Innovation Exchange

“The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world” wrote espionage novelist John LeCarre. Yet since the rise of the ‘knowledge economy’ that is where most leaders stay, locked away by organisational priorities and packed schedules. This can be an effective approach when we already know what needs to be done and just need to get on with it.

But for complex challenges like tacking exclusion for young people, we also need to invest in exploration and discovery, to tap into the emerging opportunities for innovation, and to develop ‘next practice’. What new thinking, model or approach - be it tacit, fragmented, unproven or distant today - will be core to public services tomorrow?

So we invited together a group of innovators - from the third sector and public sector – to be our ‘search party’ over two intense days (26-27 March). Their challenge was to identify some of the key opportunity spaces for the future of excluded young people. We designed an immersive field trip to a number of people, projects and places rich with raw insights – some familiar territory, others less so (more here).

To extract the most from these visits, the group was encouraged to learn and practice new skills of observation, much like an anthropologist might in the field, eg.:
- Experience ‘vu-deja’ (looking at things as though for the first time),
- Let your curiosity be in charge, using all your senses,
- Suspend judgement, for longer than what feels normal,
- Focus on ‘what’, not ‘why?’ (parking your hypothesis for now).

In addition, and unlike a conventional field trip (eg. in & out, see & leave), the group had structured time to share insights, add up pieces of the picture, and find connections between what different people were observing. On a number of occasions insights from the same visit were very different, leading to some of the most important conversations, and ultimately an expanded, shared sense of the possibilities.

We weren’t really sure what we’d find, but wanted to make sure we could share the experiment with the rest of you working in the area of excluded young people. So a camera was introduced as the ‘shortest member of the group’, and all of us tried to make sure it got to see and hear what the group did. First screened at the Festival of Ideas last week, you can now see the short film here.

Here are some of the themes and opportunity spaces that emerged:

Themes in the insights:
- Retreat - changing the environment can be inspiring
- Structure and boundaries are an important success factor (How do we get from ‘Start’ to ‘finish’?)
- Open invite - can’t focus solely on ‘excluded youth’
- Young people don’t call themselves ‘young people’ - there is a communication challenge
- Respectful culture must be established in which we don’t make promises that can’t be delivered
- Work with people’s aspirations, not their fears
- Young people want to go out and meet each other - they don’t want ’services’.
- Employing previous programme participants can help with credibility and relevancy
- Need to look at the young person as an individual, not a collection of problems that need solving.
- Best services are youth-led with adult coaching
- Excluded youth need a substitute family and community identity
- ‘No one’s going to do it for you’ approach can reduce dependency

Opportunity spaces:
- How do we change the way young people are perceived by adults?
- How to focus on talents and passions rather than deficit?
- How to create freedom for young people to explore, self organise, and create?
- How to align funding with success?
- How to enable and empower young people to be at the heart of the solutions?

My hope is that this initial intervention will help set the tone for the kinds of creative collaborations the Innovation Exchange can support, not just for scoping opportunities on behalf of the sector, but for generating ideas and implementing them. Would love to hear what you make of it.

This intervention was designed and delivered by The Hub. For more information please get in touch on menka.parekh@the-hub.net or 0207 841 8900.