MCIN ran a conference in Manchester on October 16th along with Manchester Metropolitan University and CN4M, a community empowerment network, on Social Capital and Community Cohesion. Professor Robert Putnam of Harvard University, who is a world leader in social capital and social networking, spoke on the role of social capital and its policy impact. Over 160 people attended from different sectors including the Third Sector, Higher Education and the Statutory sector. The conference highlighted good local practice in social networking, including case studies on ICT and the homeless. Ed Cox, a commissioner on the Government’s Commission for Cohesion and Integration spoke about broader government policy in this area. Other speakers included Councillor Maryam Khan, Manchester City Council’s executive member for race and equality and Patrick Hanfling who spoke on his work on sense of place. Brian Kelly explained the research taking place on social capital within Manchester. A detailed action plan on how to take this agenda forward was developed as a result of the conference and a group of people will be taking this forward. To see Robert Putnams presentation click here 

Thanks for the link to the paper on the Social Capital and ICT board . Its very interesting reading. You might be interested in a conference MCIN is running in Manchester on the 16th October along with Manchester Metropolitan University, and CN4M a community empowerment network on social capital and community cohesion, which Robert Puttnam who is a world leader in this area is speaking at. You can find the details on the mymanchester web site. We have about 160 people coming from different sectors and I will be speaking on ICT and Social Capital. We are planning to Web Cast it so if you want to see it please contact Sophie and she can link you up with the web cast. sophiefosker@googlemail.com <sophiefosker@googlemail.com> There will also be a blog after the event with the video and the final report on.

MCIN has been successful in its tender to develop SocialMedia and a community reporter’s programme in Charlestown and Lower Kersal. The tender was lead by MCIN but was in partnership with the University of Salford and Salford College. The activity will take place at the new Salford Innovation Forum and will involve the establishment of a Salford Media Centre in this building. Gary Copitch the Director of MCIN said, ” This is a fantastic project that will enable local residents to have there say using social media. The partnership with the University and the College allows us to provide key skills and training into this area and a community partnership with the BBC will further develop content and skills for this community.” The new Social Media Centre will also work with the Manchester Digital Development Agency to support content for One Manchester.

I think I should start to do this by each stream.

Web Connect

It was time to review Web Connect and refocus it. But we wanted to use an innovative approach to this. We decided to set up a sub group of the board to review the stream and develop an action plan. What we did not want to do was another “flip chart” session that came up with lots of great ideas but did not get into the substance. We wanted a group that would be critical, and challenging but not necessarily one where we have “experts” in the area of ICT and Social Media. We had found that previously these “experts” had come up with solutions on the way we should develop rather than helped us explore Web Connect possible development. In other words it was there business rather than ours.

After some thought we felt that we needed to run a serious of meetings rather than a one off event. We felt that the best way to do this would be through a breakfast club, short 2 hour meetings over a period of 6 months, which will allow us to reflect on what was, said previously and develop ideas. We also felt that an outside facilitator should facilitate these but someone who understood social enterprise rather than someone who new about new media. We found the Oldham collective who are specialists in the development of Social Enterprises and were up for trying a different approach so we went with them.

The next question was who to invite. We felt that what we lacked was enterprise experience and people who could think outside the box. So in the end we had 2 board member one of which is a specialist in developing social enterprise, a person who runs academic enterprise for Manchester Metropolitan University a person who develops enterprises and innovation and has extensive experience in the private sector running commercial business and a person from our marketing company. We felt that subject specialist would come on board at a later date. This group went right back to basics. We had discussion on social networks, social media etc. Which did not get us anywhere. We then explored what the core business was about and came to the conclusion that the concept of the “Reuters of the community ” was a good way of describing it. i.e. an organisation to develop and market community content. We decided it should be technological neutral so it could adapt and change. A number of proposals were developed on how this might work. Eventually we got an agreement on to what the core business was.

