Lord Mayor's Commission on Employment

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr. Emer Costello, is to be commended for establishing a Commission on Employment for Dublin.

This is an inspired and necessary goal for the City Council and tackling unemployment or, to put it more positively, creating employment is essential for the future well-being of all who live and work in our city.

The Lord Mayor's Commission has set up working groups on a number of key areas: (1) Unemployment & Employment, (2) Business, Entrepreneurship & Finance, (3) Education, Skills and Training, and (4) Volunteering & the Social Economy. 

The commission have invited submissions and I have copied below my own contribution on the area of Education, Skills and Training. 



Dublin City of Learning

Let's stop and think and about learning.  No I don't mean schooling, or formal training or the pursuit of new qualifications.  I want us to think about learning - what it means for each each of us and how it gives purpose to our lives.
We learn throughout our lives and each time we face new challenges, we take on new information, adapt our thinking and develop new skills.  We learn how to build our identity as we emerge from teenage years, we learn relationships with our partners, to be successful parents and to face the horizon of our life.
The workplace is a specific context of learning and for those who are employed, valuable learning is embedded in the contribution of work effort.  This is especially true for the so-called 'smart economy'.  In fact, economies of the kind envisioned in the government plan are better described by the on-going process 'learning' rather than the end-state 'smart' or 'knowledgeable'.
This is not just a flaw in the language it is much more fundamental.  People who find themselves unemployed are often people who know how to learn but who find themselves without a meaningful context for learning.  This is the tragedy.
Some knowledge economy rhetoric does them no service - to talk about the need to upskill people to a condition of 'smartness' is to completely miss the point of how knowledge contributes to economic growth.  If, on the other hand, we think process then we can make a much more plausible case - that learning itself can lead to innovation and contribute to economic and social well-being.
So when we ask "what can the City of Dublin do to ensure future employment and well-being of its people?" I suggest that we create a vision of a Dublin City of Learning.
What we mean is a city where learning is regarded as an activity rather than a commodity, and where we strive to provide contexts and meaning for everyone so that the learning process is nurtured and sustained through unemployment, retirement or other circumstances of disengagement.
There are many ways in which this vision can be brought about, and there are many challenges to be overcome.  This submission does not provide all the answers.  But if we get our thinking right from the start, if we challenge flawed policies and if we genuinly consider what it means to learn then we will have made a good first step.  After all, it's the process that matters, this is what will get us there in the end.
As to an action that Dublin City Council can lead and support I suggest the following:

Dublin City of Learning Web Site
The best of the Internet is socially constructed.  This process of construction is itself a learning process and for the millions of authors of Wikipedia, writers of blogs and contributors to Facebook, web boards and Twitter, participation in the social Internet brings meaning and purpose to their lives.
We are a city - not just buildings and spaces but a city of people.
With some basic infrastructure and initial support we could create a new structure for Dublin in the on-line world.  Not like the institutional web sites that abound but something akin to the social spaces that we all enjoy.
Everyone who lives in, or has an interest in the city will be encouraged to contribute.  Some can contribute technical expertise, some as editors and lead writers, some as teachers to help those who need support with the technical and writing skills.  We will need projects to develop new areas of interest by theme or location, we will need to capture the stories of our city, install a photographic collection, display the paintings of our citizens and celebrate the achievements of all our sports people.
If we do this we will have the best resource ever to advertise the experience of Dublin to those who wish to visit, we will create a valuable resource for future generations but above all, we will be Dublin City of Learning.

Our Digital World invades the Bicycle!

The Dublin bike scheme is a welcome addition to our city.  It will be great for toursists and locals alike.  Dublin is a relatively flat city and if you can brave the wind and the rain then cycling is a great way to get about.

I had seen the new stands being constructed and looked forward to the inauguration of this new service for many months now.  How practical!  How green! How good of our city and government to, at last, offer something for ordinary people to use and to enjoy.

So you can imagine my enthusium to read the practical details as they were published in the newspapers this weekend.  Then I saw something that made me slightly uneasy:

Users, who must register online at www.dublinbikes.ie, pay a €10 annual membership fee and leave a €150 security deposit through a credit card or bank draft.

Mmm...  I've been around long enough to realise that you can't just leave bikes lying around and expect people to use and return with honour.  No - the need for a deposit did not bother me - nor the €10 annual membership.  Even the charges per hour are reasonable and it is understandable that we should be charged for such a service.  No - none of these aspects would cause me to take to a blog and have a rant - no it's this:

Users, who must register online...

Are you joking! Our government, our city will offer this service to some citizens - the digitally literate and broadband connected privileged majority.  Tough on you if you don't use the Internet, tough on you if you haven't a credit card or if you are reluctant to set up a new direct debit on your bank account.

By the way, I went through this process on-line and it is one of the least user friendly experiences you could imagine - you will even need you IBAN number and an address with a compulsory post code (we don't use post codes in Ireland).  The company operating the service is JCDecaux (an advertising company) and although the front page of the website clearly displays the Dublin City Council logo when you go through the payment process you are actually dealing with a private company.

Now I don't want to appear to whinge - for me the new service is of great value.  But whatever happened to our notions of an egalitarian society - if we offer a service to people of the city then it should be available to all.  Consider groups such as retired people (the older you are the less likely you are to be an Internet user), people who are currently having trouble with credit, perhaps unemployed, all of whom could reasonably be expected to be prime users of this service and yet even with cash in hand they cannot use the service.

Likely the explanation centres on creating an effective service with low administration costs.  The irony should not be lost - the humble bicycle is simple and efficient but in order to use these city bikes you need the Internet and a bank account. 

There is nothing worse than feeling left out - those who struggle with the Internet, fear it, or just havn't figured it out are the forgotten many in our society.  We are all citizens of this land and we should have a reasonable expectation to be treated equally.