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Archives for May 2011

The Power of Collaboration

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It seems to me that there is little more important to the quality of community than the ability to collaborate.  I think it was Kevin Kelly who first said that

Access is better than ownership.

Collaboration has the potential to allow us to access skills, ideas, money, labour, resources and allows us to achieve things that would be impossible if we did not learn how to collaborate.

  • So what can we do that helps to build our ability to collaborate across the city?
  • What can we do to collaborate over consumption and ownership?
  • What can we do to collaborate over creativity and production?

Today a small group is meeting in Leeds to explore some of the se questions and see just what if anything can be done to make Leeds a more collaborative city.

I look forward to seeing what comes from it.

The Alternative LEP and Micro-enterprise

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Our alternative LEP will have a board stuffed full of owner managers of micro enterprises.

Don’t get me wrong we will have ‘token’ small and medium sized board members too – but will draw the line at Big Business. They have enough lobbying clout and influence to fight their own battles.

So what type of policies would our board look at developing?

  1. Programmes to promote local supply chains and sourcing from micro-enteprise wherever practical
  2. Conduct a major overhaul of commissioning and procurement processes in the public sector (local authorities and NHS as primary targets) and where possible big businesses to ensure that they are as micro-enterprise friendsly as possible
  3. Divert training and learning budgets away from FE colleges and pay owner managers to take on apprenctices and teach them current, commercial practices.  Move the locus for learning from the class room into the workplace.
  4. Develop ways to enable micro-enterprises to co-operate and collaborate so they they can punch above their weight. Promote collaborative consumption and production.
  5. Promote local economy arguments and the importance of keeping cash in local peoples hands rather than handing it over to multi-nationals

What other policy areas would an alt-LEP that understood micro enterprise seek to develop?

Towards the Enterprising Community

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No-one can agree on a community.  Is it defined by political geography? Physical geography? Economic geography?  Interest, practice, culture?  So how do we use such an elusive, slippery yet, for some of us, attractive and powerful concept?

Well, personally I have given up worrying about how ‘communities’ are defined by outsiders (politicians, funders, missionaries of various kinds, what Paul Theroux calls the Dark Angels of Virtue).  The only thing that matters for me is the individual, or the usually small group sat in front of me, and their perception of their community, defined their way.  Any other attempt to work with the concept for me is just hot air.  We all define community personally and, very probably, uniquely.

But that does not make the concept useless.  Quite the opposite.

I spend a lot of time helping people to look at the relationships and contexts that they are a part of and the extent to which they help or hinder them to become the kind of person that they wish to become, accomplishing the things that they most wish to accomplish.  And I will spend time working with them on how they can get more of the support that they need from their ‘community’.  I spend a lot of time and energy building networks of people who just love to ‘help’.  Many of these networks are a blend of face to face and online – mediated through blogs and social networks as well as through a range of meetings, gatherings and parties.  And I try to connect individuals from one network into individuals from another, so that help can start to flow across and between different groups.

So first we have to find self interest.  That which really matters personally.  That which shapes who we are.  That on which our identity is based and through which it can be constructively shaped.

Then we have to find common cause and build networks and relationships where we can successfully negotiate our self interest.  We then forge connections between these networks to build a diverse, resourceful ‘community’ of individuals who are helping and being helped as part of their daily practice.  Surely this puts us firmly on the trail of the enterprising community?

And for great things to happen people have to learn to help each other.   The stereotype of the selfish backstabbing ‘Apprentice’ does not thrive in an enterprising community – though they may do well in The City.  Successful citizens in the enterprising community learn to associate, collaborate, cooperate and mutualise.  To find those with whom there is a common cause.  And they understand that giving hep to others is as important as getting help themselves.  The have theGo-Giver mindset and they express it through their actions.  They live it.

So, as those who attended Enterprising Community: Big Conversation explored, enterprising community is not a place or a neighbourhood but a philosophy, that can be summed up as ‘Concentrate on yourself and helping your neighbour’.

And where does entrepreneurship fit into this practice?  How does this help the start up rate?  Well the more powerful and enterprising individuals we have, embedded in enterprising communities the more great start-ups we will have, borne into a context where they may well enjoy the support of a wide web of community.  We are truly building a community where enterprise and entrepreneurship may thrive.