Today i have been tidying up - again - actually its just reflective activity because i start by picking something up and wondering why i haven't already binned it and then i start comtemplating its usefulness and relevance in terms of anything going on in my head/ life right now. It might then get binned or it might get filed with a post-it note or scribbling on it. I like these serendipitous tidyings up. Amongst today's findings i am reminded of my past hobbies - key ring, metal, coin, stamp and lego collections along with a growing collection of newspaper articles and conference notes whose relevance is no longer clear. I came across a definition that i'd written down that grabbed my attention: a partnership = mutual cooperation and responsibility for achieving a shared goal. My question is how do you get at what those shared goals might be? what process or processes of engagement are needed to facilitate that? there are others... like futuresearch and what's important for me is the story or narrative into engaging/ interesting people in wanting to participate in this in the first place: and that's to do with stakeholder mapping and making and maintaining connections but could also just be about serendipitous fishing, meeting and playing together?
Yesterday was very much a thinking day - i spent most of the day reading a new book: Christopher Ciccone's autobiography about 'Life with my sister Madonna'. It is an intriguing read, not least because it seems he is the talented one and yet he realised that to get anywhere he had to attach himself to his sister, the pioneer, to somehow make use of his talents. It got me thinking about responsibilities within hierarchical structures, to help those lower down to move on and move up. What can i do to support and facilitate others to help them move up that empowerment ladder? What are the necessary support structures around which empowerment and social innovation can happen? - whether that is around getting a job, seeking medical help, or fulfilling a lifelong ambition? And, what are the steps to the beneficiary registering or signalling their interest and embarking on that journey?
How this relates to the tidying up i am not quite sure but i feel there is a link. Reexamining objects of interests might generate possibilities for connection, empowerment and social innovation.
I've thought about all the things i started and gave up on - music lessons, claypigeon shooting, judo and countless others - in school i loved and gave up chemistry, physics, history, geography, latin, computer, english, maths lessons - thinking about what i am interested in recently - change and empowerment - all of these or more specifically, the links between them would have been incredibly useful. A particular example that is beginning to emerge is the link between population geography, the history of disaster and conflict and storytelling as it relates to social innovation. I am thinking about ways in which the storytelling narrative could mirror an S-shaped curve or sigmoid curve rather than a normal distribution. I googled this and found something under 's-shaped curves for social innovation':
"It is often said that innovations or new practices are taken up in an S-shaped or sigmoid curve. That is, there are broadly three phases. First just a few take it up: early adopters, the first few percent, over a long slow initial period of low usage; the first low slope of slow increase, and low total use. The third phase is also a low slope and slow increase, but high total use: these are the last reluctant ones. The second, middle phase has a high slope of rapid increase.
This view is attributed to Everett M. Rogers, and is described in his textbook "Diffusion of Innovations" (1962; 4th edition dated 1995; The Free Press; New York) e.g. ch.1 p.11 fig.1-1.
In fact you will get a sigmoid curve for cumulative adoption if the underlying rate of new adopters (new adoption events) forms a normal distribution (and if there is no significant rate of people dropping the innovation)."
By Steve Draper, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.So now i am very 'f@x-ing' excited - in thinking about this i have found a link between mathematics, storytelling and social innovation. My conscious thinking about this emerged onto paper as i was chatting in a meeting about monitoring and evaluation and how it can be interlinked with driving social change by having the participants reflect or share the stories of their journey en route with others like them. The central character can be a person, group, institution or country and change can be accelerated by creating connections and documenting through storytelling and sharing stories in order to create 'movement' between them as they listen to and reflect on their progress and setbacks.
The other thing that this links into is an area of research that i am very interested in and studied some time ago as an undergraduate. I was looking at the genetics of depression for a dissertation. What i became very interested in was neurotransmission systems and their role in movement and how this might relate to depression and pharmaceutical treatment of depression. I didn't make the connections - well didn't get far enough into pursuing them at the time. When i did my PhD i studied Parkinson's disease (a movement related disorder of the brain). Reflecting back on these moves - i am seeing that i changed direction without realising the connection i.e. from depression and movement to Parkinson's disease which affects movement. My interest in this was reignited a while back over dinner and a discussion with a neuroscientist about my dog, summer, a whippet, a sight hound, and her attraction to anything that moves, which then triggers her to run (move) after the moving object.
One final down-to-earth story that this relates to is that when i was doing my PhD i was finding it very difficult to just write the research up and complete my thesis. I was at a turning point in my life. My PhD research bursary that supported me had run out and i was working part-time in liverpool to support myself. I had all kinds of time pressures on me to finish my PhD, to find a permanent job and in the meantime the tenancy on my flat was about to expire and i was beginning to be faced with lots of question marks that quite frankly i couldn't answer: you know big ones, like what are you going to do with your life? and small ones like how am i gonna pay my rent? Although i was still invited to attend research meetings at University, i felt it was too much and would be faced with all these questions from everyone. My supervisor and saviour at the time did three simple things to support me: first she invited me to lunch away from university where i wouldn't have to face my peers and colleagues then over lunch she asked me what was on my mind, what other things were going on for me right now that might be stopping me from completing my research. I explained that i wasn't sure if i could afford next months rent. She got out her chequebook there and then and wrote me a cheque to cover next month's rent. These simple things spurred me on to get the job done and remind me today to think about what's going on for someone in different aspects of their life and asking the simple question - 'how can i help, what specifically can i do to help make life easier?' - sometimes its a cup of tea and a sandwich, an uncritical ear, or just a bit of space and time to figure things out...
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