I've been trying for ages to articulate the principles I think need to underpin the next generation of policy making. 't easy, but I think I've got enough for a thread. So THREAD...

1. Our job isn't to come up with solutions, but to support systems of people and organisations to grow their own way out of complex problems. We need to be facilitators, not decision-makers.

2. Culture and emotion are base, not superstructure. They determine what a group of people believe is possible, and what they are prepared to accept. If you want to achieve something new, start with understanding the cultural/emotional attachment to the old.

3. Build the capacity of the systems you're working with. As facilitators, we need to help others find one another, build relationships, understand and integrate different perspectives. Help those around you get the skills and confidence they need to find solutions together.

4. Process is more important than analysis or decision. The system you're working with needs information, but it doesn't need you to define what that information means. Create brilliant, inclusive processes that enable your systems to find their own answers.

(nb Democracy in its many forms is one of these processes, and we shouldn't be afraid to either expand its definition not to experiment with the way it works) (also nb, if you want to see the future check out Scandinavian political platforms like @alternativet_)

5. Empiricism is *really* important, but I've put it fourth for a reason. We need our publics and partners to be informed and engaged, and we need to know what the evidence says about what's possible and what works. But you should never, ever start from here.

6. Create distributed solutions. If your conclusion is all about your own organisation's work, how you should spend your budget or the orders you need to give other people, then you didn't read the preceding five principles properly. It's all about a shared, systemic solution.

At least some of this is wrong, so please help me improve. There's a google doc I've worked up with @jasonkitcat and @curiousc that you can find here if you want to work directly on this. Or you know where to find me...

Here's the doc. Based on a slightly earlier iteration of this thinking and with some hacking already done. Let's build: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sndabY1gnkm-hdQu2L4bDdZaaT6g-GNQBnXFMVCrqe0/edit