Francesco D'Orazio

In the first of a series of guest posts Francesco D’Orazio (Head of Face, the social media strategy and planning department of Face, the co-creation and planning agency) explains how the ‘Co-Create London’ initiative is using social media to speak to residents to improve life in London.

London is one of the biggest cities in the world; it is a massive player in the world’s finance, fashion, business, party, retail and social media industries. It’s a place where dreams can be made and literally anything can happen! But even though London has an unlistable amount of good points and amazing opportunities, it’s not perfect.

So on 24 February 2010, to compliment the launch of The Hub, we also unveiled a new initiative called ‘Co-Create London’. This is aimed at addressing the Capital’s main issues and annoyances by listening to the people who know the City best – the general public. Whether they’ve lived In London their whole life or just passed through, Co-Create London is asking people to answer a very simple question – ‘What Would You Do To make London A Better Place?’.

In just 3 weeks we’ve had loads of buzz worldwide; people have approached us from other countries asking about rolling it out in their cities and we have been covered across all the London blogs.

To date we’ve received over 300 ideas and 3000 votes on a vast range of topics including transport, crime, poverty, education and the environment.  A couple of weeks ago we ran a Co-Creation workshop bringing together Londoners who have contributed to the Cocreatelondon.com website with experts to turn their ideas into positive and real solutions.

The aim is to continue the process of idea generation through crowdsourcing and co-creation workshops as well as to spend time honing concepts into well thought through solutions that can be implemented. These will go to a public online vote, with the idea that the solutions obtaining the most votes will be presented to London Mayor Boris Johnson.

The outputs from the workshop, which were presented at the London Co-Creation Hub launch, can be seen below.

BeSpoke Lanes – Cycle Paths running along side railway lines.

Cycling in London is very dangerous and a lot of people are put off the pedal as they are scared of cycling on the streets. Railway lines provide direct access to the city and some of them have enough room to incorporate a cycle lane running alongside them.

BeSpoke Lanes work as cycling highways running alongside railway lines. By paying a small amount via your Oyster card at the beginning of your journey you can access the BeSpoke cycling lane.

Enterpride – Turning disused properties & spaces into accessible cultural & retail hubs.

London is full of disused and run down space especially post recession, why not allow these spaces to be occupied by start up businesses, artists, creative individuals and educational workshops.

Swap Stories – A Book Swap System for London Underground

Public transport is boring; Swap Stories makes your commute more interesting and lets your imagination go on its own journey!

To check out all the Co-Create London ideas and submit your own visit Co-Create London