Building The Field
People are talking about being field-builders. Growing the field of an area of practice, or intent around an issue. I really believe in the approach because it recognises that you need to be intentional about partnerships and cooperation, that you need multiple ways of influencing change at any one time, and over a long period of time, and that this needs different people and organisations across sectors and disciplines to work together. It’s the premise on which we set up the Point People back in 2010, and the first piece of content we had on our site was Marc Ventresca’s TedX talk, “Don’t be an entrepreneur, build systems” — which for the purpose of this blog could also be interpreted as “build fields.” There are all kinds of things you can read about this too, from the SSIR article last Autumn on Field Builders as catalysts for social change, to what it means to be a network leader.
“ ….ensure that the power of others grows while their own power fades, thereby developing capacity in the field and a culture of distributed leadership that dramatically increases the collaboration’s efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability. These individuals foster unique cultures and values among their networks that enable those networks to sustain and scale impact.” *
Whilst this approach might be gaining more traction, it still feels like there is a lot to learn, and especially when it comes to recognising where power lies, and how we better design for this kind of work with that in mind. Based on my own experiences, I wanted to share some thoughts on what I (currently) believe individuals, organisations and funders need to have in mind when they are doing field-building work. Think of it as more of a guiding checklist than any kind of answers.
Individuals
As an individual doing field-building work, what boxes are you putting people in? One of the things we do when trying to design for complexity and large-scale orchestration of people and activity, is categorise people. We look to bring order into things (which is necessary) but in doing so, I wonder what the consequences are of us defining people and organisations as doing X or having Y skill. How are you making your assumptions about who does what in the system?
As an individual are you really clear about where your commitment lies? Is it to the societal changes you want to see happen in the world, to the wider network of people and organisations that you understand can only do this work effectively, if in unison? Or is it to your own organisation and agenda? It might be to all of these things but those who place the societal change first and foremost as their intention, and make that explicit to people, are the ones that gather much more legitimacy to be in a field-building role.
“They celebrate the change-generating network itself above any single person or institution.” *
Organisations
Are you socialising your power? If you are one of the organisations who is taking a lead in building a field, then part of your role is to continuously socialise your power.
“Partners and peers mobilise a constellation of resources and skills that enables the achievement of a shared vision.” *
What this means in practice is, if you are actively courting funders then you should actively be connecting those funders to other people and organisations in the field. I really like how the Tech For Good community has approached their field-building work. They started meeting monthly at the beginning of 2017- this initial group included funders, intermediaries and people creating content and community. After a year of those meetings, they started to think about how to bring in funding and resource, but they are doing that collectively, rather than one organisation holding all the relationships with multiple funders.
“A field catalyst thinks about how it can direct funding to the field. One of the surest signs that a field catalyst is credible is that it steers funding streams without controlling them. And for its own funding, a field catalyst purposely taps into several sources. Catalysts earn permission to support other stakeholders by proving that they serve the interests of the entire field.”*
If you have resource, are you paying people for their time and contributions? Another important aspect of recognising the power and privilege you have if you are leading field-building efforts in a particular area, is to ensure you value people’s contributions. I like how Doteveryone are paying people to contribute to a publication they’re curating with a specific objective of trying to bring more cohesion to the field of tech ethics (an important part of field-building work). If you want people to contribute to *your* field-building efforts, whether through delivering a session for your programme or sharing their insight and knowledge with you, pay them — especially if you have funding. It’s very hard to create trust (which is essential for field-building work) if you are not transparent or honourable in terms of value flows.
“the single most important factor behind all successful collaborations is trust-based relationships among participants. Many collaborative efforts ultimately fail to reach their full potential because they lack a strong relational foundation.”*
Funders
Are you facilitating co-operation and good relationships or are you creating division? I have seen this happen a lot, especially as new fields of work are emerging, which tends to be a small pool of organisations who are often (at this point) jostling for position (and money). Funders go around and have one-to-one conversations with people and organisations, but actually this is a pivotal time to bring an emerging field together. I’d love to see more funders take on an active role in field-building and to do so explicitly. They are in an unique position to gather together organisations that they want to resource and facilitate a conversation that starts with something like “ We want to invest in all of you because we think you’ve all got things to contribute to this field of work, and we want to be transparent in who we’re connecting with, but what we need to do first is have a conversation with you all about where your strengths are, and who is best placed to do which bits of the work that needs doing.” Whilst having that conversation it would probably be useful to also work out what the field is trying to achieve as a whole. What is the field for? What kinds of change does it want to see? Expect everyone to have some different theories about how to get there, but that doesn’t matter at this point. What matters most is that the conversation happens with everyone in the room together.
“Field catalysts are very intentional in what they choose to think about, and they think differently from most other social-change organizations in three important ways. They think about:
● How their field — fractured and fragmented though it may be — can achieve large-scale change
● A long-range roadmap for change and trace links between stakeholders
● What it will take to marshal stakeholders’ efforts”
Are you investing in the same people to do a lot of the knowledge building? Some foundations bring in people and organisations to build new knowledge with them as part of field-building work. Being a “learning partner” gives people power in the system, knowledge is power after all. Are you rotating or distributing that role? And what kinds of people and organisations are you empowering through that role? Are the people and organisations who are given the role of “learning partner” sharing that power or simply using it to raise money for more of their own work – even though the insights they will have generated in that role have of course been generated by a whole system and network of people and organisations.
Are you using your commissioning power to reaffirm the importance of shared power and multiple relationships? Recently a funder commissioned one organisation to do research on the field of systems change – mapping the field to understand who’s doing what, where. This would have been a perfect moment to bring some organisations together to do the work, and incentivise collaborative activity, as well as sharing the power across a wider group. I think there’s a whole bunch of design touchponts during the commissioning process that could incentivise a more collective and collaborative approach and my next post will be an experience map that details these.
Are you putting yourself in the room with the same people and in the same conversations as you always have? This is an obvious one, but as a funder, if you want to build a field, then actively seeking new and diverse voices and organisations is essential. I’ve been really impressed by Brittany Smith at DeepMind Ethics & Society Unit in her active pursuit of unusual suspects.
If you have thoughts that build on this or offer alternative views, I’d love to hear them.
*all of the quotes in this blog are from the two articles that I mention at the beginning of the piece.
A year In Review
2017 was an exciting year for the Point People because for the first time in 7 years, we had new people join us. We welcomed Sneh Jani, Jennie Winhall, Cat Drew, Cathy Runciman, Victoria Stoyanova, Abby Rose, Nish Dewan, Charly Cox and Joana Casaca Lemos. You can read about each of them here.
We had our first ever “Away Day” which we’d designed to be a mix between getting to know everyone and sharing learning from across our work, with each of us giving a 15 min talk to the group with presentations etc. In 2018 we are going to do some more open events so that we can meet with others and also share what we are doing more widely.
Thanks George for letting us use Good Form & Spectacle’s office!
Systems Changers
This year we continued to work with Lankelly Chase on Systems Changers and in the last few months of 2017 we made some new plans with them focussed on how the work can spread and grow beyond us. In 2018 we will be experimenting with how Systems Changers works in place (place-based systems change), how it works if focussed on a theme or issue (like children facing severe and multiple disadvantage) and how it works based in one type of organisation, like the Police. More importantly though, we will be experimenting with how others can use it, adopt it, deliver it and adapt it.
Place-based systems change through a gendered lens
We’ve started doing some work with Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, who exist to ensure that women and girls at risk of abuse, poverty, poor mental health, addiction and homelessness get the support and protection they need. There is a growing body of evidence around place-based systems change. However, there is limited work which takes a gendered approach. They have commissioned us to do a piece of work to build on the existing evidence base and consider how systems and services in a locality can be redesigned to take into account the particular experiences of women and girls. Katharine, who is the Director of Agenda just wrote this great piece for the Guardian, which highlights the kinds of issues that Agenda is committed to working on. We hope the work we are doing will feed in to this and be useful across the sector.
