Defining civic and reconsidering critical theory

This post has been provoked by reading “The Political Web: Media, Participation and Alternative Democracy” by Peter Dahlgren (Kindle edition, 2013) as part of the viva prep.  Rather than a full write up (which I will do at a later date I hope as the book was excellent) its more a set of notes as a basis for a discussion of what I mean when I talk about ‘civic’ participation as this is very much central to...

Leeds – what a day!!!

So – if you follow me on twitter you will probably know I spent an intense but brilliant day in Leeds on Tuesday meeting all kinds of fascinating people. This post is an attempt to capture my initial reflections – I know that lots more will come of it as I mull over the many and various conversations.  I have started a twitter list appropriately called fabulous Leeds which I will populate when I am on a...

Social Council: Thinking in Public

I spent last Friday in Solihull for the first ‘proper’ meeting about the Social Council – this post to an attempt to explain what it is – but not too much as I will explain. First then the current working definition of the social council: The Social Council will bring together social values, representing the best of public service, with the social behaviours that represent successful...

RSA Catalyst Project: Network of Networks

It is now some time since we got the RSA catalyst award and this post is an attempt to kickstart this work. Its also preparation for a project meeting we have later today so its just in time blogging. The project is seeking to address three questions: What is the simplest thing we can do to connect all the many excellent civic networks we can find in Brighton? How can we give that network of networks a stronger...

Networked Individuals and the creation of elites

So – here we have more from the box of dangerous ideas* in the form of a write up of Networked by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman. Once again this is really just my notes and ideas which have caught my eye rather than a proper review so please look away if this is not your thing! In common with Net Smart by Howard Rheingold the book explores what the network society might mean for the individual and both books are...

Networks of Outrage and Hope

This is the first of a number of posts I plan to write as I prep for my viva*. If you prefer my less academic stuff then look away now! The prep involves re-reading the thesis and noting all the bits I would now like to have done differently (eurgh) as well catching up on the reading that would have been in the literature review if it had been published before I finished writing up. I have been gathering this...

And the answer is….its Leadership!!!

I think I hit a nerve!  Lots of responses on comments from the blog post last week so I wanted to follow up on them, there is clearly an interesting debate to be had here. The crux of the debate seems to be around two main questions: Is it reasonable or appropriate to expect our leaders to have a minimum level of knowledge with respect to digital in the wider social as well as technical sense? If we do have this...

Digital Leadership or just leadership?

Ok – so back at the desk and trying to find my blogging rhythm post PHD submission. I need to get into some kind of discipline with this I think. So – to do that I can tell you that coming up are posts on the network of networks as we have got some RSA catalyst funding for that which I need to get moving on and also something on democratic/digital identity which feeds into another research project. Also...

Are Comms the blockers?

Better late than never?  Here is a rather delayed writeup of a session I facilitated at CommsCamp…… Ok then, slightly provocative title but it did get people’s attention. The question I put to the group was about the fact that, within the wider organisation, communications are often seen as the blocker with respect to social media take up – and I thought it would be interesting to explore...

20 things from BlueLightCamp13

Just blogging a quick 20 pointer (HT @Danslee) after a great weekend at BluelightCamp. I have blogged the network of networks here so this is a more general write up. Thank yous Thank you Sasha, Mark and Clare , Angus and Simon for a fab event. Really interesting mix of people and as ever with these things lots and lots of interesting discussions. Extra thanks to Sasha who is a complete star in creating and...