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 the narrative of public service …
This is a personal reflection on the work that I have been supporting at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) in my role as a trustee of the Democratic Society. I joined Demsoc back in 2010 as a governor (non-exec director) and have worked with them ever since. It’s gone from being very much a …
I was talking the other day about potential visions for future public services. I was asked what mine was and I didn’t give one. Instead I talked about culture and method and behaviours because how we go about shaping the future is critical, how we work will determine what is within reach. I have passionate …
This post is by way of a warm up for LocalGovCamp – its to help me shape what I want to pitch. There is no guarantee I’ll actually pitch it of course but best to be prepared! Localgovcamp is, for me, a chance to work on ideas which are personal projects so this post is …
This post is the second half of my thoughts from the MadwData event in Sheffield recently (first half here where I talk about system change) in which I actually talk about open data! The point I am trying to make is that open data can never be seen as an end in its self so …
This post is really just a sketch of something I have been calling the democracy stack. The idea behind the democracy stack is a believe that representative democracy needs to be seen as just one part of a democratic system and that participatory and deliberative ‘layers’ are also needed. The diagram above is an attempt to …
There are no good answers without good questions. The spaces in-between which connect different concepts are often relatively unexplored – I think this is the lure of multi-disciplinary work – these spaces express the tension between ideas but are also the connectors and bridges between different groups of thinkers and practitioners. I have for a …