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?

2 Five Elements for Your Marketing Campaign: Branding

Last Monday I introduced the Open Source Marketing Circuit Questionnaire and  in this and future Monday posts I shall show how it can be adapted to marketing a cause. Many organisations market a cause although often their focus is on products or services and so their cause is not so obvious.

The circuit questionnaire includes five elements and the aim is to think about each element at a deep level.

The analogy is to an electrical circuit.  Get all five right and power will flow.  I’ve used the order in the circuit questionnaire as it follows a logical sequence. However, many people may find a different order works for them.  Some people work through completing what they can and then return to the beginning and find elements that were difficult are now easier.

I shall review the five elements first, before looking at specific questions.  I shall describe the issue covered by an element or question in the circuit questionnaire, suggest how it can be used to market a cause and then use my business and perhaps others as an example. I’ll work through the five elements in this and the next four Monday posts, taking them in the order they appear for ease of reference.  After that I shall return to the beginning and work through some of the questions.  The overview of the five elements will provide context to the more detailed questions.  So, onto today’s topic …

You and Your Brand

Most people believe they are marketing a product, a service or a cause. Actually, for small businesses and organisations, they are marketing themselves. It is really important to understand this. You will make a sale where there is a trusted relationship. Your product, service or cause might be brilliant and you might be able to convey to potential customers its fantastic properties but you need to speak to their hearts. People do not respond solely to logic.

Think of a general election. Many people do not pay a great deal of attention to the parties’ policies. When they enter the ballot box they decide which candidate they trust to run the country. This is not always understood by political activists, especially on the left.

Now you can see an immediate problem. Most organisations, including political parties, are big. There is no one person who is solely responsible for the relationship with the customer or voter. So, most organisations depend upon branding. Sometimes they associate their brand with an individual, perhaps the founder or maybe a patron, party leader or a celebrity. Still, they convey their brand in many ways such as a logo, advertisements, testimonials, stories in the public domain and so on.

Voluntary and community organisations often fail to engage with branding, perhaps because they don’t trust insights from marketers. But how do they convey their cause if they have no figurehead and lack a compelling story to engage potential followers or subscribers?

One challenge is to tell your story in a couple of lines, ideally one sentence. Here is my first attempt for my business:

“A community development worker for over 30 years, I’m committed to local regeneration and bringing community development support to online as well as real life activities.”

I wrote this a couple of months ago. Looking at it now I think it doesn’t really tell a story. It feels a little distant and I’m not happy with the words “I’m committed to” – he would say that wouldn’t he? Here’s my revision:

“My experience of over 30 years as a community development worker informs my support for local regeneration and my offer of support for online and real life activities.”

Which of these two versions do you prefer? How would you improve them?  You can see a more detailed version of my story on my about me page.

Note the aim is to find something about your activities that is unique. Do you think either of my sentences achieves this? Or my longer story?  How could what is distinct about my offer be sharpened further?

2 The Local Economy Revolution

This is the first in a series of reviews of resources about the local economy.  It reviews the ebook, “The Local Economy Revolution” by Della Rucker.  If you’re interested and in the UK, click on the image to go to the UK Amazon site.  In the US, you can get access to it through The Local Economy Revolution website.  Anywhere else and 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.

I’ve started with this book and website because Della Rucker is one of the few people I’ve found who is taking on the local economy.  Someone has suggested the term “local economy” is vague and so it is good to find an activist in a different context, using it.  Further, Rucker has masses of experience and so the book substantially grounds the topic.

Three Undercurrents

Rucker begins by identifying three undercurrents (actually there are four but I’m ignoring the fourth for now) by which she means issues commonly ignored by practitioners in urban regeneration.  So, I’m going to apply them to my experience with Burngreave New Deal for Communities in Sheffield, UK.  If you follow that link you’ll find a summary of my posts on the topic.

Economic Systems and Natural Ecosystems

I was really pleased to see Rucker compare economic systems to natural ecosystems.  This is something I’ve thought for a long time but never written about.  We underestimate natural systems’ complexity at our peril; it is ecosystems that evolve, not individual species.  Evolution is not possible for individual species because it needs the challenge of interaction between species.  Remove one seemingly unassuming species and the system might collapse.

Rucker argues economic systems are similar.  We tend to think of local economies as shops and, if we think a little more deeply, other businesses with maybe a few hidden self-employed.  However, I have argued local markets are more than economic transactions.  The local park, for example, may draw people into a neighbourhood.  So, we need to understand how everything in a neighbourhood or city interacts to support or impede the economy.

