McFilter

Don't Buy Innovation, Buy Things. Some Suggestions.

Given that one of my main arguments in my post about "Distributing and Democratizing Innovation" is that funders should buy (or fund communities to buy) actual things they want, rather than trying to buy nebulous concepts like "innovation", I figured I should come up with some examples.

These are all at the smaller-scale end of things, because I'm still circling in on my solarpunk vision of a possible future Liverpool.

So let me come back to you with the network of cargo-bike deliveries; attendant alternative manufacturing firms making said cargo-bikes and other varying sizes and scales of similar vehicles in place of building quite so many Range Rovers; and mass roll-out of solar and community fuel-cells and retrofit of houses to help against the ongoing climate emergency. It'll be somewhat of an update to my It's Liverpool 2020 story.

• I've mostly been collecting my civic-minded, city-wide ideas on the "somebody-should" issue tracker for the city that I set up a few years back.
• The suggestions for cycling in Liverpool that I made a while back in response to a cycling consultation are all still doable.
• Alongside, or maybe as part of, the Council's programme to second folk from the private-sector to shift civil service culture to be "more like a startup" they could encourage teams to attend or run tech meetups, or work from DoES Liverpool (or rotate round the co-working spaces in the city). Again, digging into the archives of this blog, I talked about a finer-grained embedding of the DoES Liverpool ethos a few years back. It also has echoes of Aaron Straup Cope's exhortations to the museum sector to employ digital staff and run at small pieces, loosely joined.
• I don't have a blog post to refer to on this one, but something-something digital/maker bootcamp crossed with Code for America fellowships. Fund (initially, to see if it works) a cohort of folk to learn the DoES Liverpool ethos and have them work on community/neighbourhood projects as they do so. Get STEAM Engineers to run the training, maybe with more help drafted in from across the DoES community; have folk like Julian, Zarino and me on hand as advisors/mentors; and split the locations between time working at DoES and time working with their project.
• Could there be a network of DoES-like spaces across the city? The simple answer is yes, although we're back to the question of how to infuse the new spaces with a similar culture to the current one. One of the ways is that it spins out of the existing community, much like a swarm leaving a beehive. Little Sandbox was one attempt at that, in Norris Green, although it sadly didn't survive the pandemic. Birkenhack is a recent starter, over the water in Birkenhead. With the rise in remote working, and the decline of the high street, there is definitely scope for them to spread into each district of the city. You'd want them to be bringing the empty shop units into the commons though, rather than providing a way for landlords to ride out a downturn with "meanwhile" use. And building out from existing groups and organisations would make them more likely to stick. Funding those groups and also the DoES Liverpool community members to run pop-up makerspaces and skill sessions would be a useful way to both provide extra financial support to them and seed ideas and activity across the city (region).

So if anyone wants to help make any of these happen...