Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Happy birthday Aung San Suu Kyi!

Published
by
Jemima Gibbons
on June 19, 2009
in News
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday 2008: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastyoneuk/

Beneath London’s Strand, in one of the brick lined tunnels that used to enable boats to dock and goods to be unloaded in order to serve the grand houses, offices and hotels above, Burmese campaigner, Khun Saing, is talking about his love and respect for a woman 6,000 miles and many worlds away - Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma’s democracy movement.

“I feel so much discomfort and misery that she is now facing an unfair trial facing a maximum of five years in prison,” says Khun Saing.

He is referring to Suu Kyi ‘s current situation where she has been arrested and charged with “allowing” an unknown American to swim across the lake around her house, thereby “breaking the terms of her house arrest”.

Khun Saing remembers a party many years ago where he met Suu Kyi, already a pro-democracy activist and clearly someone who was being watched closely by Burma’s military regime. Anxiously, he asked her if she planned to stay in the country.

“ ‘Oh yes, of course. I have to stay,’ she replied, calmly and in perfect peace…I suddenly sensed she had already been thinking of that question many times herself… Her response was firm with no loss of composure…I felt the answer came from the bottom of her heart.”

A few months later Suu Kyi was arrested and imprisoned for the first time. Khun Saing was also arrested and thrown in jail. His fellow prisoners told him they had been building a house that was intended for Suu Kyi to live in. This was a clear sign that the regime planned to sentence Suu Kyi to further imprisonment.

“She always tried to change our country from military dictatorship to democracy by peaceful means,” says Khun Saing. “She always wanted to talk to the dictatorship.”

“20 years is enough. She has been harassed, humiliated and insulted. Through these years she has shown grace and dignity. She could have left the country at any time. She could have compromised with the regime for her own self-interest but she hasn’t sacrificed the needs of the Burmese people.”

“I feel guilty and ashamed of myself for putting that question to her and for leaving the country myself…I admire her courage and simplicity.”

Sitting in the audience at the RSA, where Khun Saing is telling his story, I can see that everyone is moved. Suu Kyi has committed no crime, yet she is growing old in prison. She is a leader without a hierarchy, a leader despite the years of abuse and attrition and emotional torture from her captors.

Suu Kyi is a symbol of hope for her people, but also a symbol of the struggle for human rights everywhere.

–

Today, is Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday. We should do all we can to remind Suu Kyi and the Burmese people that their plight is not forgotten. Please change your profile picture, blog, tweet and spread the word. To read more about the situation in Burma, see The Burma Campaign’s official Suu Kyi birthday site.

RSA Fellowship Council - I’m standing!

Published
by
Jemima Gibbons
on June 12, 2009
in News
. 7 Comments

Big thanks to David Wilcox and Tessy Britton - they’ve been brilliant!

Their enthusiasm sparked me to get involved with the RSA Networks project towards the end of last year.

One idea to come out of the project has been the setting up of a new RSA Fellowship Council. This council will ensure that Fellows are better represented at all levels throughout the organisation, foster collaboration, and propose and develop new initiatives.

A few weeks ago, I decided to stand for election to the new Council. My expertise is in running projects that use new technologies to promote enterprise, diversity and collaboration so I’m hoping to bring an informed view of the tools and methods the RSA could adopt, especially in social media.

As founder of my own consultancy (iKnowHow), I’d aim in particular to represent - and engage with – all the other Fellows out there who are freelancers and small business owners.

Since setting up iKnowHow, I’ve worked with clients like BT, Pact, RDF Media and Skillset so I’ve become familiar with the issues of managing change in large organisations.

Like any institution, The RSA isn’t without its problems, but its heart is in the right place - and the Fellows are downright lovely!

The RSA has the potential to be a really fantastic, fully-networked organisation – I really hope to get the chance to help make this happen.

RSA Fellows have a proud history of volunteering their skills; for me, voluntary work has always been in and around the creative business community.

In 2003, in partnership with Cass Business School, I co-founded the ongoing creative business network, Cass Creatives - one of the first events networks to ban PowerPoint from panel discussions and focus instead on robust debate and the exchange of ideas between disciplines (helped along by a few free drinks).

In 2004 I was invited to be a founding member of The Hospital – London’s club for creative entrepreneurs.

That same year, I became an elected director of Women in Film & Television (until 2006) and was chosen to travel to New Zealand as part of a UK government delegation representing all visual media.

Work-wise, as well as project management, I teach leadership and creative entrepreneurship at Masters level, most recently at Kings College London and Cass Business School.

In 2008 I won a UK Film Council/ Skillset award for setting up and running a mentoring programme for Women in Film & Television.

My book about the impact of social media on management will be published by Triarchy Press this Autumn.

If you’re an RSA Fellow, please think about casting your vote for me, and please add a vote for Tessy, who’s also standing.

In the meantime, I’d better get back to that redraft…

Putting your ideas on the line

Published
by
Jemima Gibbons
on June 3, 2009
in Sharing
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Since 2007, Roland Harwood has been running Nesta Connect, a programme for collaborative innovation. I’ve come to Nesta to meet Roland because so many projects I’ve covered in the book, including Steve Moore’s 2gether and RSA Networks, have received funding through this initiative.

A central aspect of Nesta Connect’s research is the question of how big companies can organize themselves effectively in today’s “fluid” economic, technological and social environments.

Roland’s team helps large multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, Oracle and Virgin connect with the small innovative companies – and individuals - that can help them.

The question of who owns what intellectually is key in these relationships. Small players are fearful of being taken advantage of, while larger businesses are increasingly sensitive to accusations of greed or exploitation.

“With P&G we looked at IP in a project called “The Future of Laundry”. That may sound kind of trivial but domestic laundry is a massively important market… P&G set the bar very high – they only wanted to look at [collaborative] products with potential revenues of $1m or more per annum.”

It’s common for large businesses to have a policy of not signing non-disclosure agreements.

“You need to have a patent in place if you want to talk to [these companies],” explains Roland. “This is because they’ve had situations in the past where they’ve developed something similar in house [to that which a potential collaborator has proposed] and been taken to court. But securing a patent is expensive and can take years so potential partners are often excluded.”

P&G has a long history of collaboration but it wasn’t until the company’s share price collapse in 2000 that “Connect and Develop”, a programme specifically aimed at outside collaborators, was created. While the company’s strategy is to increase the percentage of products which involve an external collaborator, the need for patents was creating a barrier.

Nesta Connect stepped in and acted as a kind of “trust broker” between P&G and its potential collaborators.

“We were trying to open up the dialogue between P&G and small innovative companies. We formed what was essentially an “air lock” between Nesta, P&G and the small companies.

“The big learning from that whole project was that if you want large and small companies to communicate you need to build trust, and involving a neutral third party can be a good way of doing that.”

All in all, Roland’s experience of working with multinationals has been hugely positive: “I’m surprised at how receptive large companies [are] to trying this stuff.”