The Daily Networker

Perhaps only for song writing geeks, there is something amazing about listening to Alan Menken writing Beauty and The Beast on this work tape (Spotify Link here and YouTube link here).  He was recording the actual session during which he wrote the famous tune.  How great is that? You can hear him ‘finding’ the melody and you are willing him on - I love it!

Thanks to a tip off from the brilliant Jon Yates at The Challenge, I’m reading The Politics of Hope by Jonathan Sacks.  Ten years after he wrote it, and better late than never.  I  highly recommend it.

Lloyd Davis is fast becoming a regional, if not a national treasure.  He’s brilliant.  And he’s looking for an Apprentice Social Artist.   Have a read and see if you know anyone who might fit the bill.

Shadow Minister David Willetts is so clever that his nickname is Two Brains.  He has written a book called The Pinch.  One of my favourite columnists, Danny Finkelstein, has written an interesting piece about it in The Times here.

I enjoyed compering the annual awards for charity Vital Regeneration at the Cockpit Theatre in London last night.  They have a terrific range of projects which enable young people to express themselved using film, music and the latest digital technology.  I’m pretty sure I got away with closing by sharing one of my favourite quotations, which happens to be by the late rapper Tupac Shakur.  I like it because it reminds me of the work that Vital Regeneration are doing;

“I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”

Talk to me about one of today’s links here!

• James Crabtree writing about Data.Gov.uk for Prospect
• The Challenge is a scheme with amazing potential which could lead to a huge civic service opportunity.
• I recorded a Word of the Day with Wordia.  You’ll have to click to see which word I chose.
• Rory Stewart seems like a really interesting chap.  Here’s a great feature about him from the Guardian.
• Interesting piece about how Americans spend their waking time.  It involves a LOT of screen time.
• True Stories Told Live sounds like a cracking way to spend an evening.
• Smarta have created an eBook in which 30 people, (including me!) speculate on entrepreneurial opportunties.
• I popped along to find out more about the School for Communication Arts 2.0.  Worth a look!
• Tim Ferriss on the Power of Practical Pessimism
• Some stunning long-exposure photographs

“If you want to build a ship,
don’t drum up the men
to gather wood, divide the
work and give orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn
for the vast and endless sea.”

Antoine de Saint Exupery

It will nice to return to the original point of this trusty blog, dear reader.  I want to tell you about the interesting people I’ve been meeting.  And I will.  But something’s been on my mind.

In a few months we’re going to have a General Election in Britain.  Every day until then, people will say it’s either time for a change or that the current Government should stand by their record.  The current crop of politicians stand accused of being amongst the most rotten in living memory.  If you’re looking to blame something on someone these days, the chances are (if it’s not a banker) it might as well be a Member of Parliament.

Here’s the problem;  The expectations we have of politicians are WAY out of line with what they should be.  To help explain myself, I’ve developed an analogy, though I warn you, it isn’t perfect;

If the country was a school, then what role do you think the politicians would play?  I’ll tell you what I think; 

The janitors. 

This isn’t to say that janitors aren’t important.  They are.  Extremely.  They have to ensure that the school is structurally safe, that the heating works, that people can use it every morning.  Of course, the janitors don’t make the decisions and so my analogy falls down here.  The mistake we make is to think instead that the politicians are the teachers or the pupils. That we should be looking to them to make the changes which lead to the school or country or world we want to live in.  They won’t.  They can’t.  They do not, and should not have the power to make this a great country.  They are an important part of making it great, but they do not have the power to ensure that it is, nor should they or do they lead its greatness.

All of the time, at the moment, we’re making this mistake. Imagine there is a lot of litter on the common.  We blame the council.  The council did not drop the litter.  Members of the public dropped the litter.  A school slips down a league table.  We blame the Government.  They didn’t sit the exams.  The pupils, teachers and parents all share responsibility for the results.       

