase 1 of the project.
During Phase 1 the concept of the IdeasBank evolved from being a mere repository of ideas, to an active forum for capturing, engaging with others, and nurturing ideas to realize their further potential.
The Phase I trial of the project between November 2012 and May 2014 featured an online website, two innovative ‘Barry Kucha’ community events, inspired and adapted from ‘Pecha Kucha’ meetings, where a collection of seven speakers talk for just 7 minutes each. There was also a Twitter account designed to promote the two ‘Barry Kucha’ events.
Each of the ‘Barry Kucha’ events attracted over 80 people, with key community figures present at both events, including Jane Hutt, the local AM and Cllr. Liz Burnett, the local authority Chair of Regeneration. Phase 1 was run on a shoestring budget of £2,000, with numerous favours pulled-in for volunteers, professionals gifting their services, or creative contra deals. (Andy Green for example, produced a Business Plan for a community digital production company in return for their filming the events.) Phase I had some profound learning: ideas banks consisting of online facilities for collecting ideas for a community don’t work.
They fail to generate engagement beyond a core group of ‘usual suspects’. The BarryIdeasBank conformed to the Online forums 1:9:90 Rule: 1% of the online community will post and contribute original content. 9% add to existing content, while 90% just observe. The majority of an online forum do not actively contribute or engage with the forum.
The project did generate however, incidental learning with profound potential.
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Unexpected and chance encounters at the Barry Kucha events led to new connection being made between speakers and members of the audience: for example, the mother of the speaker from Barry Town United started volunteering with the Barry at War Centre who were also speaking at the event. The hairdresser who was paying tribute to his father coming to Barry 50 years earlier as an immigrant and then created a hairdressing dynasty in the town - inspired to his son to organize a benefit gig for the speaker from a Barry-based charity helping the developing world, and so on.
It demonstrated that ideas don’t exist in isolation. You need flesh and blood to make them happen. Individuals alone cannot change things. You need teams, partnerships, networks to realize the potential of any vision The IdeasBanks Phase I experience is not to dismiss the role of online forums. Indeed, they have a crucial role to play, but cannot function in isolation. They need to be integrated into a ‘blended’ programme of an online facility supporting offline activity. At the end of its Phase I @BarryIdeasbank had over 1,080 Twitter followers. The Twitter activity also generated some unexpected learning. Originally designed primarily to promote the Barry Kucha events, the @BarryIdeasBank Twitter feed sparked two key insights: • Most people won’t write a letter to their local newspaper - or submit an online post, but may Tweet an idea or register a ‘Like’.
• Twitter also had the potential to identify potential volunteers. Ask people to step forward to volunteer, and most take a step back. Twitter uncovered numerous individuals who by the very fact of being on Twitter were demonstrating they were social media active. If they demonstrated a propensity to retweet would suggest their inclination or potential to get further involved in their community. What could be done with this learning?
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Phase 2 - the plan
The Flexible Thinking Forum obtained further support from the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Catalyst Fund (RSA) with a £5,000 grant which was conditional on receiving a further £1,000 contributory funding from a local authority partner. Both the Vale of Glamorgan Council and Barry Town Council each provided £500, with a matching contribution from Pride in Barry of £500, creating a total resource of £6,500. Crowdicity also agreed to continue with their in-kind support (worth £12,000).
Time of the Flexible Thinking Forum team - Andy Green, along with Jackie Le Fevre, Gareth Loudon, David Rattray and Martin Williams was given free to run the project.
The Project also succeeded in securing additional support of £3,000 from Newydd Housing Association to fund its #Barryspiration programme of community engagement events.
The Project organizers won an award, in a national competition run by social enterprise charity UnLtd in its Spark competition, picking up a prize of £500 to produce a film promoting the project – called ‘Every Idea needs a Friend’. Check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqmgIafdYhE
Phase 2 sought to pioneer new ways to tap into the genius of local people to make their home town a better place to work, live and play. By creating a new open source facility for innovation, crowdsourcing and creativity, the IdeasBank sought to enable local public services to adopt new partnership ways of working through collaborating with their communities.
Phase 2 placed greater emphasis on a more 'blended' approach using on and off-line activities to facilitate communal creativity and innovation.
New activities looked to build capacity, capability and connectivity for creative engagement by using both bottom-up, rather than top-down, strategies.
By working with local community groups on a challenge they faced, they had a problem they not only owned, but also had an interest in taking it forward, thus overcoming one criticism of ideas banks of ‘What happens to the ideas?’
By working with existing groups within the community who already possess a network of contacts and peer support, they had the potential to more quickly realize and develop activities. This would overcome the problem of isolated individuals with an idea, by working with groups who already had a supportive network of contacts to realize their ideas. The IdeasBank could improve their potential and extend their impact.
For Phase 2 four community groups were identified to work in partnership with:
• Barry Town United Football Club - a community owned sports club • Bro Radio - a community owned radio station. • Cadoxton Junior & Infants School
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• Memo Art Centre - a community arts venue.
Each were chosen as they play acritical part in community life. Also, there was some existing informal contacts between them and the Flexible Thinking Forum.
The community groups were offered an opportunity for the Flexible Thinking Forum to work with them at no cost on helping them address a live problem or challenge they face, and then sharing their initial ideas with the wider community for their contribution. They would also benefit from what was called #Barryspiration - training in creative thinking techniques.
Newydd Housing Association, one of the largest Housing Associations in the area were approached as the Project had no funding to deliver its #Barryspiration activities with local community partners.
Newydd, to their credit, not only agreed to sponsor the activity but they too also recognised how they too would benefit from using the IdeasBank opportunity. They identified a challenge they faced which was added to the planned programme of community group activities. A fifth community group - Communities First Barry - were added towards the end of the programme The Project also offered to deliver projects for both Barry Town Council and the Vale of Glamorgan, along with the offer of a free training session on creativity and idea generation for the Council’s staff.
A further strand of the IdeasBank’s overall activity was to meet and recruit individuals identified either as community activists or potential activists to get engaged with the IdeasBank. This was called ‘coffee networking’ as it usually involved meeting over a coffee with the activist.
To ensure proper governance and supervision of the Project an Advisory Board was created with representatives from the initial funders. Jane Hutt AM kindly agreed to Chair the Advisory Board.
The Flexible Thinking Forum team In delivering the Phase 2 project have been mindful of a concept posited by Kathy Seddon of the RSA calls ‘products’ - real tangible outcomes that people can identify and relate to, and which the Forum would add ‘have their own story’.
In September 2014 Phase 2 of the IdeasBank project was launched on a mission to inspire, engage, listen, learn, help - and create ‘product’ for the IdeasBank.
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Phase 2 - the reality
Working with the community partnerships produced outcomes of: • Three projects were completed to their first stage with significant outcomes • One project was part-completed with an output but no outcomes • Two projects did not develop
The programme succeeded in delivering a project for the Vale of Glamorgan Council through its Cadoxton school, but was not able to deliver a project for Barry Town Council. Thanks to a contact via the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures & Commerce network support was obtained from ERSC, the Wales Doctoral Training Centre. The Centre supports postgraduate, doctoral research among Welsh Universities. Thanks to its support, funding was obtained to fund a post-graduate researcher for 1 month - Jennifer Owen - to interview community representatives and users of the IdeasBank, and produce this report.
Methodology of ERSC Report
The research for this report was carried out by Jennifer Owen, a PhD candidate at Cardiff University. She was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) internship scheme. Being external to the Barry IdeasBank it enabled her to conduct an enquiry unfettered by personal passionate connection with the project, which may have distorted findings. Furthermore those who were spoken to during the course of the research period did not feel obliged to only sing the praises of the Barry IdeasBank, thus producing more well-rounded and realistic data. The main method employed for data collection was 13 face-to-face semi-structured interviews. These took place in a mutually agreed upon location, often local coffee shops, to facilitate comfortable conversational questioning. An interview guide was devised for each interview type to cover all required venues of enquiry whilst also encouraging narrative accounts.
The interview subjects and dates interviewed are recorded below:
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Date Person Organisation/ Role IdeasBank involvement interviewed Assembly Member for Vale of Jane Hutt Glamorgan, Welsh Government Advisory Board Chair 18/09/2015 Cllr. Vale of Glamorgan Council. Lis Burnett Chair of Regeneration Advisory Board 23/09/2015 Pamela Cllr. Barry Town Council, Also Drake member of VoG Council Advisory Board 10/09/2015 Fellow of RSA, Executive Kathy Committee Member Wales Seddon Region Advisory Board 09/09/2015 Richard Executive Committee member, Thomas Pride in Barry Advisory Board 10/09/2015
Colin Manager, Barry Communities Davies First Cluster Team Partnership 11/09/2015 Paul Roberts CEO, Newydd Housing Partnership 14/09/2015 Janet Hayward Headteacher, Cadoxton School Partnership 07/09/2015 Club Secretary, Barry Town David Cole United Football Club Partnership 15/09/2015
Adrian Pitman Founder member ‘Barry at War’ Barry IdeasBank user. 07/09/2015 Crystal Founded small business Hinam networking group Barry IdeasBank user. 15/09/2015 Mark Hooper Founder, Indy Cube Barry IdeasBank user 25/09/2015 Lynne Artwork for social media/ Clarke website Resident of Barry 23/09/2015
All interviewees were briefed on the purpose of the interview, signed ethical approval forms and gave consent for their names/ organisations to be un-anonymised, as well as agreed for a voice recorder to be used. The ways individuals/ organisations are involved in the Barry IdeasBank formed the basis for dividing them into three types:
• Advisory Board, • Partnerships • Activist Users
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It was the aim to interview an equal number from each group. In reality given the availability of research participants during the very limited research window this target was not quite reached. The individuals interviewed and their involvement categorisation can be noted in the table above.
