Portrait of the Artist as a Young Person...

I came home late last night from a piece of work in Birmingham to find this wonderful picture created by my 2 and a bit year old daughter Grace on the wall.

It simply captures the creativity and vision of young children - it is powerful, colourful, bold and confident. I am thinking of using it as the logo for my consultancy business! And it was just what I needed after a long and tiring journey across London.

It has also been a strong reminder of how important our visual senses are and what young children can do to teach us adults to stop and look once in a while.

And by the way, Grace tells me it is not a portrait of me...

Trainer Development - Some Thoughts and Reflections

I thought I would post the presentation I gave at the wonderful National Children's Bureau PEAL Trainer Development Days last week. It was part of a workshop exploring issues of trainer development, accreditation and the new City & Guilds qualification called PTLLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector).

Trainer Development Some Thoughts And Reflections

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

For me as a trainer who generally operates as a one man band (or at most with one other co-trainer) it was great to get together with so many experienced trainers for a couple of days. Events like these really prompt self-reflection and it is always good to reconnect with people and have fun in the process.

PEAL (Parents, Early Years and Learning) can be found at www.peal.org.uk

Participation and SMS Text Messaging

I have been collecting links and websites with information and tools about using SMS text messaging as a form of participation.

Here are some sites I have come across.


http://www.polleverywhere.com/

http://www.smspoll.net/

http://algoritmer.dk/widget/

http://moblog.net/home/

http://twitter.com/

http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/nhsmail/about/studies/mackenzie

http://sms.bigfoot.com/business/business_download.jsp

http://www.tucows.com/preview/233692

http://www.softsea.com/review/e-txt-SMS-Message-Manager.html

http://www.mdr-computers.com.au/Software/SMSManager.htm

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39242047,00.htm

http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=9948

http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/3468/nhs_direct_launches_sms_service

Blogging the Dream - Mental Health Activism in Romania

My friends in northern Romania are part of an great new project using blogging as a way to give a voice to mental health service users and those who are often not heard.

The wider project is called Blogging the Dream. It already includes some interesting articles and some photos of real people making changes in their community.

Next year I will be returning to Romania to link up with Orizonturi and other organisations to run some workshops at a conference on activism, communication and grassroots policy development.

Happy Birthday National Health Service - 60 Years Old Today

The British National Health Service (NHS) is 60 years old today.

As a major party of the welfare state established after the Second World War it has been a great achievement to continue to give unrestricted access to healthcare, free at the point of access, to everyone.

I still think the principle of public service is relevant to the 21st century. It inspires people to give their careers to an institution that is different and part of the wider public sphere. In an increasingly commoditised era, it is essential to retain these values and also our connections to our past.

I am very proud to be a small part of the NHS as a non-executive director of Bexley Care Trust.

It is when I work abroad that I most become aware of how unique the NHS is. Having just returned from Switzerland where you have to pay for your own private health insurance it helps me remember that this is the norm in most parts of the world.

How did I celebrate the birthday? Well we had some young people spend the day with us to explore the local history of the NHS in south east London. And then we worked with them to look at ways young people and other service users can participate in modern day health commissioning. They will be coming back to us for three days in later July to design a young person's council and do some real commissioning. Exciting stuff.

Here is the link to the story on the BBC website

Participation and Citizenship - Contributions from Political Economy

Whilst reading around issues of the media and political economy I came across this very interesting definition of citizenship from the works of Murdock (1999 and 2005 - no, not the Australia chap) on the political economy of communication.

He defines citizenship as "...the right to participate fully in social life and to help shape the forms it might it take in the future..."

To make this a reality Murdock (quoted in Murdock and Golding, 2005, pp.65-66) argues that people need access to a range of communicative resources that support participation including:

1. Access to information, advice, and analysis that enables them to know their rights and to pursue them effectively

2. Access to the broadest possible range of interpretation and debate on areas that involve political choices

3. The right to have one's experiences, beliefs and aspirations represented without distortion or stereotyping

4. The right to participate in public culture by speaking in one's own voice - registering dissent and proposing alternatives

I think this is a really useful model that could be adapted to many different dimensions of communication and participation. It resonates with my own feelings about the value of peoples life stories and experiences and the expertise they have in living their own lives in their local communities.

How well does our local community measure up to these four points? What do we need to do to get closer to these standards?

Communication is a vital part of making participation real - I think the focus on difference and the possibilities of appreciating and valuing dissent and alternative viewpoints is really powerful.

It is also a real challenge to the limited range of views that are usually portrayed in the media and in organisational communication.

How do we make communication a part of the participatory process and not a tool of limited interests or groups?

I think that face-to-face (or situated) communication still retains a lot of power and is something we need to do more of. It is when people are able to engage directly, build rapport and trust, and work together to understand and appreciate each other that participation becomes something active and life changing.

So how do we build more face-to-face communication in this increasing fragmented society? And what is the role of social networking including its limits?

Reference: Murdock, G. & Golding, P. (2005) Culture, Communications and Political Economy in Curran, J. and Gurevitch, M. (2005) Mass Media and Society. Hodder Arnold: London

Visiting Google in Zurich

I went to Google Zurich today to have a look around their offices and have some lunch. It is a very impressive set up with a dynamic feel to the organisation and some interesting features.

Everyone says hello to everyone else whenever they walk past each other in corridors or in offices - it is complusory and part of the culture. It feels friendly and welcoming.

There are lots of creative spaces for meetings (small and large) as well as places to relax, get away from your desk and think and reflect. Some of these spaces are very interesting - converted ski lifts, pods and converted ice stations from the north pole.

The organisation is young and also has a young feel - most of the employees seem to be under 30 years old.

There is also a commitment to employees using some of their time (up to 20%) to pursue their own innovative projects that can complement their core work. This is an interesting way of promoting innovation and new thinking.

There is also a real sense of vision and mission about the place - they want to be a great company, to be a great place to work and to do something good in the world.

Now I don't think any organisation is perfect. Organisations are social entities with a range of dynamics and peculiarities that sometimes only reveal themselves over the longer term. But I do wonder how the Google experience might be adapted to the voluntary sector and to social and health development. And of course they do give a lot of their products away for free at the moment.

I think there is a lot we can learn from different ways of doing things. We don't need to take the whole package but we can 'borrow' and experiment with different ways of doing things - and make work fun and vibrant at the same time.

Have a look at the Google offices - click here for a video tour