Monthly Archives: June 2015

1 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Problem

Last time I introduced the third element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Proposition and showed how causes can function as either a proposition or a commodity. This time the focus is on the problem your proposition solves.

The circuit covers five elements and aims to analyse each element at a very deep level. The order in which you think about each element depends on the nature of your work. This order is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using is to describe the element in the circuit questionnaire, show how it can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example. I may use examples from other sources where they seem relevant.

Marketing Problems

This element takes a hard look at the nature of the problem your product, service or cause addresses. Of course, your offer may solve several problems and so it is important to know what your proposition is. For example, if you are selling home insulation, your proposition may be the promise of lower fuel bills. Alternatively it may appeal to a concern about climate change. The focus on the former would be about how heat is lost through poorly insulated homes and the savings made by insulating them properly. With the latter, the focus will be on the impact of climate change and the contribution poorly insulated homes make to the overall carbon footprint.  Both are true; the question is which argument appeals to which market?

But, you may be thinking, don’t most people decide on several factors? Well yes, but the most effective arguments will depend on the market. The market is the fifth and final element but you can see how all five elements interact. Using insulation as an example: essentially the same product can be marketed to two groups, those who wish to cut household expenditure and those concerned about climate change. Even though someone concerned about cutting household expenditure may welcome the impact of their purchase on climate change and someone concerned about climate change may welcome the savings in household costs, the problem they wish to solve captures their attention.

For example, if they are searching online, one might search for “how do I cut my fuel bills?” and another for “how do I cut my contribution to climate change?” The same company might have two landing pages for these markets and they might lead to the same product. The customer might see both pages in their exploration of the site and the other page might even clinch the deal for them.

You need to start where the customer is, with the problem they perceive and then lead them to consider all the advantages of using your solution. If you are interested in how this works in-depth, see my post about the awareness ladder. This shows how you need to start at the level of awareness of the customer and lead them to a point where they are ready to respond to your offer by making a purchase or otherwise supporting your cause.

For products and services, it is hard to move someone to a purchase if they are not aware of their problem. For example, some overweight people may not be aware they have a problem, so they are not going to click on a link that reads: “Are you overweight?” To engage their attention you may need to make them aware they have a problem. They might click on a link that reads: “Find out the biggest threat to your health today”, for example.

For causes though, it is likely most people are not aware of the problem. Climate change is an example of something that potentially will affect everyone but it is not an immediate problem. Most people campaigning about climate change will readily admit it is hard to build a sense of urgency. It is even harder if the issue is remote from the lives of those who can do something about it. Issues based a long way from where charity supporters live, for example. There are issues that affect one group but need the support of unaffected others for resolution. Same sex marriage is a good example of this. It directly affects a particular section of community but needed more general support to bring about the desired change.

We can all think of many causes that have caught the public mood and brought about significant change. These causes often do not include a direct appeal to self-interest but somehow capture the public’s imagination.

The Problem my Business Addresses

Here is my one sentence description of the problem my business addresses. I wrote this a few months ago and I’m reading it critically for the first time since I wrote it:

“The pressures to keep your business or organisation solvent, address internal and external conflict whilst maintaining a reasonable work life balance mean you rarely have time for strategic thinking about your vision.”

Overall I think this is pretty good! Two points about it. First, it lists three pressures that could each be a problem. Everyone involved in running a business or a community organisation will recognise they are forever fire-fighting. They will be familiar with the occasional shudder when they remember they are losing sight of their overall purpose.

The second point is your problem statement should make you feel it is incomplete. There is a slight lurch as you read to the end – oh yes I recognise that feeling that I’m rudderless in a stormy sea! If I feel that way, I’m more likely to read on …

The problem should help a prospective customer recognise, “this is someone who understands my problem”.  Often it is not only a good solution that counts but also a degree of empathy.  So the problem you address can be central to your brand.  As we head deeper into this topic we shall explore these connections in-depth.

2 The Establishment

Everyone seems to be reading “The Establishment And how they get away with it” by Owen Jones! It is a popular book about political economy! I’ve seen people reading it in coffee shops and on public transport many times.

Perhaps it’s an easy read because its insights are shocking. Sensationalism always sells.  But it lifts the veil from what is really going on and everyone should take an interest.  Like the proverbial frog in water slowly increasing in temperature, we have been hardly aware of the steady erosion of the post-war economic consensus.  I can remember my father telling me in the sixties that there was no need to worry about money because the state would always take care of us.  I’m afraid he was wrong.  The benefits his generation fought for can no longer be taken for granted, according to Jones.

