This report covers the period of January 2009 until December 2011. It is made up of some contextual background, brief outlines about the central project elements, two key stories, some figures, and a budgeted timeline. There is much more behind this report; to dive into more detail read Ed the author’s blog, or contact him directly with questions.

It is a big thank you to our funders, Tudor Trust, for giving Transition Network £50,000 for an unspecified and unknown web platform. We feel that we have used the money sensibly to build the new platform and open up new channels for the movement, and hope that Tudor feel that they made a good investment.

Another purpose of the report is to encourage other people responsible for web projects to do it themselves; take ownership of their project, accept the unpredictable outcomes and have a more resilient, affordable web system than an external service provider could produce.

(Picture: Most of Transition Network staff and board after web project approved, June 2009)

This blog post has the introduction and the context and role sections (without the nice pictures). It does not have the other sections on:

• The central project elements (Technologist group, core information directories, webhosts, content strategy, community emergence, web survey results, the Sharing Engine)
• Two case studies (Ingredients directory and Social Reporting ‘Stories’ project)
• Budgeted timeline
• Achievements and figures
• The big last thank you

For those you need to download the documents below:

The whole report

• Download big pdf file of whole report (19MB) from Sendspace
• Download small pdf file size of whole report (1.14MB) from this site

Just the case studies sections

• Download modestly big case studies section (ingredients and stories) (5.53 MB) from Sendspace
• Download the smaller file size case studies section (ingredients and stories) (0.5MB) from this site

Introduction

Working in complex situations on multi-stakeholder systems can be like being dropped into an intimidating forest, but seeking others to do your work isn’t the answer! In this sense, the report hopes to be like a breadcrumb trail in the forest, left by a group who mapped their context, and want to support others who doing the same thing.

The big lesson from our experience is that it would not have been possible to have predicted where we would be now, then. Because so much changes as you progress.

If we had produced a detailed and fixed project plan with a product roadmap (which we could have done) it could have felt reassuring in ‘the deep in the dark forest days’ of early 2009, but it would have been wrong for late 2011.

The web project we see now has grown out of experiences and connections from all of the stakeholders, working together in a ‘constellation’ on and offline, facilitated rather than project managed, in iterative technical and social loops hung together with communications and agility, rather than control at its core.

(Picture: Transition Technologist group meets for the first time, November 2009)

This is illustrated with the two case studies which show that our two biggest products were at best just twinkles in peoples’ eyes in 2009, and the result of exploring the connections between people and ideas and technology, rather than having a big vision, then trying to predict, control and micro-manage the future and the unknown.

This is also a thank you to all the staff at Transition Network, the Transition Technologist group, and all the Transitioners who got on board with the project, all of whom worked on an un-defined project that deliberately tried not to control the future, but share responsibility for understanding and optimising the present.

“It gives a wider perspective on transition activity than the local group can achieve. I think it is important to continue showing the bigger picture and offering encouragement to local groups as it can sometimes be a struggle to remain upbeat.”

“Helps us remember that we’re not alone, because it can be hard to keep up the big effort required.”

(2011 web project survey response)

Context and role

A great deal has changed since the web project officially began. Indeed it could be argued that ‘change’ itself is accelerating in a world that seems to get more and more bizarre and challenging every day.

Amid this context, the Transition Towns movement has grown rapidly in numbers and matured broadly in concept. Every day there is something new from somewhere new. Initiatives are springing up all over the world facing different challenges with different people trying different projects in different cultures, with different needs.

Needless to say, Transition Network offers pragmatic support for the emergence of the movement; it is grassroots led so we do not seek to control it. It is a highly charged and creative environment, making for intense professional and personal challenges. There is never a moment at which things are quiet, or ‘the same as yesterday’, or something is not urgent, or brand new and requiring immediate action.

Thus the web project began in an endlessly changing context. Unlike a standard organisation, it is keeping up with a movement that is moving too fast and unpredictably to second guess. This is a challenging situation, particularly if you try to predict what ‘web product’ a movement will need in the future.