In addition to qualitative interview data, statistics from the Barry IdeasBank website and twitter page were analysed in order to explore the engagement of the population of Barry with the project. Interview transcripts have been integrated along with website and twitter statistics to illustrate the key points uncovered by this research.
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IdeasBank guiding principles and adopted social theory
The organisers of the Barry IdeasBank soon realized in delivering Phase 2 that the nature of the challenge facing them went beyond improving the capacity of individuals and groups to be more creative.
They had stumbled upon recognition that what the Ideasbank was fundamentally seeking to do was to build greater Social Capital in its community.
Social Capital is found in all everyday networks, from friendships, work colleagues and interest-based leisure groups, to a political party or pressure group. The social customs and bonds that define these groups form a social fabric which benefits the individuals and communities within it.
According to Andy Green “Once you’ve got Social Capital glasses you see it everywhere”.
Social Capital “is valued for its potential to facilitate individual and community action, especially through the solution of collective action problems” (Halpern 2005: 4) Since it intends to capture the everyday fabric of connection and tacit co-operation in the social structure. It is for these reasons that the concept now features in government policy documents on urban regeneration, health, housing, safety and crime reduction.
For Barry, as with any town, Social Capital can be seen as a vital mechanism and outcome of community development practices. In particular regeneration strategies are increasingly being seen “as working with and building on the stock of social capital in a neighbourhood” (Forrest and Kearns 1999: 9).
A key implication of this is that without sufficient quality and quantity of social capital policies will not take root or be sustainable, since as the World Bank (2011) describes social capital “is the glue that holds [the institutions underpinning society] together”.
Often many problems in a community are not so much issues of money or other resources but are linked to failed or insufficient Social Capital. Therefore in order to improve the chances of the town the Barry IdeasBank acts as a ‘muscle’ to pull together individuals into collaborative action. It does so by facilitating the improvement of the capacity, capability, connectivity and confidence of the people of Barry so that that they become active and enabled participants in the growth and development of their locality.
This primarily involves fostering the movement of ideas from within exclusive groups (‘bonding’ capital) to the platform which is more “outward-looking and encompasses people across different social divides” (Putnam 2000: 22) so that connections can be made that then spark productive collective action.
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The Barry IdeasBank has defined Social Capital simply as ‘How we help each other, to help each other’ . It has created the concept of ‘Social Collaborative Capital - the muscle within a community that enables individuals to come together and be stronger than their parts.
Key elements of Social Collaborative Capital include building the resource among local community activists in:
• Confidence • Capabilities • Connectivity • Capacity
IdeasBank principles The Barry IdeasBank has 7 core principles which guide its purpose and activities. They are:
# 1. Recognise change comes from a minority Only 10-15% of a community will ever be active in implementing positive change. Therefore build upon the capacity of these people with great ideas and latent energy within the community to create a better future for Barry. Help local residents and business people to recognise they can make a difference to transform their area. (The concept of 15% arose from studies by psychologists Daniel Johnson and John Leach on aircraft disasters which revealed only 15% will take action to save their lives, with 15% panicking and 70% choosing to do nothing rather than to act to save their own lives. Incredible, but it is called ‘normalcy bias’ where a majority will rationalize that if they act normal, normalcy will prevail.)
# 2. Build social collaborative capital Since social capital is the links, shared values, and understandings in society that enable individuals and groups to trust each other and so work together, it is valuable in collective community action. Collaboration is the muscle which makes social capital exchanges more possible, and therefore the IdeasBank aims to be this stimulus to generate positive social capital and foster the capacity of the Barry community.
# 3. Be emergent and bottom-up Ensure that all ideas and individuals are viewed as equal regardless of age, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, wealth or status. Provide the means for all members of the Barry community to have their say absent of hierarchical direction from above.
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# 4. Supply offline and online nurturing In place of a community manager figure the IdeasBank has a ‘Tummler’, responsible not for planning and implementing events, interactions and action but encouraging and helping others to do so themselves (Hillman 2014). Address the vision gap by nurturing the jump between fledgling ideas and seeds of transformation. ‘Tummler’ is a Yiddish word meaning someone who gets the party going and keeps it buzzing.
# 5. Be politically independent and yet accountable Be independent from the context of petty rivalries and party politics, both generally and by the Tummler. Be accountable to scrutiny, the project’s principles and funding bodies by having regular advisory board meetings with key local stakeholders.
# 6. Be a pathway to change, not a soapbox An idea without action is an idle thought. Facilitate open dialogues around positive ideas for change. Encourage IdeasBank members to avoid complaints lacking in constructive thoughts to be actioned.
# 7. Act as a 21 st century totem for a vibrant, innovative community Act as a signifier to the world at large that community creativity and social capital is important. Like a totem, the IdeasBank can serve as a repository for inspirational stories about the community in facing adversity, coming together and creating the change it wants.
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Insights from Phase Two
This section reviews and critiques the progress of the Barry IdeasBank in its Phase 2 using the views collected from interviews. The evolving development of idea collection and implementation, tangible products that have come out of this process, involvement of partnerships, and discussion of the way in which the IdeasBank lends itself to co-production of public services are explored.
In addition the value of the Barry IdeasBank is considered in terms of building capacity, connectivity and cohesion of the residents of Barry.
Ideas - submission, discussion, execution As the name suggests, Barry IdeasBank’s goal appears to be the collection of ideas, which it does admirably having been the repository at September 2015 for 142 ideas since September 2012. However the IdeasBank allows for more than that, it opens up these ideas to comments, votes and an audience.
As can be seen from the website statistics represented below, whilst the number of actual ideas being placed on the IdeasBank each year has slowed over time, comments and votes have fared much better, and even more significantly than this the number of idea views has grown. This growth can be attributed to the number of users on the website which has swelled from 97 users in the IdeasBank’s first year to 182 users by the end of August 2015.
IdeasBank website usage 2012-2015 160
140
120 Ideas 100 Comments 80
Number Votes 60
40 Idea views (thousands) 20
0 Sep 12 -Aug 13 Sep 13 - Aug 14 Sep 14 - Aug 15
It is without doubt encouraging to see the success of the Barry IdeasBank portrayed in this way but it cannot be forgotten that not all of these ideas adhere to IdeasBank’s sixth principle of submitting ideas that are constructive and with purpose. Users of the IdeasBank website that were interviewed all suggested a difference between ‘types’ of users putting
14 forward ideas, which from examining the website the researcher has categorised as ‘complainers’, ‘activists’, and ‘dumpers’. Crystal Hinam expressed that she feels that “sometimes people are just moan-y on there rather than trying to put something in place or have something positive”.
‘Activists’, on the other hand, post ideas that they plan to take forward themselves but require guidance, peer approval or sometimes participants to make it happen.
Lastly, ‘dumpers’ leave their ideas on the website in the expectation that somebody else will take up the mantle and make it happen.
Fortunately whilst there are fewer comments on a complaint ‘idea’, the system of discussion available on the website works well the majority of the time since it allows ideas to grow and build up momentum, getting other like-minded users involved. As Ade Pitman quipped, putting up an idea “open[s] up the idea to the skill base”.
Positive use of the IdeasBank is viewed by some as being encouraged by the points system related to activity. Crystal Hinam mentioned that she “like[s] to support other people’s posts. Not just so that they’ll get mine back, but it’s that sort of thing, you think ‘Oh I want people to interact’ and then you’re not” , and that the leader board and points system stimulated her to post since she didn’t want to be seen with no points because otherwise there would be no point to her having a profile.
A number of those interviewed pointed out that where the IdeasBank premise currently falls a little short is the implementation of ideas after being posted and commented upon.
Andy Green in a previous report stated that “ideas without action are dreams” and that something needed to happen to address this shortfall between expectation when posting an idea and reality. Lis Burnett suggested this gap could be attributed to a lack of understanding of what is feasible and what resources are available, as well as the type of ideas being posted.
The shortfall could also be present because the Barry IdeasBank website states that it is ‘liaising with the local authority, Welsh Government, and local groups, such as Pride in Barry, to make ideas available for them to realize if possible’ but in actual fact this mechanism is yet to exist.
The presence, or lack of presence of this link between individuals with ideas and those with the ‘power’ to push them forward is an area which is currently dividing those involved. Lis Burnett was concerned to retain the IdeasBank as being “of the people, rather than of a public sector organisation”, whereas Pamela Drake suggested that a working group could be set up in the Barry Town Council to discuss good ideas and that her role would be to liaise between the two.
