Meeting People is Easy: The World of Innovation beyond SE23

The Plan ZHeroes team at City Hall, 15th Feb 2012

February is traditionally the time of year when New Year's Resolutions, if they haven't done so already, fall by the wayside. With this thought in mind, and inspired by the great work my friend Craig Ennis is still doing on his New Year's Resolution (Cinema Scraggadiso), over the past couple of weeks I've made a concerted to keep my commitment to get out more and connect with at least some of the mind-boggling number of events that are always taking place in London.

Being Amazing

To make things easier on myself, I started off by getting along to events that were in my comfort zone. To that end,  On the evening of 1st February I braved the cold chill and got myself along to Side Kick Studios in Old Street for an informal meeting of The Amazings' Street Team.

I've previously blogged about The Amazings before so I won't say too much more. In a nutshell, The Amazings is a  great (amazing?) social enterprise that helps people who are about to retire or have retired create (and sell) amazing experiences with the skills, knowledge and passion they’ve picked up throughout their life. Last year I had a lot of fun helping out by serving on market stalls, introducing people to the service and selling tickets for the experiences on offer. I'm very pleased to say the The Amazings is doing really well and, after successfully securing funding from NESTA, has big plans to expand its reach across London. I for one am particularly looking forward to helping bring The Amazings to Forest Hill. The Amazings is always looking for new street team members, If this is something you'd like to be involved with, do get in touch by clicking here.

Policy Innovation in a reassuringly traditional setting

Adam Street: Reassuringly Traditional

 My confidence buoyed by a successful social outing, in no time at all I found myself signed up to an after work event on the 9th February. The event had the racy title 'co-design and policymaking' and was organised by an organisation called Political Innovation. Given my love of all things political, policy and social innovation how could I say no?

At first glance, the contrast between The Amazings and the Political Innovation event couldn't have been more stark. Whereas The Amazings hosted us at their tastefully scruffy design studio in trendy East London (see picture of Side Kick's kitchen for evidence), the Political Innovation event was held in the type of venue which had its heyday when Macmillan was still Prime Minister: Adam Street Private Members Club, situated just off The Strand.

Side Kick's kitchen: sweet

Thankfully, first impressions were deceiving and I found the evening largely unstuffy, with some excellent presentations and off the cuff presentations from people looking at ways of opening up traditional policymaking in order to increase trust in the political system and deliver improved outcomes. The only real downside of the evening was that I felt that sometimes there was an unhelpful ‘us and them’ attitude expressed, with people involved in innovation projects taking the moral high ground and criticising others for being ‘political’ as though this were intrinsically a dirty word.

As someone who has worked ‘on the inside’ of policymaking I understand how challenging politics can be and, at their best, how hard elected politicians work. If we are serious about wanting to reform the political system as a minimum there needs to be mutual respect for both sides. And proponents of opening up policy making (myself included) need to recognise that while all of us, either as individuals or collectively as ‘the people’, can provide our views, ultimately deciding which priorities to pursue at any given time will always be an inherently ‘political’ judgement, regardless of who makes it.

There were many excellent contributions made at last week’s event. I recommend you visit the Political Innovation website to find out more and to book your place at the next event. I would like to give a special mention to Paul Evans for setting up Political Innovation and arranging the event and to Steph Gray (@lesteph) for his excellent overview of the various tools available to help increase involvement in policymaking.

You can read a blog post from Political Innovation on the evening here.

Swapping Forest Hill for City Hall

The view from inside City Hall at the Plan ZHeroes Launch

Last but by no means least I’d like to end this post by telling you about my latest social venture (geddit?), which last night took me to the political heart of London, City Hall, for the Plan ZHeroes launch event.

Plan ZHeroes is a civil society group based in London with a mission to reduce food waste to zero. In the long term it plans to do this by lobbying for action to reduce waste at every level of the ‘food pyramid’, from farm to plate. More immediately, however, it is focusing its efforts on connecting the people who cannot feed themselves and their families properly with the millions of tonnes of food that is wasted every year.

