Could 'unsafe thinking' help us come up with better campaign approaches?

I’m reading a lot at the moment – so forgive me if the next few posts are based on thoughts solely derived from the last book I’ve read.
I’ve just finished Jonah Sachs ‘Unsafe Thinking’. If you recognise the name, Sachs is the author of Winning the Story Wars, which is a brilliant read on using the power of stories to engage people to take action.
But in his latest book, he explores how we can get out of the patterns of behaviour that find ourselves following a well-trodden path in our approach to solving creative campaign problems.
I’ve come away from reading it with 8 principles to push when trying to come up with next campaign approaches and tactics.
1 – Push imagination – ’never use the same tactic twice’ is the advice from Micah White, who wrote the Adbusters manifesto that helped to launch the Occupy Movement. He contends that novelty and unexpectedness keep the public and press interested in a campaign – imagine approaching a campaign planning session where you couldn’t reuse an approach that had worked for you in the past.
2 – Push your passion – research shows that the most effective thinking can come when you’re ‘in the flow’ – when you’re working on something that you’re truly passionate about. Work to solve problems that you really believe in.
3 – Push out of the ‘expert trap’ – If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve been coming up with you’ll be familiar with the idea of ‘paralysis of analysis’. When you’re so much of an expert you can’t see the solution. A little knowledge about something is vital, too much and you can get entrapped, unable to see signals and information that might be telling you something different. Experts don’t always know best!
4 – Push those on the edge of the room – Sometimes we can be too close to a situation to be able to assess the best options. We find ourselves frozen by the urgency of solving a problem. Those on the outside of a room – close enough to the details but with a different perspective can be helpful.
5 – Push intelligent disobedience – some of the best solutions come from those who have a hunch that is just outside the boundaries of what’s acceptable. How can you encourage others to explore these space – it’s a tightrope to walk but this discomfort can lead to reasonable risk-taking that can lead to new approaches or innovation.
6 – Push (friendly) conflict – employ a ‘red team’ who are specifically mandated to challenge a strategy to make it stronger. It’s worked as an approach in the armed forces for decades, where everyone knows the purpose of the team is to expose flaws so they can win.
7 – Push others forward – If you’re a leader and you start a meeting sharing your opinion, chances are it could be a quick meeting, as others will often decide to agree with you. Instead stand back and encourage others to share – ask them to discuss what the group doesn’t already know. It’ll bring new thinking into your planning.
8 – Push dialogue with those you disagree with – a harder approach when campaigning is so often about identifying how to, but dialogue with those who hold opposing views can help to build new understanding and challenge blind spots in our own thinking. So often our approaches are tied to our beliefs and values – some dialogue might help to shift that.
Some of these approaches feel easier to push into than others – I can see how it’s possible to push (friendly) conflict, how you can change your management approach to push others forward or pushing imagination. While others feel harder, like dialoguing with those you disagree, but as Sachs writes in the book – pushing into the discomfort is a key element of identifying the ‘unsafe’ approach is working.

Can we stop the inevitable? Some thoughts on the theory of change behind stopping Brexit

I’ve got a campaign frustration that I need to be honest about – what is the theory of change behind the ongoing ‘stop Brexit’ campaign.
Now put aside for the moment if going back on the original referendum is a good thing, both for the public faith in democracy and if it’s legally possible, but it is one campaign that seems to have an ability to wind me up, because I can’t see anyone outline a plausible theory of change, but yet millions of pounds are clearly being spent towards it.
As I’ve written before, I don’t think that we’re going to be able to reverse the outcome of the 2016 Referendum by –

  • Organising demonstrations in places that comfortably voted Remain – because it’s just making people who already voted Remain feel like they’re doing something, but that isn’t building power.
  • Complaining that the BBC isn’t covering the ‘remain’ campaign – because let’s be honest they cover almost zero demonstrations.
  • Moaning about the statistics the Leave campaign used – because as Nicky Hawkins points out that’s not a way to persuade people to change their minds.