Leading and navigating through complexity
This Autumn we also started some work with the International Futures Forum, in particular with Graham Leicester and Maureen O’Hara, authors of Dancing at the Edge. We love the book and have started to collaborate with them on how the contents of the book can be discovered and used out in the world more. It’s a great guide for anyone that wants to be better at navigating through complex times and we think it has relevance for a lot of change work that people are out doing in the field.
Designing systemically for change
Throughout 2018 we will be partnering with the Design Council to develop the practice of “designing for systemic change.” This will begin as a series of small roundtable events, as we explore questions about the role of design in complex, systems change with people in the design community who are already thinking beyond service design. We will then broaden this work out to some larger events and create content around it.
This is all the work we are doing together as the Point People, in different formations, however it is also the work that we each do individually, that we actively bring insights from, into our collective space , that is important to who we are. When we meet each month we invest time in learning from one another, connecting up the dots, taking a systems view so that through the different work we are all doing there are always important links to discover and make sense of. Below is a short update on what each of the Point People have been doing in 2017 or will be working on in 2018.
Short snippets of individual Point People activity
Sophia continues to grow Little Village, an organisation that aims to put the community back into raising our families. Little Village now has 3 sites in London and has just raised £250,000 from a foundation to scale its work.
Ellie is the Director of Good Lab, a unique set-up whereby 10 of the largest charities are collaborating together, through Good Lab, to design ways of strengthening the third sector.
Ella is building on her work bringing together creativity & systems change. In early 2018 she will be publishing an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on the role of story in systems change, continuing her work with The Comms Lab on systems change within the creative industries, launching work around framing & narrative with the Gulbenkian Foundation & also starting the Longer Now project to catalyse cultural content that helps us see our existence in a longer time frame.
Sneh is working as a consultant at Mutual Ventures alongside growing Bread & Roses, a social enterprise which trains refugee women in floristry and in the process provides them with the space to learn English, develop skills and build their confidence.
Jennie M is working at the Tavistock in their consulting team, working with leaders in organisations, networks and partnerships to unravel the emotional life of the systems in which they work.
Sarah’s consultancy Liminal Space is going from strength to strength. They are developing a strong expertise in public engagement for complex issues, working with organisations like the Wellcome Trust on topics as varied as egg freezing and most recently on Abortion.
Jen has raised further investment for EasyPeasy this year, she was featured in Wired talking about children and screen time and her partnership with the University of Oxford Education Department helped evidence the social impact EasyPeasy is having on young people and parents. Jen has also been training as yoga teacher this year.
Nish has recently started working at Nesta, leading their Flying High challenge, the first programme of its kind to convene city leaders, regulators, public services, businesses and industry around the future of drones in the UK.
Cathy is dividing her time between her own content platform, Atlas of the Future, which is an amazing source of hopeful change stories from around the world, as well as working with openDemocracy on partnerships and strategy, and is in the team that’s leading Civil Society Futures.
Hannah is dividing her time between New Zealand and the UK and growing her coaching and facilitation practice. She draws on a range of disciplines including Co-Active coaching, positive psychology, eco-therapy, systems thinking and the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku (‘forest bathing’).
Jennie W is dividing her time between Denmark and Canada, and intermittently in London doing strategic work with the Design Council. In Denmark she works with the Rockwool Foundation Intervention Unit leading a team that is designing new services for excluded young people. In Canada she is running Alt/Now at the Banff Centre, an incubator for social ventures which focussed on economic inequality last year and in 2018 will be focussed on the future of work. She also became a Doteveryone Fellow this year.
Abby is just about to launch a new app to go alongside other farming tech that Vidacycle has been developing. This one helps farmers monitor their own soils. As Abby says “ the health of our soils = the health of all beings.” Abby’s Farmerama Radio continues to be a must-listen-to podcast for anyone interested in the growing small-scale farming movement too.
Cat is full time as the delivery director at social design and innovation agency Uscreates, her role is detailed more here. She’s also dome some great talks this year including one linking up service design and systems thinking at the Service Design Global Conference in Madrid and helped the Point People host the (Her)story event at London Service Design Fringe.
Victoria continues to run the London chapter of Creative Mornings, and this year was also announced as one of the first On Being Fellows. In 2017 she also launched a new podcast, The Work We Do.
Kyra has recently gone back to work after her second child was born, and is working in a book shop in Sydney. She’s also written a second book in that time and it will be published later this year.
Charly is working with a colleague in India on a project looking at what makes some people do things for the good of the future (legacy) not the present ( shareholder value) and they will be turning the insights from this into some “how to” content.
Anna is on maternity leave, having given birth to Eve 6 months ago, we look forward to her coming back later this year!
And I’m still working as the Strategic Design Director at Doteveryone, and have done some small exploration projects on how gig economy workers can own their own ratings, and how we can use citizen social science to call out pricing discrimination and algorithmic bias.
Farming, kindness, storytelling, nature, legacy, poverty, motherhood, design, systems thinking, psychodynamics, organisational change, the ethics of the internet, cities, building character, young people, refugees, sector-wide collaboration, collective impact…. so many dots to connect!
Thank you to everyone who has supported our work and provided us with endless inspiration. If you want to read more about the Point People, these are the questions we most frequently get asked — http://www.thepointpeople.com/ask-us
What helped change to stick?
The frontline workers on the Systems Changers programme all had different experiences on the programme. We saw some patterns in what had an influence on that experience and thought it would be helpful to share for others who are thinking about engagement, participation and lasting change when designing programmes that take people away (for some of the time) from their daily work routines. This is important because everyone knows that if you are doing change programmes the hardest thing is people taking time away from their day to day and things sticking beyond the programme.
The context of their organisation
Some of the frontline workers participating in the Systems Changers programme are working in organisations who find themselves in increasingly precarious positions. Austerity has impacted on the fragmentation and erosion of civil society organisations, as well as public services and the third sector. All of the frontline workers in the programme are on the coalface in these sectors, however, for a few they literally didn’t know whether their job would exist before the programme ended, let alone the organisation they worked for.
The leadership of their organisation
We tried to design the application process for the programme to include a commitment and buy-in from the manager responsible for the frontline worker that would be participating. The manager had to complete some of the application form themselves and explicitly agree to giving their staff member the time and space to engage in the programme. Managers who stuck to this through the 6 month programme really made a difference to the frontline workers experience. If the leadership of the organisation (above and beyond the direct manager) knew about and was involved in certain interactions with the programme, it also helped make way for change and sustainability of the approaches and ideas being introduced through the programme.
The level of support people had from those around them
Frontline workers who had strong support from colleagues, friends and family found it easier to throw themselves into the programme, and ride through the challenging times. We designed small ways to ensure they could connect to others and invite them into their experience where they wanted to. At the opening residential we left stamped postcards in their bedroom so that they could send an update to family and friends. We sent them back from the residential to their offices with “kits” so that they could create a “Systems Changers” space in the office, making what they were doing visible to others. Included in the “kit” were invitation templates for them to use with colleagues – an invitation to coffee, to a show & tell etc. It’s important that people feel connected to others around them when participating in something that might completely change their perspective so you need to design in ways for them to be in relationship throughout the programme.
Some of the materials we created for people to take back to their offices.
Their learning style
It might be an obvious point to make but ensuring that different learning styles were accommodated for when designing the programme was really important. We had words, visuals, films. We built in time to learn by doing, time for reflection, and time to be embodied and outside amongst natural systems. Some of the frontline workers found it difficult to engage in the theory, others welcomed the chance to not only learn through practice but to leaf through the reading material we gave them.
Their sense of permission
We saw that people working on the frontline have different relationships to permission. Some of them were working in very permissive environments, others not. Designing the programme for their managers to be involved as well as their colleagues was part of creating a more permissive culture for them to experiment within. Being aware of that permissiveness (or lack of it) in each persons context is important.
Their understanding of where flex is in the system
Linked to the above point, frontline workers on the programme had different understanding of where the flex was in the systems they were operating in. This was a key aspect of the Systems Changers programme – finding, understanding and questioning where change could happen. Some frontline workers had been adhering to rules and regulations for years without questioning why it was there, who was upholding it and whether it was really necessary. Of course there are rules and regulation in place that really do serve an important purpose, but a lot of the frontline workers themselves were surprised to discover just how much more flex there was in some of the systems they work within. Drawing out their understanding of this flex at the start of the programme was useful for designing where we went next.