To achieve their goal Plan ZHeroes has created an interactive map which allows food charities and other community organisations to easily connect with businesses such as cafes with spare food that would otherwise go to waste. The idea of a food waste map is such a simple one and is a great example of how digital technology can support social action. Now the challenge is to get people using the map.

Plan ZHeroes' interactive map in action

Although Plan ZHeroes’ launch event was held at City Hall and featured contributions from prominent commentators such as Rosie Boycott the organisers successfully managed to combine serious intent with a sense of fun. Most memorably, they had hired student actors to role play an apocalyptic food crisis scenarios in a near-future London, which led on to some group working to come up with ideas to solve the crisis by promoting the interactive map. It may sound lame but because everyone involved approached it in the right spirit, it turned out to be a fun, creative way of getting people thinking about how we  can make the map a success.

Plan ZHeroes is asking for help to spread the word about food waste and the interactive map.and pledge to introduce the map to 10 organisations you know. This could mean telling your local supermarket about the map or perhaps a church or community group you attend. To find out more about you can do to help, click here.

What has being sociable taught me?

Looking back at the three events, I feel there are opportunities for each group to learn from one another and to improve. Future events by The Amazings and Political Innovation would benefit from the interaction of the Plan ZHeroes. Political Innovation could learn from the relaxed atmosphere of the Amazings. Political Innovation benefited from the quality and diversity of its attendees and is all organisations putting on events should look to emulate their approach.

Don't call it a comeback ...

It is fair to say there has been an explosion of interest in my Roots of Reggae project of late. Photo: jovike / Flickr

It was Harold Wilson who said 'a week is a long time in politics'. That was before Twitter, Facebook and this blog you're reading (or at least skimming out of a mistaken sense of obligation), however. And so with it approaching nearly two weeks since I last blogged, I think it's more fitting to reach for James Todd Smith (aka LL Cool J)'s memorable lyric, 'Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years'.

Now that I've publicly aired the shame I feel for not having taken the time to blog, I suppose I ought to at least explain what's been happening to me when I've been busy making other plans. So as not to strat too far from structural convention, I'll break these up into three themes: paid work; personal projects; and my so-called life.

Paid work

As briefly mentioned last time, I was pleased to pick up some freelance project management work from my old full-time employers, thinkpublic. The project I have been working on is still under wraps so unfortunately I can't say loads about it here. What I can say, however, is that is has been great to be working again with old colleagues and gaining more in-depth of a new policy area for me. I've written a blog post for thinkpublic about this work and will include a link to this once it has been published.

Running alongside this work for thinkpublic have been a number of other positive developments on the work front. Last week I was offered the chance to become an Associate of an ethically-driven consultancy firm. I am very pleased about this as it should allow me to apply the ways of working I enhanced at thinkpublic within a more political/policy-focused environment. I also had the chance to attend a European conference on Social Franchising on behalf of an Associate of thinkpublic. Not only was this a chance to learn more about an increasingly talked-about subject, it also led to some new introductions which should hopefully produce opportunities to get involved in other projects.Again, watch this space for more on how these things develop.

Personal projects

As things have picked up on the work front I have made a conscious effort not to let my commitments to outside projects fall by the wayside. Most significantly, the momentum for my reggae and dub-centred community project is gathering apace. The project now has a name: Roots of Reggae, as well as its own Twitter handle (@RootsofReggae) and blog (Roots of Reggae blog). The Ritzy cinema in Brixton are kindly supporting the project. I also have a date and venue for the FREE launch event, which will take place at the Ritzy Brixton on Saturday 3rd December, 3-7 pm. I have even secured a live dub performance from East Dulwich's finest Sly & Reggie, no less. You can find out more and sign up to attend via Facebook at: Roots of Reggae FREE launch.

Jules and Katie manning The Amazings' stall on Chatsworth Road Market

Besides my work on Roots of Reggae, I've also continued to help out on The Amazings, the East London-based social enterprise that helps people who are about to retire or have retired create amazing experiences with the skills, knowledge and passion they’ve picked up throughout their life. It was through this connection that I found myself last Sunday morning on the newly re-activated Chatsworth Road Market, where we managed to sell two tickets and harvested a good number of sign-ups for the service's newsletter. As with Roots of Reggae, I've found working on The Amazings to be a really rewarding experience, even when faced with less than amazing early morning weekend starts.