So I’ve been looking at applying the 5 theories to inform policy change outlined in Pathways to Change as a working example of how Brexit could be stopped.
In doing so I’ve found it a useful way of turning what is a really brilliant, but fairly dense report into something that helps campaigners think about the different opportunities to deliver policy change.
1 – Large leaps – crisis or sudden unexpected events create the opportunity to create change. Those in power will see that ‘something has to be done’ to respond to an unexpected or unanticipated event. Too often campaigners aren’t well placed for these moments, for example, the 2008 Finacial Crisis which threw up the opportunity to push for legislation that might put more controls on the financial sector.
So for those hoping to halt Brexit what are the ‘large leap’ moments that might cause a fundamental rethink of if we should remain – have they created a ‘break glass if’ strategy ready to go if something happens? Opportunities to influence and mobilise when those moments happen they move quickly so they need to be thought about in advance.
2 – Policy Window – issues get attention when they become ‘problems’ for those in power, and they know that they have to do something to respond, for example, the impending end of the lifespan of existing nuclear power stations means that the government needs to make some decisions about the future of the UK energy mix, thus providing an ‘policy window’ for campaigners for renewable energy – however for a policy proposal to be successful it needs to be seen a technically feasible and consistent with policy maker and public values.
For those looking to stop Brexit it’s hard to apply this to stop the campaign ahead of March next year.
3 – Coalition – Policy change happens through coordinated activities amongst individuals and organisations outside of government with the same core policy beliefs. If enough people can come together they can force change, however, the magic ‘n’ number of how many people that needs to be isn’t always clear.
Key to this is about recognising that the coalitions that are most likely to be successful are those that include broad and unusual suspects, so the ‘remain’ campaign is to focus on building a coalition that isn’t just made up of those that supported the original referendum. As academic Erica Chenoweth says ‘An increase in the number and diversity of participants may signal the movement’s potential to succeed. This is particularly true if people who are not ordinarily activists begin to participate — and if various classes, ethnicities, ages, genders, geographies and other social categories are represented’ which implies a big effort is needed to mobilise and bring new people into a movement – the new approach of calling for a People’s Vote could help to achieve this.
4 – Power Elites – the power to influence policy is concentrated in the hand of a few – some people have more power than others, so influencing efforts should be focused on the few, not the many.
This feels like the approach that those who are opposing Brexit are most comfortable using, almost all of the output I see from groups like Open Britain is focused on trying to influencing MPs and Ministers, it’s a plausible strategy, but a Power Elites approach requires a really sharp thinking about where power is, and who needs to be influenced.
5 – Regime – Governments must work collectively with public and private interests to achieve its aims and outcomes – these are known as ‘regimes’ – so in the UK we have a ‘regime’ around both political parties – and they coalesce around a shared broad agenda. So those seeking influence either need to become part of the existing regime or ‘overthrow’ the existing regime and replace it with another.
Another potential approach, but with both of the main political parties supporting Brexit it’s hard to see any ‘regime’ to attach to this approach – if one of the parties could be shifted then there could be a possibility of change happening in this way.
For those interested in the theory behind this post, I’ve put together this which is a short summary for campaigners of the approaches outlined in Pathways to Change. You can read the full report here.

We need to talk about Twitter – the shortfalls of protest in an age of social media