The Local Economy

I’m interested in the implications for local economies. First, this is not about being pro or anti-business. I’ve read a lot about the Labour Party’s performance during the last General Election. The consensus seems to be that Labour is pro small businesses that are just starting out at their own risk but against successful businesses, they labelled as predators.

This article about Mary Creagh  is typical of the criticisms Labour has received, primarily from its own members. The Guardian quotes her, saying when she withdrew from the Leadership contest, “Labour cannot be the party of working people and then disapprove when some working people do very well for themselves and create new businesses, jobs and wealth.”

I don’t know whether this is fair criticism of Labour but it displays a common misapprehension about business. The issue has nothing to do with the size or success of businesses. The issue is whether businesses are local; which means they make a net contribution to the local economy.

I deliberately leave the term “local business” open. It could mean your neighbourhood, city or region. It could even apply to a business with national reach. The key issue is what it does with its profits. Negatively, this means it does not avoid tax and salt its takings in off-shore bank accounts. Positively, it pays its workers a living wage, pays its taxes and invests in the economy.

How Local Business is Undermined by the Establishment

This is the underlying argument in “The Establishment”. The interests of local businesses and large corporations are opposed. Attempts to regulate the predators benefit local businesses, or should do. Jones writes on page 225:

“Tax avoidance also hammers local, smaller businesses. The owners of, say, a modest independent coffee shop cannot hire an army of accountants to exploit loopholes in the law, or import costs from foreign subsidiaries to offset against tax, or dump profits in tax havens. They simply have to pay the tax that is expected of them. And by doing so, they are at a competitive disadvantage to multinational companies who exploit the law.”

Jones emphasises small businesses here but I imagine some fairly substantial businesses suffer the same competitive disadvantages. The reality is most local businesses are not that bothered by high taxes for high earners because they would welcome an opportunity to pay such taxes!

Jones asks why it is government and just about everyone else invests heavily in businesses that do little to benefit the country and fail to support small business people.  It was ever thus.  I can remember my father who ran his own business from the 1950s, complaining in the 1980s that it doesn’t matter which party is in power, they all ignore the needs of small businesses.  The establishment seems mesmerised by huge corporations that exist solely to exploit the countries in which they happen to be based.

What would it be like to live in a society where the establishment truly valued local businesses?

1 On the Scarcity of Mentors

In two previous Wednesday posts, I suggested the basic elements that lead to successful local activism include the systematic practice of running meetings and the principles of mutuality. In the nineteenth century, if people needed to start a co-op or similar organisation, they would ask someone with experience for support. This is a mentoring role and ideally the role of community development workers, who themselves also need mentors. So, I’m onto the third of these four topics:

I reckon it took me 20 years to learn how to be an effective development worker.  I’m sure it would have been a lot less had mentors been available.

Mentoring in Community Development

Chiron and Achilles c1922-1925 John Singer Sargent. Centaurs: the first recorded mentors according to Greek mythology.

I know many development workers share my experience; indeed many don’t stay in the work for long because they do not have the support they need.  Local authorities and churches usually appointed development workers, dropped them into a community, offered little or no support and then blamed when things go wrong.  It happened to me and I can remember many others treated in the same way.  Things always go wrong.  Development work is about knowing what to do when things go wrong.  Self-blame or blaming others is never anything like an effective solution.  Problems that should be seen as a stimulating challenge become a major trauma that can take years to process.

The support of a mentor is essential in these situations.  Someone experienced and distant from the situation can make a world of difference.  And they can support not only the inexperienced worker but also workers with many years experience.  When immersed in a situation, it is easy to lose perspective.  An experienced worker knows when they are losing perspective and so when they need support from someone with an independent view.

Where are the Mentors?

Community development has never had a career structure and so the employer often has no way of knowing how much experience and insight the person they appoint has or how to support them.  They leave the employee to find their own way.  Encounters at conferences and through local groups of workers help but offer limited support.  It’s not easy when it feels like a request for help is to admit to not being adequate for the job (it’s actually a part of doing the job) and so there is a steady attrition of workers, frustrated by the lack of support and the lack of career structure and low-income.

