First check for existence of the wheel

Another stimulating, inspiring and energising day at CityCamp Brighton, the annual social innovation unconference…

I love it, and I’ve been involved in since the first CityCamp took place here in 2011. I’ve had conversations with people I would never have come across otherwise, met influential folks from high up in local government and ordinary people who have an idea they’d like to try out that they think will make a difference in their community. These have been everything from interactive community notice boards at bus stops, to toy hacking, to using QR codes to help people learn about Black history in Brighton, to my own project from year one on Open Data and the voluntary sector.

However, something that has increasingly been in the forefront of my mind is that an idea doesn’t have to be brand new, hugely ambitious, unusual or beautifully simple to be innovation. Sometimes taking an idea from another place, another time, or another size and adapting it for our own area is just as good, if not better.

For example, today it was brilliant to see that Street Play Brighton (@ComePlayOutside) are already linked up to Playing Out and are learning from similar work in Bristol and elsewhere.

So my advice to CityCampers for tomorrow, the Build day, is pinched from @jagusti from CityCamp 2 last year:

“Before inventing the wheel, first check for existence of wheel”.

And I’d add:

If wheel exists, adapt it to suit the road you’re travelling.