The Ladder of Participation

Someone at work mentioned that they were reading an article about the Ladder of Participation. This got me thinking about my own participation in activities both at work and home, predominantly about the roles I have within the #bellringing community.

The Ladder, devised in the late 1960’s, has three categories: Non-participation, Tokenism and Citizen Power. Each category has a number of rungs within it that describes how citizens, the general public, can through participation, have more influence in society. https://nhspublicvoice.wordpress.com/2016/10/27/ladder-of-participation-shows-how-involved-you-are/

Starting at the bottom rungs of the ladder in the non-participative categories are Manipulation and Therapy. These two are there to educate and cure the participant and to achieve public support through PR activities.

The next three rungs are in the Tokenism category and cover Informing, the one way flow of information, Consultation, the use of attitudinal surveys, meetings, public enquiries, but can be seen as a window dressing, before escalating to Placation, allowing citizens to give opinion or advise but holding on to the right to judge the legitimacy of that advice.

The real Citizen Power comes with the top three rungs of the ladder. Partnership, the redistribution of power between citizens and the power holders with shared decision making. Delegated Power, where the citizens now have the power to make decisions and assure accountability. Citizen Control, where the participants hold the power for entire job planning, policy making and managing activities.

In the #bellringing context I can see definite elements of manipulation and therapy and informing, where we are providing information, guidance and exercises to educate and support. We are currently undertaking various consultations to find out what people want from their #bellringing organisations. I hope that we do not then use that to placate, but inform decision and policy making. We have seen some great examples, particularly over the last 12 months or so or partnership, Association of Ringing Teachers, Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and The Ringing World working together. We are certainly offering opportunities for Delegated Power in the workgroup structure, which allows anyone, even if they are not a Council member to participate and influence the direction we are taking, and providing expertise. The Citizen Control might be a bit more tricky to manage wholescale, but there are pockets of activities that are directed by the ringers at a local level and we would want to support them with that.

No doubt there is room for improvement at every rung of the ladder, but it was interesting to note that we are on every rung. Where are you on the ladder?

Making your voice heard

Have you ever felt like you’re talking to deaf ears? You’ve been trying to tell someone something for ages and they’re just not listening? And then they even have the cheek to say that you never told them?

Just lately, I feel that I’ve been telling people what’s been going on but the message just isn’t getting through. Messages either aren’t being recognised for their content, or not being considered important enough to disseminate, therefore others aren’t finding out, and feel like nothing is being done.

Case in point today. For the last, who knows how many months, I’ve been telling a group of people what I am doing to help alleviate a situation for a larger group of people. That larger group of people have not had that information shared with them, so are getting up in arms about things appearing not to be happening. Because the larger group of people are getting irate, they’re taking it out on the smaller group, who are complaining that they are being got at. I’ve explained so many times that if they bothered to share the information that I’d given them with the larger group, the larger group would be more satisfied and aware of what is happening on their behalf.

Other recent situations have involved one person complaining that things they are responsible for aren’t working properly, so I’ve given advice on things they might like to try instead to see if it improves things (and I know they do because those same things have been employed elsewhere and worked well). They don’t bother doing anything different and come back again complaining still that things aren’t working right.

Am I speaking Martian?

I’ve had times when I’ve felt that I’m just not being heard. What’s given me the strength to speak up was having read a book called “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. It gave me some practical tools to apply which ultimately gave me the courage to speak up for myself and get my point across.

Things that I have learned about trying to get my point across is that people need to be understood, be clear on what their own issues are, but also be clear on what my concerns are. People need to be educated rather than blamed or accused of something. It gets a far better response. Having clear expectations means that there should be no room for misunderstanding, and clearly people I’ve come in to contact with either need it repeating multiple times until it sinks in, or in writing so that I can refer them back to it.

Yet still some people don’t, or won’t listen.

The importance of nothing

Life can be so full on sometimes. Even having a week off work doesn’t really give you the rest you sometimes need. I’ve written loads, researched loads, rung loads and had several meetings during my week off so I really haven’t felt any restorative benefit.

