Chain Reaction is a conference/collaboration/networking event taking place in London from the 17th to the 18th November this year - part of the Prime Ministers Council on Social Action. It's aiming to bring together people with ideas for positive action on social change to 'Connect', 'Collaborate' and 'Commit' to action.

And I was rather encouraged to see that in response to the question 'Who should come' they make explicit that this isn't just for the established great and good of the emerging social innovation conference circuit.

But not only that - they back it up with the fee structure. Take a look at this:

So if you know young people who have been exploring positive ideas for action on social change - whose energy, enthusiasm and insights are much needed by events like this - let them know about it. With the wealth of experience in running projects and taking action being built through the Youth Opportunity Fund and Youth Banks, and through many other youth led projects - there are plenty of people out there who the PMs Council on Social Action really need as part of their Chain Reaction...

If you're looking for a way to run a quick mobile phone based consultation - or you've been wanting to use interactive voting at a conference or participation event - but haven't been able to afford expensive e-voting equipment - then you might want to take a look at SMSPoll.net.

 The service (which I just discovered this evening and have only briefly tested) lets you set up quick polls - which anyone you tell about them can vote on by sending a text message to a UK number. The results are updated in near real-time on the website - meaning you can get an 'ask the audience' style effect if you project the graphs that SNSPoll generates onto a big screen.

It's free for small polls (25 votes or less) and is very cheap for larger polls (from £5 month). 

When using it with groups of young people you would need to think carefully about any text message costs it might lead to - but even so - giving each young person £1 toward text message costs and having a few mobile phones to loan to those without them (or more likely, with no credit) at an event could potentially overcome those barriers.

If you do make use of SMSPoll - then I'd love to hear about how it works for you. Or if you've used any alternative systems perhaps you could share details of those and how they worked in the comments...

Thanks to tweets from Dave Briggs and a blog post from Simon over at Puffbox I've just been exploring Steph Gray's quite fantastic innovations over the Science and Society consultation website.

Not only does the site work hard to make a complex consultation more accessible through the use of video introductions and a blog format - but it sets the consultation free, and let's any visitor select questions from the Consultation to make available on their own websites via a custom widget - which feeds information right back into the core consultation.
So - bloggers, schools, youth services - anyone with a web presence where they can add in a little widget code can help their users and audience engage with the Science and Society consultation in a manageable way.

For example, the widget below (you may not see this if viewing in an RSS reader - so click through to the main post to take a look) displays a couple of questions I thought readers of this blog might be interested in answering.

This approach of enabling citizens to easily take, remix and re-publish government consultations to their networks is worth exploring in many more contexts - not least in promoting positive activities, enabling young people to take, remix and share information about positive activities in their areas with their networks.

The Participation Works blogging platform platform may still be a noticeable omission from the Participation Works Network for England offering - but it's good to see a few more comment articles coming through from PW, particularly when they are sharing some great insights.
In this report from the North West Participation Workers conference, PWNE co-ordinator Natalie Jeal shares her reflections from the event, including a pointer to a new research website from Mencap and the OU - and including tips about how to engage young people with learning disabilities in participation work. The tips include:

• Writing minutes and agendas with BIG text and no long words
• Using pictures and symbols where appropriate to tell the story
• Using creative methods instead of just talking
• Making the most of frequent breaks
• Introducing a jargon wall so any complicated words can be explained later on
• Ensuring young people have time to prepare properly so sending out agendas and activities in advance, even to providing Dictaphones so pre-recorded questions can be used during interviews or formal meeting

I can't emphasise enough the importance of thinking about accessibility and creative methods when planning any participation project or opportunity. With the rise of photo sharing websites like Flickr it's easier than ever to find images and quickly put together visual resources - and thinking carefully about ways to remove jargon from any documents not only helps those with learning difficulties - but helps make the participation process more accessible to just about everyone involved.
One area I'm keen to learn more about is writing and creating online content in more accessible ways - as being aware of the literacy levels and particular abilities of participants in online consultation and participation opportunities is no less important that being tuned in at in-person events - and hopefully I'll get the chance to explore that on some projects coming up soon.

I've never been entirely convinced that Second Life has a big role to play in campaigning, participation and public sector activity (it seems to fail both on counts of being intuitive and accessible to new users, and in being somewhere with a large existing constituency of people to work with...) although seeing Wheelies on the short list of the UK Catalyst Awards, and with Google's launch of Lively perhaps virtual worlds will have more of a role to play in the future.

In any case, tomorrow I'm heading down to Maidstone to share a little at the Kent Innovation Showdown about the possibilities for using social media in engaging service users, citizens and communities in the design, development and delivery of better services. And the presentation is also being broadcast in Second Life - so do feel free to drop by and join in. I'll be speaking at around 14.40 till 15.20pm.
You can also drop by the same location (Second Life URL) to see the following presentations. The one at 13.40 looks like the most interesting for those, as me, interested in hearing a bit more about what second life has to offer to local authorities.

02 – Introduction to Mobilisation (11.05 – 11.35)

IBM – Team Collaboration (11.45 – 12.20)

New Line Learning Academy – Online Curriculum (12.30 – 13.00)

Second Places – Virtual Councils (13.40- 14.15)