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These two ideas of what is the correct way forward in terms of the councils’ involvement needs to be consolidated as some of the users interviewed felt frustrated by the brick wall they were hitting. Crystal Hinam suggested that “Maybe people are on Barry IdeasBank because they’ve tried the usual avenues” and that she hoped relevant people in the Council would keep an eye on ideas being posted but hadn’t seen any evidence of that thus far.
Ade Pitman was even more vocal about this point stating “I don’t see people that should be passionate about the town, you know, councillors, don’t seem to see much involvement from them on it. You feel like you’re shouting into the emptiness”.
As a result of an absence of council involvement with his ideas Ade said he was so disheartened he no longer bothers to put them up, “I tend to go ‘I’ve got an idea but nothing will ever happen with it, never mind’”. It is his belief that it should be “mandatory obligation of the councils, at least to find time to discuss and review [ideas]” and that it should be the “personal responsibility [of councillors] to engage and promote ideas on it”. For Ade this “is actually the only way we’ll get anything happening”.
Partnerships The partnerships detailed below are at the very beginning of their relationship with the IdeasBank and therefore this report is a bit premature in assessing their success or value.
Jane Hutt stated that the partnerships weren’t something Andy or the Advisory Board anticipated happening originally and Lis Burnett said she didn’t know if they fit into the overall IdeasBank model at the moment. However, Jane Hutt suggested that if the partners found the Barry IdeasBank positively impacted upon the way they do things and the way they spend their precious resources “then Barry IdeasBank will have done its job really” , and the role of partnerships in the IdeasBank model is something that really needs to be explored in more depth in Phase 2 of the project.
Advisory Board As can be seen from the table of interviewees (page 8) the Advisory Board is currently made up of Jane Hutt the Assembly Member for the Vale of Glamorgan, Lis Burnett and Pamela Drake councillors of Vale of Glamorgan and Barry Town respectively, Kathy Seddon Fellow of the RSA, and Richard Thomas Secretary of Pride in Barry.
The Board members meet with Andy Green every few months to discuss progress, and Lis Burnett succinctly described that she thinks "the advisory board reflects the IdeasBank itself. It's a bringing together of people from a whole range of different experience and expertise that contribute that in a sort of open and discursive way”.
Whilst this engagement cannot be viewed as partnerships in exactly the same sense as Newydd Housing, Cadoxton School, Barry Town Football and Communities First Barry, Jane
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Hutt pointed out that the Advisory Board’s function surpasses governance and giving credibility to the project, as the meetings provide the means for the IdeasBank to continually re-engage with those that who hold sway over decisions regarding funding and perhaps, eventually inclusion of the model within public service provision.
Cadoxton School Janet Hayward, OBE is the head teacher of Cadoxton Primary School, Barry. The school has 364 pupils, of which 41.2% are entitled to free school meals (Welsh Government 2015).
She explained that the school was partnering with the Barry IdeasBank because “the school is very much part of the community and relies on the community as well, so anything that the community can do to grow and help itself and help us has to be something that we need to be involved with”.
Estyn, the education inspection body for Wales, each year surveys parents to measure their satisfaction with their child’s school. Janet Hayward recognised the need to explore how the school could build upon its already impressive performance in working with local families.
Working with the Forum team a challenge was identified of, ‘How can the school listen better?’ A process of applied creativity sessions with the different groups within the school - parents, children and staff - used a range of questions designed to stretch and engage addressed the challenge.
From this session it was envisaged that a list of listening activities could be identified such as new noticeboards, listening skills classes and improvements to existing activities.
The exercises created a deeper insight that went beyond this: despite the three groups - the parents, children and staff - all working within the same space, they each had distinct worldviews. The lesson revealed here is that before you can truly listen you need empathy to understand the other’s worldview.
Yet, this insight about empathy led to a deeper insight: your own listening is shaped by your personal filters that determine what you think is important or not. That before you can engage and listen to others, you need to listen and understand yourself.
And the key to understanding yourself, what moulds and shapes your listening are your values. Your values are the key to understanding what you do and why you do, what you do.
Using the specialist skills of Forum director, Jackie Le Fevre, a leading expert on how values influence behaviours, the school leadership team had their individual and team values identified and mapped out in relation prevailing Worldviews.
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The WorldViews archetypes consisted of:
Wisdom Changemaker System Protector With a network of global peers The world is a problem which I who are influential visionaries I handle by valuing close have the skills and capacity to relationships and making a living.
positively affect the nature of Success flows from pleasing those civilisation around the world. in authority and doing what is expected of me. Collaborative Changemaker Tribal Protector The world is a project in which I Society can be uncaring and want to participate using my Consensus-seeker unfriendly. My family, friends and unique skills and gifts to increase In a world that can be uncertain I home are my world. Respect for both democracy and human want to find my place and the rule of law and the way things dignity in the world of work . develop my abilities to be of are guides my actions . service to others. I have the skills Inter-dependent to facilitate positive change for Self protector Changemaker others as I am a good clarifier. It is vital to protect myself and In order to transform society I those who are important to me think and act interdependently from harm. Rules are there to be with others, creating mutually obeyed. Direct control over beneficial relationships between resources is the best way to people and organisations. survive.
(NOTE: There is no ranking within these Values)
From this exercise the team values could identify their individual and collective WorldView archetype. Using the insight gained by understanding their WorldView acrhetype they could then understand how this influences and shapes how they listen. They could now also identify different WorldViews within their school community and how they would influence the behaviours of parents.
The resulting activity has created a potentially valuable new set of tools, not just for Cadoxton but across Wales and beyond.
Schools are charged with the task of engaging and involving parents with the school and their children’s education. Yet schools are not provided with adequate tools to enable them to ‘Listen better’.
An outcome from the exercise was to create a set of Values-based tools enabling the school to use different strategies for different types of parents, defined by their own education and their values.
As a result schools leadership teams now potentially have a new set of tools and resources to equip them with the task of ‘How can they listen better?’ as well as developing their capability in leadership, teamwork, creativity, and communications.
The Forum is now exploring how to make these tools universally available.
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With these foundations in place Janet Hayward foresees the school next getting involved with Barry IdeasBank in a way that “it is the community asking the questions and not looking to us so much to provide the solutions but to find the solutions within the community itself as well”.
Currently the school is working on developing a community café, renovating and extending a small outbuilding to be a suitable space for parent learning. The school, as an exemplar of building Social Collaborative Capital, has encouraged those parents involved to be the driving force behind grant applications and Janet believes this empowered parent body is extremely valuable to the school, “it's rather than what can the school do for the parents, it's what can we do together… it's help move that agenda on really”.
And in time she seems the IdeasBank being a vehicle to further help these parents and the local community build their capacity to play an even greater role in improvements.
Newydd Housing Paul Roberts, CEO of Newydd, a charitable housing association that offers around 3,000 affordable homes for rent and sale to people in Mid and South Wales (Newydd 2015)
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Therefore since they are always happy to try an alternative approach “the opportunity to get involved with something that wants to make a difference and is seen to be taking off seemed like a good one to get involved with really” (Paul Roberts). As Paul believes Newydd’s reputation “has been built on its willingness to consult and to involve people”, getting involved with the Barry IdeasBank was an obvious choice to for the organisation to make both for consultation purposes and their image in the area.
In Barry, Newydd’s primary concern has been the ‘Thompson Street estate’ which is still overshadowed by its notorious status, “…Prostitution, you name it, it had it” (Pamela Drake).
Although such notoriety is in the past, Newydd have had problems around antisocial behaviour from a minority of its residents which Paul states has just emphasised its poor reputation. However the Housing Association has plans to transform the estate; “we recognised that part of that was about a physical transformation because it's not the prettiest place, you know it's quite poorly designed, it's got a poor layout; but it was also its reputation, wasn't just about physical appearance” (Paul Roberts).
The Flexible Thinking Forum team delivered an applied creativity session with Newydd staff to work out what the problem with Thompson Street really was and from that they produced a “huge, huge shopping list” of things they could do. This is the stage at which Newydd has reached in its partnership with the Barry IdeasBank, with the next stage almost certainly being to “use the Barry IdeasBank to try and get the wider community to pitch in with ideas” (Paul Roberts).
This consultation via the IdeasBank will be structured as a set of framed but fairly loose proposals, one around the physical improvement of the estate, another on tackling particular community issues and then a question around more general suggestions. This structured approach is necessary because “just saying 'what do you want us to do with Thompson Street?' is just begging the answer 'knock it down and start again' which we just can't do” (Paul Roberts).
The key draw for Newydd using the Barry IdeasBank as a consultation method is the possibility of engaging beyond a core group that is involved regularly, to capturing views more widely both within the estate and outside.
Furthermore Newydd find engagement they do receive is often negative, since “people engage better when they are being critical” (Paul Roberts), but in using the IdeasBank these critiques can be turned more productively into ideas for improvement as opposed to complaints.
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The crucial outcome for Newydd from working with the Forum is the success in breaking the previous patterns of thinking on addressing the area known as the ‘Thompson Street Estate’. It has succeeded in creating a new narrative, a new story of how the estate can enjoy a better future.