Security in their approach ( a belief in the philosophy of their organisation)
We used the application process as a starting point for digging deeper into how different frontline workers believed change happened. For instance, understanding whether they believed people (their clients) should be kept in or out of the system (prevention vs responding to needs) was important. Similarly, understanding how much they believed in their organisations approach to change and in the change it was trying to make, was also something we tried to surface early. Frontline workers’ theories of change and the strength of their belief in that approach, affected how they used the Systems Changers programme, methods and tools.
The Learning Lab for Systems Changers
Running throughout the Systems Changers programme we had a Learning Lab, where the focus was on surfacing insights from the frontline workers, looking for patterns in their insights, and understanding how to use the insights as a way to influence change.
Each frontline worker had a learning partner to support them and work with them to draw out and articulate their insights. The learning partner set up monthly calls and the Learning Lab team met monthly.
Here is a run through of some of the tools and frameworks we experimented with in the Learning Lab.
The first was the framework we used for gathering data. These were the main questions we set out to answer in terms of the frontline workers and their role in influencing change.
Each month Anne or Anna (the learning partners in the team) set up a call with each of the frontline workers they were supporting. The call was distinctly about surfacing and generating insights, rather than emotional support (they had Hannah for this – the Coach on the team). Each month the frontline workers had left the monthly session with their cohort with an experiment to try out. The learning partners used the tool below to prompt the frontline worker to articulate what they’d learnt from the experiment. We always used these 3 different lenses throughout the programme to encourage plurality in how the frontline workers perceived change.
The learning partners also documented what they were hearing and perceiving about the frontline worker. They used the tool below on each call as a way to record that information.
Using this data we started to map how the frontline workers were building or could build, capability as Systems Changers.
Alongside the learning partners collecting data through calls each month, the Learning Lab team (Jennie & I) met monthly to look across all the data and insights coming from the cohort. This was where we sorted insights into themes, grouped them into the types of influence they could have and also experimented with whether collective intelligence was coming into play at all. Were there insights that the collective cohort was forming that each of them as individuals couldn’t know alone?
In the next post I’ll write more about what didn’t work and what we learnt about our approach.
Designing for systems-changing frontline workers
After the first Systems Changers programme, where a cohort of frontline workers had the chance to explore systems change within their own roles, we asked our participants how their roles needed to change for this kind of approach to sustain. Especially when many of them were keen to still stay on the frontline and to be able to influence change from that position. We’d always said that the programme would be unsuccessful if all the frontline workers left their jobs to set up social enterprises for example, or went to work outside the system. The changes that the frontline workers came up with fell broadly into two categories: new and deeper ways of working together, and changes to the organisational culture.
Cross-team (including end user) collaboration
The ability to meet with other frontline workers in other services, to compare notes and best practices.
Permission to meet with different leaders, like the leader of council services or lead for homelessness. Making space for frontline workers to do this would create better understanding within the system.
The ability to bridge the gap between service users and policy makers directly ( no need for middlemen) and being a communication channel between end users and the boardroom too.
The visibility of others who show that you can stay working on the frontline *and* influence change.
Managers need to be on board and in agreement because frontline workers having more influence represents a change in structure.
Continue to work with service users but as a collective or Lab where the Systems Changers work on things together that might not feel like the usual type of work for the frontline.
Organisational culture
Ways to incorporate systems thinking into everyday practice, to enable all staff to get on board and help shift the system.
Permission to stand back, and especially to look across at what’s happening and what’s needed.
Time to meet people outside of the day to day delivery. The more we insert the voices of frontline and end users into places where those voices aren’t heard, the more the system will change.
A culture that celebrates achieving small things in difficult situations.
Ways to measure the impact of those small changes.
Awareness of what’s not working — beyond what’s being reported — and the power to change it.
Systems change to be written into job descriptions and roles, so people know from the beginning what’s expected.
Systems Changers in their own words
At the end of our first Systems Changers residential, we asked our cohort to share their feedback on the parts of the programme they’d experienced so far. We wanted to understand how they’d interpreted it — what the point was, and why it was important.
We asked them five questions: what “Systems Changers” was, why it was needed, who they saw themselves as within the constructs of the programme, what they were learning, and what they were excited about.
Here’s what they had to say, along with some analysis of what we think that feedback represents.
1. Systems changers is…
Quite a few people saw Systems Changers as something new they hadn’t encountered in their previous work.
A new, innovative approach of using frontline workers to gather data
A creative way to change things
A new approach that hasn’t been done before
A new way of thinking and changing services
Others called out that the programme was about bringing people with the same mindset together.
A group of like-minded people
A group of likeminded people who want to affect lives positively
The start of a movement with a collective of people who have a common goal
A group of people unhappy and uncomfortable with the way things work for the people they support, coming together to shake the system up for the better
And others talked about the fact that the programme was specifically organised for frontline workers.
A programme to equip and empower people working on the frontline to create change that lasts
A programme to enable people on the frontline to impact the systems in which they work
Giving a voice to frontline workers
2. Systems Changers is needed because…
Power imbalances, and people’s voices not being heard, was a big part of why people thought a programme like Systems Changers was needed.
The voices and insights of frontline workers aren’t heard enough
People on the frontline have real insights into the lives of service users that doesn’t normally get heard
There is an imbalance in power where voices of frontline workers and service users are rarely heard
To empower many others to have courage to change future systems
There was also a strong negative feeling around current systems. Interestingly, nobody was frustrated because they personally weren’t being heard — what was upsetting was that the systems were failing people, especially those facing severe and multiple disadvantages.
We’ve let things be for too long and people are suffering here as a result
Too much knowledge is getting lost
Because people deserve better!
The systems don’t work for people
Problems that were tough are about to get tougher
Even though they weren’t happy with the status quo, people were still hopeful that there was a better way.
We have the ideas, suggestions and potential solutions to how systems can be moulded, shaped and changed to be inclusive and work for all
All things need development and change is good
It’s time for a movement of change
3. We are…
One of the nicest things about this survey was seeing how hopeful and engaged the frontline workers were to be part of the programme.
We are a likeminded group of people who want to make change happen
Combining our thoughts, voices and insights to make a bigger noise
Trying to find new and exciting ways of being more effective
Keen to work together to develop new ideas
Creating a new way of working
Learning and exploring the ways that our insights can influence the system
4. We are learning to…
We also loved how the two main things our cohort was learning were to support one another and challenge the things they didn’t like.
Consider multiple perspectives
Embrace creativity and flexibility
Be supportive of each other, listening deeply to each perspective and combining them to inspire creative change
Challenge and question everything
Challenge perceptions
Ask difficult questions
5. This is exciting because…
These answers tie in with question #2. They really show how stagnant frontline workers can feel in their current systems and how much they want things to change.
The cohort felt like the programme was something they hadn’t encountered before.
It is not the norm
It is something that is new and has never been done before
And because of that, it felt like it had the chance to make a real impact.
It has positive energy
Energises individual and organisations
It has potential to really influence how things are done
Questions that have been asked for a long time, will be addressed
We believe in change and want to make it happen
So many people have the same passion for change that it gives tangible hope
This was a really powerful activity to do with the group at the end of the opening residential. It was a way of us hearing what the Systems Changers cohort had understood and identified with from the introductory content of the programme. However it was even more valuable that the cohort themselves had found a way to describe the programme in their own words, so they share a story about the programme more widely.
This is a new venture that is teaching me that I CAN and that YOU can.
2015 Systems Changer
What frontline workers think should change, and what they need to change it
Cassie Robinson - Jul 18, 2017
Although our final cohort was fairly small, we had about 70 applications from frontline workers to the Systems Changers programme. Sophia Parker and Jennie Winhall, two other Point People, spent some time analysing all of the application data. This post summarises what they found.
Looking at the data from the applications, including those from people who weren’t ultimately selected for the programme, was useful to make some assumptions more generally about what frontline workers are thinking and what they need. If you’re designing for frontline workers, or if they’re part of any work you’re doing, these insights may be helpful for you too.
