I would start by simply making the restaurant more like a canteen with larger dining tables, not least because their menu is pretty pretentious and sets expectations they can’t deliver. They provide buffet style catering for the events so it would require little to do something similar in the restaurant. Alternatively turn it into a cafe and dispense with more formal dining.

I also think the members bar/cafe is just too small and they need to rethink the balance between providing member benefit and conference venue revenue. Anyway, got an email from RSA House on Facebook today inviting me to the “RSA House Wedding Showcase”:

“Our dedicated team at the RSA are delighted to be opening the doors of the House on Sunday 1st March 2009, showcasing our facilities for Weddings and Civil Partnerships”

This summed it all up for me.

Best

Justin

I didn’t want to point any fingers but yes, you did mention the ‘f’ word.

Linking fellows is surely the obvious, clearest solution (for now, at least), and it would be absolutely great and it is essential that this happens.

An RSA-Match.com.

Oh dear!

I think I mentioned the ‘frustration’ word! For my part a great deal of that frustration wasn’t directed at the RSA - it was at the stop/start process of the day, a little hindered by the desire to be creative in obtaining feedback and greatly hindered by what seems to be a great deal of baggage.

For many of the things that have so far been discussed I can’t help but think well get on and do it. You want to use other told to network and organise projects? well use them - there’s plenty out there. You want to organise meet ups and discuss ideas and projects? well do it!

Of course it seems that this is what is now happening anyway (in fact thats how the meeting happened in the first pace I think?). Where I see the RSA having value, both for individuals and ultimately more broadly within society is in being able to link together people with common interests, complementing skills and experiences. This does assume that its a membership made up of particular kinds of people, but thats personally why I joined - it seemed like a network with which I had a lot in common, and so far the few people I’ve met have been interesting and often relevant to me.

It looks as though the debate is heading towards the ‘linking Fellows’ direction. How that best happens is likely to be complex and I hope the debate can now move to more practical ideas and methods - including being able to do it effectively online.

Thanks for your thoughful comment and I’m glad if anything I’ve said via Twitter has helped you re-evaluate the network!

I’ve only just been drawn into the RSA conversation and as a Fellow clearly have a vested interest in making it work, but I agree there are a whole heap of problems. But, for me, it’s the fantastic legacy/history of the RSA that while being a potential millstone, also makes it so worth saving.

I love your point re missing out the ‘where are we at’ bit - I think this is a really tough bit of navel-gazing for any organisation that, as you hint, is all too often left out of the ‘becoming more networked’ process.

As a founder mem of The Hospital, I’m not sure about the Member’s Club/Meeting venue model, simply because that market is already very crowded and the RSA would need to physically construct a new space or at least carry out a great deal of expensive renovation if it wanted to compete in that area - and Fellows’ fees would need to quadruple to cover this.

There are so many issues and I could bang on but hopefully we can chat more about this offline over a beer/coffee at some point!

Cheers,
Jemima

As mentioned elsewhere, I’ve been following this RSA Networks project from the sidelines as I’ve been involved in some research for NESTA, which you kindly participated in. My research has actually nothing to do with this project, but it has been mentioned in passing by some of the people I have met along the way. So I can’t help wondering whether the RSA team are in denial about what has actually been achieved - I think debacle is about as good as it gets as far any flattery I’ve heard is concerned.

I thought I share some of the themes I’ve heard raised as they seem to reinforce what you are saying above.

Firstly, there’s a need for some gap analysis between Matthew’s vision and member aspirations … as the RSA has its fair share of amateur historians/genealogists that simply like to have FRSA on their stationary. There’s also a question mark as to whether it’s realistic to believe that you can build bottom-up grassroots activism from the top-down … and this is liked to the current ‘culture’ of the institution and make up of its membership. From what I understand Matthew tried to do something similar in the Labour Party, so it would be interesting to know why he thinks that the RSA is a better platform for his vision?

I think it’s worth pointing out that those who question the means, are necessarily challenging the ends and that includes myself. However, I think it’s fair to say that the RSA team appear to have only begrudgingly engaged their detractors as proactively as they engaged their champions and advocates. This is a mistake if they are truly committed to facilitating and promoting collaborative approaches to social innovation, as well as reaping the benefits of doing so. You are better placed than I am to explain the why to them, as well as suggest that they might be better off starting to learn to walk the walk first, rather than just talk the talk … and this as applies equally to Matthew as it does the management team. Then again, maybe this project can be seen as part of that learning process, particularly if they admit to their mistakes and learn from them … although it will have been a fairly expensive learning process!

It’s also questionable about whether this is a territory that the RSA can actually own, given what the ‘institution’ has become rather than what it once was, and what Matthew would like it to be. I’m not doubting the good intentions behind the initiative, but the RSA runs the risk of looking like granddad at a disco, particularly when its team attend or speak at all the Social Innovation 2.0 meet-ups. I just don’t think they are part of that community, and I don’t think that those that have been turned on by what’s happening in the Social Innovation 2.0 space really care that much about the RSA as an institution or their networking initiative … there’s just far more exciting, collaborative and innovative things going on to capture their imagination, interest and involvement.

What seems to be missing from the RSA’s mission, and for that matter most of what gets showcased at the Social Innovation 2.0 meet-ups, is some kind of evaluation criteria based around the assessment of Social Impact.

I would be interested to know how they initially planned to evaluate the projects’ success and whether any kind of social impact assessment played a part in this. It’s just that I can’t help thinking that they probably missed out the important ‘where are we at’ bit, rather than starting with the more sexy ‘where we want to be’ of Matthew’s vision and moving swiftly on to the ‘how do we get there’ plan, and thus made the mistake of putting the technology cart before the collaboration horse.

The point being that there are cheaper ways of simply facilitating member-meets-member match-making programmes, including Facebook and LinkedIn Groups, or even a platform like NING. Call me old fashioned but providing better facilities for more face-to-face opportunities for their members at their venue would have been more productive place to start in achieving the vision than the facilitation of online networking, e.g. take a leaf out of the likes of Alfred Place et al, or even the 123 Pall Mall facilities of the IOD. So In understand the frustration of the members above having been to the RSA’s pokey members bar, and eaten at their restaurant which failed to meet expectations in terms of the menu’s promise and its delivery. A canteen and dining hall style arrangement would definitely be better value and probably more conducive to attracting the need breed of social innovators/entrepreneurs to their venue.

Maybe the solution is for the RSA to forget about owning the territory but ask instead what it can do help facilitate social innovation by leveraging its resources, facilities, members and most importantly Matthew - possibly it’s greatest asset right now. So they need to rethink the means to their social innovation/civil action ends, i.e. think more collaboratively about how they as an institution work and partner with other entities, initiatives and individuals that have similar ends in mind … but perhaps very different views about the means of achieving them. So rather than try and kick start action by members from the bottom-up, they should instead lead by example and take their members on a journey. This should also help introduce some relevance and breathe life into a institution that currently hasn’t seemed to have aligned the latest version of its vision with its membership proposition and its activities as a conference venue.

Ultimately, I have no axe to grind. I’m certainly not some political blogger trying to score indirect points through Matthew, as I not only think that he could make a difference here and through the RSA, and also hope that he does. However, I’m less convinced about what they are currently doing is either productive or profitable in the broadest sense of the term. I actually think that the should start again having learn from their mistakes before moving on, but very much doubt they will take my advice.