Blogs & articles

The tragic irony of Plan B

Blog

08 May 2012

Matthew Taylor

As the astute Will Davies describes here, the last few years have seen a paradox: even though the credit crunch was in many ways an indictment of free market economics - and the orthodox economists who propounded it - the period since has seen this perspective continue to define what is and is not possible in the face of the impact of the crunch. For example, Bank of England Chairman Mervyn King appeared both to admit in his BBC lecture last week that the Bank should have intervened when the markets were overheating, while generally resisting the idea that anything of significance (beyond quantitative easing) can be done now the markets are failing to bring about growth.

The Myth of Multi-tasking

Blog

04 May 2012

Jonathan Rowson

Many blogs are neophilic, about stuff just posted that has to be seen, but the web is also an archive, and sometimes you stumble upon something of value from yesteryear. So I  just wanted to share my rediscovery of the following thoughtful Atlantic article by Christine Rosen from the Jurassic period of 2008 called 'The Myth of Multi-tasking'.

Stricly pin dancing

Blog

03 May 2012

Matthew Taylor

Freud wrote about ‘the narcissism of small differences’, the idea roughly being that when other people remind us of ourselves, our identity is threatened and we react with aggression. It is a concept some have used to describe the simultaneous decline of class based political ideology and rise of attack based political tactics.

A Place in the Sun

Blog

03 May 2012

How do you take a social enterprise abroad? What challenges would you face? Would social enterprise even make sense where you were going? Don’t ask me. My minimal mastery of social enterprise basics permits all sorts of fantastic solutions: tell the embassy, alert the press, we’ll be fine.

Cluster's last stand?

Blog

01 May 2012

Matthew Taylor

We all agree but we may all be wrong. From David Cameron’s Big Society to social democratic ideals of social solidarity and an empowering state, and including many public service experts and voluntary sector thought leaders, there is a consensus around a big idea: in essence, blurring the boundary between state and civil society so that social outcomes are achieved through the combined efforts of publicly funded programmes, individuals and communities. Yet the evidence of this approach succeeding at scale is limited and many who are at the front line of public service delivery seem sceptical.

27,000 Fellows; 260+ Catalyst applications; 80+ networks: We’re stepping up support for more

Blog

01 May 2012

At the RSA, we’ve been working with Fellowship networks for some years. Our aim has been to provide opportunities for the most active and innovative Fellows to support each other and to help the RSA meet its goals.

A jobs opening in Number 10?

Blog

30 Apr 2012

Matthew Taylor

Like a Russian doll of misery the jobs crisis has layers on layers. We all know about the problems in Britain, with an estimated seven million people who would like full time employment either out of work or working part time. Then today there is a report from the ILO questioning the effectiveness of austerity strategies and predicting widespread social unrest, and showing the number of jobs across the global economy to be still fifty million below the pre credit crunch level. Then looking into the medium term Jim Clifton, head of Gallup, has shown that employment is the single factor most strongly correlated with well-being across the world but has estimated that of the three billion formal jobs for which there is demand the global economy is currently creating only 1.2 billion.

Is social capital good for us?

Blog

27 Apr 2012

Newham Council’s controversial efforts to move housing benefit recipients 160 miles to Stoke has caused a stir this week.

The limits of Scientism: John Gray on Jonathan Haidt

Blog

27 Apr 2012

Jonathan Rowson

I just read a fascinating review of Jonathan Haidt's acclaimed new book: The Righteous Mind, which he spoke about recently at the RSA.