In England, we have seen a catastrophic decline in community development.  Local Authorities no longer appoint them and churches have moved onto other things.  This can be attributed to the lack of career structure, which means experienced workers move into other fields, leaving no-one with authority to argue the case for development work or to provide support.

And so we contemplate the period between the seventies, when the need for development workers was first identified, through to the beginning of the twenty-first century when the idea was all but abandoned.  This is the theme of my e-book, “Community Development is Dead! Long Live Community Development!”.  There’s no charge for it and you can download it at the end of this post.

How to Respond

The decline of community development is a pity but there is a wealth of experience out there that would help development workers and activists if only it were available.  So, my aim is to build an online community committed to sharing good practice and encouraging new ways of doing the work.

We need to re-learn the roles of mentors for activists and for development workers.

Use the comments to tell your story about poorly supported development work.

Why do you think community development workers never developed a career structure?

Is community development dead?  If not, who is doing it now?

If you need help finding a mentor, you could talk with me.  I offer a free consultancy session where I help you work out the support you need.

3 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Proposition

Last Monday I introduced the second element of the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, Products and Services, extending it to included Causes. This time the focus is on your proposition, the thing you actually sell.

The circuit questionnaire includes five elements and the aim is to explore each element at a very deep level. The order below is the order in the circuit questionnaire and follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.

The pattern I’m using to describe the elements in the circuit questionnaire, is to show how each can be used in marketing a cause and then use my business as an example.

Proposition

You may remember a couple of posts ago, I mentioned you sell yourself or your brand and last time I suggested some businesses use a cause to sell their product or service. A cause can function in two ways.  It can be something you market in its own right, where you seek some action from the person who responds to the cause. I’ll call this the cause as commodity.  The other function is cause as a proposition, where the cause is a reason to purchase something else. So, for example, concern for the environment may be a reason to purchase an environmental soap powder.

Not all propositions are causes. For example, a proposition may appeal directly to self–interest so you are purchasing health, a career, wealth, friendship or whatever. It is important to understand self-interest as an ethical approach to marketing and indeed it is a principle underpinning mutual businesses as well as many conventional businesses.  The retail co-operatives were primarily an appeal to self-interest and they always had an ethical dimension.

In this table I illustrate the relationships between cause as commodity and cause as proposition.

Ethical Marketing

So, let’s say your cause is an alternative to high sugar foods. At (1) you appeal to people’s values to respond to your campaign for signatures, donations or some other action. They may do this because they object to corporations adding high concentrations of sugar to foods; damaging the health of the population for profit.   At (2) you could use the appeal to the same values to buy food guaranteed low in sugar. At (3) you appeal to people’s self-interest, for example the effect of adulterated food on your health or your family’s health. Many people may respond out of self-interest and see the ethical power of adding their voice to many others. At (4), you may sell the product because it is healthier.

All of these are ethical approaches to marketing. They can be combined, eg a campaign about high sugar in food might combine values and self-interest in its proposition. Equally a low sugar food could use both ethical and self-interest arguments: “You can eat this to protect your health and not support businesses that add too much sugar to foodstuffs.” The approach you use will depend on your overall marketing strategy.

My Proposition

So, here is the proposition for my business, written a few months ago:

“Here’s an opportunity for you to make substantial progress with your business or organisation’s strategy, whilst you integrate your online and real-life activities, with someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.“

Reading it now it seems somewhat stilted and has no cause as proposition, it is an appeal solely to self-interest. Now, this is not necessarily a problem but it does not resonate with the material about the local economy on my website.  Here’s an alternative:

“If you find your plans to transform society through your business or organisation frustrated, here is an opportunity to build your strategy, integrating your online and real-life activities, accompanied by someone who understands the problems you’re likely to encounter.”

This makes it clear I am seeking clients who want to change things beyond their economic or community activities. Note also I am marketing myself! This combines a problem with the means to find a solution. Next time we’ll take a closer look at problems.

0 Inequality and the 1%

Friday is review day and this time the book is by Danny Dorling, “Inequality and the 1%”.  My aim in my reviews is to commend the resource and then to apply it in some specific way.

This rather dull cover belies the compelling content of this book.  Imagine a book about economics you can’t put down; this is it.  After each of its 5 chapters, I thought it cannot possibly get any worse: it did!  This book clearly demonstrates the wealthiest people in this country are not an asset.  Indeed they are a liability. Their wealth is a disadvantage to the poorest and all the 99%. They are disadvantaged by their own wealth, although most don’t get it.