What needs to change
We asked frontline workers to tell us about what they saw as the challenges within services for people facing severe and multiple disadvantage.
Let people be square pegs!
This was a key theme across applications. Not all human beings comply with societal ‘rules’, and not all of them can or are in a position to do so. You can’t expect people in crisis to follow mainstream rules, so any effective system needs to be designed to enable frontline workers to go to them (the people in crisis). Another element of this is seeing people’s “squareness” as an asset, rather than as a problem. Doing so will require true listening, rather than tokenistic consultation or tick box questioning.
Rebalance power
Under the current system, some people’s voices are heard more than others. (For example, the DWP view counts for more than the view of the people attending work fitness tests, or their social workers). We saw a frequent assertion that ‘client’ voices are the least heard, and a desire to work to mobilise those voices collectively, as a means of redressing power imbalances.
Consider the speed of change
Policy development moves faster than change on the ground, which can lead to turmoil — in people’s lives, in an organisational capacity, and in the ability to share information across organisations and sectors.
Respect incentives — and offer the right ones
Our applicants felt a clear impact from secondary goals taking precedence. (For example, austerity has put money saving over life saving and as a result money is being saved but people’s lives are suffering. Austerity has also led to more funding chasing, which again skews incentives.) At the level of people’s lives, policy design is very bad at understanding what will incentivise the goals they are seeking to achieve — for example, sanctions aren’t proving an effective way of getting people back into work.
Create simpler systems that waste less time
The need for simpler systems was highlighted both across services and sectors, and downwards from the hierarchy (e.g., policy direction, funding streams). The most compelling example that was given is the lack of any kind of common assessment framework for adults, which leads to lots of information being gathered that doesn’t necessarily add up to more than the sum of its parts.
Remember that humans in distress need relationships
There are no incentives in place to encourage the emergence of long-standing supportive relationships. These relationships are becoming all the more important in the context of cuts, where organisations that haven’t gone under are now dealing with greater demand than ever, forcing them to take a ‘light touch’ approach with individuals who need so much more than this. Not only is the power of relationships overlooked, it’s often designed out of existing systems.
Give more feedback, and at the right times
There’s not currently enough clear information about what’s working and what isn’t — and where there is any information, it can take too long to filter through. That leads to poor awareness of unintended consequences, and thus more unintended consequences overall.
Take responsibility
This includes steering groups, partnership working, etc., but also the fact that responsibility for people’s lives is often passed around between professionals and sectors.
‘Prevention’ is hard and means different things
Especially in the context of multiple and severe disadvantage, there’s no universal definition of ‘prevention’ and no easy way to ensure it.
See the family
Many people are part of a wider family, and unless this wider family is supported too, there’s a risk of a negative network effect of disadvantage.
2016 Systems Changers cohort.
How to make change happen
We also looked through the application data to understand how frontline workers believe change can happen.
Give people power
Simple but effective: through knowledge, information, confidence.
Mobilise people
Many applicants talked about mobilising clients or coalitions across services, professionals, volunteers and clients. These things won’t just happen — they need to be organised.
Offer hope and a sense of possibility
Without hope, life is very grey. Hope and possibility are vital to helping people feel like agents of their own destiny.
Shift perceptions
This means both in general public culture and also with professionals who still are too quick to write off people in desperate circumstances as beyond help. (It’s important to note that these two audiences are connected — professionals are influenced by wider public culture.)
Ensure everyone’s aligned
Another simple but vital one. You need your service deliverers, commissioners, funders, and policy makers to all be on the same page.
Strengthen feedback loops
This is connected with the previous point about alignment, and is especially important when it comes to policy makers and users.
Take some risks
Risk management is entirely dominated by the desire to mitigate risk. Nothing will change unless this shifts.
Learn
From clients themselves, from other organisations, from reflection on practice.
The 3 Lens’s we used when designing the programme.
How to get started
We used the data to help inform us about what kind of content to design into the Systems Changers programme. Many of the applications we received were from people who were skilled at listening, advocacy, problem solving, and making things work. But using those insights to bring about change requires more than those skills alone. It also needs analytical capacity, influencing, communicating, mobilising and political savvy.
Below are a few insights from the applications and ways they may be able to inform your programme design. These could be used as fundamental underpinnings of a programme, or simply as good ideas for one-off sessions.
Talk about what change really matters to people
Many of the applicants were deeply motivated by making change in one person’s life. Is this more important than systems change to them?
Challenge assumptions
Many of the applicants dismissed other professionals as writing their clients off in a way that they don’t. But we are all shaped by the cultures around us, and a conversation that acknowledged this somehow might be very powerful (as well as uncomfortable).
Separate insight from noise
Frontline staff are experts in why user insight matters; their main challenge is that they may not be very discerning about which insights are most useful. Make sure to have conversations that don’t start and finish with a sentiment like ‘Isn’t all user insight just great! If only we could have some more of it!’
Explore other people’s motivations
Many of the people applying had a vision, but they just can’t work out why other people don’t ‘get it’. Helping people to understand what they need to do to bring people with them would be great — perhaps via a session on understanding why some people resist change and developing strategies to get them on board.
Teach policy making
Many of the applicants felt that policy making is a real blind spot for them. It may be valuable to spend some time busting some policy making myths, and perhaps to bring policy people in from different levels of government to talk about the process.
Gauge impact
A critical look at impact is a key part of building the skills for successful systems change, and it’s one that’s absent too often. A session encouraging challenge and reflection on impact might be powerful — especially one that asked organisations to truly examine whether they are making all the difference they could.
Design Principles from Systems Changers
In 2015 the Point People started working with Lankelly Chase to design and deliver Systems Changers. We’ve run the programme twice now, bringing in Snook to work with us on it, and are now working out with Lankelly Chase how the programme can spread, be used by others, and also be experimented with in contexts beyond the frontline. It seems a good time to share some of the learning and insight we’ve gathered over the last two years, so over the next few weeks we’ll be doing some regular posts. This is about the design principles we used for the programme.
No matter what industry you’re in or what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s easier to design programmes when you base them on a set of principles. They help you set guidelines for every aspect of what you do, from tools to culture to delivery.
These are the principles we used for the Systems Changers programme. We put them in our initial proposal to Lankelly Chase and we’ve found them really helpful, not just in the design stage but throughout the programme.
Offer insights, not solutions
Staying in the experimental prototyping mindset is hard. It’s easy to slip into ‘delivery mode’ and let our own biases and preferences take charge.
Focus on discovery and questioning, not answers
Systems Changers isn’t about critical analysis. It’s intentionally designed to create a reflective, generative space for difficult questions.
This is because making sense of big challenges requires new sources of intelligence. When we can think in new ways, especially in the contexts in which things are experienced, we can see and touch possible points of intervention.
Hold multiple perspectives
No one voice, type of experience or perspective is more important than another. Systems Changers isn’t designed to overthrow existing hierarchies — it’s meant to bring frontline workers’ insights to the table alongside those from people with lived experience, from managers, from middle-managers, from policy makers, etc.
“Multiple perspectives” can also be applied to thinking about how influence is built. It’s not just in board rooms or around tables; influence can come through a prototype, through a report, through convening, through relationships and movement building, through a new service, through dismantling something that isn’t working any more, through film, etc.
Prototype to create waves
Prototypes are tangible things that help to test big and ambiguous assumptions. If we throw them into existing systems at play, they help us understand how the system reacts or interprets — like rocks thrown into a pond.
It’s limiting to see prototypes simply as tools for testing products and services. Prototyping is useful as a way to uncover what is important, and for whom, and then to understand and visualise what is changing.
Separate people and change
Too often we assume the people who speak up should be the people who implement. It’s important to place value on someone’s insights without assuming they want to be the ones to do the change.
Emphasise collective intelligence, not just individual insight
What does a collective of frontline workers know that an individual alone can’t? We wanted to create conditions where individual insights were made much more powerful, and with new patterns, through the collective stories those insights begin to tell.
