Welcome and thanks for visiting. This blog is where I write about projects I am working on, capture my research in progress and generally organise my thinking in public. It helps me enormously to have a place to do this – I hope you also find it useful. If you are new to this space you may find it helpful to read my ‘why I still blog blog‘ but suffice to say that this a place where I share my thinking in public but that means its subject to change and may look quite different when its actually applied in my role at Dorset Council.
I tend to roam between designing for democracy and more general thinking about technology driven change and the digital mindset. I’m increasing thinking about systems practice as well as my own leadership practice.
If you are looking for my professional bio then you need to head over to LinkedIn .
Dr Catherine Howe
Here are some of the things I am currently working on:
Latest posts
We need new feedback loops
I’m really excited to see the shift in the Test, Learn and Grow work as Nick Kimber and the team put the focus on movement building. If we want to get beyond pilots and make test and learn ‘how we do things round here’ across the sector then its time ...
Teach a person how to fish…
I’m 4 months in post at Dorset Council and I’m coming out of the new girl haze with a real sense of purpose and clarity about what needs doing. Highly dangerous as clearly I still have a lot to learn about the place and the organisation but the world doesn’t ...
Working in place (and working out what that means)
Warning! This is one of those more geeky think pieces as I’m trying to make sense of, and dreaming a bit, about three connected strands of thought: the importance of community power as a foundation for any kind of democratic or public service renewal the need to weave this into ...
Disentangling
My lovely husband and I have spent the last couple of weeks sorting out the move down to Dorset and getting set up in our new place. It’s a process of working through which bits of our old life we want to bring with us and which we’re going leave ...
Still thinking about AI…..
I have used the fact I was on a panel on AI at the Stronger Things conference with some brilliant people to get my thinking organised around AI and community power. The session is called: Responsible robots – how to embed community power in your digital, data and AI strategy. ...
Reorganisation by design
Starting back at the DCN conference I’ve been talking about design a lot as I try and make the case that we need to design our new unitaries before we start to measure them. I’ve also been part of some really thoughtful work from the Policy lab on this and ...
The why I still blog blog…..
I’ve been really touched by the comments I’ve had on LinkedIn about as well as the notes and messages from my staff I’ve been sent the result of announcing that I’ll be leaving Adur and Worthing in July to take up the post of Chief Executive of Dorset Council in ...
CFGS: Opportunity Knocks
This is an overview of the keynote speech that I gave at the CFGS conference. Clearly I am biased as the chair but I thought it was a brilliant conference, really carefully curated and hosted and with a real buzz about it as people came together to talk about the ...
Local digital: SPRINT!
I’ve been reflecting on how the GDS local government sprint goals that Theo Blackwell is leading on and after a conversation with the team there I said I would suggest some practical prototyping which could help right now as we wrestle with Devo / LGR / Planning reform and of ...
Government Digital Service redux
This is a quick ‘hot take’ as the kids say about the launch of the new digital centre for government yesterday. There were only a few local government people there so I thought it would be helpful to share. In parallel the state of digital government was published (spoiler alert: ...
Digital Leadership All posts
We need new feedback loops
I’m really excited to see the shift in the Test, Learn and Grow work as ...
Field Notes All posts
We need new feedback loops
I’m really excited to see the shift in the Test, Learn and Grow work as ...
NHS Citizen All posts
NHS Citizen design – agile but structured
I wanted to capture my first reflection from the final NHS Citizen design workshop last ...