I am not anti-wealth and I’m sure the same is true of most people on the left.  That the left opposes aspiration is a myth by politicians on the right with vested interest in inequality.

I oppose inequality because it disadvantages everyone.  The society that is so careless as to take away the welfare safety net and consign new generations to poverty is perverse.  This book demonstrates what happens when a very few people buy up the state, make it less democratic and take away the modest livelihoods of the majority.

Wealth Equals Money Circulation

One of the comments I received about my ebook (see below if you would like to read it), “Community Development is Dead!” reads as follows:

I agree with most of what you have written but profoundly disagree with this sentence. (p24) “Any increase in the flow of money in the economy will in time impact the lives of the poorest.” Money can flow at any rate, but if you have an underclass that is totally marginalised from the economy they will never benefit from it. I’m very surprised you appear to be supporting the trickle down theory of poverty alleviation!

I replied:

I may need to rewrite this paragraph to clarify what I’m saying.  It is not in support of trickle down and that’s why it might be ambiguous as the thought was far from what I had in mind.  Trickle down implies a global 1% élite who by accumulating unbelievable wealth are supposed to somehow trickle it down to the rest of us.  Indeed it doesn’t only disadvantage the most disadvantaged, it disadvantages everyone else – certainly the 99%.  That doesn’t mean all the 99% understand the implications of inequality.

In that sentence, I mean the opposite of trickle down, where the 1% contribute by reintroducing their fortunes into the economy.  This is not going to happen overnight, so when will it happen?  It will never happen if we do not have the economic structures to accommodate it.  This includes social enterprises and mutuals as well as local businesses.  What we have failed to do is to build the infrastructure that supports local businesses.  I was talking to a trader in Sheffield recently who understands this and looks out of his shop window at shops converted into houses.  He’s actively supporting traders on the street where he is based.

What Happens When Talent is Scarce?

I’m self-employed and not a social enterprise or a mutual.  Why?  Because I’m developing something at my risk.  If my business proves to be viable, that’s when I’ll look at making it a social enterprise.  My long-term aim is to support those seeking ways to build an economy that serves the interests of all.

In my review of Della Rucker’s book, I said her undercurrent about talent is worth reading.  She flags up a dilemma. Talent disadvantages many people because they don’t have the talent they need to take part in the local economy.  My plans will not directly benefit the disadvantaged.  So, provision must be made and integrated into plans to rebuild the economy.  The state has no problem funding wealthy corporations who somehow wriggle out of paying taxes.  At the same time it labels those who need benefits as scroungers and skivers.

Citizens’ Income

The approach I would use is the Green Party’s Citizens’ Income because it guarantees everyone has a basic income, introduces more money circulating in the economy and does not penalise small businesses as a living wage would.  It is funded by a tax on everyone earning above the basic Citizens’ Income. The rate increases, so high earners make a higher contribution.

I do not accept the label of left, if by that people mean Stalinist.  We should never forget that despite the rhetoric, Soviet Russia, was unequal.  The élite lived in luxury whilst millions starved in the Gulags.

There is no neat solution to poverty but we can choose to support economic policies that are more or less fair.  Dorling provides a valuable insight into why our economy is progressively becoming less fair and it our task to find alternative approaches that work better.  It won’t happen overnight and that is not complacency, it is a realistic appraisal of the economic system we live in and massive changes we will need to turn it around.  We gain nothing by not naming those who are responsible for keeping it as it is.

2 Beatrice Potter, Development Worker?

Last time, I described how meetings once empowered participants, generating massive change in the UK. What we experience today as a tedious chore was once key to social change. What has gone wrong? To understand this we need to look at the second of four topics, key to understanding community development:

This is the story of my hero, perhaps an early development worker – EV Neale, Edward Vansittart Neale.   He was a barrister during his working life and a member of the Christian Socialist Movement during its first incarnation in the middle of the nineteenth century.   He drew up the first Industrial and Provident legislation, which to this day governs co-operatives and Working Mens’ Clubs in the UK.

Upon his retirement at the age of 65, he was appointed President of the Co-operative Union and remained so until the end of his life, 18 years later.  He grew a bushy white beard and became what was known as a GOM, a Grand Old Man.