Avoid getting boxed in
This principle was about challenging the notion of what a leadership and personal development programme is. Systems Changers isn’t about building “Systems Entrepreneurs” or “Systems Leaders”; we weren’t trying to get participants to come up with individual ideas to solve a systems challenge. (We recognised some of them might do that, but doing so wasn’t the programme’s main goal.)
Make change visible
As things change and people share their insights, we knew we had to make visible how those insights were being used to influence and inform change. Feedback loops became essential, both from the actors within systems change, and from the system itself too.
Learn from your “data”
Influencing change at scale requires ongoing insights — not once a month or once a week, but through ongoing, reflexive, and well-documented practice.
We saw our frontline workers’ insights like real-time data that could provide additional intelligence during the problem definition, option setting, and evaluation phases of the policy process. And, through understanding what “data” they collect and generate, we could also see how to challenge what traditionally constitutes evidence.
Create the space and permission for repositioning
Over time we wanted the programme to reposition frontline workers from not only deliverers and implementers but also to suppliers of policy intelligence, holders of risk, and movement builders.
Empower archaeologists and architects
Articulating new roles can be difficult. Through metaphors like archaeologists (people who uncover what is already there) and architects (people who build new infrastructure for change), we made it easier to understand where people could make the most impact.
Value time and space
Although the Systems Changers programme is just six months, we knew ongoing structures would be needed to support cohorts to keep developing systems change as a practice. As the programme grows there will be additional ways, different types of spaces and lengths of time through which Systems Changers can still get support, inspiration and challenge.
This isn’t just nice — it’s effective. Being ‘in it for the long term’ leads to a different quality of decision making and action, a different type of ongoing structure to enable change. People have more vulnerability, personal investment and grit on the frontline. They are “evolved rather than maverick” and need a reflective, generative space for difficult questions and helpful answers, not just critical analysis.
Help people find the right tone to be heard
Frontline workers are passionate about their work because they’re literally on the front lines of the decisions made behind the scenes. We needed to help our cohort frame their insights in ways senior leadership could understand. In the words of a 2015 cohort member:
“Those with power and the ability to make decisions are often pulled in many different directions. Inevitably, not everyone will be happy with the outcome. I think this is hard for frontline workers of any industry to remember because they only see the very real implications of decisions that are made and how they affect individuals. If frustration comes out in anger — I can see how policymakers have a tendency to shut down and not listen to frontline workers, even though their insights are often the most useful.”
Systems Changers - Insights from the frontline
May 3, 2016, by Cassie Robinson
Very rarely do we give enough or any attention to the knowledge and insights of the front line worker. Systems Changers is a programme that aims to change that.
Intelligence about what needs to change in how systems work doesn’t only sit in Whitehall. We know that policy makers are experimenting more with how to involve citizens in decision-making. People-centred design has done a brilliant job of ensuring that those accessing public and voluntary services are also brought in to shape and inform them. The need to understand user voice in designing systems and services is not radical anymore. However, the day to day insight of how services work and are experienced, and the opportunities for change, are most likely to be spotted by those delivering them. We need to make sure that frontline perspectives and their collective insight are part of the puzzle, that they are fed into the system and acted upon.
After our first programme last year in the NE and NW of England we are looking for 10 people across the South East of England, who work on the frontline of services for people facing severe and multiple disadvantaged. They might be working in the NHS, for Local Government, with a Housing Association, in a Library or for a local community group. They will want to see and understand the bigger picture and won’t be afraid to ask difficult questions. The organisations in which they work will need to be equally bold and committed.
Over the course of six months the group will work together to gain a much broader and deeper understanding of the systems in which they work. They’ll learn how to articulate what they uncover and use it to influence change. There will be sessions on power and influencing, field work on ethnography and systems mapping and developing ways to make better use of digital technology. The cohort will also hear from experts across a range of fields and develop peer-to-peer coaching practices. The greastest emphasis though will be on harnessing the full power of their own and the cohorts collective insight. Participants might use the programme to develop their agency as a change maker, or will develop what they are already doing or seeing to have influence on those who are involved in making change at scale.
Does this sound like you, or do you know an organisation or inpidual working with those affected by multiple disadvantage who might be interested?
You can find more details about the programme and the short application form here. The deadline for applications is the 31st May.
Information and application for participants.
Information and application for the organisation in which they work.
If you want to read more about the experiences of those on the programme last year, and some of the insights that were generated, you can do so here.
This is a programme delivered in partnership with Lankelly Chase and Snook. For further information you can contact anna@thepointpeople.com.
Systems Changers - a new programme
April 15, 2015, by The Point People
From chronic poverty, to homelessness, to mental illness, to substance misuse, the complex social problems we face in the UK are too big for any one individual or organisation to shift alone. These problems don’t exist in isolation. If we want to tackle them effectively we have to work together across sectors to make change happen at a systemic level. Yet too often, the people with the least influence over shaping that change, are the people with the most insight into how a system could better serve the people it is there for.
That’s why we’re launching a new programme (the Point People and Snook), supporting The Lankelly Chase Foundation to deliver real sustainable change. Systems Changers sets out to amplify the insight of frontline workers supporting people facing severe and multiple disadvantage. These people working at the frontline with some of the most vulnerable people in the country are often under-heard, under-resourced and over-stretched. Systems Changers is an investment in these workers, enabling them to develop their voice, their collective knowledge and their influence on a wider system.
We are so excited about this programme. It builds on the work The Point People have been doing to support a systemic approach to tackling the big problems of our time. Last year we launched systemschangers.com, with support from the Praxis Institute at Oxford University’s Green Templeton College, which focused on capturing the practices of some of the pioneers of systemic innovation in the UK. We then went on to bring similar actors together to develop the vocabulary of systems change at the Keywords event with the Chartered Institute of Accountants & Oxford University’s Said Business School. The Lankelly Chase Foundation participated in both these initiatives.
Both of these initiatives focused on bringing together ‘systems builders’ - people who are working to create the conditions for change to happen in complex environments. These are people trying to design the architecture for change, for example through building new infrastructure, and forging institutional linkages. Frontline workers, in contrast, offer a completely different entry point into any given system, and the possibility of approaching change quite differently. A whole systems approach can only work by changing complete sets of relationships, models, processes and methods at every level simultaneously. Borrowing from some of the Keywords materials, frontline workers might be able to “assemble” or “unsettle” or “seed” or “integrate” change by being that much closer to people’s lives as well as the delivery aspects of the system itself. We hope that by surfacing the insights of these Systems Changers they feel able to further influence and change some of our most broken systems.
This six-month programme will be the first of its kind in the UK and will initially focus on the North East & North West of England.
Participants will have the space to reflect on and develop their insights, to step back and better understand the wider systems they work in, to develop new skills that will give their ideas more impact, to build networks and new knowledge across boundaries, to experiment with different tools, to learn from leading practitioners and get one-to-one coaching. We’ll also be working with their organisations and the wider system to make their participation as meaningful as possible.
To apply for Systems Changers : Click here if you are a frontline worker. Click here if you are the manager of a frontline worker that you'd like to recommend.
The deadline for applications is 11th May 2015. If you have any questions then get in touch at: systemschangers@lankellychase.org.uk
Vantage Point
April 4, 2014, by Sarah Douglas
“Once upon a time, I found myself at the edge of what I knew… Share with someone the rest of the story”
Just one of the questions the Point People asked guests to consider at a recent evening event that overflowed with dialogue, common ground and connecting.
From what I could hear, the answer for most who made their way into the kitchen of the 18th Century house and curiosity shop in which our salon was hosted, was that they regularly reached the precipice of what they knew. And although standing at this internal cliff edge felt pretty uncomfortable, it also served multiple functions – as a humbling acknowledgement of limitations, or a motivator that replenishes the thirst for knowledge encouraging one to learn and discover wider and deeper. It was striking how many discussed major challenges and shifts that had occurred at this edge in terms of their personal rather than professional lives, revealing the extent to which the personal learning curve was responsible for shaping external decisions and pathways.
