This is not my... Interview
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David Robinson is the co-founder of: We Are What We Do
A movement to" inspire people to use their everyday actions to change the world. Whoever they are. And wherever they are."
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How did We Are What We Do come about?
My background is that I am a Community Worker, I have worked for Community Links in East London for 25 years. Community Links is an organisation founded locally in a particularly deprived part of the capital.
Three or Four years ago we were starting to think about how patterns of engagement between the public and organisations like ours have changed.
I came across some figures that showed that, when Community Links was beginning in the early 80’s, around 65% of people in there 30’s were members of broadly defined community organisations.
Today for people in there 30’s, the figure is less than 10%.
Effectively, there was a very sharp decline over a generation.
If you look a bit more broadly to church and other faith-based organisations, trade unions, political parties etc there are similar sharp declines over the same period.
Yet, at the same time, new companies in Canary Wharf were becoming connected to our organisation. The political trend in the last few years has been that, although we may be less likely to vote or belong to a political party, we have had three of the biggest street demonstrations ever.
So there are a lot of paradoxes in all that.
The picture that started to emerge is that we are less and less likely to be part of the sorts of formal social structures that require us to turn up from say, 7-9 every Thursday evening, have a subscription, that kind of stuff.
However, we still want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves, make our voices heard.
While I was thinking about all of this I became influenced by a guy called Russell Davies who at that time was leading Nike’s marketing in the states.
He showed me how that in roughly the same time period they began a training shoe that was bought by kids who played basketball, a small niche market.
Using the power of the brand they then developed that into urban fashion. It was still bought by kids but not just those who play basketball.
It has now progressed into, what they call, a lifestyle. Now the majority of western men wear training shoes, even though the majority don’t play basketball.
I began to link the two ideas whereby you created a brand, rather than an organisation, to engage people with social activities.
We then involved a company called Interbrand, a marketing company, who did some work with us on it. Their research showed that to succeed such an enterprise would need to overcome three obstacles.
- In very simple terms it would need to answer the question, "I don’t know what to do".
- It would need to counter the idea that doing a little makes no difference, by demonstrating mass and what we might achieve if lots of people did lots of little bits.
- It would need to address the feeling that: “Doing these things is ok but it’s not for me. It’s for people who go to church or are tree huggers or people who do something else.”
To succeed it would need to be done in a style that had not been done before. It would need to be perhaps engaging or quirky or cool but something different.
It was with those three challenges in mind that 18 months ago we launched the brand ‘We are what we do’ along with the book ‘Change the world for a fiver’.
Our mission was to inspire people to make simple adjustments to their day-to-day behaviour that, if enough of us did the same, would make a real difference.
We wanted the brand to be something that people would want to read about. We are very clear that none of these ideas are new. It is just the style of communication.
I spoke at an organisation called the Islamic circle last summer. The elder who had spoken before me related 49 of the 50 actions to the organisation.
Which was the one that he didn’t?
People think it might be, ‘have a bath with someone you love’ but it was about organ donation. Actually, even that was then debated.
The point is that some of these things they had been talking about since the 1400’s so they absolutely aren’t new. It is just trying to find ways of saying them that will engage people who have not been engaged before.
Although we might have been talking about all this for a long time there are an awful lot of people out there who don’t think about these things and who potentially could.
What has been the progress so far?
Well, there have been about 370,000 books sold, not just in the UK but also in Australia Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We are also up and coming in Canada. So the book is getting out there.
More than the figures, though, what interests and excites us is the diversity of the organisations and individuals who have got involved. Big businesses like Accenture and the Inland Revenue alongside primary schools and universities, as well as groups of all ages. It is an extraordinary variety of people from all aspects of life and lots and lots of individuals.
Also finding in this a degree of depth where people are thinking about how we treat our resources and the natural world and the effects of their actions.
The actions of a teacher teaching a class of six year olds will differ from those of someone in the Inland Revenue but it is looking at what we each do and making appropriate changes that counts.
That diversity and depth combined is very exciting.
What we are trying to do is stimulate activity rather than telling people what to do. We want to let people decide what works for them.
The third dimension to it, which has taken us a little by surprise, is the speed of the spread.
The Internet is an extraordinary thing.
In the month before Christmas we were able to monitor where people came to the site from. People came from over ninety-six different countries in that four week period. In the vast majority of places we had done absolutely nothing. The viral spread happened in a way that would have been impossible ten years ago.
Increasingly we think about We Are What We Do as an organ rather than an organisation. The growth is organic. We scatter a few seeds and they get taken by the wind. That is the nature of an idea like this.
What is exciting is the very different kinds of people in all corners of the globe connecting with the idea.
Where do you go from here?
The website is increasingly seen as the engine of this thing. We would like it to become a bit more sophisticated so that it provides more in depth information. For example, lesson plans for teachers and other community development activities aimed at getting people to think about moving beyond these small adjustments.
Some of the activities ahead will be about getting people who have taken some steps thinking about perhaps doing a bit more.
We are also going to continue a series of books and publishing all over the world. We have set ourselves the target of publishing in twenty-five territories over the next five years.
There are already books in Austria and Germany.
Why did you choose that area of the world?
It was from the organic growth. We have not gone out to hunt people but all sorts of people and groups have come to us, which is fantastic.
Although we think 370,000 books is a lot there are still a lot more people out there. We will be publishing a new book in the Autumn entitled: ‘What We Can Do 9 to 5’which will look at activities in the workplace – very broadly defined.
What is the change that stands out the most for you?
I ask people in organisations ‘How many of you are blood donors’ and typically about 10% of the audience will say they are.
I then ask “How many of you have a health reason that you can’t give blood?’ and it is no more than a sprinkling.
You are then left with about 85% who think it is a good idea and have no reason why they don’t, other than they haven’t thought properly about doing it.
So it is a great example of getting people to think about just what making these changes might mean.
I spoke to one company about this and someone put their hand up and said ‘I would give blood if the blood donor service came to our offices’ at which point someone else put their hand up to point out that they did!
It had purely just passed him by.
Actually, until we did this book I wasn’t on the organ donor register.
It was one of those activities that I thought – since we are publishing this book I had better see what it involves. It took less than 10 minutes and it might be something that at some stage, though hopefully not for a while yet, may transform someone’s life.
So it is things like that which, even if a couple of people do them, it can make an impact.
If you move from there and think that 800 new people come across the book every day, which is the current trend, then you start to think that there are serious numbers of people who are coming together and that we can start to make a bigger difference.
Has there been any one action that the media has picked up on or something that might help to push a more permanent change - perhaps a legislative one?
The only thing that might lead in that direction is the carrier bag issue – we don’t need all those bags when we have reusable.*
Aside from registering as an organ donor, have you changed your life because of We Are What We Do?
Yes, I think so. Though I do now worry that there may now be someone watching in case I don’t live up to the actions. I might say all this and you will see me using a carrier bag!
Really though that is the point. We might fail some of the time but it is about realising that we can do a lot better and we can do better without sacrifice.
So far, what have you have found the most inspiring outcome of setting up We Are What We Do?
All of the groups I speak to and the people who write in to the message board on the website.
A lot of people now tell us what they are doing and it is always encouraging to find that there are people, just like you and me, who are getting involved.
* I promise that in no way did I influence this comment! Though, for more on plastic bags though have a wee look here - Susie
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Author of "A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World; For Tibet, With Love"
Founder: Act for Tibet |
