Stories, old and new...

I am thinking about timelines quite a lot... and the emergence of happenings, stories over time and that quite often what you wish for in the beginning is what you end up with in the end... for me, for this to work, time has to be not linear in nature, but circular. This concept of time being circular is something that i learned, not in school, but when i went to classes on nubian history, led by people of african descent, who like me were trying to reconnect with their ancestry. If our experiences are mapped out on a circular timeline, different experiences are brought closer to one another on that timeline and there is more of an opportunity to learn from the repetitions and you aren't moving on from your past, you are coming back to it - there is always a point of return. I wondered the other week about the stuff we know as part of our ancestral history and how this might be represented in chromosomes which hold genetic links to our ancestors. This is a sidetrack - DNA is one thing - music and dance are another...

In conversation at the Substance P dinner i wondered about this importance of oral storytelling and how increasingly i need to be equipped with stories. I wondered whether the evolution of human memory could be linked to the need to be able to tell and share stories in order to survive and rear young as well as to ensure that what the father knows is passed onto the child.

I feel this missing link... in not knowing my father, i feel there is a gap in the narrative that needs completing. In fact, to tell my own story, and the journey to knowing myself, i increasingly feel that all lines lead back to my mother and my father - the moment they met and from those moments on, my siblings as an integral part of my story and identity. Increasingly i feel a need to somehow capture and retrace these steps. Except this is being trapped in a linear way of thinking... where i envisage that the starting points are photo albums, letters, conversations - i must remember the journey is ongoing and evolving - my brother, for example, who lives in Copenhagen, just had a baby... from a circular perspective, engaging with her might be as good a place to begin... thanks to skype, the timeline from me to her is opened and there is a window onto her world without going anywhere...

Reflective tidying...

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.

There is a link to physics and movement in thinking about the 'driving forces' for change and how create a series of interlocking people cogs that share and tell stories might drive social innovation in other parts of society (see image).

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...

The fear of missing out...

Today i am having a clear out - recycle anything that can be recycled - give away anything that i don't immediately need in the next six months. All was going well until i came across some 'psychologies' magazines i was saving that i hadn't read yet or couldn't remember reading. Hmm - instead of recycling them and not worrying what i was missing out on, I downed sticks and starting reading - and i came across - three or more interesting articles that i found quite useful - things that i can apply to my life and work right now to move me on... and of course things that are relevant (because anything that catches my attention is relevant and will lead me into some new revelation under the surface... oh dear...what lies ahead). One article was about FIT, a psychological approach to breaking a habitual behaviour by breaking out of and changing small habits like eating the same meals every week, watching tv over dinner everynight, taking the same route to work, wearing the same style of clothes. Changing small things gradually attacks the wider web of habits that holds us back from changing the big things like stopping smoking/ overeating/ drinking etc. The next article was about Sylvia Plath and it simply reminded me of some books she'd written that are probably pretty relevant right now e.g. letters home - the letters she wrote to her mother telling her 'I am a writer, I am a genius of a writer, I have it in me. I am writing the best poems of my life. They will make my name.". I was going to write something else actually, in relation to this, (that i told my mother 'i am a footballer, i am a genius of a footballer and i want to goto brasil) but i remember something else - that i made a lino print of the words of the title to this book 'letters home' - it appealed to me so much. I was maybe 18 at the time and at university and missing home a little. And that reminds me... and leads me to a revelation...

Some years later, when she moved on from her house in england, my mother gave me all the letters that my father wrote to her when he left for Nigeria. I started reading the letters and they began to tell me about a life i can't remember, changed my memory of the past and a father i never really knew. A few days later, I stopped reading them - it was too much to take in - and then today, suddenly i am reminded of them, in tidying up and decluttering my house. If i keep going with this tidying thing, maybe i will come across them (they are here somewhere)... so the question i am asking today is what might i discover by embracing the fear of throwing everything away - what might i discover that i am really missing out on...?

Looking forward to...

July 08

25 - 27 July
Urban Moves Dance Festival 08

11 - 13 July
Foo Camp

11 July
3G iphone

After the event...

