Matthew's RSA blog

Beginnings...

Freshly back from the bank holiday weekend – and it feels that spring has definitely sprung, and the cobwebs are clearing.

The past few weeks have shown enormous promise and progress in terms of the Newtworks project, and much us this is down to the enthusiasm of Fellows.

With this in mind I hope you won’t find it too self serving if I start this weeks blog with this fantastic contribution from FRSA Tessy Britton.

Six months after the launch of the Networks project I feel more enthusiastic about it than ever. This is not because the practicalities seem easier, but the importance of what is being attempted is genuinely quite thrilling.

The RSA Fellowship is made up of extraordinary people, drawn to the RSA undoubtedly because of the organisation’s uniqueness and breadth of vision.

Where the RSA networks project adds to our Fellowship enormously is the invitation to participate. The shift in paradigm from being an interested but largely passive member to valued contributor is a really significant one.

It changes the questions from ‘what is the society doing for me?’, to ‘how can I contribute?’, it challenges our passions, time, imaginations and our commitments. It even challenges our abilities. It shakes us up, sometimes uncomfortably, to examine how, on a very personal level, we can not only talk about social change, but do social change.

The RSA is now saying to us that it is holding open a new sort of space for our ideas to be heard, to be animated by conversation with others and to be supported in many different ways. This is an incredibly inspiring thing to do, mostly because the long-term success of the developing network is dependent almost entirely on the interest and enthusiasm of Fellows to enter this space.

By these actions and attitudes the RSA is exposing the possibilities that are energised by individual generosity. It is rejecting the reductionist, remedial view of society and humanity and is firmly putting its trust and confidence into our innate capacity for collective good.  What could be brighter or more optimistic?

Take this paradigm out of the RSA into local government for a moment.  Imagine a local council where they put real value into their members – all of them.  What would happen if those members were stimulated, inspired, encouraged and supported to form connections and groups in those communities for positive social change?

It can be hard not to envy the nimbleness that other innovation groups can offer, especially in these early stages. However, the RSA comprises a disciplinary diversity and geographic penetration that is wholly unique – and it is through its determination to create these connective opportunities, these equalities and freedoms across disciplinary, social and regional boundaries that I feel some of the most exciting projects will emerge over time.

While others may surely look for evidence of innovation in the output of social projects already, I am simply delighting in watching and helping the process, which for me is the real innovation.   And it is amazing.

Injustices and waiting lists

This week’s events began with a screening of the BAFTA nominated “Taking Liberties”. The film follows the stories of normal people whose lives have been turned upside down by injustice, while using humour to emphasise its serious message. Set against a striking contemporary soundtrack, the film provoked a fascinating discussion with director and producer Chris Atkins and Jess Search, Chief Executive, BRITDOC.

RSA Thursday examined the question: The Secular State – the best option for British Muslims? Featuring Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, columnist for The Independent and co-founder of a new organisation, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, Inayat Bunglawala, writer on Islam and current affairs, Dr. Usama Hasan, Director of the City Circle and Ed Husain, author of The Islamist and deputy director of the counter-extremism think-tank, The Quilliam Foundation, this spirited debate was clearly too short for the audience! Though time defeated us in the Great Room, after the formalities audience members packed the Vaults to carry on the discussion over drinks. The RSA will continue to provide an independent platform to address these important issues in the coming months, both on and offline, via the Fellows Networks platform and future public events - so the debate is far from over...!

The increasing popularity of our events programme makes it all the more useful to have audio downloads and soon we will also have “Vision” to look forward to. More and more events are fully booked within days of their release and with long waiting lists, it’s great to have an alternative available for those who have missed out.

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’.

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.