In another room of the house participants were using their collective skills and expertise to come up with a strategy to rescue Rapunzel, a playful analogy for how powerful collective intelligence and insight can be in solving real world challenges. With this in mind I remembered the fantastic collaboration between Ferrari F1 and Great Ormond Street Hospital that saw experts from the sphere of motor racing train surgical teams to use the discipline of the pit stop to transfer high-risk patients more quickly during the critical minutes that follow complex heart surgery.
“Our handover [from operating theatre to intensive care unit] is our pit stop. It is a critical point where information can get lost. Just as a Formula One race can be won or lost on the pit stop, for us it can mean the difference between winning or losing the battle for the baby.” Jane Carthey, Institute of Child Health
Forging connections between different spheres of knowledge and finding new ways to catalyse these connections in order to drive innovation and systems change is a core ambition of the Point People. So we asked people to consider and share the things from the horizon of their work that excited them: “Looking out to sea, what do you see in the distance that is interesting?”
So, I’ve been playing closer attention to the activity on the periphery of my world that has sparked my curiosity this month…
I found it particularly captivating to learn more about the fascinating work being done by Coin Street Community Builders, the pioneering social enterprise responsible for keeping a community focus at the heart of the massive regeneration of the South Bank with co-operative housing schemes and numerous community facilities and support programmes.
And staying close to the river, I was again reminded of the importance of playing the long game when I saw the rave reviews that Phyllida Barlow has received this week after the opening of her new commission for the Duveen galleries at Tate Britain. “In every way tremendous… There's a word for this: Wow” writes Adrian Searle in the Guardian.
Having been highly respected by the art intelligentsia for many years and hugely influential to a younger generation of artists, Barlow is finally getting the accolades and recognition her consistently rigorous career deserves. Ever humble and inspiring at 70 as an artist, educator and mother of five.
Vantage Point
Jan. 24, 2014, by Ella Saltmarshe
NETWORKS: In 2014 the Point People will be undertaking some great network projects, so I’ve been swotting up… In Harvard Business Review, Michael Schrage makes the case for taking a network approach, “tomorrow’s organizations are going to give as much thought and care about investing in network effects as they do to new products and services”, while at Gigacom Stowe Boyd argues that network performance is fast becoming the most important determinant of employee success: “I am made better by the sum of my connections, and so are my connections.” Over at Forbes, Empact founder Michael Simmons argues that it’s not size that matters... -- rather than gunning to have the biggest network, you should focus on how to connect different clusters, brokering information between different communities, convening and introducing. This was one of our key motivations in setting up the Point People. Here’s some of Michael’s wisdom…
“In order to be an effective broker, you must continually fight against the comfort and validation that comes from staying in one group.”
“Brokerage is more than just a tactic to be deployed. It requires a completely different way of seeing and being in the world that is often uncomfortable. Being deeply connected and respected while having a high status in a single network feels good. On the other hand, being a broker means pulling from diverse perspectives that may seem conflicting. This requires intellectual flexibility. It means often being an outsider. It means less stability.”
A big thanks to network-broker extraordinaire David Hodgson for bringing these and a zillion other great articles to my attention.
MINDFULNESS: The new year has brought with it a lot of new work. This is great. And it means that not-going-crazy, is now top on my to-do list. I’ve been using mindfulness apps to help me with this: the brilliant Headspace in the morning to set me up for the day, and Buddhify for when I’m combusting in front of a screen in the afternoon. Suddenly Mindfulness is everywhere I look (sadly mostly in the external world, but he ho, it’s early days) – the writer Julie Myerson talks about how Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy changed her life. During a long overdue catch-up with old friend anthropologist, Dr Jo Cook, I discover she’s now focusing on Mindfulness Therapy, and even MPs are getting in on the action, with weekly mindfulness meetings. Ommmmmm.
MONEY: 2014 is the year that I combat my cretinous financial habits. After years of desperately trying to avoid anything that came in a brown envelope, humming loudly when people started talking about pensions and only dealing with the stacks of unopened bank statement bi-annually armed with a bottle of wine, I’m turning over a new leaf. Books like Prince Charming isn’t Coming have been invaluable. As have very practical tools like Home Budget for tracking your expenses (yup, I do now) and Money Dashboard for managing your bank accounts. It turns out I’m not alone, financial illiteracy is a big problem for women across the world. A new wave of entrepreneurs are rising to the challenge – from people like my friend, Courtney Van de Weyer who has recently set up Cambridge based Ms Moneta to the amazing MyBnk, which delivers finance education in schools.
POETRY: I went to the Poetry Book Society’s TS Eliot Prize readings at the beginning of January. It reminded me that I LOVE POETRY. So here’s my pick of the poets. If you can, buy their beautiful books. Poetry needs all the support it can get! Maurice Riordan, Michael Symmons Roberts, Dannie Abse & Anne Carson
Vantage Point
Nov. 4, 2013, by Rachel Sinha
Abuse of power in our systems is never far away. Whether it's JP Morgan cutting a deal with regulators to pay $13 billion for charges it knowingly sold bad mortgage bonds, Rebekah Brooks in the dock for phone hacking or revelations about Angela Merkel being bugged by the US.
There's a growing belief that to really shift the culture of these failing systems and to build alternatives, we need to take a systemic approach. Innovation and policy alone, are not enough.
Discontentment is coupled with momentum behind an exciting cluster of social innovators practicing, convening and writing about how to do it.
Three of my favourites so far have been;
Systems theory for scaling social good
THNK's (The Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership) very interesting blog series on scaling using Complexity Theory, Behavioral Economics and Systems Theory as a basis.
They describe scaling as the successful introduction of innovations that spread rapidly in non-linear fashion, seemingly self-propelled and with relatively little effort, resulting in an outsized impact.
The series covers three main areas; Emergence (small changes can have an outsized aggregated impact at a system level), Networks (understand the structure of a social network you are targeting) and Waves (get at the forefront of an emerging trend). Within each, the blogs identify strategies that leaders can use to scale.
Building better market systems
Michele Kahane at The New School in New York, came up with this framework after interviewing around 30 'Leaders Shaping Market Systems' as a follow-up to a dialogue of the same name. It outlines a series of tactics and methods that interviewees were using from Ethnography to coalition-building, finding ambassadors to creating communities of practice. This is an ongoing piece of work hosted by The Criterion Institute who will be hosting a Convergence of these leaders in Connecticut next March.
Beginners guide to
The brilliant people at Social Innovation Generation in Toronto have come up with this simple set of resources that help frame the theory and practice of systems change. It's got something for everyone in it, from Power Point slides to academic articles and carefully chosen videos. Nesta deserve an honourable mention here too for their broad reaching Discussion paper and blog series at the start of this year on the topic.
The Point People and systems change
The Point People is a group of 16 well connected ladies who come from a host of different systems; the arts, to education, to health, to finance, to design.... We were invented by the most super connected of us all, Cassie Robinson, who could see that the best ideas from one system were not being translated so they could be used in another.
One of our latests ventures has been to pull from our vast network and convene, interview and video around 15 leaders working on systemic innovation in London. They cover a whole range of systems and organisations from The Young Foundation, to NSPCC, to Volans. We are in the process of editing these by the themes that emerged and will launch the finished product on our site before Christmas.
Vantage Point
Oct. 14, 2013, by Eleanor Ford
Invisibility
Vantage Point is a place for us, as the Point People, to comment on trends that we have seen, as we go about our Point People lives. It is most likely because I am just re-entering the world of work after maternity leave that the trend that I am particularly interested in the invisible work. That stuff that goes unnoticed, but without which, quite frankly, the world stops spinning.
Talking about the invisible takes me onto networks, which I also think a lot about. Maybe its because I have a deep desire to see the world more connected. Maybe its because I hate wasted potential. Maybe because I am surprised, as social beings, how little we reach out to those who are around us. Or really look at them, to see what we might do together. What that joining up of potential might bring. It surprises me how quickly people are labelled with just one 'instant use', or singular interest, without seeing the palette of options and possibilities which stem from them, their uniqueness and the richness of their lives. Networks at their best offer all that and more.. and their real magic is in the fact that we have no idea what those future possibilities are.
I think it is these values of possibility, lack of judgement, openness, and ultimate 'magic' which unites the Point People. Certainly there is too much variance in subject knowledge, contacts, qualifications, interest, to unite us in anything more substantive, as is clear here.