Today though, we had nowhere to be and nothing to do. C turned the alarm clock off so we woke up naturally and didn’t actually get out of bed until nearly 10am, which is unheard of. Some might say that that’s wasting so much of the day, but waking up naturally actually made me feel more awake and alert than being ripped from slumber by a screeching radio alarm.

Saturdays have seem to have got a new ritual of bacon butties for breakfast. C cooks them whilst I’m in the shower so its ready, with my coffee, when I’m dressed and ready to face the world. So grateful for that.

Both of us then just sat for a while, reading or catching up with social media. No need to rush.

We had no reason to go into town for anything and as we’d had a late breakfast didn’t feel the need for lunch.

I did do some food prep for breakfasts and lunches for the working week ahead as Sunday is full of ringing, family Skype and virtual meetings as well as the weekly ironing fun. But once that was all finished, I could get comfy on the sofa and read.

Haven’t spent so much time dedicated to just reading for ages. A cup of mint tea with the last slice of winter spice cake made it all a bit hygge. Both of us just sat on the sofa reading. For hours. No other distractions of TV or radio. Blissful.

Some might suggest that a day was wasted and we should have done some exercise or something more constructive with our day, but I actually feel more awake and positive having taken some time to just be.

It probably helped that the book I was reading, not one of the e-shorts I had intended to, was talking about quietening inner critics and self sabotage. It was helping me understand the ways to silence the inner brain chatter and believe that I’m good enough, when so much that has been going on lately has left me feeling totally inadequate.

Benefits of doing nothing include being mentally stronger and more compassionate by having opportunities to delve deeper into innermost feelings and convictions. It helps relieve stress and help you become more rested, happier, productive, creative and allows your brain to reboot by letting thoughts settle.

My step count for the day is hardly going to break the 1000 mark but it doesn’t matter for one day. Self healing and restoration was what was needed today and I’m glad to have given it space in my life.

Kindling some e-shorts

As I’ve been on annual leave this week, one of the things that I wanted to do was some reading. Trouble is, I’ve read all the fiction books that I’ve invested in and although I have some non-fiction to wade through, felt that being on “holiday” wasn’t the best time to read those.

I haven’t downloaded a Kindle edition of a book in ages. I much prefer the physical thing to hold, turn pages and even the smell. I am also a bit OCD when it comes to collections. If there are a number of books by an author I enjoy, or a series that run together, then I have to buy all of them, and read them in order.

My favourite genre is historical fiction, most specifically Tudor period. I’ve read all the Jean Plaidy, Phillipa Gregory et al. Having most recently thoroughly enjoyed Alison Weir’s series on the Six Tudor Queens. I have the final instalment already on pre-order. I happened to be rummaging around that well known online purchasing site and came across a series of Alison Weir e-shorts. These seem to be companion stories to the Six Tudor Queens series. There are 7 e-shorts so far that relate to the first 4 books of the Tudor Queens, so one can assume that there are more to come. For £0.99 each, it was a no brainer to download the lot.

I’ve gone through the precis for each e-short and listed them in order of which main Six Tudor Queens books they sit along side so that I can, as with full series, read them in order. There appears to be 1 that sits with Katherine of Aragon, 1 that bridges that with Anne Boleyn, 1 that accompanies Anne Boleyn, 1 for Jane Seymour and 2 for Anna of Kleves.

I have a whole day with no meetings or need to be anywhere else or do anything in particular, that I can give wholeheartedly over to reading these e-shorts. Give me a nudge when dinner’s ready!

Learning the art of the Hashtaggery

Its simple, right? You just stick a # in front of a word, job done. But what’s the point of the #?

The # is there for you to link your post, in whatever medium that might be, to a word that may connect you with others who might be interested in the same topic. It can help your post reach a myriad of different audiences. The hashtag became popular with Twitter, but you can use it on just about any social media platform. It means that anyone looking for a particular topic can search using the hashtag and find other sites and content of interest. Very useful if you are wanting to get a message out or share information with the masses. According to some sources you can get 45% more likes and 67% more comments on your content by using the right hashtag strategy.

