Volunteer and past trainee Richard Bastian is blogging for our clients Healthy Planet and has had a piece featured on the Independent website.
Fifty years ago the British wartime ‘make do and mend’ attitude may
not have leapt to mind when considering the environment, but in 2012 the
principle of reuse is experiencing a revival.
London residents alone throw away 20 million tonnes of waste each
year according to the London Community Resource Network, which estimates
that recycling or reusing these resources could stop 150 million tonnes
of annual carbon emissions.
Consumer companies are forever selling us new goods and the rise of
cheap fashion in high street stores had reduced the incentive to mend
old items. However, designers such as Wayne Hemingway, who has turned
old cola bottles into umbrellas, and From Somewhere’s Orsola de Castro,
who turned banned Speedo swimsuits into designer dresses, are making
reuse more fashionable.
Read the full article on Independent blogs.
The value of social value
Even though the words 'social enterprise' have been removed from the final version of the Social Value Bill, which has now passed through Parliament and is set to become law, it is undoubtedly good news for social enterprises like Poached Creative.
Falling awkwardly between charitable and commercial (like many genuine social enterprises), we're ineligible for a lot of funding. What's more, our philosophy is confusing for business people and charities. "So, you work harder and your profit margins are lower because you're training people as you go?" asks the business person. "I don't get it. Charities pay you for communications?" says the charity worker. Yes to both!
We're providing a service that charities and public bodies need and are willing to pay for. And my argument is that because we're closer to the people they're trying to reach (we work alongside homeless people, people with mental health issues, people with criminal records, long-term unemployed people and young people to co-create communications) we're better at it than the big agencies.
Recognition of social value, rather than just competing on the lowest price for government contracts, will help us a lot.
Yes, there's the need to more clearly define 'social value' and social enterprises will need to be clear and transparent about how they deliver additional social value with any public sector offering. But I hope this will give us the foothold we need to step up our public sector delivery.
If it works the public sector, business and society will be better for it.
Read more about the Bill on the Civil Society website.
Find out more about what Poached Creative can do and how we deliver social value.
Falling awkwardly between charitable and commercial (like many genuine social enterprises), we're ineligible for a lot of funding. What's more, our philosophy is confusing for business people and charities. "So, you work harder and your profit margins are lower because you're training people as you go?" asks the business person. "I don't get it. Charities pay you for communications?" says the charity worker. Yes to both!
 |
| Our video trainer Adam oversees a young camera person, Ondre, reporting for Discover Young Hackney. Photo by Emma Gutteridge. |
Recognition of social value, rather than just competing on the lowest price for government contracts, will help us a lot.
Yes, there's the need to more clearly define 'social value' and social enterprises will need to be clear and transparent about how they deliver additional social value with any public sector offering. But I hope this will give us the foothold we need to step up our public sector delivery.
If it works the public sector, business and society will be better for it.
Read more about the Bill on the Civil Society website.
Find out more about what Poached Creative can do and how we deliver social value.
Interviewing - it's a juggle!
Writers and journalists on our training courses often struggle with the art of the interview. There's no doubt it's a difficult beast. No longer is a grubby notepad and half-chewed pen all you need. If you're lucky enough to have time to do a face-to-face interview you'll probably be wielding a flip camera, digital camera and smartphone for starters. However you're conducting it, there's a jumble of things you need to think about before, during and after your interview.
A checklist seems like a sensible option. Here's what we've come up with.
A checklist seems like a sensible option. Here's what we've come up with.
Interviews checklist
Whether you’re the interviewer or the interviewee, interviews are nervewracking. This handy checklist will help you put your interviewee at ease and get a good story or case study.
Before the interview – be prepared
If you can meet the interviewee in person that’s best but if not you might need to settle for a phone interview. Make sure that you’ll have somewhere quiet where you can freely have your conversation. If you’re meeting them in person, try to go to somewhere they’ll feel comfortable and where you might pick up some more information about them.
