Exploratory talks with outside businesses and entrepreneurs are always exciting, and of particular interest was the seminar that we held today with Peter Anderson, (pictured) who has a great deal of experience in setting up businesses from scratch in Pembrokeshire, and Jane Davidson,  the former Welsh Government Education Minister and now in charge of a new ‘virtual faculty’ for sustainability at the University of Wales Trinity St David’s (TSD), called ‘Inspire’.

And so ‘Invent’ met ‘Inspire’. Some  interesting ideas came forward; inspiring and inventive ones. Peter Anderson has been working on a clever system for measuring, encouraging and documenting opinion. And wants to see how his system would work in a college environment.

Taking the old fashioned concept of the ‘suggestion box’ and with aspects of opinion polling and feedback forms, Peter wants everyone – school kids, college students, health service patients, public servants and any other group you can think of – and individuals – to have a simple method of voicing their opinions and commenting on other people’s too.

Not satisfied with simply finding out opinions, Peter’s system allows each participant to vote for (or against) everyone else’s ideas and opinions and then turns suggestions into actions; thus creating cause and effect.

Organisations often canvas opinion and then, well, what? People tend to become disillusioned and give up. Or perhaps feel that the loudest voice always wins in the end. This system offers (within sensible parameters) the chance for lots of ideas to become actions.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time understanding this whole concept and seeing Peter’s system working in pilots that we have been running with him at the College. I now see the word ‘engagement’ as meaning something. In its bluntest description, it’s about getting people to become involved and feel ‘part of it’.

Pembrokeshire College has used Peter’s ‘VocalEyes’ (did you get the pun?) to develop a much more meaningful way of garnering the opinion of its students. Called Learner Voice, the pilot has seen 10,000 interactions – an incredible figure given that previously the college used traditional methods, in line with many other educational institutions, and found the process (such as suggestion boxes) didn’t really resonate with many of its students.

An eye-catching box on the log in page and a simple template for putting forward an voting on ideas – and then a system that makes sure ideas are taken forward to the relevant departments such as management team meetings, has seen some terrific ideas come forward – and some turned into action too; but more about that later.

The inventions project is working with Peter on these ideas and it was delighted when Peter suggested we  host a meeting with Jane Davidson, from Trinity St David’s’ Inspire’  sustainability faculty to see if we could find some ways forward.  As a result of the presentations by Peter and members of the Pembrokeshire College team, Jane suggested that the system could be used at TSD to help her to create a sustainability group.

Jane (pictured above at the meeting) is developing the group across the three institutions that make up this new University – based in three centres in west Wales– Swansea Met, Lampeter and Trinity, Carmarthen – and the potential for inspiring participation, debate and ideas, which needs a system that allows people from these three very different and geographically separate locations to develop authentic communication and meaningful relationships. I left the meeting feeling it had been a very constructive one.

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.” ― Mary Shelley

This ESDF project is funded by the Welsh Government’s Academia for Business Fund (A4B) and the European Regional Development Fund.