Matthew's RSA blog

Free as ...

This week I’ve been recalling the iconic line from Withnail and I, “Free to those that can afford it, but very expensive to those that can’t”.

This sprang to mind while reading in the Guardian about Freeconomics – Chris Anderson’s idea that companies are giving away many of their goods for free, and opening up new revenue streams elsewhere. For example, a colleague recently upgraded her phone with a particular network, and in return received not only a free new phone, but also an i-pod nano.

The business model here is based on the assumption that since i-pod will only play i-tunes formatted songs, Apple is broadening its consumer base. Given how cheap manufacturing has become, thanks to globalisation, it is actually a cost effective way of distributing goods and then making people pay for the services later.

In large part major corporates are responding to the rise of what Matt Mason (who spoke here yesterday) calls The Pirates Dilemma – which is about how corporations can compete / collaborate with the people who distribute their intellectual property without paying royalties or receiving consent.

The new economics of the internet is part of a more general reappraisal both of the ‘big’ economics of markets, risk and regulation but also the day to day economics of our own consumption patterns. Things can change quickly.

Twenty years ago the value of a family house in the London suburbs was equivalent to the cost of about 400 good quality video players. Now, even with the housing market slowdown, you could buy 16,000 multi functional DVD players for the price of the same house. In the 1980s we would have expected to pay a lot more for an item of clothing than a basic foodstuff but now you can get a perfectly serviceable t- shirt for less than a good loaf of bread. It’s easy to get disorientated about the real costs and value of stuff.

With food and raw material shortages, and climate change, a key issue in the politics of consumption is waste. Whether its white goods with built in obsolescence or the tons of good food we chuck into dustbins every day I wonder whether we are approaching the end of the disposable society.

We have no idea how much producing a kilo of meat costs in environmental or economic terms, we have no idea what the real costs of making our i-pod are in labour or any other sense. We suspect corporations of overcharging for cheap goods – and they may well be in some cases. But what we must do is regain some perspective on consumption, for the good of our planet, or even just for our own peace of mind.

Come on(line) everybody!

In a world that is increasingly digitally enhanced, how do we ensure that people can be included in the conversations that are happening on the internet – or even at a more basic level can take advantage of cheaper car insurance (which seem to be available through internet only deals)?

This is true not only for society as a whole, but closer to home, as part of this society.

Roughly a third of Britons are considered ‘digitally excluded’. I’m chairing a conference on this tomorrow which will be looking at how we can reach this final third. No doubt I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this later in the week. But it made me think about what we’re trying to do here with the RSA Networks.

Tonight there will be an RSA Networks Exchange event here at JAS. The event is designed to mirror the experience Fellows have at our growing (and under construction) online platform. They can propose, discuss and support innovative projects. In essence it’s the physical manifestation of the virtual experience.

The idea is that not all the projects discussed tonight will be taken forward, indeed, not all the projects should be taken forward.

In our society we have an aversion to failure. This makes a lot of sense, failing makes us feel bad. But one of the capacities we need to be promoting is that of resilience. The ability to say ‘ok, this idea wasn’t so great, but I’m glad I put it out there, now I can move on and do something else.’

The other point of putting your ideas out there is that you can link to other people who are interested in similar things, and then together you can have even better ideas.

The beauty of the internet is that it creates a place for iterative project development. To borrow from recent speaker, Jonathan Zittrain, it’s a generative process. Together we can create something that is better than any of our individual ideas.

As I’ve said many times, our Networks project is about bringing together Fellows, so that they  can work together on projects which will support social change. But it occurs to me that not all our fellows are part of the ‘digitally included’. Of course with this blog I’m preaching to the converted, but it’s worth thinking about. How do we engage more Fellows in the online debate?

Have a look at this from Clay Shirky, who seeks to answer the question non-digital people always ask which is ‘Where do you find the time’.

Mohamed, Osama and Steve

It has been a mammoth week of lectures with some super-stellar names. We continued our partnership with booksellers Blackwell's on Tuesday as we welcomed poet Simon Armitage to the house all the way from the hills in Yorkshire. Simon treated attendees to a reading from his new book, Gig: the life and times of a rock star fantasist as he regaled us with tales of a life intertwined with music, gig-going and poetry.

On Wednesday we saw a totally different crowd of lecture-goers stream into the Great Room as Charlie Leadbeater and Matthew Taylor discussed the ever-changing and collaborative nature of world of the web. This coversation was continued by Jonathan Zittrain on Thursday evening as he pondered the future of the internet. Lucky lecture-goers received a free copy of his new book with the generous support of AOL.

For our weekly RSA Thursday we were delighted to have Steve Coll over from America as he lifted the lid on the Bin Laden family and gave some interesting insights into a family whose power and money have been used to frighteningly varied ends.

We are pleased to also announce a few new additions to our May events programme;

On Tuesday 6 May, at 1pm Ray Tallis will be speaking about the most complicated part of our anatomy, the head.

RSA Screens continue at a gallop as we welcome director, Joshua Dugdale for a screening of his carefully crafted documentary, The Unwinking Gaze in which he followed the Dalai Lama for 3 years chronicling the many challenges that he faces.

And to continue our partnerhsip with Channel 4 we will be screening film-maker and journalist, Jon Ronson's Reverend Death.