· Think about how and where you’re going to do it.
· Research the person and their organisation.
· Find out the facts of the story.
· Write your questions beforehand.
· Make sure your camera/dictaphone batteries are charged, make sure you’ve got a pen and notepad.
· Start with something easy.
· Build on it, reflecting back some of their answer in your next question.
· Put the tricky questions in the middle.
· Try to have a ‘wildcard’ question that will be different from everyone else’s.
· End on a light note or ask about the future.
During the interview
· Introduce yourself and say what the story’s about and who it’s for.
· Build a rapport, look for something in common.
· If you’re going to record, tell them you’re going to record it.
· Turn camera/dictaphone on.
· Ask your first question and LISTEN
- nod, use open body language
- make eye contact
- Make positive noises (but only if you’re not recording).
· Try to get your next question to flow from the previous answer.
· Be natural.
· Probe – if they haven’t answered fully, ask again from a new angle.
After the interview
· Check their details – full name and spelling, name of organisation, job role (if appropriate).
· Get their contact details (mobile, email, website) in case you need more information.
· Tell them what’s going to happen next. When and where can they see the story?
· Think about the most interesting/exciting thing. What was the one thing that stood out or stuck in your mind – this is what you should lead with.
· Write it up/edit as soon as possible, while it’s still fresh in your mind.
· Check any facts and get any missing information.
Good luck!
Find out more about Poached Creative's training and communications services.
Does small social enterprise have a chance in the Work Programme?
The Government launched its much-talked-about Work Programme today - "probably the biggest payment-by-results scheme in the world" according to Employment Minister Chris Grayling - and one that aims to help 2.4 million unemployed people back into work over the next five years.
The big idea is for what's been described as a giant dating agency, where people who are out of work will be matched to suitable employers. The focus, we're told, is on specialist provision and sustainable employment.
The money has already been allocated to the tier 1 and 2 contractors who hold the risk if they are unable to match the required number of candidates to jobs to make ends meet. See today's Telegraph article and Thursday's Guardian piece, which does a good job of explaining payment by results.
And this is where it gets interesting. It is up to these big players to decide how best to achieve the results that will win the more lucrative payments, such as more than £13,000 for getting an ex-incapacity benefit claimant back to work.
Some of them will, no doubt, try to build success with these clients in-house or with a small range of preferred providers who they've worked with before. How much of it filters down to the small specialists, like Poached Creative, will remain to be seen.
Where are the jobs?
Results would be all very well if there were jobs enough for everyone. But the two main areas where Poached Creative works - Hackney and Haringey - have been name checked by the Work Foundation in the top 10 areas of the UK where it is likely to be difficult for the Work Programme to be delivered profitably.
Hackney has the second-highest ratio of out of work residents to job vacancies in the UK, an unemployment rate of 19.6 per cent and one of the highest rates in the country of entrenched long-term unemployment. According to analysis published on Touchstone Blog it is also one of the areas that has been hardest hit in the recent round of government spending cuts. Even if the Work Programme manages to reach and help these people, it could be that the jobs simply aren't there.
Taking a chance?
The creative sector is one of Hackney's growth areas and, as a specialist service helping long-term unemployed people to get jobs in media and the creative industries, organisations like Poached ought to be the perfect candidates for Work Programme subcontracts.
But Rob Greenland at The Social Business is sceptical.
"There is potential for difficulty when a big company (the Prime Provider) is tasked with collaborating with lots of smaller providers. Government would have us believe that they’ll all play happy families, nurturing the young’uns and small’uns so that together they can share the proceeds and make the contract a success. I’m afraid I just don’t believe that it will turn out like that in a lot of cases."
It's worth reading his full blog.
I'll be happy to be proved wrong, but my fear is that we're too small, too untried and, frankly, too innovative to prove an attractive partner for providers trying to make ends meet in a difficult economy.