In light of this, the web team focused on three interconnected things:

1. Identify the boundaries. Build a shared view of a Transition web ‘constellation’ or ‘field’ with all the various initiative websites, social networks, blogs, etc. and the flows between them, and do not put Transition Network in the middle
2. Work with the ‘field’. Build relationships with all types of users and facilitate the emergence of supportive social groups (editorial, technical, facilitation) across the field to share roles and responsibilities as they spring up
3. Produce a robust, flexible technical platform that any reasonable developer can learn about, and work on without too much trouble. See it as a hard working shared bicycle rather than a specialised work of art!

In this plan, the platform could be extended in many directions with a facilitation model to handle the social requirements arising and share the power among the users. Then, ultimately, the Transition Network ‘website’ could move from being a highly visible, central website owned by Transition Network toward a transparent web service, moderated by Transitioners to support and promote the initiatives websites.

(diagram to explain the wide array of Transition related activity on the internet, and how the Transition Network website is not in the middle of it, preferring to see itself as part of a ‘constellation’ supported by a ‘Sharing Engine’ using web standards and services)

This worked for us. Transition Network is comfortable with navigating the unknown, and changing plans when the need arises, rather than sticking to one grand plan.

Importantly, it also promotes the concept of accepting responsibility for unknown outcomes, successful or not successful, without blame. This means that individuals carry great responsibility in the team, but not fear of blame in case of failure; indeed ‘failure’ is seen as an entity where no learnings were extracted from an unsuccessful piece of work.

This is common sense to us, but we found that it is contradictory to most organisations’ web strategies, which are there to reflect a central institution’s self-image, and indeed, many people’s expectations; we are trained to respect centralised power. Our plan had been from the start to challenge centralised power – especially our own.

(Picture: Charlotte (Stories editor) and Mike (Newsletter editor) at the 2011 Transition Network conference)

After an initial burst of work to get the platform up, technical work was handled in focused phases with small budgets, delivering required enhancements and maintenance, identified by the users and prioritised by the web team.

“… It keeps me well intentioned, to create something that the world can believe in. I am so excited when I see my project featured on the side of the projects map, after adding content to my page. This keeps my project exciting, that there is a global network which my project is connected with, despite its small size. This is good, I believe, because despite its small size, the potential is there for great ideas to spawn. thanks, so much”

(2011 web project survey response)

…

For more, please download…

The whole report

• Download big pdf file of whole report (19MB) from Sendspace
• Download small pdf file size of whole report (1.14MB) from this site

Just the case studies sections

• Download modestly big case studies section (ingredients and stories) (5.53 MB) from Sendspace
• Download the smaller file size case studies section (ingredients and stories) (0.5MB) from this site

I bet it hurt a lot; I mean – that much conflict and anger and finger pointing and this and that, it’s going to take it’s toll isn’t it?

As community managers, we find ourselves in an interesting position – we’re right in the middle between brands or organisations or institutions, and the people they are trying to support or service or engage with via the online platforms. This is an environment that runs enormous risk of stress and burnout; we have huge responsibility yet varying authority, we represent the movement to the organisation and vice versa.

We’re facilitating like mad in an endlessly changing context, looking for paths through this complexity, seeking a balance of power, and ‘genuine’ atmosphere, and other good things.

Asides to the workload, that’s a tough emotional challenge. Especially when it kicks off like it does sometimes, and people behave astonishingly badly and you have to maintain your cool throughout. I thought I might burst into tears if that sort of ferocity kicked off on my patch to be honest. I know I would have real problems trying to keep calm, and keep the outburst in perspective, and not take it personally and other feelings.

Of course, I’d deal with it, but I wondered if anyone had any ways of understanding our own emotional response to these situations and methods to ‘ease the pressure’. Like counsellors – who have regular counselling sessions of their own in order to help themselves handle their responses to their clients’ sessions.

