New Citizen Project

➡️ How should different technologies be used to care for and breed animals in the future? ⬅️ This is one of four central questions that we’re inviting everyone to discuss as part of Animal Futures: The Big Conversation, in partnership with the RSPCA. Here’s what people are saying already: 🤖 “Robotic pets can never replace the bond we have with animals.” 🔬 “The scope of these new technologies is constantly growing. They hold immense potential for improving animal welfare, such as replacing animals in research, deepening our understanding of animal behavior, and reducing animal cruelty.” 🐄 “Remote care feels fairly reprehensible. If we’re going to breed these creatures for our own use, the least we can do is take responsibility for them.” Do you agree? Join the conversation via the link below. https://lnkd.in/e5m9tm2z

📣 Last Thursday, we launched The Big Conversation on the future of animals in partnership with the RSPCA 📣 We’re inviting everyone in England and Wales to contribute their views, hopes, experiences and ideas surrounding four topics: 1️⃣ How We Use Animals 2️⃣ Animals in the Wild 3️⃣ Animals and Technology 4️⃣ Farmed Animals and Food Our goal is to create a space where diverse perspectives can be shared and discussed, to collectively identify issues and build solutions to work towards a brighter future for animals and humans. 🤝 Join us in sharing your thoughts - because all of us are smarter than any of us. https://lnkd.in/e5m9tm2z Irenie Ekkeshis Oliver Holtaway Andy Galloway Andy Paice Josie Harris #RSPCA #AnimalFutures #Animals #Pets #Welfare #Farming #Tech #Wildlife

What future do you want for animals and humans? 🔮 An end to animal testing? A change to farming practices? More protection for wildlife? Or perhaps you think things are fine as they are. Your views could help shape the future. Join Animal Futures: the Big Conversation today: https://bit.ly/4hm5j7S

🟢 Exciting news! Andy Galloway is going to be at this year's Notwestminster talking about our work exploring #CouncilCulture. Notwestminster is a free event for everyone who has something positive to say about our local democracy, and anyone who is up for the challenge of making it better. It's on the 15th February in Huddersfield and it's going to be brilliant. Get your tickets here: https://lnkd.in/gKgTH928 Oliver Holtaway Josie Harris Irenie Ekkeshis #Democracy #Citizens #Participation #Huddersfield

📢 The next Citizen Quest participation training will begin on Thursday 6th March in London 📢 In the first full-day workshop we: 🎓 Delve into the theories that drive our work at New Citizen Project and think about where your organisation is today. ✍ Guide you through the process of uncovering and articulating your organisation's purpose. 💭 Discover how you can use this new understanding to imagine more, and more powerful, ways to bring citizens into the heart of what it is you are trying to achieve. 🔨 Work as a group to develop your best ideas, so you leave feeling energised and excited to get down to action! The in-person workshop is followed by four weekly online sessions that harness the group's collective experience and creativity, to help one another solve any participation-based challenges that arise as you put what you've learnt into practice. We then finish with a longer reflection session to consolidate what's come up for everyone and close the course on a practical and forward-looking note. ⭐ To find out more about the Citizen Quest, go to our event page linked below, email hello@newcitizenproject.com or comment on this post! https://lnkd.in/gij9_YeF Irenie Ekkeshis Jon Alexander Josie Harris Andy Galloway #Training #Participation #Workshop #LondonTraining #CitizensNotConsumers

We have to make 2025 the Year of the Citizen. And we can. A huge amount of ideas and initiatives are starting to cohere, and an even greater number of people behind them. This needs to - and can - be the year this bigger, more truthful story of who we are comes out into the spotlight, instead of sitting just beneath the headlines. But, as per the Bucky Fuller quote below, we're going to have to build it. As a first contribution of the year, I've updated a piece Ariane Conrad and I wrote for BBC Future soon after our book Citizens was published. It's called "Citizen Future: why we need a new story of self and society" Here's how it begins... *** The doom-laden headlines of our times would seem to indicate there are two futures on offer. In one, an Orwellian authoritarianism prevails. Fearful in the face of compounding crises — climate, plagues, poverty, hunger — people accept the bargain of the “Strong Man”: their leader’s protection in return for unquestioning allegiance as “subjects”. Think Orban, Xi, Putin. What follows is the abdication of personal power, choice, or responsibility. In the other, everyone is a “consumer” and all faith is placed in economic growth and technological advance to keep humanity ahead of the game. The richest have their boltholes in New Zealand and a ticket for Mars in hand just in case. The rest of us strive to be like them, fending for ourselves as robots take jobs and as the competition for ever-scarcer resources intensifies. The benefits of technology, whether artificial intelligence, bio-, neuro- or agrotechnology, accrue to the wealthiest — as does all the power in society. This is a future shaped by the whims of Silicon Valley billionaires. While it sells itself on personal freedoms, the experience for most is exclusion: a top-heavy world of haves and haves-nots. And if anything, as the alliance of Donald Trump and Elon Musk evolves, it is beginning to feel like these two futures are becoming one. Yet despite the bandwidth and airwaves devoted to these dystopias, there is another trajectory: Ariane Conrad and I call it the “Citizen Future”. In 2022, we published a book called Citizens, in which we propose a narrative for the 21st Century that is both more hopeful and more powerful. In this future, people are citizens, rather than subjects or consumers. With this identity, it becomes easier to see that all of us are smarter than any of us. And that the strategy for navigating difficult times is to tap into the diverse ideas, energy and resources of everyone... *** Read on here: https://lnkd.in/ewT5gRZ8 Hundreds of people have already joined a nascent online community working to build this future. You can register to join the Citizen Collective here: https://lnkd.in/e3sJFgH8