Find out about Poached Creative's training and work experience and read the concerns about how the Work Programme might affect people claiming benefits from In My Shoes.
The big idea is for what's been described as a giant dating agency, where people who are out of work will be matched to suitable employers. The focus, we're told, is on specialist provision and sustainable employment.
The money has already been allocated to the tier 1 and 2 contractors who hold the risk if they are unable to match the required number of candidates to jobs to make ends meet. See today's Telegraph article and Thursday's Guardian piece, which does a good job of explaining payment by results.
And this is where it gets interesting. It is up to these big players to decide how best to achieve the results that will win the more lucrative payments, such as more than £13,000 for getting an ex-incapacity benefit claimant back to work.
Some of them will, no doubt, try to build success with these clients in-house or with a small range of preferred providers who they've worked with before. How much of it filters down to the small specialists, like Poached Creative, will remain to be seen.
Where are the jobs?
Results would be all very well if there were jobs enough for everyone. But the two main areas where Poached Creative works - Hackney and Haringey - have been name checked by the Work Foundation in the top 10 areas of the UK where it is likely to be difficult for the Work Programme to be delivered profitably.
Hackney has the second-highest ratio of out of work residents to job vacancies in the UK, an unemployment rate of 19.6 per cent and one of the highest rates in the country of entrenched long-term unemployment. According to analysis published on Touchstone Blog it is also one of the areas that has been hardest hit in the recent round of government spending cuts. Even if the Work Programme manages to reach and help these people, it could be that the jobs simply aren't there.
Taking a chance?
The creative sector is one of Hackney's growth areas and, as a specialist service helping long-term unemployed people to get jobs in media and the creative industries, organisations like Poached ought to be the perfect candidates for Work Programme subcontracts.
But Rob Greenland at The Social Business is sceptical.
"There is potential for difficulty when a big company (the Prime Provider) is tasked with collaborating with lots of smaller providers. Government would have us believe that they’ll all play happy families, nurturing the young’uns and small’uns so that together they can share the proceeds and make the contract a success. I’m afraid I just don’t believe that it will turn out like that in a lot of cases."
It's worth reading his full blog.
I'll be happy to be proved wrong, but my fear is that we're too small, too untried and, frankly, too innovative to prove an attractive partner for providers trying to make ends meet in a difficult economy.
Find out about Poached Creative's training and work experience and read the concerns about how the Work Programme might affect people claiming benefits from In My Shoes.
Ten tips for effective writing
“Writing, to be effective, must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily in the order in which these thoughts occur.” Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, 1979.
The tips below are mostly drawn from Strunk and White’s brilliant little book, The Elements of Style. Its language seems archaic now but the principles it sets out are still spot on. I took the liberty of translating these principles into today’s language for my colleagues at the NHS Confederation.
They've served me very well in my communications career (first as a journalist and later as a writer for charities) and I firmly believe that every writer who aims to be read should apply these simple principles to their work.
1. Put your audience first.
2. Plan before you write.
3. Introduce only one idea per sentence/paragraph.
4. Use active voice.
5. Use concrete language.
6. Make every word count.
7. Say just the right amount.
8. Avoid jargon and complicated words.
9. Express similar content in a similar way.
10. Be wary of opinion and speculation.
I plan to expand on each of these points, with examples. Keep an eye on this blog and feel free to post questions in the comments field. I’ll do my best to answer them.
Big Society - should we sign up?
As a social entrepreneur I feel like I really ought to support the Big Society. The idea of people, not government, deciding what they need and how it should be delivered appeals to me a lot. Practical, flexible, responsive, innovative solutions come out of unexpected places and in many ways, this is what Poached is all about.
Yet there are two big problems I just keep running up against when it comes to this Big Society idea of David Cameron's.
