Russell Davies

The New Diogenes

I once saw this particular members club. It featured in a documentary about, of all things, cross-rail.

I've always liked the idea of a members club. I suppose it's a misspent youth reading about The Drones.

It seemed a charmingly ramshackle place and like rather a good idea - they've taken a central London location, connected to a church, and created a not-for-profit private members club that helps homeless people get back into work.

I went to a wedding there once, and it was lovely. And a couple of friends are members and they said it was a rather good way to find a low pressure place to go in Central London, have lunch, have a coffee, do some work without having to struggle for a quiet table.

It is, of course, hugely expensive, a ridiculous luxury, all that. But I thought, I can just about justify that to myself, so I applied for membership and got my friends to second me.

Then they replied saying they were rather heavy with applications just now so they wanted me to answer some questions to help them decide. The questions were these:

Pleas could you let us know...

a fun fact about yourself, and let us know what you enjoy aside from your work? 
What app has revolutionised your life and why? 
If you could curate your ideal night of entertain me night, what would it consist of? 
What is your favourite restaurant and why? 
What are your driving passions ? 
Who and what inspires you? 
What do you read for fun, work and inspiration? 

At which, as you can imagine, my heart sank. Those aren't questions that suggest a quiet drink or a thoughtful atmosphere, they suggest instead networking and curation opportunities, they suggest the warm-up exercise at an away day.

I guess I should have known better. Realistically, what did I expect? what did I hope for?

What I hoped for was a new Diogenes.

This was the club founded by Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother. It was not a place where people shared fun facts about themselves.

Conan Doyle describes it:

"There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere."

 

Taglin3r

I wrote a thing: Bots and humans

And, for that, I wrote a thing: taglin3r

Subtleties

I talked at an event about Contemporary Political History In The Digital Age a while ago. Not because I know much about Political History but because I did digital stuff in government. I have thoughts about that, but they're for another day.

But something occurred to me while I was doing my presentation and I can't get it out of my head.

It's this - I'm getting really fed up with always having to start at the beginning.

Every time I stand up and do a presentation about 'digital' - unless it's to a very specialist and small group of people - I have to start right at the beginning. The more senior and important the audience is, the more true this is. You can't assume they know the difference between the internet and the web, you can't expect them to know what agile is, or slack, or, whathaveyou.

For example, a friend recently told me about a friend of hers who runs a board for a large public organisation. They'd recently been presented with a digital strategy that they suspected wasn't very good. But, confided her friend, they didn't know who to ask about it. If it had a legal strategy or an HR problem they'd have someone 'in their circle' they could have turned to for advice. But they can't do that with digital - they don't know anyone from the internet. So the digital strategy sailed on into a mire.

This is, sort of, fine. It has been my job for the last 6,000 years, to get them to understand this stuff and it's relatively lucrative work.

But I'm increasingly aware that in each of these audiences there is a small percentage of people who do get it. Who know what I'm talking about. And who obviously find the generalisations you have to make to get the laggards on board deeply irritating. And they're right. These days I'm often aware that everything I put in a presentation conceals a more interesting and gnarly reality.

I would love to have nuanced and informed conversations about this stuff, but most audiences of senior people just aren't ready.

I think this is a serious problem, one that's worth trying to solve. There should be a place (hell! more than one!) where people can talk about this stuff in a subtle and substantive way. Where people are informed and expert about both 'digital' and the thing they're trying to transform - governments, organisations, whatever. Where the people who run things can meet some people from the internet.

I'm going to be a Visiting Fellow at the Mile End Institute. That's one of the things I want to try and do there - to go beyond the digital platitudes.

I don't know how yet. That's what's next.

 

 

 

This is this

If I haven't blogged for a while I get a bit blocked because all the tiny blog size thoughts jostle together in my head and I feel like I can't let them out until I've stacked them up properly into something coherent and LONG FORM. And I'm not very good at that so nothing happens.

I need to kick myself to get more small things out. So this is all this is. This is this.