The main stream media are having a major love-in with politicians of both parties, and no good will come of it.  Perhaps it’s because they are interested in each other’s jobs.  Perhaps it’s because they work near each other in London.  Maybe it’s because they rely on each other for their very survival.  Is it easier to fill the time with tales of party political intrigue than going and finding something which is actually making a difference?  Whatever.  It’s ruining everything for everyone.  We’re sitting back and watching the country pick a fight with the janitor because the school is failing.  We need to wake up a bit. 

The irony is that the elected MPs are only the thinnest layer of the political system.  Why aren’t we paying attention to the work that the millions of other public servants are doing?  Why are so many of the civil service seemingly banned from speaking in public?

Who is covering the latest innovations in business?  Who is shining a spotlight on the breakthrough techniques of social enterprise?  No-one.  Because they are all too busy gazing into the eyes, or beating up (depending on whether the camera is rolling) the MPs. 

I’ve been to Downing Street.  I’ve met leading politicians of both main political parties.  I don’t speak for any of them.  I probably shouldn’t write about it. 

We need to focus on the people who can actually change the way a country works.  Just in case I haven’t told you how I see this (I’ll stop in a minute), let me put it this way;  Politicians cannot change a country.  Not really change it.  Teachers, business people, parents, community leaders, social entrepreneurs, retired people and EVERYONE currently watching and listening as the politicians get the blame.  That’s who can and should make the changes.  We’re sleepwalking into a bleak decade if we carry on projecting the wrong expectations onto the wrong people. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some networking to do.

photo;  Special Agent

Would you like to earn half a million pounds a year?  Fully clothed, using a special chair, ten minutes in a Neil’s Yard shop could work wonders. Yes, the Walk-In Backrub is one of my guilty pleasures in London. Perhaps you should consider becoming a Back-Rubber too?  A ten minute massage could earn you ten pounds.  That means we will make five hundred and twenty five thousand smackers a year, each.  Doesn’t it? Of course it doesn’t.

Wonga is a short-term loans company.  If you have run out of cash at the end of the month (and in January, this is entirely likely), then they will consider offering you up to a thousand pounds.  And you’ll pay for it.  For a hundred quid, they will charge you seven if you pay them back in a week.  They also add a transaction fee.  I think I know a couple of people would pay that gladly at certain times of the year.  Of course, if you then express this as an annual percentage rate, it looks enormous.  It’s over 2,600% !  Wonga’s point is that they have not designed their service for people borrowing over a year.  It’s designed to carry you over from one day or week, to the next.  Either way, it will have some people complaining that it has become far too easy to borrow money, that lenders are being irresponsible. 

It has never been easier to buy a Kit Kat.  At the newsagent, petrol station, or winking at you at the Tesco till, they are everywhere.  They are also easier to eat than ever.  No more crafty scarecrow, slicing the foil with a taloned fingernail on a moonlit night.  If Kit Kats are your weakness, you could be in trouble.  Should it be made more difficult to buy one?  Or should we finally give two fingers to the idea that everything today is the seller’s fault? 

It’s too easy to blame the financial crisis, or our love of credit cards on the banks.  At some point, someone is going to have to start asking how irresponsible it is to take out a loan which you know you can’t really afford.  To accept that the reason you have put on a stone since Christmas is not the fault of Ronald McDonald. And  getting stuck in the snow, when you could have stayed at home and knew it was going to dump it down was not the local council’s fault. 

I know all of this because I am as guilty as the next person.  I borrowed the money, I ate the Big Mac, I went out when I should have stayed in.  The author of my January gloom is me.  I need a break.  I need a back rub.

Did you ever see Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves? The one with Kevin Costner. Do you remember the bit at the end, when King Richard appears, played by Sean Connery? “I will not allow this wedding to prosheed”, says Sir Sean, and we breathe a sigh and think; thank goodness you’re here.

In a board meeting, when someone in their seventies intervenes, with a blast of common sense. Thank goodness you’re here. When a friend turns to you, at a tough time, and all you can do is laugh at the situation. Thank goodness you’re here.

