1. education
2. graduate school
3. college

Balliol
NETWORKS for
Knowledge
IMPACT
Networks
Networks for impact
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“Go to the best school you can get into because
the real value is the network.” Brian Halligan, co-founder of MIT HubSpot
“Talk there must be; but it would be well if they, who at meetings and
over dinner tables discuss the lives of the poor, felt their words to be
pledged to be redeemed by acts.” Samuel Augustus Barnett, Warden of Toynbee Hall (a Balliol initiative), 1884–1906
A progressive network for impact, of alumni by alumni
Writing in the New Yorker last year James Wood described
There has been something going on that—in the words of Balliol
Balliol as “one of the wealthiest and most entitled of the
alum Michael Sandel—money can’t buy. Jowett himself built
Oxford colleges”. News for the Bursar! Balliol’s endowment is
enormous influence from no vastly endowed treasure chest.
actually middleranking among Oxbridge Colleges; paltry among
For many of us, Alumni Action needs to mean more than
American ones.
periodic refreshments and conviviality, or codgering about.
At a “Balliol in the City” event in 2013, Sir Nick Macpherson,
Yet throughout Oxford’s Balliol-led modernization over the last
Permanent Secretary to HMT (& now Balliol Knowledge’s
150 years, our alumni have had worldly impact well beyond
Visitor) underlined a Balliol theme that dates back at least to
the college’s financial weight. We are everywhere and doing
Jowett: the doing of worldly Good alongside worldly Well.
everything—well, almost everything.
Sir Drummond Bone saw how BKN could deepen and broaden
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alumni engagement globally, where the
connecting across establishment and
model among Alumni ourselves: simple
College has thin proprietary resources on
anarchy, for mutual, collegiate and public
mathematics gives spoke-to-spoke an at
the ground. Drummond had long urged
benefit.
least quadratic edge in community size,
that universities should not be overly
and so in the value of the network effect.
reliant on government support, private
BKN supplements the plainly necessary
Thus a force greater than the sum of our
support or tuition fees. Meanwhile many
big-donor approach to fundraising
parts. Thus a bolder, bigger Balliol.
Balliol alumni have convening capital
(centralized solicitation of gifts from HNW
Nicola Horlick (Chair, Balliol ‘79)
of non-financial kinds, which could be
individuals) with a plunge into Alumni self-
Ronald Roberts (Founding DIrector, ‘86)
assembled for value creation. We need to
organisation for impact. A hub-and-spoke
Laurie Laybourn (Member, Exco, ‘11)
be leveraging ourselves. Hence a startling
model of College-to-Alumni outreach
Baliol Knowledge Networks
proposition: an Alumni-plus+ network,
cannot compare to a spoke-to-spoke
42 Bruton Pl, London W1J 6PA
DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
Financial
capital
BALLIOL KNOWLEDGE
NETWORKS
Human &
intellectual capital
There are three universities—
Oxford, Cambridge and Balliol—with
the first two no match for the third.
Boris Johnson, Balliol alumnus, Conservative Mayor of London
BALLIOL’S COMMONWEALTH
Institutional
capital
Balliol Knowledge Networks and the Development Office complement
and multiply each other’s activities. Both contribute to Balliol’s reach and
to activating its latent institutional capital.
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The challenge
FINANCIAL
SERVICES
ARTS
Balliol alumni can be found in positions
of influence and expertise, far flung
LAW
3RD SECTOR
both across sectors— public policy, arts,
• Dean of the Blavatnik School
of Government
• Dean of Said Business School
• Dean of the OU Law Faculty
• Director of the Martin School
• Warden of Rhodes House
• Chancellor of Oxford University
• Bodley’s Librarian
• Professor of Internet Studies,
Oxford Internet Institute
PUBLIC
POLICY
business, financial services, academia,
sport, development, third sector—and
BUSINESS
geographically across the world.
BALLIOL
COLLEGE
Balliol Knowledge has a simple purpose
with profound potential: to facilitate
discourse and collaboration amongst
alumni and orchestrate collective action
participating alumni, the College and the
and social impact, in doing so benefiting
world.
Alumni
Balliol College
The world
•
•
•
Develop “T-shaped” skills: deep
knowledge in one area, but also
the ability to work on a range of
•
broader challenges—synthetic and
interdisciplinary. Very Balliol!
•
Magnify individual efforts and
enterprises through the Balliol network
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Increase the global extent of Balliol’s
changing agendas and insights,
Deepen existing Balliol-OU
dismantling obstacles to collective
collaborations (e.g. with Said &
action.