Having incorporated Citizen Shift ideas into the council’s 2021-24 strategic plan, it was fantastic to collaborate with the New Citizen Project team recently. Together we explored ways to deepen our approach to treat residents as citizens rather than consumers in the development of new council services and facilities. The sessions provided valuable insights into the diverse challenges and constraints faced by different cohort members, all trying to achieve a more collaborative approach in their organisations. It’s exciting to see this shift in practice gaining momentum across sectors. A big thank you to Irenie Ekkeshis and Josie Harris for hosting such engaging and productive sessions. We’ve already started applying some of these new techniques within our team and are excited to expand them to a community level in the near future. ✨

Possibly one of the decades most important reads. Jon Alexander's "Citizens". I've loved geeking out on the 6 week course to explore this with 6 other organisations. Thanks Irenie Ekkeshis & Josie Harris for leading the excellent @CitizenQuest course this Autumn. Key takeaways: 🌍 In a world grappling with climate crises, political polarisation, and systemic inequalities, Citizens is a beacon of hope and clarity. Lean into this approach to fast-track business and community resilience. 💚 People say that "every job is a sustainability job"- but the same is true of "Citizenship". Combining both is a surefire way to nail both with half the effort. 🌈 "The Key to Fixing Everything is in All of Us". (AKA Diversity of ideas, ideation, voice, and solutioning is the way forward). 📢 Citizen Voice: Unlocking solutions through active participation, amplifying diverse perspectives, 🫨 It's time to reimagine leadership as shared responsibility. From councils, to charities, NGO's to corporates, this movement is already getting going, but we're missing the power of it - Better Reykjavik leads by miles here but who's heard of it and it's free... 🔀 Interdependence: Embracing our connectedness by valuing collaboration, shared success, and collective well-being. At the heart of Citizens lies a profound truth: we are deeply interdependent. No individual, organization, or nation can solve the challenges we face alone. And where we (brands, families, ourselves) choose to stand alone, we fight so much harder... Really getting to grips with the true opportunity of Interdependence to help shape the worlds solutions, truly involving consumers to shape our products and services to raise people up (stakeholder mindset v's shareholder primacy), and surface transformative and generative community voice. ----- New Citizen Project run #CitizenQuest several times a year. The course is a game-changer and uses the Citizen framework for brands, NGO's and SME's to move beyond the outdated mindset and narrative of the consumer story and instead embrace our role as citizens — active participants in shaping the future. Miss the next one at your peril folkes... #Citizens #JonAlexander #Interdependence #Leadership #Sustainability #Collaboration

Last Thursday, we wrapped up our latest Quest training cohort with yet another brilliant group! Over the last few weeks, we've been digging deep into some big questions around increasing opportunities for participation across all the different sectors that the group work in: from 🎭 arts and culture to 🏘 local government, from 👩💻 co-working to 🏛 conservation and heritage, and from a 🔍 global research institute to 🏕 sustainable tourism. We were reminded that regardless of where people are starting from, we often face common challenges when embedding a citizen-led approach. It was fantastic to see the group peer support one another through these and come so far in our time together! Keep an eye on our TicketTailor page for future training dates (next one circa end of Feb) and email us hello@newcitizenproject.com if you'd like to find out more! https://lnkd.in/gij9_YeF Irenie Ekkeshis Josie Harris Polly Keane Jon Alexander Rachel Parsons Ben Skinner Jennie Thomas Steven Muzio Kim Klug-Miller Alison Lightbown Hatidzhe Mehmed #Training #Participation #Workshop #CitizensNotConsumers

📣 Just over a week to go until we begin our next Citizen Quest participation training, starting with an all day workshop on 17th October! 📆 There's still time to join the brilliant group we've already got signed up. You can find out more about what you'll learn and how the course is structured on the event page here: https://lnkd.in/gij9_YeF Any questions? Feel free to comment below 👇 or email us hello@newcitizenproject.com 📫 Irenie Ekkeshis Jon Alexander Josie Harris #Training #Participation #Workshop #Course #CitizensNotConsumers