The Forum’s work redefined the task away from ‘What are we [Newydd} going to do about Thompson Street?’ to ‘How can we work together with the 90% of local residents who are satisfied, along with other local partners, to enable them to make their lives better? Rather than just being semantics the new question provides a new way of looking at and addressing the challenge, as well as creating new energy for change.
It is however, yet to be seen if the IdeasBank produces long-standing desired results. Paul Roberts voiced his concern over the lack of response to many of the ideas on the IdeasBank website; “we need it to be a very lively space where people are exchanging ideas […] so whether we'll run up against the same problem I don't know”. Therefore supplementing the IdeasBank approach with other consultation methods looks likely both to get the number of responses required and “because we can't assume that everyone on the estate is aware of the IdeasBank” (Paul Roberts).
The Forum attended Community Housing Cymru Group’s UnConference event in Merphyr Tydfil in June 2015 to share learning from the Thompson Street project. 21
The Forum is planning to work with major bodies in the Housing Sector to share the tools and learning from the Barry IdeasBank project across Wales and the UK.
Communities First Communities First Barry is a Vale of Glamorgan led. Welsh Government funded anti-poverty programme. Working in partnership with other local services, it works to improve the health, learning and prosperity of residents across the Buttrills, Cadoc, Castleland, Court and Gibbonsdown Wards in Barry.
The partnership between Barry IdeasBank and Communities First Barry arose through a chance encounter at Cadoxton School between the Forum’s Andy Green and Colin Davies of Communities First.
Growing out of several coffee meets between Andy and Colin, the opportunity emerged of Communities First becoming a replacement community project partner to cover the lack of activity with some of the original partners.
A challenge was identified of enabling Communities First to tackle a frustrating problem of outages with its IT system (which have since been largely resolved.)
The project created a valuable game plan for Communities First Barry - and indeed for any organization facing a problem or crisis situation. The session also produced an idea which according to Andy Green, he “wouldn’t have thought of in a 100 years, but is the best thing you can do in a crisis. I have lectured around the world in my role as a public relations expert. I know and have read all the leading texts on ‘crisis communications’ and have not seen this idea anywhere.”
The idea, like all great ideas, is a simple one: after you have done all the urgent things - triggered alarms, made emergency calls, and attended to the critical tasks, the second thing you need to do is… make a cup of tea.
This may sound a rather idiosyncratic British, phlegmatic response to a crisis, but there’s some serious psychology behind it: in a crisis your attitude state is likely to be on high alert, even panic. Certainly, likely to be negative in response to an unexpected incident or event.
To think clearly, you need to break the pattern of thinking. Change your physiological state. Buy yourself time. Making a cup of tea achieves all these benefits. As a result you can go forward calmer, more dispassionate and more receptive to turning the negatives into potential positives, and more capable for dealing with any further negative setbacks
Key outcomes from the ideas generated by the Communities First team in conjunction with the Forum were to identify 4 key stages:
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1. To address the urgent - who needs to know 2. Make a cup of tea - to create a new attitude state 3. Implement and follow through on your established Contingency Plan 4. Reflect how you can turn a negative situation into a positive one.
The insight and learning is now being planned to share as an Infographic, and the Forum is exploring different ways to extend and communicate the valuable lessons
Colin Davies plans to use IdeasBank to reach people to tell them of Communities First opportunities, “we’re still kicking around that at the moment”, but there is potential for the two groups to make greater inroads into the regeneration of Barry via communication of co- production of public services.
According to Colin, Communities First Barry is “quite flexible and very adaptable team and we’re not constrained by too much regulation”, and this lends itself to being successful in co- production. Communities First and Barry IdeasBank have a number of shared principles so it will be interesting to see how this partnership progresses.
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Barry Town United Football Club
David Cole, Secretary of Barry Town United Football Club, has a clear vision of how Andy Green and the Barry IdeasBank can help the football club back on their feet after the virtual bankruptcy of the Club just a few years ago.
David is looking at the IdeasBank as the means to pull together ideas from the club’s supporters and members, in order that they can come up with a strategy of which the main objectives are increasing attendance and therefore increasing income to the club “to make it bigger, to take it further” (David Cole). These ideas collected via a survey or on the website will harness expertise giving the committee, that David describes as “fairly amateur in this”, a better indication of what needs to aim for and how it should be done.
He was quick to point out that whilst anybody can come up with lots and lots of ideas, doing it in this manner would harness the best ideas so limited time and money resources are not wasted chasing something unachievable. Furthermore David explained that since the club’s rebirth it is now a community football club in which supporters are members, and this speaks to the IdeasBank’s principle of change being emergent and bottom up.
One additional element that David would like to see from the IdeasBank is a process for gauging when to implement ideas, a method of prioritisation and an integrated way to evaluate their success. Aside from using the IdeasBank to collect ideas and advertise the club, Barry Town United will also be able to tap into both Andy’s contacts and the users of the IdeasBank website for guidance and specific knowledge, for example from a publican or bartender with knowledge of how to set up a bar.
David Cole acknowledged that the IdeasBank could become an integrated part of the club’s strategy, “Maybe not every week but certainly every season you are going to be thinking 'where are we going to go to obtain the objectives that we want' and how can the IdeasBank help us do that”. Before this can happen, however, David needs to persuade the other members of the committee of the value of getting involved with the IdeasBank, which he plans to do in the coming months.
Although the Forum enjoyed a good personal relationship with the Club (indeed becoming avid supporters) the project faced the dichotomy of trying to pin down overworked volunteers to address a longer-term, non-immediate urgent task but would help them in the longer-term.
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The Forum produced a creative idea generating tool of identifying different categories of potential supporter was devised for the Club. This was never used.
To promote the Ideasbank around Barry, an innovatory co-creation/collaboration approach was used.
Rather than just promote the IdeasBank its poster also promoting Barry Town United’s fixtures (which it didn’t have a fixture poster so provided a valuable asset for the Club.)
A local graphic designer, met via a ‘Coffee meet’ produced the design and artwork.
The design was recognised when it was shortlisted in the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Cymru Group PRide awards where it was shortlisted in the Best Publication category.
Club supporters also helped to distribute posters around the Town.
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Bro Radio
Bro Radio is a local community radio station in the Vale of Glamorgan, broadcasting live from its studios at the YMCA centre in Barry. It broadcasts local news, weather, events, travel and a range of music. It is a social enterprise run by over 40 volunteers.
The Forum sought to work with the station to create ideas to help it increase listenership, advertising revenues and improve its marketing. An idea generating sheet for a station open evening as well holding an informal idea generating session were delivered by the Forum.
Ideas generated included the observation that the station’s Facebook page probably had more ‘Likes’ than any other organisation in Barry, so it could claim to be Barry’s most liked brand, with the potential to market itself as a multi-media platform brand rather than just a radio station.
Again, similar to the experience with Barry Town United FC, the challenge of pinning down busy volunteers to address longer-term issues rather than urgent immediate tasks came to the fore. There is a challenge of an unconnected external resource being able to gain traction to work off the community group’s own resource.
Memo Arts Centre
The Memo Arts centre is a multi-function arts centre based within the town’s Memorial Hall, built after World War 1. The IdeasBank was unsuccessful in creating a project for the Memo Arts Centre.
Challenges for securing active participation with the IdeasBank included the Centre’s management team being overwhelmed with workloads to submit grant applications for (a successful) Lottery programme bid and therefore unable to respond to the opportunity of working with the Forum.
Lessons from the project’s non-developed partnerships
The IdeasBank was successful in situations where the partner organization had:
• A well-defined and resourced management structure where there was capacity to address longer-term or more strategic issues • A culture characterized by values that were change-orientated, whether through collaborative partnerships, self-growth and development, or a commitment to sharing learning.
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• A commitment to organizational growth and learning. • A track record of partnership working with experience of working with outside consultants or partner agencies to enable the outside body to gain traction from the host organization and be able to deliver its work. • An open, non-command control culture, that was willing to relinquish what it perceived as power, be innovative by trying new or unusual experiences. • A non ‘seige mentality’ of being dominated by a fear of being overwhelmed or not having sufficient time
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Successful ideas, tangible products
In addition to the outcomes from the Cadoxton School, Communities First Barry and Newydd Housing projects, additional outcomes included the following:
Un-networking group Crystal Hinam, a Barry resident and businesswoman, used the Barry IdeasBank as a key tool in setting up her monthly networking group known affectionately as ‘Un-networking’. After scoping out her idea with friends and colleagues she took the plunge and posted her idea on the website, finding the progress both easy and rewarding.
Crystal found that posting her idea up “definitely worked” and led to her meeting a lot of new people which have grown into friendships as well as business connections. Whilst she admitted that “the backbone is to gain work for people and we’ve all shared referrals and got work from it [...] overall it feels like a little community group, rather than one of those rigid networking groups – it’s more like money is secondary” (Crystal Hinam).
The development of the networking group has positively reached a point where it is self- sustaining without the need for constant reinforcement. Crystal recounted how she couldn’t attend one of the meets early on and that despite her encouragement the meet didn’t take place without her. A number of months later however, the same happened again where Crystal wasn’t available, but this time they carried on without her. Furthermore she was pleased to report that those attending were now starting to invite people from their circles along, “I didn’t want it to be my group anyway, like the IdeasBank I wanted it to be everyone’s”.
