Ignite Lab

We have won a piece of work with the London Borough of Harrow.  All the indicators are going in the right direction yet the perception of Social Cohesion is going backwards.

We will be running workshops in the community, for the Council and their partners and one for 6th formers in a school in order to understand what the underlying issues are.

We will almost certainly draw on some of Tim Aston’s “life journeys” work to tease out what might be happening  to people at different stages of their lives to influence social cohesion, but we are looking for other thoughts on how we can really get people to share in a meaningful way what is driving the backward trend.  At this stage all thoughts are welcomed and if this includes “Insights” that we could use to help people think differently – or to help them contribute in a constructive way – then this is  welcome.  I have used the blog as an experiment to see if this is a good way of getting the dialogue going and making it more transparent.

Here is an excellent report outlining the drivers of social cohesion.  681539

I think what you do now is to add your contributions as comments

Many thanks

Mark

Here’s a fascinating piece from the FT back in June about innovation in the insurance sector. It seems that major insurers like Prudential are trying to emulate the success of microfinance (lending to the very poor in developing economies) with ‘micro-insurance’ schemes, often tied to those loans. It’s fascinating to see the global financial giants turn to the poorer parts of developing economies—long excluded from mainstream provision—as a source of new profits.

The history of the developed economies shows that the emergence of a sophisticated insurance market is an important milestone in the maturing of an economy and the spreading of prosperity. Insurance is vital because it evens out the the peaks and troughs of life, protecting families and businesses from the arbitrary nature of existence. Micro-loans were the first step in lifting families out of subsistence: insuring those loans is the next.