Reply To: Workshop follow up

[Scott Willis]

Thanks Sally,

A pity we couldn’t be there but simply an issue of our staff numbers and our workload (oh, and the informal limit on carbon intensive travel we have). I’m looking forward to your summary of discussion points and key actions.

At a social event I was at last night I had a long discussion with a friend who’s an IT specialist and who’s passion is trying to understand how humans effectively use IT, with all the bits of how to shape online resources to make things work even better. He was very interested in what I could tell him about this online hub (he was also talking about Reddit and Facebook and Google – and how they work, what hooks they have, etc.). He asked “are you anonymous or do you know each other” and when I told him that the forum has our identities clearly upfront, he was excited. Because effectively, at present participants form a small group – but there’s some very good information (I know that much of this was invested in the early days by a smaller group) and some very good discussion (which has grown as access has grown and as topics have grown). What we haven’t got to yet is working on collective actions (‘outputs’). However the forum is helping develop shared objectives and at least, greater knowledge of each other, who’s there, whats going on… and offers the potential of greater collaboration.

Today, 3 cents gets added onto the price of fuel. Will people drive less? Research suggests not, they will likely cut back on other things like heating costs, food, or limit disposable expenditure more. The Fuel Poverty campaign is something we’ve been talking out in our neck of the woods – the quality of Dunedin’s housing is very poor and it is cold and often damp, people are either ‘hardy’ or simply perversely proud/resigned to living in fuel poverty. There are a few more months to boost this campaign – selfishly we want the campaign to be strong so we can be more effective in our efforts to bring together stakeholders in Dunedin to work on a collective vision to establish warm cosy homes in Dunedin.

So, as I was not able to attend the workshop in person, I’m very keen to hear what others thought collaborative agreed outputs might look like. I’m very interested to hear more about the Fuel Poverty Campaign and how its working in different centres/regions – and thanks to Jo for all your great work on this!

Add New Note to this Reply