We-Think

On Tuesday I received an email from a friend telling me to listen to the podcast of 'Start The Week' as one of the guests had things to say that she thought might interest me. ( You can download it here - it's the 13th November edition.)

The someone in question was Charles Leadbeater , a former journalist, adviser at No 10 and now 'management guru' - at least according to Andrew Marr.

Charles has recently published a book called 'We-Think'. Here's what he says about it on his website:

'We-Think: the power of mass creativity - is about what the rise of the participative culture - the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist - means for the way we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines, participants and contributors not just workers by day and consumers by night.'

Interesting stuff. If you want to read the book you can buy copies from the boring conventional routes like Amazon and bookshops. But you can also read it online here because he has published it to a wiki. In fact, he's using the Wikia platform which hosts the Thatcham Vision's very own wiki.

Wikis, as you'll know by now, are websites which visitors can edit themselves. So you can not only read the book but also write new bits, change existing ones, comment via the 'talk' pages and so on. If you'd like to keep track of any changes to We-Think, copy and paste the address of this special page into a 'feed reader' like the web-based www.bloglines.com See the 'help' page at Bloglines to find out how this works.

The Thatcham Vision is all about 'enabling people to be players and not spectators'. As Charles says, the web is a tool - a phenomenally powerful tool - which if used properly can enable this aspect of the emerging vision to be achieved. Connect Thatcham - our web access project is already under way - is looking at ways of extending web access to all households in Thatcham. More on that story later.

Watch this space...

... as visitors will have noticed, the blog has been rather inactive for a while.  This is entirely due to the fact that a vast number of Vision related activities are taking place simultaneously.  Our first group of hot topic teams are reaching the end of their work, three new ones (covering anti-social behaviour and crime, homes and housing and lifelong learning) are just getting going, we're launching a business survey this week and we're busy completing the analysis of the Thatcham Survey.  We'll be posting news to the website, and here, over the next couple of weeks so don't forget to check back if you're interested in keeping up-to-date.

Wrap spin-off?

We've been contacted by a business that's interested in meeting one of the needs identified in our Thatcham Vision supplement.  The team had hoped that one of the benefits of the supplement is that it would attract new businesses to the town.  We obviously can't say anything just now about the specifics of this particular business, but if you have ideas for new businesses in Thatcham that you'd like to bounce off us we'd be delighted to hear from you.

Einstein

Anyone whose interest in Einstein has been sparked by his hitherto unknown connection with Thatcham might like to take a look at this excellent website - Einstein Online - which includes straightforward and clear explanations of the great man's ideas.

Meanwhile in San Francisco

Google have been given permission to launch a free, wireless broadband service covering San Francisco. The Thatcham Vision team think it would be worth investigating the possibility of having something similar (well, exactly the same really) in Thatcham - as you'll have seen, there's a question in the Thatcham Questionnaire about this. Widespread free, or very cheap broadband access could be used in many ways to benefit the community. If you're interested in working on a small team of volunteers to look at the feasiblity of this please drop us a line by clicking here. Today San Francisco, tomorrow Thatcham. Anyone know the MD of Google UK?

Where Tanzania leads...

... we almost certainly won't follow. Apparently, all plastic bags and packaging have just been banned in Tanzania - the law takes effect in six months time. Those who've visited East Africa will appreciate why it's thought that this is necessary. Suppliers who don't comply face up to 10 years in prison. Perhaps West Berkshire Council should follow suit. 10 years for whoever is responsible for the large numbers of bags decorating the shrubbery around Tescos in Pinchington Lane seems very reasonable to me.

Community websites

As you'll know from reading our wrap, one of the ideas the team has been looking at is the development of a community website. There are a number of different forms this could take and it could be used in a number of ways. There are lots of existing community websites around already - some of which are run by local councils, others by local groups. See this item at the BBC's action network which includes a link to an example of one.

First returns arriving

Great excitement here at Thatcham Vision HQ as the first paper returns arrive. People have been completing the online version of the Thatcham Questionnaire since we launched it on Tuesday. We'll be using our 'wiki' - see the feedback page on our main site - to let you know what people are saying, but we won't publish details until after the closing date for completion of the questionnnaire - 2nd May.