I use a very small number of hashtags on my posts about bellringing, mainly because some social media platforms have a limit on the number of characters you can use, but mainly because I’m rubbish at thinking on synonyms, you know, those other words that are related to the one you’re using. For example, I use #bellringing a lot when I post about any bellringing activity, or sharing information. For some reason it took me ages to connect #bells, #bellringers, #ringing, #campanology. Search these hashtags and it opens up another world of bell related sites, some not so relevant to the type of bellringing I do, but means the posts has the potential to reach a whole new audience.

Up until recently, I’ve never really used a hashtag as a search function to find other like minded topics, but as I’ve got more into using social media, I’m finding out all sorts of useful tips. There’s a whole business made out of teaching people how to hashtag properly. I took the plunge a while back and purchased an e-book on how to make the most of hashtags, but only because it was going super cheap. And, I have to say, I’ve learned quite a bit from it.

The particular e-book I purchased was more specifically focussed on Instagram, the least of the main social media platforms that I’m familiar with but the ideas can be used across the other platforms too. I look after 3 different Instagram accounts, including my personal one. I had them open as I was going through the e-book and putting the suggestions into play immediately as I was reading through it.

I edited the profiles for each account to make them more appealing and relevant so that it instantly gives a viewer the information they need about the account. I looked at the hashtags that were suitable for the size of each account based on the number of followers each account already had. Using hashtags relating to topics where there are too many followers already means that our messages could get lost in amongst all the noise. I thought about the keywords that users might be searching for when they’re trying to find our information. I then used those words to search sites where the ideal audiences would also be looking at. I followed a number of those, then looked at the kind of hashtags they were using and jotted down any that I thought might be useful.

Then its about the engagement. Once you’ve found the top accounts in your topic of interest, by liking and commenting on their accounts regularly, this will help your visability too, amongst their followers.

I’ve made a list of all the hashtags that I think would be useful for each of the accounts I look after and now that I’m starting to use them, I’ll be able to look at the analytics to see how they are helping reach wider engagement.

I shall become a master of hashtaggery!

Worth the wait?

Yesterday I ordered some books from Amazon which I hope arrive during the coming week, as I have some annual leave and therefore time to read them. Amazon told me that they should all arrive the following day.

Today Amazon tells me that my parcel should arrive today any time before 10pm. Thats going to be scary if the doorbell rings that late at night!

I have high hopes for these books. They will help me to understand and do better in the social media world. At least that’s what I’m hoping. I hope they are worth the wait.

According to logisticsmgepsupv.wordpress.com we spend around 6 months of our lives waiting in line for things, 43 days on hold with automated customer services, and 27 days waiting for a bus, 32 minutes per day waiting for a doctor, 28 minutes in a security line at the airport, 21 minutes for our significant other to get ready to go out, and 38 hours a year sitting in traffic. A Daily Mail survey suggested that we wait around 4 months of our lives waiting for the kettle to boil.

Sometimes the planning and experience associated with the waiting process can be extremely pleasurable. Like the smell around the house when you’re baking chocolate brownies. The creative processes of art, cooking, crafting, travel, and a myriad of other things can give as much pleasure during the creating or planning process as the final product does. And when you have that final product, it will be all the more sweet knowing the effort it took to create it.

As I’ve said before, I am an ongoing development as a human being and am trying to get as much pleasure out of the creation of the person I want to be, as much as what the end result might be.

Good things come to those who wait, apparently.

New Year, new you

My various social media feeds are already abuzz with suggestions about how to start the new year with a new outlook, or a new plan or a new … (insert anything of newness here). Magazines are already cramming the newsagent shelves with top tips on making 2021 the “best year yet“.

An article I’m currently reading offers 4 such tips.

1. Have a vision of where you want to be. Dream big and realign your mindset to think bigger and be more ambitious.

2. Learn something new. Overcome the fear of new knowledge by reading or watching YouTube videos, or do an online course.

3. Prioritise wellbeing to help focus on success. Stress associated with moving forward should be met with taking time to step back and relax.

4. Strengthen your resolve. Put in the time and effort to gain success. Keep going when things get tough. Implement good habits that support your goals.