Barry Vision
Imagine being able to see what’s going on Barry Island form anywhere in the world? That’s the promise from an exciting product created from the Barry IdeasBank - BarryVision - created from local people working and no use of public funds.
The idea of a free television service, with no use of public funds, where 24 7 you can see what’s happening on Barry Island was developed on the Ideasbank. The facility consists of using the existing web cam at the Coastwatch Centre, Nells Point, Barry Island and installing a new web cam installation at O’Shea’s Fish & Chips, on the promenade Barry Island (who are willing to pay for new equipment), and partnership with local community groups
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Barrybados and Bro radio to use their web sites to host the images, and local graphic designer Little Bird Studios, producing a logo free of charge
This was an idea posted in the early days of the IdeasBank but faced delays on numerous fronts from a number of unfulfilled promises of help or finding specific resource to install the web cam for free. Realizing the BarryVision idea highlights the extended time effort required to generate free help and support.
Nonetheless, it is planned to launch the project for the 2016 season.
Barry Kucha - Inspiring Barry people events
The Barry Kucha event idea was repeated at the beginning of the Project with speakers including a speaker who mounted a one person campaign to save their local bus service, a Barry fund-raiser for an orphanage in Kenya, members of local conservation group ‘Friends of Barry’s beaches’, the manager of the Memo Arts centre, a DJ on Bro Radio, a representative from Barry Town Football Club and a performer who teaches Welsh through nursery rhymes.
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A modest-sized audience enjoyed an inspiring evening. What was also evident was a failure to generate significant bigger audiences. Research with other similar, yet more successful events such as the Cardiff-based ‘Ignite’ revealed how their event had grown out of two established network groups, so that it capitalised on ‘emergence’, being bottom-up led rather than imposed on a community. Also, their audience was a clearly defined niche of what can be labelled ‘Urban Cosmopolitans’ rather than Barry Kucha’s mission to appeal to the widest cross section of the community.
This signalled the need to explore different event formats (see Pop-Up University event below).
A recent development however, from a new partnership between a speaker at the first Barry Kucha and a new coffee shop/bar venue could see the idea being given a new lease of life. This is evidence of the serendipitous nature of innovation - where by creating new dynamics and chance encounters, unexpected developments aris
Pop Up University
The newly-opened Ampitheatre on Barry Island was identified as an interesting location for a ‘Pop Up University’ event to explore a different alternative to the Barry Kucha events. The ‘Pop Up UniversityIncluding an ‘Inspiring Barry People’ programme of local speakers, as well as a partnership with speakers from the Public Speakers Association of Wales.
There is an opportunity to make this an annual event with potential to engage local Higher Education colleges to use it as part of their outreach activities.
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Barry Arts Trails
From an idea by local artist Glyn Pooley for an arts trail idea evolved of a series of Apps. A potential partnership was identified between local experts and Trzhr, a new online product which aims to provide a free downloadable App service to create Treasure Hunts and trails.
The opportunity to use local experts to develop the concept from Arts to History and even Ghost Walks. The realization of the idea has been delayed, due to technical delays, but it is expected to be ready by summer 2016.
Other ideas
A selection of other ideas submitted to the Ideasbank site included:
• School Summer Fair Week • Big Lunch appeal • Naming the Link Road • Ideas for the Barry Jazz Festival • Barry Athletic Community Hub • Kite Festival • Alternative development ideas for Fairground site • Welsh National Sandcastle competition • Barry Booster Social networks • Indoor Car Boot Sale • Disabled access at Barry train stations • Celebrating ordinary people’s stories • Using the beach Huts at Barry Island to chronicle personal timelines - such as pregnancy and birthdays
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The need for Co-production
“I think if you are going to develop services that are appropriate to people's lives, develop towns and communities, you have to engage with people, you have to find out what people need and want and you have to also grasp their ideas and their vision and not have top down solutions” (Jane Hutt).
Putnam (2000) concluded in his seminal book ‘Bowling Alone’ that the critical factor in the effectiveness of regional government was the vibrancy of the associational life and level of trust between strangers in that region, essentially improved social capital led to better governance.
Similarly the World Bank (2011) in their description of social capital point out that “economic and social development thrives when representatives of the state, the corporate sector, and civil society create forums in and through which they can identify and pursue common goals” . The concept of ‘co-production’ that has come about in the face of austerity shares this vision for the ideal way in which public service provision can be managed.
Prime Minister David Cameron in a speech in 2007 affirmed to co-production models saying “The public become, not the passive recipients of state services, but the active agents of their own life. […] They become does, not the done-for”. At its core co-production “shifts the balance of power, responsibility and resources from professional more to individuals” (Boyle & Harries 2009: 11-12) and in doing so makes more effective, efficient and sustainable services.
The Barry IdeasBank spans the notions of social capital and co-production at a crucial time in the emerging vital and innovative co-production sector, and a few of those interviewed for this report recognised its value in this capacity.
Colin Davies, Manager of Communities First’s Barry cluster, described the statutory sector as sometimes being “a kind of blob, if you like, that imposes itself on people” whereas his team “are looking for people to actually help us define, design and deliver [services]”.
He went on to say that “for too long this kind of top-down, 'this is what we do and there is no deviation from that', the co-production idea is that you meet people and you say 'what are your issues? How can we help you define the problem? How can we help you then devise a strategy to solve that particular problem? 'How can we help you develop the idea?' and if needs be if we can't deliver a solution 'How can we help you find a solution to that problem?'” (Colin Davies).
With the Barry IdeasBank there is a mechanism for these ideas to be acknowledged, connections made and suggestions passed on for sources of funding or other resources. Colin Davies sees the value of co-production in its sustainable long-term approach 32 introducing change from the bottom up, and “This is the ideal lots of governments want but are not managing to get to”.
Sustainability is something Barry IdeasBank could certainly provide in co-production of services, since as Jane Hutt explains “one of things about Barry IdeasBank is that it's not about calling for money and how we spend money, it's actually about how we spend the money we've got most effectively and appropriately”.
Cllr. Lis Burnett described public service provision as approaching a foggy field , “We know what's on the far side, we know […] we want to achieve greater degrees of innovation, we want more affective public services, we want people to be more engaged in their community… how we are going to get there is a bit filled up with mist at the moment and that's where by bringing people together you actually get a sparking of ideas and things you can potentially try out”.
The Barry IdeasBank could provide an innovative and low-cost way for residents to be contacted and contact councils in order to have an active part in the nature of their regional services.
Although this use is yet to be realised, Lis Burnett suggested she had already seen a hint of the system working when Barry residents started the campaign to ‘Rebuild the Knap Lido’ (see Facebook page 2015). She believes that social media pages set up to rally supporters were “a bit skewed and a bit shout-y” whilst in comparison the conversation on the Barry IdeasBank website “ was more about 'well is there a valid business case?', 'will people actually use it?', 'what are the ideas?' […] a much more productive example of discussion” (Lis Burnett).
Lis Burnett further stated that out of the whole range of things the Vale of Glamorgan Council had been doing to increase fruitful involvement of residents in service provision the Barry IdeasBank had been the most productive because “it changes the conversation that the local authority can have with the people”.
Kathy Seddon also recognised this value asserting that the IdeasBank was a superb model of “How to engage various public bodies in community development with the community, not to the community” (Kathy Seddon). By enabling this method of engagement between bodies such as Welsh Assembly Government, Barry Town Council and the Vale of Glamorgan Council, the community itself, and community groups - Barry IdeasBank has great potential.
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Benefits The value which the Barry IdeasBank has brought to the people of Barry goes beyond being a repository for ideas, partnerships with key organisations, forming tangible ‘products’ and imagining and testing a new way of including residents in the production of public services. It must also be recognised that the Barry IdeasBank has improved the capacity of individuals, created a new network of connections and reinvigorated community spirit through a cohesive mechanism.
Capacity Janet Hayward described Barry as a Town with so much potential within the place and the people but stated that it hasn’t been shared or celebrated. She explained “There is a little bit of a mind-set in Barry, that you know, we're not the best and yet I believe it is all in here and the capacity of the place is incredible, and [the Barry IdeasBank] is a vehicle to make that shine really and to grow that capacity” (Janet Hayward).
Building capacity is undoubtedly the IdeasBank’s unique selling point as a method of community engagement and is also its greatest value to the town’s residents and business people. Lis Burnett explained how the IdeasBank does so by creating “the step to feeling that it's okay to say what you think, it's okay to participate” which has tremendous significance in aiding the town to move forward.
The process of putting an idea to the community via the website provides the opportunity for the people of Barry “who have a great deal of skill and enthusiasm and want to get involved in improving Barry […] to have a voice and have an influence” (Jane Hutt). By the giving ideas a kind of recognition and putting them into action Colin believes that the IdeasBank helps “people realise not just potential in the ideas they have but almost their potential”. The idea of capacity building can be further discussed referring to the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital in relation to the more disadvantaged areas of Barry. Lis Burnett has identified that Barry has plenty of ‘bonding’ social capital whereby people stick together within their ‘group’ for safety and support, but ‘bridging’ capital in which connections between groups are made is lacking because “it takes an awful lot of courage to take on the views of people outside that might be critical of you”. However that is where the IdeasBank provides an accessible means in crossing these divides providing a “sort of critical friend experience” in which individuals are able to put an idea up
34 and have it criticised “but actually not feel they are not a worse person as a result” (Lis Burnett). Bridging social capital helps a community to develop and grow, and whilst it is a big step to be brave enough to engage outside the parameters of a group “once you start to be more open to other people's views and testing things out and piloting stuff and not being afraid to be wrong, the community takes two steps forward” (Lis Burnett).
