Introduction and the Festival of Ideas
May 6, 2008 Posted by Jeff in : Bristol, Innovation, e-society, Festival of Ideas, Guest Bloggers, Deaf Awareness , add a commentHi everyone and welcome to the first vlog in this series - Jeff McWhinney here - I am the MD of a social enterprise, Significan’t (Sign if I can’t), which assists all those of you out there who are manually challenged, unable to use sign language 
especially those providing a front line public service enabling them to engage with a qualified sign language interpreter through a video link within minutes and communicate with their deaf customers. Occasionally you may find my written English a bit ‘odd’ or strange - my first language is British Sign Language (BSL) and it has a different grammatical structure than that for English. It has been said that it is closer to the spoken languages native to India. That is why I am using a vlog (video blog) as well as this written transcript.
In this vlog I will be covering issues that deaf people face everyday in the hope that this group of people are better understood and therefore catered for as this week is the national Deaf Awareness Week. I will also cover innovation and all the latest with regard to the positive human impact that innovation has achieved.
Today, lets go to the Festival of Ideas event organised by Innovation Exchange (www.innovation-exchange.org) for social enterpreneurs (people like me!) facilitated by Innovation Exchange. A participant has uploaded a video clip which can be seen on YouTube and reproduced below:
I Think or We Think?
January 29, 2008 Posted by Stephen Hilton in : e-democracy, Bristol, Innovation, Festival of Ideas, collaboration , add a commentIn many large, corporate organisations, it is the Chief Executive’s views that all-important. But is there another way? Can organisations develop new, collaborative ways of working and will these deliver better services?
In the Connecting Bristol bid we referred to “co-production” – Charles Leadbetter talks and writes about “we-think”
“We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what the rise of the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. My argument is that these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of a society in which participation will be the key organising idea rather than consumption and work. People want to be players not just spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines’
from Charles Leadbetter We Think
In this Festival of Ideas event, you can, for £7.50, help co-create an interesting lunchtime outing as Charles Leadbetter is speaking at the Watershed in Bristol.
Charles Leadbeater
We-think: the power of mass creativity
26 February 2008, 12.45-13.45
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol
