A letter to my MP about Ian Tomlinson

8th
Apr. × ’09

Watching the video of the police assault on Ian Tomlinson got me very angry, so I’ve written to my MP about it.

Update - don’t copy paste my letter because MPs will ignore it. But you can use mine as inspiration

You might want to do the same, so here is the letter that I wrote, which might provide inspiration for your own letter. I had originally recommended copying and pasting this, but apparently identical letters received by MPs don’t have as much impact as those in your own words.

Go to WriteToThem to write and send your letter in a really easy way.

Dear [MP'S NAME],

I am sure by now you will have seen the shocking video of a police officer attacking an innocent bystander - Ian Tomlinson - who happened to be walking past one of the many G20 demonstrations.

He suffered a baton attack from behind by a police officer and after striking his head on the floor he later died.

The police are unapologetic about his death, describing their actions as ‘maintaining order’ on Radio 4 today.

After seeing the video this seems hard to swallow. It makes it reasonably clear that he was not presenting a threat to anyone, nor was he causing trouble.

If this were a member of the public holding a baton, striking a man to the floor, who later died as a direct result, that person would promptly be put in jail.

However, because the perpetrator is a police officer this apparently does not hold true.

The police officers involved and the way the matter has been handled so far have shown a disregard for the law and for common decency, which erodes the public’s confidence in the Police as a whole.

Please - I urge you to raise this matter in the House of Commons and put pressure on the Police to ensure that justice prevails.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

UPDATE - The Guardian have picked up my letter on their News Blog

UPDATE - Lynne Jones MP has replied to my letter (at 3pm on the day I sent it):

I share your concerns about events leading to the death of Ian Tomlinson.  I am also concerned about the issue of “kettling” and the general attitude of some police to demonstrators.  Peaceful demonstrators have the right not only to demonstrate but to be treated with respect. You are not the only constituent who has been in touch and I agree that such events do erode public confidence in the police. In the first instance, I will be passing on the communications I receive from constituents to the Met Police Commissioner as I am already in correspondence with him on the police attitude to people planning demonstrations.  I am sure that the response I will get will be that the matter is being investigated by the IPCC but at least it will be a way of demonstrating the strength of public feeling on this issue.

I will also look to see how the matter can be raised in parliament - it may well be that there will be a statement on our return after the recess.

Regards

LYNNE JONES MP

Posted in letter | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Help me choose my leadership research topic

26th
Feb. × ’09

I have two ideas that I’ve been working up for areas to research during my Clore fellowship.

I’d like your help helping me to decide what I should be looking at, so here are the two ideas with a 350 word explanation of each.

I will be producing a 20,000 word paper (or equivalent - blogs, wikis, video interviews count).

Idea 1: “Conversational Leadership”

Over the last decade the term ‘thought leadership’ has become commonly used to label a particular style of leadership that involves distilling influential ideas into easily understandable and sharable concepts and then disseminating them through a variety of means to bring about some kind of change in those outside of one’s immediate organisational leadership structure.

With the sudden growth of social media technologies over recent years, is there something new emerging from this style of leadership? A new style where individuals are applying social media technologies to reach and influence a large number of people, but engaging in two-way conversations with many people in a highly public way, and in so doing acting as ‘conversational leaders’?

This model of how one can potentially influence another’s thinking given appropriate tools and access has caused widespread debate. Is the term ‘thought leadership’ jargon or is it a useful term to use when discussing how highly influential individuals are able to instigate change outside of what would historically have been considered their control? Are there any fundamental differences that are emerging in leadership styles of those who use social media platforms to communicate? Do MPs on Twitter have a different way of leading than those who are not?

I intend to find out what the truth is about these ‘conversational leaders’, and try to get an understanding, first hand, of what it means to be one. What issues does this mode of leadership bring up? What tools and techniques play a part? What are the aims of the people following this method of leading others? Do they even perceive their activities as ‘leadership’? Is there a perception that this is not a leadership role in the classic sense? Are we seeing something new emerging in terms of how leaders are expected to behave? Is this purely a technological trend or is this pointing to something longer-term and a fundamental shift in how leaders will lead in the 21st century?

Idea 2: “Leading by Accelerating Serendipty”

We live in exponential times. The instant availability to large amounts of information on an individual level is now at arguably the highest level we have ever seen.

Breaking news has migrated to online social networks as the place to ‘hear it first’ to the point where social technologies like Twitter are now more swift at reporting world events than any other network.

But that availability of information leads to a number of problems. We suffer from increasing ‘choice paralysis’ and information overload. Finding valuable nuggets of information in this sea of data can be hard.

Conversely, it is increasingly difficult for leaders to be able to know how to structure their organisations to enable them to react quickly to changes in the marketplace.

It is common for leaders to look to research and development departments to investigate new technologies, and to marketing and PR departments to investigate how to use these new channels for communication in effective ways.

But with such rapid changes occuring as a background, how should leaders structure their organisations? How should staff be enabled to be ‘listeners’ and to engage in using social media tools to bring about measurable benefits? If it is unclear what benefits come about through using these tools, how do organisations justify their use? How should organisations be physically structured and laid out in terms of location, architecture and interior design? What factors enable rapid collaboration and innovation?

I propose that at the heart of many of these issues lies the concept of ‘accelerating serendipity’. The idea that it is possible to lead an organisation in such a way that whilst not being aware of the intended ‘destination’ for where that organisation might be headed, it is possible to put in place management structures, policies, physical layouts, working methods, business practices and communications strategies that enable for a higher incidence of the ‘happy accident’. These ‘happy accidents’ could be potential business opportunities emerging from enouraging more collaborations with partners, enabling staff to mingle and discuss ideas in open plan environments, or encouraging staff to use ‘open innovation’ models for research.

I intend to research this theme and to discover if what I understand as ‘accelerated serendipity’ is a real factor that leaders think about, or if some of their behavioural trends could be labelled and made more meaningful when brought under such an umbrella.

What do you think?

These are drafts - hence blogging it before approaching people about it, but both of these areas are close to my heart and I could see myself spending the next year researching them. But which one? Which is most realistic given my already insane workload? Which would be most useful to you? Let me know!

Posted in clore | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments

St.Boredom’s

21st
Feb. × ’09


St. Boredom’s from aeioux on Vimeo.

I had an unexpected trip to hospital this week which wasn’t much fun, but I’m fine and just have ‘take it easy’ as medicinal advice to take away.

Here’s a little film I made to pass the time.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Two Big City Plan Wordles

1st
Feb. × ’09

Ahead of the coming end of the Big City Plan consultation here are two Wordle illustrations of what’s being said:

1. The original document (top 10,000 words) [Wordle] [PDF]

Wordle

2. The comments so far on Big City Talk (top 10,000 words) [Wordle] [PDF]

Wordle

Both of these are best viewed either on their respective Wordle pages or PDFs (both linked above).

Interesting to see some of the differences between what people seem to want to discuss in their comments and the corresponding incidence of those words in the original document.

Eg. “Street, Quarter, Buildings, Development” vs “People, Think, Need, Cycle”.

Wordle images are under Creative Commons attribution licence (so please link back to them if you use these images).

Posted in Big City Plan | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

It’s a boy!

31st
Jan. × ’09

Yawn!

IMG_6958 - Version 2 1

…and a big and strong one at that!

Welcome to the family Oren.

Posted in Blog | 2 Comments