Connectivity In Phase 2 the Barry IdeasBank has a social media presence on Twitter with over 2,200 followers in order to:
• Identify potential activists and community groups • Identify activists with a higher degree of community engagement, illustrated by their creation of original content or sharing of content of communal interest • Build relationships and goodwill between the IdeasBank and activists by following, favouriting or sharing Tweets • Identify trending topics of local interest • Create opportunities for the IdeasBank to be front-of-mind among local activists • Contribute to the building of Social Capital in the Barry community • Network with other individuals and groups outside of Barry who share similar goals and values in promoting crowdsourcing, opensource innovation and social capital.
Following Smith et al.’s (2014) six categorisations of Twitter network structures the community surrounding Barry IdeasBank’s twitter profile can be categorised as a ‘tight crowd’. (See image next page). This type of online network is characterised by highly interconnected people and few isolated participants, and forms a network of mutual support and sharing. It is beneficial to have a strong online network because it is a support to offline community, and connectivity is one of the key things the Barry IdeasBank is striving for. Care must be taken not to equate online interactions to offline participation since ‘clicktivism’ is that much easier to do. However in the case of the Barry Ideas Bank offline, in person, the connectivity found online is similarly evident, with the majority of users interviewed mentioning new contacts they had made whether that be as friends, business connections or with fellow passionate Barry activists.
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Barry IdeasBank’s twitter network map
Crystal’s circle of contacts, in particular, had grown from being involved in the Barry IdeasBank by using it to sound out and then promote her networking group. The blended model of interaction including face-to-face events, online events and fairly formal interactions with various government groups cements this network of connectivity across a number of different platforms.
Unfortunately whilst the connectivity of those actively involved in the Barry IdeasBank is strong, there remains a large proportion of those signed up to use the website and the certainly the wider population of Barry which are yet to be actively incorporated into the IdeasBank community. This mirrors the 1:9:90 model of on-line forums.
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Cohesion and community spirit Through building the capacity of individuals and groups, and forming better connected networks, the cohesion and community spirit of Barry looks to also improve. Kathy Seddon quipped that the individuals and partners involved thus far “are very disparate groups, they have very different ideas, different requirements, but that is a community isn't it”.
Paul Roberts pointed about that in Newydd’s consultation they have noticed that there are people who are geographically separate but share quite similar ideas and motivations, and that bringing these people together can spark something to happen, “People are on individual islands if you like, not aware that the island next door wants to achieve the same as them and working together might work” (Paul Roberts).
Accordingly, as David Cole succinctly put it, the Barry IdeasBank provides a place to “Pool ideas so that hopefully we all pull in the same direction”. As a result of “regeneration in the physical landscape and also in terms of community and bringing individuals together […] it makes for a better place to live” (Colin Davies).
The value of facilitating community action towards a shared goal therefore cannot be undervalued since it improves cohesion, ‘bridging’ social capital, which is so beneficial to the growth and development of an area Colin Davies states “It's hard to put a price on it, isn't it” . So it is encouraging that a number of those interviewed believe the Barry IdeasBank has begun to boost the town’s community spirit and has the means to do so even more.
A culture for collaboration - insight from using the WorldView Values tool There are valuable insights to be gained on the wider issue of why does collaboration work in some instances and not in others by using the WorldView values tools created through in the Cadoxton School project.
The tool established seven WorldViews. Three of the WorldViews - the Wisdom, Collaborative and Inter-dependent - are more conducive to a willingness to change, try and explore new ways of doing and engage in co-operation, co-creation and collaboration.
In contrast three of the WorldViews - Systems, Tribe and Self - are more inclined to distrust change, be wary of disruption, doing things different or engaging with others in an unplanned, unknown or unsystemic way.
The challenge large organisations face are that they tend to be dominated by a ‘Systems Protector’ values, where the focus is on ensuring the machinery of operation is kept going.
This works against engaging with unknown, untested, and untried entities like the IdeasBank.
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Challenges to overcome to make the IdeasBanks realize its potential Whilst trying to avoid making prescriptive plans for future improvements to the Barry IdeasBank the researcher came across a few areas, bought up in most interviews, which appear to require particular attention moving forward to Phase 3.
Firstly it was noted that the Barry IdeasBank is currently running well below its capability due to limited resources. The most limiting of these is manpower, as the project is currently “very Andy Green dependent” (Jane Hutt), “Andy does it on a shoe-string when he gets a spare 5 minutes!” (Colin Davies).
Colin Davies believes that the IdeasBank will “die unless it gets that nurturing” and certainly it may fizzle and fade from view unless something happens soon because Andy is too limited by his own career to put the amount of work it that is required to be sustainable.
Another resource issue is the funds to “provide the hook, to get more people interested initially” (Colin Davies), since as Ade Pitman pointed out , “unless you know it’s there you don’t see it much”.
Almost all those interviewed expressed their concern for the IdeasBank’s current reach within the community because without further advertisement and active encouragement for individuals to get involved “there is a danger that it can be on its own island” (Paul Roberts).
However Pamela Drake was optimistic, stating that she believes the Barry IdeasBank will “go on leaps and bounds. Gotta get the name out there, gotta get people engaged. And then there will be a knock on affect, so if other people see 'oh their working well […] it's like domino effect isn't it”.
A second area for the IdeasBank to work on in the future is making the mechanism routine and the obvious first port of call when an idea comes to mind and for discussion of local issues.
Part of this involves overcoming nervousness by encouraging individuals to be brave enough to post ideas up and maintaining the safe and constructive conversational environment on the website. Crystal Hinam explained that she was little bit nervous putting her networking idea up on the website because she hadn’t met the other individuals on the website at the time and thought it would be quite disheartening if nobody commented or liked her idea.
This trepidation led Crystal sounding out her idea with friends and colleagues, and then when she had gauged that there would be enough interest she put it up on the website; “as soon as I thought ‘Yeh I’ll do this’ I put it up on Barry IdeasBank” . Now Crystal enjoys using the website but admitted she is not in the routine of doing so yet. Crystal and her networking idea are a success story for the IdeasBank but from looking at the website not all ideas have received the same level of engagement.
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Lis Burnett suggests that to address this shortcoming the IdeasBank “needs to be more proactive in reflecting people's ideas back out into the community to try and get them to gain momentum [...] So that it spreads it out but it reflects it back to the original person to help them refine their idea moving forward”, but understood that at the moment that was a solution that couldn’t be catered for with the resources available. However in time getting ideas out into the wider public and generating a wider mass of discussion around ideas could improve activity and engagement enormously.
In addition to recruiting more users to the website and encouraging them to post ideas and comments, the implementation of ideas received a lot of scrutiny from those interviewed. Kathy Seddon stated that “making good on the requests in the area that have gone to the website and said 'this is what we need'” is the biggest hurdle she see for the IdeasBank.
Colin Davies proposed that Andy Green “just more power to his elbow really” and Crystal Hinam suggested that the “IdeasBank could be a lot more successful than it is already [but] people need to help it out”. As mentioned earlier on there is some feeling that the implementation of ideas should be championed by the council, but there is some issue there to whether it detracts from the mechanism being ‘by the people, for the people’.
Therefore there is a need to decide on how the council and IdeasBank are to interact as soon as possible, but as Pamela Drake said that is a case of going through the right procedures and therefore may take some time to reach an agreement on.
Lis Burnett was a little more cautious about proposing ways the Councils could participate in getting ideas off the ground, suggesting instead that there needed to be a shift in the substance of ideas put up. She highlighted that fact that at the moment the IdeasBank deals with issues that are thought up and posted by people themselves but there is no understanding of the council’s budgetary and statutory constraints. However “get[ting] people to think creatively without completely putting a dampener on it by saying 'oh well we haven't got money' or 'so-and-so won't let us do that' or 'there are other constraints that we face' (Lis Burnett). The challenge, in Lis’ eyes, lies with how you something very creative into a driver of innovation mindful of the constraints and how to work around them.
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A potential sustainable and scalable model - a 21 Point Plan
The Flexible Thinking Forum believe the IdeasBank has a future, where it can create a successful model to realize a vision of an ideas bank for every town or city in the UK - and beyond through learning the lessons from Phase 1 and 2 of the Project. By adopting the following 21 lessons it can build on the learning and address identified shortcomings.
1. Establishing the concept of ‘Social Collaborative Capital’ There is a need to expand the lexicon of Social Capital to provide more precise meaning to specific functions.
The experiences of the Barry IdeasBank project led to the need to create the concept of ‘Social Collaborative Capital’ defining the muscle within community activists to build Social Capital. By creating this term it enables us to focus on the specific task and dynamic of the very process used by individuals to build Social Capital, as well as providing a specific focal point to evaluate Social Capital in action.
