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A news blog to collect ideas from around the world - of where small changes have been made to the public & third sector services that have resulted in big benefits. I am looking for ‘bite sized’ ideas that have helped your organisation deliver more to your local communities, or helped make work even more efficient, or just saved some money or staff/officer time. And the idea could be applied elsewhere reasonably easily. All creativity & innovation welcome! Thanks
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To add or share an idea...
Please email me: jon@jonharveyassociates.co.uk or add comments to the existing postings.
And every now and then I will add a posting specifically inviting ideas to be added as comments. Anyone can post on here - with or without attribution. Thanks.
Blog Archive
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2009
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April
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- Sharing of Office Space
- Under used community rooms - now used!
- Bookmark: Systems thinking!
- Remote access in Havering
- Creative thinking about income generation
- Information from Oxfordshire
- Managers thinking
- Herefordshire Council’s small creative ideas with ...
- The Idea Store Strategy
- Economies of scale gained by partnering with other...
- Mail & Courier improvements
- Online ‘customer satisfaction’ surveys
- Reducing Stationery Costs
- Transforming Peterborough
- 'Generic' headed note paper
- Add your ideas / thoughts / suggestions here!
- Some very useful links
- Top ten tips for getting external funding
- New printers for Harlow
- Improved prices achieved from IT and Telecoms proc...
- Electronic access to accounts by taxpayers should ...
- Provision of website payment facility for Penalty ...
- Print Room to take on more external printing
- Long term work placement saves extra staff member
- Change of Internet Service Provider and increase i...
- Going the extra mile to help homeless people
- Recycling boxes - with wheels!
- Kettering tackles rubbish on A14
- Poetry in motion
- Rationalising the subscriptions
- Staff Suggestion Scheme
- New meeting and venue policy
- New mobile phone policy
- Bottled water
- Suggestion regarding testing of Lifeline equipment
- Suggestion regarding Council Direct Debit changes
- Pending in the Vale of White Horse
- Infra Red Light Switches.
- Carbon Management Programme
- The ‘Can you look after a plant?’ Scheme
- Reviewing spends corporately rather than by servic...
- Kent Year of Innovation
- What I get excited about...
- Waste sacks
- Concessionary fare scheme #2
- Concessionary fare scheme
- Visitors signing-in book
- Plastic travel tokens - recycling
- Housing form improvement - shorter & quicker to co...
- Government leaflet - reduced pages
- Rationalising council publications
- Hot water in Camden
- Tackling fraud
- Joint tendering
- Camden and Islington Councils combine their vehicl...
- Same quantity of paper - but cheaper!
- Less paper - more 'lightbulbs'!
- Less paper - more light!
- Sustainability & efficiency in North Norfolk
- Add your ideas / thoughts / suggestions here!
- Reports that are actually books
- Sustainable Refreshment
- Multi-functional savings
- More improvements from Wellingborough
- Amenity Services
- Eco homes
- Revenue services: Improving postage efficiency
- Inter-generational benefits
- Pool car savings
- Preventing falls - with volunteers
- Combining services - safety & consultation
- WC's without the W
- Let a 1000 flowers bloom - some more!
- FoI - process improvement
- Bite sized training
- Tourist Information Centre staffing
- Mystery Shopping collaboration
- Aptitude tests done inhouse
- New microphones in committee rooms
- Purchase of hand dryers
- Closure of chemical store at Council Contract Serv...
- Internal Training Courses
- Allpay cards not automatically issued
- DR-IVE
- Collaboration on surveys
- Efficiency Review of Cemetery Services
- Efficiency Review of Democratic Services
- Leisure Services withdrawal of cheque payments
- Providing Choice in Adult Social Care
- VfM in Bexley
- Add your ideas here!
- Sustainability improvements
- Caravan park and more!
- Systems thinking & suggestions for improvement
- E-publishing
- Joint Road Safety Communications Group
- External Advertising on In-house Passenger Carryin...
- Some ideas from Leicestershire County Council
- Birmingham Establishments compete to be BEST BAR N...
- Reconfiguring Arts services in Birmingham
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April
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Blog owner
- Jon Harvey
- Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
- Local Town Councillor (and former Town Mayor 2017/2019) working with and for local people to make the town even healthier, safer and wealthier for everyone who lives, works, visits, studies and plays in Buckingham. Professionally, Jon is a leadership coach, change facilitator and organisational development practitioner with 30+ years experience across the public services and commercial world. And now a blogger and writer too (www.CrackingQuestions.com & https://themayorofbuckingham.blogspot.com/)
Why this blog...?
Readers may wonder why I created this blog. I hope I have made it clear what this blog is the description above and in the first post - but perhaps not the why...
I guess it is because I am generally fed up with the focus on big initiatives and massive reengineering projects and whole scale restructuring as being the answers to better results. Instead I take the view that within almost all organisations are people with ideas for improvement urgently wanting to be heard. But it seems that these organisations would rather hire expensive consultants / programme managers / high flying executives to come in and do improvement to the organisation. The implicit beliefs underlying this are that we need people from outside (or at the most senior echelon) to have all the big ideas.
However it seems to me that the most important ingredient in success for any organisation - large or small - is motivation. This is not just the motivation to turn up, or indeed the motivation to do good professional job. The kind of motivation I am talking about is the desire to think "how can we do this better?... how can we deliver even more to those we serve?... what do I and my colleagues have to do to achieve even more than yesterday?..." This kind of energy is rare in many organisations. Indeed, many of these organisations do not even know what they are missing.
If organisations focus on bringing in outside "experts" - I think this kind of ordinary but rare motivation is neutralised (or at the very least it is not nurtured). At the worst - people are turned off and will maybe even seek to sabotage the organisation or harm it in some way.
I know I am not alone in thinking this - but I and my fellow activists against the "bring in the expensive experts" approach to organisational development are sometimes marginalised. Perhaps this is because many senior people do not allow themselves to really believe in the boundless creative energy of more junior people - despite the oft favoured words of "our people are a greatest asset". Large consultancies, naturally, collude with this view and happily (and expensively) introduce cumbersome systems of performance management, target setting and human resource management strategies (etc.) which weigh down the organisations and squeeze out creativity.
I declare that I have a profoundly optimistic view of people. I believe most people, given the right conditions, default to being creative, clever, enthusiastic and committed. But given the wrong conditions, all of us can become cynical, de-motivated, dull and tedious.
And so this is why I wanted to create this blog. I wanted a blog that would celebrate the small ideas - the small ideas (that can easily become the big ideas with great results too) that come from the ordinary people in organisations - the people whose voices and ideas deserve and demand to be heard. I want this blog to be part of the effort to help make this happen - because I believe it is good for business, good for people and good for the world.
Crucialy, I am interested in what leaders in these organisations (where these ideas bubble forth like a mountain brook), are doing to create the right context. This for me is critical. Simply exhorting organisations to do more to unleash the small ideas with big results is not enough. I want to hear about and publish here what leaders are doing to make this happen. In this way I hope that other leaders will learn and add to their own practice.
My ultimate aim for this blog is that it will become a self regenerating hub, humming with the small and creative ideas from all over the world that are making the world a healthier, wealthier, happier and sustainable place for us and for future generations. Please contribute & please circulate. Thank you
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Intellectual Property
All original material on this blog is © Jon Harvey. I am very happy for you to use the material and/or pass it around as it is in the public domain. But please acknowledge the source. And of course much of the material on here comes from the various contributors and I would ask you to respect their intellectual property in a similar way. Thank you.
In essence, I sign up to the Creative Commons approach.
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