Workshop reports from Inventing the Future seminar

• Motivating local Government in Cyberspace
• Partnerships
• Involving the Private Sector
• Resourcing community networking
• Training
• Supporting community based regeneration

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Motivating Local Government in Cyberspace

Facilitator: Geoff Walker

1. Issues to be addressed

• The organisational culture of partners and the partnership itself
• The appropriateness of consultation processes to meet demands
• Identified priorities versus available programmes
• The pace versus the capacity for change

2. Factors for success

• The level of enthusiasm for technology
• An appropriate level of resources
• Support for change at the highest level
• All partners have a willingness to change
• The ability to work across traditional geographical and organisational boundaries

3. Priorities which may help (or hinder) the process of change

• National Grid for Learning
• University for Industry
• New Deal for Communities
• Y2K
• Social Exclusion
• Levels of access to participative democracy

4. The advantages of community partnerships

• A people's voice
• Needed as part of the funding mechanism
• Effective level of consultation
• Assist with capacity building, community development and regeneration
• Provision of services through equality and social equity
• Combat social exclusion
• Save time and resources

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Partnerships

Facilitator Malcolm Forbes

In general we did not feel there were particular differences between online partnership issues and any other form of partnership. The online technology could be a double edged sword lending an attractiveness or sexy element to proposed joint endeavour but can also be fear inducing for some potentialpartners.

Two main reasons for entering into partnerships:

1. For resources in the widest sense (ie not just money could be skills,content etc)
2. To develop expanded/enhanced or new services

Issues to consider in relation to forming partnerships (In no particular order)

Getting the balance of relative priorities right:

Each partner will have their own priorities - need to check that these are compatible and will move forward the joint endeavour.

 

Trust:

Need to have trust in the partner

 

Profit vs Not for Profit:

Can they co-exist in partnership. This may be a question of ideology but will probably come back down to whether the partners have compatable aims and do they trsut each other.

 

Reputation:

Useful to have a partner with a reputation (example of the BBC here) that will help the joint endeavour move forward (faster)

 

Capacity to deliver:

This needs to be assessed realistically not just for your potential partners but for yourself as well in the context of the capacity of the proposed partners.

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Involving the Private Sector

Facilitator David Greenop

 Issues raised and discussed

1. What do we mean by the term 'private sector'

• There is a wide range of company sizes from the big corporations to small SME's. Each has different attitudes to the community and voluntary sector.
• They each have different areas of interest, priorities
• Companies have different roles in the value chains, some are service providers, others resource providers.
• The definition of business should not just focus just on 'for profit' organisations. There are many other types of organisation undertaking very valuable activities for 'no profit', This sector may grow in importance in the future as people and governments re-evaluate the real worth of different activities across society.

1. Attitude to Private Sector

• Large private sector companies often perceived by voluntary sector as a 'Charity Providers' this is not helpful and will result in a negative dialogue.
• Private sector companies are looking for innovation and collaboration in the development and delivery of new services.
• Service diffusion through Community networking may be very important to private sector.
• The days of one off pilots and trials are over, private sector need to understand how a development can be made sustainable and diffused across a wider geography, which may be wider than just national boundaries.
• Private sector is short of the right skills and resources so can not be expected to do things for nothing.

1. All business want to do business with members of the community.

• Private sector needs to put members of the community at the centre of their commercial activities
• All members of society should be include, not purposively excluded.
• People have become used to and ask for one-stop access to a wide range of services. Having to go to many different places either physically or on the Internet may not be acceptable,
• Need to think about 'Joined-Up delivery' of information style services possibly via Community Portals.
• Lots of skills in the community, which the private sector can draw upon, educate and use in partnerships.
• Issue of 3^rd age resources not being used, lots of well qualified people in semi or early retirement ready to do wide range of activities.