1. It's a political idea that's attached to a political ideology that I'm not sure I want to be aligned with. Social enterprise isn't the place for party politics and I'm sure a lot of people in the third sector are finding this political association a bit uncomfortable. So, I can't see it succeeding unless we can find a way to depoliticise 'Big Society' and convince communities that they really do have the power. But for this to happen, the money has to follow the initiatives. Which brings me to the next big problem.
2. Where's the money? The public sector doesn't have it - in fact public sector cuts are already having an affect on social enterprise support. The private sector doesn't have it - and in the UK a high proportion of private sector companies rely on public sector business so the recovery isn't looking so great after all. The Government doesn't seem to have it (or certainly doesn't want to give it away) and the third sector sure doesn't have it. It seems that the banks do have some of it - in disused bank accounts - and this is going to be pulled together into a Big Society Bank, due to open in April 2011, with somewhere between £60 million and £100 million. But loan funding alone won't be enough. And volunteers won't be able to run public services for nothing.
The Government is right in thinking that the people who use services and the staff who provide them know how best to redesign those services. Many of them already have - and we have a thriving social enterprise and charity sector to prove it.
But what I've learnt since setting up a social enterprise is this. Disadvantaged people do need support to find their own solutions, projects do need funding, and people do need to get paid for their hard work.
_____________________________________
Thanks to UnLtd and the Big Society Network for getting the thinking started with their event last Wednesday. Find out more about the event.
Yet there are two big problems I just keep running up against when it comes to this Big Society idea of David Cameron's.
1. It's a political idea that's attached to a political ideology that I'm not sure I want to be aligned with. Social enterprise isn't the place for party politics and I'm sure a lot of people in the third sector are finding this political association a bit uncomfortable. So, I can't see it succeeding unless we can find a way to depoliticise 'Big Society' and convince communities that they really do have the power. But for this to happen, the money has to follow the initiatives. Which brings me to the next big problem.
2. Where's the money? The public sector doesn't have it - in fact public sector cuts are already having an affect on social enterprise support. The private sector doesn't have it - and in the UK a high proportion of private sector companies rely on public sector business so the recovery isn't looking so great after all. The Government doesn't seem to have it (or certainly doesn't want to give it away) and the third sector sure doesn't have it. It seems that the banks do have some of it - in disused bank accounts - and this is going to be pulled together into a Big Society Bank, due to open in April 2011, with somewhere between £60 million and £100 million. But loan funding alone won't be enough. And volunteers won't be able to run public services for nothing.
The Government is right in thinking that the people who use services and the staff who provide them know how best to redesign those services. Many of them already have - and we have a thriving social enterprise and charity sector to prove it.
But what I've learnt since setting up a social enterprise is this. Disadvantaged people do need support to find their own solutions, projects do need funding, and people do need to get paid for their hard work.
_____________________________________
Thanks to UnLtd and the Big Society Network for getting the thinking started with their event last Wednesday. Find out more about the event.
Working with young people
Easily bored, no attention span, noisy, fussy eaters, expect the world, think adults don't know what they're doing, lack of appreciation - it turns out everything they say about Generation Y is true.
Until now I've managed to avoid working with young people and I still don't really know how it happened. A conversation between my administrator, Kayla, and our director of sales and youth projects, Lucy, a hastily composed funding application, some frantic policy writing and form filling and - poof! We had ourselves a youth film project.
Well, I'd worked with unemployed, homeless, depressed, disabled, incredibly intelligent and sometimes difficult people since I started Poached (and before that too). I figured I could handle it.
At first it was frustrating. They listened - I think - to the brilliant trainers we'd lined up for them. Experienced filmmakers and screenwriters who'd worked for the BBC and Ginger Productions had volunteered their time for us. But our young crew were bored, they hated the lunch we'd provided and were itching to get stuck in to the filming.
Then it was stressful. We had a film to make. They were lukewarm when it came to creating a script. It was starting to feel like we'd have to drag the young crew through a process they'd completely lost interest in - and this was only week 2!
