Reboot Britain – online video now available
Reboot Britain
Reboot Britain, on 6th July, 2009, was a London based one day ideas camp set up by NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, UK.
It’s aim was to generate debate and ideas on how ‘how to harness the power of the web to shape better public services and build the UK economy’.
At it’s core is a belief that new tools for online collaboration are breaking down traditional barriers between the people who make products and services, and those who consume them.
The challenge is to use this opportunity to put people – their wants and needs – at the heart of innovative, responsive and reinvigorated public services.
And for why? Well you could start with their view that with an economy deep in recession, ever increasing demands on public services and trust in political systems at an all time low, many countries, including the UK face an unprecedented set of challenges
Just another conference? Maybe – but there are some great projects and ideas being discussed here. And, anyway, sometimes you some rhetoric to start new thinking. And there is lots of this in these sessions.
The video Archive
The video archive of the presentations have just become available, here. Or click the image above.
The whole day is on offer. However, if you want a short cut, or just have time for a couple of sessions, then, for starters look at Charlie Leadbeater, and Lee Bryant.
Lee Bryant
Lee Bryant from Headshift, is adamant that what is required is a recognition that most of our institutions, both at a political and a management level are run by people with 20th century century sensibilities which put centralisation, enterprise planning, and hierarchy at the core of their thinking – in short hubs and spokes rule.
In contrast, he believes that 21st century thinking needs to take the notion of the network out of the cloud and start to see it as a radical way of rethinking all kinds of futures – culture – economy – social planning/interventions.
Charlie Leadbetter
Charlie Leadbetter, one of my favorite thinkers in this space, takes about four minutes in his opening to demolish the the recent Digital Britain report [PDF] as well intentioned nonsense at best, and a perfect example of Lee Bryant’s 20th century thinking.
To take things forward he goes on to give a summary of his recent work around T0 – For – With publishing models – or as he now puts it – The Mutual Media Manifesto.
The Mutual Media Manifesto
In this model – mutuality is key – i.e. a set of behaviors- actions and frameworks which create new kinds of relationships – both culturally, economically and socially.
For more on much of this see his web site, here.
Paul Millar School of Everything
One more? Then definitely, Paul Millar on the School for Everything – where people teach and learn with each other, and his more recent work Social Innovation Camp, and the idea of social start-ups
The web site – Reboot Britain
There is a wealth of material on the Reboot Britain web site. There were also a bunch of collaboration tools, and of course the now ubiquitous Twitter feed. See also the Nesta page for more.