I was really lucky to be invited to participate in a 2 day workshop in Stockholm the week before last organised and hosted by SALAR, with help from Jeremy Millard and brilliant facilitation from Martin Sande. I have worked with SALAR on and off over the last five years and one of the many things …
My thesis is (currently but persistently) titled “Civic Architecture in Cyberspace” and this post is an attempt to explain what I mean by this. Be warned that this also a draft for a section in the final document so may be a little slow…. When William Mitchell described his ‘City of Bits‘ in 1996 he …
Here’s the thing. I have tremendous respect and appreciation for people who choose to stand in local elections. Local politics is a fairly thankless task however with a few exceptions we see exceptional public service from our local politicians. At the same time I find it screamingly frustrating as to how slow the adoption of …
When I say Facebook is evil its firstly a cheap shot aimed at getting an immediate laugh out of the audience – I have to say that it usually works. I think it hits a chord with people as all good jokes should. While evil is perhaps an overstatement its true that my values and …
Identity matters – it’s a vital piece of context in conversation whether it’s established by digital footprint or physical presence. One aspect of moving conversations from the informal to the formal sphere is the reconciliation of your online persona with your legal citizenship. People, like places, have a digital wrapper which extends their identity from …
I always feel like a special kind of social media arse when I talk about online spaces rather than websites but I nonetheless believe it is a meaningful distinction (or I really am that social media arse – you judge). I wrote this piece on the website / webspace terminology dilemma and I would still …
Before getting started here – large thanks to Anthony Zacharzewski from DemSoc for putting me right on a number of things – all mistakes still existing are clearly my own…. One of the things I like most about working through the blog is that a piece can start off as one thing and become something …
So…CityCamp London…..where to start?? Firstly with a huge thank you and congratulations to Dominic Campbell and I suspect, more quietly, Carrie Bishop and the rest of the team who ran an amazing event with enthusiasm, generosity and intelligence – and I didn’t even manage to make the last day. FutureGov, I am not a fan …
Bit of a change of pace as this is a note from an event I was at last week – normal academic service will resume soon (am reading The Myth of Digital Democracy so that you don’t have to….). I wrote this while at Hamburg Airport waiting for a delayed flight home and thought I’d …
The ability to reach the other side of the world without leaving your sofa brings changes beyond saving the cost of a stamp. The ability to share data and content without doing so in person or setting it in the aspic of print gives it a life of its own which starts to interweave with …