We then realised we need a more detailed business planning process. The problem was that all of the existing models for business planning did not meet our needs. We were interested in a partnership model with different organisations coming together to supply services. Similar to the way that Learn Net operates. As a result of a discussion with the University of Salford we came across a methodology used by the University called UPBEAT. UPBEAT is a methodology developed by Professor James Powell. It is the result of a pan-European study to explore how universities can maximise the impact of their work with business and the community. The methodology is now used widely within the University of Salford and its four core partners, Lancaster University, Leeds Metropolitan University, University of Teesside and University of Westminster, who have collaborated to create a database of case study evaluations. UPBEAT is an evaluation framework that takes a holistic view of a project or enterprise, combining soft facts and value added, with more traditional financial and output based measures. The framework centres around the UPBEAT matrix, constructed from four key human characteristics repeatedly identified during the evaluation of many successful university reach out projects; Business Acumen, Social Networking Intelligence, Individual Performance and Foresight Enabling Skill. The characteristics are plotted against six levels of engagement, from Recognition to Mastery up to Global Stewardship.The result is a clear profile of the enterprise’s development, its strengths and areas for improvement. Used throughout a project, UPBEAT provides a simple and intuitive tool for both formative and summative evaluation. Once an enterprise has established its objectives, the UPBEAT matrix can then be used as a business planning tool to ensure successful progress is made towards their achievement. With Level 1 Recognition being the starting point, and Level 4 Mastery being achievement of objectives, the levels in between offer a step by step path to ensure that the relevant development is undertaken for each characteristic and steady progress made. At a glance, the successes of an enterprise can be identified, along with the areas for improvement and the next steps to keep it moving forward.

After discussion with the university we thought this approach matched more what we were trying to achieve. We are now exploring this approach as a business planning tool and as a way for us to develop Web Connect. Meanwhile we are still applying for funding and putting in tenders to develop the business and we have a number of these out currently. However, the key element for us to ensure that we are not just developing projects but we are using the project monies to develop Web Connect.

Learn Net

Learn Net continues to grow as a partnership. A further 3 centres have now come on board making a total of 20 centres. In addition we have developed other stratgic partnerships with mainstream, providers and are now positioned to expand. A number of application have gone in which if successful will give us much valued resources. It seems to work as people have a the same value and goals. Learn Net has now expanded outside of Manchester and has 2 centres in Salford. The flexible nature of the partnership and its grassroots connections providing frontline services seems to engage organisations and presents an effective point of delivery for organisations that want to commission Adult Learning. The difficulty is we need to develop the infrastructure in order to expand. I reckon this will be about 30k. I am still not sure where we are going to that from.

Circuit Riders

This continues and its development is still largely through word and mouth. It would be useful to have some real investment and develop further but its impossible to attract in monies to do this. Change Up seems to be exactly about this but it appears it will not offer any investment to develop this service. Instead Change Up seems to develop courses and products and directly target the groups we are working with. This just send a confused message to these groups and makes a job even harder. It would be nice if they worked in partnership with the front line delivery organisations.

On a final note we have now badged everyone in the organisation. Each person has their own cards for the function they are involved in and a badge, which they wear when they go and meet people. All in order to try and create brand awareness.

So by March 2006 we had 3 businesses streams identified. ICT services had started to market and sell its products, we had developed a business plan for Learn Net which was still doing the rounds and was almost complete by October 2006 although if we are honest it probably never will be finished. We started to trial the first ideas as to what the Web Connect product and services could be in March 2006. These trials identified that some things that we thought would sell well did not and other things appeared which we had not previously identified. The final list of products was created in April 2007 and still going through revisions. However, there were other challenges

Financial Information

This was an area we thought we really good at. Up to September 2005 we had operated as a project organisation and received grants. As such we were used to monitoring monies. We still have grant funding and still needed to monitor that way. However, as a result of the changes we needed to have more of an idea of how each of the business streams was doing and so needed to allocate each grant to the different streams. For example we may have one grant for 10k but 3k needs to go to Learn Net and 6k to Web Connect and 1k to Circuit Riders. How can we do this and at the same time be able to deal with audit trails and project monitoring reports? Working with the Community Accountancy Service and our project support manager we changed the way we managed the accounts. We allocated all staff and costs to each of the streams rather than producing budgets for the entire organisation which is what we used to do. This change was important as it allowed us to start costing out our products. Just after we completed this task my project support manager who was working on this and manages all our financial information decided to leave. This left me with a difficulty. Who would manage our finances in the futore? how could I ensure we don’t recruit someone and then they leave in 6 months? and what skills do we require as we develop? we decided that we needed more advanced financial skill’s.We realised that we already work with Community Accountancy Service who are a social enterprise specialising in accounts and finance for the charity and social enterprise sector. They already do our audits and payroll and have helped out on the cost allocation project. So they were a natural partner. We approached them to see if they would be interested in an outsource contract to manage all our finances. They agreed and also agreed to move in with us an added bonus. We know have access to 3 trained accountants and can even say we know have a finance director. Our level of financial information has improved and the board and staff have more confidence in that information. We are still trying to come up with a system for allocating grant funding to the different streams and is still proving a challenge. It appears to be possible to do but the question is how much work does it take to do.

