June results: Is it a beautiful game?

The debate was certainly split into two teams - those who felt soccer was a corrupt, money obsessed, scandal ridden waste of time and those who had experience of community soccer giving benefits and opportunities to everyone, no matter their background.


Half the group said they hated soccer or found it boring and a further 17% were neutral. Only a third enjoyed it.


The highest level of agreement was about how to make soccer more useful in society with the top statement (getting 100% support)

• have a % that professional teams have to donate to community sport charities

The most significant problem according to the Thinking Tank is

• the enormous amount of money involved: there is room for bribing, for buying and selling players at astronomical figures

And the greatest benefit:

• It can teach young people about teamwork, about awareness, about winning and losing

May results: and all that jazz

In this month’s debate we considered the role and value of music at a personal, community and global level. We had higher than usual convergence on this topic with lots of statements achieving 80-100% support. Some of these are included below.

The strongest level of agreement was at a personal level:
"music helps me to warm up moments of joy, allows me to dance... and once in a while to start dreaming, thinking..."


We also shared views on the impact music can have on a group
As a mood shaper...

My feeling is that it can create a collective sense, a collective feeling, a sense of connection with others, & a range of emotions
... at a subtle level
it works on a more subconscious level than speech - on a more emotive level
for general and specific good
Many studies have been done on using music to help autistic patients and also those with Alzheimers
We've become so 'addicted' to information (esp written) that maybe we've forgotten the power of music to connect?


Feel the power
The discussion served as a useful reminder to us all about how we can incorporate music into our lives
This debate made me thing of the power of music and that I should use it more often
I have been inspired to seek out music I used to love not just rely on the radio


We concurred on the need for music to be used more widely, especially live music for its powerful potential to affect the people who hear it
Many musicians are taking their music to places that normally don't see live musicians
some songs lyrics do influence the world.
Reminding us of connection, diversity, leraning more about other cultures through music, maybe its a more universal communications process than language
In multicultural communities, sharing traditional music and learning from each other could be a great way to develop appreciation / understanding of other ways of life

April 2010: voting with hand on heart? Values in politics

As election fever sweeps the UK, we considered the role of VALUES for politicians. Do they have any? What should they be? Are they more important than the leaders' wives' shoes? 


Top 3 most strongly supported statements
Need: to acknowledge that people are human and follow their self-interest, so mechanisms need to be put into place to hold politicians accountable.
Need: start recruiting the right people into politics, looking ,ore into schools etc and changing it at the grass roots
Need: consistency - politicians standing up for what they say and behaving accordingly


The value of values
There was widespread consensus that values are critically important as a guiding light. 90% voted them as having considerable influence in their voting decisions.
Values drive behaviour and give a good indication of longer term actions vs short term ones
let's say the vast majority of politicians believe in social progress...what is the problem why do they cave in on their values and why do they lose their moral compass?


Top values we want from our political parties
100% of the group voted in favour of integrity, connectedness, transparency, wisdom and vision
Runners up (>70% support) were courage, responsibility, reform, listening, decisiveness, innovation, ambition and charisma.
In our poll when participants were forced to choose only one "most important" value, connectedness and courage took over 60% of the votes between them. 


Making it happen
There was a shared concern about menu driven political campaigns: There is a risk that polls drive values and every party just reiterates the right buzz words without really espousing them as VALUES


We considered how to impact on politics - can we encourage out politicians to live by these values?
We can make it clear that we need them to be like this
We need to take more responsibility for the country we want to live in. we need to care about each other and to help each other - we need to lead locally in order to get leaders nationally
We could each write to our politicians saying we had a debate and this was the conclusion and can they demonstrate how they stack up against this criteria to earn our vote.


For the full list of synthetrons email us


Next debate "And all that jazz" 4pm (UK time) May 20th. Has music ever stirred your soul or made your heart beat faster? Does it encourage creativity in the workplace or is it just a distraction? Are we making full use of music beyond the obvious domain of the performance space or i-pod? What can we all learn from musicians to be better citizens / entrepreneurs / teams / ... ?

Democracy - Down and Dirty. Results

Results from our debate on Thursday 18th Mar.

We debated the issue of democracy and how to bring it closer to the people. The most strongly supported statements are shown below (all bullets are verbatim statements which achieved at least 70% support from the group)

IMPROVING DEMOCRACY

• it would be an improvement if rulers stay in touch with citizens at all times
• [politicians need] direct connection with citizens and their wishes
• There should be large-scale online discussions on every important topic. Politicians and experts would have to discuss the results in open debates.
• the principle is worth preserving, but how it works in practice should be improved
• Give citizen points for engagement. Encourage participation at all levels

VALUE OF DEMOCRACY

• freedom to choose our rulers
• it means to me to be able to influence how the country is run
• democracy guarantees human rights in a way that other political systems do not

APPETITE FOR INTERACTIVE DEMOCRACY 
On average the group were prepared to vote monthly on issues. Here are some of their reasons

• depends an careful selection of issues only important ones
• I'd be much more interested in voting on issues than for political parties, none of whom wholly represent my views
• more direct influence in decision and policy making

This word picture shows the recurring words - the size is an indication of how much they were mentioned / supported.

Vote with your feet (and your fingers) make a valid contribution by joining our next live social brainstorm on Thurs 15th April. More details comong soon.

