Architecture of participation & inspiration

I just read about how large corporations are embracing idea-sharing networks... "creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but who has the most compelling architecture of participation. That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products?"

Following on from my earlier post about the development of ruralnet|online and the possibilities for Web 2.0 and the RCCN....I wanted to point you towards a blog by ruralnet CEO Simon Berry - where he describes how he conducted an experiment at the weekend into social networking.

Simon has illustrated how effective Web 2.0 technology can be at putting people in touch with each other. Imagine being able to converse with others that have developed a similar community energy project and who are writing about it somewhere 'out there' on the web.  Web 2.0 technology will enable us to track what that person is doing, when they are doing it and would allow us to contribute and add to that knowledge.  Now, that is 'collective genius' at work -and in this way the RCCN is the architecture of participation and inspiration.

Comments

[alex]

Hi

Ref this post some time ago I e-mailed an organisation called trampoline systems as they had some quite interesting thoughts

http://www.trampolinesystems.com/

In government, where I work, Sod's law is that 20 people will be talking about the same thing in 15 different buildings at any one time, but no-one will likely talk to one another.

[Sam Adams, ruralnet]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your comment - and link. And I just noticed that you have paid a visit to the ruralnet|online site too :-) You raise the interesting point that we could all (both internally and externally) could be much more effective at communicating what we are doing - stop duplicating and start collaborating.

By the way, rural|net CEO Simon Berry worked with others to develop an "open source bid" to the UK Cabinet Office for the innovation exchange programme - see - http://www.innovationexchange.net/ - his most 'successful failure of last year' - as Simon puts it!

[David Bardsley]

Hi,

I'm a member of a small Parish Council (Everton) in North Notts (population ~750). We would like to consider what options we have to take action to reduce our carbon footprint and would like to see if someone could attend one of our meetings to talk about what others have done and offer us some advice and contacts who could help.
Do you have any contacts, please?

David Bardsley

[Sam Adams, ruralnet]

Hi David,

Good to hear from you. There are lots of communities looking for the advice and information from others and this is what the RCCN (Rural Community Carbon Network) will help support and facilitate. I can recommend you talk to Sustainable Youlgrave (see my latest post on here), as they are quite far ahead in terms of community engagement and have set up things like newsletters to inform the community.Plus they are keen to hear from others who want to do similar things in their own village. If you go the the 'Maps' section of this site, you can view other initiatives that you could contact.

We are currently developing the network which we aim to launch next month...I would be keen to get your community on board, so that you can more easily learn from other groups and contact others that have done similar things - you will also have access to our Experts Online panel. I wonder if you could email me s.adams[at]ruralnetuk.org your contact number and we can talk further.
Best wishes,
Sam