The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has just produced a brilliant 2-part paper on future options for central and local government. Here’s my review/summary published on the Medium platform.
https://medium.com/@groupeintellex/owning-the-future-1ed0bb80d5e4?source=friends_link&sk=785da6a59c7c8f57c3f7053ec805120f
Tag Archives: resilience
Owning The Future
25 AprThat Was The Week That Was
31 Mar
It may be over, but I have no intention of letting it go. It was far too good a week to forget. Indeed this week will linger long – not just in my memory but in the renewed public spirit that has been engendered.
I’m not, of course, claiming to have been the first to notice.
To be honest I doubted my sanity in a week when the weirdness of Westminster gripped the nation. But I wrote my thoughts on Tuesday March 26th and then promptly placed them on ice. I was more than cautious – this was my first day of release from medical mayhem. It was highly likely that the new medication was warping my wishful thinking mind.
But the words could not be constrained and I published them the following day. Even then I hedged my bets for fear of immediate castigation. But I dared not hesitate – I sensed a great change was underway and, although the body politic, the media, the entrenched combatants, were all running on the same old tracks, I found it undeniable that relief was at hand.
Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the sheer relief from months of pain. Maybe it was a hymn of praise to the brilliant talents of our NHS. Maybe it was my odd early-morning choice of Leonard Cohen’s “You got me singing’. Whatever. This spirit of joy was unquenchable. ‘Everyone Suddenly Burst Out Singing’ captured exactly how I felt – and amazingly my little inconsequential networked world agreed!
By the end of the week even dedicated politicians were tentatively, cautiously, quietly suggesting a ‘change of tone’. They were pushing this forward even in the midst of outraged screams of betrayal by ardent Brexiteers.
But this is no time to stand down – the struggle is not yet done. In Tolkien’s The Hobbit (There and Back Again) Bilbo Baggins utters what would later became one of his favourite sayings. Bilbo had narrowly escaped from a very angry encounter with the dragon. “Never”, he said to himself, “Never poke fun at live dragons – you’re not halfway through this adventure yet.”
And that was a very timely thought. It would have been too easy to ridicule. Too easy to pour scorn on those in pain. Too easy to not understand the deep roots of their desperate delusions. Too easy to crow. Far too easy to seek vengeance. Even slightly (or grossly) demented dragons need and deserve our help.
All at sea?
We are, still, only halfway though this adventure. The tone has changed, the tide is turning but renewed purpose has not yet been confirmed. I’ve been sailing offshore when a storm has devastated the plan. The ship is damaged, the crew scared witless. There is no going back. This is the time for renewed purpose – a new destination. Only a few alternatives come easily to mind – but my crew need, more than anything, clear intent to deliver us safely home.
The hand on the helm may be uncertain but the crew can pull together. Time now to steady the ship and seek that new unifying purpose. Let the restoration of sanity and purposeful survival now flow through the life-blood of our nations.
(and here endeth the lesson for Mothering Sunday!)
Wake Up – the new series
26 SepHibernation normally occurs in winter.
Activity is minimised. Survival burns through reserves. The frenetic return is driven by a new hunger.
This year the seasonal cycle was flipped – must have been the heat, or just a weak spring
But – ‘Hej, we’re back now’, and the return is celebrated by Wake Up – a new series of reflections on the scramble to understand what exactly is going on.
Part 1, ‘So You Did?‘, kicked off with a curious blend of a World War 1 recruitment poster and Archbishop Welby’s speech to the TUC conference.
Slightly more awake, Part 2, ‘What Happened’ is out later today. and Part 3 will follow in a week’s time.
Waking Up to the realities of the wider world – new perspectives or just the old ones seen in a new light – dances around the dawn.
We might, of course, hit snooze and slip back into deep slumber – but the alarm is sounding.
Only when properly awake might we realise that we are letting go of something we’ve not fully grasped.
Welcome back.
___________________
UPDATE 01/Oct/2018: Part 3 ‘Contra Dictions’ – the battles between Facts and Fictions.
UPDATE 09/Oct/2018: Part 4, the series final, sets the Brexit agonies in context – a blip that now seems insignificant against global imperatives. It questions the quality of leadership and has a former Dean of St Pauls turning in his grave.
The Intelligent Community
31 MayThe Intelligent Community
Kate Raworth, the ‘renegade’ economist and author of Doughnut Economics, knows only too well that ideas are born when and where they are needed most. Fresh thinking takes time to be accepted. Darwin’s evolutionary insights are still resisted. Climate Change science still denied. Flat Earth advocates still cling to the edges of their world.