So I had a question or two:

• How do you handle your emotional response to punch-ups in your spaces?
• How do support your facilitators when it kicks off?
• Do we account for the stress inherent in our roles and how that will affect us?
• Do we have mechanisms to help us stay calm, and reflective time to process the experience?

The next Gurteen Bristol Knowledge Cafe is going to be held in the exceptionally ethical Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol, on Thursday February 11th, from 18:30. The cafe proper will begin at 19:00 prompt as usual.

It will be introduced by Andy Wistreich from Essential Education, who has kindly offered to raise the topic of ‘Ethics’. This is an important, complex and often problematic issue for the individual and society.  By sharing our perspectives we can all learn something to help us in our ethical challenges.

Here’s the blurb:

It looks like ethics is about right and wrong, but it is never black and white.  For me the fundamental issue is motivation – why do or not do something?  I am also interested in the fact that laws and ethical codes seem to come from out there in society whereas our choices about how to behave seem to be made in here in our minds.  Again, this is not a simple division.  I’ll try to introduce these general points in the intro and then people can take it where they want with examples from their own work and practice.

Ethical consumerism is still consumerism

As usual, please come along and enjoy while meeting and deepening your understanding of this topic, and book yourself in using the event booking page below.

If you want to stay up to date via the email distribution list, the link follows, and if you’re a facebook kind of person, Michael Corbett is the man behind the Bristol K-cafe group and is usually around for a good conversation…

Event booking and venue information link

Bristol Gurteen Knowledge Cafe mailing list link

Bristol Gurteen Knowledge Cafe Facebook group

Go direct to the Brrism site for more information and booking, meanwhile, here’s the blurb:

It’s a brand new year, a brand new decade and Brrism has a brand new format. Every Brrism meeting now consists of three topics and an icebreaker. For the first meeting of 2010 (which takes place on Wednesday 20th at the Pervasive Media Studio) the line up is as follows:

• The Digital Economy Bill with Paul Smith (twitter, blog). Paul is a PPC which I normally take to mean “Pay per Click” but Paul assures me that it means “Prospective Parliamentary Candidate” which gives him an added incentive to be interested in the Digital Economy Bill which is currently making its way through the House of Lords before progressing to the House of Commons and being made law. This is your chance to find out about the bill, discuss it with fellow Brrismers and decide what action to take (e.g. change ISP, write to your MP, etc etc). Pre-meeting discussion can take place here (registration required).
• Social Media versus Time Management with Lee Cottier (twitter). The first of January is the day that we traditionally make our New Year’s resolutions with the second of January being the day that we traditionally forget them. Lee will be telling us how we can rethink our habits around social media such we can work more effectively and not get sucked into the Twitter/Facebook/etc time-waste. Pre-meeting discussion can take place here (registration required).
• Social media tools for the Brrism Community with Colin Rainsforth (twitter, website). Brrism’s “pattern of use” so far has been a great deal of activity in the week of the meeting followed by 3 weeks of inactivity. It would be great if we could generate conversations that would transcend the meetings and allow us to act as an integrated community throughout the month. Colin has much experience with social media tools as well as being involved with online communities before the likes of Ecademy and Facebook made the term popular. Pre-meeting discussion can take place here (registration required).

Icebreaker: The 2009 Memory Game. 2009 was chock full of interesting news stories concerning social media and this game refreshes your memory, gets you talking to other people at the meeting and allows you to have a lot of fun.

The range of workshops, debates, discussions, talks was excellent; it was solid with attendees full of interesting ideas in a cool building. It was a bit noisy for me at some moments, and you couldn’t get any food without going outside and therefore re-joining the enormous queue, but there you go. I could only be there for the morning, but the highlights for me were:

Why magic bullets don’t work – with David Boyle (NEF fellow), Fred Pearce (New Scientist), Vikki Johnson (NEF).

Fred discussed the myth of population explosion. He says it’s not rising exponentially and that this is one of the great green bogey men, where we assume that it is the exploding populations around the world which need to be curbed in order to keep C02 emissions under control (I was at a different lecture by Ronald Oxburgh in Bristol since where he regularly referred to the population explosion around the world and offered technical solutions to handle it). For starters, Fred indicated that women are having less babies than ever before, of their own accord.