Marketing

We recognised that MCIN’s marketing was poor. We were perceived as Manchester Community Information Network and closely identified with Manchester. This was a barrier to our developing beyond Manchester and into other Greater Manchester areas or even regionally or nationally. We had been talking about re-branding but were still thinking about what the new name was going to be and how this may effect the business stream development. So we did an interim re- brand to MCIN rather than Manchester Community Information Network. In true VCS tradition we went to a man we know who does graphics and to be fair had done good work with us in the past. He redid our logo and suggested a number of strap lines. He then disappeared and we struggled for 6 months to get the logo from him. However, we did re-brand in the end. Did it help ? Not really. People still associated us as MCIN a Manchester based organisation, we still needed to explain what MCIN was so had to say the full title anyway. It did however mean we had a more modern logo, new marketing material and a new web site. So something good came of it. However it did not resolve our fundamental problem. We needed a step change. As with allot of things once we identified the problem opportunities presented themselves.

We were approached by Greenhouse Creative who had been referred to us by Manchester City Council. They were a private sector marketing company who had limited experience in working with VCS organisations and social enterprise. Perfect. Just what we needed. Someone who knew nothing about the sector and could look at us with a fresh pair of eyes. We started working with them on our web site and a leaflet and found them very professional and very flexible. They had a great copy writing service, which really challenged us and helped refine our products and services. As a result of this work we made a decision that it would be best to work with one marketing company in order to increase there knowledge of the organisation and be able to support us in future marketing material. This was a sound choice and we are still working with them today. We are know exploring the whole issue of brand with them and they are providing us with invaluable advice.

Staffing

One of our biggest problem is finding someone to lead Web Connect and take it forward. We know we wanted someone who understands what we are trying to do and buy into our social objectives. We felt we needed a person who has passion but can translate that passion into achievement. We were fortunate with ICT services and also with Learn Net but am struggling to find anyone for Web Connect. We were reluctant to go out to recruitment as we did not have the confidence in our recruitment process that we would find someone at the right level. The other problem was we were not entirely sure we were clear about what it was we wanted. We thought we needed someone who is prepared to take a risk, someone to work with us to develop the common vision and challenge the way that we do things. We tried someone who was more of a project manager and unfortunately that did not work. Maybe we need more clarity of the job? maybe we have someone inside the organisation who has the correct skills? Do we need someone with social enterprise business experience? do we need someone who is more of an operations manager? and /or someone who has a good network of contacts that we can plug into. What’s interesting is that we did not have these difficulties with Learn Net and Circuit Riders. Is that because we have a clearer vision of what it is we are trying to do? So maybe the problem with Web Connect is not a staffing problem at all but actually a problem of lack of clarity of Web Connect.

Managing the Organisation, Managing Change and Letting go

Well the title says it all. The most difficult part of developing the organisation is letting go. Will the people who have the responsibility continue the vision? Will they develop the business streams? what’s the role of the director in this changing environment? The importance of having the right staff is key. The business development manager and operations manager for Learn Net have really risen to the challenge and developing the partnership in ways we have not thought about. In terms of ICT services or Circuit Riders as we know call it. The business development manger has also really risen to the challenge. New contact and new businesses is developing. Trust in both of these seems to have paid off. The director still keeps an eye and provides the strategic direction and the leadership so there has not really been any major change yet.

Survival and Support.

We realised that if we carried on with 17 staff then we were in danger of not being able to maintain the organisation. Fortunately a number of staff left and we did not replace them. But we were still to large. This lead us to unfortunately having to make a number of staff redundant as projects came to an end. But our costs were still to high.? we needed to move premises. Community Accountancy Service were know part of the organisation and the idea of shared premises was part of the deal for the outsource. This meant that costs for rent etc was less but still the cost for premises was to high. In addition, I was aware that we needed more support in order to develop. By support I mean that day to day support that you need. You know the sort of questions you can ask someone. Like, not quite sure about this, what do you think of that etc. The problem was there was no forum for us to explore these issues in. We had extensive networks and some very good people who were around but the problem was that they were to busy or looking inwardly at themselves, just trying to survive. So we needed to find someone who could offer us more support and also a place to rent that was cheaper than we have at the moment.

One of our partners in Learn Net was 4CT. They run the Grange Community Resource Centre and had a similar ethos and approach to us. They are also developing as social enterprise and have the same entrepreneurial spirit as us. We approached them to see if they had space and the answer was yes. We picked up our bags and along with CAS moved in October 2006. This move not only reduced our costs and improved the amount of support but also linked us up with a different network and gave us access to another organisation who could help us. We now chat regularly with 4CT and CAS and offer each other support.

