By Susan Diamond published on

If you haven’t already discovered what a great resource the UK-based Nesta is, you should take a look. The organisation describes itself as an “innovation charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life”.

The value of Nesta is that they’ve put a lot of time, energy and money thinking about a lot of the same challenges that we face in New Zealand such as:

  • enabling collaboration
  • building citizen engagement
  • supporting government innovation
  • using social media effectively
  • making evidence useful.
And the best part is that they publish a lot of their research findings, case studies and offer a develop your skills section with learning materials and guidance. While the context is different from New Zealand, these resources are a great starting point.

The content on the Nesta website doesn’t really fit into a particular skill set: I’ve found useful info here while working in policy, project management, communications and engagement. I also find their work on what they call ‘future thinking’ to be a good counter-balance to the more pragmatic advice. And since Nesta isn’t a government agency, their content tends to be more focused on societal priorities.

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