As well as this, the populations of Europe and the USA are generating far more emissions than anyone else per capita, so we and our addiction to consumption, are a vital part of the problem. This reminded me of a recent George Monbiot article ‘Stop blaming the poor, it’s the wally yachters who are burning the planet‘ and a more recent piece from Fred on the hogwash greenwash about corporate jets and their carbon footprints.

Balloon at NEF event

Then David Boyle spoke about target myths – where we obsess over targets at the cost of ‘un-measure-able’ stuff (my words). He used the examples of the NHS in the UK, who referred to trolleys in hospitals as ‘mobile beds’ in order to meet their delivery targets which were set by the politicians. Has setting the target worked? David Miliband was so keen on removing the target culture, that when he came into power, he set a target of 25% less targets. This is interesting stuff; fixating over quantitative goals for social systems is risky as it smells strongly of ‘efficiency’ instead of ‘redundancy’ (as in a resilient system).

I asked what the speakers thought of the target oriented 10:10 and 350 campaigns in the context of target myths – he felt that given these are clear quantitative targets, and it is the language of the mainstream now, that it was suitable to use them. We also had a very interesting discussion about systems and their multiple tipping points – whereby the quantitative goal may be only one of the many points which mean change is happening.

Another attendee raised the point that it is hard to target problems to do with consumerism as the ‘enemy’ is within ourselves; we are addicted to stuff, so we are fighting ourselves, which I couldn’t agree more with. On a recent visit to Bristol, Rev Billy pointed out that the problem with consumerism is that it is so bizarrely and surreally pervasive and insipid; it’s inside us and outside us, a scarey combatant for the mental environment, that the only way to battle it is to go surreal on its ass.

Tales of how it turned out right – climate change changes everything: Ruth Potts, Joe Smith, Muzamal Hussein and Lucy Neal.

In the 1970s all of the environmental activist campaigning used fear as a motivator; is that now suitable? Probably not – back then they had to shake people into a new state of awareness – right now we need to encourage people to become active – by subscribing to campaigns, lobbying their MPs, reducing their footprint and consumption, joining up with local transition groups, planting food, and more. Empowering them, basically. Encouraging them to take some pride in their lives and communities by sharing and building community resilience.

There is little debate (apart from with some of our friends among them the right wing climate change questioners) about climate change any more – only how and if we can pull together to resolve it. As we have to resolve it together – we won’t make it alone.

So the activist message has changed from scarey to encouraging (and fun, and beneficial to your life); therefore so must the narrative structure of our stories change.

Elvis reading his ration book

As well as this, at a higher level, some reference was made to power structures and how advertising is an explicit representation of the power structures in society – adbusters and many others have been onto this for some time so it’s not at all new, but we see thousands of consumerist messages every day; these do not empower us, in fact they weaken us, separate us, fill the gaps in our lives with marketable product, all for the benefit of shareholders in private corporations.

Every now and then in Bristol a neighbourhood community group wins a long hard fought battle with the council to remove one illegal billboard that the advertising companies regularly put up without permission – this happens all over – and takes a lot of our energy. And when we get rid of one billboard we feel something of a empty victory; so how can we change that?

So the big stories being told, that define our lives and related actions, are from people looking to encourage us to believe that happiness comes from purchase. And we are fighting it, but it’s a long uphill battle and we’re not the ones with all the powerful contracts…

Traditionally – local councils seem happy to have thousands of billboards through nation-wide advertising campaigns, so we can feel insignificant to stop this, but a growing number of local councils are keen to work with Transition initiatives, so that may well change; there is even a book on it coming out soon.

So given the change in activism and its messages, and the growing disatisfaction with the all powerful corporate messages, how do we re-calibrate to something more akin to what we want? How can we disrupt this established power imbalance as a step towards bringing people together to combat climate change and re-gain their mental environment?