Blavatnik Schools)
•
Define and implement framework-
footprint
Increase public profile of Fellowship,
JCR & MCR workproduct
•
Create a genuinely innovative model
for higher education legacy.
Catalysing impact: a “nudge factory”
Balliol Knowledge Networks is, very simply, an initiative
still distracted or dispersed. Projects provoked by BKN Clubs
to build collective interaction. Through BKN we nudge each
and Voice networks are arranged and executed by individual
other into collaborations that might not easily occur, were we
alumni and external organisations.
INCUBATION
Balliol
Knowledge
Networks
EXECUTION BY COLLABORATION AMONG EG
751
Individual alumni & organisations
Club
Action
Desirable “insider+” membership networks
Powerfully embedded players convene
physically convened for themed debates,
across institutional and geographic silos
cultural initiatives, brainstorming and agenda-
to solve practical problems through
setting, planet-wide.
imaginitively-framed collective action.
Voice
Advisory
Disseminates interdisciplinary, contrarian,
The “poor man’s McKinsey” effect: expertise
paradigm-challenging questions, answers, de-
for impact at accessible scale and cost tiers,
bates and discussions on paper or innovative
towards more progressive objectives than the
digital media.
current landscape of “beltway boutiques”
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Balliol+ networks for collective interaction
Grab a wide-angled lens to see the
As orchestrator, BKN pans for gold within
spectrum of network effects that can be
this expanding and networked universe
generated by collective interaction, spoke-
and then assembles and activates
to-spoke, across and beyond the Balliol
qualifying opportunities, working with
Alumni universe. That’s the map across
informal collaborators—such as 751, the
the page. It illustrates a universe of latent
Forward Institute and the Esmee Fairbairn
opportunities ripe for activation by a lean
Foundation.
incubator and network orchestrator—
which is BKN.
751
751 is a network incubator, created by
Balliol alumni and others and capitalized
under the Seed Enterprise Investment
Scheme (SEIS).
751 has agreed to assist BKN in the
following ways:
A moat, drawbridge or choke-point (please
•
Given its global and impact ambition, BKN is
the core BKN platform retains networks
relentlessly outward facing, encompassing
selectivity. The junction box (comprising
while always pointing beyond the ivory
the Honorary Patron, the Balliol College
spires. And, through a sort of collective
Development Director and the BKN
network-charisma, BKN draws in towards
Founding Director) decides what gets
itself meritorious individuals, organizations
waved through into BKN and what must
and new networks of all kinds.
remain outside.
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Assembling capabilities across
and within private & public
adjust metaphor to taste) ensures that
bureaucracies of all kinds
•
Design & execution of Action and
Voice projects beyond the Ivory
Spires
751 and BKN will collaborate where
mutually agreeable, as decided at the
BKN-Balliol Junction Box.
751
751
Alumni-to-alumni and beyond: BKN Networks+
Vyvyan Salmon
Balliol alum
BKN@The Harvard Club
Oxford &
Harvard Club
London
Alumni
projects
Housing
Crisis
Project
pi
lo
tfi
751
pilot fish*
Tim Shier
(not Balliol alum!)
Bristol
JUNCTION BOX APPROVAL
Forward Institute
(Adam Grodecki)
Carbon
Sizzle
Project
Cambridge
Imperial
Oxford
Student Hubs Kingston
Southampton
SOAS
Warwick
BKN
Thinknet
Balliol
Knowledge
Networks
Junction box
Master
Development Office Director
BKN Founding Director
(Meets at least monthly)
Brookes
Winchester
JCR/
MCR/
SCR
Balliol
Dragons
sh
*
BKN@The Forward
Institute
751
Digital
Dashboard
Balliol
Book
Prize
Balliol
Interdisciplinary
Institute
(via Davis
McCarthy)
Oxford
Internet
Institute
Simon Morrison
Balliol alumn
David Vines
*BKN supports approved, and salvages rejected, projects
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751
751
Lean network governance
A nimble networks orchestrator
Efficient repetition of established skills (the historic strength
of corporate bureaucracy) cannot meet today’s volatility. To
effectively innovate in today’s constantly changing world
“Configure. Perform. Disband.
Reconfigure. Perform again“
Bill Drayton, leading social entrepreneur and BKN Advisor
landscape, while making the most of impermanent alumni
resources, we instead need a model of “open, fluid, teams
of teams” that can perform adaptively upon changing
chessboards.
