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Showing posts with label RSAprojects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RSAprojects. Show all posts

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

RSA dashboard shows a wealth of online activity

In researching background for the workshop with RSA staff this week I've discovered just how far RSA has come recently in creating great public-facing content online. I've pulled it together on a startpage here, that acts as a sort of dashboard for online RSA activity. The page automatically updates with feeds from RSA sites and also OpenRSA.
Chief executive Matthew Taylor leads the way with top-quality blogging on his work and issues of the day - even managing to post from his holiday in Aviemore on the three massive challenges facing the UK: recession, protecting public services and climate change. Matthew says:
There is so much that the talented and committed Fellowship of the RSA could do. We here at John Adam Street are ready to support Fellows’ efforts; let’s see the whole of this great society step up to the plate.
There are also project blogs listed here on Arts, Civic Capitalism, Connected Communities, Design, Education, Environment, Pro-social behaviour, and public services. The events programme has listings, and audio and video of past events. I'm sure there's more I have missed.
The research made me think that the public-facing events and projects programmes could be a very fruitful area of engagement for those of us involved in OpenRSA who want to promote more collaboration between staff, Fellows, and others online and off ... and maybe help meet Matthew's challenges.
So far a lot of our attention has been on the closed RSA network site, and there's certainly lots of potential there. I'm enthusiastic about the idea of creating an online toolkit for Fellows and regions, providing additional tools and support.
However, I wonder if it might be possible to make faster progress working with some of the project and events teams where there is a commitment to blogging, audio, video, and interactions with both Fellows and others? By engaging with their activity - and adding more - we could demonstrate to the wider Fellowship the benefits of online collaboration, and hopefully feed that back into the networking.
Just a thought. I'll pop a linking comment on to Matthew's blog and see if resonates there.

Update: here's what I've posted as a comment on Matthew's blog, where it is awaiting moderation:

I think many Fellows would like to work together and rise to the challenges you highlight: the question is how best to collaborate among ourselves, and with staff.

A group of Fellows and RSA staff are meeting on Thursday to discuss just that, with a strong focus on the scope for working online. In researching background for the workshop I’ve been struck by how far RSA has come over the past year in developing great public-facing content. I’ve pulled it together on a dashboard here, and also blogged about the potential here.

What would help in the collaborative effort, in my view, is some initial help from RSA staff in convening around the challenges or other projects. Should we look to project or Fellowship departments? It’s quite difficult for Fellows to self-organise … though it may get easier once the new RSA network site is fully launched. At present we can’t find who might be interested, and space is tight in JAS.Clay Shirky has highlighted this new convening role for nonprofits - where self-organising meets organisation. Could you help us in the next round of innovation?

Anyone else got ideas on how best to work with RSA staff on these issues?