In the meantime the wiki contains summaries of the views of over 600 people in Thatcham who have completed our earlier 'qualititative' surveys. These were mostly open-ended forms in which we asked people what they'd like to change about Thatcham and what they like best at present.

If you haven't completed the online questionnnaire yet click here to go the survey page and do so - it should only take you 5-10 minutes to complete it.

People are making good use of the text box at the end of the questionnaire to cover points and ideas which aren't in the questionnaire and comments on the survey itself.

Wrap Day

After a few hectic weeks our 'wrap' is published today. It's called a wrap, in newspaper jargon, because it's wrapped around The Advertiser free newspaper. Forty thousand copies of the wrap were printed yesterday and copies will be distributed to all homes in West Berkshire. There are two reasons for such a wide distribution. Firstly, we're interested in the views of people who live outside Thatcham as well as residents. So, if you visit the town, work there or go to school there we'd very much like to hear from you. Secondly it's not possible to target a wrap on specific areas - it must be printed with all copies of the newspaper, but even so it is very cost effective. If we wanted to produce, print and circulate a document of similar length just to homes in Thatcham and nearby villages it would be much more expensive than using the wrap format for our supplement and we wouldn't, for example, get coverage in places like Newbury.

We've had a very interesting time working with the team from the Newbury Weekly News on the wrap - notably John Hampson and Marcus Bishop - who have done an excellent job for us. (I'm sure that they'd want me to stress that all the words and ideas in the supplement are ours, not theirs.)

We're hoping to get a good response to our questionnaire and, just as importantly, to find more people who want to get involved in improving Thatcham. We've got an excellent team of volunteers working on the Thatcham Vision already (see page 2 of the wrap for details), but there's lots to do.

BBC's Action Network

Action week has just finished.  What did you do?

If the answer's not a lot, you'll find lots of good ideas - and information about the BBC's Action Network - here.

For political anoraks only...

... see this from BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson's weblog on 'double devolution', giving power to the people (perhaps) and related matters which are connected with the parish planning initiative of which the Thatcham Vision is a part.

A quick wave ...

... to visitors to the Blog from the National Parish Planning conference which took place in Newbury yesterday.  An excellent event, I thought, although I can't comment on the 'Using ICT in Parish Planning' session - on the grounds that I ran it!  If you'd like a copy of a brief handout which lists the websites and web related services which we're using as part of the Thatcham Vision please click here.  Please feel free to let other people know about this.  If you'd like to contact me with any questions you have about ICT and Parish Planning please email me by clicking here.  I'm can't provide you with expert advice on the subject - I'm not a website designer by trade - but I can at least tell you about our experiences.

As with most of the other posts to this blog, I added this one by just writing an email and sending it to a special email address which you can create when you set-up the blog. 

I'd be also be very grateful to hear any ideas you have about how we can improve the website. 

Incidentally, I did find most of yesterday very interesting and useful.  One point that struck me was that calling what we're doing 'planning' is misleading.  I'd be interested to hear what others think about that.

While we're talking about keeping our fuel bills down...

... here's an interesting item from today's science and technology section in the Guardian. As you'll see, it's about heat pumps: an idea that I haven't heard much about recently but always sounded interesting. One couple quoted in the article claim that their recent installation will pay for itself within seven years (compared with their oil fired system) and the technology is very simple.
Perhaps all new homes in Thatcham should feature a heat pump? The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister are on the case. According to the article they are 'reviewing options'. Meanwhile things are a little further forward in Sweden where 97% of new homes have heat pumps.

As an alternative to wind turbines...

...(see below) you could consider making your own electricity. There's an article on the subject in this week's New Scientist. It's available from the magazine's website but you'll need to pay to read it in full.

Keeping track of the blog (and lots of other things)

If you're interested in keeping track of changes to this blog and you don't know about web feeds take a look at this explanation of the idea at the always excellent BBC News website.

The BBC article explains what 'news readers' are - I'd recommend Bloglines which is based on a website. Once you've set up an account you can keep track of changes to websites which feature a feed, including this one and our Wiki. You'll find the link for the feed for this blog in the links section on the right hand side of this page.