If I had a pound for every time someone had said to me “we just need to put something on Twitter” as a response to a campaign problem, I could probably retire.
I don’t believe that somehow armchair activism can win change along – I believe to do that we need to build power in person.
But at the same time, its hard to ignore the role that Twitter has played in helping movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter to emerge, and it’s certainly the case that social media has transformed the media landscape and how ‘news’ is shared.
I’m torn about the role of social media in winning real change, and that’s before we get to questions about the oversized power that Facebook, Twitter, etc has one shaping the information we consume – a theme explored in Jamie Bartlett’s excellent The People vs Tech.
So found that I really enjoyed Zeynep Tufekci ‘Twitter and Tear Gas – The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest’. In fact, I’d go as far as saying its one of the books I’ve enjoyed reading the most in the last few months.
The book is a fascinating, authoritative and accessible academic read on how social media has changed the nature of protest, and the implications of that, both good and bad.
Unlike so many books and articles on the role of social media in campaigning, it manages to avoid just trying to reinforce the ‘slacktivism’ argument or suggesting that keyboard warriors will. It’s a critical look at how social media is changing the nature of protest for the good, but also some of the unexpected consequences – this is a good TED talk of some of the key themes.
As part of it, Zeynep argues that we need to watch out for some pitfalls that can emerge from movements and campaigns that form online but then transition into popular protest;
1 – Agility – social media can be led to movements forming around a specific ask or tactic at real speed, but that can also be their downfall as they can produce ‘tactical freezes’ which make it hard for movements to easily adjust tactics or approaches in light of changing external circumstances.
2 – Resilience – many movements that have succeeded have needed to come together over extended periods of time to collectively negotiate approaches and work together, through that, they have built ‘network internalities’ the ties that help a movement to keep going when they’re not trending on Twitter.
3 – Longevity – as part of her approach Zeynap reflects on the lessons from the civil rights movement in the US – reminding us that the bus boycott in Montgomery started by Rosa Parks, lasted for almost a year, sustained by those movement organisations which we’re able to provide practical, legal, logistical and emotional support throughout the period. When a protest is happening, the role of these groups can be key to sustain it.
4 – Infrastructure – something built from the work of a group or movement coming together to deliver a shared goal or activity. The March on Washington required a team to work together to plan every aspect of the day, from lunch boxes to sound systems – I’d recommend The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P Jones for more of a look at the details that went into making the march happen.
It was, in part, that level of detail that ensured the day was known for MLKs ‘I Have a Dream’ speech rather than anything else. While social media can help to overcome some of those challenges through collaboration platforms, movements need to have organisers at the heart who are actively thinking about this, and are able to signal that to those in power that this can’t be a movement to ignore.
5 – Negotiation – while the lack of identifiable leaders can be a real strength, allowing a movement to stay on being about an idea, not a personality. When it comes to a need to negotiate a compromise with those in power this becomes harder, as it’s not possible to identify who the ‘leaders’ are. In some situations, negotiation isn’t an option, but in others, the energy of a protest disputes before any gains can be made due to the lack of its ability to collectively negotiate.
As campaigners, I found the themes really resonate at helping to explain both the tremendous opportunity that social media brings, but some of the shortcomings we need to be aware of.
It’s also reminder that change can’t be achieved by just trying capture the next ‘viral’ moment but instead requires investment in the slow and long work of building power, and a challenge to more formal/traditional actors in a movement to consider the role they can be playing in helping to build the infrastructure needed for movements to thrive.

Why the 'general public' isn't an audience for your campaign

I’m on a train heading back from Birmingham where I’ve been sitting in on some focus groups that we’ve been running.
It’s been literally the most interesting few hours of my week, and I’d recommend to any campaigner that they get themselves in to view a focus group (or do their own impromptu research in the street) on occasion because it’s brilliant.
But sitting in the groups also got me to think about how as campaigners we approach audiences, it’s a theme that I picked up when I shared at the NCVO Certificate in Campaigning just before Christmas, and I thought it useful to share a few different ways I’ve been thinking about audiences.
To start with, we need to stop thinking that the ‘general public’ as an audience. It’s something I hear campaigners talk about but its such a massive audience it’s – even at election time the parties don’t target the ‘general public’ because not everyone can vote, so they’re working with a narrower audience than the public.
Instead, we need to start to think about audience in the context of what our strategy tells us that we need to achieve, and focus on who we need to be engaging, mobilising or shifting the attitudes.
Thinking about it that way and you can start to cut your audiences in a range of different ways – here is a quick guide to get you started with some common approaches;
Geographical – based on the location of your audiences, it might be that you decide that specific parliamentary constituencies are going to be important for your campaign, so you want to focus on those who live in a number of key seats. Incidentally this recent NFP Synergy research of what influences MPs highlights again the importance of smart geographical targetting as a way of building relationships in Parliament
Political Influence – this can be as narrow as those that are likely to vote for a specific political party, but it can also be the groups of the population that parties want to appeal to as they seek to win votes and support. In recent years, that means considering focusing on certain demographic groups that the parties have competing to reach, like the JAMs (Just About Managing) or ‘squeezed middle’ from recent years, or Mondeo Man or Worcester Women
Attitudes – Depending on what you’re looking to achieve, you might want to focus on the attitudes that different audiences hold on a specific issue. For example, on overseas aid, you could categorise people as supportive, swings or sceptics. On this, the risk can be that it’s very easy to spend lots of energy on either energising those that are already supportive or getting worried about the sceptics, but the value is often in focusing on the swings.
Behavioural – if you’re campaign is about volume then focusing on behaviours can be  a good place to start, if you can find a way of energising existing activists then that can be an effective way of growing numbers, but again the pitfall here can be that you can end up risk preaching to an existing choir to the detriment of presenting wider support for your campaign.
Values – there has been lots written in recent years about starting with the values and beliefs that people hold. Chris Rose writes about the role of pioneers, prospectors and settlers in his work on campaigning audiences, while Common Cause has approached this through the lens of frames + values. This isn’t always the easiest approach to get your head around, but it can be valuable for thinking more deeply about your audience.
Economic – I’m not sure that campaigners spend enough time thinking about possible economic audiences, but there can be a real influence in mobilising the grey, purple or pink £s or focusing on those who hold shares or investment in a specific company, something that Share Action do brilliantly.
I’d love to know what you are thinking about when you approach thinking about audiences for your campaign.

