Society News
The future of books
Having long been an avid reader, a report on ‘the future of books’ was bound to catch my eye. As I’m sure you can guess, it talks about the emergence of ebooks and their implications for the older relative: the hardcopy book.
It’s a fascinating read, which covers six key drivers:
- Digitization of books (see our ease of publishing online driver)
- Emergence of wireless ebook readers
- Spread of wireless broadband (also have a look at our ubiquitous connectivity driver)
- Generational shift - (explore...
Sharing: does online leave you hollow?
For strapped for cash charities, spreading information online can seem like a golden option. Think of the print and posting cost of your annual report and the idea of a pdf emailed out (or whatever version you use) beckons seductively. But there is still a widespread wariness of engaging with web technologies for this. Sometimes such a view takes the form of top-level reluctance to, for example, engage with twitter; or manifests itself when an organisation plans and designs for publications ...
Will to change?
We have just completed an in-depth collaborative project with Disability Lib to find out more about what the future could hold for disabled people’s organisations. We'll be posting the drivers that Disability Lib came up with during our work with them into our drivers bank very soon – so keep an eye on the site or sign up to our bulletin if you want to make sure you catch them as they go up.
In the meantime, take a look at these great graphic summaries of what participants in a recent...
Big Society in a small room
The first Big Society Network event
Last night I was at the first Big Society Network open night. There were over 100 people crammed into a small room at CLG, from organisations such as shared intelligence, envision, networked neighbourhoods; other charities, neighbourhood associations, local government, community regeneration organisations … I could go on.
There was a real buzz in the room – everyone was enthusiastic about the term Big Society and what it could mean. The event broke up into...
Hand in hand into the sunset?
A title with more than a whiff of cheddar – I apologise! But the event I went to earlier this week left me feeling as optimistic as the title suggests. I attended the NCVO Corporate Community Involvement Seminar: A Climate for Change? A couple of coporate-charity partnerships presented: Sky and Global Action Plan, followed by WSP and Resources for Autism, and some thoughts from BITC’s Business and the Environment Campaign Director Jim Haywood, all pithily chaired by Dame Julia Cleverdon of aRead on
Implications of the budget
First, apologies for the dry title: it feels like the puns have been taken a little too far, for example in the constant references to ‘axes’ across the front pages of all the major newspapers today.
These give a pretty clear sense of the overall tone of the budget. But how does that affect voluntary and community organisations, and more important, how can we anticipate and plan for the changes that may come as a result in the way we work, who we help, and who funds us?
Some major...
Set some trends
If you believe What the trend?, tracking Twitter’s trends is useful. So useful that they charge $450 per month to analyse the trends for you! Now, I’m not suggesting that any of you engage their services, however, the fact that this service is one of the many available to track the trends on twitter and other social networking sites indicates there is something else going on here, and something that might be worth the VCS having a look at.
Twitter trending (listing the topics that are...
The virtual world is your oyster
Ever fancied adopting a homeless person? Well now you can! iHobo, a recently launched iPhone app, offers you the opportunity to adopt your very own iHobo who will come and live in your iPhone for 3 days. Following an initiative in 2006 where a Spanish charity used a homeless avatar in Second Life to raise money, the aim of iHobo is that after 3 days of dealing with all the problems thrown up, you’ll understand a little more about homelessness, and feel compelled to donate to the charity...
Power to the People? The Big Society agenda
Turns out Citizen Smith was way ahead of his time, and would probably be horrified by this adoption of his favourite slogan, however, the new government’s civil society agenda, the ‘Big Society’, expands existing initiatives to improve society by empowering local communities. But what does this really mean to the people of Britain and to the VCS in particular?
The Government guidelines outline a number of proposals: an expansion of existing government strategies such as support for social...
Lessons from Labour
Some time back, I wrote about the lessons from the fall-out from One Alfred Place’s change of strategy, which was seen by some members as a voiding of the terms under which they joined the Club. We may now be seeing similar patterns at play in political party membership.
Maybe it’s something about the British loving an underdog, but Labour Party membership dramatically increased – with daily recruitment levels up 1000% (though from what must have been very low numbers based on a back of the...
