Comments on: The RSA mission and brand – responding to the debate

By: matthewtaylor

matthewtaylor — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:15:49 +0000

Thanks David. Really helpful

By: matthewtaylor

matthewtaylor — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:15:30 +0000

Thanks Angela. I hope David’s really helpful comment has helped reassure you. you sound to me like just the kind of person we are looking for as the RSA returns to it civic activist origins

By: David Wilcox

David Wilcox — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:01:52 +0000

Angela wrote “One of the turn-offs for me, and possibly many others, is the perception of the RSA as some kind of exclusive club, which frankly is anathema to the principles of open resource, sharing knowledge and fostering collaborative work and innovation.”
That has also been a concern for some Fellows, and potentially at odds with Matthew’s vision of 2007 for the Fellowship as a network for civic innovation.
It was the reason that a group of us set up OpenRSA to help promote changes from the inside out and the outside in. While there have been a few ups and downs along the way, there’s now a friendly spirit of collaboration between staff and Fellows on the open agenda … so I hope Matthew won’t mind me mentioning that we have just set up a new network at http://openrsa.ning.com for Fellows, staff and friends. We aim to help link up the growing number of other open City and regional networks (like London) being developed around the RSA. David Jennings has already done a rather clever feed to aggregate topics from other Ning sites.
Old civic institutions like the RSA can be hugely frustrating because of the deeply embedded culture from less open times … but from your reports of research, on the London network, Angela, it sounds as if there’s also some inspiration too if you dig back far enough. Do tell us more!

By: angela dove

angela dove — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:18:12 +0000

I’m taking part in the RSA London City Network blog as someone deeply interested in both the history and future of the RSA. I’m not a fellow, but a potential fellow who is finding it hard to see exactly what the offer from the RSA might mean to me. Congratulations on the content of your blog, you are opening up fundemental issues in a clear and incisive way. When the RSA was founded it was a unique, cutting edge organisation, devoted to furthering innovation in the sciences, agriculture and arts. The agricultural aspect was big at the time, and is of course one of the major global concerns of the 21st. century. I guess many people might think the Royal Society of Arts is purely an arts based organisation. One of the turn-offs for me, and possibly many others, is the perception of the RSA as some kind of exclusive club, which frankly is anathema to the principles of open resource, sharing knowledge and fostering collaborative work and innovation.

By: David Wilcox

David Wilcox — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:46:50 +0000

I nearly became a former Fellow in frustration at the failure to create a good online networking system, and adequately involve Fellows in the development of new directions. However, I do now sense a much stronger commitment to engage with Fellows, and the council election process has – at least in London – helped Fellows and potential Fellows discuss more openly what we need.
The rather opportunistic ad hoc development of Ning-based online networks in place of a central system has meant we have worked more closely with staff and each other, and invented as we go.
With greater involvement in – and responsibility for – networking, comes another realisation. We need a stronger Fellowship “offer” … but perhaps that offer is not so much what RSA central can offer us individually, but what offers we are prepared to make to each other in terms of learning together and developing projects. If the value lies in the network, it will be realised by networked relationships.
So events and networking systems underpin conversations -> new relationships -> greater trust -> new ideas and activities.
We do still need leadership. I was inspired by Matthew’s civic innovation vision in 2007: the problem then was RSA didn’t have the systems to provide central support, we hadn’t developed relationships around the Fellowship to do things for ourselves, expectations were too high, resources inadequate.
This time around we need more engagement with Fellows to confirm direction and principles, and more co-design of the practice.
I don’t know what’s next. I do know it’s too interesting to give up.