Today, when I watch senior politicians of all parties, I don’t get this warm and comforting feeling. When I switch on the TV and see our leading broadcasters, even on the BBC, I don’t feel it either. Now for my most troubling confession; When I watch Question Time and see members of the great British public take our political masters to task, I don’t get it either. In fact, I feel worse not better than before.

Don’t feel sorry for me.  It’s not all bad. I feel it when I sit around a table with Tim Smit, founder of the Eden Project. I feel it when I sit down with Liam Black, founder of Same Wavelength (and previously head of Fifteen) or with Gail Greengross, director of Business in the Community. I feel it with my family and friends. What do I mean by ‘this feeling’? Do you know what I’m talking about? The feeling that things are going to be alright. That the world has not taken leave of its senses. That we are powerful and not powerless to change things. I think you know what I mean. I can come back to the politicians, broadcasters and ‘the public’. In the meantime, it’s just the two of us. Thank goodness you’re here.

“I could stay lost in this moment forever,

Where every moment spent with you, is a moment I treasure”

Aerosmith.

It is 1995 and I’m sitting in a General Studies lecture.  Seen by many as the easiest session of the week, it’s a rare chance to hear school visitors from the so-called real world share their stories.

Today, a mother has come to tell us the tale of how her daughter almost lost her life by joining a cult.  She is nervous.  She fidgets as she is introduced.  As she begins to set the scene, she looks ups.  Something has caught her eye.

“Excuse me.  If I could ask you not to take notes please.  I don’t want anyone writing any of this down”

She looks afraid.  In that moment, her audience of sullen teenagers is gripped.  It is one of the most memorable talks I have ever heard.

Looking back, I take two things from this experience.  Firstly, that in a time when so much information is freely available, being told something is a secret is special.  It creates a bond. 

Secondly, there is something wonderful about paying full attention to someone, something, anything.  Not taking notes, not fiddling on a laptop, not gazing out of the window.  At TED in Oxford this summer, there was a strict rule.  Unless you were sitting in the very back row (traditional home of trouble makers), all phones and laptops were to be switched off.  We were encouraged to tell our fellow delegates to desist, should we spot them breaking this rule. At first, this felt silly, patronising even.  Quickly, it made sense.

This week, a number of colleagues have been at Le Web, a major conference in Paris.  Photos show a sea of laptops in the crowd and the conference website reveals an endless waterfall of messages emanating from the audience.  I accept that some people think better when doodling and know from personal experience how Twitter, for example, can be a stimulating back-channel to an onstage debate.  I tend to change my view though, when the person speaking has a powerful story to tell.  I wonder how many people at events these days are actually listening.  Really listening.  Paying full attention.  I know that, all too often, I’m not.   

Ironically, the conference I have referred to, which has been excellently reviewed, was on the theme of the real-time web.  We miss so much because, in the words of Aerosmith, we don’t want to miss a thing.

Tomorrow, politicians, scientists and campaigners from around the world will meet in Copenhagen for landmark talks, aimed at resulting in a global deal on Climate Change. 

I’m not qualified to get into the science, however I’d like to ponder why we don’t care more, and do more about this important subject.  Here are a few ideas which you may not hear being put forward over the coming few days.  I’m sure that there are hundreds of possible theories.  Here are seven;

1)  We don’t care more because we don’t care about each other. We are brought up to be afraid of strangers and not formally disillusioned of the myth that ’they’ are dangerous. We don’t grow up connecting with people in other countries, so when we are told of their plight, we find it difficult to get our heads around this.  Modern languages are now optional in schools, which adds to how disconnected we and our children are from the rest of the world.  We don’t have enough substantial global networks, so we rely too much on politicians to represent us.

2)  We don’t care more because we don’t care about our descendants.  We don’t care about our ancestors either.  We are not able to imagine where we come from or what will happen to our genes.  We know that the people who will pay the price for our mistakes are our grandchildren and their grandchildren, yet we find this too difficult and abstract to imagine.