By experimenting, trying new stuff, meeting our neighbours, doing projects, learning from our projects and other people’s projects, telling and re-telling stories of our experiences. Gradually, Story can help us build our own culture which in itself is something to believe in beyond the adverts; we know from narrative studies that story can carry the messages; we just need to develop the body of knowledge from which stories spring by doing.

And with positive and negative visioning we produce visions of how it could be, giving us something to work on instead of the terrifying unknown, and therefore how to work towards the what and the how. So we become more confident in ourselves, seek less product-based ego boost, more resilient in our communities, and therefore more powerful when it comes to demanding change in society.

Well that was a good rant, but probably a rather poor and waffly event report. But I’ve found myself telling people about the great event so many times that I thought I better write it down.

Also much loved were ecolabs beautiful scenarios work, and the ministry of trying to do something about it‘s ration book, as well as the nef Great Transition book which has sparked some good discussions around and about.

Well done all!

beta

Over at Transition Network web project HQ, we are delighted to launch the first ‘public beta’ (working prototype) of our ‘projects database’, featuring case studies from a range of transition food projects. This is an important part of, and the first public element of the wider web project and we need your help and input.

What is the ‘projects database’?

The projects database is designed for people engaged in transition food projects to share and discuss essential information about their projects, enabling others to learn from their experience, get in touch and build supportive networks of people doing similar things around the country. We chose food as a topic as it is close to all of our hearts and there are lots of fascinating projects to share.

It is an easily searchable database of ‘we did this and that worked, but watch out for that, it didn’t work’ kind of thing. It is a way to share information across distance about community learnings drawn from doing projects.

It is not a replacement for conversations, it is a stimulant; a context setter, an introducer. It is a way for ‘initiative a’ to share its learnings easily so that ‘initiative b’, when starting a project, can benefit from those experiences. It is not an ‘efficiency machine’ best practice database, it is a ‘resilience support experience base’ for the movement as a whole.

By sharing project information in this way, we believe that the Transition movement can broaden and accelerate its utility enormously.

What can I do?

It will only be useful if you use it, and we’ll only know that by giving it a try. So we have added some case studies from Tamzin’s book, but these are a starter for ten; the magic is up to you. Please go and have a look at the beta, give it a testing, add some project experience…

• Do you have experience in a food project?
• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• What outcomes, expected or not, came out of it?
• Do you have any web links or other resources for reference?

If you favourite nephew tugged on your sleeve and said “I’m going to start a food project in my neighbourhood”, what would your advice be?

Please note – it is not a finished product – think of it as a ‘diamond in the rough’ that you are helping to hone to how you want it.

All of our web services will evolve ‘iteratively’ in line with regular use from those who use it – so we are looking for transition people to come and have a look, read some projects, add some of their own projects, spread the word to their mates who are into food, and generally give it a good public testing.

All of the project information will be kept so none of your additions will be lost (although it will be moved when we move to our wonderful environmentally efficient micro-data-centre using second hand servers running open source software but that’s another story).

How to participate:

1. Visit the Transition Food website and peruse the case studies at your will and make a comment if you fancy that. Try using the ‘guided’ or ‘nested’ search list on the left hand side of the screen – there are lots of ways to find the information.
2. If you want to join the forums, or add a case study yourself, register an account on the site. It is quick and easy, and your data is safe with us (TT web has a 100% spam free promise)
3. To add a Transition food project, create a case study to tell everyone else all about your project.
4. There is also a discussion forum to talk about food projects and other food-related Transition issues, so feel free to jump in there and get involved. (The forum content may not be permanent).
5. Add your experiences, with the site, your likes/dislikes into the forum; it’s how we learn
6. As new case studies appear, we will start a little competition; the winning case study (based on the number of votes in a simple poll) will get a free copy of the Transition food book.

If you have any enquiries, drop us a line from the contact form and one of us will be in touch.

