Society daily 24.06.10

• This call to arms for the voluntary sector by Ed Cox, director of IPPR north. Essentially, Cod says, don't look to the government for guidance on the big society: it can't help. We're on our own, which might, actually, be a good thing...

• This blogpost by Michael Schrage in Harvard Business Review, which suggests that having less money might force us to create better services (thanks to Ruth Kennedy for the tip):

The surest, albeit not the nicest, way to shock teams into revisiting their innovation roots is by ruthlessly annihilating their existing relationship with money. In truth, most innovators need more money like a fish needs a bicycle. Instead of desperately scrambling for additional funds, smart teams should step back and cut back. The awkward instant when innovators wished they had "more" is precisely the moment they should imagine how they'd succeed if they had "less". Slicing 15% from a spreadsheet leaves teams little choice but to make hard choices and revisit once-cherished assumptions.

• David Clark of Solace reflecting on the "transparency bureaucracy" springing up in the wake of the ministerial order that councils must publish online all in invoices and contracts over £500...

• Blogger Rick at Flipchart Fairy Tales on how public services will cope with the likelihood of 25% cuts to budgets:

"Is there anyone in the public sector who knows how to reduce spending by a third over four years? Come to think of it, I don't know of many organisations anywhere that have cut costs on that scale over such a short period. Most managers in the public sector have only ever known year on year real-terms funding increases and have little or no experience of such drastic downsizing. They will have to learn fast."

• This report of the reaction of some Islington school headteachers to Coalition plans for academy schools. I took a personal interest in this quote from Mary Gibson, veteran head of Yerbury primary school (to declare an interest, two of my children go there):

"This school will become an academy over my dead body."

Note to education secretary Michael Gove: as my kids will attest, you mess with Mrs Gibson at your peril...

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Society Guardian social enterprise summit

We are starting to plan this year's Society Guardian social enterprise summit. Last year's summit was a great success – you can read about it here. Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us whom you'd like to see and what you would like discussed. Email charmian.walker-smith@guardian.co.uk. You can Follow Guardian social enterprise on Twitter.