Then I learnt something. We'd thought it was their project, told them it was their project, encouraged them to make it their project. But we hadn't acted like it was. And they felt like we weren't listening to them. After a morning working with our film production trainer they called me in.
"We're changing the script."
OK, I thought. Let's see where this goes.
"It's going to be more of a drama than a documentary."
Panic! That meant actors, mocking up locations, a full script.
"It's going to be a metaphor - you know what that means?"
I could barely contain my rage but I fought the urge to throw the Concise Oxford at them.
Then they went on to describe what they'd come up with. It was creative, ambitious, a hell of a lot of work. They referenced some of the techniques they'd learnt in some of our more "boring" sessions. I couldn't help but smile. I questioned them on why they thought it would work, if they'd watch it, if they were willing to put the work in. Their enthusiasm and commitment was evident. I couldn't have been more relieved.
They wrote the script, found the actors, agreed the locations, did all the paperwork, got all the filming done on an incredibly tight schedule and now we're in the editing phase. They've come up with a far more ambitious short film than I would have dreamt of doing in the time and they've pretty much pulled it off.
It will probably seem obvious to anyone who's used to working with young people (or any other group for that matter), but there's an incredibly powerful response when you stop trying to help people do what you want them to do and genuinely support them to do something that they believe in. Far too many projects, I believe, fall into the trap of the former. I'm just glad I had some Gen Ys around to jolt me out of it.
You can follow their progress and book tickets for the free screening at Rich Mix 0n 19 August on the Hackney Hounds website.
Until now I've managed to avoid working with young people and I still don't really know how it happened. A conversation between my administrator, Kayla, and our director of sales and youth projects, Lucy, a hastily composed funding application, some frantic policy writing and form filling and - poof! We had ourselves a youth film project.
Well, I'd worked with unemployed, homeless, depressed, disabled, incredibly intelligent and sometimes difficult people since I started Poached (and before that too). I figured I could handle it.
At first it was frustrating. They listened - I think - to the brilliant trainers we'd lined up for them. Experienced filmmakers and screenwriters who'd worked for the BBC and Ginger Productions had volunteered their time for us. But our young crew were bored, they hated the lunch we'd provided and were itching to get stuck in to the filming.
Then it was stressful. We had a film to make. They were lukewarm when it came to creating a script. It was starting to feel like we'd have to drag the young crew through a process they'd completely lost interest in - and this was only week 2!
Then I learnt something. We'd thought it was their project, told them it was their project, encouraged them to make it their project. But we hadn't acted like it was. And they felt like we weren't listening to them. After a morning working with our film production trainer they called me in.
"We're changing the script."
OK, I thought. Let's see where this goes.
"It's going to be more of a drama than a documentary."
Panic! That meant actors, mocking up locations, a full script.
"It's going to be a metaphor - you know what that means?"
I could barely contain my rage but I fought the urge to throw the Concise Oxford at them.
Then they went on to describe what they'd come up with. It was creative, ambitious, a hell of a lot of work. They referenced some of the techniques they'd learnt in some of our more "boring" sessions. I couldn't help but smile. I questioned them on why they thought it would work, if they'd watch it, if they were willing to put the work in. Their enthusiasm and commitment was evident. I couldn't have been more relieved.
They wrote the script, found the actors, agreed the locations, did all the paperwork, got all the filming done on an incredibly tight schedule and now we're in the editing phase. They've come up with a far more ambitious short film than I would have dreamt of doing in the time and they've pretty much pulled it off.
It will probably seem obvious to anyone who's used to working with young people (or any other group for that matter), but there's an incredibly powerful response when you stop trying to help people do what you want them to do and genuinely support them to do something that they believe in. Far too many projects, I believe, fall into the trap of the former. I'm just glad I had some Gen Ys around to jolt me out of it.
You can follow their progress and book tickets for the free screening at Rich Mix 0n 19 August on the Hackney Hounds website.
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