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There is Another Game in Town….and she is called Elsie

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You might be forgiven for thinking that traditional ‘economic development’ is the only game in town.  Shopping centres, arenas and enterprise zones, vocational education and training producing a workforce to meet the needs of employers.

This kind of stuff has been the mainstream of economic development for as long as I can remember.

But there is another game that WE can play..

One which relies less on ‘attracting’ talent and wealth from outside and more on developing the passion, aspiration and skills of the people that already make up our communities.  It works with what we have got, starting from where we are.

It relies on the ability of local people to support each other, with knowledge, skills, networks and wherever possible custom.   Instead of looking to buy ‘star players’ to join the team we instead set up an academy, a place and a process in which we can explore our potential and find the people and other resources that we need to move our projects forward.

This is where Elsie comes in.

Leeds Community Enterprise Accelerator (Elsie) is a project designed to build the capacity of ordinary people in the Leeds community to shape their own future according to their own hopes and aspirations.  It starts with what we have, and works with what we have got.  The project needs you to get involved.  It runs on a ‘pay what you like but free is fine policy’ so cost should not be a barrier to getting involved.

So, please, if you want to see another game in town when it comes to developing an economy that serves our community have a look at Elsie and get involved.

Leeds Social Media Surgery – 20th July

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The next Leeds Social Media Surgery is on Wednesday 20th July 6-8pm, at The Round Foundry Media Centre, Foundry Street, LS11 5QP

Leeds Social Media Surgery is a free advice session for community and voluntary groups, clubs, societies and small arts organisations. Come along to find out how you can use free web sites and services to organise activities, promote events, raise funds, collect feedback from your participants and more.

There are some great testimonials from people who have come along before on the link below. So if you’re not sure what we can offer please have a look/listen.

For more information and to book your place visit http://socialmediasurgery.com/events/204

Elsie is Born…

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I seem to have been a bit quiet on this blog, while I have been doing other things, including pushing Progress School along, working on Collaborate Leeds and incubating a new idea which has finally found the light of day today:

The Leeds Community Enterprise Accelerator or Elsie for short.  This provides a community based network of support to local enterprise coaches, advisors, facilitators, in fact to anyone who is helping someone else in the community to make progress.

I have high hopes for Elsie in post Business Link austerity economy.  I think it will provide a sustainable high value model to provide practical crowd sourced enterprise support to those that most want and need it.

Have a look at Elsie and tell me what you think.

Developing Enterprising Artists Using Open Space

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Yesterday I was invited to help Axis and the ever wonderful Culture Vulture to run a ‘Cultural Conversation’ to help a group of around 60 artists, project managers, collectors and gallery managers to explore the role of social media in supporting their work.  The group included some social media users and ‘experts’ (I use that word cautiously) and one or two technical types.  Peopl trsavelled from all over the north of England to take part and the venue at Project Space Leeds was rammed!

Instead of using the default setting of finding some experts to explain it all to the numpties we went with an open space meeting.  In this format groups of people meet to explore as peers the issues and topics they wish to explore.  They set the agenda, in real time on the day, and learn by exchanging experiences, insights and challenges.  They talk to each other, like human beings, in conversations.

In under four hours the group of 60 were each able to attend 4 conversations chosen from a schedule of 18 or so.  The topics included:

  • ‘What is Twitter and How Do I Use It’
  • Social Media Dialogue as Artwork’
  • I am Completely Overwhelmed! Where Do I Start?
  • Using Social Media for Critique

and many more.

Despite the fact that there are no experts holding forth, no lectures and no exhibitions the feedback from those who attended was excellent.  They enjoyed the process, they learned a lot, and most (perhaps all?) went away enthused about increasing or changing the way they use social media either to produce or attract and audience to their work.

This kind of open space conversation that builds relationships amongst participants and fosters enquiry and peer learning, rather than sitting passively while an expert holds forth, seem to me to be consistently effective ways to both build the social capital that forms the bedrock of an enterprising community and enable them to access the insights that they need to know, right now.  Indeed as the afternoon wore on a few new conversations were added as people though ‘Right, know I need to find out about….’

60 people smiling, laughing, talking, challenging, enquiring and advocating.  In short being human and exploring the implications of social media for something that they love.

A low cost, high value and extremely productive contribution to the enterprising ecosystem.  At a time when we need to be creating more value for less cash I can’t help that the world of enterprise development needs to embrace this type of peer to peer learning event.  We not be able to do much to improve the transport infrastructure in the city without a great big dollop of cash from government, but we can surely improve the enterprising infrastructure for next to nothing!

Some more thoughts were captured on the day in this audioboo – Why Open Space Works for Artists