It is not enough to gather evidence. Mass acceptance of fresh thinking oft requires a crisis of sufficient scale to overcome complacency. Sufficient scale? Massive impacts for a few may be discounted by those looking at bigger pictures. Responses reflect agency – the ability to make that difference. And therein lies the power of localism – the strength of the place, the community, the neighbourhood. That ability to JFDI.
The emergence of Intelligent Communities – places that are not resigned to some externally-imposed fate – reflects locally perceived priorities. These are communities that really do ‘know their place’ and know it in colours, details, depths of complexity – ‘nuanced knowhow’ that often eludes the averaged ‘higher’ authority.
BUT (and that’s a big but) the vital essence of such communities is difficult to measure and analyse. Qualitative research methods do not easily answer the question: Why do some places succeed whilst others decline? We can, however, spot the signs – the indicators of prosperity, confidence, wellbeing and community spirit. That is why, over two decades of research, the Intelligent Community Forum has assessed hundreds of places and selected a few as exemplars – communities that may serve as beacons for others.
Every year ICF has brought these communities together to share their learning. Until now that global gathering has always been held in North America. 2018 is different. For three days of next week the ICF Global Summit will be held in London. In preparation for that event (and for the benefit of those new to the notion of Intelligent Communities) we started publishing a weekly series of notes covering several of the primary indicators – the signs of local activity that ICF’s researchers have, over the years, seen time and again in the most successful places.
The series was first announced in a brief note ‘Looking Sideways at that Place We call Home’,and closely followed by ‘Local Fabrics?’ to set a framework for the rest of the series. Subsequent episodes were:
- Connected With Success? – the local impacts of broadband
- Where Have all our Flowers Gone?– creating a local Knowledge Workforce
- Altogether Now? – Community Inclusivity and equity in a digitalised world
- Who Do We Think We Are? – advocacy and representation of local values
- AI – Authentic Intelligence in City Infrastructures – Humanising Data for citizens
- Pacemakers for Place-Makers – the local value of Innovation Hubs
- Keep on Running – in circles – local respect for ecological boundaries
- What If? – the local value of investment in Resilience
All of these themes and their local action programmes (calibrated to match local economic and social priorities) are common indicators of Intelligent Communities.
Next week, ICF’s Top7 communities from around the world, together with an array of top flight speakers, will share their experiences with delegates from near and far.
The full 3-day programme includes details of evening receptions and, on June 6th, at the Summit Dinner, Melbourne Australia will hand over the accolade of Intelligent Community of the Year to one of ICF’s 2018 Top7 Communities.
Common Ground: the strength of local leadership.
24 JulWhat do Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester and London have in common?
They may have very different needs and priorities but they share a common interest in resilience – a determination to be prepared for whatever. They are all members of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Network – 100RC.
Today marks the start of the 2017 Urban Resilience Summit – a major gathering of Urban Resilience experts in New York. Local leaders in the UK – even if not attending in New York – will listen to the proceedings with keen interest.
We didn’t need this year’s terrorist incidents, floods and a tower fire to highlight the need for enhanced response-abilities but local Chief Resilience Officers know that proficient planning pays dividends.
100RC is just 4 years old but in that short time the network has made great strides – fuelled by Judith Rodin’s ‘Resilience Dividend’ and financed in large part by 100 ‘Platform Partners’.
Resilience is a hugely important theme for local leaders and sits alongside a series of programmes that have a huge influence on local economic growth and community wellbeing. With cities growing fast the challenges of local management demand ever-greater empowerment to develop local responses to local priorities.
Some put their faith in technology – enhancing the scope for knowing what is going on across all aspects of urban life – traffic, weather, crime, health, air quality, river levels and a host of environmental factors.
Conventional sector-based economic analysis in this context provides few useful clues. Far more importantly, the themes that cut across sector silos provide a rich agenda for Urban Resilience Officers.
- Business start-ups and many established ventures need knowledge workers and a host of new skills.
- Hospitals need citizens who can engage with remote diagnosis. Commuters need better information on public transport.
- Whole cities need skilled advocates to attract inward investment.
These are just a few of the themes that mark out the differences between ‘smart cities’ and those who could claim to be developing intelligent communities.
Investing in resilience is far more than assurance against unexpected disasters – for some shifts might be better-described as lost opportunities. The key lies with mayors and local leaders who are enabled to develop a holistic view of local needs – not just for economic growth but for wider societal wellbeing.
That is why, in June 2018, the Global Summit for the Intelligent Community Forum will be hosted in London to bring together mayors and civic leaders from around the world. Resilient Place-Making – a local priority – has become central to survival.
Community Cohesion – Part 2
18 Jun‘Sombre’ was the word chosen this week by Her Majesty to describe the UK’s mood following the awful fire tragedy in West London.