Some heartfelt words of thanks:

The first bunch of projects’ information has been kindly shared by Tamzin Pinkerton, the author behind our newly published book: Transition Food. We keenly recommend you buy it; it’s great. The whole food database was mastered, researched and driven by the irrepressible Jon Walker with excellent technical support from Graham Mitchell, worldly Knowledge Management advice from Cathy King, and facilitation support from Melissa Worth.

Over the next few months we will be launching a few new services as ‘betas’ as we gradually deliver the web project, so this is the beginning of a rolling development schedule. Buckle up everybody! Web project ahoy!

Introduced by Mike Zeidler, facilitator, coach and connector, driving force behind the Bristol Hub, Association of Sustainability Practitioners and more.

Our subject is ‘language and leadership’. Here’s the blurb:

Words send men to war, make stocks and shares plunge or rocket and can completely change the feel of almost any situation.  Many leaders feel safer with facts, figures and physical materials because feelings are soft and fluffy.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Mike will be talking about the immense power of language, and how skillful use can make leaders of us all.  If that sounds like a recipe for chaos to you, you should definitely come along..!

Do as we say, not as we do (Carnyville, Bristol)

As usual, please come along and enjoy while meeting and deepening your understanding of this topic, and book yourself in using the event booking page below.

If you want to stay up to date via the email distribution list, the link follows, and if you’re a facebook kind of person, Michael Corbett is the man behind the Bristol K-cafe group and is usually around for a good conversation…

Event booking and venue information link

Bristol Gurteen Knowledge Cafe mailing list link

Bristol Gurteen Knowledge Cafe Facebook group

The launch event for Media Sandbox 2009 included an exercise we called ‘Golden rules‘ which is now providing me with invaluable salient wisdom and advice as I put the Transition Towns web platform together. Here’s one of them:

One of the golden rules for platform development which is now very significant to me

To round off this year’s work, they are holding a showcase, and they’ve published a lovely book about it all too, which is beautiful and inspiring. I’ll be going along for sure.

If you fancy going along, check the events page on the Media Sandbox website.

In the meantime, here’s the blurb:

Media Sandbox Showcase & Publication Launch
Tuesday 20th October 2009 | 16:00hrs | Cinema 1 | Watershed, Bristol

The creative media industries are going through a period of rapid change. The uncertain economic environment has made it harder to find the time and space to dedicate to nurturing new ideas. The Media Sandbox development scheme was set up to give new ideas a safe environment in which to grow. Sandbox made six awards earlier this year, to innovative projects researching emerging possibilities in multiplatform technologies. From HMC, Drake Music and bibic’s multi-sensory environments for children with additional learning needs to Indie Mobile’s new music focused campaign tool, all the projects respond directly to the challenges of modern society.

This event celebrates the achievements of those six commissions and will include a showcase of all six, plus open discussion addressing the challenges posed by multiplatform technologies. The event will also coincide with a launch of a new publication that celebrates two successful years of the Media Sandbox scheme and an exciting announcement about next years’ scheme.

16:00hrs:
Project presentations and panel discussions with Nicole Yershon, Director of Innovative Solutions at Ogilvy; Richard Hull, Researcher in Pervasive Technologies at HP Labs; Mark Leaver, Director of Development at South West Screen; and Clare Reddington, Director of iShed.

18:00hrs:
Evening Reception including informal demos of this years’ projects and the launch of the Media Sandbox Publication. Drinks and light bites will be served.

If you would like to attend, please check the events page on the Media Sandbox website, or call Watershed Box Office directly on +44 (0)117 927 5100.

Ciaran, Tim, Michael and Philippa kindly wrote up some of their reflections which I include along with my own.

Phillipa gave an excellent presentation on the subject, considering some different definitions, the context (from personal to eco-system), whether we can ‘build’ it, what the properties of a resilient system could be, and a few further thoughts.

