The strange stunt pulled by some of London’s city councillors this week — calling for an economic summit while everyone else was already talking about the flurry of economic conferences in the area (e.g. Canada 3.0 and SWREC) — is a good opportunity to bring this LdnBeta initiative into a better light.

Paul Berton says “our ability to come together as a region and work as a team with institutions of higher learning and businesses to leverage our innovation, technology and knowledge-based economy… must start with the politicians.”

Not necessarily. I’m having trouble thinking of anything really good that started with politicians. (Think of the web itself, how it developed without top-down leadership.)

In a way, looking to politicians for leadership may actually be 180° from where we should be heading. Politicians have a role, of course, but just one of many — and as we move towards newer economic and civic models, theirs becomes more diminished (or at least less conventionally authoritative).

The true catalysts are whoever happens to have knowledge, skills, and passion suited to a particular problem or opportunity in a given time and place.

We add what value we can, according to what we have to offer. Then, building on that, still-newer opportunities emerge that are suited to other people, they add what they can, and it continues to cascade through various iterations, becoming a little more effective, vital, and sustainable as it progresses.

We have to stop waiting, stop asking. We all need to take an extra step from our comfort zones, towards the future (politicians included, so the zany letter was at least something)… or we’ll be the last ones there.

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To succeed in the 21st century, cities will have to simultaneously thrive in a global economy, adapt to climate change, integrate a tsunami of rural and/or foreign migrants, as well as deal with innumerable other challenges and opportunities. These issues go far beyond the capacity and scope of almost any government – not to mention the all-too-often under-resourced City Hall.

Open Cities address this capacity shortfall by drawing on the social capital of their citizens. Online, city dwellers are hacking the virtual manifestation of their city which, in turn, is giving them the power to shape the physical space. Google transit, DIYcity, Apps for Democracy are great urban hacks, they allow cities to work for citizens in ways that were previously impossible. And this is only the beginning.

Still more exciting, hacking is a positive sum game. The more people hack their city – not in the poorly misunderstood popular press meaning of breaking into computers but in (sometimes artful, sometimes amateur) way of making a system (read city) work for their benefit – the more useful data and services they create and remix. Ultimately, Open Cities will be increasingly vibrant and safe because they are hackable. This will allow their citizens to unleash their creativity, foster new services, find conveniences and efficiencies, notice safety problems, and build communities.

In short, the cities that harness the collective ingenuity, creativity, and energy of its citizenry will thrive. Those that don’t – those that remain closed – won’t. And this divide – open vs. closed – could become the new dividing line of our age.

That’s David Eaves blogging at Creative Class. Great post: a must-read for anyone interested — or not-interested-yet — in what this is all about. He’s one of the people who helped push Vancouver’s open data, open standards, open source initiative. 

It perfectly resonates with the LdnBeta vision.

Now that this blog/initiative is in its second week of existence, I see that maybe instead of working up to civic and social challenges via discussion about social media, we need to start with a clearer sense of the big picture — going for a frontal attack on the ‘real-world’ challenges.

Then maybe we’ll have a better appreciation of what’s at stake, where we fit in (both where London fits in and how our skills align within London), what needs to be done, what we can do…

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