Once again the media lauded heroic responses and the generosity of the wider public towards those shattered families who have lost everything.
Once again great community strength was exposed – and this time, sadly, evidenced by their repeated well-documented warnings of a disaster waiting to happen.
But, this disaster was very different.
After the Westminster Bridge car rampage, the bomb in Manchester, a terrorist arrest in Whitehall and the Borough Market/London Bridge van and knife rampage , this week’s consuming fire was entirely of our own national making with no reason/excuse to attribute blame to some other malignant force.
This disaster was also very different in its aftermath.
Whereas in Manchester the local leadership response was strong and immediate (and in Central London we marvelled at the 8-minute incident closure) local citizens and the media have rounded on the apparent lack of Governmental and Local leadership actions. The entire incident – from cause to conclusion – is raising fundamental questions.
Government Ministers, past and present, (and property-owning politicians with Landlord interests who voted against regulations on ‘fitness for habitation’) cannot escape or avoid deeper examination. Those who happily presided over the debilitating drive to cut costs and reduce Local Authorities to mere agencies for the delivery of top-down austerity will be held to account. As MP David Lamy said, we must now ask if the post-Thatcher shift away from public duty and towards private profit in the name of ‘efficiency’ requires us now to consider if the nation still believes in a welfare state with a safety net for citizens who fall on hard times.
The underlying design story is still unfolding – not least the marginal capital expenditure savings in chosing the cheapest building materials, the lack of sprinkler systems and alternative escape routes – but, beyond the physical, design failures in local empowerment and national democratic accountability cannot now be overlooked.
There are many factors that contribute to community well-being. One of those is Resilience – particularly the preparedness for unexpected disasters. From around the world, most of the examples of Resilience programmes stem from ‘natural’ disasters – floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires. But Resilience needs also to be present in systemic design of administration and governance. The plight of ‘I Daniel Blake’ and a thousand other cuts to dignity imposed in thrall of efficient markets and a demonisation of local leadership has been exposed for its rampant retreat from the societal values that most of us hold dear. Deep down, naively perhaps, we do not expect leaders to lead us astray.
Not surprisingly local people in West London are now angry. They are now moving beyond the instinctive community-led support for their neighbours and re-examining these fundamental questions.
A week is a long time in politics. The recovery from this dreadful week will take years. It will demand new leadership at all levels of society. In that process there will be a great deal of learning – and it is in that reflection, as a nation, we may find some redemption.
‘Sombre’ has more than a hint of thoughtful silent sadness. The mourning process must be sober. A national get-well plan is urgently required.
___________________
See also earlier blog: Community Cohesion – 28th May
Picture source: BBC
Network Resilience: come hell or high water
13 Jan
In a world that a generation ago would marvel at the fabled reliability of telephone services it’s a shock to realise that network resilience is now back on the agenda. And, moreover, back on the agenda not just for major corporates with multiple interdependent production sites and call centres but for small businesses and ordinary households.
You might of course imagine that, if your home or business has just been hit by floods, that you have plenty more things to worry about than the loss of your broadband service. Indeed, until the power fails, you might reckon you could just get by with a mobile phone. But that would be to grossly underestimate the significance in all our lives of digital connectivity – very little in business works without it.
Every rain-laden cloud does however have a silver lining – and in this cold wet calamity that silver lining is a great lesson in network resilience. Computer Weekly has today profiled the story of recent UK flooding – revealing a basic flaw in networks that are hybrids of fibre and copper. Locating part of your electronics in street cabinets without scope for alternative power and with cooling vents open to the elements is not a good idea if one of those elements is water en masse.
In contrast, those networks designed specifically for the digital era by utilising fibre for the complete journey (FTTP) suffered few if any outages. Economists may have argued that replacing copper would be a huge expense for little obvious gain. Maybe they couldn’t figure the value of being future-proofed in terms of capacity and quality – surely, they’d say, how many really need a gigabit right now? Having that capacity at marginal cost in 5 year’s time is way beyond their commercial horizons. But now they need also figure the cost of flood damage repairs – and the impacts of service disruptions.
Good design (form) starts with understanding purpose (function) and in a digital economy it becomes even more important to understand that prevention is a but a fraction of the cost of repair. So, come hell or high water, infrastructure planners and investors must now take note of the cost of cutting corners.
Greece: Turmoil Today but Huge Tomorrows
2 Jul
As I write, no one can tell how the current crisis will be resolved. No one can be sure. Fragmentation or consolidation of a nation?
For the nation state, its communities of people and businesses, or from the perspective of the individual, the uncertainty about futures may seem beyond rational analysis – improbabilities lost in a sea of variables, multiple IF statements and continental confusion.