We hope to see you all soon at some of the fantastic events that we have coming up over the next few weeks. As always, our events are all available as podcasts so if you missed any of this week's four remarkable and varied speakers you can listen again. 

A fond farewell

                            

This week lecture-goers braved wild weather to enjoy two events. First we enjoyed a range of views on Future Radio. A lively debate, the only point on which everyone agreed was that digital radio needs an optional “crackle” button. Manufacturers, take note!

Our Thursday lunchtime debate was no less contentious, as we featured Counterknowledge, Damian Thompson’s fiery polemic against all forms of modern quackery. A packed audience witnessed Damian defying death by aconite (in a practical demonstration of the dubious claims of homeopathic medicine) and were exhorted to sharpen their critical faculties, vigorously defend free speech and renew the public sphere – entertainment and enlightenment in equal measure!

This week’s GDAC (Glossy Drama Appreciation Club) examined the film “The Other Boleyn Girl” – with initially surprising but ultimately satisfying casting of the Boleyn sisters, it’s well worth a look. But can there be a hotter Henry than Jonathan Rhys-Myers of “Tudors” fame? The club is split on this burning issue – but the Chair is definitely voting for Rhys-Myers – sorry Eric!

Also under discussion was BBC4’s “Mad Men” – perhaps too early for judgement but good to be reminded of a time when smokers weren’t confined to shivering outside pubs!

But all this jollity is but a feeble attempt to lighten heavy hearts…. Next week, we are losing our highly respected and much loved head of department. We’ll be looking back at her finest and favourite moments next week, and wishing her well after her dedicated eighteen year service with the RSA.

Brain Food

RSA Screens is going from strength from strength as we started this week with acclaimed British director, Nick Broomfield’s controversial new film, Battle for Haditha. This is a war film about ordinary people in an impossible situation, chronicling a series of of still disputed events which led to a number of tragic killings in Iraq in November 2005. A packed Great Room came to see this special screening and pose a series of challenging questions to the great man himself.   

From matters of life and death to yet more questions about the very fundamentals of human existence. Leading experts in the practice and philosophy of medical science, Adam Zeman and Ray Tallis continued our popular RSA Thursday series with a revealing exploration of the brain, from atom to pysche. Despite ever more astonishing scientific advances, Zeman and Tallis agreed that we still struggle to bridge the explanatory gap between the physical brain and the mind. Food for thought of the very highest order...

Now to highlight two very exciting events coming up in our Spring programme:

We will be welcoming one of culture’s wisest observers and a regular writer on all things to do with the internet Clay Shirky. Clay will be exploring the impact of online social networks on the fast-changing world around us.

Finally to coincide with the launch of the RSA’s new Prison Learning Network, Rt Hon Jack Straw MP will be examining the major issues in prisons policy today.

A lighter blog next week as the Chair of the GDAC (glossy drama appreciation club) returns to fill you in on all the gossip!

The debate goes on

I found the responses to the last post really interesting. Peter’s argument as I understand it is that the real gap is not between the state and private sector but between parents who provide the right background for their children and those who don’t. I agree with this but it underlines why I worry.

My personal view is that the state-private divide doesn’t just separate children; it can also mean that some schools take for granted the engagement of parents (after all they haven’t paid all that money only to be passive consumers), while for others it is hard to get any more than a tiny minority of parents involved.

Caring, involved parents aren’t just an asset for their children; they are more likely to be part of the broader life of the school. So here again private schools have an embarrassment of riches while state schools in poor areas have unviable parent schools associations and unfilled parent governor vacancies.

Beth’s question about how to scale up local initiative and commitment is a huge one. Time and again promising local projects fail to replicate when they are scaled up because they lack the commitment and vision of those who began the initiative or because public funding comes with the wrong strings attached. In the end this is one of the strongest arguments for decentralisation.

I am interested in seeing if the RSA can do anything around strengthening relationships between parents and between parents and schools. Maybe we can learn something from Book Start Plus.

Suzanne, I agree that getting the very best teachers to go into and stay in the state sector is really important and I think Teach First is great.

There are loads of issues I wish I had time to write about.

For example, is it true - as a company advisor told me the other day - that large retail companies now face a squeeze between customers demanding ever greater levels of corporate responsibility and aggressive but largely anonymous investors and corporate raiders seeking to take advantage of any company that deviates from an exclusive focus on the bottom line (one of the issues we want to look at in a planned project called Tomorrow’s Investor)?

But I should really focus on the big change programme in the RSA. We heard yesterday that we had got some really helpful funding from NESTA to enable us as we seek to turn the RSA Fellowship into a network for civic innovation.

The funding means we can put a team in place to work on the substance, the people and the offline and online support for an early set of RSA Fellows networks.

The hard work starts here but as I go round the Fellowship – the weekend before last I was in Scotland - I am still getting really positive feedback about the idea of putting the Fellows and their commitment to change at the heart of the RSA.

So a bitty blog I’m afraid. This will only go to confirm the prejudices of Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur – How today’s internet is killing our culture. He is speaking here tonight in the first of our impressive autumn series of lectures. It promises to be a lively debate (check out his spat with Emily Bell from the Guardian). If you want me to ask any questions on your behalf please send them in.