However, on reflecting on networks, I am also interested in why it is that so often networks don't work. Just look around us at network attempts and you see another group of people that dissipates. Another flashy online platform that remains unused. Another evening that is mired with a flood of cancellations. In recent conversation with two close, highly networked and highly motivated friends, we were reflecting on why a recent network attempt hadn't really worked - it hadn't exactly failed, but it hadn't ignited the various people involved in the ways that we had hoped when we first imagined the possibility. To us it seemed obvious. Simple. Exciting. But still it was good, but a bit, erm, flat.
What struck us when we had the conversation, was an image of the sea, with its ceaseless movements and tides. That rising and falling in sea level that seems so charged and so powerful - yet which is only possible due to the invisible and undeniable power of the gravitational attraction of the moon and the sun. For me networks are similar. It seems that the movement and activity is independent, natural, that it stems from itself. But it is not that. Instead, it is directly powered and motivated by the force of something slightly separated from itself, slightly at a distance, yet uniquely tied to and interested in the activity it inspires. There is always some person, or some purpose, which is silently powering the activity. Making it possible. There is always something of gravity.
Indeed, every network has it's own gravitational force. But what interests me is how implicit, hidden, invisible that very often is. Good networks seem effortless. And, like the homemaker, it's work is only really noticed when it is absent, when something stops, is missing, forgotten or lost.
And, as well as recognising that is the axis on which networks sit, it also leads us to thank those that do it. Those people that silently, efficiently, naturally power the networks that work.
What To Invest In?
Aug. 14, 2013, by Cassie Robinson
Having worked (as programme designer, mentor , facilitator or learning partner) across many of the social innovation funding programmes and incubators (e.g. Nesta's Age Unlimited Programme in England & Scotland, Nominet Trust's Academy, Nesta's Ageing Well Programme, Bethnal Green Ventures, Social Innovation Camp) over the last 4 years, I've seen a huge amount of money given to projects trying to tackle ageing, social care, social isolation, etc. Some of it has been given wisely and much of it feels quite scatter gun, repetitious and funding decisions have been made in silos.
In terms of the latter, I will write another post about our view of how funders could work better to achieve collective impact. What I wanted to imagine today was where I'd put my money if I had a fund.
I look around at people with integrity, talent, and importantly a real understanding of the problems we face, scrambling to get stuff done alongside writing funding applications and travelling the country to pitch for investment. These people are already committed to trying to address some of the big societal challenges of our time. The more messy challenges within public services or central government and civic society.
Then I look at an organisation like MakeShift, based in Tech City, who in their words, are "a new type of company that makes digital products that ‘give a leg up to the little guy’." I don't feel it's my place to detail it too much, but from an outside perspective it feels like for a period of time they've been given a breathing space. I'm making assumptions here, but I'm guessing the person who has initially invested in the company saw two talented people, namely Stef and Nick, who'd already been doing some work together, and between them all they imagined what would be possible. Over the last 6 months they've started to create some digital products and have a larger one currently in private beta. That is all great and I think well done them. I also think lucky them. They are attracting talent, they are building a team, they are fostering a culture, they are getting stuff done.
If I was a funder of social impact, this is the kind of model that I would be investing money in to right now. Of course it's important to keep some funds for open calls, challenge prizes, new people coming in to the space. It's important to keep things open enough for serendipity to happen and for things to feel democratic. I think we all know the challenges of these open calls and challenge prizes too. One thing I have seen in abundance is ideas coming out of hack days and challenge prizes that just fall off a cliff at the end of the process or who spend much of their time trying to build a team and establish a good working culture in order to get stuff done, only to end up getting very little done at all. I'd like to see funds being given to existing cultures and established teams of people, so time doesn't need to be spent setting up core collaborations.
*Imagine if 00:// or FutureGov or Snook or Us Creates (there are other teams too) were each given enough investment not to have to worry about wages or funding for a period of time? I'd trust each of them to generate a heap of brilliant outcomes, address a list of social challenges, if only I was willing to invest in them having a concentrated period of time to just focus on this.
In relation to this, it will be interesting to see what the FutureGov team create in their inaugural hack. I'm pretty sure it's not just the Tech City community that can tinker, play, build and work with momentum. I am pretty sure though that the companies I mention above are asking the important questions.
*As a little disclaimer I feel I should say, the teams I mention might not want that kind of funding. I don't want to suggest that any of them are passive receivers of grant funding. They are all far from that.
Where Worlds Meet
May 22, 2013, by Cassie Robinson
Our new tag line Where Worlds Meet (credit to Anna Pearson there!) makes more and more sense to me. I mean, it always made sense, but these last few weeks when I reflected on all the conversations and meetings I had with various Point People, it was really brought to life.
I met with Amanda who has just started working 3 days a week with FutureGov leading a new project called PopCash; developing a mobile product to support the most financially vulnerable into better borrowing and saving habits with Credit Unions and away from the likes of Wonga. In these first few weeks Amanda has been getting to grips with this hugely important and increasingly relevant area. And all credit to her (boom boom) she has just finished a front-end developer course at General Assembly and is now coding too! #Finance #CreditUnions #TechyGeek
I saw messages from Anna popping up in my Facebook stream in relation to her work with 38 Degrees. Anna is working on 38 Degrees’ Campaigns by You site for the next two months. The site enables people to start their own petitions on issues they care about, on everything from saving Herefordshire's libraries to the fight to stop changes to legal aid. #Campaigning #MovementBuilding
A coffee with Jen and I was updated on the brilliant new initiative she has started called CharacterCounts. This is an area that Jen has been building up expertise in over some time, having written a high profile report - Building Character - back when she was at Demos that is still making significant policy impact today. CharacterCounts is a new, independent centre that promotes, evaluates and designs public policy interventions that build character. #Resilience #EarlyYears #Evidence
Earlier in the week Ella and I spoke to a class of MA in Applied Imagination students at Central St.Martin's and I was reminded of Ella’s work as a screenwriter. Having finished a screenplay based in Afghanistan, she’s now developing projects closer to home. She’s also setting up The Comms Lab with 10 founding organisations, to redefine the industry’s social impact #Comms #socialimpact
Sophia is shortly going to be starting a piece of work with Nesta’s Creative Councils programme. She’ll be extracting learnings and helping them to think about future strategy and links to policy. Also her book, The Squeezed Middle, came out last month. Sophia bought together experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US when it comes to the declining living standards of ordinary families.#LocalGov #Policy #Welfare #Livingstandards
The last time I saw Kyra she was just about to head off to the States and hand in the final draft of her book, Co-authored with Alexa Clay, called The Misfit Economy. Published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster, it tells the stories of how we can learn so much from misfits, stressing the importance of diversity and our own dark sides. Not only has she been writing a book, she's been recruiting for the Sandbox Network as their London Ambassador and now she's going to be a Mum too! #BlackMarketEconomy #TalentNetworks #Mum
Talking of Mums, Ellie, Kerry, Sarah and Rachel are all on maternity leave and living valuable other experiences. We're lucky that they still input in to meetings, and Yammer, as much and as often as they can. Their experiences of becoming mothers for the first or second time are really important for us to have in our group. I know that they have questions about how to balance all the aspects of their lives and I reckon a Point People book about motherhood may be on its way soon! #Mums!