To keep track of changes to the wiki, copy the address which appears in your browser's address bar when you click here into your newsreader.

Confused? Well, this will take a little concentration but after you've read the BBC article all should become clear.

Wind turbines

The company that runs the new wind turbine which is just visible from the M4 as you drive past Reading has also supplied two for the town of Swaffham in Norfolk. As you'll see from their website, a consultation with local residents identified that a large percentage of those who responded were in favour of installation of the second machine.

Would Thatcham residents be similarly enthusiastic? There's just one catch: one member of our team of volunteers has pointed out that the turbine in Reading meets the needs of 1200 homes. We'd need about eight Reading-sized ones just to meet domestic demand.

Wired Thatcham

One of the topics we're currently investigating as part of the Vision is the idea of the 'wired community'.

I've just stumbled across this excellent collection of links on the subject.

Websites and other internet applications have enormous potential for linking people together and getting them involved in different aspects of their community, but we obviously need to take account of the fact that web access is by no means universal. Do you have any ideas about how we could bridge the 'digital divide' in Thatcham, assuming that this would be a good thing? If so, we'd be very interested to hear from you.

What do 8-12 Year Olds Think of Thatcham?

You can find out by visiting our Wiki and downloading a summary of views expressed by children at Parsons Down School. Lots of interesting views and ideas were expressed. For example, problems crossing the road and the general issue of road safety featured much more prominently than in responses from adults.

The general issue of youth provision is being worked on by one of our Hot Topic teams. We have set-up a number of these teams, all involving Thatcham residents, to look at a range of topics which also include the town centre, transport and access, the environment, social and community, senior citizen provision amongst them. If you're interested in making a difference to Thatcham in any of these areas and would like to get involved please email us by clicking here.

Government Follows Thatcham's Lead

It's good to see central government catching-up with the Thatcham Vision Project. It has just launched it's very own 'wiki' - click here to take a look at it and here to look at ours which we set-up two months ago. A great idea, obviously, and there are some interesting links on the home page including one to the excellent IDeA website, which is about innovation in local government.

I'd like to offer a small suggestion to the Whitehall wikiers. Try to wean yourself off the jargon guys. This is a personal thing – I’ve written about it on this blog before - but I really do have a pathological dislike of management jargon. For instance, the following leaped off the home page and tried to strangle me:

'key competency' - translation: something really important we need to be good at

'embed innovative thinking within local government' - translation: ensure councils get better at improving things

‘joined-up working’ – translation: well that one needs a whole new blog entry of its own, but I guess that it’s a more 'muscular' (ugh!) version of ‘joined-up thinking’, another phrase which has been bandied about a lot over the last few years.

The quote from the usually lucid Peter Drucker is particularly impenetrable: if anyone can work out what it means do drop me a line via this email address.

But hey, it’s easy to criticise. Innovation is a subject which fascinates me and I’ll try to find some (of my own) time to explore and add-to the ‘e-innovations’ (oh dear!) wiki. You might like to do that as well because the whole point of a wiki is that it’s a two way thing: wikis are websites you can both read and write yourself.

Incidentally, the world's most famous wiki was in the news yesterday.

Thatcham Speaks

As you'll have noticed if you've visited the main website, we've started adding short interviews with people in Thatcham to the site. Just click the link on the home page - or on the interviews page - and you'll be able to hear what our first 'aural' contributors have to say.

The flow of responses to our 'Wishes' consultation exercise is increasing by the day - both via the online survey (also accessible via our home page) and the paper version, which are available from the library and Thatcham Vision Supreme Headquarters at the Town Council offices - see contact details on the main website.

Over the next few weeks (with a break over Christmas, of course) we'll be holding the first meetings of our 'Hot Topic Teams' which are looking at issues like the town centre, youth provision and transport. A full list of teams is available at the Hot Topics page, also on the main website.

Lastly we're going to post some of the comments and ideas we've been receiving at our 'wiki'. See the link in the right hand column of this page to visit the wiki.

It's all go, to say the least!