What it’s NOT
Therefore BK is underweight in “head office” costs: it self-
Balliol Knowledge Networks is expressly NOT a form of:
funds only the conductor, not the entire salaried orchestra.
•
Charity;
Permanent resources and machinery are light, ensuring
•
Think tank;
minimal waste and maximum efficiency.
•
Volunteering;
•
Probono professional services;
A lean incubator for high impact projects
•
Debating society
Balliol Knowledge Networks is lean by design. A permanent
•
Subject matter society (e.g. Of lawyers; medics)
and efficient backbone funds and orchestrates individual
•
Supper Club
projects, each with its own potential for social and financial
•
Core Researcher
dividends. Network members may be backbone subscribers or
•
Internship provider
contribute to a standby fund which funds individual projects
•
Corporate bureaucracy!
assessed on a case-by-case basis.
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“Things Balliol can almost do”
Master of Balliol
Honorary Patron
Sir Nicholas Macpherson
Visitor
Balliol-BKN Junction Box
Master
Development Office Director
BKN Founding Director
(meets at least monthly)
Exco
Nicola Horlick
Chair
Natalie Gold
Exco Member
Tom Camoys
First Advisor
Cyrus Ardalan
Advisor
(meets ad hoc)
Laurie Laybourn
Exco Member
Martin Taylor
Advisor
Ronald Roberts
Founding Director/Convenor
Member
Member
Ngaire Woods
Advisor
Project-specific invitees
Climate Change
Adaption Network
Climate Networks
Matt Scott
Vital Stranger
(not Balliol Alum!)
Better Banking Networks
History Networks
Richard Lambert
Balliol alum &
Advisor
NHS Networks
Cultural Networks
Nicola Horlick
Balliol alum
Charlotte Jones
Balliol alum
Martin Taylor
Balliol alum
.... Balliol alumns ...
.... Balliol alumns ...
Simon Stevens Tamara Finkelstein
NHS
NHS COO
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BKN and Balliol College
BK has the blessing and interest of Balliol College. Yet BKN is an independent project, run by the alumni ourselves, and does not
in any sense represent the College. BKN blends the best of affinity and distance, as follows:
Balliol-BKN Junction Box
Exco+ Plus
BKN Exco
Meeting at least monthly, the Master
Master of Balliol, Development Di-
Meeting as and when necessary or
of Balliol College, the Development
rector of Balliol, Les Green (Fellow of
desirable: Chairperson, Founding
Director of Balliol College and the
Balliol College and Professor of the
Director, Members, ad hoc Invitees as
Founding Director of BKN filter collab-
Philosophy of Law), Richard Collier,
relevant
orations, trouble-shoot, problem-solve
Balliol College Finance Bursar), Chair-
and align as far as possible the au-
person of BKN, Founding Director of
tonomous agendas of Balliol College,
BKN and its Exco (including ad hoc
BKN and third parties to streamline
invitees).
the Exco+ proceedings by sharpening
issues for debate and decision.
“Japanese and Scots, Hindoos and Frenchmen, Americans and Englishmen,
Brahmins and Catholics, Nonconformists and High Anglicans, Jews and Gentiles…
sparks of nobility and artizans; a bazaar of all nations and languages, the whole
CE Vaughan, ‘Balliol five and twenty years ago,’
world in miniature”
Magazine of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire. Vol 11 no 4 (1899), pp.137-145
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Revenue streams
Balliol
Knowledge
Balliol Knowledge backbone funds
CLUB
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•
•
•
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Alumni contributions
Annual membership dues
Eventing revenues
Sponsorships
Being Balliol – We Need You
Legend says that Balliol was founded 1263 as John de Balliol’s act of penance for kidnapping the Bishop of Durham. While not
necessarily to be commended for re-enactment, a certain irrepressible Balliol spirit matches our volatile times. If your piece of
this Balliol spirit is currently repressed, now is the time to unleash it. We need your involvement to create a groundbreaking
innovation in alumni participation.
Money
Time
Network exchange
• Platform investment: contribute to
We guard your time fiercely, so that
You’ve left Balliol with the most cohesive
the intial funds required to set up the
you give and get impact, not swamped.
latent Network in the world—now bring
self-sustaining BKN backbone
Contributions might be formal
your own other networks to us! BKN
• Standby fund: contribute to a project
(introductions, referrals), informative
networks are built on interdisciplinary
investment fund, which is drawn on
(writing participation in events),
insight and participation across
by individual projects subject to sign
substantive (getting stuck in) peremptory
geographies. Conversely, they thrive upon
off by BKN Exco and the individual
(commenting as initiatives iterate;
diversity. Networks of networks multiply
contributor in each case
consenting to aggregation of content), or
impact, for mutual and societal benefit.
