Category: Leadership

We-Think by Charles Leadbeater. A review

About the time I start writing this a bunch of people will be gathering in London to launch We-Think (Amazon link), the book written by Charles Leadbeater and 237 others. I was sent a review copy, partly because I left a single comment on the wiki, which was used to turn his solo first draft into a collaborative 2nd(!) draft. I also mentioned it in this blog. So send me a free book and I’ll read it:

For those new to the ideas of a world of collaborative and networked creation this is a very measured and well illustrated survey of where the world is taking you. For those already familiar, it’s a clearly written and well seasoned refresher course. For those who wonder why their business model is shot full of holes this might help explain.

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For all groups it comes with that most useful of commodities – caveats. Lots of them. Charles has sought to explore the pros and cons. You can read the first three chapters without buying the book (and for those new to the ideas chapter three on how it works is very helpful), but the most valuable is probably Chapter 6. “For Better or Worse” is the writers’ survey pros and cons of the changes coming. Of particular interest to me is the review of the effect on democracy, how the web is enabling We-Act(ors) rather than We-Think(ers). On balance though the book clearly approves of the long term benefits of the disruption of we-think.

Reading this helps me structure my understanding of the work I’m doing and some of the work I’m likely to do. If you fly to SXSW this week, buy a copy for the plane. If you work in government get your department to buy you a copy and then next year fly you to SXSW.
Meanwhile the launch has been twittered:

Dominic Campbell twittering the launch of we-think

A few other reviews/mentions:

Nesta – organisers
Ed Mitchell – “uplifting”
Charlie Mansell – “how collaboration operates”
David Wilcox – “quote”
Computer Weekly – “will not transform every business”
gnovis – “somewhat controversial”
Sicamp – encouraged by Charles
Andrew Keen – it’s individuals who innovate – stoopid.
The Spectator – “a riveting guide to a new world”
Freshnetworks community managers rock.
Shane Richmond at the RSA: Polariser

Also read:

The Long Tail Wikinomics The Starfish and the Spider.

David Cameron, Tom Steinberg and Information Scraping

Has David Cameron been talking to Tom Steinberg at MySociety?  His announcement yesterday suggests he has because he wants to make ‘scraping’ easier.  Scraping is the process of harvesting information from government websites and reusing it – hopefully for public good.

The Conservative leader quoted a really good example with the mysociety website theyworkforyou which provides collated information about politicians and what they do and allows you to contact your MP. Last month I met Tom Steinberg at the UK Gov barcamp.  What stuck out in my mind is how extending theyworkforyou to include councillors can’t be done at the moment because councils don’t make details of councillors available in a consistent format.   That in turn makes automated collection of this  information a nightmare.  Freeing up data is a key part of Tom’s Power of Information review  and he  also talks about it here:
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So I think it is quite remarkable to see something as apparently prosaic as consistency of data making it into a policy statement from the leader of the Conservative Party.   In his speech he explains how freedom of data will make it easier for social enterprises, charities, community groups to identify and understand local need and solve problems. He’s right.

Local MP Tom Watson is looking for what to do with his new ministerial interest in web strategy.  I’m sure you’ve already had this conversation Tom, but in the spirit of the social web please say that you agree with Mr Cameron and do what you can to get those standards  in place and used.
By the way – yesterday MySociety launched  GroupsNearYou.  I did a tiny bit of testing (adding data and telling them what I thought) in the development stage.  Please go on there and add details of groups near you, the sooner we do that the sooner we can stop more public money being wasted on more online databases of well – groups near you.

The user is the content.

You may have heard me before railing at the term user generated content. It infuriates me because it embodies two ideas: “you mean we can get them to make films for us for free?” and “Well yes they can use our space but only when and how it suits us”.
It begins with the assumption that you can’t trust the public – or rather the public is just too risky to trust. This has shaped too many public and private sector approaches to sharing with the audience.
Websites don’t exist without links, they don’t exist without readers and hence they don’t exist without community. It is the users, the comments they make, the virtual, intellectual and actual links they establish through using your content that turns it from a string of one and noughts into something with influence in the world.
Without the user there is no content, so learn to trust us.

BOGOF houses, socially responsible shopping and web 2.0

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Perhaps inspired by the buy-one-give-one-away early campaign from the One Laptop per Child programmes an environmental housing developer in Sacremento is offering BOGOF on Houses.

If you buy one of their US homes they will train a mason in Burkina Faso to build a home there.

They call the project Real Estate Development 2.0. I like the idea and the communications built around it.

Hat tip Nick Temple.