What will campaigning be like in 2040?

In 2010, NCVO produced a useful resource asking what campaigning might look like in 2015, it’s worth a read as it accurately predicts some of the trends that we’re seeing today. I’m also a big fan of this resource from Mobilisation Lab looking at some of the trends that campaigners will face in 2018.
But what would happen if we looked way further ahead – to say 2040 – what might campaigning look like then?
I had the opportunity to spend some time with the School of International Futures (SoIF), using some of the tools and techniques they use to work with to ask what the future might be for campaigning.
One of the things I was most struck with from the session was the sense that you have to look at the margins for ideas of what might become the future, that the further reaches of literature, the arts and academia to get a glimpse at what might become a future reality.
SoIF took us through a range of exercises to get us thinking about what might be ahead in the future – here are 5 scenarios that I’ve sketched out from that conversation;

  1. Apptivism – we’ll see an end to campaigning informed by altruistic motives of standing up, and instead, campaign actions will be driven by more intrinsic motives – where we’ll get rewarded by companies or other groups for taking action. We already see the rise of the role of Uber, Airbnb and others who are turning their customers into activists – and with the vast amount of data they hold, presumably offering incentives, like free rides, for those who take action on their behalf. Beyond that, some have suggested that Blockchain could provide a tool to help to register participation in campaign events or activities, which could then be rewarded.
  2. Algorithmocracy – the power of computers will be able to crunch so much data that we’ll no longer need decisions to be made by a form of representative democracy, but instead from publically held data points – what you say on Facebook (or whatever has replaced Facebook) will define the decisions that are made. As author Eli Pariser writes in The Filter Bubble we could be looking at  “a world constructed from the familiar is a world in which there’s nothing to learn, since there is invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas”. As the stories around the Cambridge Analytica have shown in the last few weeks there is a huge amount of power in who holds data and information so perhaps our future campaign targets will be companies like Facebook rather than Governments.
  3. Return to MySpace – a reaction against the influence of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook means groups will head back to digital infrastructure that was previously considered obsolete is taken over again with individuals finding online tribes in different spaces – it’s a trend that’s already been observed by some as alt-right groups have taken over MySpace. but also in how more and more messenger apps like WhatsApp are being used to bring groups together.
  4. VR Organising – at the heart of organising approaches is about bringing people with a common interest together to build their power, but does the arrival of virtual reality mean that this will no longer have to happen in a physical location – instead you’ll be able to do it from the comfort of your front room but feel like you’re in the same room as others who you’re going to take action with.
  5. Gathering together  – we’ll see a focus on in-person methods to bring people together, as people reject the role of technology and want deeper connection. Everyone has long suggested that death of offline approaches, but the success of big organising approaches in insurgent campaigns like Bernie Sanders suggest that people still have a thirst for coming together to secure change, and work by my friend Casper terKeile suggests that the thirst for a community to make meaning of the world is growing not decreasing.

But as I reflect more on these scenarios, I’m also struck that the fundamentals of campaigning probably won’t change – the role of campaigners will still be about building power and mobilising – so perhaps a more important conversation to have is what’s the future direction of power. Not just the visible power, but also who has invisible power and influence?