1. On-Line business environment is rapidly changing and there is no sign of stable commercial models appearing.

• The issue of who is driving the commercial use of the Net needs to be understood better.
• Have to expect that there will be commercial life cycles, products and services will go through stages of innovation, diffusion, mass take-up and decline.
• Shift from people being just consumers, possibility of greater customer choice, this will help drive new commercial models, in some cases the customer becomes a supplier in their own right i.e. customer reviews on Amazon.com and virtual loyalty customer groups.
• Economy of scale is at work. Many companies need to get over a threshold penetration of customers / partners to reduce product costs. Community Networking structures could help achieve this for private sector companies.

1. Private Sector looking for Innovation

• Private sector and voluntary sector can use innovation as basis for partnerships
• Innovation helps find models for sustainability.
• Have to accept that partnerships will shift and reform in today's environment.
• Need to diffuse ideas to wider marketplace
• Need to look for new models for sharing assets
• Key is tapping into the diversity that exists across society.

1. Key messages for working with private sector

• Must have mutual respect, trust and speak same language
• Must aim for a win-win situation with each party happy with the results.
• Must understand where one is with regards to the cycle of development
• Must understand the economics involved
• Partner and lead through innovation

 

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Resourcing community networking

Facilitator Kevin Harris

Main benefits

• Quality partnerships
• Quality information (reliable, authoritative, etc)
• Ease of access to information and communication channel ....which
  • Stimulates community activity... which
  • Underpins social economy
• Can contribute to delivery of government programmes through community involvement and community ownership
• Cross-sectoral involvement promotes cost-effective solutions
• Non-institutional, flexible infrastructure appropriate to changing needs
• Benefits to communities including empowerment, enhanced confidence, skills, cohesion, "community ties"

How paid for

• Core public funding eg community chests? (for running costs·.)
• Use the library network (when it comes!) and National Grid for learning, UfI etc
• Solution should be locally-determined according to principles, e.g...

Principles

• community involvement and ownership
• locally-based
• use existing skills and resources (people and organisations)
• develop skills and responsibility locally
• PARTNERSHIP! (alliances at all levels)

Relationships to other initiatives

• Community networking has distinct identify (lack of identity?) compared with eg education, health, environment initiatives etc.
• C-nets are about joined-up thinking and action. The need is for joined-up delivery.

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Training

Facilitator Simon Berry

1. This is a people thing - trainers need to know as much about community development and as they do about technology. Local champions need to be entrepreneurial in the sense that they need to understand people's needs and respond appropriately to them.
2. ICT training can be a key motivator for people to get involved in a training programme. It is seen to 'of the moment' and amongst adults it is not associated with 'past failure'.
3. Innovative delivery mechanisms are important (eg resource centres/telecentres can offer more that dedicated training centres, such as 'pathways' to employment or self employment or community enterprise/action).
4. ICT training needs to linked to a purpose (ie a tool/mechanism to improve employment prospects). ICT training in a vacuum (ie without understanding the application) is not generally successful.
5. Accredited qualifications (and therefore funding) lags way behind need (eg it is only recently that there is a recognised basic Internet qualification).
6. There needs to be a mechanism for the sharing to training materials and techniques developed because the lack of appropriate 'accredited' courses/materials.
7. It is recognised that things developed in one community might not be transferable (lock stock and barrel) to other communities. However, there is a requirement to develop 'criteria for successful transfer'.
8. Training is not a one-off exercise. On-going support is a requirement.
9. There is a need for the training of key decision makers (eg funders, strategic planners etc) so that they can make informed decisions about appropriate training interventions.
10. Additional point on target audiences:

• We should distinguish training for "individual members of the community" from training for community organisations.
• People running telecentre/community centres/libraries etc. are a key audience group for the innovative delivery mechanisms. On the limited resources we have such people need to be made a priority for community networking.
• Project champions (who may not be the same as those above) need negotiation, brokering, partnership building skills. These are effectively leadership skills which people rarely get structured training on, but which are vital to managing cross sector partnerships and getting the best contributions from the whole.
• Training is also needed for the funders. They may not have the basis or criteria on which to judge th soundness or 'accident proneness' of potential projects