This week 4 nights of rioting and looting shocked the people of England. Lots of cities were affected, noticeably London, Birmingham and Manchester, my current home.
The rioting has died down for now and the clean ups have commenced . The public and media are now questioning what caused these riots and trying to identify what is so wrong with British culture that thousands of “youths” feel that they now own the streets and are above the law.
Opinions are ten a penny and even the rioting “youths” have wildly varying reasons for taking to the streets. It started off with protesting against the shooting and death of Mark Duggan, then the general corruption of the police was given as a reason, race tensions and immigrant laws were mentioned also. By the fourth day of riots many people on the streets simply couldn’t answer when asked what they were protesting about, it had quickly progressed to mindless violence and opportunity theft.
Thousands of people have been affected by the events of the last four days. Businesses ruined, homes destroyed and communities ripped apart by their own residents. The physical damage can be repaired in the short term but the underlying problems in our society will remain and can’t be ignored. This is where I feel OpenIDEO (or the concept of it) comes in.
OpenIDEO is an online community created by IDEO the international innovation company. The site is a place were creative thinkers can share ideas and use creativity and innovative thinking for social good.
Current social challengers and problems are posted onto the site for example “How can we raise kids awareness of the benefits of fresh food so they can make better choices?” then members of the OpenIDEO community can contribute in various ways during the three development phrases - inspiration, concepting and evaluation.
Members can discuss and rate ideas that are submitted and the best ones are developed further and hopefully made a reality in the real world.
It’s all a bit American and shiny for my liking but the underlying concept of using design, innovation and creative thinking to come up with new solutions to tackle real social issues has to be better than a load of politicians or stuffy council workers sitting round a table for hours relishing in piles of paperwork.
I also like the idea of sharing ideas and people from varying backgrounds and professions discussing solutions together to view issues from different view points.
It’s not easy changing the world but the current system is screwed. Innovative, creative thinking may provide some answers and a bit of hope for the future or British society.
Uh oh I smell a uni project…
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