Burngreave New Deal recognised this to some extent, involving a range of partners although, like most community projects in the UK, it marginalised the private sector.  To arbitrarily select a neighbourhood of a few thousand houses as an economic unit, perhaps failed to take seriously Sheffield’s complexity.  To spend £50 million pounds in that area did not recognise Burngreave’s connections to the rest of the city.

Economic Systems are Unpredictable

Which brings me to Rucker’s second undercurrent.  Economic systems behave in unpredictable ways.  We fool ourselves if we believe any intervention will have predictable results.  Things are perverse.  They do not behave the way experts say they should.

This explains how Burngreave New Deal could at the same time be the third best New Deal in the country and a total failure. I’ll look at its successes under ‘3’ but it feels like a failure today because when you compare Burngreave with other similar Sheffield neighbourhoods, it is the only one with no forum, no trust, no physical assets and no partnership.  New Deal tore out the infrastructure that made Burngreave a community.

This was not an intended result, its byline was “Legacy not History” – so what went wrong?  Perhaps conflict between the forum and New Deal, the recession, a change in council leadership to a party with its power based in affluent parts of the city, poor decisions about community assets all contributed.  Who would predict that it might be an advantage to live in a neighbourhood that has not had £50 million invested over 10 years?

Talent

Burngreave New Deal did indeed invest in people and its educational results for example were impressive.  What we can’t know is the long-term impact of those results because there is to be no long-term evaluation.  The people who benefited may go on to brilliant careers and make a stupendous contribute for the good of humanity.  But how many will live in Burngreave?  In Sheffield?  And what of those who have not made it?  What has happened to them?

Rucker’s third undercurrent is talent and she makes the point that although many recognise why talent is important, for example, when you set up a businesses, there will always be people in a neighbourhood who do not contribute talent.  One of our greatest challenges is to support the disadvantaged whilst at the same time encouraging those who can contribute talent to step forward.

To a significant degree New Deal recognised this challenge, focusing resources on education and support for young people.  We’ll never know whether that investment was worth it or indeed whether its legacy is better services supporting children and young people today.

Implications and Secret Weapons

All three undercurrents are powerful ideas and certainly the New Deal programme recognised the first and third.  Some of us were aware of the second and watched as our worst fears materialised.  Rucker goes on to name four implications and three secret weapons for the local economy activist.  I’ll review these next time as this post is getting to be rather long.

Do you recognise these undercurrents in your own community?  Are there others you would add?

1 Do we need a campaign for real community development?

Do you know why our neighbourhoods are poorly organised, how they can do better and how to promote real community development online?

You can read about how community development has lost its way in my free ebook, “Community Development is Dead!”.  Find out how to sign up for it at the end of this post. If you are in the UK, you’re sure to disagree about some things I write about.  So, write and tell me what you think! You can comment on the ebook by visiting the post I’ve provided for that purpose.  If you’re not based in the UK, please comment about how your country compares with community development in the UK.

The Central Role of Activist

This sequence of posts, complements the ebook.  I wrote it as an email sequence about a year ago.  My aim at the time was to share some practicalities.  What is real community development; the best way to support community activists?

Not everyone who works in the community is a community development worker.  There are other equally valuable roles; many agencies provide local workers in the community.  So, we need to be clear about what community development is and how it supports the other roles.

In the ebook I explain how we confuse the roles of activist and development worker at our peril! Activists need support from development workers and so confusing the two roles tends to devalue the work of activists. Community activists actually do the work and need the support of development workers.

So, I’ll start by exploring four topics, key to understanding community development and how it differs from the role of activists:

These might not look exciting but together they define some of the problems community development has encountered in the UK.  So next week it’s “Meetings, Meetings, Meetings” – won’t you be glad when they’re over?

7 Introduction to the Circuit Questionnaire

Towards the end of last year I wrote a few posts about needs assessments. My assessment questionnaire, reviewed in those posts, was helpful. I’ve found a better approach that can take someone who has a cause, product or service into a deeper understanding of making their work better known.

Third sector organisations often do not appreciate the Internet is essentially a marketing platform. That is what it is and objections to marketing on ethical grounds somewhat miss the point. If you really don’t want to market, then don’t use the Internet.

The problem is many people associate marketing with buying and selling. In fact it is more accurately about exchange and exchange does not have to include money. A word some people may be happier with is campaigning. Here the exchange is information for support. I might stand on the streets and hand out leaflets and my hope is those who read the leaflet will support my cause. They might sign a petition, join my organisation, vote for me or my candidate. They might donate to the cause and so campaigning can involve financial transactions and so resemble conventional marketing.