3) We think that ‘change’ sounds exciting.  Any business guru worth their pinch of salt will tell you that we must embrace and accept change.  This is of course nonsense.  If we were talking about Nature’s Destruction or Global Pollution, we would not feel as if this was something to accept. 

4)  Global Warming, when you’re based in a cold and wet country, risks sounding attractive.  This may not be as flippant as it sounds.  Names are important.  Some might care more if they were taking a stand against Global Wetting.   

4)  Too many spokespeople are ‘posh’.  George Bernard Shaw said that “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him”.  In Britain, we confuse conversations about class with conversations about accent.  I have been in enough situations to suspect that millions of our fine country take an instant dislike to what might be called ‘posh’ accents.  Although this might be annoying and a great shame, it is true.  Until we have role models with a wider range of regional accents, this dislike will too often be connected with the substance of the conversation itself.

5)  We have become suspicious of politicians and, recently, scientists.  We tend to be sceptical of anything they say, and as long as they are seen to be the main spokespeople for any movement, we will not buy into it.

6) We don’t care because we don’t understand what’s in it for us.  We must continue to underline how a certain type of food actually tastes better rather than the fact that it is better for the earth.  Similarly, saving money will matter more to many families than saving energy.  We must inspire people to make changes which they will personally benefit from and this benefit must be clear.  The motivating force cannot be penance or guilt. 

7)  We don’t know who to agree with or ’believe’. The democratisation of voice, the idea that anyone can share their view, brings many benefits.  One risk is that we confuse volume with authority.  We begin to agree with people who quite literally don’t know what they are talking about.  As objects in the mirror may appear closer than they appear, so sources of information closest to us may appear louder, or more authoritative then they really are.  So the verdict of a global panel of scientists can be overturned by a single attention-seeking journalist, or indeed blogger.

So, I suggest;

1) More programmes to connect schools globally.  Gemin-i (with whom I am working) is a great example.

2) ’Stranger Safety’ schemes to integrate communities and undo the unwitting damage of Stranger Danger thinking.

3) More airtime to genealogy enthusiasts, with a moment to imagine the future of families.

4) A concerted avoidance of phrases with ‘change’ and ‘warming’, replaced by ‘pollution’.

5) More lead spokespeople who are neither ‘posh’ nor ‘politicians’

6) More explanation of the personal benefits of anything being introduced

7) A clearer representation of the weight of certain opinions, as opposed to the relative flimsiness of others. 

Regardless of the science or the overall temperature, it seems to me that we humans are killing our planet.   I hope it’s useful to think about why, in the hope that some solutions may come from a proper understanding of the causes, not just the symptoms. 

I’d welcome your thoughts! 

My most memorable phone call came when I was thirteen years old.  I was home alone, my parents were out. At the other end of the line, I was surprised and nervous to hear the voice of my headmaster, calling me Oliver.  He had received some news from a secondary school in Berkshire to which I had recently applied.  I had won a scholarship.   I was surprised and over the moon. If I’m honest, Mr Graham sounded pretty surprised too.  Excited and still feeling nervous, I scribbled a note to mum and dad (mobile phones were still a few years away), and went to bed, only to be woken by a couple of rather excited adults a few hours later.

My most memorable email arrived on the 17th of October just last year, at twenty past eight in the evening.  I was sitting in the Village Tandoori in Clapham with Verity, and I certainly shouldn’t have been checking my Blackberry.  It was from Michael Birch, the founder of Bebo.  At one minute past nine that morning, I had written to him about Make Your Mark with a Tenner, the scheme I had started a couple of years previously. It was a long shot, but we were a hundred and fifty thouand pounds short, for a challenge we wanted to launch the following January.  Over Cobra and poppadoms, an email arrived.  A red light flashed.  He said yes, to the full amount.