Every year at their AGM, he gave an inspirational speech about the potential of the co-operative movement.  He visited many European worker co-ops and they convinced him they were the way forward for working people.  Every year he received a standing ovation for his inspirational speech.

Every year his great rival JTW Mitchell – President of the Co-operative Wholesale Society – reported on the growth of the wholesale co-op sector.  Growth was steady but hardly inspirational.  But people went home and carried on building retail co-ops, in practice ignoring Neale’s speeches.

Beatrice Potter (later Webb)

Neale’s nemesis was a young woman called Beatrice Potter.  She was a reporter and listened to his speeches.  She did her own research and concluded worker co-ops were a non-starter.  Look, she said, the interests of workers and consumers are opposed.  Workers want to drive prices up and consumers want to cut them.  The retail co-ops were very good at the latter which meant that income from wages tended to be reduced.

She argued Trade Unions were better placed to represent the interests of workers and so the new Labour Party (we’re in the early years of the twentieth century now) should be allied with the Unions and not the Co-ops.

For those of you hoping for Peter Rabbit or Mrs Tiggywinkle, I’m afraid this Beatrice Potter is the one who married Sydney Webb and is better known as the redoubtable (always wanted to use that word) Beatrice Webb.  Together they founded the Labour Party.

So, Neale’s ideas were side-lined and in time we lost track of mutuality as a value underlying our economy.  In the 1980s, carpetbaggers led a campaign to demutualise many of our building societies and other financial institutions.  So, now in England they are mostly forgotten and frequently not understood.

Potter’s approach may have been the right one for its time. At the time, large employers employed most workers and so it made sense to organise the workforce. The trade union spirit was essentially mutual, although perhaps more confrontational than the retail co-ops. The challenge for any community development worker or movement is to ask how we can find our way back to co-operative principles.

How did working people support development of mutuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth century?

2 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Causes, Products and Services

Last time I introduced the first of five elements in the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire, You and Your Brand. In these posts, I’ll show how to adapt the circuit questionnaire to marketing a cause. Most organisations market a cause, often obscured by a focus on products and services. In each of these five posts, I introduce the element and show how to use it to market a cause and use my business as an example. This second post covers the full range of offers you can make, covering causes, products and services.

The circuit includes five elements …

… and this post is about the second: Products and Services. You will note the title of this post includes causes as well as products and services.

Marketing a Cause

The circuit questionnaire aims to help businesses find commercial opportunities. My interest is in organisations marketing a cause. Their priority is to find support for their cause. Their cause may be accompanied by products or services or it can stand alone.

Just as third sector organisations promoting causes can offer products and / or services, so a local business may find their products or services support a cause. For example, home insulation can be promoted as an environmental cause or to cut household bills (or both!).

I suspect more product and service promotions benefit from a cause than may seem likely. Next time I’ll show how a cause can work as a proposition to market a product or service.  I have no problem with businesses who discover a cause researching their marketing, so long as the cause is genuine. If there is a genuine cause, you may become aware of it as you work on your branding in-depth.

Causes, Products and Services

This section of the circuit questionnaire covers what the business or organisation delivers and is not to be confused with what it sells. For example, a sweatshirt is clearly a product. With a screen-print or embroidered motif, it could be sold in support of a cause. The motif may increase sales of sweatshirts and indeed may be the reason for the sweatshirt.  With or without a motif the sweatshirt is a product.

So, a cause is a commitment that leads to a transaction where the benefit is directly or indirectly to the cause.  The transaction may involve money but not always.  This may be frustrating to the purist but I don’t want to rule out the small business, for example, set up at its owners risk to sell products or services associated with a cause.  No-one would object to sales of home insulation, for example, benefiting the business that promotes and sells it.  Avoid implying direct third-party benefit where finance raised goes solely to the business.

Transactions that don’t include money might be: signatures on a petition or action in support of the cause, eg writing to an MP, joining a demonstration, attending a meeting. Online such transactions might include joining an email list and participating in an online forum. Commercial marketing campaigns use some of these activities, eg joining an email list.

Financial transactions that benefit a third-party include donations to charities, political parties and the like.

Example from My Business in June 2015

So here’s my single sentence description of my service:

“I offer 3 and 6 month non-directive consultancy packages to leaders who want traction between their online and real-life presence, need to address real-life and online problems and to maintain a work / life balance whilst focusing on their vision for local marketplace regeneration.”