Well, that’s all fine and dandy but I find it mildly contradictive. You’ve got to steam ahead with goals and learn new stuff and keep going when things get tough, but chill out and relax. If I’m chilling out and relaxing, how exactly am I embracing my ambition, expanding my knowledge and being more resilient? Unless my goal is to chill out, learn how to chill out properly and I resolve to chill out better. Maybe that’s the answer.

Whatever your vision is, whether you want to learn something new, however strong your resolve is and however good you are with your personal wellbeing, I wish you a happy, healthy and safe New Year.

Models and Metrics

One of my current tasks is to write a strategy for data quality across our Trust. I’m needing to find out a lot about it and have been reading around the subject a fair bit to get some background information together.

One of the things I came across today was The Model Hospital. Its a digital information platform that helps with productivity, quality and efficiency. You can use it to benchmark against other NHS Trusts on all manner of things. It’s got some key metrics that trigger notification where there has been new information added. It churns out some fab looking charts. I might be spending a while rummaging around this gathering data.

I am a bit of a data nerd and love a good spreadsheet or set of facts to chew through.

Recording multiple metrics shows whether our processes are good enough for our service users and plots us against our peers and across the whole NHS Acute Trust sector.

This will be handy in identifying what is system related, operational or corruption data from elsewhere.

I can feel my nerdity peaking. I shall spend the day tomorrow fully immersed.

And to go with it, a special delivery arrived today from a #bellringing friend as a thank you gift, which I’m absolutely loving 👇

Wonder what else we could measure and benchmark in our everyday lives?

A Fortunate Find

As you know I’ve moved to a new role and a new office. The desk I’m now occupying used to be inhabited by someone else.

I was reluctant at first to move anything that belonged to the previous inhabitant, as I wasn’t sure whether they’d ever be back, or swoop in one day to reclaim their territory. However, I have since found out that said person has left the organisation altogether. Therefore, the assumption can be made that they no longer wish to claim their abandoned items. I felt vindicated then for going through it all and taking mugs and coffee pots to the kitchen and sorting through some papers and books. Amongst the books were a Prince 2 manual, slightly more up to date than my 25 year old copy, and a set of books on service strategy design, transition, operation and implementation.

Such a fortuitous find as I am now in the world of writing service strategies!!

I’ve been having a bit of a read through them and they will definitely come in handy. One book has already helped me formulate a number questions to ask. I’m sure they will become very useful in the next few months.

Is it a sign of the “meant to be”? Only if you believe in that sort of thing.

Bells, bakes and business

Such a busy day.

Gave C the option of cake or cookies for today’s baking experience. He opted for cookies. I had a quick gander through the cookie bookie then decided on ginger as the key ingredient. Googled gingernut biscuits but found an alternative recipe. Bashed out ginger cookies, with extra stem ginger for heat. Had a batch of them done first thing.

That was before bells. Assisting my sister in her Ringing Room session whilst she’s consolidating Ipswich, Primrose and Norwich at the moment. The great thing about Ringing Room is that you can put out a request for assistance and the wonderful #bellringing community responds. A regular group of 8 from across the UK, who have never met in person (obviously I’ve met my sister!), gather, ring and offer support and advice.

It was a bit chilly this morning so I needed to do something to warm up and decided that there were Christmas presents ready for wrapping, so cracked on with that. This is the most advanced I’ve been with Christmas preparations in, forever! Had a need for something warm for lunch and attacked cheese on toast. 😋 Simple, yet effective.

A #bellringing meeting followed with lots of good things discussed, agreed and actions assigned. It was noted again, that C was on cuppa and snack duty. Something that he doesn’t require prompting to do.

I then finished reading the fabulous Troy by Stephen Fry. I’ve read all 3 books in the series in a short space of time because they are so easy to read and such fun too. I’m slightly bereft that I’ve finished them. Have nothing to read now.

Only then did I allow myself half an hour to do nothing. I snuggled under my sofa blanket and shut my eyes for a while. I didn’t quite get to nap as C and I were chatting about all sorts of things, especially plans for the Association Training Day, but it was nice just to relax for a bit.

Dinner and a glass (or 2) of wine, followed by giant chocolate orange buttons and televisual viewing sorted for the evening.

Tomorrow’s going to be another busy day 😁