http://www.demos.co.uk/projects/talkusintoit/ en-us Copyright 2008 Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:37:37 -0100 Latest items from Talk us into it on http://www.demos.co.uk/ - the thinktank for everyday democracy Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:37:37 -0100 http://www.demos.co.uk/items/9890 http://www.demos.co.uk/items/9890 Talk Us Into It, which examined the role of conversation in the public realm.  I'll be talking about it at the Sedbergh Festival of Ideas at the end of this month.  The event takes place on 20-22 July, and I'm down to speak at 12.30 on the Saturday.

If you're interested and in that neck of the woods, it would be great to see you there.]]> Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:10:43 -0100 samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) http://www.demos.co.uk/items/8328 http://www.demos.co.uk/items/8328 an article in this week's Economist - subscription only again, I'm afraid - that looks at conversation in history and finishes up with Stephen Miller's claim that conversation is a declining art. 

In Talk Us Into It, we came to the conclusion that it's not.  Conversation as an almost aesthetic pursuit, as in the salons of the 18th Century and Isaiah Berlin's soirees in Georgetown in the 1950s, has always been a bit of a rarefied pursuit.  However, you and I are talking to each other no less than before.  In fact, using the technologies available to us, we're probably talking more than ever and about many more subjects than before.

The problem comes when we think about this in relation to the way we manage our society and polity.  Conversations are at the heart of our assumptions public realm, from community groups to parent-teacher meetings; however,  the ways in which we have them have changed.  We blog, we skype, we chat, and we comment about different things and on different sites that represent our many different interests.   We are simply having conversations in different ways that are not necessarily reflected in the conventional means of representing communities.  The challenge comes in how we reconnect the two.]]> Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:09:41 -0100 samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) http://www.demos.co.uk/items/7663 http://www.demos.co.uk/items/7663 Talk Us Into It, has been covered today in the Times.

The pamphlet argues that we need to put conversation  back into the public realm.  New technologies and communicaitons platforms have encouraged more and more people to 'have their say' and given more and more of us the chance to put forth our opinion, but is this at the expense of the face-to-face conversations that we need?

What we're looking to do in the future is think about how we can work with people to enable these conversations.  The pamphlet suggests some ways in which we can do this.  As we move on, though, it would be great to hear more thoughts.



]]> Tue, 19 Sep 2006 10:16:28 -0100 samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones ) http://www.demos.co.uk/items/7063 http://www.demos.co.uk/items/7063 Talk us into it is the idea of deep conversation.  Quite often the conversations that really get us thinking and take us forward are those that require comfortable spaces and the devotion of time.  This is especially the case where difficult situations  are to be confronted and opinions are varied and many.  Before differences can be ironed out, people need to have their say and people will need to respond or argue back.

The team working on the Home Front project demonstrated this at Wilton Park earlier this year.  Interestingly, it's something that two of the organisations Rachel and I visited in the US are also working with.  Brookings have convened several events that have brought together figures from Islam and the West at Doha.  Elsewhere, the German Marshall Fund have collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation to hold conferences that can act as stimuli and spaces for conversations of this kind.  In these latter events, cultural display and performance has proved a uniting force amongst potentially differing opinion.]]> Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:17:17 -0100 samuel[dot]jones@demos[dot]co[dot]uk ( Sam Jones )