• Membership Fees
hostpitable (contributing venues for BKN
• Subscription fees
events).
Examples might include convening
colleagues, sometimes across disciplines
and sectors.
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Illustrative BKN Projects
Club
Voice
DIGITAL DASHBOARD
Incubate conversations through actively curated linkedIn
CARBON SIZZLE (150 words)
In February 2015 The Guardian launched a tiered
membership Club, claiming “There is an instinctive
bond between Guardian readers – we almost nod to
one another as we read the paper on a train.” The far
more substantial Balliol bond enables us to convene
across ideological warring lines, as on 22 January when
Harvard climate change enthusiast, Tim Weiskel, entered
the lion’s den of the free-market IEA, triggering sharp
and well-informed exchanges. Attendees included the
or GroupSpaces platforms within private forums by theme.
These attract self-selecting Balliol+ interests groups across
matriculation years and in T-shaped inter-disciplinary configurations. Each forum easily builds out a digital dashboard webwide and establishes templates or agendas (including ad hoc
publishing agendas) across OU affiliates—for example,
in advancing identified BKN climate change or better
banking sub-themes, we can inexpensively upload bespoke
interview clips and relevant readings, calls for action, etc
from contributors of all kinds, planet-wide.
head of another major think tank, the Bank of England’s
lead on Climate Change Adaption, the Chief Executive
BALLIOL BOOK PRIZE
of a Foundation actively funding post-carbon initiatives,
With its immense English language diaspora Balliol steps
affiliates of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and
strongly into the gap arising from the demise of the Common-
Environment and the MD: Risk and Compliance at the
wealth Writers Prize and the controversial opening up of the
British Business Bank— who asked the salient question at
MAN Booker to all world literature in English, yet paradoxi-
the end: how might the sizzle of the evening’s debate (itself
cally limited to that published in the UK alone—and not, for
valuable) translate into a forward agenda? Voice? Action?
instance, in India. A small endowed prize gives massive cultural
Advisory? Or all of the above? People join our talk shop
saliency, drawing upon while multiplying Balliol’s social capital,
because it’s geared to go further, if they wish.
with a halo effect across all Voice and other BKN networks.
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Action
DRAGON’S DEN
The standby fund enables Balliol+ communities working
together to design propose and execute sustainable
projects for impact. In structured partnership with Oxford
student hubs, Dervorguilla seed-funds meritorious projects.
In an era of predatory internships, we defend the Balliol+
community’s distinctive capacities for bold choices &
productive eccentricity. Balliol hasn’t historically produced
what Bill Deresiewicz calls “Excellent Sheep.” And it shouldn’t
Advisory
SAMPLE PROJECT: CARBON STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT
Various stakeholders in African mining activities wish to
examine how low carbon development plans may gain
buy-in. Because such plans imply stranded assets, poor
cost benefits analysis can block consensus. An advisory
mandate, in collaboration with the Smith School, seeks
to displace “noise” with evidence. Energy sector SAs
could occur upstream (e.g. reserves), midstream (e.g.
transmission), or downstream (e.g. generation). But
COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTS (CLTs)
other impacted sectors might be forests (e.g. logging
CLTs create small scale affordable housing, driven by
concessions), transport (e.g. ports), the built environment
local change-makers. Foundations (e.g., Esmee Fairbairn)
(e.g. offices), and agriculture (e.g. land-use change).
fund a design phase to produce the CLT proposal, which
attracts full build-financing if successful. An asset lock pre-
A faster pace of decarbonisation means a greater chance
vents the new housing assets trading out through spec-
of SAs in different sectors and larger economic, social,
ulation. The BKN action agenda is to tip the CLT model
and political impacts to be managed. The mere threat of
into mainstream finance and to explore the broader and
SAs could result in affected groups actively or passively
adjacent aspects of the housing crisis as well. The mecha-
frustrating or destabilizing LCDPs. These groups could
nism is an applied workshop session convened at Esmee
include the owners of assets potentially impacted, the
Fairbairn among all stakeholders, including the right pairs
businesses operating assets, communities hosting assets,
of ears from within BKN-affiliated banks.
and policy-makers reliant on tax revenues generated from
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42 Bruton Place
London
W1J 6PA
www.balliolknowledge.com
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