RESULTS: Social Trust

Our debate was triggered by David Halpern's talk given at the RSA in February 2010 drawing from his recent book "The Hidden Wealth of Nations". We considered social capital / social trust - it's role in our world and ways we might enhance it.
It was interesting to note that
1. This is not an easy or familiar topic for discussion
2. The debate became more animated and drew more consensus when discussing specific actions than theories.
3. Statements in italics are extracted from David's book and were used to stimulate the debate - they still received (or not) support levels)
The debate covered 3 main questions and these are the more supported statements that were made (in order, strongest first under each question):
1. Our own levels of social trust
I haven’t encountered the concept of “social trust” before – can we have a definition please?
The economic value of all the time we spend supporting our friends and family is worth more than GDP
I think social trust is one of the things that helps build social capital
2. The benefits of social trust
Feeling good IS a benefit
Being 'looked after' when things happen - losing a key, having a flat tyre, people giving back loans
3. Increasing social trust
I give a certain number of hours of citizen service... 
I think that internet discussion groups, perhaps composed of people living in local communities, can help build community, and building community means increasing trust.
Reciprocity in social care... 
The state delivering plants and tools to groups of citizens to maintain their public spaces
Local referenda triggered by deliberative forums of small random samples of citizens


For a sense of what else came up see our wordcloud

Trust you! (or do we??)

We trust people, not institutions and we prefer gangs to bankers.

In November’s Thinking Tank we tackled the topical issue of trust – how it gets built and what breaks it.  Compared to other debates there was more disagreement – but that tended to be with statements recommending a deeply sceptical approach to life.

Personal vs institutional

Most of the change has been in the way we relate to institutions with unanimous support for the comment:

· I think before it was blind trust - now our eyes are open we realise it is foolhardy to trust most institutions.

 In the poll questions, we saw that about 70% of us are less trusting of institutions than we were ten years ago - compared to only 30% who trust individual people less than before. And out of the institutions we considered (banks, corporates, politicians, gangs) the banks were seen as the least trustworthy:

· They can change strategy without reference to anyone and are not democratic

A positive choice

To force the issue, we considered which we choose if we had to: trust everyone or trust no-one. By far the majority view is that it is better to operate from a trust default than a mistrust one.

· Everyone: we need to take some personal risks if we are to grow, it might be cosy in the comfort zone but its pretty pointless

· Everyone otherwise life would be unbearable

· Everyone: I find when you give trust, you very often get it back

Breaking promises…

Trust is surprisingly easy to break – 80% of us only allow need to be let down once or twice to lose faith, though it depends a bit on the context

· if someone is holding the rope when you're rock climbing, once is enough. But generally I think people make mistakes and some tolerance is ok too

And dishonesty seems to be the main cause:

· Double speak - I'd rather hear the tough stuff straight than be belittled with some cover story

· not being open

Though the media also get some blame for spreading fear:

· People who read the Daily Mail (or similar fear filled newspaper in another country) are constantly reminded of how dangerous everybody is OUT THERE

… and building bridges

The issue of how to know when to trust someone had the highest level of consensus in the debate, part of the human condition, and very similar to the ways we would have trusted people in the past.

· That they do what they say - or explain honestly why they didn't (not stupid excuses)

· that they can look me in the eye when they explain what is going to happen - even if it's bad news

And there were some ideas about building trust

· I wish we had a system on everybody's forehead that gave us that same feedback info like e-bay!

· [tomorrow I will] notice when I'm being less than completely honest / open and consider the impact on the other person

Young people - trick or treat?

A fascinating debate that was surprisingly positive about young people. Comments were made around their different world and different outlook—but in terms of what older generations could learn and the need for support and understanding as they grow up in a complex 21st century world.

· there will always be change and youth will always destroy the sacred cows of earlier generations - as they always have

· They are probably more creative than ever, and their creativity takes a lot of new and unexpected forms. This can cause problems for older generations and be perceived as negative - so what we need to do is to enable this energy to be channelled in positive ways

· Stop talking about young people as "problems" and talk instead about the opportunities

· I think we need to be more proud of young people and challenge the imbalance of negative media about them

Education provides some of the answers

· advice: make schools more fun to go to

· advice: support and develop teachers

Introduce more active positive communication to keep the connection and increase mutual understanding

And fix some things

· Create much more opportunity to explore different kinds of creativity—based on their interests

· Have plenty of outdoor activities and open social spaces for young people aged 11-15. Better habits at this age will lead to better habits at 16+

· Develop wide social skills (communication, tolerance, friendship, caring, listening...) that is the glue for tomorrow

· Treat youth crime as just that—rather than let it leak into youth lifestyle—deal with the issues of crime and violence

· Show that lots of our young people are still lucky compared to many others. Let them feel responsible for their luck to have the opportunity and then support them in taking it

Role models and inter-generational relationships seen as crucial

· Offer positive role models

· Teach by example that people matter

· More contact and respectful relationship with adults outside the family

· More opportunities for young people to get away from their normal environment and mix with people from different cultures

· strong role modelling eg one excellent teacher/relation will influence them enormously

· So we need to have the courage to step up and BE that role model from time to time

· Advise, support and develop parents

• Download full list of statements