It’s a few months since I wrote this it seems a bit long. More important it barely touches on my cause. When I completed this I was focusing on questions about my service and so that is what I have described. Many organisations and businesses have several product / service descriptions. So, here’s one for my cause:

“I’m inviting people to join an online community who share experiences, insights and ideas about regeneration of their local economy in neighbourhood, city or region.”

This does not replace the first sentence but together they offer a better description of my business activities. This element in the circuit questionnaire asks the question: what are you selling?  The next helps clarify: why are you selling it?

Do you market a cause when selling products or services?  What are the benefits and pitfalls?

1 Wise Economy

Last Friday I started to review Della Rucker’s book, The Local Economy Revolution.  Today I shall return to the book, picking up on the rather negative implications of her three undercurrents and show how Rucker introduces a more positive note.

If you would like to read the book and you are UK-based, click on the image to the left to go to the UK Amazon site. If you’re in the US, you can get access to it through The Local Economy Revolution website. If you’re anywhere else you’ll need to work it out for yourself!  The website is mainly a blog and it provides case studies supporting the book, allowing the ebook to be kept up-to-date without constant updates. The blog is up-to-date and new posts appear a few times a month.

Here is a passage I found towards the end of the book:

“The work of setting up art shows or fighting for better transportation systems, or cleaning up neighborhoods, or opening businesses, matters.  It matters furiously.  It matters a hell of a lot.  It matters because it shows us why these places are loved.  And it shows us that somebody loves them, deeply loves them.  Despite everything.”

This is perhaps one of the most convincing reasons for community activism.  In this blog I occasionally touch on spiritual issues.  Sometimes it’s not appreciated spirituality relates to the material world.  It is grounded in the streets we walk along, the particularities of the place where we live.  Being fully alive connects us to the places we inhabit.  To be a spiritual person is to commit to a place, to live there and become a part of it.  Then our activism becomes an act of love for our place and it is only when we love it that we can effect its transformation.

This is why big schemes don’t work.  When the council spends a fortune to draw a big employer to a city, what happens?  First, the model of the big anchor employer, providing jobs for the community died in the 1980s.  Second, it is usually short-term profit that draws employers  to a new place  and not commitment to the place.  Third, such investment endangers communities because when they withdraw, it knocks  them back.

A local business on the other hand, built slowly and grounded in its place will if it’s successful be committed to stay there.  We need to learn how to build economies from dozens of these businesses, investing in the infrastructure that supports them.

Thus Rucker introduces four incentives arguing (1) the focus must be on supporting those things that enable local businesses to grow, (2) identifying what makes this neighbourhood, city or region unique, (3) understand what small businesses can or can’t do and then (4) looking at how to use grants properly.  These are my glosses on her long and stimulating arguments, so if you are interested please read the book!

We need it seems three secret weapons to enable us to do all of this: (1) research and understand our communities and how they work, (2) pool our knowledge and understanding with others and (3) be courageous in our initiatives.

All of this contributes to what Rucker calls Wise Economy and her website offers resources for those who share her vision of a difficult but possible future for our most challenged neighbourhoods.

Last time I showed how Rucker’s undercurrents applied to Burngreave New Deal for Communities.  I wonder what would have happened had the £50 million been spent according to her incentives.  I was actually asked this question a couple of weeks ago, “What would you have spent the £50 million on?”  I replied I would have spent it across the city supporting local businesses.

On reflection I think it would still be the best approach.  The big drawback would have been the loss of the support for children and young people in Burngreave, which was New Deal’s greatest contribution.  However, this is a thought experiment and what has been done cannot be undone.

Here are reasons support of my approach:

These are the lessons I have so far taken from Rucker’s book.  Some may be tangential to her intentions and there will be some I have missed.  I will be returning to her book for inspiration in the future.

1 A Case for Public Toilets

Public urinal (Limbourg, Belgium) – similar to Clochemerle

Older readers may remember the 1972 television series, “Clochemerle”, written by Galton and Simpson of “Steptoe and Son” fame.  The story is about a small town in 1925 France, where the socialist mayor (Cyril Cusack) tries to build a urinal in the town square.  Wendy Hiller plays a prim spinster who campaigns against it on the grounds of public decency.  Over several weeks the catastrophic consequences play out.

As far as I’m aware Clochemerle is the only television series ever centred on a public toilet.  It is, of course, a comedy and perhaps this is no surprise because public toilets are usually considered comic!

