Vern's blog

Vern's picture

Can social innovators reform universities?

Submitted by Vern on 17 February 2013 - 2:10pm

I'm interested in connecting with social innovators who want to explore the brilliant critique of university managerialism and the dumbing down of tertiary education put forward by Don Watson in A New Dusk http://www.themonthly.com.au/comment-new-dusk-don-watson-5859

Vern's picture

5th SIX Summer School, November 26-28, Adelaide Australia

Submitted by Vern on 22 November 2012 - 10:14am

5th SIX Summer School, November 26-28, Adelaide Australia - What should we make of a social innovation summer school where every single participant is either a government-funded manager or researcher, or a private consultant? And where there are no participants who are users of services or community-based innovators?

Vern's picture

NDIS: "the world's worst system of individualised funding"

Submitted by Vern on 6 November 2012 - 10:29pm

NDIS “the world’s worst system of individualized funding”
Simon Duffy
Director, Centre for Welfare Reform UK
http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-az/fears-for-ndis.html 

Vern's picture

Improving Social Outcomes -for Corporate Nor For Profits

Submitted by Vern on 16 October 2012 - 11:48am

For a mere $2,300 for two days, corporatised charities and NFPs can learn about Improving Social Outcomes at an event present by the Centre for Social Impact and Criterion in February 2013. http://confreg.criterionconferences.com/socialoutcomes/agenda/

Vern's picture

Muhammad Yunus: the model social enterprise leader?

Submitted by Vern on 15 September 2012 - 6:33pm

Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. He is known for taking a hard line on what social enterprise is and isn't. Social enterprise is a financially self-sufficient business, not dependent on government grants or philanthropy, owned by the people who are its beneficiaries. Perhaps because of this hard line, many social entrepreneurs want to applaud the man, but opt for a not-so-rigorous business model that allows grant-dependence and ownership by charities and other outsiders.

Vern's picture

Social Change through Civil Society Politics - Meet our International Council

Submitted by Vern on 12 September 2012 - 1:05pm

Social Change through Civil Society Politics - Meet our International Council

Around the world politics is in disrepute. It has become detached from society, and divorced from those who seek social change. How can these two things be rejoined?

This is a global problem, affecting western, post-communist and developing countries alike. An International Council is examining this question: http://www.civilsociety.org.au/CivilSocietyPolitics2.htm

Vern's picture

Big Society in a Big Country

Submitted by Vern on 22 August 2012 - 12:41pm

Phillip Blond in conversation with Cheryl Kernot of the Centre for Social Impact on a New Politics (35 minutes talk). The new politics described by Phillip Blond is exactly the opposite politics to the Australian Democrats under Cheryl Kernot's leadership. The Democrats were based on social liberalism and economic statism: Blond's new politics is social conservatism and genuinely free-market, pluralised economics. Precisely the opposite!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG6KWo_QgdU

 

Vern's picture

Phillip Blond: "the politics of the future will be anti-oligarchical"

Submitted by Vern on 17 August 2012 - 10:04am
Phillip Blond: "the politics of the future will be anti-oligarchical"

Phillip Blond is currently visiting Australia. He is an English philosopher and theologian whose work has helped define an emerging new politics that aims to restore civil society and human association from its corrosion by the oligarchies of Left and Right.

Vern's picture

The Heart and Soul of Australia

Submitted by Vern on 16 August 2012 - 9:47am
The Heart and Soul of Australia is a citizen's initiative to bring Australians together in a movement that can change the direction of Australian public life by representing local communities and changemakers in parliaments and public institutions. http://www.civilsociety.org.au/heartandsoul/Commission.htm

The initiative is influenced by the work of English philosopher and theologian

Vern's picture

The Olympic Games and Social Innovation

Submitted by Vern on 24 July 2012 - 4:19pm

In the first modern Olympic Games, there were no corporate sponsors and athletes paid their own fares to attend. It was social innovation par excellence. The aim was to bring athletes together as peers, across national boundaries, and build new social relationships. The idea that governments of host cities might use the Games as a tool for 'infrastructure development' was the last thing on anybody's mind.

Syndicate content