Some brief Twitter conversations have prompted me to write up my thoughts on the Big Society schtick.

First, I have no problem with it being a Tory thing. Or a Tory-Lib thing. Honestly, I don’t care who came up with it, how it fits with the history or particular ideology of that party, or what they had for breakfast the day they came up with it. Political parties stopped conforming to neat stereotypes along time ago, so it seems odd to me to be allied to Party constructs that are variously confused, nuanced, out-dated and irrelevant.

Anyway, politics schmolotics. The second point I want to make about The Big Society is that I quite like it. Genuinely. It speaks to me. Again, not because of some abstract political liberal theory about how societies should organise themselves. But because it’s the language and vocabulary of the internet. And I like the internet. If you were playing buzzword bingo with Big Society and Web 2.0, you wouldn’t need different cards. De-centralising. People-Powered. Communities. User-Control. Facilitating. Enabling. Participation. Bottom-up.

FULL HOUSE!

I might be being hopelessly naive, but when I see press releases coming out of government using all the words and references I know have delivered amazing social projects powered by the internet, I can’t help but feel a tinge of excitement. This ‘internet’ way of thinking has transformed how we learn, share, campaign, organise, and relate – and to see it being adopted by politicians, just well, makes me feel good. It’s like seeing your favourite band on Top of the Pops in the 1980s [which is just an excuse to show this clip].

Thirdly, I like the Big Society chat because it simultaneously means everything, and it means nothing. Taking control of public services, sacking MPs, citizenship for young kids, supporting social enterprises, creating an institute for the overweight, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Some of the best and most successful companies often trade off these big, empty soundbites. Orange for years ran with, ‘The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange’, gibberish if you think about it. Advertising folklore tells us that when Tesco came out with ‘Every Little Helps’, they had nothing to back it up. What does, ‘Yes, We Can’ really mean in terms of a policy agenda, Obama?

The point with these ‘big ideas’ are that they are given meaning over time. Meaning doesn’t get vested in the words overnight. As events, price discounts, practices, policies, whatever, are implemented they reinforce the central idea and give it more depth.

Is the Big Society fully-formed? No, but nor should we expect it to be. It’s early days, it seems interesting enough, and the fact that it isn’t defined and there is still space to create it, actually makes it more interesting. And that’s the ultimate point.

It’s up to us – social entrepreneurs, communities, technologists, public servants, business – to make it mean something. As far as I’m concerned, politicians should just set the direction, do the big speeches, and then get out of the way as quickly as they can. I’m not looking for solutions from them. We tried that. It was a bit rubbish.

I’d go further even. If in 5 years we look back and Big Society is seen as a failure, I think we should be looking to ourselves first and foremost. How imaginative were our solutions? How good were we with executing the ideas? Did we manage to convince public sector to procure our solutions? Where we able to articulate our impact? Did we scale our amibition sufficiently?

Big Society isn’t about politicians. It’s about us. And the sooner we get on with it, the sooner we can start making it good.

Tags: big society, politics