What Happened to Public  Conveniences?

If you go back a few decades the “public convenience” was a common site on street corners.  Local authorities maintained most of them and so today they are closed, demolished or adapted to other uses.  This is a pity because they have an economic purpose and are essential for public health.

Imagine you are a parent with a small child.  You have 30 – 60 minutes from leaving home before the child needs to go.  In this time you need to get to the shops, buy what you need and return home.  With the best will in the world, you will have no time to shop around and find the best bargains.  To get the best deal, the chances are you buy unhealthy processed foods.  Removal of public toilets means for many there is less time for socialising, you are under constant pressure to get home.

Much the same applies to the elderly as bladders seem to become less capacious with age.  This is no joke!

Of course, the old style public toilets had drawbacks.  The continental Clochemerle variety was sexist, designed for men between pubs or pub and home.  The UK variety usually catered for most sexes but the old style were usually not particularly clean, often neglected and too often attracted unsavoury characters.  I remember as a child in the 50s and 60s, warnings not to use them because of the nasty men who inhabited them.

Toilets Today

The solution these days is to open toilets to the public inside other buildings, frequently department stores and supermarkets.  This way the store can maintain standards of cleanliness and safety.  You may have noticed department stores always house them a few stories up and at the back of the store.  This is deliberate as it increases footfall.  After the shops close pubs provide the last resort for the desperate.

Community or business centres are other options.  Such a centre might place them within a café.  If so, they should be clearly labelled as open to the public with no obligation to buy.  If you aim to create an unstructured meeting space, your toilets are crucial to introducing new people to your centre.  Strategically placed notice boards may be all you need to increase participation.

We need to see toilet facilities as a valued public service, not a music hall joke.  Their provision benefits not only those who use them (that’s everyone) but also local traders.

What are the benefits of clean, safe toilet facilities?  Isn’t it time national and local government took this seriously?

2 Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

Last time I introduced four key topics to illustrate the differences between activism and development work.

Meetings may seem an odd place to start.  But consider the standard meeting.  You know the drill –

I’ve sat through enough meetings to know it’s easy to make heavy weather of them.  Dull meetings with lots of procedures, mastered by a few activists, are not only boring but also dis-empowering.  Their purpose is to exercise power and control.

The Meeting as a Powerhouse

Where did this style of meeting come from?  I’m no historian and I would be delighted if anyone can prove me wrong but I think it was the eighteenth century evangelical revival!

Portrait of John Wesley by Frank O Salisbury

John Wesley organised the new industrial poor.  I don’t know where he got the model from but it seems this type of meeting was not generally known before him.

He passed his approach to the Methodist societies and their members passed them onto other organisations.  During the nineteenth century almost everyone used this approach to meetings, particularly among the working classes.  All sorts of local economic initiatives developed that helped people organise and make the most of their incomes, for example worker and retail co-ops, insurance companies, building societies, friendly societies, penny banks, sick and dividing clubs, libraries, educational institutions …  None of these would have been possible without Wesley’s approach to meetings.

Trade Unions organised in chapels, beginning meetings with a hymn and a prayer and were one type of organisation representing working class interests.  Others included non-conformist chapels, temperance halls and pubs.

What Went Wrong?

Meetings we experience today as dull were a powerhouse of innovation 100 – 200 years ago.

Why are meetings so often experienced as dis-empowering today?  With the welfare state (arguably the greatest achievement of this movement) and mass media, perhaps there was a decline in opportunity and purpose for the autodidact, the self-taught man or woman.

Maybe the rise of community development in the nineteen seventies, reflected this decline in innovative change from the working classes.  Perhaps we need to understand this change.

The point is meetings don’t have to be this way.  It is the role of the development worker to help activists organise participative and enjoyable meetings.  The role of the activist is to organise meetings, introduce topics, help people participate and follow-up once the meeting is complete.  The developmental role is watching how the meeting is organised and helping the activists improve their performance.

Throughout the nineteenth century, working people built the institutions we take for granted today.  I’ll tell you about one of the great debates of the time in my next post: Beatrice Potter, Development Worker?

One comment I’ve received refers to the “curse of structureless meetings”. Would you find a review of the purpose of the elements of a typical meeting helpful?

Do you think it is true there were no nineteenth century development workers because the people were able to organise themselves?  Or if there were development workers, where do we look for them?