After #WinningBig – some thoughts on what next

Winning Big was the best conference I’ve been to in a long time – it brought together a really interesting and diverse mix of campaigners working across party politics, unions, NGOs and pressure groups to ask what we could learn from the big organising approach that has been successful in recent years.
Huge kudos to the organisers Eva, Tom and Anna for bringing such an excellent day together, and the team who facilitated the sessions.
If you couldn’t make it along, I know that the team behind the day are looking to make some of the sessions available as recordings (follow them on Twitter to find out more), do look at the #WinningBig hashtag (and look beyond the Trump tweets!), and I shared a few of my key learnings from the opening session here, and fellow blogger Alice Fuller shared some thoughts here.
Walking away at the end of the day I had a whole range of thoughts and questions – lots of conversations started to follow up, but I also wanted to share five thoughts about what next.
1 – Get better a sharing across our silos – I’ve written before that there are too many silos between NGO and political party campaigners, and that’s to the detriment of both communities. So it was refreshing to be in a room full of presentations and ideas from across.
I was struck that many of those who are leading these amazing, innovative and disruptive campaign are doing it in there spare time alongside other roles often inside charities – they have feet in both camps. It struck me that as you go up in an organisation keeping a foot in both camps becomes harder – perhaps there are good reasons for this, especially when charities are under pressure not to be partisan.
But how do we as senior leaders keep ourselves closer to the edge, so we can support and learn from the innovative approaches, and create the space to champion the lessons into our work?
2 – We need to build more of an evidence base of what works (and doesn’t work) – I’ve walked away with pages of ideas of what works, and doesn’t work, but how can we create more spaces to share across campaigns in a way that gives those involved confidence that it’s being shared with those who share similar aims.
I mentioned in one session the Analyst Institute in the US, which aims to be a clearinghouse for research and best practice in political campaigns. I wonder if we need to have a conversation about creating something similar here in the UK?
We can’t just replicate it as we don’t have the same number of academics working on this or the same number of political consultants, but building a culture where we can rigorously test and share in confidence could be really useful. Some of that happens within political parties, but relatively little, and yesterday convinced me that it needs to happen outside party political silos.
3 – Celebrate what we’re starting – Working for a big NGO sometimes walking away from a conference on big organising can be a little depressing – you leave full of great ideas but knowing you have to wrestle with the challenges of embedding them into an organisation that by necessity has structure and process, as I’ve written before it’s not easy.
But yesterday made me think differently – so many of the projects and approaches that were shared had started with the principle of ‘what if’ accepting that failure was OK. So I’m going to go back into work tomorrow looking to celebrate the little things that we’re already looking to do, and look for the next steps that we can take to build this into our approach. And I’d love to find a space to have conversations to celebrate + share the little steps as well as the big leaps.
4 – Let’s not forget the fundamentals – There is a risk that the story of what works is written whoever wins – so after 2015 General Election the story became about how the Conservatives were using Facebook so successfully, and thus that was what we all need to do. So why we should excitedly embrace the principles of big organising – in doing so we need to be careful we don’t overlook the fundamentals that are still required.
The approaches that helped to mobilise people to get out doorknocking in marginal seats in the General Election still required people to organise effective and well-run canvassing sessions. Big organising campaigns are still going to need narratives and messages that inspire and engage large enough numbers of people to engage.
5 – Trust – time and time again in the presentations I heard the word ‘trust’ come up. That all the evidence suggests that when you invite people to take on roles in a big organising approach and trust them with the responsibility they respond to it positively. So a personal challenge I’m taking from the day is how I can do more to give more responsibility away.
I’m looking forward to the conversation continuing.

Re-energise your campaign – lesson from #BondConf session

I was really fortunate today to host a panel at the Bond Conference on how to ‘re-energise your campaign’. It was a great hour-long discussion between four inspiring campaigners, who are all leading really important campaigns with some new and different approaches.
It was one of those hours where I was trying to keep time, capture learnings and facilitate a discussion – needless to say I failed to time keep well, but a few lessons I took from the conversation;

