The campaign has since grown with over 1,500 people signed up and partners right across the cultural and education sectors – from big name cultural institutions like the , the and to the many, many schools in support. As parents around the country prepare their kids for the new school year, and we all get that post-summer-back-to-school feeling, the issue of what and how we want our kids to be taught comes into sharp focus. by shows that (see her statement in support of the campaign ) while another from . Now is the time to be pushing the issue up the agenda ahead of the . There are many as to why culture in education is really important – attainment levels, training for creative industries jobs and to name just three – and they need to be made forcefully so that the good work happening in schools around the country can be maintained despite the cuts.

It’s not just government that needs to be convinced however, and its not only about money. Through the campaign we’re aiming to mobilise professionals in cultural institutions, teachers who and parents to articulate why children learning through culture is vital to education, and how new local networks can be formed to support practice.

Tomorrow we push forward with the campaigns’ social media strategy – a growing , the requisite and activity and a number of blogs that will mount in content and regularity as we move towards the CSR. Post the spending settlement, we’ll then bring cultural professionals, teachers and parents together in a week long of activities under the to a manifesto for the future of ensuring children and young people learn through their links with the visual and performing arts, film making, trips to museums, music and so on. This is not a middle class campaign, but absolutely about ensuring all children get access to these activities that enrich and inform us. The will unite people with an interest in protecting cultural learning in our schools and set up local networks which will continue well after the event, and we’re proud that our work on the campaign will lead to a longer lasting legacy than simply communications fizz. The website will evolve into a dynamic site containing research and evidence about why cultural learning works, submitted by practitioners, that will live on after the campaign.

This is one of our biggest communications campaigns to date and we’re very proud to be involved. For more info and to . And join us for the in November.

JT.

What is has delivered is a collection of connecting experiments that haven’t really worked yet because we’re not allowing the full extent of human creativity to be applied to it – for reasons of walled gardens, proprietary behaviour and an over-reliance on the idea that technology will somehow take over from the people that made it. “The intelligence of computers and the kind of robots people tell you will take over the world, is as exaggerated as much as the intelligence of those that made them is underestimated.” Computers will take over the world? Well not on the evidence we have so far where experiments like Facebook are a rather dull and unimaginative way of helping people relate, and also built on a business model of shifting sand.

Larnier is, however, not an internet naysayer. He made pains to point out he LOVES the internet. Rather his point is there’s so much more that this technology can do – if artists and engineers could work together unfettered to make the adventure of human life in its greatest forms much much more seductive. Relying on technology to do this (which is limited) rather than the human spirit (which is not), is crazy.

A must read for anyone who suspects that behaviour on the internet as it is right now, is sometimes actually quite dull and could be made so much more liberating through aesthetics and humanism than just better and better technology. or read more about , and .

First, – produced by and hosted by – a theatrical game where the audience are the play. Before you arrive, each participant has exchanges by e-mail with Henri, the town historian, who assigns you a character and a past. The ‘play’ is the acting out of those characters (each with a skeleton in the cupboard) as external events are controlled by an unseen town crier, daily post and the town clock which marks the passing of time.

The show got over the usual awkwardness in audience participation by the prep and elegance of Henri’s e-mails (and it was a self-selected audience of have-a-go people) and for the first half, the experience of being ‘in’ the play was stunning. As it progressed though, it became frustrating that any resolution was dependent on the ability of the other ‘actors’ to extend their characters. Not sure how you design this out and anyway, it became an allegory for life – the main point of the piece – that we live in a social system and the agency we have is in our (limited) ability to influence other people. On our night we had a weak Police Chief (slightly deaf and a bit behind with the plot!), and other characters ran wild as he struggled to maintain order. As external forces took over – pressure to comply with the political rule in the wider country, the demand to offer up a scapegoat from the town, and the eventual threat of the military – we were acting out a small town in pre-war Europe and had to make choices. Being ‘in’ the play as opposed to passively watching it unfold resonated far more when it came down to the ‘what would I have done’ question. Some more .

Next up, – a day-long exploration of “cross disciplinary frolicking” where people making games and interactions came to tell each other about their stuff. You can see a run down of presentations on the , but in short it was delightful to be in a room with loads of adults (okay, geeks) in touch with their playful side. It was striking how much of the discussion was about using play to connect with social issues – like , the story of being homeless in the Sims 3, Katy Lindeman from talking about projects like , the voicebot installed in the Houses of Parilaiment, and talking about the Scandanavian serious games scene. Outstanding favourite was and his project, using mechanical chickens to get people to move.

The following Sunday saw delivering the Sunday lecture. The School of Life are putting up provocative individuals to revive the Sunday sermon and provide moral guidance. Ruby talked about depression, self-delusion and the need for us all to manage our egos – and though it’s stuff that is becoming more known, her personal story and commitment to facing her own strife is refreshing.

We need more of this kind of courage – a la Stephen Fry and Alistair Campbell, and who all 3 of them speak out for. When there, you realise how perfect a time Sunday morning is for moral reflection, especially when followed by lunch and more relaxed conversation than you have time for in the week. It was great to see a communal discussion on mental health amongst the individualistic community of London town with playfulness and humour. Best moment? The “Hymns’ – the Righteous Brothers’ and Michael Jackson’s – “I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways.”

Then, off we went to produce a to co-design a new process for sustainable design. A big challenge in how you manage a large group of people towards a common goal, and reach agreement over core principles. It works only when human beings can put aside their own egos and surface collective wisdom. We’re still developing techniques to encourage people to work in this way – some working better than others – and learning that structure and rules are really key to open, collaborative working – even more so than for traditional events. There’s a lot that we can learn from the structure and mechanics of gaming, and playfulness and humour to come in from the side and wrestle people out of their egos.