Structure

These changes raise the question about what is the future of MCIN? what is its relationship to the 3 business strands? is there a role for the director as we develop the 3 strands and what is the relationship between the board and the strands? should we have 4 boards or keep it as one. Should we make changes now or wait? Should we worry about structure when we are still developing the stands? The board view is lets not make this a barrier. Lets continue to explore and investigate. The current structure is fit for propose for the moment. Maybe we just promote each of the strands and not promote MCIN as much. In terms of the role of the Director. The board feels and the chair in particular feels that there is clearly a role for someone to coordinate and develop the strands so the role is still important. The boards view is that they have no idea what the role will be in the future. So lets wait and see and in the meantime lets get on with it and see what happens.

Know that we are almost up to date. I think the next set of blogs will look at each of the business strands and talk more in depth about each.

So we decided we are a social enterprise. The next question was what are our products and services. We started thinking about this in June 2005.

We looked at the organisation and thought about what we were doing. Over the next 4 months we explored these ideas with some key stakeholders and staff and ran sessions with a number of consultants to help us identify these services. Although the work with the consultants was interesting we found that most consultants did not have enough knowledge of the organisation to be able to identify the products and also wanted to run vision sessions with us. Although the vision sessions were useful I am not sure they moved us on any further. What we really wanted was someone who could work with us closely for a couple of days a week for a few months to help us. In the end it came down to the senior management team to define the products. Although this was important as it focused our minds I think we would have got further quicker if we had someone working with us as part of the team.

The conclusion I came to after this experience was the only people who are going to make this happen is us and that we need to be cautious about consultants and the value they bring.

We decided that MCIN undertakes 4 main things. We provide ICT technical support services to the third sector, we project manage 8 UK online centres in East Manchester; we have 14 community web sites. Also, we felt we pretty good at managing ICT projects and being the accountable body. There was also a move by government toward evidence base and we felt we could have the skills to develop this.

This led us to develop 4 business functions. ICT services (Technical support), Learn Net (Training in community centres) , Web Connect (developing web based content and developing the community portal sites) and MCIN policy and management ( project management and research). As a result of this we wrote a new business plan in August 2005.

I showed the business plan to a number of Social Enterprise support groups who said it was not quite right but were not in a position to help us to refine it. In the end it helped us to develop our thinking but it will probably change anyway so we decided it had little value.

We thought the business plan may help attract some additional resources to allow us to develop the plan further and experiment with our products and services. So we went to a number of local and regional Social Enterprise funds. But were not successful. One said we are a charity dependent on grant funding and not a social enterprise ! In the end we said “let’s just do it” rather than wasting our time in developing business plans and applying for social enterprise monies.

What was clear was that we should concentrate on Web Connect, Learn Net and ICT services rather than MCIN Project and Management. We also made a decision that rather than the Director trying to create 3 businesses we should employ 3 business development mangers. This was easier said then done.

ICT services

In terms of ICT services it was relatively easy because we already had an existing member of staff who became the ICT services business development manager. He developed the products and started to market and sell them almost straight away. This is a competitive market but we felt we had the right links. Change Up, a Home Office initiative to develop voluntary sector infrastructure, had identified the development of ICT in Voluntary and Community sector organisations. MCIN was part of the Manchester consortium and we undertook the implementation of this work in Greater Manchester. This contract helped support the development of this enterprise. It widened our geographic basis and also linked us up with other ICT technical staff in Greater Manchester. (Click here for more details on Greater Manchester Circuit Riders)

This formed the basis of the development of ICT services, which has subsequently changed its name to Circuit Riders. I am pleased to say that this business function is developing nicely and is now selling its services across Greater Manchester.

Learn Net

Learn Net was more complex. It become clear that for Learn Net to survive we needed to expand outside East Manchester. In consultation with existing partners we explored other organisations that could join. We felt our USP was community centres and so targeted community centres. In April 2006 another 10 centres joined the partnership making a total of 18 centres. (Click here for more information on Learn Net.). The next challenge was to find a business development manger. How do you begin to do this?

I did not want to go out to open recruitment as I was not confident enough that our recruitment process would identify appropriate candidates. Instead I would prefer to hire someone who I already knew and had a track record. Fortunately we were undertaking a review of Learn Net and needed a consultant to undertake an independent evaluation of the centres. We had identified a consultant who understood the community agenda but also had experience of colleges. As a result of her undertaking this piece of work this consultant recognised the possibilities of the centres and bought into the idea of what we were trying to do. She also produced a first class piece of work on the evaluation.

