Don't forget the downturn - but for goodness sake be generous

After the draft manifesto points were collected in and presented at the Digital Inclusion Conference 2009 I managed to grab a quick chat with Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of The RSA and Chair of the conference to hear what he made of the draft manifesto.

You can watch the interview below (sorry about all the background noise).


Matthew Taylor on Vimeo. Matthew re-iterated a point he had made during the plenary session about the importance of making reference to the current economic situation in manifesto points. Building on existing action, rather than new investment in new initiatives was also a theme Matthew had drawn from participants in the plenary.

"It's a human characteristic that we want to create something new. So the danger, particularly in public services, is that you build new capacity rather than stopping and asking what exists already: how are people living their lives? what are the kinds of networks they've got? what are they interested in? How can we use the technology to help them do that, and expand what they were doing."

I was keen to find out more about how Matthew thought existing action could be extended and amplified - and I was surprised by the answer. Not money. Not new policy. Not frameworks or partnerships per se. But generosity. Without generosity from the organisations engaged in digital inclusion, generosity to realise we need to share both our problems and solutions, much that could happen just won't.

"If I had to choose one word - it would be Generosity. It's about having the generosity of spirit to recognise that however fantastic you think your idea is there are loads and loads of other people out there who have also got great ideas and who have been working really hard...Realise that you are surrounded by people who are trying to do good, but haven't quite managed to crack it yet. If you've got a great idea go out and find them and say 'How can my idea help you?' rather than thinking about 'How can I start from scratch?'. It's about basic human generosity."