Postings from the front line

July 2009 - Posts

• Jobs for the boys

  Alan Milburn's Access to Professions report has shocked me.  It has revealed that 70% of under 14s have had no career advice, and 45% of over 14s have had no or very limited careers advice.  What is going on?  Are we now so focussed on exam results that the next phase in the lives of our young people has just been completely disregarded?   Two common accusations, inevitably contradictory, levelled at young people is that they are lacking in ambition, whilst simultaneously aiming way too high at senior roles or celebrity status.  But if we don't give them the building blocks of guidance to form a career path, what do we expect? Posted Jul 27 2009, 09:05 PM by Adam Nichols with 2 comment(s)

• I feel old

  This week has been full of the Apollo landings anniversary.  If you want to feel extremely old, try remembering that November marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  When a memory is so clear it's horrifying to realise how long ago it was.  However, my geriatricity aside, a team from the Imperial War Museum is taking 24 young people between the ages of 16-18 years to Berlin and Leipzig to conduct a series of interviews with eyewitnesses of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Live daily video reports and blogs about their experience will be shared via the Radiowaves website for anyone to access. Posted Jul 21 2009, 09:12 PM by Adam Nichols with no comments

• Don't do this if you're depressive, drunk, prone to seizures or under 18

  At the Derren Brown (not sure what to call him - magician? Hypnotist? Con artist? Antichrist?!)  show, Enigma, one section involves mass hypnotism of the audience.   A strange note is played, and much mysticism ensues, the result of which is that some audience members find themselves in a trance-like state and standing, whilst the rest of the audience blinks in the light and wonders what on earth just happened. You cannot take part in this section of the show if you are a) depressive, b) drunk, c) prone to seizures or d) under 18.  Interesting what strange restrictions youth brings.  As a 17 year old you could pass your driving test at 2pm that day and have driven on the motorway at 70mph at 2.15pm to the Apollo, but then you would not have been able to take part in a large section of the show when you got there. Posted Jul 16 2009, 08:34 PM by Adam Nichols with 12 comment(s)

• Committing Facebook suicide

  A colleague has committed Facebook suicide, and decided to de-Twitter herself as well in one fell swoop.  She was shocked at the reaction of friends, who regarded it as an astonishing betrayal.  One was particularly offended and when questioned, said: “Well, it’s made me look as though I have lost a friend now and people count, you know...”” And this is a woman approaching forty. We are told often that social networking is an equal forum, and a great way to communicate with young people, spread powerful messages, and reach people in a way that traditional media has not allowed us to.   The way Twitter has been used in Iran is a fantastic example of the fluid and egalitarian way in which the medium is best used.  Competitive social networking is one of the side effects of this fast-growing phenomenon.   One mobile phone service provider is announcing deals for anyone with more than twenty friends; hardly a difficult task for most of us with contact lists in the hundreds but for a fragile teenager, judgements like this matter a great deal. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter may release our inner child, but they seem to bring out playground politics too. Posted Jul 10 2009, 09:40 PM by Adam Nichols with 9 comment(s)

• Dark glasses, dogs, tinted windows and the Prime Minister

  On Friday we launched The Youth of Today, the new government funded youth leadership programme.  We were lucky enough to be joined by the Prime Minister for the launch event in Wolverhampton. It was fascinating to see what happens when the PM comes to town, from the MI6 agents in dark glasses swarming around the venue beforehand, to the visit of the dogs and their handlers (Rachel, my Communications Manager, being a dog lover, was told that unfortunately she wasn’t allowed to stroke them!), to the Presidential style cavalcade of around 10 people carriers with tinted windows that swept in at around 2pm. The event took the form of an informal debate on leadership amongst a small group of around 15 young people from the West Midlands.  The PM spent around half an hour chatting to the young people about their experiences which, as you can imagine, was a fantastic opportunity for them.  He was brilliant at engaging with them - informal, relaxed and funny; the very opposite of the rather stiff persona he sometimes presents on more formal occasions. My favourite moment was when Jordan, a member of the Wolverhampton Youth Parliament, made Gordon Brown take one of his professional looking business cards.  Even when the PM tried to leave Jordan’s table, he insisted the card left with him, and even managed to get the press corps to take a photo of GB holding up the card! On Friday and Saturday we were top story on the Number 10 website and you can read what they had to say, and watch a short video, by clicking here. Now onto the tougher challenge of delivering the programme successfully over the next 21 months! Click here to follow Adam on Twitter. Posted Jul 06 2009, 07:38 PM by Adam Nichols with no comments

• Scene and Heard

  Theatre is close to my heart as I run OVO, a theatre company in St Albans.  Scene and Heard is a theatre company comprised of children from Somers Town, recently made famous in a 2008 film of the same name, who write plays which are performed by professional actors for four nights.  Emily Watson, Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen are amongst its supporters.  The company relies on charitable grants and private donations, and the organiser was told that for the money it cost for ten children to write a play, the council could run a theatre workshop for 200 children.  But for those ten children, having middle-class, and occasionally famous, adults watching their words come to life through a professional performance is a minor miracle and the most astonishing validation of their abilities.  What a fantastic idea. Posted Jul 04 2009, 09:56 PM by Adam Nichols with no comments