Amplified Leicester

Icon set for the Amplified Individual?

As this stage of Amplified Leicester comes to an end I'm thinking about how best to write about it and explain what happened. I'll give a brief presentation at the 15th April Showcase and there will be plenty more opportunities for me and others to share our  thoughts in the future. But it's not easy to explain the Amplified Individual because the qualities involved are quite complex. It would be great to find a simpler way to convey them, and I'm wondering whether it's possible to come up with a set of 10 icons representing the 10 characteristics listed below.

As a reminder, this list was devised by researchers at the Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, but as far as I know ours is the first practical implementation of the theory.

According to the IFTF: As networked amplification becomes the norm, individuals are developing new super-individual skills that enable them to thrive in an increasingly complex and collaborative work culture. These include:

1. Mobbability—the ability to work in large groups, and to organize and collaborate with many people simultaneously.
2. Influency—knowing how to be persuasive in multiple social contexts and media spaces, and demonstrating awareness that each context and space requires a different persuasive strategy and technique.
3. High Ping Quotient—responsiveness to other people’s requests for engagement; propensity to reach out to others in a network.
4. Protovation—fearless innovation in rapid, iterative cycles.
5. Open Authorship—ease with creating content for immediate public consumption and modification.
6. Emergensight—the ability to prepare for and handle surprising results and complexity.
7. Multi-capitalism—fluency in working with different capitals (e.g., natural, intellectual, social, financial, virtual).
8. Longbroading—thinking in terms of higher-level systems, massively multiple cycles, and the very big picture.
9. Signal/Noise Management—filtering meaningful information, patterns, and commonalities from the massively multiple streams of data and advice.
10. Cooperation Radar—the ability to sense, almost intuitively, who would make the best collaborators on a particular task.

This morning I sent out a call for icon designers via Twitter and I've had quite a few responses. But the truth is, I don't even know whether this is doable. Is this list just too obscure to distill into 10 images?

Social Innovation Workshop with David Wilcox – Session 10, 12th March 2010

Amplified Leicester welcomed social reporter David Wilcox and his colleague Drew Mackie who used the session to think about amplification and where next for people and places. David focused on the definition of amplification and how we explain Amplified Leicester to visitors who could then apply the process to their own towns and cities. He started by sharing his thoughts on different types of collaboration and activities taking place offline at events such as self-organising, social media surgeries and people exploring co-production. These activities use social media tools to create clouds of conversation between various groups and communities. Over the last few years there has been an increase in new roles, which aid and manage these activities. David explained his role as a social reporter, which is to make sense, help out, scrutinise, and join up people and places using social media.

The group was then set an exercise to highlight the relevant tools, kit, skills and attitude needed to be an amplified individual. The teams overlapped on many areas, and established that networks, both virtual and physical, are a key factor in being amplified. Another strong theme was attitude, which all members agreed to be highly important to being an amplified individual and which can also be a huge hindrance in conquering social media.

For the afternoon session Malcolm Noble and Clare Reilly from Royal Society of Arts (RSA) joined the group to discuss challenges facing the town of Chelmsford - a community very different from Leicester in many ways including demographics, history, and attitude to online culture.

Malcolm gave a short presentation on the issues facing Chelmsford as it seeks to modernise, then sought ideas on how to update the town’s profile and attract university graduates. The group was asked to verbally and visually map out ideas which may be used to address the problem using social media methods. The participants generated many ideas and drafted some sound solutions for the RSA members such as working with the town’s Civic Society to build an online community, greening the town centre to form a place to relax and socialise, and forming long-term links with the local universities. The workshop was a chance for the participants to use their amplified knowledge to address a real-world problem and proved to be an enjoyable and thought-provoking exercise.

Being Amplified

Ideas for Chelmsford

Workshop photos

Rheingold on where NOT to film video

During a Skype conversation with Amplified Leicester participants, Howard explains the dangers of filming in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Social Innovation Workshop with David Wilcox and Drew Mackie

David Wilcox and his colleague Drew Mackie are facilitating a workshop for us on Social Innovation. David is a co-author of the book Social by Social: a guide to using social technology for social impact. David, Drew and colleagues have also developed a Social by Social "game" in which people plan how to use social media in their community. View and download Social by Social free and join the Social by Social online community here.

David Wilcox started his working life as a journalist, and wrote about London developments and communities for the Evening Standard. After that he became a specialist in community engagement and partnerships organisations, and was hooked on the possibilities of new media in the mid-1990s after meeting enthusasts for community technology in the US. He is now developing the practice of social reporting as a blend of those experiences, summarised as Make Sense, Be Positive, Help Out ... plus a bit of Be Critical as well.

Drew Mackie trained as an architect and planner and has been involved in regeneration and community engagement projects throughout the UK over the last 25 years. He has designed games for government, local government, community and corporate clients and is a past Chairman of the International Simulation and Gaming Association. He has worked with David for many years on games that allow policy makers, activists and communities to explore the use of Internet.

They'll be joined in the afternoon by Clare Reilly and Malcolm Noble from the Royal Society of Arts.

Back to the Beginning with Sue Thomas – Session 9, 25th February 2010

The ninth session was lead by Sue. The workshops focused on the initial session of the Amplified programme and participants were given a chance to reflect on their amplification journey over the last few months. To kick off Sue showed the Socialnomics video (above) which reminded the group of the background within which they are working. Dealing with this complex environment is a key factor  for the amplified individual. The group was then asked to record their hopes and expectations from the initial session which lead to an interesting discussion on individual perceptions of Amplified Leicester and experiences of the process.

Sue showed a set of slides which run through the whole of Amplified Leicester so far in under 2 minutes recapping the last 8 sessions and reminding us of the characteristics of the amplified individual, Thilo’s research workshops, guest speakers, moments of collaboration through group exercises, and the mini-project ideas. This was followed by a light-hearted quiz capturing participants' new amplification skills.

Amplified Leicester in under 2 minutes

View more presentations from suethomas.

The session moved on to providing advice for the wannabe-amplified keen to learn about social media. Participants worked in small teams and drew up tips and considerations based on their own experiences. Advice the group put forward included:

• Immerse yourself in social media applications like Twitter and Facebook
• Be prepared to interact
• Keep an open mind
• Engage with complex/expert theories and points of view
• Don't be daunted by long words or jargon
• Respect people and their ideas
• Engage in Informal mentoring - help others and let them help you
• Take care to nurture and maintain diverse perspectives within the group
• Ensure you have good access to the internet
• Manage your time well
• Have fun

The session came to end with the premiere of a new Amplified Leicester project video created by Rattle for NESTA and conversation on the up and coming Amplified Leicester Showcase. Find out what we've been up to and register for this free event to take place on 15th April.

Programme for 15th April Showcase & Workshops now available

The programme for 15th April is now available. Attendance is free.

Register to find out what we've been up to!

 

Amplified Leicester Showcase 15 April 2010

Check out the programme, speakers and workshops - and see who's coming.

by Rattle Research

Amplified Leicester video

by Rattle Research