Social Innovation Camp

We totally won!!!

When I last posted we were frantically trying to develop the site and pull together a presentation on our ideas, and fewer than 24 hours later it was all over and Mypolice.org was declared the winning idea at Social Innovation Camp 2009.

There’s a sort of overview available on the blog we’ve set up and if you want to be kept updated on how the project progresses over the next few months you can sign up on the website.  Oh, and it’s @mypolice on Twitter.   Notwithstanding some technical hitches on the day, our presentation was ace as we had some video clips from some actual real Glaswegians talking about their attitudes towards the police.  When they’re ready I’ll link to them as they’re really worth a look/laugh.

The prize is some money, plus some free developer days, plus some business mentoring and a strong network of people who are in the know.  The idea is quite simple so I don’t think it will take huge amounts of energy to get it up and running nicely, it’s just the inevitable struggle of getting the police to dabble with the site that will need all our patience/tenacity.  Let me know if you know any friendly bobbys who might be interested in having a chat about it.

The limits of geography are annoying me – most of the others on the team are based in Glasgow so being down in London while meetings are going on is a bit frustrating.  Hopefully I’ll stay involved, perhaps working with the police down here as  I get the impression that the Met is a whole other kettle of coppers…

Sicamp update

This weekend I’m at Social Innovation Camp in Glasgow (actual Scotland).

I’m working on MyPolice.org – a website where people can tell each other about their experiences of the police.  The idea is that public feedback will help the police to give a better service.  Although the idea isn’t exactly social innovation (something similar has worked for PatientOpinion and the NHS) it’s still a really nifty idea that’s fairly simple but potentially powerful.

So far we’ve gone nuts with the flipchart, post-its and whiteboard:

The group I’m in totally rocks – no egos and everyone working well together.  Yes, really.  The team (8 of us) is really strong on the design side, with about 4 service designers in our midst, so the site has been designed and mocked-up already.  It’s being coded as I type, though I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to show at tomorrow’s presentation.

The main thing is going to be showing how we’ll work with the police to help them use the site to improve services.  No one thinks the police are going to jump at the idea, but maybe we’ll find a few coppers who are willing to give it a try and get involved.  If that does happen it will probably at a local level (Police Community Support Officers etc), though we have chatted it through with Nick Keane from the National Police Improvement Agency.

I’ll post here if we win, but even if we don’t I think the idea is still totally viable.  Wish us luck!

Social Innovation Camp nerdiness

I’ve chucked in a couple of ideas for Social Innovation Camp next month, which takes place in Scotland.  I’ll be going there regardless of whether my ideas get picked but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound.  Here they are:

Jumb.le and Knowyourmind (which I think is actually not dissimilar to this idea:  DebateWise)

I totally recommend having a look at the list of ideas submitted this time – there’s absolutely loads of cool ideas there.