Have you ever been to an engagement /consultation/staff development day and been asked to write down your ideas on ‘post it notes’ and then stick them on flip charts? Someone then dutifully collects the forest of paper and promises to type them up and share the results. Months later you get sent a document full […]
Crowdsourcing. You need to move a lot of muck to find the golden nugget and the silver bullet.
“everyone remembers the Goldcorp Challenge?”… apparently not Crowdsourcing is being promoted in some areas as a potential ‘silver bullet’ to solve the problems of pubic services. At first glance, what’s not to like? It’s co-productive. It can involve citizens and service users in solving problems and designing the services they use; It’s cost effective. Many people […]
“Ideas need to be brutally tested before you implement them”….. or try some Ritual Dissent?
“Ideas need to be brutally tested”….. So says the teenage idealist. This was part of a conversation with my son during a 5 hour road trip along the mystical A470. He is studying product design. I must admit, the ‘teenage idealist’ part of me very much liked that proposition. It sounds very dynamic and action orientated. […]
Continuous Improvement – why it matters to Squeeze the Pips, Release Trojan Mice and Win Small
I recently heard someone being very dismissive about staff suggestion schemes and efforts to encourage small improvements. He was one of those “what you need is a paradigm shift”…..and…., “I’m just the fella to tell you what your big new idea needs to be” types . Oh, and he threw in something along the lines […]
Jefferson’s Taper. A 200 year old perspective on the internet?
This is a real gem from 200 years ago that has a great deal of relevance today. Thomas Jefferson made the following reference to the ‘taper’ (a candle) in a letter to Isaac McPherson, August 1813. “He who receives ideas from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at […]
Idea Antibodies – Do some organisation have an autonomic immune response that kills ideas?
I’ve just met an old friend who told me they had moved jobs because the old organisation was ‘sucking the life out of them’. As an ‘ideas person’ they were fed up of constantly having their ideas; dismissed out of hand, ridiculed or worse, buried in bureaucracy. They were getting out before their spirit was […]
What's the PONT 