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Learn the Skills of Community Organising in Leeds

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…or if it is good enough for Barack Obama it is good enough for me!

Community organising seems to be all the rage at the moment.

Leeds Community Organising and Bradford Changemakers are jointly hosting  a Community Organiser training weekend in September.

The training is taking place over two days on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th September 2010 at Leeds Church Institute in Leeds city centre (20 New Market Street, LS1 6DG), and will run from 9.30am to 4.30pm each day.

This is an opportunity to deepen your knowledge of the principles and practice of community organising, extend your own leadership skills, and grow relationships with others involved in the development of Community Organising in Leeds and Bradford.

The full weekend costs £30 per person and includes lunch and refreshments. Further information and booking details are included on the attached flyer – please do tell others in your organisations and communities who may be interested!

I certainly hope to be there!

Download this flyer (pdf) for further details Sept 2010 flyer-1

Who Are the Innovators?

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Recently I have been reflecting with Imran Ali about the nature of innovation in the city (of Leeds in this case) and how it might be developed.  The assumption being that more and better innovation will be an unalloyed good in a fast changing, dynamic, complex yet very finite environment.

Most of the discussion has focussed on some obvious innovation levers that we believe could yield some relatively quick and easy wins, such as:

  • encouraging more innovation across traditional boundaries of department or role
  • seeking applications of technology for social innovation
  • thinking as idealists rather than realists – exploring the art of the possible not just the pragmatic
  • providing ‘investment ready’ development programmes
  • engaging non traditional sources of funding in the innovation process and so on.

But the implicit assumption all of these approaches to innovation is of an innovative elite.  A creative class with the brains, the money (or access to it) and the networks to figure out how to make things significantly better for the rest of us.  Scientists, technologists, financiers, policy makers, politicians, environmentalists, campaigners, entrepreneurs (social and not so social) and academics are all encouraged, incentivised and trained to ‘unleash’ their creativity and innovation.

But how many in the city form part of that elite?  The hallowed few from whom progress is expected to emanate or who feel it is their duty to change the workings of the world. A few thousand perhaps in a city of 800 000.  I suspect it is less than 1% of those living in the city.

I believe that innovation, creativity and change in pursuit of progress, are essential human qualities that will find means of expression.  Regardless.

  • How does the potential of ‘innovation’ play out for the rest?
  • How do the processes of creativity and change in search of progress manifest for them?

Well, I suspect there is another slug of the population who are deeply engaged in creativity and change in relation to developing their  practice, in the more or less explicit hope, that they may be able to join the elite.  Training, learning, networking and thinking of ways to get their hands on the innovation levers.  Would-be entrepreneurs, politicians, students, scientists and bureaucrats who are working their way upwards and onwards.  Some, of course will join the elite. But most, by definition, will not.  And they will join another group of potential innovators.

These are the ones who do not wish to change the world/city/community.  Perhaps they have given up on the challenge. Perhaps they never engaged with it.  But the essential creative drive remains and will be expressed.  It may play out through personal lifestyle choices.  Living the environmental life perhaps, gardening,  reducing the golf handicap, pursuing cultural enlightenment, renovating houses/cars etc.  Progress is defined in more or less personal terms.  It is perhaps the pursuit of happiness rather social change.   Work becomes a job rather than a way to make a mark on the world.  Creative courage is reserved primarily for ‘out of hours’ activities.

And then there is another group who never really established a foothold in ‘the system’.  Those for whom a steady salary providing some level of ‘disposable’ income was never really ‘on the cards’.  Vocational and professional routes for creative expression never opened up for them.   From this group I suspect the systems demands not innovation and creativity but just passive compliance.  Do as your told, smarten up tour appearance, brush up your CV and look for a job.  Or at least pretend you are looking for a job.  But the drive to innovation will out.  Creativity will be expressed.

So when we are looking to support innovation in the city where is the great untapped potential?

  • Does it lie in providing more and better support and training to the elite?
  • Or should we try to mobilise middle England, Big Society style, to rally tot he cause?
  • Or should we perhaps change the terms of engagement with those at the margins of the system?  To shift from a coercive approach to a coaching one?

Anyone for ‘Innovation Coaches’ in Leeds?

Leeds Arena – Winners and Losers?

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So it seems certain that Leeds will get an Arena.

An important gap in our cultural birthright (the right to see middle-sized events that are not big enough for large stadiums but too big for 3000 seater venues, without having to travel 40 miles) will be plugged.

The city will have an ‘Arena sized’ ‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ engine like most other large northern cities.  We will no longer be different.  We will have ‘caught up’. Good for us!  The timing is interesting.  Leeds seems to be getting dangerously late into the ‘large events’ market.

Never again will the cry be heard ‘I have to leave Leeds for a city with an Arena’.  Another hole through which Leeds talent escapes will be forever filled.  Currently we lose too much talent to the south and west because of the ease with which one can take in a James Blunt gig in those places.

