Saving Slaghampton

I had not seen this particular game before, and it very cleverly took a  realistic social change context, together with a wide variety of tactics and tools for interaction and social engagement. Of particular value was the ability to add new tools, and needless to say the requirement to balance budgets of costs and resources was a strong source of focus. Special thanks need to go to Drew and David – here is David who is normally behind the camera:

I was intrigued by the set of coloured objects that Amy brought into the room.

Eventually all became clear – they were to be flags, as demonstrated by Drew:

The way that there was a “simple” worksheet on a flip chart, each of the four sections being worked through in sequence, was elegant and efficient.

Andy Gibson gave a great introduction to the report, and I liked the way he read aloud a key section of the document straight off the screen.

Launching at Reboot Britain

Tomorrow we’ll be at Reboot Britain playing the Social by Social Game and launching our handbook. You’ll be able to see all the text, download it, and order print copies here**. We’re excited by  publication – not least because it is all Creative Commons licensed so you can remix and re-use.

The handbook is funded by NESTA, and we hope that it will contribute to their aim of helping a wider range of people understand the potential of using social technology for social benefit. In the video above, shot at last week’s Tuttle Club in St James’s Park, Roland Harwood of NESTA Connect explains what he is hoping for.

While at Tuttle I was also able to talk to Toby Moores, Joanna Jacobs and Steve Lawson about the way they are planning to help everyone at Reboot be a social reporter using Twitter, blogging and any other means to create a cloud of online conversations to complement the live streaming that will be provided by Richard Jolly. There should be more soon on that linked from the official site – but meanwhile keep up with everything Reboot through the Twitter tag #rebootbritain. Toby and friends are using techniques developed through Amplified09, so you can be sure there will be plenty going on, with some good analysis afterwards. The creative force behind the event is Steve Moore, who curated 2gether08 and morphed the 2gether09 plans into Reboot. The event is produced by our friends Jess Tyrell, Lizzie Ostrom and the team at  Germination.

** Handbook site will be live from about 1.30pm Monday July 6

Longer version of this post on Socialreporter.

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Social by Social for Edinburgh

Last week in Edinburgh Drew Mackie and I had a chance to play the Social by Social game “for real” – inviting those attending Scotweb2 to take “Edinburgh in recession” as a case study for what benefits social technology might bring to an area.

The format was rather like the one that we used for the Net Tuesday event: first describe the situation (Edinburgh), then break into groups and develop projects. In this case around transport, environment, community engagement, education and employment in the recession.

We then offered groups cards with ideas for engagement and social technology – much like those in the Net Tuesday event  – and asked for plans. The final stage was using some money cards to balance the costs.

As you can see from the video report backs, we got some really creative ideas … all in the space of an hour and a half. Alex recaps the scenario, and each group reports on their theme and project. We hope that the ideas will find their way into the official policy-making process.