I'm a fairly new Fellow (please be gentle with me).

I want to take advantage of my newness before I forget what it feels like and suggest that there might be ways that new Fellows could be supported as part of the induction process. If the suggestions fall on fertile ground I'm happy to devote some time to helping that happen.

I was fortunate enough to attend an excellent New Fellows event a bit more than a week ago, which has coincided with me shifting from being a pretty…

Summary: there is no simple proposition for joining or staying with the RSA. To understand the potential we may need to think about our roles as consumers, donors, voters, challengers ... but most of all as creative collaborators.

I guess we all come across the headline question when it is time to renew ... or when…

Over the next few months there will be a number of opportunities for Fellows who would like to become more engaged on a voluntary basis in the way the RSA is run – and my colleague Brinda Sittapah, the RSA’s Governance Manager outlines what is happening and the opportunities available:

Q) What are the available posts? A) We’re looking for three…

RSA NE held a very challenging event in Darlington on Tuesday 15th May exploring the topic of combating the sexual exploitation of children.  Wendy Shepherd, who is on the frontline of Barnardo's efforts in the region, shared her experiences of what is really happening under our noses with a very provocative call to action.

I've put together a Storify record of the event at…

Who I Am

A recent transplant to London, I am an experienced sustainability professional, specifically a project and programme manager specializing in carbon and sustainability consulting and organizational development seeking opportunities to shape thought and practice leadership.

Affiliations: Fellow at the Royal Society for the Arts; Intern, Young Foundation

Background

After eight years advancing sustainability, primarily in the…

I’ve just stepped back from my role, volunteering to organise RSA Fellow’s events in Kent. I have carried out this work for around four years. I never particularly had a passion for such things but I have always felt the potential when Fellows get together.

I have helped coordinate events on subjects from the economy to the environment, talks from local people of merit and local organisations. I have helped set up talks, panel discussions,…

In the third piece in our five-part series 'As If People Matter', Michael Townsend discusses the qualities that business leaders must show, if they are to shine in a changing world.

"A new generation of CEOs will emerge."

Ray Anderson

Founder & Former Chairman, Interface Inc.

Who would want to be a business leader in these volatile times? The debate about boardroom pay and excess rages, the global economy is so volatile it…

We’ve had a long love affair with seeing our problems mirrored in triumphs & lives of exceptional people and high achievers. We love their biographies and hearing the secrets of great sports and military leaders. If only we could be respected like Nelson. If ony we could be as challenging as Richard Branson or as driven as Steve Jobs. If only we could manage like…

There have been some heated debates across the innovation forums and sites over the past few months concerning the role of  talented people in the innovation process. See this post by HBR’s Art Markman for example. Is innovation about just getting the smartest people, the greatest brains, the most dynamic individuals and waiting for their ‘eureka’ moment?

Or is it about being smarter with the talent you have, …

It is March 2012 and I am in London listening to Susan Cain, who is a phenomenon in the world of current ideas. How influential is she? Well, in the one second it has taken you to read that sentence approximately thirty-two people have viewed her standout talk at TED. And a further 451 have viewed it on YouTube – in the last hour. Her book…

When surveyed 80% of top executives agree their organisations need to innovate differently and 86% say that  partnerships and collaboration is the key to innovation. Yet – only 21% say they are developing them. In their latest 2012 Innovation Monitor, General Electric call this – The Partnership Paradox. So why does it exist? And…

Party politics has become the most divisive force in Britain.  In short, “Do unto others... then split.”

And they want to continue that by agreeing amongst themselves, in the next few weeks, how they can ensure that others pay for party benefits.

Political parties seek power to impose their own particular dogma on the UK to fulfil the interests of the tribe they serve.  This cleaves the population apart, with no effective concern…

World Fuel from Waste Day - May 28th

Whether you believe in serendipity or deny its existence citing its impact can be an attention getter. One of the attractions of Twitter for me is the way in which those serendipitous moments aggregate in one place. It was thus when last week I came across an academic paper by two Microsoft© Researchers, Nimmi Rangaswarmy  and…

The first series of the Ad Hoc Enquiries with the theme "Community and local government collaboration" starts on the 3rd of April at Hub Westminster.  There are a handful of places still available across the 4 events so please do register if you would…

In the second of a five-part series ‘As If People Matter’, I explain how engaging people is vital in making a successful and lasting transition towards sustainable business and in delivering tangible business benefits.

“The biggest challenge in sustainability is engaging people and delivering the necessary behavioural change. This is all about how to turn a moment into a movement.”…

One of the mantras of most managers is that teams outperform collective individual performance. There is lots of research that substantiates that, and in any case it is summed up in that well-known poster acronym: T.EA.M., or Together Each Achieves More. Put another way: teams produce a synergy in which the net output is not additional but geometric. Four people as a group produce 1+1+1+1= 4 units of productivity; but four people as a team can produce 1x2x3x4=24 units of productivity! The…

Thursday 15th March - 16:00 onwards

This event is about bringing the region together.  Taking stock of where we are now and exploring together what we want 2012 to look like.  Not only for us as individuals, but also what it needs to look like for a sustainable and promising North West.  There are a number of challenges on the horizon…  In what ways can we individually contribute to turning these challenges into positive regional developments?  There are also a number…