We want Leeds to develop an identity?  Let’s give it an iconic arena!   Perhaps one that changes colour? A place where we can go and view ‘talent’ when it briefly visits our city because of the economic upsides on offer.  Now THERE is a plan.

But perhaps I am pre-judging.  Perhaps the Arena will have coherent and resourced plans to provide Leeds with an affordable showcase for its own talent as well.  Perhaps it will have a meaningful programme of community engagement.  Perhaps it will become an asset for all of the city and not just those parts that can afford to pay?

I am not sure quite what the funding cocktail is for the latest plans for the arena.  Back in May it was just shy of £10m of Govt money in a £55m project.   I am not sure how much the council is putting in the pot. Or how much will come from private investors.  I can’t find much about it on the web.  But it seems now that the project has become an £80m investment. [Just been told that the Yorkshire Post is today running a story that says all £80m is coming from public sector purse.  £70m from Leeds City Council, £10m from Treasury].

That is a lot of investment.  And it will demand a return.  Clearly the investors believe they will see real financial gains from their investments.  They plan to be beneficiaries of the project.  And the public sector will rub its hands with glee at the increased GVA in the city.  And we can always rely on ‘trickle down‘ to ensure that we will all benefit from the redistribution of wealth that the new Arena will trigger.  Can’t we?  It is a part of an economic development strategy that says we can spend our way to a better future.

The developers, planners, architects and builders too will surely gain.  It is their raison d’etre to profit from this sort of project.

And for a couple of years we will create a few hundred jobs for builders, surveyors and other trades while the Arena is built.  And once it is in place there will no doubt be opportunities in Arena Management, retail and box-office.

And there will be a supply chain too who will benefit, Promoters, record labels and their artists, Marketing and Branding agencies, printers and franchise holders, maintenance workers and so on.

But it will not be a major employer in the city.  And most of the long terms jobs available to locals will be low skill and low wage, stewarding, ticketing, concierge and retail.

Of course it will be a major economic player. It has to be.  It will have to suck up hundreds of thousands of pounds every week in ticket sales.  It will have to be branded and hyped.  My vote would be for ‘The Marks and Spencer’ Arena to reflect Leeds noble retail heritage.  Hundreds of thousands of pounds that, yes, will pay wage bills, will pay for a supply chain and will provide a return to investors and managers.  It will be fascinating to see how much of the cash hoovered up by the Arena will actually be retained in the city.  My guess is that much of it will leave the Leeds economy.

The SMG group have the gig to manage the arena (they also manage the MEN Arena and many others all over Europe).  It will be fascinating to see the kind of programme they can put together and the interest that they show in engaging with local developing talent.

And what will the impact of the new Arena be on other venues?  Well clearly Sheffield and Harrogate believe they will feel the pinch.  Although Manchester seems quietly confident that their suite of arenas will remain untroubled by the new kid on the block.  But what about other Leeds venues?  Any way that The Academy, The Cockpit, The Refectory, The Brudenell etc will benefit?  I suspect that the Academy may lose market share to the Arena.  But most of the other venues serve very different audiences and I remain optimistic that they will be relatively untroubled by the Arena.  But will there be any upsides for other Leeds venues?

I think it is interesting that the Arena Showreel chooses to walk you through a boxing promotion.  And it is very strange to see a boxing ring with an audience on just three sides!   That is a brave design feature.  A three sided arena.  More intimate perhaps.  Certainly different.  But will the large shows designed for four sided arenas come to it?  I am thinking Monster Trucks, WWE and the like?

I guess we can anticipate boxing, comedy, pop, rock, classical, opera, fashion and many more event genres using the Arena.   And I would be interested to see how the Arena will actually benefit each of those circuits that are already embedded in the local economy.  Will having a large boxing venue drive a renaissance in Leeds Boxing?  Ditto opera, comedy, fashion and so on. Will the dream of playing a Leeds Arena provide additional drive and ambition in the city?  Or will the Arena take market share from these sectors leaving many of the incumbents struggling further.  Will ‘Arena Opera’ coming to the city be a boon for Opera North or a threat?

What will the impact of a development like the Arena be on ‘fairness’ in the city.  On social justice?  On the inequalities in wealth and health that exist in our city?  Will it make Leeds a more equitable city?  Or will it be an asset for those with disposable income that will only serve to widen the gap?

Will it provide a boom in the production of ‘culture’ in the city or in consumption of culture being sold to the city?

What will the impact be of pulling the centre of the city further north?  How will it impact on land values and uses?  Will local estates become more, or less desirable places to live in the shadow of the Arena?  What will the impact be on traffic flows?  What will those who arrive by train and walk up to the Arena make of their engagement with our city.  No doubt the city centre bars will find them to be yet another lucrative market to target.  I wonder just where the touts and the merchandise vendors will set up their pitches?