So the next question was how was I going to pay for her ? The MCIN board decided that in order to develop Learn Net investment was required. As none had been forthcoming from existing social enterprise monies the board decided to invest from MCIN reserves in order to develop a business plan. This meant we were able to employ the consultant of our choice and one we had faith in being able to achieve what we wanted. She started work for MCIN for 2 days a week for 6 months and not only helped develop the business plan but also helped us clarify the product and services we were offering, identified things we had not thought about and piloted a number of new ideas. This opened up markets and potential we had not previously thought about. She is still here working with us and the experience she brings to Learn Net has been invaluable. We have restructured Learn Net and changed the role of the project coordinater into an operations manager. Thank goodness I have a good board who saw the need to invest in Learn Net and were prepared to take the risk .

Web Connect

Web Connect was more difficult. Although we had the sites we were not clear about what other products and services could be developed. We thought advertising might sustain us when we developed the business plan in August 2005. However it became clear that this was not realistic without some serious investment and time.

We recognised our strengths were in content creation but were unclear about how to do this. Fortunately at that time we had a training session with the Manchester Digital Development Agency on social software.

After this session we realised that the development of content was the future and that we had good links with communities, were effective in engagement and had good skills in developing and producing material as well as a distribution network for the content through our community portal sites. This lead us to do a bit more research and we found something called social media. Essentially this is about using technology to create user generated content. This includes developing content using blogs, podcast, photos and texts. This was clearly one way forward. However we did not want to just be another training organisation so developed a community reporter program that empowered individuals to have their say in communities .

We also identified a link with the BBC who liked the idea and were keen to support us by offering training. We even had a BBC journalist working with us for 3 months to help us develop community content. Fortunately we found some project money from lots of different sources which has helped us to pilot the community reporters program. We also identified a new software company that had roots in the Voluntary and Community sector called Agraman. They helped redesign the community portal sites and came us with a number of ideas to brand Web Connect. This took our thinking even further and developed Web Connect as a social media company or as we like to call it the Reuters of the community.

However , although we have identified some products these are constantly changing and being revised and I am sure we are not at the final product list. So how to take the business forward? I am afraid it’s back to staff. I am still on the hunt for a business development manager who can do what the consultant did for Learn Net. But how do we begin to find someone with the right skills ? There is still a need to develop the aims and mission of Web Connect and get clarity. Whats the best way of doing this? So in reality it means the the Director of MCIN has to also be the business development manager in the short term.

MCIN is developing as a Community and Social Enterprise. What does that mean. In simple terms a social enterprise is a business trading for a social purpose. There is a broader definition, which can be found on the Social Enterprise Coalition web site. So is MCIN a social enterprise? Well according to the definition a Social Enterprise should have social or environmental objectives. MCIN has a number of these. Our broad objectives are

• to provide opportunities for people to develop ICT skills, access information, contribute to their communities and participate in society
• to highlight community activity, bring people together and support community regeneration through the use of ICT
• to build the capacity of the community and voluntary sector, providing information and promoting services utilising current and emerging technologies.

We have developed 3 business strands to support these objectives. Learn Net, Web Connect and ICT services all of which have direct social objectives or build skills of local communities. The governance of MCIN is through a board of directors who manage the organisation on behalf of the stakeholders. In addition Learn Net has a partnership group made up of stakeholders who manages its development. Web Connect is also developing a community reporters group in order to support its development and the Circuit Riders who are its stakeholders support the development of ICT services. So I think the answer to the question is MCIN a Social Enterprise has to be yes.

If you have something to say, want to tell us about an experience you have had, pass on some tips or let us know about places you have visited then why not join Web Connect. All you have to do is go to our site http://mywebconnect.info/
and click on Get a Blog. Let us know you have posted something by emailing us at info@mcin.net and then we will link to your Blog and it may end up on the front page of this site. We do check the Blogs so if you post anything that’s offensive we will have to stop the feed and delete the Blog. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Gary Copitch the Director of MCIN travelled down to London along with Dave Carter (MDDA), Vin Sumner ( Clicks and Links) and Cathy Garner (Knowledge Capital) to present the One Manchester Digital Challenge bid. The presentation and questions were challenging but as a team we managed to answer them. We can only know wait and see. MCIN s being heavily involved in the Digital Challenge bid from the beginning and is an active supporter of the bid. We can know only wait and see. The result will be announced on March 13th by Angela Smith MP.

Interesting coments on the mcin web blog about Chanel 5 being keen to buy content. Also I noticed that the BBC are also exploring this option.