Discussion: The social eco-system dance
Discussion: The social eco-system dance
I was lucky to be invited to the last of the first series of Ad Hoc Enquiries which where set up by the team behind Social Lab (“part investigation, part experimentation and part playground”) which itself is part of Social Spaces. Social Spaces practices some of the most forward thinking/doing on community and it was through their work on the creative/collaborative paradigm I came into contact with Eileen Conn’s work on community engagement. So I was excited to be taking part in an evening’s discussion about (and with) Eileen’s work. To make the whole thing even better the event took the form of an advanced dinner party with good food and wine.
In a nutshell, Eileen posits that what is usually thought of in policy terms as the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of one system (i.e. ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches/policies/strategies/what-have-you) is actually two distinct, but co-evolving, systems which have their own dynamics and characteristics. Based on life-long experience as both a community activist and a policy advisor she noticed how the differences between these two systems are almost always overlooked resulting in very poor interaction between the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’. In her paper she develops this insight into an argument about the need to support the horizontal peer of civic society and nurturing the ‘space of possibilities’ in which interaction between top and bottom takes place.
This is reflected in a lot of the innovation literature which is about how to ‘harness’ the energy of communities. It is interesting how this metaphor of harnessing directly implies limiting! This also brings to the fore issues of power. I agreed with my dinner partner that the crux of the matter seems to be the underlying attitude with which the question is approached. In this way it is important to keep in mind that the ‘space of possibilities’ is often an invited space with concerns around agenda setting. There are also a host of interesting questions to be asked around how to build trust between the horizontal and vertical peer, the role of technology and culture as well as the language we use to describe these dynamics.
To me the evening brought home the importance of the kind of language we use to describe the world. Moving away from mechanical language which (although apt for talking about efficiency and cost-effectiveness) restrains our roles as doers to cogs in a machine towards living language which recognises our roles as doers in dynamic contexts seems crucial. ‘The social eco-system dance’ seems a step on the way to moving ‘outcomes’ away from targets towards a focus on processes and learning dynamics.
25/04/2012