My so-called life

That Viking sure was funky. The Band Plays On at Brockley Market

Although the past couple of weeks have been very exciting and rewarding, I have sometimes found it challenging to adjust to flexible and often home-based working. When I working full-time for thinkpublic there would be a clear distinction between work and home-life, give or take the odd early start or late-night deadline. Now the line between work and home is less sharp and I find myself working on my laptop when really I should be having some switch-off time. Don't get me wrong, I've still made time for the finer things in life, such as seeing a friend perform in the musical Bye Bye Birdie (oh yes) and even a trip to the new Brockley Market, but over the next few weeks I want to make sure I find the time to relax and enjoy life, whether that's in Forest Hill or the wider world.

Next steps

Sarah and I are off to Newcastle this weekend for a friend's a wedding. After that, I'll be briefly back in London before heading up to Middlesbrough as part of my work for thinkpublic. With a bit of luck I'll have the chance to write a blog next week and, who knows, I'll maybe even throw in a picture of the famous Transporter Bridge.


A Soundtrack to celebrate Roots of Reggae getting a confirmed date

To celebrate the progress I've made on my Roots of Reggae project I thought I would share with you an upbeat selection of tunes.

Jimmy Cliff - Wonderful World, Beautiful People.
Sure, it's at the very poppy end of pop-reggae but who cares? A song when things in life are going well.

U Roy & Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Double Six.
Ignore the iffy visuals and enjoy the nicely mellow toasting by U Roy over a surprisingly modern sounding synth line. Electro-pop reggae, anyone?

Wayne Smith - Under Mi Sleng Teng
This song is arguably the first all-digital dancehall track. Produced by Prince Jammy, it pretty much revolutionised Jamaican music. I normally stick to 70s roots material but this song is just so catchy you can't resist. If you like this song you should check out the Tighten-Up Crew's gig this Friday in Finsbury Park: Tighten-Up Crew gig.

The Amazing Jimmy

Jimmy contemplating the next hors d'oeuvre

As some of you may know, I am currently supporting The Amazings, a new social enterprise based in East London that helps people who are about to retire or have retired create amazing experiences with the skills, knowledge and passion they’ve picked up throughout their life.

It was thanks to this connection that last week I had the pleasure to attend an experience delivered by Jimmy, a rising star of The Amazings and all-round nice bloke. Jimmy showed me and the others who attended the session how to prepare a range of classic hors d'oeuvres. Suffice to say, after my evening in the company of Jimmy, dinner parties at my flat will never be the same again. I'd now like to tell you a little bit more about my experience.

My first impressions of the evening were very positive. I was greeted at Hackney Community College and brought up to a well-equipped professional kitchen where the culinary magic would be made. Jimmy was a fine host, immediately putting me and the others at ease with some friendly chat, stories from his youth and and the odd glass of wine or two.

Jimmy's carefully prepared hors d'oeuvres menu

Once we were suitably refreshed, Jimmy presented us with a hand-written menu he had carefully prepared. We then worked through a series of classic hors d'oeuvres, each course slightly more challenging than the last. Each course followed the same pattern: Jimmy would demo a dish, making it look easy; we would then try to replicate his approach with our own efforts, with varying degrees of success. Despite not being the most confident of cooks, I found that with Jimmy's support I was pleasantly surprised with the dishes I produced.

Here's one of Jimmy's hors d'oeuvres

And here's one of my efforts ...

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to meet Jimmy and prepare lots of tasty food. If I were to make a couple of suggestions for how the experience could be improved, I would suggest the inclusion of one or two contemporary hors d'oeuvres so that we can impress even our Masterchef-watching friends. More importantly, though, I would ask that The Amazings remind people to bring a lunchbox so that they can more easily bring back their tasty treats on public transport. Balancing all those plates of food wasn't easy but I managed it!