Messages can be memorable because they are unexpected, or because they bear especially good (or bad) news.  They can surprise us when they come from unexpected people, or in unexpected ways.  So imagine my surprise, when just over a fortnight ago, I received a message from none other than Sarah Brown, wife of the British Prime Minister.  Stranger still, the message arrived not on embossed notepaper, nor by secure phonecall, but via Twitter, the social networking site.  Now, it is well known that Sarah, a supporter of the Million Mums campaign, is an avid Tweeter, and has risen to become one of its most followed users in the UK.  But could this really be her, by direct message, asking for my address, because she wanted to send me something? 

A quick phone call to a colleague in Whitehall confirmed that yes, this was indeed the case, and I should pass on my details worthwith.  Which is why this evening I am to attend a thoroughly modern gathering for a new and connected era;  A Downing Tweet Christmas Party.  My friend and colleague Holly Shaw, who I met through Channel 4’s Battlefront will be there and I’ve already discovered several others from around the UK who will be meeting at Number 10 to raise a glass to the Million Mums campaign.  I’m looking forward to it.  I’ve even told my mother, who herself is one in a million.  I might call my old headmaster.  He’ll probably be surprised to hear from me.

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, the location of this morning’s Stone Club meeting, hosted by the inimitable and brilliant Carole Stone.  The question being discussed was whether or not technology is overwhelming us.  Our speaker was, Ian McCaig,  CEO of lastminute.com and the group proceeded to have a stimulating discussion over a delicious cooked breakfast. 

Over scrambled eggs, I confessed that, having replaced my Blackberry several weeks ago, I have not reactivated the email on it.  I can still access my webmail, I just don’t have the constant dripdripdrip of incoming messages.  Without doubt, this has been a blessing because I have enjoyed more books, newspaper articles, brainstormed ideas not to mention refreshing downtime as a result than I have in several years. 

One of the guests felt that the rise of the digital age was producing young people whose social skills suffer.  I disagree.  For years the UK has been churning out millions of repressed individuals who don’t know how to connect with each other. Through web technologies, relationships can be developed and people can discover their passions in life, including other people quicker and more easily.  Better still ,this can lead to face to face meetings.

Of course, as sure as a nightingale sang, someone slagged off Twitter.  This mildly annoys me as I compare it to someone slagging off mobile phones, which would be seen as a daft and grumpy comment. I encouraged them to see that Twitter, unlike email (portrayed as the villain of this morning’s piece), allows you to see only who you want to see.  It also encourages people to be brief, which is a blessing.  Many people use it to share links to things they find interesting, so it’s like a personalised news service, brought to you by some of the smartest people not only in your world, but also in the whole world.

Back when I were a lad, we used to be taught how to write letters.  We made sure that the address and the date were in the correct place and we knew when to sign off sincerely and when faithfully.  Yes sir, them were the days.  Today, we have tools (like email) which we are untrained to use.  I see trouble ahead.  Because one day soon,  we’ll have to admit that children need to be taught how to use email in the same way that their grandparents were taught to write letters and their parents weren’t taught to write anything .  This will be greeted by howls of derision and the politician involved will, sadly, have their head blown off by someone claiming, wrongly, that they are trying to replace History with Twitter.  In a world of information overload, if you don’t know how to get the most from search engines, email and, yes, Twitter, then you will drown a sea of information.  Ultimately, they are like essential fats or sleep.  A healthy balance is what we’re all after.  Too little or too much and we sometimes end up all at sea.

What is the future of news?  I don’t know, do you?  What I do know is that for my daily junk, I don’t especially mind who it comes from and I’m not inclined to pay for it.  At the fine dining end of the spectrum,  if Daniel Finkelstein, Matthew Parris, Charles Moore and Andrew Davidson would like to form a quality journalism publishing  skunkworks, I will happily pay the four of  them ten pounds a month to read everything they have to say about anything they care to write about, if that allows them to write more often. 

Speaking of fine dining, over on Comment Central, and inspired by this excellent list from the New York Times, Hattie Garlick wants to know what your pet peeves are about restaurants.  I’ve given her eight of mine to be getting on with.  For some reason, the memory of my six months going through Disney’s training process in Florida lingers on…