[image: david bennett]

Next week, I am dropping in to: After the event

...before heading off to Jodrell bank to talk to postgraduate students, drawn from different disciplines, about harnessing creativity. I haven't been to Jodrell bank in a while, since i was a kid in fact and i can't quite remember that... but its been in the news quite a bit recently... i was pondering the content of the talk whilst walking my dogs this morning... what was the thing that sparked their interest in the first place, (the students, not the dogs) to sign up to these events (its a series of talks and events - i can see my whippets, back row, snoozing away) what's happening in their lives ... i can't possibly know... so casting my mind back... i thought about the things that drove me to go that extra mile (Jodrell is not exactly down the road)... back to that old ches'nut... all of my internal motivations and drivers go back to my mum and my dad...(my mum is danish and my dad is nigerian and i am born in the UKkkk) and the feeling of being an outsider looking in... of not quite fitting... its these kinds of things i guess that lead me to end up doing what i do... driving change by looking to the outside to get closer to something apparently less like me, to shift my perspectives, shatter any illusions i might have... increasingly my desire and drives lead me astray, departing from myself, learning from people different from me, only to arrive back where i started, with me and a greater sense of what it means to be human... that's why i value diversity, it makes me think differently...

...anyway - i realised today (being in my local library of all places) that everything starts local, but having another source of "home"... increasingly i am thinking global about how i can make connections, open channels to other cities... and in particular, africa, india, china... tony blair said in a recent interview that when he stepped away from government office, he realised that with this whole obsession with the middle east, he'd missed the fact that the global centre of the world has shifted. No sh$t.

There was one art exhibition, from a while back, that had me in tears (of joy), i'll have to locate it and a link -
A more recent one is the telectroscope

Does this help me with my talk... possibly nottttttttttt... i think i will just show them some simple innovations, that started small that have inspired me... and also what happens when you act local and think global...

Twistori
kiva
ideaslab
howstuffismade

More tea please...?

How do you make tea? Doorstop collective will be asking this question when you go along to an ideas cafe hosted by MOSI, the people who brought bodyworld's to Manchester, where artists, curators, scientists and other 'publiks' will work together to conjure up ideas for the Manchester Science Festival. Anyhoo, its happening on JULY 22nd, 6 til 8pm, to book, go here, its free...

I'll be going along to drink tea and eat more cake and the festival director, Laura Drane will be on hand to tell a bit more about the festival's themes - "manchesticity" - being my particular favourite. Some whacky ideas came out of the last one at Manchester Museum's Cafe Couture.

So, what can i expect?
Imagine you are on holiday and you are tired of following the map... you wander off road and get a little distracted... suddenly you happen upon something new... you pick it up and decide to run with it... and bump into someone else who is also wandering the same path... you swap ideas and stories and next thing you know you are hatching a plan to never go back... escape from the ordinary and the everyday... join us for some fun and who knows, some fledgling ideas might just fly...

i could tell you more but why not just come along?

Ball rolling...

So the ball is rolling... sometimes actions speak louder than words (until you blog it?!):

An embryonic project i've been involved in recently is the Manchester Beacon open source web development workshop facilatated by proboscis and produced by Just-B. The idea is to commission an online web tool to visualise the connections between people, place and knowledge where people are working together to make a difference in their local communities.

There are so many 'projects' going on but what's the thinking behind the project, the learning, the stories that emerge as the project unfolds and people engage and disengage? Who started the ball rolling? What happens when some of those balls collide? How can we make a difference by throwing our weight behind a project rather than starting a new one? These are the things i am thinking about and i think that Manchester might hold some answers...

In conjunction with the web tool, we're going to be asking people to document and share their stories... what knowledge might a city hold?

"the city we work in is not the same city we play in, and not the same city that others
come to visit; the city where we are born is, for people who migrate there, another space
entirely... there is not a single Manchester, nor Athens or Prague, but thousands upon
thousands of individual cities moving within their boundaries. And they don’t ever sit
still."
Marian Crossan, Decapolis, Tales from ten cities

SEARCH project

I was in London for an action learning group around evaluating cultural and organisational change. It was quite useful, i was reminded that i need to think about the starting point of the journey and how its important to get closer to the thing that switches people on, that motivates people to change. i also realised that this is not the kind of thing people will necessarily say in a group, but they might tell you 1 to 1 and when they do explore the pivotal event that drove them to do what they do, its usually an event that occurred in childhood.

The tool that i found the most useful (though it would help me to have the possibility of 'walking' through this kind of a map) was Transformap.
(i will have to scan in the image)

It could be combined with something like the 'hero's journey' as a way to plan in real-time what you need to put in place in order to drive change, and face fears to achieve a vision or goal.

Quite apart from anything in real life, combining these two tools, potentially gives an insight into what's lacking in the visualisation of the traditional narrative arc, which looks something like the middle image at the beginning of this post.

But the thing about this is that it doesn't visualise the transitional states encapsulated by fear and avoidance behaviour that exists around those turning points. Nor does it depict the sense of loss associated with leaving something behind e.g. habits, like cigarettes, alchohol etc. Indeed there is usually a point of depression (downward movement) associated, particularly with the the final turning point around the climax and resolution, where there's a culmination of the tension between moving on to a new life and new ways and the pull of the old life comes seriously into play. An audience will relate to this, because everyone has experienced change of some sort, the fear and sense of loss associated with leaving an old ways and the sense of elation at moving on and the possibilites that offers.

