John’s Idea

The new community of practice (COP) based approach to knowledge management is providing the IDeA with a radical stimulus, forcing us to rethink the delivery approach to a number of our core programmes.  A good example is the Beacons Scheme.
 
The Beacons Scheme is now 10 years old and its impact on local government improvement has been significant and quantifiable.  It is however tired in format and interest in it from councils is declining.  While the objectives of the scheme remain relevant; identifying and sharing best practice, the methods used now feel outdated and slow.  The process is linear and involves agreeing improvement themes, developing best practice criteria, inviting bids, evaluating bids, awarding beacons status and then sharing the practice.  It is therefore long winded and expensive both to participate in and administer. 
 
So how do we re-envirogate the scheme and deliver the original objectives more efficiently?
 
What we are proposing is literally a Beacons Scheme “revolution”.  We intend  to completely flip the current process on its head with “shared learning” at the start rather than finish .  To achieve this we intend to make “communities of practice” the central feature of the new scheme.
 
So how will it work?
 
Through Local Area Agreements, and other sources of information, we now have a much better understanding about what council priorities are (see my last blog).  We know which councils are interested in which policy outcomes and these councils can then provide the basis for a COP.  By working with the COP to develop ideas about what constitutes best practice (perhaps using a wiki to develop criteria) we can build practice sharing into the process from the beginning.   While we still want to celebrate and promote best practice, awarding beacons status is an output from the process, almost a by-product, rather than the objective.  The award grant associated with beacons status could then used in a more focused way - perhaps through an “agreement” with the COP - to deliver a programme of practice sharing or even development.

The Local Government Association’s Business Strategy Review is forcing the IDeA to think hard about who it is and what it’s for.  For relief however, and for some interesting comparisons, its worth looking around at the impact of market/technology pressures on some other “knowledge” based businesses.

The Guardian is hosting a conference on the Future of Journalism which in content discusses the various pressures the business is facing and in form demonstrates the nature of the response.

Like most major newspapers the Guardian online business is starting to dominate.  With some 18 million online users (including a significant international readership) the writing is on the wall for the traditional newsprint business. Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor, anticipates that the current printing press upgrade will be last the paper makes.  Traditional circulation is falling, along with advertising revenue, as readers migrate to the internet and advertising revenue is swept up by Google.

The internet is the new channel for newspapers but the means of communicating through the internet are multi-dimensional and two-way.  Content from the Future of Journalism conference is distributed via the internet through videocasts, podcasts and blogs reflecting the media which are being developed for the rest of the paper.  For the IDeA, developing its expertise in online conferences, there are some clear examples to learn from.

The content itself was also really interesting.  From the perspective of innovation (a growing focus of work for the IDeA) the Jonathan Zittrain talk on the Saving the Web explores for me both how innovation happens and how it can be stifled.  More directly relevant for the IDeA was the contribution (and associated debate) from Arianna Huffington founder of the Huffington Post.  Citizen journalists generate the Huffington Post and apparently, made the two most decisive journalist contributions to the democratic presidential candidate campaign.  Putting aside the potential impact of these developments on the politics of local government with the IDeA’s own drive for “user” generated content is again a really interesting parallel. 

In my first blog (first ever) I talked about the transparency of Web 2 - how the silence can be deafening. So while the registrations to the IDeA communities of practice look really great with over 12,500 registered users, the amount of communication actually happening through those communities is not always as impressive. Given this relative silence, the online conference on customer insight, currently taking place on the IDeA CoP platform feels like a real breakthrough.

Ingrid Koehler, and the others responsible, will no doubt reveal all when it’s finished but from where I’m sitting it seems like they did a number of things right. Firstly the topic is something specific and something which is being grappled with now - its really interesting. Secondly interesting content was lined up both in form of presentations and with the active involvement of the presenters throughout the process. Thirdly, it was promoted upfront to an audience known to be interested - the growing registration list provides information on that audience. Fourthly, Ingrid kept the buzz going throughout the event.

No doubt there will be lessons learnt for the next one and Ingrid will share them - for me the small bit of video worked really well - seeing Mary Tetlow bought the whole presentation to life. It also raised the more general question as to whether we should be using more video on the rest of the web site (only one answer really!).

So massive progress, particularly given that its only the second effort. The concept has really been proved. The challenge now is to both develop the technique and to exploit in the huge range of areas where it has obvious application. I’m particularly keen to see how it could be used to promote the practice emerging from the Beacons scheme - getting the authorities acknowledged as experts to both talk to each other and everyone else online seems such an obvious application.

Looking back on my first blog - well only 4 comments so far - not exactly a ringing endorsement. However a lot of people did send me emails. Hopefully people will share their comments with everyone else next time on the blog.