You can see the presentation here:

Write up from Phillipa:

Ciaran on the tension between building resilient systems that have redundancy, and “efficient” systems – e.g. for power generation.  The argument goes that although micro-generating, distributed systems might be more resilient, they cost twice as much.  But is the real question how you cost these things appropriately?  As with the banking crisis, the cost of fixing everything after the disaster is absolutely enormous.  There’s also the question of the real environmental costs of building massive power plants, as well as the toll on people’s lives who live near them etc.

K-cafe group

Write up from Ciaran:

We discussed how resilience is an emergent property of well balanced communicative systems and this can be viewed on different levels:

On a personal level resilience requires balance between the conscious will to achieve or act in a certain way and the reflective state of just being and so able to be receptive and allow creative flow.

This second way of being requires inner confidence and/or supportive surroundings where explicit goals or other directive and judgement thinking are not at play. It is this space that allows for the creativity and innovation to emerge.

These two ways of being are reflected at community, organisational and societal levels, but often run counter to the pressure to be more efficient and productive. Similar to the individual, a balanced community for example would include some individuals allowed more time to be reflective whilst others more directive. A balanced society looks for reflective thinking in academic institutions and by supporting diverse artistic communities (the example of Ireland allowing poor artists to pay zero tax was cited). Striking the balance is key to resilience. Too much of one or the other can lead to problems. These different aspects to ourselves and communities etc. need also to be communicating well with each other.

Our group discussed how currently organisations and society generally seems particularly focused on the drive for efficiency and the education system has become increasingly directive, with too little room for more reflection and genuine creativity and diversity. Combined with a narrowing of cultural perspectives due to globalisation of the western socio-economic paradigm, we have been left very rigid and so vulnerable to changes. Examples of how Australian aboriginal culture approaches ‘problem solving’ reminded us how there are in fact many other ways to be that we have little or no experience of and we carry many assumptions about what is possible and what will be in the future. We discussed how these assumptions along with our aspirations are looking very shaky if not plain stupid! Paradoxically the times of plenty we have been through that might have offered the greater redundancy for more reflective states of being at all levels, has been somewhat swept aside by a consumer culture which fosters anxiety and lack of self confidence, so not conducive to development of personal or societal resilience.

(Ciaran Mundy)

Write up from Michael:

Resilience is linked to the esprit de corps (used in the sense of – common spirit of comradeship, enthusiasm, and devotion to a cause among the members of a group) of the community.  EDC comes from a lot of things including the ideology, the “community code” (which dictates how community members treat each other, how they help each other, how they behave, etc), and the ongoing interactions that keep the community alive.

So I think forging a powerful community code is a thing that community leaders need to do (by example, by fiat or whatever) and ensuring that community members have community minded interactions with each other.

(Michael Corbett)

K-cafe big circle

Write up from Tim:

Breakout group discussion

For resilience you need slack in any system, otherwise it’s fragile. There needs to be room and time for experimentation so that adaptability and flexibility can happen.

Robust doesn’t equal resilient. Robust suggests something won’t fail. Resilient suggests it can fail and bounce back – sometimes failure can be good, for development.

Working targets, which are an ubiquitous method now, are about cutting out slack from the system, hence they tend towards eliminating resilience.

Can a system break down and then be rebuilt? Is that resilience?
That’s not resilience for the system, but could be resilience for a higher level of system containing it.
So we have to be clear what level is our focus within the hierarchy of systems.

Personal resilience is the struggle of Will (or Intention) and Emotion. When we pursue something we use our will to keep our intention and action continuing. When we meet obstacles and failures we often feel discouragement. If our feelings get too negative that drains our energy and saps our will to continue. Philippa’s slide showed Positivity as a component of resilience.

The word will may suggest a drive towards a goal. If so, intention may be a better word. We always have some intention, even if only to keep behaving according to our own values, which isn’t goal-focused or active behaviour.

Can resilience be lost? If things are too easy, complacency can lead to loss of responsiveness, like lack of exercise leads to loss of muscle tone.

Action must be balanced by review and reflection – this is the slack. So there’s a need for people to ponder and experiment, perhaps even dedicated people for those tasks. The Irish government recognised the value of this to the whole of society and they said so when they stopped artistic vocations being liable for income tax.

