{"id":296,"date":"2010-09-07T08:18:16","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T08:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leedscd.wordpress.com\/?p=296"},"modified":"2010-09-07T08:18:16","modified_gmt":"2010-09-07T08:18:16","slug":"when-the-bureaucrats-show-up-in-leeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2010\/09\/07\/when-the-bureaucrats-show-up-in-leeds\/","title":{"rendered":"When the bureaucrats show up in Leeds…."},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Bureaucrat’ to me is not a dirty word. \u00a0I happen to think we need people to organise\u00a0policies\u00a0and procedures to bring some sense of organisation and pattern. \u00a0To enforce the rules when they need enforcing. \u00a0Government and governance can be good. \u00a0As long as they remember certain things<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bureaucrats\u00a0have been turning up at meetings organised by people who do not work in the official\u00a0bureaucracies\u00a0of the city. \u00a0They are not employed by the Council, or Business Link, or the Regional Development Agency, or the Arts Council. \u00a0But they recognise\u00a0gaps\u00a0that these agencies leave and they fill them. \u00a0There are enormous gaps left in the online world (anyone tell me of a\u00a0bureaucracy\u00a0that does a good job of engagement online?) and the world of the independent and the creative.<\/p>\n

These ‘worlds of ones’ are difficult to service for\u00a0bureaucracies\u00a0who prefer to batch process large groups of similar types as this offers a much more cost efficient way to ‘achieve’ the outputs that they are contracted to achieve. \u00a0 At least on the surface.<\/p>\n

For me the presence of the\u00a0bureaucrats\u00a0is a very welcome one. \u00a0The more diverse the group the more potential for something interesting to happen! \u00a0They bring skills, resources, political insights and a certain knowledge about how things actually get done in the city that few of us can match.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to watch the way in which some of the\u00a0bureaucrats\u00a0engage. \u00a0For some there is much \u00a0note-taking and reporting back, but very little interaction or contribution. \u00a0For others the contributions are mainly defensive and explanatory, providing the background to a particular campaign or decision that the ‘world of ones’ \u00a0has been less than impressed by. \u00a0And some perhaps offer personal opinions, thoughts and\u00a0beliefs, fearlessly, recognising that\u00a0they\u00a0attend these conversations as people and not primarily as\u00a0bureaucrats. \u00a0And some, perhaps most yo an feel are torn between keeping their heads down and ‘managing’ risk or just diving in and facing the consequences, whatever they may be, later on.<\/p>\n

Leeds Council and its agencies are beginning to wake up to the ‘online community’ (I hate that label as most of my life is not lived online). \u00a0 What is interesting for me know is to see what happens now.<\/p>\n

Are we (The Twitterati, the Web 2.0 Evangelists, the ‘people that slag us off’ as we were recently described) simply a new addition to the list of ‘stakeholders’ to be ‘managed’? Or is there an understanding that perhaps things have changed. \u00a0That hyperlinks subvert hierarchy<\/a> and bureacracy. \u00a0That we may be impossible to manage but might\u00a0respond\u00a0well to engagement and facilitation. That we are not\u00a0interested\u00a0in justification and defence but in relevance, identity and soul. \u00a0That co-creation might offer a way forward?<\/p>\n

We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting. \u00a0I wonder if we will be able\u00a0to\u00a0develop a way of working in the city that\u00a0blends\u00a0the best of chaos and order.<\/p>\n

Who is up for Chaordic<\/a> Leeds?<\/p>\n

Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”<\/p>\n

We’re both inside corporations and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they’re really just an annoyance. We know they’re coming down. We’re going to work from both sides to take them down. – Cluetrain Manifesto<\/p><\/blockquote>\n