  1. Build a simple structure that works for volunteerRobyn, one of the co-directors of IC Change, which has achieved remarkable success, reminded us that we need to build structures for our campaigns that work for volunteers and not the other way around. IC Change was a built on a range of volunteer roles, some long-term, some surge roles to help at busy times, and others to utilise specialist skills or knowledge.
  2. Be intentional about building relationships – at the heart of IC Change is a core team of volunteers who are working together. They’re committed to spending time building real relationships with each other. In our campaigns we need to put in the time to help people get to know each other – echoes here of the work of Hahrie Han in building social ties over meals and other social activities.
  3. Just do somethingTrica from Sum of Us shared how they often launch a campaign without having a fully agreed strategy, but they want to get a sense of how the corporate will react so put out petitions – sometimes with remarkable success rather than spend months developing the strategy. It was a theme that Robyn also picked up on that IC Change has because it volunteer-run looked to launch minimum viable proposition campaigns. There was something refreshing and exciting about just doing it!
  4. Find the pressure point – Sum of Us is about looking to find the most appropriate pressure point of their target, whats going to get them to move and respond to you. Then they design out the approach to take informed by that. Find the tactic that works to move your target. Keep experimenting if you’re original approach doesn’t work. Loads more about the approach of Sum of Us here.
  5. Build diverse and resilient coalitions – a theme across all the presentations was the importance of always looking to work with others, and while that can come with challenges working together helps campaigns to draw on each other’s strengths. For example, Rebecca from Ben + Jerry’s talked about how working with IRC meant they had access to policy knowledge and expertise. It’s about knowing what you know and what you don’t know.
  6. Be flexibleLarissa from Youth for Change reflected on how her campaigning had worked because they’d be flexible at adapting to where they were being successful, and look to go where people are to have the conversations. That could be a Whats App group, a Slack channel or something. Being too prescriptive can easily take valuable energy away.
  7. Get out and about – So Ben + Jerry’s have an advantage here as they have an Ice Cream Van, but Rebecca shared how important getting out and about to go to where people gather to have conversations about our issues. The Homecoming Tour, for example, was about going to communities and having conversations about welcoming refugees, and it was a great chance to have deeper conversations. Going offline helped to ground the campaign in realities that couldn’t be understood in a London planning meeting.
  8. Live your values – If as, Sum of Us is, you are asking your targets to live up to higher practices and values, you need to live those out. We had an important discussion about how we make sure that more diverse voices are heard in our campaigning. If our values don’t align with the work we’re doing we’re always going to be drawing energy away from our mission.
  9. Eat together – Perhaps an unintended theme throughout the presentations was the role of food at the heart of campaigning, from campaign planning over a cup of tea, to bring snacks to a meeting, to ice cream, everyone seemed to agree on the importance of food!
  10. Don’t forget the ‘why’ – a powerful reminder from Larissa that we all come into the work of campaigning because we want to change things, and if we’re feeling like our campaigns are lacking the energy they need, sometimes we need to go back to the ‘why’ we do this work and rediscover the passion that brought us to it.

If you joined the session at #BondConf I’d love to know what you’re reflections from the conversation was. 

 

Where could good campaign ideas come from?

Steven Johnson asks a simple question – where do good ideas come from? Looking across the history of innovation and the development of some of the most important breakthroughs in history, his book by the same name explores what are the lessons that we can learn from them, and apply in our own work.
The themes of the book really resonated with me. As a campaigner, I’m constantly on the lookout for the latest idea and approach that will help my campaign to gain the traction needed to secure change.
A campaigners work is often about doing the most with the scarce resources that exist so any edge we can get needs to be explored.
So what are simple steps that we can take as campaigners to come up with better ideas?
1 – Go for a walk – Getting away from our desks is one of the simplest actions you can take. It draws you away from the every day tasks that you get focused on when sitting at your desk. It gives your mind space to make connections between ideas you’d previously had. Try it. I know that I often find some of the best campaign ideas I have come to me on my cycle ride to and from work – which then presents the challenge of how to remember them before I get into the office.
2 – Read a newspaper – in the days of social media we get specific and curated information in front of us, but we’re losing out by not reading a newspaper where you browse across articles on a range of subjects, some of which might peak our curiosity, even those not linked to a topic we might naturally be interested in. Johnson is also a big advocate of reading more in general, he points to the examples of innovators like Bill Gates who take a whole week out a year to read – now most of us can’t devote that much time to reading, but we can all increase the breadth of the content we’re reading.
3 – Chronicle everything – During the Enlightenment, keeping a ‘Commonplace Book’ was well common place! These book are collections for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across, and help you to review them to make connections or new ideas. Johnson encourages us to create our own 21st century version of these books, a collection of quotes, ideas, thoughts but through a digital medium. More on how to create them here.
4 – Connect with others in coffee shops – Johnson is an advocate of the inhabiting spaces where you’ll find ‘liquid networks’ – groups of people working on different challenges and topics. In those space he argues that ‘different people with different perspectives coming together’. The 21st coffee house might be very different from those from a few hundred years ago, but the principle of proactively taking time to meet with, learn from and debate with those working on very different challenges from yours seems to me to be a good one. One practical way I’ve thought about doing this is looking to go along to talks and conferences on topics that aren’t immediately related to what I’m working on.
5 – Make a mistake – that might sound counter intuitive but Johnson argues that ‘being right keeps you in your place, being wrong forces you to explore’. Some of the most important innovations come about because of mistakes. For me this is about how we continue to embrace a culture that allows us to interrogate the mistakes we make, rather than looking to hide them or not make them for fear that in some way we’ll be penalised. It’s a theme I’ve explored more here.
6 – Take up a hobby – Individuals like Benjamin Franklin, the American inventor, or John Snow who is seen as the father of modern epidemiology, because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in London, have a number of things in common, including the fact that they both had lots of hobbies. In an era when we’re told to focus our efforts on one thing, Johnson argues that having hobbies can be an invaluable way in helping our minds to make new connections, and to bring the approach we might take from on hobby into thinking about another area of our work.
7 – Have lunch together with colleagues – Psychologist, Kevin Dunbar set up cameras in a biology lab and look to study where most of the research breakthroughs came from. Now you might expect it’d be at the scientist’s desk, but it turned out to be a conference table in the middle of the room during breaks. Dunbar suggests that this was because it was the space where researchers could challenge assumptions or blend together ideas or hunches they were having. So while we might think we’re doing our best work at our desks, sometimes the questions that we need to be asking across the table from colleagues during a coffee break or lunch.
If you want to learn more about Johnson book I’d recommend this and this. He’s also done an excellent TED Talk on the themes in his book.