Targets and league tables in effect claim to define perfection and how to get there. Setting them implies that reaching or exceeding the targets means reaching the ideal. But having an ideal of perfection leaves no room for innovation and creativity to improve the ideal. So if everyone’s energies are taken up in meeting targets the system can’t evolve.

The harder you strive to extend yourself to achieve a hard goal, the less resilient and more vulnerable/fragile you are. The last straw can break your back.

Whole Group Discussion

When a thing is resilient it implies that it continues despite obstacles. But what continues? It’s not always obvious, especially if there is evolution and adaptation that changes a lot of the original. So there has to be some essence that does continue and is the thing that is resilient.

Castro has been a very resilient dictator. Has that been helped by the tension and opposition from the USA? That very opposition has created activity and strength, like resistance exercises a muscle. Muscles are resilient, but through actively using that resilience they grow more and more resilient. Unused resilience leads to weakness, using it repeatedly leads to strength.

So tension is perhaps a key to resilience. Muscles have tone, which is an optimal level of tension even when relaxed. A cat is the epitome of relaxation yet is ready to spring. A tennis ball is very resilient and can take a lot of challenge yet return to its form and function undamaged – it’s the tension inherent in its construction that gives that ability. Perhaps resilience requires plenty of latent ‘potential energy’. Elasticity is resilience.

Ideas and religions can be resilient. They (or some) do compete, evolve and adapt. So they are in tension and face resistance. The idea of memes put ideas into a context of being objects that compete for survival.

Too settled a state leads to loss of resilience, like loss of muscle tone. e.g. Woolworths was once very strong and presumably resilient, enough to fend off all threats. But then its settled state led eventually to it becoming something else – flabby, rigid, stagnant? – until it was very vulnerable and collapsed.

Efficiency seems opposite to resilience.

How do you measure resilience?

(Tim Sheppard)

Nice picture of some pigs as it's cute

Write up from Ed (that’s me by the way):

It was fascinating all the way through, with huge amounts to reflect on and consider. Among many things, what stuck out the most for me was a question raised about the relationship between personal and communal resilience. As well as its relevance to Transition initiatives, I suspect that this is an important point for David Wilcox and the work around Local Communities.

With my facilitator hat on, the balance between individual and group dynamics is a core issue for event design, and something I deal with when helping groups identify and achieve their goals. Every event I design tries to take into account that we are all human and not perfect ‘expressors’, indeed that many of us don’t like being in groups, and find the now ubiquitous ‘sharing’ something of a tyranny. In light of this I try to make space for different behaviours; not expecting everyone to behave in the same way. But this isn’t necessarily about ‘resilience’ per se; more a background to the following questions.

A knowledge café attendee once told me that she felt intimidated before coming to a café as she thought that she might look stupid. She is not stupid at all. This response is partly her responsibility about her confidence (as responsible for her self) and mine (as responsible for the group reputation, language and dynamics). This is difficult for her, an issue for me (who wants everyone to be happy all the time – one of my personal issues), and possibly a reflection on this individual/group crossover, and possibly a learning point for the café model and the language used.

This individual confidence issue is touched upon in a recent post from Rob about Transition Oxford’s story; among other things about people feeling a lack of confidence, and the language used, and I reckon a jump off point for the following questions in my head:

• Is personal resilience a necessary pre-condition for resilient relationships with others (intimately, friendship-ly, and in groups and beyond)?
• How can we assess our own personal resilience, and be aware of our strengths and weaknesses when relating to others?
• How can we understand the effect we have on our relationships?
• Does success as a group rely on each group member being personally resilient?
• Or can a group’s structure and dynamics be designed (or emerge) to overcome our individual issues and bring out the best of us?
• Is it necessary for a group to have a clear purpose in order to overcome our personal issues?

So more questions than anything else from me then!

So good work all and particular thanks to Phillipa for speaking, and the contributors for their thoughts above