I had a very quick catch up with Hannah just before Spark+Mettle's pub quiz this week. She's been busy planning her trip to New Zealand and the South Pacific as a Winston Churchill Fellow. Kudos to her for being selected - they had 1200 people apply for only 100 places. I'm not surprised though, she is on a mission to bring collaborative/collective social entrepreneurship into common practice, especially in the international arena. And much needed it is too. She's got big plans to share the approach widely when she gets back. #CollectiveEntrepreneurship #Networks #International
Kate has continued at Nesta where she works with the education team on their Digital Makers programme, which seeks to support a generation of young people to create rather than simply consume digital technology. She's recently went to SXSW r where she ran a session with Doug Belshaw from the Mozilla Foundation and then was at the UK Maker Faire in Newcastle supporting members of the Make Things Do Stuff consortium. She's building up a real expertise around digital making and education, and also considering how these areas can be connected more broadly across social innovation. #DigitalMakers #Education
Anne is working at Public&Private focusing on patient empowerment, co-production, and how to make a reality of the commitment across health and social care to make integrated care happen. She’s also getting more and more into the way in which networks are going to be the future of our public services –not just in health, but also families are childcare #families #health #social care
None of us have really seen Polina the last few months but that's because she's just doing her final for her Law Degree (Good luck Polina!) - she already has a job to go to full time but has still managed to squeeze in helping with Hub Westminster's Academy. #Law #Enterprise
And I've been busy getting DataStore off the ground. We won the Urban Prototyping Festival award for Urban Resilience and have spent the last 3 weeks building the first prototype of the store. Initially for the Digital Shoreditch Festival and an exhibition at the V&A. Now that Intel have sponsored the second version we will be taking it to the States later this year. DataStore is the digital literacy aspect of LondonScape and as I am about to start a 12-week course on Data Science at General Assembly, I think it's fair to say I'm becoming a bit of a data geek. #DataConsciousness #OpenData #Data&Design
So looking back at all those conversations (and the variety of the hashtags), not only do I think we really embody the phrase "Where Worlds Meet", I also feel hugely grateful and inspired that I am working and sharing with this brilliant group of people.
Using Data to Steward Systems
May 12, 2013, by Cassie Robinson
At the beginning of April I attended the first of the Open Data Institute's (ODI) Open Data In Practice Courses. I'm 10-months into two new initiatives that both have data as a core component and so I thought it would be useful to deepen my knowledge to play a better bridging role in producing them.
The course was divided up into 5 days: discovering open data, publishing and managing open data, consuming and understanding data, the business of open data and a hackathon. As a class we co-created a booklet of learning from the week that will be published shortly on the ODI website. Another useful resource for anyone thinking about open data is this field guide.
I came away thinking that design by default is as important as digital by default when it comes to open data and adding context to it. Mention the word design in relation to data and many people will automatically think about the visualisation of data, but there is a real role for design to play in the whole process of data being published. The questions to ask when publishing open data are very similar to the questions you'd ask in any person-centered design approach. Who is it for? How is it going to be useful for them? What format do they need it in? What else do they need to know about it? Where has it come from? The Government Digital Service has some great principles that should underpin any open data project.
The areas I'm most keen to explore are the intersection between strategic design and data, and the role of data in supporting stewardship. In the words of Bryan Boyer, "Design is the task of stewarding ideas into life in the real world, where solutions do not always allow themselves to be politely engineered. Contending with the forces of nature and humanity is to balance constraints towards finding effective compromises. Stewardship is the art of getting things done when everything is not fully under your control. The steward, in the context of strategic design, frames the architecture of the problem at the beginning and then works to adjust course as surprises surface." For more of Boyer’s Helsinki Design Lab thinking, see this new beautiful poster series
I have become increasingly interested in data as a means of surfacing truth, not the truth, but some truth. I see it as particularly useful for both bringing an idea to life and then acting like cats eyes on the road at night. Data can tell you where you are, what is happening and give instant feedback enabling you to re-route. I hope to see more designers work with data scientists, not to design beautiful visualisations but as a way of shaping and stewarding whole systems.
Digital For Impact
April 29, 2013, by Hannah Smith
‘The web is not tech, it is humanity linked by tech” - so said Tim Berners-Lee, widely credited as the inventor of the web as we know it. And with this thought, a day of exploring the emerging reality of the role of digital technology in creating social impact began.
Hosted by Michael Lewkowitz, a clutch of curious minds from the Nominet Trust, NESTA, the Big Lottery Fund, UnLtd, SIX, the Web Science Trust, MaRS and the Point People gathered to unravel some of the challenges of unleashing the untapped potential of ‘digital for impact’. In other words, how might we better use digital technology to enable, understand, measure and evaluate social impact? What kind of digital infrastructure do we need in order for greater impact to be achieved, sooner?
Our discussions were wide-ranging. From the meaning of impact – ultimately a ‘human oriented aim’ - to the emergent nature of the digital realm and the lack of ‘failure’ stories, we got stuck into some meaty conversations. Being reminded of the Cynefin Framework as a useful lens when considering complexity was helpful, as was learning of software carpentry bootcamps that are held for scientific researchers. Also memorable was the appearance of the word antidisintermediationarianism in the discussion, thanks to Dave de Roure of the Web Science Trust, whose blogpost may be handy for those of us bamboozled by such lengthy terms.
As we brainstormed and grouped by theme both the barriers to, and strategies for realising the full potential of digital for impact we were struck by the scale of the challenge. How do you prepare for a world that is increasingly chaotic? The data mountain is growing, but we are currently without the right equipment to properly scale it. The pace of change is so rapid that, for many, it can feel like an impossible game of ‘catch’ between a snail and a cheetah. We are poorly coordinated, and there is friction between cultures too.
And yet we weren’t disheartened. As a group, we saw much potential in the ‘delicious ambiguity’ of now. We talked of the need for much more experiential learning, sharper tools for data discovery and usage and how we could get better at combining human brainpower with technological possibility. In the ultimate emergent environment where, according to Kieron Kirkland of the Nominet Trust, ‘everyone is just chucking out stuff and seeing what sticks’, the time has come to get properly stuck in to the challenge.
Amongst the all the big thinking and post-it notes, there was definite energy in the room for action. Or, to coin a phrase that emerged in the session itself, ‘f*** it, let’s ship it’. It’s time to join up the conversations going on around the world about these issues; it’s time to get going on systems change.
With thanks to Michael Lewkowitz for facilitating the conversation. His reflections on the day are here.
Vantage Point
April 5, 2013, by Sophia Parker
Systems innovation - what's that all about then?
January saw the publication of not one, but two papers on systemic innovation, handily bundled together for easy reading. If you're not sure what we're talking about when we say 'systems innovation', this is a good place to start. Between them, Geoff Mulgan and Charlie Leadbeater cover definitions, methods and the potential of systems innovation, as well as reflecting on how it might help us to tackle some of the great social challenges of our time.
Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, predicts that we will see a level of poverty we did not imagine we'd see again on these shores in the coming decade. In this lecture, she asks 'what would Beveridge do?' Her conclusions call for market, state and community to work together to create a new approach to tackling poverty that is as bold as the welfare state settlement of 70 years ago, but that better reflects life in the 21st century.
John Houghton (the guy behind the excellent Metropolitan Lines blog) argues that the move towards community-led regeneration is a positive step, but it's not enough to rebuild fractured neighbourhoods and towns. 'The residents of the poorest neighbourhoods are coming up with their own ideas. But society can't pat them on the head for their gumption and leave them to fight against the tide.' Local initiatives may build resilience, but reconnection is also needed - linking local neighbourhood renewal efforts to wider initatiives for sustainable urban development.
Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg wants to be the new face of feminism, and her new book Lean In: Women, Work And The Will To Lead is supposed to empower women by letting them in on the secret of how to play the alpha male game. C'mon girls, speak up in meetings! Don't let the desire to have kids actually influence your career choices! Make your man wash his own socks! Yvonne Roberts' excoriating article hits the nail on the head about why this book is so depressingly wrong. As feminists, we've got to transform our current models of work, not play along with them.
From economic inequality to climate change, the really tough societal challenges we face dwarf individual organisations and initiatives. And yet our grant-making infrastructure is still geared to funding initiatives proposed by single organisations. Stanford Social Innovation Review has a very good series on aiming for collective impact, starting with this introduction. For alliances to be successful in achieving a goal, they need a common agenda, mututally reinforcing activities, shared measurement systems, a lot of communication and some discrete resources for co-ordination. I predict we will hear more and more about these issues.
And for some light relief...
If you're wondering when your expenditure on loungewear might peak, you'd better take a look at these 35 graphs mapping lifetime expenditures. Fascinating stuff.
When all you need is love but all you've got is 45 minutes, try this. In fact, even if you've got love, try it. You will have some wonderful conversations, I promise.