The legacy of Gene Sharp – some tools for campaigners

It was announced last week that Gene Sharp has passed away. If you’ve never come across the work of Sharp you should. He was one of the most important writers, thinkers and strategist on nonviolent resistance. Tim Gee has written this really nice reflection on his work and legacy.
The short pamphlet that he is most well known for is ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’ which was translated into over 40 language, and part of his many writing that influenced numerous movements around the world, including those like CANVAS in Serbia who overthrew Slobodan Milošević, many of those involved in the Arab Spring movements and many many more.
But there is a richness in his work that’s applicable for any campaigner, so I wanted to share some of three tools that Sharp developed or inspired that I’ve found especially useful to consider in campaign strategy.
1. Pillars of Support – Traditional power is thought of as a pyramid, where power flows from the top downward, but Sharp suggested that as activists we should turn the pyramid upside down, and see that power is ultimately dependent on the cooperation and obedience of large numbers of people acting through the institutions that constitute the state. These are its pillars of support.

Image from https://trainings.350.org/resource/understanding-people-power/

Those pillars can include institutions like the military and judiciary, but also media, education system and religious institutions which can support the system through their influence over culture and popular opinion. Sharp suggested that activists should focus on a target’s pillars of support, and then set about working to win over, or at least neutralize, those pillars of support so that the foundation that sustains the target begins to crumble
This is a brilliant case study of how the model can be applied to the movement for equal marriage. See more on this approach here and here. Too often I think campaigners focus on changing the position of the government, but Pillars of Support reminds me that sometimes looking beyond that can lead to impact.
2. 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action – The most comprehensive list I’ve ever come across of the “entire arsenal of nonviolent weapons” at the disposal of change makers.
Sharp listed almost 200 different approaches and classified into three broad categories: nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention. If you’re ever looking for campaign tactic inspiration this is a great place to start.
3. Spectrum of Allies – In campaign strategy we can too easily focus on those who are already supportive or those who are opponents, and so our campaigns are planned in a very binary manner. The Spectrum of Allies recognises that often many groups are in the middle, or those whose support or opposition is softer than it might appear.
Image from https://trainings.350.org/resource/spectrum-of-allies/

The goal of the spectrum of allies is to identify different people—or specific groups of people—in each category, then design actions and tactics to move them one wedge to the left. Once you’ve identified where different groups sit then you can start to think about how you can engage them in your campaign. See more on this approach here and here.

A (comprehensive) list of training for UK based campaigners

There are lots of ways to learn how to be a great campaigner – but some people find that going along to a formal training or conference as a useful way to pick up new skills, dive into understanding strategy or make more connections.
I was asked by some colleagues at work to put together a list of training opportunities for those working in campaigning here in the UK – and came up with the list below. The comments are based on my experience attending or what others who’ve gone along have told me.

It’s as comprehensive as I can make it, but I’m sure it has got gaps in it, so please do use the comments below to suggest other training, or update on the information I’ve provided. I’ll try to keep updated.
If you’re not someone who enjoys training I’ve made some suggestions here of what else you can do, and a list of some great campaign reads here.
For full disclosure, I helped to found Campaign Bootcamp (and still serve on the board), worked at Bond when they designed the latest training content and have spoken on the NCVO Certificate in Campaigning.