The Forum will create an evaluation dashboard to measure Social Collaborative Capital using parameters of level of participation, values, collaborative attitudes and use of social media.
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The Social Collaborative Capital concept provides a more defined platform for exploring new thinking around, and scoping the processes of building the capacity for Social Capital in individuals, teams and communities.
2. 7 Quality coffees and 70 nudges - the ‘Pertinacity Factor’ An assumption made in planning the Phase 2 programme was that after a coffee with a potential activist this would in a majority of cases spark some form of subsequent engagement and activity. In sales and marketing there is a heuristic that you need 7 quality meets with a prospect before you land a sale. Our experience suggests it is the same with potential community activists, with a further need, without exaggeration, of 70 nudges to secure the initial action you desire.
Getting people to take action is a strenuous task requiring great patience, tenacity, perseverance, or what Andy Green calls ‘pertinacity’.
The labour resource to realize the aspirations in Phase 2 were inadequate. This is not to say the task is impossible but requires a more dedicated resource
3. A Tummler strategy
A ‘Tummler’ is a term derived from the Yiddish, meaning someone who gets a party going. It is a term used in online community development. The ‘Tummler’ is a crucial role for building community Social Capital - the equivalent of getting the Social Capital party going in a community.
The lesson from the Barry IdeasBank is that every community needs a Tummler, or network of Tummlers, to create the necessary inspiration, connectivity and vibrancy to build Social Collaborative Capital.
The resources available for running the project, essentially at best ½ to 1 day a week from Andy Green, with additional help from fellow directors of the Forum, were overwhelmed by the ‘pertincacity’ factor.
The equivalent of at least a full-time person needs to be in place for an IdeasBank the size of Barry.
4. The IdeasBank needs to be independent with minimal infrastructure or overhead The Tummler needs to be, where possible, independent of party politics, and independent of the local public service providers with whom they need to work with, but not for.
The Tummler(s) need to be based in co-working facilities, to minimise overhead costs and live, breathe and demonstrate collaborative working. By keeping its infrastructure to a
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minimum will minimise the risk of developing a self-serving bureaucratic impulse, where it puts its own interests ahead of its consumers and community.
5. There’s a minority of the community who are activists - and what’s worse, they’re riven by feuds, divisions and politics A repeated experience from Phase 1 and 2 of the Barry Ideasbank project was witnessing what was labelled as a ‘Barry Feud’, where one person or group refused to have anything to do with another person or group.
It is recommended that if it was possible to resource a Tummler role, this should actually be 2 part-time positions rather than 1 full-time. This would spread the risk of Tummlers being the victims of a local feud while also reducing the risk of the Tummler being driven to preserve their own interests above their community interests.
6. 12 ‘Power Users’ Despite the scale of the task requiring 7 quality contacts and 70 nudges to generate real world activity from people, the good news from the experience of the Barry IdeasBank - and other online community forums - is that you only need 12, what are called ‘Power Users’, regular contributors who can ensure a vibrant and healthy on-line community.
At its peak of activity the IdeasBank secured just four to five ‘Power Users’. With additional Tummler resource the considered view is that it is possible to nurture a target of 12 Power users through a process of constant encouragement, cajoling, and engagement.
7. On-line tools are critical but beware of ‘Clicktivism’ Unexpected learning from Phase 1 was how Twitter could be used to identify potential activists; if they Tweeted it showed they were to a degree social media savvy. If they retweeted however, it would suggest a willingness to seek wider engagement along with an inclination to get involved, stretch themselves, and put themselves, and seemingly what they stood for, out there in the wider community.
‘Clicktivism’ refers to the use of social media and the Internet to advance social causes such as, emails, Twitter, Facebook groups and online petitions.
Clicktivism provides an easy and convenient way to engage, show you care and demonstrate some form of commitment. That is also its weakness, where it can be too easy just to click and then move on to something else, having created a feeling that somehow you have ‘done your thing’.
As a result, ‘Clicktivism’ can be a valuable tool, but also an unhelpful barrier, enabling people to excuse themselves from further commitment or action. The project witnessed a
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number of instances where there was a clear reluctance to step out of cyberspace into real world engagement and doing.
On-line tools are fundamental to building and maintaining social networks. Yet, as recognised, have their limitations. This is why the blended strategy using primarily offline, but supported by online Social Collaborative Capital capacity building, is crucial.
8. Content Plan To create a continued sense of interest and engagement a Content Plan needs to be established with a pro-active programme of new content that creates new talking points and conversations, providing fresh stimuli for the community to engage with the IdeasBank.
This will provide extra vibrancy and new reasons for the local community to visit the IdeasBank.
9. A Forum for celebrating ‘ordinary people’ The IdeasBank originally created a sub-section on its site celebrating ‘famous Barry people’. With the sad death of one of the BarryKucha speakers - John Asprou, a hairdresser who set up hairdressing business 50 years earlier in Barry -it was felt that fame should not be the only criteria for celebrating people’s stories.
There is an opportunity to develop the ‘celebrating Barry people’ platform within the IdeaBank to create a place where local people can share their eulogies to loved ones. This would enhance the role of the site, rather like a totem pole, to capture the stories and heart of local people, as well as their ideas.
10. It needs to be bottom-up driven wherever possible The Ideasbank operated to a principle of supporting emergent and bottom-up activity. This also applies to its own activities. The Barry Kucha events were an example of a top-down solution, where the IdeasBank imposed the activity on the community rather than work with local networks and groups to foster a bottom-up led activity.
The lesson is that it is better to build and grow activity from below. And you need a facility, such as Tummlers, to build bottom-up activities.
11. Working to identify ‘emergent heroes’ and build their capacity A key strategy going forward for Newydd Housing in its work in revitalising the Thompson Street Estate is to identify what the Forum defines as ‘emergent heroes’, or less politely the ‘Ugly Ducklings’ - people with the capacity to grow and develop, through triggering untapped talent, potential and energy.
The problem is that these people are under the radar, yet to be recognised.
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The Forum used a number of unusual techniques such as using Twitter to identify potential activists by their social media engagement. Also, every contact was asked ‘Who do you know we should contact?’
The Forum devised a tool with local Barry artist Glyn Pooley of ‘Steganographic mapping’. This was based on Glyn’s ‘Between the Lines’ art exhibition where he created a network of subjects (including Jane Hutt AM) by asking them ‘who inspired them’ and produced a portrait from the resulting contact. The portraits feature a hidden message encrypted in their face. This tool, using peer contacts, could identify potential activists who may otherwise go undetected.
A crucial challenge in building Social Collaborative Capital is to go beyond the ‘usual suspects’, and nurture new talent. This is a task requiring best addressed by a Tummler, working at grass roots and creating peer-to-peer relationships.
12. Engagement of a wider network of community partners Among local public service providers the Barry IdeasBank worked with just the local authority (Vale of Glamorgan Council) and the Town Council (Barry Council). To be more effective it needs to build relationships and work in partnership with the full spectrum of local public service providers including health and the emergency services, along with other key players in the local public infrastructure covering transport, housing and leisure.
13. Real dialogue and engagement with local public services The IdeasBank project has been very appreciative and grateful for the support given by both the Vale and Town Councils, both financially and in commitment to supporting the project’s Advisory Board.
To realize the full potential of the opportunity to engage and collaborate with the community, the relationship between the IdeasBank and the local public services providers needs to move to a higher level of engagement.
There needs to be established agreed protocols and commitment to recognise, use and engage. There have been a number of examples where ideas were developed but no constructive dialogue was created with the local authority.
The new relationship needs to be a two-way partnership where the IdeasBank needs to be mindful of the partner authority’s resource constraints, particularly officer’s time. Equally, the local public service partners need to commit to using the IdeasBank as a consultation and engagement tool to explore potential alternatives, sound out ideas, and crucially, listen to other viewpoints.
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14. Project engagement fees not grants from the raft of local public service providers The experience of the IdeasBank’s work with Cadoxton School, Communities First Barry, and Newydd Housing demonstrates that through its use of applied creativity and potential for wider networking and engagement it can offer real added value to their operations and performance.
The proposed business model which can both generate sufficient resource to sustainably fund the work of two part-time Tummlers and deliver the operation of the Ideasbank is not to rely on grant support, but rather to earn its keep.
This can achieve this by creating a network with local service providers for which the IdeasBank will deliver and be paid for an agreed level of project activity, providing its applied creativity services and operation of the communal Ideasbank .
By working for its support, this will create a mechanism for generating income to fund a level of activity that will address the Barry Ideasbank’s existing shortcomings through limited resources.
By delivering project activity for local public service providers this will provide the foundations of activity to enable the Ideasbank to operate an open on-line facility for anyone to contribute to, as well being available to help other local community partners.
This process should also help build closer links between the local public service providers and the IdeasBank, to enmesh their thinking and doing to accommodate using collaborative engagement.
A further strand of activity could include training and development in building Social Collaborative Capital capacity. Where from the experience and lessons learnt from Phases 1 and 2, the Forum has developed a range of learning and development materials.