See one of the films – or check out our vimeo archive.

We’re inspired by the ideas young people have about what they can do for themselves, as well as the excitement of what’s possible when the Olympics comes to town. We’re planning a 4 year project where through film, young people inspire each other to perform random acts of kindness and make Newham a place you really want to come to during the Olympics, to see what’s going on. We and they are inspired with things like .

When you go around the development site you can’t help but be amazed at the size and scale of it, and the enormous planning and logistical task. In the middle of the park is a bright green industrial plant – the soil washing area – where 1.4 million tonnes of the old soil will have been washed, detoxified, cleaned up and put back into the site. It seems like a metaphor for the wider redevelopment – like the soil, other parts of east London are being taken out, scrubbed up and sanitised.

Many people including and other , are concerned about what might be lost from the fabric of these communities. At the same time, it is exciting to imagine what the new development will bring. The media centre – as big as Canary Wharf laid on it’s side – is expected to provide workspace for over 20,000 once the Olympics is over, and the 500 acres of the site will the equivalent of a new Hyde park, on the doorstep of some of the poorest communities in the city to use and enjoy.

The young people we’ve been working with over the summer are some of those that stand to gain from the new opportunities the redevelopment promises, but they are cynical. They don’t believe the jobs will be for them, or that this will bring better housing choices, as they see other families they grew up with being shipped out to outer lying boroughs to make way for the build. In the films they’ve made their questions are all about how much access they will have to the riches this Olympics promises – the Olympics which was awarded on the legacy it will provide for young people.

One simple suggestion one of the films makes is for all the sports equipment to be distributed to local schools and youth clubs once the Games is over is as yet unanswered, as is the question of whether residents will get free tickets to come to the Games on their doorstep. With so many unanswered questions still, we’re tracking sites like , and will continue making films telling the story of how the development progresses, what the legacy actually is for these young people and whether rhetoric matches reality.

Questions like will the target 15% of jobs go to people in the 5 host boroughs and how much of the park will be free and open after the Games are key. Who will own and manage the land and assets and how will public versus commercial interests be balanced? The ODA claims to be meeting it’s targets and the site is truly impressive up close – but who really knows in the face of the massive PR machine that is the ODA? Are the nay-sayers who resist change right? Will we loose things that we will miss without achieving on the promises made to the communities of East London while the private developers, aided by huge government subsidy, reap the benefits? The build goes on.

This is the . Meanwhile, young people tell us they don’t feel close enough, or connected enough, to the big circus being built next door. “24” screens at the Rio cinema in Dalston Sunday 27th Sept – get in touch if you’d like to see what young people have to say.

• It wasn’t try-hard and had a homemade feel which got everyone in a Village Hall, chat-away-to-each other mood. Bring your own mug, bake a cake, bunting, pub lunch stampede, speakers written up on paper down the side walls.

• It was hard going, but in a good way. When we’re programming our events we spend a lot of time thinking about how much content people can take before they switch-off. Interesting packed it in with what felt like nearly 40 speakers,  and I’m pretty sure everyone was spilling over with new knowledge by the end of the day. But take it we did. Our brains were tired and happy.

• As the content’s about anything Interesting, there was no particular theme, and as the day went we found ourselves questioning our pre-conceived ideas on what we hold to be worthy of our attention. Throughout the day you could find yourself listening to a talk on why nuclear energy is good, followed by an interactive session on learning Morse Code and then a visualisation of the colour of Radio 4. Often, it was the stuff that you’d never normally bother finding out about that was the most compelling. Which just goes to show that it’s as much about the speaker and their angle than the subject. Who knew that Psychological Violence in British Girls’ Comics of the 1970′s and 80s would be one of our highlights of the day (thanks to )?

just realised we were sitting behind Batman.

This last point is particularly valuable to us at the moment. In Planning the design collaboration event, we’re looking at ways to break up the more intense work periods with some lighter show&tells that pop participants out of their mindset and give them a tangential view of the issues. We’re always interested in hearing from people who have a new and entertaining ways of illuminating a subject, so get in touch with any thoughts.

The mechanism for Good Pitch involves 2 pitchers (the Director and Producer of the film) facing a table of 12 potential partners wo each give feedback and say what they can offer. Very easy for a format like this to descend into self promotion or point scoring and/or for the feedback to take so long the main point of the film is forgotten and the audience asleep. But a combination of patient and incisive chairing, the right people in the room and fantastic preparation of the content saved this from happening. Participants were disciplined and the ‘dragons’ were moved towards commitment – would they put funding into development, would they help distribute to schools, would they pay for foreign language translation?

Good Pitch is doing an amazing thing – it’s opening out a process that’s usually held inside closed walls and not just creating partnerships between film-makers and NGOs/funders, but helping them each to work together. The production of the film (potential or real) is the catalyst to bring campaigns together – witness the refugee sector saying they’d like to “combine asks” across the sector on the basis of the film. Those of us who’ve worked in the charity sector know that unfortunately that doesn’t happen very often.

These partnerships are also generating new revenue models – are working on a model for revenue sharing on DVD sales marketed through charity membership bases. are offering a share of advertising revenue to film-makers who provide content for their online site.

This kind of collaborative, enterprising partnership working is where germination is at – and what we aim to achieve through many of our events – so it was a joy to watch and learn. Lots of talk though about how NGO/film-maker partnerships break down through the process of getting collective campaign films off the ground and the need for a rare breed of ‘partnership manager’ with knowledge of film production and NGO working to come in and hold the ring for the partnerships as a film develops. We know that feeling. Anyone out there?