Of course the Arena will be a mixed blessing.  There will be winners and losers.

My best guess is that most of the winners will be in the business community and those with significant disposable income.  And the losers will be those for whom a £10m public investment may have been used to provide well considered and long term processes of community based economic development.  Providing community groups and local residents with the resources that they need to build their own economies, cultures and communities.

I am not against the Arena.  But neither am I for it.  What I am against is the continuing massive investment in the built infrastructure in the city that seems to imply if we can just get the right buildings in the right place we will get progress in our very wonderful city.  We won’t.

The most successful examples…[of economic and community development]…result not from top-down policies imposed by local governments but from organic, bottom-up, community based efforts.  While…government and business leaders pressed for big government solutions – new stadiums and convention centres – the city’s real turnaround was driven by community groups and citizen-led initiatives.  Community groups, local foundations and non-profits – not city hall or business led economic development groups – drove…transformation, playing a key role in stabilising and strengthening neighbourhoods…Many of…(the) best neighbourhoods…are ones that were somehow spared from the wrath of urban renewal…
Richard Florida – The Great Reset
When are going to ‘get’ this?

The Future is… Nomadic?

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Is it time for a post-settlement society?

Are home ownership, long-term council house tenancies and commitment to a community doomed to become little more than quaint memories of how society used to work?  Do they restrict the mobility of skills, knowhow and muscle power that a modern economy demands?

There are many that argue this case.  Richard Florida suggests in his book The Great Reset that the creative classes should no longer tie themselves down geographically by committing to mortgages and buying properties.  Grant Shapps, Housing Minister wants social housing tenants to have Housing Freedom Pass and a National Home Swap Scheme to allow tenants to move in pursuit of work, or for ‘any other reason’.

The message seems to be ‘don’t commit yourself to a community – be prepared to follow the money – the future is nomadic’.

Can you imagine a society divided into the rooted and the rootless?  Those who can afford to commit to a community for the long term and those who can’t?

It used to be that we wanted people to come to our communities and stay in them.  To shape a society and an economy that would serve the community.  To care about community.  Now the big idea seems to be shaping community to serve the economy.

  • Is this progress?  Or a progress trap?
  • Should we engineer society to meet the increasingly dynamic demands of a growing and shifting economy?
  • Or should we engineer the economy to serve the kind of communities in which we wish to live?
  • Will increasing social mobility help to reduce inequalities and promote social justice?  Or will it create even more stark demarcations between rich and poor?
  • How will our city evolve if the churn in our working communities is significantly increased?
  • Or will the possibility of a digital Britain and an economy that is ‘lighter than air‘ mean that spatial mobility is much less of an issue than we may think?
  • Or is it just a lot of fuss about nowt?

Apartheid in Leeds?

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Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning “separateness”.  And I see a surfeit of ‘apartheid’ in development processes in our city.

Let’s look at the ‘Vision for Leeds’.  In its official version I believe this is a statutory requirement for the council to produce.  It has a website and a series of workshops each aimed at a different sector.  Cultural types are kept apart from third sector types.  Business people have their own workshop provision.   But there is also an ‘unofficial’ vision being developed by the very wonderful ‘Together for Peace’ crew.  Again I was invited to a workshop for ‘business people’.

We have myriads of other networks in Leeds. We have them for start-up entrepreneurs; for artists and cultural types; we have them for financiers and digital creatives.  We have them for hi-tech businesses and university spin-offs.  We have them for community development workers and just about every niche you can imagine.

But they nearly all require you to adopt a label, and nearly all separate you from others who don’t.  Trying to find a truly diverse network is not easy.

Now in many ways this is not a problem.  If I want to join a network to explore the latest development in double glazing then a network for double glazing specialists hits the nail on the head.

However if I want to search for ways to make progress on the problems and  opportunities facing a complex system like the City of Leeds then I had better make sure the groups I work with contain enough diversity.  That, as the systems thinkers say, we have the ‘whole system in the room’.    The beauty of large group methodologies is not that they give us powerful ways to work with large groups – but that they give us powerful ways to work with the diversity that is necessary if we are to find whole system approaches to complex challenges.  When we practice apartheid we chop the large group methodologies off at the knees.  They become nice processes with weak outcomes.

We also fragment what should be whole.  So we have a group of ‘business people’ looking at ‘the economy’.  We have a group of ‘artists’ looking at ‘culture’.  And we have the third sector looking at ‘Big Society’.  These are all facets of the same problem and we are unlikely to come up with useful interventions by consulting in isolation and hoping that we can stitch things back together later in the process.

So next time how about doing the work to get a really diverse group in the room and who knows what new ideas we might be able to spark and what new relationships we might be able to develop.

What do you think?  Have I exaggerated the problem?

Or might it be that an unconscious level of apartheid could be a major barrier to real progress in the City?