When disasters occur – tsunamis, fires, floods, droughts, hurricanes, meltdowns, and wars – responses vary in scale, timing and attention. The seemingly ‘natural’ events prompt generosity – even when the ‘natural disaster’ is rooted in human negligence. Anything less than a natural crisis – like a financial meltdown or extreme inequalities – evokes a range of reactions from warm sympathy to frosty moral high-ground.
What might unite folk in their turmoil is a desire to get back to some imagined normality but, as we know from countless examples, going back is impossible. Tomorrow is another, different, day.
Like anyone beset by depression (and the lethargy it invokes) moving forward requires massive willpower and imaginations free of former constraints. As the lessons of the current crisis inform the future, any progressive recovery demands investment in future resilience
How then can a country in turmoil rise above the disaster?
Home Alone?
Firstly the good citizens should know they are not alone. They, you, your businesses, your universities, your communities, have friends in almost every quarter of the planet – friends, former neighbours, fellow sufferers and, way beyond the diaspora, millions of minds with fond memories and an appreciation of the county’s contributions to civilization. So the very first question is to ask how that wider extended-family can mobilise its support.
Shaken and Stirred
Secondly, in this cocktail of catastrophe, you have not just been shaken. You should also have been stirred – stirred into action, driven by a survival instinct but also prepared to shed the past and not waste time in a downward spiral of finger-pointing fault finding. No amount of blame gaming can change realities; you are where you are. I wrote earlier, Greece is only Greece because most other places imagine they are not like Greece. There is no place quite like Greece and the rebuilding is not a matter of seeking bland conformance but celebrating your diversity and differentiation.
Design Opportunities
Thirdly, the environment has shifted. The physical remains but the virtual ascends. What better time than now to redesign local and national economies to leverage a wider data-driven online world. Few places or communities have this opportunity – to hang up on ‘the way we do things’ and think afresh. Sure it will need investment. Sure, it will disrupt some staid businesses. Sure, it will be risky – but far less risky than not seizing the opportunities. Might Greece become the cradle of the Circular Economy?
You may think this is just ‘wishful thinking’ but the evidence of other great recoveries demonstrates time and again that investing in renewed resilience will deliver dividends. Consider your talents – trading is in your blood, your diaspora is strong, profound thinking is endemic, artistry abounds, sciences are proven, solar power is plentiful – and the envy of a world that is less driven simply because ideas are born where they are needed most.
But How?
No one can say with any certainty how things will pan out – what risks will arise. No doubt vultures are already hovering – looking for good pickings – but this is a time to pull together and not be picked apart.
Leadership can emerge – not from some central ‘winner-take-all’ pseudo democracy but within communities across the country. Local economies need local management. Greece has many offshore islands but countless more inland – often shaped by geography – and the national economy that is endlessly debated is only the sum total of all your islands. The tide can turn – the brain drain of recent years can become a brain gain if young people are welcomed back.
Three sources of inspiration come readily to mind:
- Brain Gain was published in 2014 by the Intelligent Community Forum and is packed with brilliant examples of local leadership and determined communities.
- The second is yet another book. Published this year by the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Resilience Dividend focuses on the need to invest in the belt and braces of society that will deliver ample returns in any future crisis. As author Judith Rodin says, “Resilience is the ability of people, communities and institutions to prepare for, withstand, and bounce back more rapidly from acute shocks and chronic stresses.”
- The third inspiration arrives by an unlikely route – from a young sailor, Ellen MacArthur, and her solo round-the-world record-breaking voyage. It led directly to an understanding of a massive shift from linear to circular economics – a shift that provides entirely new rules for those who have glimpsed the poverty of political economics, the outdated labels of left and right and the debt-driven legacy of the linear economy.
All three of these sources demand creative talent. Young people, students and returning graduates, will understand these ideas. Across the country local communities (enterprises and people) must realise their empowerment to recruit and encourage fresh thinkers.
What do I know? I am not Greek. Why take any notice of interfering foreigners? The world needs Greece to succeed and to lead. A new economics can be forged in the crucible of this crisis.
—————-
This article also available in Greek via New Diaspora magazine
Network Technologies & City Management: innovations in parallel
25 JanFollowing a week where Judith Rodin’s book The Resilience Dividend coincided with reports from ETSI on great progress in NFV standards development, it was perhaps inevitable that we’d find ourselves musing on their similarities.
For Networks: getting our acts together we found that Megan Wu’s graphic captured a blend of cityscape and silicon. Network technologists and Community builders – different disciplines tackling much the same processes.
Groupe Intellex 