2gether08

I am going here for a couple of days.... media meets social innovation apparently... can't be a bad excuse for a get together. I am hoping it is not too much chatting and quite a bit of playing and chilling...... its summer after all.

everythingandeveryone

everythingandeveryone
lost and not forgotten
the things i have
the things i want
the things i left behind
yes... and the people too
everythingandeveryone
every me and every you.

I work in Manchester and live in Salford: i am passionate about both cities. I have lived in Manchester and Salford half my life and like most graduates of one of the Universities there i stayed on after i graduated (this creates problems in and of itself, i know). A few years ago, when living in Manchester but working predominantly in London, i started to feel homesick for Manchester and Manchester as a place to work and be creative in. Plus, it was time to give something back to the city that has been my home for 18 years and to become embedded in the place that has been the source of much creativity, inspiration and fun.

I had the seed of an idea: i called it everythingandeveryone. It was a 2 page project idea that started as a bit of a rant, evolved into a premise and some principles and was then burned to CD and left there for a year as i figured out how to move back to working in Manchester for a living and doing something i enjoyed.

I always had this notion that i was from up north, well not from london anyway. i used to tell my mother... ' i was born in yorkshire, right??... "no darling, you were born in newham general hospital... just about!... your father wouldn't get out of bed even though my waters had broken! then he decided to have a shower and eat breakfast before finally he took me to the hospital!"

I shouldn't get distracted by stories about my mother and father... trust me - we'll be here for hours... (days) ...so, back to the project:

Here's the rant, the premise and the principles...

The world is divided by race, politics, wealth, culture, gender
– which lead to disconnection, injustice and war – against self, others and environment - everywhere is opposition:

thought and action religion and atheism muslim and Christian east and west
mortal and immortal animal and human fortunetelling and genetics
capitalism and communism art and science
black and white gay and straight man and woman
maths and music consumption and production life and death

The Premise
We are essentially all part of the same thing, made of the same materials, breathe the same air and when we die, return to the same earth to begin again. Inextricably, we are all connected, and ultimately we are, or have been, or will be, at some point in the history of the universe, part of everythingandeveryone.

How we respond to the world around us including how we treat the environment, how we treat people different from ourselves, younger than ourselves, older than ourselves, opens the floodgate for intolerance if it is not how we would ourselves want to be treated as an essential and component part of the universe.

The Project
This universal project is about finding and revealing connections and common ground between supposedly different spheres of thinking and belief, different forms of existence, whether ‘living’ or ‘dead’.

This project will take form through a range of different media and formats whether existing or yet to be discovered. The project is essentially inter-disciplinary with contributions from all fields and spheres of wisdom and experience.

Outcomes
Connectedness with self, others, universe
Learning through self, others, universe
Action to protect self, others, universe

Through everythingandeveryone people will feel connected to something they originally perceived as different and other than themselves and, for a moment at least, the perceived boundaries, barriers and difference will disperse and a genuine connection felt and acknowledged. Hopefully that’s the start of action – protecting yourself and the rights of others, protecting the environment - and realising that our actions and inactions impact on all of these things in some way, however big or small.

How it works
everythingandeveryone is informed by everythingandeveryone

everythingandeveryone grows through individual and collective ideas, questions, wisdom, experience gathered through contributions and commissions fielded across multiple disciplines
through a programme of online and offline activity: sharing, discussion, events, media, archive, exchange, disruption, play.

Online>>Offline
Live>>archive
Ideas≥≥Experience>>Media>>More

Anyhoooo... this is a longggggg post... this project idea eventually evolved into The Manchester Beacon which is focussed on drawing on the creative and collective intelligence of a city to drive social innovation by connecting people, place and knowledge.

Coming Up...

APRIL 08

Web Mission 08

Internet World

MAY 08

All Together Now

Futuresonic

NESTA Innovation Edge

JUNE 08

bTWEEN

Something to look forward to...

Pure reminiscent joy as i came across eighteen episodes of Monkey! at a market stall in Bury. I bought them all for 11 quid. So i have these to look forward to. I may even watch them one a week at 6pm on a week night and go on the life long journey of Monkey, Horse, Sandy, Pigsy and Tripitaka. Joy! Joy!

EAVE

I just got back from EAVE, the European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs, a training and development course for european producers. The first workshop was hosted over an intensive week in Luxembourg with hands-on sessions on script development, financing, pitching and marketing.