Marketing and Campaigning

Sometimes we talk of a marketing campaign because campaigning and marketing are practically the same activity:

Marketing Causes

I’m interested in the overlap between third and private sectors, helping third sector organisations market their cause and possibly generate income too and helping local businesses market their offer as a cause.

Whatever they are doing, they must understand their marketing / campaigning activities holistically. No-one can be effective if they place their online and real life marketing in different boxes. It is the same message and activity carried out in different modes.

Yes, this is complex! The good news is the technical side of the work is far simpler than it used to be. Many people do not know what is possible online (or off for that matter!) or how easy it is. The problem is choosing the best approach to meet your desired outcomes and then building capacity to carry it out. The technical side may be simpler but maintenance of an online programme within an organisation, where you plan to reach people and build relationships with them, can be very demanding. It can have massive implications for the way you do things.

Most organisations and businesses, especially those who are working or plan to work online, need to think in-depth about their approach to all this complexity. They need an in-depth needs assessment.

Circuit Questionnaire

Ben Hunt and his team over at Open Source Marketing (OSM) have devised the Circuit Questionnaire. (OSM is an online resource of marketing techniques and it is free. If you are familiar with marketing, then you may find the site helpful.)  I’ve contributed to developing the Circuit Questionnaire and in this sequence will show how it can be used to market a cause.

The Circuit Questionnaire is a long and detailed series of questions that takes several hours to complete. My plan is to work through the Circuit Questionnaire, explaining the thinking behind it, showing how it can help market causes and use my business as a worked example.

This way I can illustrate how the approach can be used for causes as well as products and services. I will be using the Circuit Questionnaire in all my consultancy packages and this series of posts will help you understand something of the scope of what is possible.

I offer a free trial consultancy session and the details are below:

0 Return of Community Development Online

Community Development Online Blog

I’m about to restart the Community Development Online blog, after a break of almost 5 months.   I shall continue to build resources for anyone who aims to follow community development principles, particularly where it intersects with local economies.  I’m happy to write about any aspect of community development and one of the first sequences I’m planning is about models of community development.  I shall explore how to extend community development principles from neighbourhood work to online marketing approaches for community and voluntary sectors.

This will work best if you guide me, so please comment on my posts and request posts on topics I haven’t touched upon yet.  I shall respond to all the comments I receive.

If you prefer, you can write for this blog as a guest author.  If you’re interested, leave me a comment or send me an email (my address is in the footer) and we’ll take it from there.

Community Web Consultant Website

You may have noticed changes to my website. Most important, the content is about local economies, see the home page about a thriving marketplace in every neighbourhood as well as introductory material about non-directive consultancy and my approach to website design.

If you sign up to my email list you receive a short introductory email sequence about how to support your local economy and the option to download my ebook, “Community Development is Dead! Long Live Community Development!“.  As before you will receive notice of new blog posts every Tuesday morning, if there are any.

The site promotes two things.  First, a community committed to sharing experiences, ideas and insights about local economies.  This is long-term work, neglected over the years.  The second is my business offer of consultancy services for local businesses owners or leaders of community organisations.  This will take you to my offer of a free consultancy session, where you can test your desired outcome for your business or community group.  There is no obligation to use my consultancy service.

More About the Blog

My aim is to build a resource of information about local economies, community development and how both can be resourced online and in real life.  For the immediate future, new posts will have a somewhat looser structure than before.  I shall aim for a minimum of three posts per week, starting next week.

Local Economy – Online Resources

I  shall review and share some of the resources about local economies I’ve found.  These are mostly websites.  My aim will be to review one website each week.  Unlike the sites I’ve reviewed previously, my focus will primarily be on content and not so much on how it works as a site.  I may point out some design issues en passant but the primary aim will be to open up the site to greater use, if it deserves it.  I’ll focus on the value of its content, opportunities to collaborate, etc.

Community Development Models

My plan is to start by bringing my old email sequence about community development into the blog.  The reason I initially produced it as an email sequence was that it didn’t quite fit my plans for the blog.  The sequence complements the ebook and may suggest approaches to how community development might be revived.  I’d love to help build a professional body for development workers and this may become possible as an online community becomes a reality.  In the meantime I hope to build a resource of ideas to support the work of those who are on the front line.

Needs Assessments

I started to write on this theme towards the end of my last sequence and I’m now I can write about a new approach.  I’m planning to review it some detail and use my work as an example.

Finally, publish posts on topical issues as they occur to me.  This should mean the blog will take on a more spontaneous tone.  So, please read and enjoy.  Tell me what you like and what you would like me to cover.  Don’t forget, I’m open to offers from guest authors too!