15. ‘Oasis’ strategy The experience of the Barry IdeasBank suggests that the way ahead for large organisations to harness the opportunities it presents is to adopt an ‘oasis’ strategy. The organisations are likely to have prevailing culture and values not conducive to co-creation, collaborative working, preferring more structured, systematic ways of doing and delivering its services.
Discrete parts of the organisation however, may be more conducive to engage with the IdeasBank process. The lessons of the IdeasBank, particularly through its experience with Cadoxton School, suggests where the operating unit has a reasonable degree of autonomy and local leadership capacity, it would be more likely to engage and realize the full benefits of collaborative working.
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Rather than seek for the whole organization to adopt new collaborative processes the way ahead, to extend its Comfort Zone, is to identify departments or functions that meet the criteria of autonomy, values and management capacity. By adopting this approach the engagement can be lower risk, and provide a better platform for scalable development.
The IdeasBank provides a neat, containable way for local public services organizations to experiment with, and explore collaborative working.
16. The jury is out on whether its geographical boundaries needs to mirror the local authority boundaries The IdeasBank project was deliberately focussed on Barry, rather than the wider Vale of Glamorgan district. The original idea was to match a discrete geographical area which had a strong, long-established sense of identity rather than match the more artificial construct of local authority boundaries, particularly where the Vale spans a number of quite different, distinct communities.
The experience of the Barry IdeasBank is not conclusive. Matching the IdeaBank’s area of operation to local authority boundaries may make it more attractive for greater engagement with local public services.
In any future development, there will be an open mind to defining the precise operating geographical boundaries.
17. Lightning fast and glacial slow With collaborative working the experience of the Barry IdeasBank is that pace of activity has two gears: lightning fast or glacial slow. There is no medium, in-between gear.
If you are fortunate to engage with someone like Janet Hayward OBE things don’t just happen: they happen lightning fast. An instant answer of ‘Yes’ is coupled with a high degree of capability in translating ideas into action, speedily moving to offer not just their resource but also connect with who they know, their connections and contacts, usually accompanied with a “tell them I told you to…”.
In contrast, relying on most people to offer their time or resource for free can test the patience of Job. We also live in an increasingly complex age where making things happen requires the inter-connection of different partners, people, networks and skills.
Here, the pace of change, is more of glacial slow. One tiny step, one minor victory, can be swept away or undermined by a failure to match words with actions, obstinate inertia, or a negative response from feeling downright threatened.
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That is not to say slow is always bad. There is now evidence contrasting the long-term success of social change movements. The Arab Spring of 2010 which moved at rapid speed pace but in the medium-term created shallow success. In contrast, the Civil Rights campaign in the United States, built over decades, that a slow build creates strong foundations for greater resilience and longer-term success.
For the IdeasBank many of its accomplishments will blossom outside its formal period of activity if it ceases to operation. For partners working with, or managing an ideas bank process it is essential to recognise the two rates of change - lightning fast, or glacial slow.
18. Use alternative methods for building capacity with community partners - Implanting and Mentor/Coaching One challenge the Forum faced in working with community groups was providing appropriate assistance, where the group’s lacked capacity to take advantage of potential help.
During the project the Forum team found itself providing informal mentoring to build capacity. In one example a community activist was shown and encouraged to make greater use of Twitter to connect to their community and beyond.
An alternative strategy for helping community groups is either to provide mentoring/coaching support for individuals or community groups, or even some form of implant resource, where the Tummler becomes a temporary ad hoc member of the group.
By changing the type of support by focussing on individuals or becoming part of the group, rather than being outside trying to work with the, will provide new ways to build their capacity in Social Collaborative Capital to work alongside other forms of engagement.
19. Continue to harness outstanding local talent from the most unlikely sources A source of pride from the project was how local people with talent, which may not have been recognised, benefitted from further encouragement and capacity building by helping the Forum deliver its programme.
This report features photo images of #lifeinLego produced by a Council Call Centre employee, who in her spare time creates images of Lego figures in Barry settings. This hobby was discovered as a result of a coffee meet with Andy Green. Andy spotting the quality and potential of the photography paid for use of the images in all the Project’s publicity materials.
Andy recognising an opportunity to develop her skills further, asked for her assistance in using the figures in the Project video being made at a local film studio. From this experience
47 the artist then started making her own animated video film featuring the Lego figures. She was also connected with Janet Hayward OBE at Cadoxton School, who wanted to produce an exhibition display using the Lego figures.
This report also contains illustrated infographics produced by Emma Everitt, a primary school Teaching Assistant who has great artistic talent. (The connection with Emma was made via Janet Hayward.)
Two other local designers were also engaged to help produce design work for the Project, Crystal Hinam and Jenna Webb. Additional support was also provided by a volunteer Brychan Govier.
20. How a Phase 3 could work By creating a resource of two part-time Tummlers they could work to:
1. Serve the local public service providers in tackling specific tasks, which can then seek wider collaboration via the IdeasBank, along with training and development in building Social Collaborative Capital capacity. 2. Serve community groups in tackling specific tasks which can then seek wider collaboration via the IdeasBank, along with training and development in building Social Collaborative Capital capacity. 3. Nurture the development of 12 ‘Power Users’ from the community for the Ideasbank Forum 4. Run the 24 7 IdeasBank online facility, available for anyone to submit ideas
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5. Create a flow of regular new Content for the IdeasBank site 6. Build Social Collaborative Capital capacity among individuals in the community 7. Develop new tools, processes for building Social Collaborative Capital 8. Share the lessons and learnings from the Barry IdeasBank to wider audiences.
To progress there needs to be a Phase 3 of the Project to provide time and resource to fund the work of two part-time Tummlers over a six to 12 month period, to enable the IdeasBank to address making the 21 Point Plan a reality.
If successful, Phase 4 would witness IdeasBank being self-funding and sustainable.
To fund a Phase 3 of the Project the IdeasBank is proposing to approach grant funding bodies and Trusts to cover a cost either a six month option at £27,500 or a 12 month option at £55,000 to fund two part-time Tummler posts and project delivery costs.
21. The legacy of a change of metaphor for ideas banks Perhaps the most profound legacy of the Barry IdeasBank project is how it has changed the metaphor of how ideas banks work and the benefit they create.
The use of metaphors might seem nonsensical, particular to strong linear thinkers. Metaphors are a widely recognised creativity tool which provide a richer, deeper, multi- dimensional way of describing a reality.
Community IdeasBanks have previously operated to a default metaphor of being like a display cabinet of jewels. Here, the individual ideas may hope to sparkle like a jewel, to attract the interest of someone to take it away and make use of it.
Now, thanks to the lessons learnt from the experience of the Barry Ideasbank we now have a new operating metaphor. Instead of a display cabinet of jewels, we think we have a collection of objects:
• a web - to connect individual activists (offline and online) • a can of WD-40 to lubricate and encourage smoother, easier connectivity between these activists • a sandwich to nurture and nourish their collaboration • a totem pole to signify the importance of community innovation and creativity, entwined with a facility to capture that community’s on-going story.
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The Barry Ideasbank’s lasting legacy will be to reframe how ideas banks are perceived, and redefining how they work. And this can best be explained by the metaphors.
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Conclusion
“I think still it is at a point where the potential is there, and I can see what it could do... it just needs time I guess to grow now” (Janet Hayward)
“I think we've proved the model is very valid but I think I think it's got to be tested out” (Lis Burnett)
“Innovation in context can be quiet difficult. So you have to be very clear about why an innovation has worked in a particular place, what are the factors that have enabled it to work, what might be the barriers in another place, how can you either adapt the model or overcome the barriers” (Kathy Seddon)
“We’re a bit more friendly than big cities, we talk to our neighbours” (Pamela Drake)
The Barry IdeasBank Phase 2 has provided valuable lessons in understanding how to, and how not to, engage the community in collaborative activity. Its many lessons, insights and tangible outcomes point to the need to build upon this valuable learning.
A vision of an ideas bank for every community in the UK has taken many steps forward as a result of the Barry IdeasBank, with the potential for creating a sustainable and scalable model for the concept.
A Phase 3 of the Barry IdeasBank project, to implement the 21 Point Plan, would offer a new, exciting and innovative response to tackling the questions not just of ‘where do you go if you have an idea to improve your town or city?’ but also provide a pioneering response to addressing the crisis in the growing decline of Social Capital in our communities.
It overcomes the problem faced by other initiatives in responding to the crisis in Social Capital of being over-parochial or focussed on a specific task by combing intense local activity with wider local networking and inter-connecting the pockets of good practice to yield even greater synergies.
Lastly, in the spirit of Social Collaborative Capital, the organisers of the Barry IdeasBank project must offer a big ‘thank you’ to Jane Hutt AM for her admirable support, wise guidance and indefatigable leadership as Chair of the project’s Advisory Board, along with her fellow Advisory Board members, Cllr. Lis Burnet, Cllr. Rob Curtis, Cllr. Pamela Drake, Kathy Seddon, and Richard Thomas, to our sponsors, Crowdicity, our community partners, Newydd Housing, ESCR, along with the network of RSA supporters, and finally, to the people of Barry: may their light shineth brighter - thanks to exploring how we go about helping each other, to help each other.
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